Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop (8 page)

‘No parents.’

‘Ah. Well, if you think of anyone…Well, Room 207, Eric. Better take her there straight away.’

‘Oh, they’re all heart, aren’t they?’ said Eric as he wheeled her away. ‘But Hansen is a very decent sort and they do know their job. The doctor’s right, you know. It’s not what it used to be. They’ve got the drugs to deal with it now.’

‘That’s the first time anyone has said “the doctor” instead of “doctor”.’

‘It gets my goat, too. I feel like telling them sometimes, “There may be only one God, but there sure is more than one doctor.” Well, you can even raise a laugh. That’s the spirit.’

They rode in the lift to the second floor, along the corridor and into a small room bright with the light from a large window.

Here Eric lifted her into an armchair, saying cheerfully, ‘Limp as a wet bath towel, you are. Just remember, kid, when you look at your dinner and you don’t much feel like it, food is muscle. Just say to yourself, “Food is muscle.”’

‘And voice,’ she whispered.

‘Yes. Voice too. Only don’t use it too much.’

‘Say goodbye for me to the ladies in the ward.’

‘I’ll do that. They were really worried about you. They’ll be sorry about this. I’ll get your things and bring them down.’

‘Find my handbag, will you? I need it. But I don’t need that awful smock.’

‘Got an alternative, love?’

She shook her head.

He went off grinning. Isobel sat on the bed and looked about her.

The diagnosis which had made her a social pariah had brought a great improvement in her material situation. This was a luxury room for one: one bed, an armchair, two straight chairs, a regulation side table, a reading light, a corner door which opened on a closet containing shower and lavatory. Beside the shower and the lavatory there were chrome bars fixed to the wall to provide handholds for the invalid. She made haste to use the lavatory before anyone arrived to forbid that freedom. She was glad of the handhold and glad to lie down on the bed.

She ought to be thinking about her situation. No use. Parcels don’t think. Parcels are not required to think.

Eric came back with her handbag and the smock.

‘Sorry. Sister says it’s only until you can get someone to bring your own things. And you’re to get into bed straight away.’

‘Right.’

‘Well, bear up, kid.’

‘Shall do.’

‘You haven’t really taken it in yet, have you?’ he asked with tenderness which embarrassed him into a hasty departure.

She opened her handbag and considered her resources. A pocket comb, which she put to use at once, with relief—what a pity that she didn’t carry a toothbrush—two handkerchiefs, both crumpled, one soiled, money: four pounds in notes, seven and fivepence, a bankbook with a balance of forty-two pounds ten—but how was she to get to the bank?—the letter from
Seminal
, fountain pen, notebook, two pencils, pencil sharpener and the key to her room. The key set her thinking. Would she ever see that room again? Certainly, she had no sentimental attachment to it. She tried the pen. It still had ink. Well, she was equipped for something, if not for what lay ahead. She put all the contents back except the comb, which she put on the bedside table, by way of moving in. This is now my territory.

She took off her two garments and entered the smock—one couldn’t say that one put it on—managed with difficulty to tie the tapes and got into bed.

That was, she had to admit, a relief.

A young woman in mufti, a plaid skirt and a scarlet sweater, tapped at the open door and came in. She was carrying a clipboard and a pen. She brought a straight chair to the bed and sat down.

‘Isobel Callaghan? I need a few details for our records. Up till now you’ve been too ill for us to get your admission form filled in.’

While she was prepared to forgive this social lapse, she made it clear that the inconvenience had been serious.

Isobel forbore to apologise.

‘Full name?’

‘Isobel Catherine Callaghan.’

‘Date of birth?’

Isobel supplied it.

‘Religion?’

‘I don’t have a religion.’

‘Look.’ The young woman spoke slowly and firmly. ‘We are filling in a form. I am not asking if you go to church on Sunday. Everyone has a religion.’

‘Is that right?’ Isobel reflected. ‘I think I’ll be a Buddhist. I’ve always liked the idea. You just write OD,’ she said helpfully.

The young woman wrote ‘OD’. Think you’re funny, said her expression.

‘Next of kin?’

Isobel was sorry at once that she had made herself conspicuous in the matter of religion. She said, ‘I’m an orphan,’ in a tone which she hoped would discourage questioning.

That was servile. It did not solve her problem, either. The young woman said, ‘Just give me the name of a close relative.’

Isobel paused. Not Aunt Noelene.
Don’t come running to me when you’re in trouble
. Well, this was trouble, all right, so she mustn’t go running. Margaret? She could not remember Margaret’s new surname. Bruce Edgar, son of…no use. She tried to visualise that wedding invitation but could get no further.

‘Look, we need this information for your protection,’ said the young woman. ‘There’s no need for you to be obstructive.’

Of course a parcel must have a return address.

‘I’m sorry. I was trying to think.’

She gave the name ‘Margaret Callaghan’ and the address of Whitefields.

She was indeed sorry. The young woman was softened by her apologetic tone.

‘That’s fine then. I have the date of admission.’

She left, mollified.

A nurse brought a cup of tea and biscuits on a paper plate. She asked if it was true that Isobel had collapsed in the street and been brought in in her clothes.

Isobel said yes.

The nurse asked, ‘How come?’

Isobel shook her head and the nurse went away. Doctor Hansen came in, accompanied by a tall, stately woman of disagreeable aspect.

‘Well, here she is, Matron. We’ve come to talk about the future, if you feel up to it. How are you feeling? I know it’s going to take some time to adjust.’

‘I think I’m relieved, really, to know the enemy’s name.’

Ignorance had not been bliss.

‘That’s the idea. Now that we know the enemy, we can fight it.’

He gave her a genuine smile, which was heartening. Matron had no time for niceties of feeling.

‘You must understand, doctor, that we are not equipped to handle the case here. I must insist…’

‘It won’t be for long, Matron. They’ve rung through from the Clinic that Doctor Stannard will be there on Thursday. They’re getting him to drop in.’ He said as an afterthought to Isobel, ‘Doctor Stannard is the medical superintendent of Mornington Sanatorium. We think that it might be the place for you.’

There were limits to passivity even for a parcel. Was nobody going to ask for her consent to this arrangement? No use protesting, since in reality she had no choice, but it would have been nice to be asked.

Matron said, ‘Are there no beds at the Clinic?’

‘No. It is outpatients only.’ His tone suggested that Matron must know that very well. ‘In any case, I cannot take the responsibility of moving her before Doctor Stannard sees her on Thursday.’

‘I have to go home some time,’ said Isobel. ‘I have to give up my room and pack my things.’

‘Can’t you get a friend to do that for you?’

It was Return to Sender again. No religion, no knickers, no next of kin, no friends.

She shook her head.

Doctor Hansen was looking at Matron.

‘I’ll get Mrs Mills to talk to her.’ He turned to Isobel. ‘Mrs Mills is our social worker. She’ll find a volunteer to look after you. One of our wonderful Pink Ladies. Till Thursday then, Matron. And I shall be wanting to talk about a special diet for her.’

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Matron.

Isobel was beginning to be fond of Doctor Hansen.

‘The best you can do for yourself now,’ he said, ‘is keep quiet, keep warm, eat your food and keep up your spirits. Mrs Mills will be along to see you later. Oh, and a nurse will be along with some tissues. Make sure that you cover your mouth when you cough. That’s about it, I think.’

Isobel nodded and lay back, hoping that there would be no further demands on her attention.

The next visitor was a nurse carrying towels, a box of tissues and a small lidded pan of white enamel. She was wearing a face mask above which she winked at Isobel.

‘Matron’s orders,’ she said in a tone that dismissed them with amused contempt.

She put the tissues and the pan on the bedside table.

‘Cover up each cough and sneeze. Place all used tissues in the receptacle provided. You’re allowed to get up to go to the loo and to have a shower if you feel up to it. If you don’t feel up to it, you can ask for a bed bath, but I wouldn’t if I were you. See how you feel tomorrow, anyhow. I’ll just get your pulse and your temperature and you can settle down till dinner time. You’ve had enough for one day, you poor kid.’

Isobel, sucking obediently at the thermometer and extending her wrist on request, was quite of the same opinion.

She dozed until dinner time. The dinner trolley was wheeled in by another young orderly, less forthcoming than Eric.

‘Doctor says if you can’t manage anything else, eat the icecream. But he wants you to eat the lot.’

She nibbled some ham. It wasn’t so much that she wasn’t hungry. The effort of chewing was just too much. The icecream was a commercial paper tub with a wooden paddle for a spoon. That must be part of the special diet.

To her horror, she began to cry. About the icecream, not about having tuberculosis. It was the small things that affected her most, the humiliation of being helped out of her sweater, the tenderness in Eric’s voice and now a tub of icecream. She would be humiliated enough if anyone saw her crying. What she needed was a visit from Matron. That would be bracing. She mopped her eyes and blew her nose on a tissue, which she put into the enamel pan. Then she finished the icecream. If anyone brought me a toothbrush, I’d break my heart.

There was salt on the tray. She shook some of it into a tissue, thinking she could scrub her teeth with salt on a finger—better than nothing.

However, she didn’t get her teeth cleaned that night. As soon as the young man had taken away the tray, she fell asleep and slept seriously until morning.

*

The hospital woke early. Isobel woke to the sound of trolleys rolling over linoleum and the morning light which came through the large window.

She enquired of her body how it felt. The headache was gone and so were the other pains, even the dagger under the shoulderblade. She was weak, but weakness without pain was a rather enjoyable sensation. She must get up soon and have a shower. It was the familiar problem of accumulating enough strength to perform the task ahead, but how much easier that would be lying comfortably in bed.

She was getting a lot of sympathy she didn’t deserve. People generally expected her to be overcome by the news. They could not know how happy she was to have all horrors assembled under the name of an illness, represented by a baby’s hand-print on her lung. This thing is not I. This thing is visible and can be fought.

What better news could one have, than the hope of a future without madness?

She would do everything they told her, she would eat whatever they gave her, beginning with breakfast.

A new orderly appeared at the door, this time an older man, short, sturdy and grey-haired. He looked to be one of the kind ones.

‘Want a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please. No milk or sugar.’

This time the tea came in a cup.

‘Is it all right for me to use the china?’

‘Special issue. You have your own. No need to take too much notice of her.’ He didn’t have to identify the woman behind the pronoun. ‘We don’t mind looking after you. Keeping the china separate is no trouble.’

Isobel smiled at him and accepted the tea, which came with two biscuits. She would eat them both.

‘Is that right, the police picked you up in the street and got the ambulance?’

She nodded. There was always the same price for kindness.

‘How did that happen?’

‘I live by myself. I ran out of food. I went out to buy some. I don’t,’ she said boldly, ‘really remember much more.’

That would be it from now on. I don’t know. I must have passed out.

He nodded sympathetically and left her to her tea and biscuits.

The story would not cover the absence of knickers but it would do for most occasions.

After breakfast—she managed half the cereal and most of the milk it swam in, being determined to drown that hand-print in milk—she showered, clinging to the chrome bar, and managed to scrub some of the hoarded salt along her teeth. She walked back into the smock and collapsed again. How odd to be inhabiting this flaccid body. It sprawled limp on the bed and she had the greatest trouble in urging it under the covers.

The blonde nurse who had winked at her came in, pulling on a face mask.

‘It’s just while I make the bed, dear. Rules from the TB Clinic this time. That’s when the bugs fly, apparently. Matron’s been on the phone to them, carrying on, asking what measures she should take to protect her staff. Honestly! You don’t want to pay too much attention to Matron. We all think you are marvellous to be so game. Eric said you even raised a laugh when he was wheeling you back. Could be shock, of course. But you’re just as good this morning. Hanged if I could take it like that.’

Meanwhile she had hoisted Isobel’s limp body out of bed, had sat it in the armchair and was making the bed.

How could she explain the relief she felt at learning that this thing had a name and a location, that there were people whose business it was to deal with it? That she was no longer alone in the grip of something she could not understand? That there was even hope for the future? Her troubles were embarrassments only, bodily weakness, lack of knickers and kin; they could not dim her joy.

‘Do you think somebody could get me a toothbrush and some toothpaste?’

The nurse looked startled.

‘Somebody should have thought of that. You’ve set us all on our ears. Real tragedy queen, you are.’