The God Squad (19 page)

Then the question of where the money came from arose. Because it was such a large amount of money I was convinced she would think I had stolen it.

‘I got ten pounds from my uncle in a letter.’

‘You know the rules regarding money,’ she said.

‘Yes, Sister.’

She held her hand out and I dug deep into my pocket
and took out what money I had. She left the ward with it and the messages.

‘You’re a pig,’ I said to Gorman, furious with him.

‘Don’t call me a fucking pig,’ he replied angrily.

‘You made a promise and you broke it.’

‘Did I say anything about the money?’ he said. ‘Did I?’

I threatened to tell the ward sister what he told me about babies. He sat upright in bed, pointed his finger, then squinted his eyes and swore to break every bone in my body if I opened my mouth.

‘You’re a bastard,’ he said, after a brief silence.

‘I’m not,’ I retorted.

‘You don’t even know what the word means,’ he teased.

‘I do.’

‘What?’ he snapped.

When he realized that I hadn’t the slightest idea, he grinned and said that I was a bastard because I didn’t have any parents. ‘That’s what a bastard is.’

I walked away from him, realizing that the friendship we had was beginning to crumble and, angry though I was, had no wish for that to happen. It was he who got me through the rough times in the hospital. I had never wanted to be on the receiving end of his anger. Despite my feelings towards him at that moment, I hoped that our relationship would not be ruined.

In time we forgot our quarrel and once John Gorman was allowed out of bed I had a companion with whom I could walk around the hospital grounds. When the weather was fine we used to sit in the fields while he pointed out the direction of various Kilkenny landmarks like Castlecomer coal mines and the steeple of the Cathedral. He could also show me where his house was. At six o’clock most evenings, both of us would go to the shop and spend any money he had been given by relatives the previous day. Anything we
bought was carefully concealed as we made our way cautiously back to the ward and headed for the toilets. One evening, while we were both in one of the cubicles, John Gorman sat on the toilet bowl and carefully stood his crutches against the wall. He lit two cigarettes and handed me one. He had smoked before but I hadn’t. I watched as he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs and allowed it to stream out his nostrils. I drew on mine, filling my mouth with smoke, before taking a deep breath. I nearly choked. I could feel the smoke crushing my lungs and as I gasped I felt my face redden and my head become light. The cubicle spun as I coughed uncontrollably and tears streamed down my cheeks.

‘Shut up,’ Gorman said, ‘or you’ll get us caught.’

I tried to say something but could only cough. It was some minutes before I got my breath back and the dizziness subsided.

‘Pull on it like this,’ he said, holding the cigarette between the thumb and first finger with the burning end covered by the cave formation of his hand. He pulled deeply on it and asked me to do the same. I tried but couldn’t and when he stood up I threw the half-smoked cigarette into the toilet. I watched it sizzle and become saturated before fragmenting into tiny pieces. I knew I was going to vomit and gestured for Gorman to get out of the way before bending over and being violently ill.

‘For Jesus’ sake,’ he said.

A sudden knocking on the door startled both of us. The familiar voice of the ward sister demanded to know who was in the toilet. I spewed out what was left in my mouth and spat into the bowl to eliminate the sour taste of sickness and tobacco.

‘I want both of you out here this minute,’ she said.

Slowly John Gorman slid back the chromed bolt of the
toilet door, before putting a crutch under each arm and inching his way out. I followed.

‘What happened to you?’ she shouted at me.

‘I was sick,’ I replied.

‘I wonder why?’ she said sarcastically, asking us both to turn out our pockets. Picking up a packet of cigarettes which had fallen from my pocket she warned that we would get the severest punishment. ‘Both of you will go back to your ward, get straight into bed and you will remain there for a week.’

Later that night both our beds were taken from the main ward and moved to the babies’ unit. The nurses pushing the beds took no notice whatever of Gorman’s threats to get his father after them and that he was going to run away in the middle of the night.

There were fifteen or twenty babies in the ward, often no more than a few weeks old, who cried, demanding to be fed. Some were in plaster from the soles of their feet right up to under their arms. Nurses had difficulty in lifting them from their cots for feeding while others could not be lifted at all. They were on traction with weights on pulleys, hanging from their legs. Those that were being fed sucked contentedly on their bottles. They slept as the nurse changed the pads which had been placed at the cut-outs in the plaster at the backside and the pelvic area. In the soft light of the ward I could see babies with large heads and tiny bodies and others born without limbs or with only part of hands and legs.

As I was drifting to sleep John Gorman threatened to run away and asked if I would go with him. He said he had no intention of spending a week ‘stuck in a ward full of squealing babies and shitty nappies’. He swore he would be gone by morning.

I woke early next morning to find Gorman still in his bed,
curled in a bundle beneath the sheets, oblivious to the sounds of babies demanding breakfast.

The ward sister arrived and told me that the doctor was going to see me and she wanted me ‘up and out of bed immediately’. I hadn’t expected to be allowed up so soon after beginning my punishment and was surprised that the doctor wanted to see me. I sat motionless until she hurried me.

As I got dressed she awoke my companion and told him we were both being given a chance, provided we gave an assurance to stay in our own ward and not to smoke in the future.

I was worried about seeing the consultant, even though I felt sure he would be happy with the progress I was making. I washed my face a couple of times and brushed my teeth until the gums bled. I combed my hair where bits of it stuck up, wet it and combed it down.

‘What are you all cleaned up for?’ Gorman asked.

‘I have to see the doctor,’ I replied.

‘He’ll probably want to take you down,’ he jeered.

‘He won’t,’ I said, not really convinced by my own words. ‘He already said I wouldn’t have to have an operation.’

‘They always say that,’ he replied, ‘and then they change their minds.’

‘You think you know everything,’ I said, walking away from him.

I was brought to a room off the main ward to await the arrival of the doctor and as I sat there I prayed silently that he would not operate on me. I practised walking, watching my feet and trying to ensure they were straight.

When he arrived he was in a cheerful mood, rubbing his hands together as he asked me to walk across the room. I stood up and took the first few steps cautiously, looking
downward all the time. Halfway across the floor my leg flexed at the knee and I had difficulty in getting it back down to the floor again.

When I turned to face him, he asked me to raise my head, and ignore my feet. Again my leg flexed and the harder I tried to get it back down the worse it became, until, in a sudden movement, it released like a string snapping and I walked the rest of the way.

‘What happened there?’ the consultant asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘Has that ever happened to you before?’

‘Only since I got the splint.’

‘And does it happen often?’

‘Just when I get afraid.’

‘And are you afraid now?’ he asked.

‘Just a bit.’

‘Sit down there.’ He pointed to a chair and told the nurses who were with him that he didn’t see any further need for the splint. ‘It doesn’t appear to be doing any good and in fact it may be causing harm.’ He asked me to walk without it. My feet felt free and light, there was no difficulty walking and no involuntary flexing.

‘Patrick,’ he said, ‘you’ve been here for a long time now, nearly two years, and we haven’t been able to put your foot right.’ I waited anxiously for what was coming next.

‘Because you’re not getting any better I want to send you to another hospital to see a specialist who will be able to help you. Once that happens you will be able to go back to your school and the friends you have there.’

I began to cry and said that I didn’t want to go back to the school and I didn’t want to go to any other hospital either.

‘It’s for your own good,’ one of the nurses said.

‘I don’t care, I like it here and I want to stay.’

The consultant intervened, ‘But you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in hospital. Do you?’

‘No,’ I said hesitantly.

‘Right then, we’ll get this other man to have a look at you, and we’ll see what happens from there.’

‘Will I have to stay in the other hospital?’

‘Just for a little while, until they do some tests. Once they have been done we should be able to get that foot right for you.’

He wrote a letter on a piece of hospital headed notepaper and put it into a long white envelope which he sealed and addressed to ‘Professor E. D. Casey, Consultant Neurologist’.

‘What does it say on the envelope?’ I asked.

He held it up for me to read. I read the name and then stopped.

‘Consultant Neurologist,’ he said.

‘What’s a neurologist?’ I asked.

‘Just another type of doctor, that’s all, nothing to worry about.’

For two days I roamed around the hospital stunned and unable to believe that I had to leave. I had made it my home, I had friends there, I liked the way I was treated and had come to enjoy the companionship of the other boys. The initial stress-filled weeks of being teased and tormented seemed a long time ago and irrelevant now. I wanted to stay. John Gorman tried to be consoling, and said that he would visit me when he went home.

‘But it’s in Dublin,’ I said.

‘How do you know?’ he asked.

‘I heard the nurses saying so.’

‘That doesn’t matter, I can get my father to take me. Anyway you won’t be staying there for long.’

I wanted to agree with him, but I knew I wouldn’t see that hospital or John Gorman again. Promises made by nurses and doctors were something I had learned to mistrust. I had heard them all before and things never worked out the way they said they would.

On the day I was leaving, after I had said goodbye to the patients and nurses, the sister in charge took me by the hand and led me from the ward. I cried bitterly, pleading with her
not to send me away. I dug my feet into the floor to prevent her dragging me further.

‘I’m not going to any new hospital,’ I screamed at the top of my voice and as we were nearing the top of the long sloping corridor I gripped a radiator and held it until my knuckles turned white. She pulled at my arm but I was determined not to budge. I kicked out, attempting to catch one of the nurses across the shins and threatened to kill them if they didn’t leave me alone. I was so determined not to leave that it took three nurses to make me release my grip on the radiator.

Though my vision was clouded by tears I could see the senior nurse talking to a doctor. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and I didn’t care. They stopped dragging at me and for a moment I thought I was going to be returned to the ward, then I saw the doctor return. He had a needle and syringe prepared in the kidney dish he was carrying.

‘Now, Pat,’ he said gently, ‘this will make you feel better.’

‘I don’t want that needle,’ I protested.

He inserted the needle into a vein in my right arm which was held in an outright position. I felt it puncture my skin and I screamed again. Within minutes my screaming and protestations stopped, my vision became clouded and my mouth felt dry. I was so light-headed that I could no longer walk. I had to be lifted and carried to a waiting ambulance where I was put lying on one of its two stretchers. The nurse who was travelling woke me when we reached Dublin. I was thirsty and she gave me some water from a plastic bottle.

‘How far is it now?’ I asked.

‘Just a couple of minutes,’ she replied and suggested that I sit up and fix my clothes. She wiped my face with a cool
damp towel, which made me feel more alert. I began to worry again.

I felt very weak walking up the granite steps of the Dublin hospital, with its tall Georgian facade and massive hall door. The nurse greeted the porter who directed her to the admissions office. She sat me down on a long bench and gave me my chart to keep on my lap. The waiting area was dark and quiet; the only light available came from the sliding glass panels of the admissions office itself.

‘Someone will look after you in a minute or two,’ she said and prepared to leave.

She brushed my fringe off my forehead with her hand and said that she would see me soon again. I looked at her but didn’t speak, then I bowed my head as she walked away.