Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop (11 page)

‘It was all down in our office. Do keep still, dear.’

She finished one hem and turned to the other.

‘How’s the time?’

‘Ten to two.’

‘I’ll do it with five minutes to spare. So long as the ambulance isn’t early. Well, there we are.’

‘Positively stylish.’

Isobel lifted one foot to admire the neat little nylon sock with its rolled hem sitting snug above her ankle.

‘Hurry up, now. Get your shoes on. Ready! They can come when they like.’

They came at half past four.

‘This is terrible,’ said Isobel. ‘You really must go home.’

‘No. I can’t leave you till I see you on to that ambulance. I wouldn’t be satisfied with myself.’

‘It’s like being on a platform waiting for a train. I know why people say they hate to see anyone off. One runs out of conversation.’

‘You shouldn’t be talking anyhow. You had better lie down and get under the blankets. I’ll go and see what I can find out.’

Left alone, Isobel gave way completely to panic. She hid herself under the blankets, clinging to the bed, feeling as if it was a raft on an unknown ocean.

Mrs Delaney came back, saying, ‘They’ve rung North Shore from the office. Apparently they’ve picked up another stretcher case. It’s holding them up.’

She came close to the bed and touched Isobel’s shoulder.

Isobel muttered, ‘I’m frightened. Plain bloody terrified. Sorry.’

Mrs Delaney put her arms around her and gathered her into an embrace.

‘Darling, I know. This waiting is the last straw. You’ve been so good up to now, but enough is enough. Come on, have a cry if you want to. It’s only to be expected. But everything is going to be all right. Doctor Stannard says so and he knows what he is about.’

Her voice was crooning, hypnotic.

Isobel was trembling violently. She tried to clench her chattering teeth to still them and uttered instead a little whimpering noise.

‘Ashamed of this.’

‘Well, don’t be.’

Mrs Delaney stroked her shoulders, which was comforting.

Isobel thought, with surprise, that it was the first time anyone had ever touched her in kindness. It was a new sensation, remarkably steadying. Though perhaps it was the thought that was steadying.

‘That’s better,’ she said.

‘Don’t talk. Just lie still and I’ll sit with you and say nothing. They are going to ring from downstairs when…’

‘The tumbrel comes.’

Isobel said this with a giggle.

‘You don’t stay down long, do you?’

‘Don’t stop holding me.’

‘No. Wait till I get comfortable. Don’t want to break my arm, do you?’ She lifted Isobel’s head onto her warm, plump lap and continued to stroke. ‘Just relax.’

Later, she said, ‘You actually dropped off. Best thing in the world for you.’

‘Retreat from reality.’ Isobel sat up. ‘Sorry I was such an ass.’

‘You expect too much of yourself altogether. They’ve taken your suitcase down.’ Mrs Delaney was holding out her coat. ‘Better put this on. They’re bringing a wheelchair. It’ll be here in a minute.’

Isobel shrugged into the coat.

‘What on earth can I say to you? You say “Thanks” when somebody opens a door for you.’

‘Just look after yourself and get well.’

There was a knock at the door. Eric was waiting with the wheelchair.

‘Just thought I’d see you off. Bernie couldn’t get here.’

He set her into the chair, handbag and duffle bag beside her, and wheeled her to the lift, Mrs Delaney following with the suitcase.

At the reception desk, a man in uniform was talking on the phone.

‘I’ve got two cases in the back, I tell you.’

He listened.

‘Well, I wasn’t paid for this.’

He looked with disfavour at Isobel. He listened again, then said to Eric, ‘Get her a face mask, will you? This her suitcase?’

He picked up the case and walked out.

‘Charming,’ said Eric. ‘Maybe I’d better get him one too.’

He patted Isobel’s arm, disappeared and returned with the face mask, put it on her and wheeled her out into the street where the ambulance was waiting.

‘Look after yourself, kid. Nice knowing you.’

He lifted her into the front seat beside the driver.

‘Say goodbye to Bernie for me.’

He handed in the duffle bag and the handbag. They held hands for a moment. He closed the door. The driver started the engine and they moved away.

Clearly the driver was not inclined to conversation. That was as well, for she was too exhausted to speak to him or to notice the scenery as they climbed into the mountains. She sat with her face turned away and saw the light fade and felt the air grow colder. The discomforts of her spell in the theatrette were returning: shudders ran down her body and her head was heavy.

It was completely dark when they stopped at the lighted entrance to the building that bulked against the sky.

The driver got down and was about to disappear.

She said, ‘Will you help me down, please?’

He walked to her side of the vehicle and extended an arm, which served as a rigid support while she climbed down. Resentment of his reluctance gave her strength enough to walk through the doorway into a vestibule where a woman sat at a large reception desk.

The woman said sharply, ‘Are you Isobel Callaghan? We’d quite given you up. You have no business to be up and dressed. You’re supposed to be a stretcher case!’

Behind Isobel the ambulance men were carrying a stretcher through the room and into a further doorway.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Isobel, who had been given no choice and felt very much like a stretcher case.

‘And all the wards have had their dinner now. You will have to go to the dining room.’

Isobel did not know whether she should apologise for this, also. She stood at the desk while the second stretcher case was carried past behind her and said with desperation, ‘Please may I sit down?’

‘I’ll get a chair. It won’t be long. Sit over there for the moment while I find out what to do with you.’

The ambulance driver carried in her suitcase and her duffle bag and set them down at the desk.

The woman talked on the phone.

‘A Ward? Right. She’ll have to go to the dining room for dinner…Well, they’ll have to find her something…I don’t know.’ She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said to Isobel, ‘Where are your night things?’

‘In the overnight bag.’

‘She has them separate in an overnight bag…Right. You can take that with you and leave the rest. We’ll see to it in the morning.’

A chair meant a wheelchair. It arrived pushed by a very tall, redheaded young man who was greeted as Max.

‘You’re an hour or so late, mate.’

‘Take her round to the dining room and see what you can get for her, then down to A for the night. She’ll need that overnight bag for the moment. I’ll ring Sister Mackenzie to expect her.’

Something in Isobel’s appearance had amused Max.

As he helped her into the chair he said, ‘You can take that mask off now, kid. You’re among friends.’

She clawed the mask off her face and dropped it into her lap, feeling foolish.

He set the small bag on her knee. They set off again, through the inner doorway into a corridor.

‘How long have you known?’ asked Max as he wheeled her along to an open double doorway and through it into a dining room with small tables flanked by chairs of bright orange plastic.

‘About a week.’

‘Longest week of your life?’

‘So far, I suppose. Yes.’

‘Gives you a turn, doesn’t it?’

Max left her wondering if he too…He was arguing at the hatch which led from this room with tables and chairs to what must be a kitchen.

‘He’ll have to find her something. Come on, have a heart. She came up by the ambulance. Should have been on a stretcher, they had her sitting up in front with the driver. Got to get her fed and to bed.’

Isobel said, ‘I don’t want anything to eat. I want to go to bed.’

Her tone was fractious, infantile. It shamed her.

‘That’s dirty talk around here. They can give you soup and bread and butter. Okay?’

‘Yes.’

He brought her a bowl of soup and a plate of bread with a pat of butter.

He perched on a plastic chair, long legs extended. He was a large-boned loose-jointed young man whose appearance, since it lacked sophistication, inspired confidence.

‘Listen,’ he said as he watched her spoon up soup. ‘It’s not half bad. Honestly. They are a decent bunch and the doctors know their job. I can vouch for that.’

‘Were you a patient then?’

‘A couple of years ago. Then I took a job in the wards. Kind of got used to the place. You’ll find you do. Have some bread?’

She shook her head.

‘Can’t.’

‘Okay. You tried and I won’t peach. Off we go again.’

He wheeled her out of the deserted dining room into the corridor, through another set of double doors, along another corridor, and repeated the process.

‘Can you stop at a bathroom?’

‘I shouldn’t, but okay. Don’t be long. We’re expected.’

He helped her up at a bathroom door. She used the lavatory, washed her hands and wiped them on the discarded face mask. He came to the door and supported her into the chair.

‘Shouldn’t have let you do that, I think. Better say nothing about it.’

Isobel was learning a new vocabulary.

‘I shan’t peach.’

‘That’s the style! And here we are.’

They had arrived in a lighted ward with eight beds. One of them was empty and beside it a small grey-haired woman was waiting.

She came forward, saying, ‘It’s Isobel, is it? We had given you up.’

‘The ambulance was late.’

‘Yes. We know that now. Thank you, Max. Are those her night things? Right. Now I’ll fetch some water for a wash and you can change into your pyjamas.’

She said to the onlookers, ‘You mustn’t get her talking. She’s had a long day and she’s a sick girl, so leave her in peace.’

The woman had a soft Scottish accent, which was reassuring.

She left to fetch the hot water. Isobel sat on the bed. The patient in the next bed said, ‘How long have you known?’

‘A week and a bit.’

‘Ah.’

It was a sympathetic sound, echoed from other beds.

There were no curtains here. Isobel fetched her pyjamas from the bag, slid out of her sweater and then her pants, thankful this time for knickers, and changed with all possible modesty and great effort into her nightwear.

Sister Mackenzie came back with a jug of water, a towel, a washer, a basin and a glass which she filled with water from the jug.

‘You’ll be wanting to clean your teeth. Do you want a pan?’

‘No thank you.’

‘Face and hands and then clean your teeth and we’ll settle you for the night. Now don’t stir.’

Having her face and hands cleaned with a wet washcloth made her feel decidedly juvenile.

‘I shan’t be doing this for you every day, I assure you.’

‘I hope not.’

‘For the moment you just keep as still as you can. You can clean your own teeth. There we are then. Settled for the night. Do you want a sleeping pill?’

‘No thank you.’

‘I’ll say good night, then. Sleep well.’

She went off carrying the equipment and saying, ‘Good night to you all. Pleasant dreams!’

‘Fat chance,’ someone said when she had gone.

Another voice said reproachfully, ‘Never knock back a sleeping pill. Remember you’ve got friends!’

‘Well, she has some manners, Sister Mackenzie. More than you can say for some.’

‘I want a fag. Anyone got a lighter?’

‘You’ll get caught, Pat. Have to front up to Stannard. Brrr!’

‘I’ll hand it straight to you, dear, and just sit there looking innocent. Besides, he knows. Turns a blind eye.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Joe said he heard him say, “They’ll only smoke under the bedclothes and set the place on fire if you try to stop it.”’

‘Then why don’t they allow it?’

‘They want to keep it down, I suppose. Hey, I want a lighter. Quick, before lights out. Thanks, Eily. And just in time. There they go.’

A cigarette shone in the dark. Isobel hoped it would not set the place on fire.

Someone said, ‘Nine o’clock. Back to boarding school.’

‘You get more holidays in boarding school.’

‘You’re telling me. More holidays? You get holidays.’

‘I tell you what. At boarding school you don’t meet men wandering down the corridor in their pyjamas. Some of those men are rough. Open all the way down the front. No trouble. Never heard of buttons.’

‘Ah. It’s cruel to sew buttons on flies!’

A voice said, ‘You know what I’d like just now? I’d like a nice gin sling.’

‘Ring the bell then, dear. That’s what it’s there for.’

‘I don’t think I’ll bother. The service in this hotel is rotten.’

‘Lois, where are you going tonight?’

‘I haven’t quite made up my mind.’ Lois’s voice was light, girlish and remote. ‘I hear there’s a new pianist at the Pink Tights, but I don’t know…maybe the Rococo, or Spangles.’

‘Better make up your mind, love. Time’s getting on.’

‘Time! I’ve got all the time in the world. If I go with Hooky, it had better be the Rococo. It’s more like Hooky’s style.’

‘What are you going to wear?’

‘Um. It had better not be my black lace with the cut-outs. Not with Hooky. But I don’t know that I’ll go with Hooky. He hurt me this morning with his great big needle, and Bart said to him, “You hurt my girl,” he said, “and I’ll twist your bloody nose off.” Hooky said, “Who’s hurting her? And don’t you go calling her your girl or you’ll hear from me.” “Don’t fight over me, boys,” I said. “I know I’m good, but no woman’s that good.” I just might go with Bart, for once.’

‘Oh, how I would love a nice gin sling.’

‘You know what I’d like? I’d like to go home.’

A voice floated. ‘Think I’ll go back home next summer…’

‘Ssh! Ssh! Ssh!’

‘Keep it till after her rounds.’

‘You’re quiet tonight, Eily.’

‘Got me mind on that damned bronc.’

‘Are you down for a bronchoscopy, Eily? I didn’t know that.’