Queenie (18 page)

‘Just a bit. I thought of something funny,’ I said. I’d decided to be very cool and stand-offish as she’d chosen to go to Angus first and not me, but it was impossible now that she was beside me. I breathed in her soft sweet smell of soap and talcum powder and longed for her to cuddle me properly.

‘You’re being very brave,’ she said.

‘Not really,’ I mumbled, because I’d been making an awful fuss all afternoon and half the evening.

She fiddled with Donald Duck, trying to get him to snuggle down with me.

‘I don’t like him much,’ I said.

‘Mm, I can see why. He’s got a very odd expression.
Oh
well, I think you’ll probably get your own teddy back tomorrow.’

‘He’s not a teddy, he’s an elephant – Albert Trunk,’ I said.

‘Ah yes, how could I forget? Then you can give Donald Duck here back to Potter Ward, where he belongs.’

I craned upwards a little, trying to look along the line of beds. ‘Have any of the others got teddies or elephants?’ I whispered.

I was very worried that Martin and Gillian might jeer at Albert Trunk.

‘I think they’ve
all
got a soft toy somewhere or other,’ said Nurse Gabriel.

‘I haven’t seen them!’

‘Well, they’re mostly nocturnal. Do you know what that means? They only come out at night.’

‘Nurse Gabriel, has
Martin
got a teddy?’ I asked.

‘Ah, you’ll have to ask him. I can’t give away anyone’s secrets,’ said Nurse Gabriel loudly, in case Martin was still awake – but she nodded at me.

‘Not
Gillian?
’ I asked, because she seemed practically grown up, but Nurse Gabriel nodded again.

I peered down the row of beds. ‘I can’t see them,’ I said.

Nurse Gabriel picked up my blanket and pointed
underneath
, indicating that they were tucked inside, out of sight.

I heard Angus sniff again. ‘And Angus?’

‘Yes – although poor Angus can’t really cuddle his teddy properly,’ said Nurse Gabriel.

‘Why is he in all that plaster?’

‘It’s to help his back straighten.’

‘Does it hurt him?’

‘I don’t think it hurts too much physically, but he feels very unhappy about it.’

‘He doesn’t talk to any of us.’

‘That’s because he’s feeling sad.’

‘But he was talking to you, wasn’t he?’

‘We have special little chats, yes. Poor old Angus,’ said Nurse Gabriel.

‘Is he your favourite?’

Nurse Gabriel laughed. ‘Nurses aren’t allowed to have favourites, Elsie.’

I wasn’t sure that was true. I was determined that
I
was going to be Nurse Gabriel’s favourite.

I SEEMED TO
have been marooned in the hospital for many years. It was hard remembering that only a few days had gone by. I had almost stopped thinking about Mum. I never stopped thinking about Nan, of course.

Saturday seemed a very different day. It started with a much better breakfast: a fried egg and a rasher of bacon and two slices of toast.

There was no school on Saturday morning. After being wheeled out onto the veranda we were handed
old
comics and puzzle books. I was given a join-the-dot book of animals. Someone – many someones – had already joined the dots, but their efforts had been rubbed out until the paper had become fuzzy. I only had a stump of pencil to make the animals spring to life again, but I dutifully joined dot after dot after dot, and created an elephant and a giraffe and a monkey and a variety of big cats – a stripy tiger, a spotted leopard, and a lion. I drew a little cat on the end paper, with a tiny crown on her head. The writing underneath the lion said he was
King of the Beasts
. I wrote under my cat that she was
Queen of the Beasts
.

Queenie herself prowled from bed to bed. Martin tried to entice her by offering her a crust of toast, but she ignored him disdainfully and jumped up on
my
bed instead.

‘Oh Queenie, you lovely cat! You like me, don’t you?’ I whispered, stroking her. She purred back that she liked me very much.

Then, after breakfast, just to make the day more special, Nurse Curtis came bustling along the veranda. She was carrying a large brown paper bag.

‘Here’s a parcel for a Miss Elsie Kettle,’ she said, dropping it carefully onto my chest.

I opened it up – and there was Albert Trunk rearing up at me with desperate happiness.

‘Oh, my Albert,’ I said, so overcome I buried my face in his soft grey skin right in front of Martin and Gillian. But then I pushed him away, my nose wrinkling, because he smelled so
wrong
– dry and dead and chemical, and his skin was pale and dull as if he’d been very ill too.

‘What’s
happened
to him?’ I said, holding him at arm’s length.

‘Nothing’s happened. He’s just been fumigated so he’s not all nasty and germy,’ said Nurse Johnson. She waggled Albert’s trunk in a very familiar fashion. ‘You’re fine, aren’t you, Jumbo?’

Albert Trunk gazed back dumbly, his small glass eyes bleary, as if they were full of tears. I tucked him down under my covers, wrapping the hem of my hospital gown around him. I wouldn’t need it now because my new cat pyjamas were in the parcel too, though they didn’t look new any more. They looked as if they’d been swirled in Nan’s wooden washtub a hundred times, though they didn’t smell
clean
. They had that same harsh chemical smell as Albert. But they still had their little white cats prancing on the pink material, and Nurse Johnson exclaimed at them too.

‘Aren’t they nobby!’ she said. ‘You really will look like the cat’s pyjamas in them, Elsie! Shall I dress you in them?’

I could only wear the jacket now because the trousers wouldn’t fit over my huge ugly splint. I pulled off the hospital gown and rolled the pyjama trousers round Albert Trunk instead.

‘What else have you got in there?’ said Nurse Johnson, shaking the big bag curiously.

I took out my
Girl
comic, and then Nan’s kitten button box. I picked up Snow White and Sooty and Marmalade, all their buttons slithering and sliding inside the box.

Martin stuck his head up, peering hopefully. ‘Is that all your money?’ he said. ‘You must have heaps!’

‘I’ve got a piggy bank at home and it’s so full it won’t even rattle any more,’ said Gillian.

‘So have I,’ said Rita immediately.

‘Oh dear, you’re not allowed to keep money on the ward, Elsie. You’d better give your money box to me for safe-keeping,’ said Nurse Johnson, reaching out for my kittens.

‘No! It isn’t money – honestly. It’s buttons,’ I insisted, taking off the lid and showing her.

‘
Buttons!
’ Martin gurgled, and Gillian and Rita sniggered.

‘What do you want all these buttons for?’ asked Nurse Johnson.

‘I collect them,’ I said grandly.

I took out my last treasure – and this time the
other
children were impressed. It was my little Coronation coach with its eight tiny horses. I worried that it might have got chipped or spoiled, but it was still perfect, the gold untarnished, and it smelled of its own special metallic tang.

‘Oh look, she’s got one of those Coronation coaches! You lucky thing, Elsie –
I
wanted one of them!’ said Gillian. ‘Let’s have a proper look at it, Elsie, go on.’

I didn’t want to relinquish it but I liked impressing Gillian. I leaned over as far as I could to pass my coach to Martin. ‘Show Gillian,’ I said.

Nurse Curtis had turned away to attend to the little ones, but now she came dashing back. ‘Careful!’ she said. ‘You
mustn’t
lean over like that! It’s strictly forbidden. You could fall out and do yourself serious damage and waste all the good work of being in your splint.’

I’d only been in mine for a day, so it hadn’t had a chance to do any good work yet, but I wriggled back meekly.

‘Please could you show my Coronation coach to Gillian, Nurse Curtis?’ I asked politely.

‘That’s better,’ she said, picking it up. ‘Oh, isn’t it dinky? The detail!’

‘Let me see it too!’ said Martin. ‘Is it just like the
real
Coronation coach?’

‘It’s an exact replica, but in miniature of course,’
I
said proudly. ‘My nan bought it for me. We were going to the Coronation together . . .’ My voice suddenly wobbled.

‘I was going too. My dad works up in London – he was going to take me,’ said Gillian.

‘I was going too,’ said Rita.

There was an echoing wail up and down the beds.

‘Now then, now then!’ said Nurse Curtis. ‘Don’t get too upset. Maybe you won’t miss the Coronation after all.’

‘Nonsense, Curtis!’ Nurse Patterson called, her sticky-out ears wagging. ‘Come and help me with the injections and stop your nonsense.’

‘Oooh!’ said Nurse Curtis, pulling a face at us. She gave me my coach back and hurried off to Nurse Patterson.

‘What do you think she was on about?’ said Martin.

‘Oh, she was just babbling,’ said Gillian, tossing her ponytail. ‘How on earth can we get to the Coronation?’

‘Won’t we be better by then?’ I asked.

‘Fat chance! We won’t be better for months. You won’t be better till next year at the earliest.
I’ll
be better first, because I’ve been here for eight months already,’ said Martin.

‘Eight months!’ I was so appalled I could barely breathe. ‘
I
won’t be stuck here for eight months, will I?’

‘Of course you will, stupid. Like everyone else,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know
anything
?’

This new knowledge hurt even more than my streptomycin injection to cure my TB. It was so painful it made my eyes sting. The little ones, Michael and Maureen and Babette, all cried bitterly. Poor Michael went on sobbing, even though Nurse Curtis gave him a cuddle.

‘Couldn’t he have a sweetie out of the box?’ I asked.

‘You only have sweeties after lunch,’ said Nurse Patterson, clicking her teeth.

‘But he needs it
now
,’ I said.

‘Just you stop answering back and behave, Elsie Kettle, or you won’t get any sweeties at all! You’re a very greedy little girl,’ said Nurse Patterson.

I thought this was very unfair of her as I hadn’t been asking for a sweet for myself. I pulled a face at her when she turned her back, and Martin and Gillian laughed.

I lay with Albert Trunk under my armpit, stroking my button box kittens, with my little Coronation coach clutched in my other hand. My nose still prickled with the chemical smell, but I did my best to breathe shallowly.

Lunch was surprisingly good: two sausages and peas and a little mound of fluffy white potato, looking like a scoop of ice cream.

‘Why is the food so much nicer today?’ I asked, licking my forkful of potato.

‘Because it’s visiting day, silly. My mother and father always say, “What did you have to eat today, Martin?” You wait – your parents will say the same.’

‘They won’t,’ I mumbled.

Mother
and
father
. They sounded like people out of those reading books in the Infants. I hadn’t properly realized before that Martin was posh, even though he told very rude jokes and called me Gobface.

I didn’t think Gillian was posh, not when she wore her hair in a glorious ponytail like a teddy girl. I wondered if her mum had a ponytail too. I did hope so. I was sure she’d be pretty, like her daughter.

Wait till they saw
my
mum. If she came. She’d
said
she’d come and see how I was doing on Saturday, but I’d long ago learned not to trust my mum too much. She’d promised to come and watch me in the school play, and then in the carol concert, but she’d never turned up for either. I didn’t really mind because Nan came instead.

Nan – oh, Nan. I wanted to bury my face in my pillow and weep, but my hateful splint made me lie flat on my back. But perhaps . . .perhaps Nan was better now?

I shut my eyes and willed her to sit up and look around and take notice. I made her poor lungs fill
with
fresh air. I helped her slide her skinny legs out of her hospital sheets. She stood up and stretched and made the little soft smacking sounds with her lips as she always did when she got up. She had her quick lick-and-a-promise wash and then dressed herself: shiny pink knickers down to her knees, with her flappy vest tucked inside. I let her off her corset because it was always such a struggle for her to get into it. She kept her stockings up with garters, and put on her best black dress with the little beady pattern across the bust. I always got little indentations across my cheek when I gave her a hug in that dress, but I knew it was her favourite.

I made her walk right out of the sanatorium and get the train and the bus over to me. I urged her along every step of the way. I encouraged her up the driveway, round to the annexe, down that long polished corridor, looking to left and right – looking for
me
. I had her burst through the French windows, and there she was, running in her best black shoes with the buckles, calling ‘Elsie, Elsie, Elsie!’

I heard her, I saw her, I felt her arms go round me and hug me tight – but she wasn’t
really
there. Real people started arriving, making so much hubbub that it was impossible to keep pretending. I hunched down in bed, staring at everyone. Martin’s mum and dad were
very
posh, though his mum wasn’t dressed up at
all
. She was wearing a faded cotton dress with a drooping hem. She went kissy-kissy-kissy all over Martin’s face. It was fun to see him squirming.