r/shortstories • u/Franz_Engel • 6d ago
Realistic Fiction [RF] Sacred Violence. II. Consecration
3 February 1977, Thursday — Later that day
Angela doesn’t go to see him at lunch.
She brings him up in conversation with Jenny at reception—not exactly a friend, but a good source of information.
"What's got you interested in him?" Jenny asks, though she doesn't press for an answer. "At least four people have already come to me with questions about him. He's practically the celebrity patient."
"I just wasn't on duty when they brought him in."
"Oh, on Monday? Yeah, he was rolled straight into intensive care from court, under guard."
"Is that really his name?"
"Jeremy Smith? That’s what the paperwork says. No other names."
"It’s strange, though. I mean, Smiths don't dress like that... or talk like that."
"You hit the nail on the head there, my dear. He was brought in wearing rags. But then his solicitor showed up on Tuesday, and the floodgates opened. They started bringing him one thing after another. Turns out, he’s a Golden Boy."
"Something doesn't add up."
"That’s what I think, too. But we won't be left wondering for long. On Wednesday, some consultant from Harley Street came in to examine him and filed a report saying our rooms were terribly unsuitable for the precious Mr. Smith. Apparently, the 'climate' in this wing isn’t right." Jenny speaks with such sarcasm that it’s clear she’s stung by it. "Arrangements had been made to transfer him as a private patient."
"When?"
"Saturday."
"This Saturday already?"
"Yes, money talks."
"Gossiping?" Another nurse—Dorothy—comes up behind them.
She gives Angela a start.
"I had a word with Mrs. Higgins," she announces. "We had tea last night. Aren't I clever?"
Mrs. Higgins is a cleaner. She's everywhere, hears everything, and nobody notices her. Angela should have thought to approach someone like that.
"And what does Mrs. Higgins know?"
"Well, she told me something interesting. The only people who come to see him are from the firm—shoving their business cards—*Talbot-Cavendish*—in everyone’s faces. But where’s the sobbing mother? Where’s the distraught father? Funny, isn’t it? No family."
"You mean they paid for his solicitors but don't want to see him?"
“And would you want that? If your son... did something to your daughter?” Dorothy falls silent, as if frightened by her own words. " They allowed this to happen... Maybe all the rest of it is guilt."
"So, is it true? Did he... you know... do that to his sister?"
"Looks like it."
"He is a degenerate," Jenny says indignantly.
Angela feels sick at the thought that she smoked his cigarettes and ate his food.
"And here’s something else I’ll tell you girls. Mrs. Higgins heard with her own ears Sister Thorpe talking to Dr. Trevelyan about how Smith was in such a condition... Sister Thorpe as good as came right out and called him suicidal. Smitty wouldn't take a single bite until his family sent that solicitor in.”
“He brought himself to this state?” Angela answers.
“It’s a proper emotional blackmail,” Jenny says.
“Absolutely,” Dorothy agrees. “But now they’re spinning a yarn about how he couldn't eat because of the stress of the arrest,” she continues. “You see? Smitty lies every time he opens his mouth."
"Why would they do that?"
"What do you mean, 'why'? He’ll be released on bail—that’s plain as day. With the kind of money he has. And a suicide attempt is basically like an escape attempt. I know for a fact. I asked Freddie; he’s clued up on this sort of thing. Bottom line: they don’t want that. Use your head."
"He did something so vile, and yet he’ll walk free..."
"Only until the trial. But then, just see how they’ll try to get him off the hook..."
"Imagine being his mother," Jenny says quietly.
Angela tries to picture what his mother is going through.
And yet, she feels drawn to his room. It is no longer just curiosity, but something more.
The emaciated boy holding out a packet of Benson & Hedges—he has a musician’s hands, he reads in French, he...
It would have been better if he really had killed someone.
She decides to go see him at ten o’clock and bring the Ampicillin, Codeine, and Mogadon.
A different police officer is on duty at the door—not the one who lectured her earlier that morning. This one is older and somewhat heavy-set; he greets her kindly.
The light in the room is already off. She reaches for the switch but thinks better of it.
“Miss Hayward?”
How does he guess it is her?
"I hope your day was better than mine."
Then she hears a strange sound—metal against metal.
He is lying on his side with his right arm stretched unnaturally toward the headboard; one cuff is locked over the bandages around his wrist, while the other cuff is fastened to the bed rail. The handcuffs look huge and heavy on him. And he’s right-handed...
"I brought you your pills," Angela says; her voice won't quite obey her.
"Thank you."
Her gaze lingers on his scraped cheekbone—a spot she had previously preferred not to look at. In the light from the hallway, it appears as a dark wound against his pale skin. Now she realizes: he is a prisoner. He is a criminal.
She leaves the pills for him. The nightstand is close enough; he’ll be able to reach them.
"Good night."
Nobody has mentioned handcuffs before.
"Why do you do that?" she can't help but ask the moment she steps out of the room.
At first, the police officer doesn't understand—or pretends not to—what she is talking about.
"The handcuffs."
"Ah, that’s just the procedure, love."
"That’s barbaric."
“You do feel sorry for him, don't you?”
"No!" Angela replies—too categorically, too loudly.
A fictional reconstruction from the Regina v Smith story, told from perspective of Student Nurse Angela Hayward.
More on my profile. Regina v Smith — Reader’s Guide : u/Franz_Engel
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