Queenie (11 page)

‘This is Elsie,’ said Mum, giving me a little shake. ‘She’s going to be a
patient
. The doctor sent us here.’

‘We don’t admit patients
now
. It’s nearly five o’clock! You’ll have to bring her back tomorrow at two, the proper time.’

‘If you think I’m taking the kid all the way home on the bus, the train
and
the tram and then trailing her back here tomorrow, you’ve got another think coming,’ said Mum. ‘Who do you think you are, Mrs Hitler?’

There was a little snort of shocked laughter from the nearest bed.

The nurse flushed. ‘You can’t leave her
here
. This
is
the women’s ward, as should be obvious. The children’s wards are in the annexe. You have to go out and round the back. But they won’t admit her, not at this time,’ she said.

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Mum, and she marched us away.

‘What a bossy little madam!’ she muttered. ‘It’s the same old story – give them a uniform and they think they’re it. Well, I’m not letting some jumped-up queen-of-the-bedpans tell
me
what to do.’

‘Oh Mum.
Can’t
we come back tomorrow?’

‘No, of course we can’t. I haven’t got enough for the train fare all over again for a start.’

‘Can’t we just go home, and I’ll rest there, like you said?’ I begged.

‘I can’t leave you there on your own, day after day.’

‘I wouldn’t mind, not a bit.’

‘Somebody’s tongue would wag and they’d end up carting you off to a children’s home. I tell you, it was touch and go when you were little, before we went to live with Nanny.’

‘Mum—’

‘Do shut
up
. You’re not making this any easier. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not
my
fault.
I
didn’t give you this dreaded illness, did I? Blame Nanny, coughing her germs all over you.’

That really did shut me up. I couldn’t bear to
blame
Nan. We tramped all the way round the side of the big grey building in silence, down a lot of stone steps at the back, and followed a path across the big lawn to a long low modern building with a veranda all the way round.

There was a sign outside:

MILTREE ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL, CHILDREN’S ANNEXE
.

BLYTON AND RANSOME WARDS TO THE RIGHT
.

STRAIGHT ON FOR POTTER WARD
.

TURN LEFT FOR CHRISTIE
.

‘Well, which are you, do you think?’ said Mum. ‘I suppose we’d better find someone and ask.’

The door to the annexe was closed. We had to ring the bell. My tummy was churning. Mum rang again, and knocked loudly at the door too.

‘Mum!’ I said in agony. ‘They’ll be cross!’

‘
I’m
cross, hanging about here in the cold before they’ll deign to let us in. You’ve got a serious illness. It’s not good for you.’ She knocked again – and the door opened at last.

Another nurse stood there, in an even stranger white hat with wings. It looked as if a starched seagull had landed on her head.

‘What on earth do you want?’ she said. Her voice was starched too, cold and crisp.

‘I should have thought it was blooming obvious,’ said Mum fiercely. ‘My poor little Elsie has got TB and we’ve travelled for hours and hours to get here. She’s an urgent case – the doctor says she’s to be hospitalized straight away.’

‘Did he not tell you our admission hours?’ she said.

‘I don’t give a fig about your admission hours,’ said Mum. ‘We got here as soon as we could. Now, will you kindly tuck my little girl up in bed where she belongs. Call yourself a nurse!’

‘I’m not a nurse, I’m the Sister here – and I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head,’ she said, but she stood aside and beckoned us in.

There was more green and cream paint, more polished floor. She turned right and we followed. She opened a door into a smaller whitewashed room with a sign saying
BLYTON WARD
, with two rows of beds.

‘Oh my God,’ said Mum.

I clasped her hand tightly. I almost snapped her fingers off. The children were nearly all buckled into weird pulleys and splints so that they couldn’t move. Two were flat on their backs with their legs held apart in frames. One boy was encased in plaster like a rigid little snowman.

‘What are you
doing
to them?’ asked Mum.

‘We have to immobilize their affected joints,’ said the Sister.

‘You’re not doing that to my Elsie!’

‘We will proceed as we see fit to make the child better,’ the Sister told her. ‘We shall keep her under observation for a day or two while the doctors assess her. You can visit her on Saturdays and Sundays between two and four. I’m afraid we can’t have any visiting whatsoever at any other time. Now, come with me into my office so we can start your paperwork.’

‘It’s like a torture chamber in here – the poor little mites,’ said Mum, still staring around.

‘Keep your voice
down
– I don’t want you upsetting my patients!’ said the Sister. ‘Come with me!’

I stumbled along between Mum and the Sister, peering back fearfully at a boy in the middle of the row, trussed up and tied down in a terrifying steel frame. He was lying so still and looked so waxily pale I wondered if he was actually dead, but then he crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out at me.

‘Will they strap me down too, Mum?’ I whispered, tugging at her arm.

‘Not if I can help it,’ she said – but she didn’t sound too sure.

I SAT ON
Mum’s lap while the Sister filled in all the forms. I looked around all the shelves and worktops in her room, but I couldn’t see a jar of Smarties anywhere. I was trying so hard not to cry that my throat felt as if it were stoppered with cotton wool, so maybe I wouldn’t have been able to swallow one anyway.

‘Elsie Kettle,’ said the Sister, printing pains-takingly. ‘And
your
full name, Mrs Kettle?’

‘I’m Sheila Alice.’

‘And Mr Kettle?’

‘There isn’t one.’

The Sister sniffed. ‘Can I have the name of Elsie’s father, please?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ said Mum. ‘We don’t have any contact with him.’

‘Nevertheless, I need his full name and address for the sake of our records.’

‘Well, you’ll know more than me if you put his name and address down. I think his name’s Frankie something but I haven’t got a clue where he lives. I met him at a party in Fulham – and never saw him again,’ said Mum.

I was momentarily distracted from my terror. I wriggled on Mum’s lap excitedly. My dad was a man called Frankie! I had asked Mum many times, but she always said I didn’t have a dad. I’d asked Nan too, but even she had just shaken her head, wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips in that
Don’t-ask-me-dear
expression.

Frankie of Fulham. It wasn’t much to go on. I screwed up my eyes to think as clearly as possible. I was pretty sure I’d never been to Fulham. I wasn’t even certain where it was. The only time I’d heard the name was during the football results on the wireless:
Fulham two . . . Fulham one . . . Fulham nil
.

Frankie. There was a Frankie in my class at school. Well, he was Francis really, Frances Thorpe,
but
everyone called him Frankie. I didn’t like him much. He wore such long underpants they hung down an inch below his short trousers, and he frequently picked his nose and then smeared it under his desk. I was always very glad I didn’t have to sit next to him.

I pictured a grown-up version of Frankie, in grey-white underpants, picking his nose. I
couldn’t
have a dad like that. Mum would never want that sort of a man for a boyfriend. I thought of all my uncles. They’d either been good looking or they’d had lots of money.

I suddenly thought of Frankie Vaughan the singer. Nan had one of his records, and there was a picture of him on the cardboard cover. He was good looking, and he must be rich if he was a famous singer.

Oh, what if I were Frankie Vaughan’s daughter? I wasn’t good looking, I wasn’t dark, and I couldn’t sing, but it suddenly seemed just a slight possibility. Mum was in show business, after all. Maybe she’d been one of Frankie Vaughan’s backing dancers and they’d had a whirlwind romance? And perhaps she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone because he was married, and famous to boot.

‘Stop fidgeting, Elsie! Do you want to go to the lav?’ asked Mum.

I did, but I shook my head quickly, embarrassed.
The
Sister continued to fill in all the forms, copying now from a letter on her desk.

‘Is that from Doctor Malory?’ said Mum. ‘What does it say?’

‘It’s confidential because it’s a medical document. Please try to be patient, Miss Kettle. I have to do things properly,’ said the Sister.

There was clearly not going to be a courtesy Mrs as far as
she
was concerned. When she had finished the forms at last, she asked Mum to sign at the bottom.

‘What for? I’m not signing my kid away!’ said Mum.

‘It’s standard procedure. We won’t accept any child here as a patient unless their parent gives us full permission to proceed as we see fit. You want Elsie to get better, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do. But she’s my kid, not yours. Just you remember that,’ said Mum – but she signed her name.

‘There!’ said Sister. Then she looked at me. ‘Say goodbye to Mummy, dear, and then I’ll tuck you up in bed.’

I clutched Mum hard.

‘Now, you’re not going to be a silly girl, are you?’ said the Sister.

I felt I was very silly indeed. The tears started welling in my eyes.

‘Don’t start bawling, Elsie, or I will too,’ said Mum, giving me a quick hard hug and then tipping me off her lap. ‘You be a good girl and I’ll come and visit you on Saturday. All right?’

It was so not all right that I couldn’t even start to protest. My mouth just opened in a silent
Oh
.

‘Come on, now. Shut that little gob or the flies will get in,’ said Mum, and she tapped me under my chin, kissed my forehead, and stood up.

‘You’d better look after her,’ she said threateningly to Sister, and then ran out of the room.

I could hear her high heels clop-clopping away into the distance. I stuck my knuckle into my mouth, trying to stopper the sobs.

‘Now, now,’ said the Sister, patting me on the shoulder. ‘I’ll get one of my nurses to take care of you. You’ll get along very well, Elsie. All the other children like it here.’

I stared at her as if she were mad. She rang a little bell and a nurse appeared in the doorway as if by magic.

‘This is the little Kettle girl. Her mother’s only just arrived with her – but I suppose it’s better late than never. Take her off and put her to bed please, Nurse.’

‘Certainly, Sister,’ she said. She held out her hand. ‘Come along then, Elsie,’ she wheedled in a loud clear voice, as if I were a little dog. ‘There’s a good girl.’

I didn’t like her any more than the Sister, but I took her hand obediently. She was a tall, lumpy lady with wispy hair and sticking-out ears that didn’t suit her nurse’s cap. She was chewing busily.

The Sister raised her eyebrows.

‘Sorry, Sister,’ said the nurse, swallowing.

I had to trot along beside her.

‘What a time to arrive!’ she said. ‘Right in the middle of my tea break! By the time I get you sorted, all the others will have scoffed the lot, and it’s ginger cake, my favourite.’

She didn’t take me back into the ward. She took me to a small bathroom instead. She sent me to the toilet in a little cubicle while she ran a scalding hot bath. ‘Hurry up and jump in!’

‘But I’m
clean
. I had a bath last Friday,’ I said, emerging from the toilet.

Friday was always bath night at home. Nan lit the boiler specially, and I always had first scrub, and then ate a jacket potato supper in bed while Nan had a good soak herself. I realized that I actually hadn’t had a bath on Friday – Mum never seemed to get us organized. Even so, I didn’t want to have a bath right in front of the nurse with sticking-out ears.

‘Come
on
, surely you can take your clothes off yourself?’ she said impatiently.

I slowly took off my coat, my shoes and socks, my
cardie
, my dress and my vest. I stood there in my frilly knickers, blushing.

‘Take your knick-knacks off too, silly, and jump in the bath,’ she said. ‘Don’t go all coy. Heavens, you’ll soon learn not to be so shy here.’

That sounded very ominous indeed. I removed my knickers very reluctantly and got in the bath. She took a brand-new flannel and a cake of red carbolic soap and approached me.

‘I can bath myself – I’m not a baby,’ I said quickly.

‘Very well, but get on with it,’ she said. She watched me like a hawk, making me scrub everywhere. She washed my hair herself, digging in hard with her fingertips while my head juddered up and down, and she didn’t care when the soap got in my eyes.

‘You’re very mean,’ I spluttered.

She just laughed at me. I had to rub myself dry, shivering, while she fetched a horrible white gown with no back to it.