She shook her head. ‘The leg is terribly torn right up to the thigh.’
I turned away to the drink table and poured her a cognac. ‘Drink that,’ I said. ‘You look as though you could do with it.’
She took the glass. ‘Thank you. I am so afraid I have fixed the leg wrong. I have no experience of setting legs and he is in terrible pain.’
‘Well, it’s not your fault,’ I told her and poured myself a drink. I was thinking it didn’t matter very much. The lava would come and that would be the end of it. We could fill him up with drugs. He’d be lucky then. He wouldn’t know much about it. I knocked back the cognac and poured another. The best thing would be to get drunk. I took the bottle and filled Hilda’s glass. She tried to stop me, but I said, ‘Don’t be a fool. Drink it. Things won’t matter so much if you keep drinking.’
‘Isn’t there a chance—’ She didn’t finish but knelt there staring up at me with her large grey eyes.
I shook my head. ‘None. The lava might stop, but I don’t think so.’
‘If only we could get a doctor.’
‘A doctor?’
‘Yes. I would feel so much happier if I knew he was as comfortable as he could be.’
I knocked back the rest of the drink. I was beginning to feel fine now. ‘You want a doctor?’ I felt a gurgle of laughter welling up inside me. It would be so damned ironical. ‘Would it really make you feel happier if you had a doctor?’