Diana Glass
The Help
‘She’s hit her head!’ somebody shouts. Catherine Narracott went down like she had been shot, her limbs as loose as a crumpled doll’s.
Somebody else is howling: the actress I realise. Her face and palms pressed to the glass. But for once, no one in the room is paying her much attention.
Catherine Narracott lies sprawled on the ground, unmoving, her upturned face ashen.
‘I – oh, Diana!’ Mrs Bantry cries. ‘Quick, won’t somebody do something!’
I spring to my feet, ready to go to her, but someone is faster still: the young bespectacled man.
He crouches beside her, fingers to her wrist. Then: ‘Someone find me a chair!’ he shouts.
For one so young and dishevelled in appearance he carries a surprising authority about him.
A chair is brought and he lifts Mrs Narracott’s legs onto the seat of it.
‘What on earth are you doing, man?’ Colonel Chapman bellows.
‘I’m a doctor,’ the young man says, dismissively. And then he corrects himself, looking a little abashed. ‘Well, a medical student.’
He slings that ever-present knapsack onto the floor and opens it, spilling loose change, a couple of copies of the Modern Quarterly and a few paper-wrapped toffees.
Finally, he seems to find what he is looking for: a smaller doctor’s case.
Inside I catch a glimpse of various phials and bottles of liquids and tablets.
When I glance across at Miss Marple, I notice that she is looking at the bag with an absorbed expression on her face.
The young man pulls out a syringe, fits a needle and plunges it into Catherine Narracott’s upper arm. ‘Adrenaline,’ he says, to those of us watching, as though an explanation is required – which I suppose it is. ‘For the shock.’
I step a little closer, to get a better look inside the medical case.
I can distinctly make out the word morphine on one of the bottles inside.
Another has a skull and crossbones warning logo, the kind that denotes a poisonous or hazardous substance.
As though he is aware of the pressure of my gaze (and Miss Marple’s, for that matter) he quickly reaches a hand over and snaps the thing shut.