So Henry and Nicola were offered a Scandinavian cruise the following spring.
Nicola had a new idea, which she ran past the Cruise Director. Why not get a hairdresser to give the men lessons in how to dry their wives’ hair?
He looked at her in puzzlement.
But she persisted. Women would like the involvement and care of a partner who knew the basics. Men would buy the idea because it would save them money.
‘What about the beauty-salon business?’ the Cruise Director had asked.
‘They have to have one cut and style in your salon first. Believe me, they will love it. It will all even out.’
And she had been right: the blow-drying sessions were among the most popular of the ship’s activities.
They both loved the coastline of Norway from Bergen up to Tromsø. They stood side by side watching the sights at the ship’s railings and pointed out the fjords to each other. The light was spectacular. The passengers were the usual mix of experienced cruise folk and first-timers overawed by the amount of entertainment, food and drink on offer.
It was on the third day out that Beata, one of the stewardesses, came to see Henry. An attractive blonde, Polish girl, she said that this was a very awkward matter, very awkward indeed.
Henry told her to take her time and explain the problem. He hoped she was not going to tell him there was something seriously wrong with her but Beata, twisting her hands and looking away, told him a different tale.
It was about Helen Morris, a woman in Cabin 5347. She was there with her mother and father. Beata paused.
Henry shook his head. ‘Well, those are the family state-rooms, aren’t they? What is the problem, exactly?’
‘The parents,’ Beata said. ‘Her father is blind and her mother has dementia.’
‘No, that can’t be possible,’ Henry said. ‘They have to declare any pre-existing conditions before they come on board. They have to sign a document. It’s for the insurance.’
‘She locks the mother in the cabin and takes her father for a walk around the deck to get some fresh air, then she locks him in and takes her mother for a walk. They never go ashore for excursions. They have all their meals in the cabin.’
‘And why are you telling me this? Should you not tell the Captain, or the Cruise Director?’ Henry was puzzled.
‘Because she would be put ashore at the next port. They wouldn’t risk having those people on board.’ Beata shook her head.
‘But what can I do?’ Henry was genuinely at a loss.
‘You know now, that’s all. I just couldn’t keep it a secret. You and your wife are very kind. You’ll find a way out of it.’
‘This woman, Helen Morris, how old is she?’
‘About forty, I think.’
‘And is she a normal person, a balanced person, Beata?’
‘Yes, she is a very good person. I go to their cabin and take the meals in for her. She trusts me. She said this was the only way to give them a holiday. You will know what to do.’
Henry and Nicola talked about it that night. They knew what they should do. They should report that a passenger had lied about the health and incapacity of her relatives. They knew that the hefty insurance payments the company paid would not cover this deception.
But what a call to make!
‘Why don’t you see her, talk to her?’ Nicola suggested.
‘I don’t want to be dragged into colluding with her.’
‘No, you will do what you have to do, but don’t let her be a name; a statistic. Talk to her, Henry. Please.’
He looked them up on the manifest. There was no mention of impairment or disability in either parent. Helen’s address was in west London, where she lived with both of them.
He knocked at the door of Cabin 5347. She was a pale woman with long straight hair and big anxious eyes.
‘Oh, Doctor?’ she said with some alarm.
Henry held a clipboard. ‘Just a routine call. I’m visiting all passengers aged over eighty, just to see that everyone’s in good health.’ He felt his voice must sound brittle and over-bright.
‘They’re fine, thank you, Doctor.’
‘So perhaps I could meet your parents, just to—’
‘My mother is asleep. My father is listening to music,’ Helen said.
‘Please?’ he asked.
‘Why are you really here?’ Her face was crumpling.
‘Because they haven’t come to meals, and so I was afraid they might be seasick.’
‘Nobody told you anything?’ Her voice was fearful.
‘No, no.’ Henry was very definite. ‘Just routine. Part of my job.’ He smiled at her and prepared to be invited in.
Helen looked at him for thirty seconds, her eyes raking his face. Eventually she made her decision.
‘Come in, Doctor,’ she said, and opened the cabin door wide.
Henry saw an old man in an armchair listening on headphones and tapping his foot to whatever he heard. His sightless eyes faced across the cabin. Outside, spectacular scenery of the Norwegian fjords passed by slowly, unseen. His wife sat on the bed holding a doll in her arms. ‘Little Helen, little Helen,’ she said over and over, and rocked the doll to sleep.
Henry swallowed. He had no idea that it was going to be like this. ‘Just routine, as I said.’ He cleared his throat.
‘Do you have to tell?’ Her eyes were red-rimmed and beseeching.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said simply.
‘But why, Doctor? I’ve managed fine for four days. There are only nine days left.’
‘It’s not as simple as that. You see, there’s a very clear policy.’
‘There’s no policy that’s going to help me to give them a holiday, some fresh air, a change from the flat in Hammersmith with flights of stairs up and down . . . it was my only chance, Doctor.’
‘But you didn’t tell us the full story.’
‘I couldn’t tell you the whole story. You wouldn’t have let us come.’
He was silent.
‘Listen, Doctor. I am sure you’ve had a happy life with nothing going wrong, and I’m glad for you, but not everyone gets that deal. I am an only child. My parents have nobody else. They were so good to me. They got me educated as a teacher. I can’t abandon them now.’ She paused as if to collect herself. Then she spoke again. ‘I work from home correcting and marking papers from a correspondence course. It’s endless and back-breaking but at least I can look after them. And they ask so little . . . So is it really some sort of a crime to take them on a little holiday? And have a rest myself, and see such lovely places?’
Henry felt humbled.
Helen was twisting her hands in her lap. Her father smiled, listening to his music; her mother cradled the baby doll in her arms, cooing and chuckling and calling it Helen.
‘I do understand, really I do,’ he said, feeling useless.
‘But you still must tell, and then they’ll put us off the ship?’
‘They won’t want to take the risk . . .’ he began.
‘But could you take the risk, Doctor? You, who have had all the good luck in the world, a great education, a lovely wife. I’ve seen you together. You have a dream job where it’s all a holiday. You haven’t known anything like this. Your life has been easy. Could you find the kindness somewhere to take a risk for us? I’ll be so careful, believe me, I will.’
Henry contemplated telling her that his life had not been easy. They had failed to have the children they both wanted. They had seen at close quarters two violent deaths, which they still felt that, if they had been more quick-witted, they might have prevented. They were vaguely unsettled and slightly guilty about the lifestyle on board ship. But what was this compared to the life of the woman in front of him?
‘How were you able to afford . . .?’ he began.
‘Dad’s brother died. He left him ten thousand pounds. It seemed like an opportunity that might never come again, so I ran with it.’
‘I see.’
‘And u
p to now it’s been great. Just great. Better than I even dreamed.’ She was full of hope.
‘It won’t be easy,’ he said.
Her smile was his reward. He wondered if there was anyone at all in her life able to share the burden of care and the sheer determination that kept her going.
‘I’ll ask Nicola to join us,’ Henry said, and the deal was done.
In the end, it was not too arduous. Nicola would sit in the cabin each day while Helen took her father for a walk and even a swim. Then Henry would take his paperwork and sit with the old man while Helen and her mother took the doll for a walk on deck.
Helen was adept at managing to avoid chatting to other passengers. She was looking stronger and more relaxed every day.
Henry said nothing to Beata about the arrangement but he knew she was aware of it, and that it was appreciated.
There were a few near misses. At the daily cruise conference, the Cruise Director mentioned that someone had reported an elderly man who stumbled on deck. Was Dr Henry aware of him? Was there any problem there?
Henry lied smoothly. Yes, the old chap was a bit frail but his daughter seemed very much in control.
One day when Nicola was looking after the old lady, there was a spot check by the Cabin Supervisor. She arrived at the door unexpectedly with Beata in tow.
Nicola swallowed. She had to keep her nerve. ‘I’m just doing a one-to-one computer lesson,’ she explained with a big smile. Mercifully Helen’s mother did not choose that moment to sing a lullaby to the doll. The Supervisor moved on to the next cabin, saying that a one-to-one computer lesson was what everyone over forty needed.
‘Well, come to my office and make an appointment,’ Nicola begged. ‘I’ll fit you in to tie in with your time off.’
Then there was the Captain’s cocktail party, where they noticed that there was nobody from Cabin 5347.
‘They’re having an early supper,’ Nicola explained.
‘They like to be left on their own,’ Henry added.
They got to know Helen over the nine days. She said how she missed teaching; she had loved the classroom, and the joy of making children understand something in the end. She thanked them from the bottom of her heart and said they were good people who deserved all their happiness. Henry and Nicola probed her gently about what things would be like when she returned home.
‘Same as before,’ she said glumly, ‘but at least we will have all this to look back on. It was money well spent.’
‘Any more legacies likely?’ Henry tried to lighten it a little.
‘No, but I still have a thousand pounds. That will buy a few treats.’ Again that sad smile.
They docked at Southampton. Nicola and Henry began to breathe more easily.
Helen had hired a car to drive them to London. They would take a taxi from the disembarkation point to bring them to the car-rental place.
They exchanged addresses.
‘Send me a postcard from your next cruise,’ Helen said, as if they were casual shipboard acquaintances rather than accomplices for nine days and nights.
‘Yes, and you tell us how things are going,’ Nicola said. Her voice was hollow.
It would be, as Helen had foreseen, the same as before.
The officers and crew stood on deck to bid farewell to the passengers. Nicola and Henry embraced Helen as she left, supporting a parent on each arm. They saw her walk down the gangway, her stocky little figure steady and her head held high.
The cleaners were already at work on the ship when Nicola and Henry began to disembark. They would drive home and spend ten days catching up with their parents and friends until the next cruise, this time to Madeira and the Canary Islands.
They were just saying goodbye to the Cruise Director when they heard the news. There had been a terrible accident just outside Southampton, a car crash, three fatalities – all of them passengers just disembarked from this cruise. Henry and Nicola looked at each other, stricken. Before the Cruise Director spoke, they knew.
‘It appears to be suicide, can you believe it? She got into her hired car and drove them all into a wall. A total wreck, they were all killed instantly. They found the labels for the cruise ship, so they contacted us. It must have been that woman Helen Morris and her parents from Cabin 5347, apparently . . .’
‘It must have been an accident.’ Henry could barely speak.
‘Don’t think so. Witnesses say she stopped the car and reversed a distance and then drove straight at the wall. God, why did she do that?’
‘We don’t know that she did . . .’ Nicola began.
‘We do, Nicola. The law is here, they are making enquiries. We have to talk to the police, make statements.’
The Cruise Director was crisp and to the point.
‘We are covered, aren’t we, Henry? You didn’t spot anything, did you?’
It seemed to Henry like an age before he answered but it was probably only four seconds.
‘No, she seemed fine. Very positive.’ The Cruise Director was relieved but still worried.
‘And the old folk? Were they OK?’
‘They were frail but she was well able to look after them,’ he said, and set in train a series of lies that he and Nicola managed for the next twenty-four hours.
Before they left the ship, Henry sought out Beata. Had she heard the news? Yes, everyone had heard. Beata looked at Henry with a very steady, level glance.
‘It is so sad for the poor lady and her family, but how good that they had a happy holiday at the end of their lives.’ She was begging him to say nothing. She too would be in trouble for keeping the secret.
He kissed her goodbye on the cheek.
‘Perhaps we will meet on another cruise, Dr Henry.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Henry said. He felt his days as a ship’s doctor were over. From now on he would do what he had set out to do: heal people, make their quality of life better, not bend rules for sentiment’s sake and end up with the deaths of three people on his hands.
‘She would have done it anyway,’ Nicola pleaded as they drove back to Esher.
He stared ahead without answering.
‘She would have done it in Bergen or Tromsø or wherever . . .’
Still silence.
‘You know, you just gave her nine extra days of a holiday. That’s all you did. All we did.’
‘I broke the rules. I played God. There’s no escaping that.’
‘I love you, Henry.’
‘And I love you, but that doesn’t change what has happened.’
They told nobody about it. They gave no explanation to anyone about why they were giving up what sounded like the very best job on earth. They offered themselves as volunteers in programmes researching suicide prevention and coping with depression. They withdrew from friends and family. They took short-term locum positions. The dream of a small country practice had slipped away. They didn’t feel they would be up to it. They had been tested and were found wanting.
Eventually, Henry’s parents decided to speak their minds. It was after yet another silent, depressed Sunday lunch in their home.
‘You’ve changed very much since you came back from that cruise ship,’ his father began.
‘I thought you didn’t approve of it. You suggested that it wasn’t real medicine,’ Henry said huffily.
‘I did say, and I’ll always say that you should have specialised. You could be a consultant by now, all the chances you had open to you.’
‘We just want you to be happy. That’s all, dear,’ his mother explained.
‘Nobody is happy,’ Henry said, and he went out to their garden to throw sticks for the old dog.
So Henry’s parents decided to speak their minds to Nicola. They caught her in the kitchen as she was sipping a cup of tea and looking into the middle distance.
‘We don’t want to interfere, Nicola dear,’ Henry’s mother began.
‘I know, you never do, you’re really great,’ Nicola said admiringly, wondering wh
ether she could evade the ‘but’ that was approaching.
‘It’s just that we worry . . .’ Henry’s father didn’t want to let the discussion end before it had begun.
But Nicola had a bright, empty face. ‘Of course you worry,’ she agreed, ‘that’s what parents do.’
‘You’ve been moping around for over two years, settling to nothing. Look, I know it’s not really our business but we do care.’ Henry’s father was begging to be heard.
Nicola turned and faced him.
‘What do you want us to do? Just tell me straight out. Perhaps we just might do it.’
There was something in her face that frightened him. He had never seen her so angry. He immediately tried to row back.
‘All I was saying . . . what I was going to say was that . . . that . . . you should have a holiday, a break of some sort . . .’ His voice trailed away.
‘Oh, a holiday!’ Nicola sounded hysterically delighted with the idea. A holiday she could just cope with. Just. ‘It’s funny you should say that because we were talking about having a holiday. I’ll talk to Henry, and we’ll let you know our plans.’ And she fled from their kitchen before they could say any more.
She mentioned the holiday to Henry as they drove home that evening.
‘I don’t think I have the energy for a holiday,’ he said.
‘Neither do I, but I had to say something to get them off our backs.’
‘I’m sorry. Your folks don’t go on nagging at us like that.’
‘Yes they do, but not in front of you. They’re a little afraid of their son-in-law, you know!’
‘Would you like a holiday, Nicola?’
‘I would like a week somewhere before the winter settles in but I don’t really know where we would go,’ she said.
‘Well, neither of us wants to go to the Canaries for winter sun, that’s for certain,’ Henry said.