Chapter Thirty-Three
Duska
Duska has ten minutes left of her shift and she’ll be glad to leave, she thinks, eyeing the clock. She’s been here since six this morning, leaving the house while the baby was still asleep, and it’s been an unusually testing time. First there was that awful Mr Neale shouting at her in front of a whole group of new arrivals, demanding to know the whereabouts of his wife, as if Duska was some kind of warden, responsible for everyone’s movements. Duska, who had noted the rush of tears to Mrs Neale’s eyes when she booked her impulsive ferry ticket to Ithaca first thing, didn’t exactly feel inclined to help him. ‘I’m sorry, this is a busy hotel, we can’t keep track of everybody’s comings and goings,’ she had said, polite but firm.
‘Oh!’ Julia had piped up helpfully. ‘Apologies for interrupting, but are you talking about Mrs Neale?’ Julia is a kind person, always wanting to help the customers, but in this instance she had no idea that Duska was trying to protect another woman. Worse, she said this in English, in a misguided attempt to appease the famous Mr Neale. ‘Didn’t you sell her a ferry ticket this morning, Duska? Isaw it on the booking sheet.’
Duska had widened her eyes in a not-now-Julia expression, but the damage was already done. ‘Ah yes,’ she had said through gritted teeth. ‘So Idid. Imust have forgotten.’
‘You forgot, did you? And now you’ve miraculously remembered?’ The sarcasm in Frank Neale’s voice could have curdled milk. ‘That’s convenient, isn’t it? How am Igoing to get to Ithaca, then?’
Hot-cheeked, Duska had clenched her fists under the desk while she explained that the only other ferry of the day wasn’t until late that afternoon– by which time Mrs Neale would probably be returning. He had banged a fist on the desk and told her that he was going to report her to the hotel manager for her impertinence. Duska had been so upset that she actually felt like crying, but instead was tasked with trying to look welcoming as she checked in a group of new arrivals, some of whom appeared quite disconcerted by all the shouting.
That was bad enough but now it sounds as if lovely Evelyn Chambers might have taken a bad turn. Hanging up the phone, Duska tells Julia that she needs to attend urgently to a guest, then grabs the universal room key and hurries towards Evelyn’s suite. As she passes through the restaurant area she spots Zoe, one of the waitresses, who is halfway into a medicine degree at Patras University. ‘Could you come with me, please?’ she calls to her. ‘I’m on my way to check on a guest, I’ve just been told that she may be unwell.’ Duska will, of course, call the paramedics if Evelyn needs emergency assistance, but it doesn’t hurt to have Zoe with her as a first responder now, she figures. Just in case.
‘Of course,’ says Zoe, falling quickly into step. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Well– Idon’t know,’ Duska admits. ‘It could be nothing, but Mrs Chambers is elderly, and the woman who just called said she couldn’t get a response from her on the phone.’
They arrive at Mrs Chambers’ suite and Duska knocks first, then unlocks the door and calls cautiously through the gap. ‘Hello? Mrs Chambers?’ There is a faint groan from within and Duska immediately pushes the door wide, both of them racing inside.
‘Call an ambulance,’ Zoe instructs her as they see the elderly woman’s prone body on the floor. Her eyes are open and so is her mouth, a whimpering sound coming from her. Zoe races over, kneels on the floor beside her and takes her pulse, talking gently to her. ‘Tell them it’s a suspected stroke,’ she tells Duska over her shoulder.
Duska calls the paramedics, her heart pounding. ‘Elderly patient, in her eighties, we think she has had a stroke,’ she gabbles into the phone. ‘She is on the ground, I’m guessing she’s fallen. Thank you.’ She finds herself thinking of her grandad, who had a stroke in his seventies and was never the same again. She thinks too of her baby girl, the rounded curl of her cheek as she lay sleeping in her cot this morning; the precious gift of life. Then she dials through to reception and alerts Julia to the situation, asking her to direct the paramedics to Mrs Chambers’ suite when they arrive. She puts her hands together momentarily, praying to God that the delightful Mrs Chambers will be all right. Please, she adds fiercely, because all of the staff like her very much.
She props the door open so that the paramedics will be able to come straight in, then crosses the room back to Zoe and Mrs Chambers. Then she takes the older woman’s hand in her own and they wait.