Harriet (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

    Tim noise of the floor-polisher was like sandpaper on her brain; the bleep of a doctor’s walkie-talkie made her jump out of her skin. After twenty-four hours in hospital with no sleep, she seemed to have Jonah’s head - even the slightest sound, running water, the air conditioner, seemed to be magnified a thousand-fold.

    Jonah was no better. He had kept nothing down. In between bouts of delirium he complained of a stiff neck.

    ‘No one’s trying to make me better,’ he groaned. ‘You’re all trying to kill me.’

    Harriet was very near to breaking. She had been unable to locate Cory or Noel. She had not slept at all, and she had taken against the new day nurse, Sister Maddox, who was a snooty, good-looking redhead with a school prefect manner. I’ve got twenty-five other children to see to in this ward, so don’t waste my time, she seemed to say.

    ‘We’ve seen much worse than Jonah, I can tell you,’ she said briskly as she checked his pulse.

    ‘Dying, dying, dying,’ intoned Jonah like a Dalek.

    ‘Now pull yourself together, young man,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to make you better.’

    She looked out through the glass partition at a group that was coming down the passage. Hastily she patted her hair and straightened her belt. Harriet understood why when the Houseman Dr. Williams entered. He was by any standards good-looking: tall, dark, with classical features, and cold grey eyes behind thick horn-rimmed spectacles. Nurse Maddox became the picture of fluttering deference as he examined Jonah and looked at the temperature charts.

    He glanced at Harriet without interest, making her acutely aware of her shiny unmade-up face, sweat-stained shirt and dirty hair.

    ‘Hasn’t kept anything down,’ he said. ‘Probably have to put up a drip soon.’

    ‘Can’t he have anything to stop the pain?’ protested Harriet.

    ‘Not till we can locate what’s causing it,’ said Dr. Williams in a bored voice. ‘He’ll have to sweat it out.’

    Harriet followed him into the passage. ‘He’s not going to die, is he?’ she said in a trembling voice, ‘I mean, how ill is he?’

    ‘Well, he’s seriously ill,’ said Dr. Williams, ‘but he’s not on the danger list yet.’

    Harriet went off and cried in the lavatory. Sister Maddox was talking to Dr. Williams as she came out.

    ‘I’ll see you at eight o’clock then, Ruth,’ he was saying.’Handsome, isn’t he?’ said a junior nurse. Yes, thought Harriet, and he knows it.

    When she got back. Jonah was awake and screaming with pain.

    ‘Everyone’s gone away. You left me, you left me. Where’s Daddy? I want to see him.’

    Suddenly she had a brain wave. She would ring Kit. The next time Jonah fell asleep, she went and called him. He took so long to answer she nearly rang off.

    ‘Were you in bed?’ she said.

    ‘Naturally,’ said Kit. ‘It’s lunchtime!’

    She told him about Jonah’s meningitis and that she still couldn’t raise Noel or Cory. She tried to be calm, but hysteria kept breaking through her voice.

    ‘I wouldn’t bother about Noel, darling; she’s not likely to be of help to anyone, but I’ll get hold of Cory for you, don’t worry. If I can’t find him by tomorrow, I’ll drive up myself. Jonah’ll pull through. The Erskines are a pretty tough bunch.’

    Another day and night limped by. Jonah woke at 1.30 in the morning screaming for Noel. Harriet felt her self-control snapping as the nurse trotted out the same platitudes about having to get worse before he got better.

    He woke again at five and at seven. Another day to get through, thought Harriet, as the sun filtered in through the blind. It seemed like midnight. She must know every inch of that village scene now. She was weak with exhaustion; her eyes were red and felt as though they were full of gravel. Neuralgia travelled round her head, one moment headache, then toothache, then earache.

    It was impossible to keep Jonah quiet. Reading aloud was too loud, sponging his head was too painful.

    ‘Where’s the doctor, where’s the doctor?’ he screamed.

    ‘He’ll be here soon,’ said Harriet soothingly, but the very word ‘soon’ had become meaningless. Mrs. Bottomley popped in to see him, and went away looking shattered.

    ‘Poor little lamb, lying between death and life,’ she said telephoning Sammy when she got home. ‘Still where there’s life…’

    She brought Harriet a change of clothes - a tweed skirt, which Harriet hated, a brown jersey that sagged round the waist, and a cream shirt that had no buttons.

    Might as well stay in jeans, thought Harriet.

    Eventually at mid-day Dr. Williams rolled up, yawning,d rubbing his eyes. Too much Sister Maddox, thought Harriet.

    ‘You’ve got to do something,’ she pleaded in desperation. ‘I don’t think he can take much more.’

    Jonah started to scream out about the pain killing him.

    ‘Hush, darling,’ said Harriet. ‘The doctor’s here.’

    ‘And you can shut up,’ said Jonah, turning round and bashing her in the face with his hand, ‘Shut up! Shut up! You’re all trying to kill me.’

    ‘He’s losing faith in all of you,’ said Harriet with a sob. Dr. Williams drew her outside.

    ‘The child is getting too demanding,’ he said. ‘He’s playing you up and you’re overreacting. He senses your panic and it panics him too. I suppose his parents will turn up eventually. How long is it since you ate?’

    ‘I don’t know,’ said Harriet.

    ‘Well, go downstairs and have something.’

    Down in the canteen, Harriet spread marmalade on toast the consistency of a flannel. All round her nurses were gossiping and chattering about their lives. They all ought to be upstairs making Jonah better. Sister Maddox and Dr. Williams obviously felt she was hopeless and hysterical and were trying to keep her away from Jonah. She mustn’t get paranoiac. She mustn’t build up a hatred.

    Upstairs she found Jonah having his temperature taken, the thermometer sticking out of his mouth like a cigar. With his slitty eyes and his hair brushed off his forehead, he suddenly looked very like Cory. Oh, I love him, I love him, she thought.

    As the afternoon wore on he grew more and more incoherent, and difficult to quiet, now semi-conscious, now screaming with pain.

    ‘Daddy, Daddy, I want Daddy. I don’t want you, I wantMummy,’ he shouted. ‘Why can’t I have a Mummy? Everyone else at school does.’ He struggled free from the blankets. ‘I want Daddy.’

    ‘You shall have him very soon. Kit’s finding him.’

    ‘I want him now.’

    Oh so do I, thought Harriet.

    She hoped Jonah was falling asleep, but just as she tried to move away, she found him gazing at her in horror, trying to bring her face into focus.

    ‘Harriet! Oh it’s you. Don’t leave me!’

    ‘Of course I won’t.’

    I’m so thirsty.’ The hands clutching her were hot, dry and emaciated.

    ‘This isn’t my room. Why am I here? I want to go home.’ Dr. Williams came back in around six. He looked even more bored.

    ‘We’re going to put up a drip now. He can’t take anything orally and obviously isn’t responding to treatment.’

    A junior nurse popped her head round the door.

    ‘There’s a Kit Erskine on the telephone for you in Sister’s office,’ she said to Harriet.

    ‘Darling Harriet, are you all right?’ said Kit. ‘I gather from the nurse Jonah’s not too bright. Don’t worry, I got a message through to Cory. He’s on location, but he’s flying back tonight. He should be with you tomorrow afternoon. I’ve left a message for Superbitch too. All that rubbish about a weekend in Paris was absolute crap. She’s been frantically losing weight at a health farm, so she may descend on you too, I’m afraid.’

    Harriet didn’t care about Noel. That Cory was coming back was all she could think about.

    The drip was up when she got back, a great bag of liquid seeping into Jonah’s arm. He was delirious most of the time now, his cheeks hectically flushed, his pulse racing. In the end they had to strap his arm down, as the needle kept slipping and blood came racing back down the tube.

    Sammy arrived next with Chattie. ‘It’s long past her bedtime but she wanted to come.’ Sammy brought Jonah a book about Tarzan, Chattie a balloon she’d bought out of her own pocket money.

    ‘William’s fine,’ said Sammy. ‘Chattie and I’ve been looking after him, haven’t we?’ Harriet felt guilty yet relieved they hadn’t brought him; her well-springs of affection seemed to have dried up. ‘Elizabeth’s been the last straw,’

    Sammy went on, ‘telling all her friends how she’d taken the baby and Chattie in to help Cory out.’

    Chattie seemed quite cheerful, but she hugged Harriet very tightly. ‘Can I see Jonah?’

    ‘Yes, of course,’ said Harriet, ‘but whisper and don’t worry if he’s not quite himself.’

    Unfortunately, just as Chattie was walking into the room, the balloon popped. Jonah woke up with a start and, not recognizing any of them, started raving incoherently about monsters coming to get him.

    ‘I’ll stay with him,’ said Sammy. ‘You take Chattie down to the canteen for an ice-cream.’

    Chattie charmed everyone, her long blonde hair swinging as she skipped about the canteen talking to all the nurses.

    Then suddenly she clung to Harriet, her eyes filling with tears.

    ‘He’s not going to die, is he?’

    ‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Harriet, hugging her, but feeling inside a sickening lack of conviction.

    ‘I heard Mrs. Bottomley telling Sammy it could go either way. What does that mean?’

    ‘Nothing really,’ said Harriet.

    ‘If he died he’d go to heaven wouldn’t he?’ said Chattie. ‘Of course he would,’ said Harriet, ‘but he’s not going to.’

    ‘Then I’ll never see him again,’ said Chattie, ‘because I’m so naughty, I’ll go straight to hell.’ She broke into noisy sobs.

    Harriet cuddled her, trying to keep control of herself. ‘Darling, of course you’ll go to heaven.’

    ‘I don’t really believe in heaven anyway,’ sobbed Chattie. ‘I’ve been up in the sky in an aeroplane, and I didn’t see it.’

    Harriet sat biting her nails watching two very young nurses fiddling with the Heath Robinson equipment constituting the drip. Bubbles were streaming down the tube, as they tapped away and the needle kept slipping out of theproper place. Jonah lay in a rare moment of consciousness, the tears pouring down his cheeks.

    Harriet turned to the nurses, her control snapping. ‘Why the bloody hell,’ she snapped, ‘can’t one of you make it work?’

    As a result, Dr. Williams gave her a talking-to.

    ‘We’re going to give you a mogadon tonight,’ he said. ‘We know you feel responsible with both the parents away, but you must pull yourself together. You only upset him by screaming at the nurses; they’re doing their best.’

    ‘But why can’t he have proper pain killers and sedatives? If he felt you were doing something to make him better, I know he’d relax and stop fighting you.’

    ‘Jonah’s a very brave child, Miss Poole,’ said Dr. Williams coldly. ‘It’s you who can’t take the pain, not him.’

    ‘He’s very very ill isn’t he?’ said Harriet. She had heard the nurses talking about the intensive care unit.

    ‘He’s certainly not a well child,’ said Dr. Williams, ‘but where there’s life there’s hope.’

    By midnight Jonah had gone into a coma. Harriet had pretended to take her mogadon, but had thrown it down the lavatory. She sat hour after hour fighting exhaustion and despair, listening to his heavy breathing, holding his hand and praying. Through the glass panel, she could see the black nightnurse moving round the wards, adjusting blankets, checking pulses. In a minute she’d be coming into Harriet’s room to change the drip. This time tomorrow Cory would be here. How could she face him if anything happened to Jonah? She put her head in her hands and wept.

    She must have fallen asleep. When she woke up it was nearly light. Jonah lay motionless in bed. For a terrifying moment, Harriet thought he was dead. She felt bis forehead; it was cold; he was still breathing faintly.

    Getting to her feet, she ran into the passage to the sister’s office.

    ‘Jonah, he’s breathing so quietly now,’ she stammered. ‘He looks so peaceful, as though he was d-dying.’

    The black nurse got up and took Harriet’s arm. ‘I’ll come and see.’ She felt his pulse, and took his temperature. She turned to Harriet, a great white toothy smile splitting her face.

    ‘I think he’s over the crisis,’ she said. ‘He’s breathing quite normally and his pulse rate’s coming down.’ Harriet turned away, her shoulders shaking.

    ‘There, there,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea, then you can get some sleep.’

    Harriet didn’t trust doctors and nurses; she knew they lied. For all she knew Jonah was still in danger. She sat by his bed until breakfast time, as plastic bag after plastic bag dripped into his arm, listening to the heavy breathing getting slower and more even, the restless movements growing quieter.

    Sister Maddox came on at eight, looking as ice-cool and elegant as ever.

    ‘Good morning. How’s the patient?’ she said briskly. ‘I expect you had a nice sleep with that mogadon. I envy you. I didn’t get to bed till four o’clock.’

    She picked up Jonah’s chart. His temperature and pulse ratings were right down.

    ‘Well, that is better,’ she said. ‘I hope you appreciate Dr. Williams a bit more now.’

    ‘Jonah hasn’t come round yet,’ said Harriet sulkily. She knew she was being ungracious.

    ‘He’s getting a much-needed rest,’ said Sister Maddox. ‘I wouldn’t fuss him any more if I were you. I’d go and have some breakfast,’

    Instead Harriet tried to concentrate on an old copy of Reader’s Digest. It pays to improve your ward power, she said to herself. She felt absolutely all in. She hardly recognized her grey face in the mirror. She wished she could wash her hair and have a bath before Cory came, but she was too scared to leave Jonah until she knew he was out of danger.