A Hospital Summer Read online

‘‘Is it really?’ I was astonished. ‘I’ve lost all account of time. I thought we were still in early July.’

  ‘Time always stands still on nights. How’s Joe?’

  ‘Well may you ask! I don’t know. He hasn’t written. So much for Joe’s promises.’

  ‘He hasn’t written?’ She sounded aghast. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true. Not one word have I had. I’m feeling good and narked.’

  ‘Are you now? That’s interesting.’

  ‘Why?’ I demanded, more sharply than I could have wished. I was very hurt that Joe had not written, but I did not want to admit that.

  ‘The effect of absence is always interesting.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me it makes the heart grow fonder? Spare me that, Mary, please. Leave it to Madam.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say something else. Speak French?’

  ‘You know I can only discuss the aeroplane of my uncle the dive-bomber.’

  ‘Sorry. I forgot. They’ve got a saying ‒’

  ‘They always have!’ I interrupted rudely.

  She told me to pipe down, please. ‘This one’s quite good. Roughly, they say absence affects love, like a wind affects a flame. It blows out the little ones and blows up the big ones. What do you think of that?’

  ‘My mother doesn’t let me use the word.’

  She laughed. ‘You are cross, Clare. I’ve never known you cross before. You must be in love.’

  ‘You’ve got love on the brain. I’m just on nights. That makes me unfit for human companionship in the daytime. I must rush now, Mary, as supper’s ready and Madam’ll flap if I’m late. I’ll ring you some other time.’

  ‘Do that. And don’t be too cross with Joe. There is a war on, remember?’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ I said wearily. I did not want to talk any more about Joe. I felt thoroughly bad-tempered, and I stormed into the dining-room wishing that I had held to my original opinion of him. First thoughts, I decided, helping myself to tea, were always right. In future I would pay attention to them.

  I was fuming over my third cup of tea when Madam came into the dining-room. ‘Dillon here? Dillon, m’dear, telephone. Bustle along, it’s a trunk call.’

  I raced back to the telephone room, and felt a cold hand clutch at my stomach. I was sure it was my mother with news about Luke or Charles. I had been too annoyed with Joe lately to remember to worry about the boys. I should have remembered I had real worries from which habit had only removed the edge, and not wasted so much time looking for letters that had never come. I picked up the receiver, quite convinced of my caller’s identity: ‘Hallo, Mother darling. Clare here.’

  ‘Clare?’ It was Joe’s voice. ‘I’m sorry I’m not your mother. How are you?’

  ‘Joe!’ I leant against the wall. ‘You gave me such a shock. What are you doing?’

  ‘Ringing you up.’

  ‘I know that! Why? To say good-bye for ever again?’

  There was a faint silence. Then, ‘Yes ‒ and ‒ no. I’ve got news for you. It seems the War can get on without me. I’ve worked my ticket. Just thought I’d let you know why I won’t be writing from foreign parts.’

  ‘You’ve done ‒ WHAT?’

  ‘Dr Slaney,’ he answered calmly, ‘as from this afternoon.’

  ‘Joe. Stop fooling. What is all this?’

  ‘Not fooling at all. It’s quite true. I’m out. Bowler hat and all.’

  ‘But, Joe ‒ why? You can’t leave the Army. No one can. We’re in it for the duration.’

  ‘Not Slaney. I’ve been sacked. Maybe it’s because I lack moral fibre! You’d agree to that, surely?’

  I frowned at the wall. ‘I’d agree to shaking you if you were within reach. Will you just be sensible for one minute and explain why you’re out of hospital?’

  ‘I didn’t say I was out of hospital. On the contrary. I just said’ ‒ his voice sounded queer ‒ ‘I was out of a job.’

  ‘But you have to be having a baby or have something like T.B. to get chucked out?’

  He laughed. ‘Bright girl. You’re catching on at last. For the record ‒ I am not having a baby.’

  Slowly I understood. ‘That cough of yours ‒ and your always looking so tired ‒ is that why?’

  ‘That’s why. Some chap decided he didn’t like the look of my unfortunate self, and insisted I had another medical. After that they handed me my ticket. Too easy.’

  ‘Joe, I really am sorry. Very sorry. How are you? Where are you? What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m at the end of a telephone. In a hospital. Somewhere. It seems as I’ve to stay in this hospital for the odd year or so. The chaps have been very decent. They aren’t pitching me clean out into the cold, cold world, but into a nice clean sanatorium. I got down here this afternoon after my final Board. Even had an ambulance to myself. There’s luxury for you.’

  I said, ‘I’m glad they’ve been nice, and I’m glad you’re being looked after ‒ but where are you?’

  ‘I’m around. I only rang you to tell you the score, because I didn’t want you thinking I was just shooting off my big mouth about loving you and then standing you up. I meant what I said, Clare, but I’d be obliged if you’d forget it. The incident is open and closed. I couldn’t have been more accurate when I said I was speaking out of turn. I certainly was. Trust Slaney to jump the gun.’

  ‘What do you mean? You must tell me where you are. I’ll come and see you ‒ or something. I’d love to write. You can’t just vanish.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ he replied soberly. ‘I think I can. You’re a nice girl, Clare; I’m not going to have you being nice to me. I’m fussy about my fine bugs; I’m going to keep them to myself. I’ll see you around sometime, when I’m on my two feet.’

  ‘Joe ‒ do stop being heroic! I’ve no patience with heroes! I never heard such nonsense in all my life! You can’t just ring me up and tell me news like this and then disappear into thin air! How about your family? Are you going to be near them? Can’t they fix that for you?’

  ‘Sure, sure. They’ll just order a special hospital ship to take yours truly across the Irish Sea. Don’t be a moron, girl! Why the devil would I want to go back to Belfast on a stretcher? I’m not going to have my mother or anyone else spending all her spare time visiting my sick-bed. I’ve seen enough of relatives hanging round sick-beds. It’s hell for the poor bastards. I’m not having any of that, believe you me. And don’t tell me you’re not one of my relatives ‒ I know that. And I know what I’m doing. Damn you, Clare!’ He was now as worked-up as I was. ‘I only rang you to explain why I wouldn’t be writing! I don’t want you weeping and wailing over me!’

  ‘I’ve no intention of weeping and wailing over you! I’m just being civilized. If Mary, or Agatha, or any friend of mine got tubercle I’d do the same. I’d want to go and visit them if I could ‒ bring ’em fruit and flowers and have a gossip.’

  He said he loathed fruit and abhorred flowers. ‘The gossip can keep. It can go into cold storage with a lot of other things?’

  ‘Until ‒ when?’

  ‘And how would I know? Whoever heard of anyone telling a patient anything? This year, next year, some time, never. It’ll be in the book.’

  ‘Which book?’ I asked idiotically, my mind now being occupied with the full realization of what he was saying. He did not answer me immediately; he seemed to be having a conversation with someone his end. I heard him say, ‘I’ll do that, Sister. Thanks for lending me your office.’ Then his voice was more clear. ‘What’s that you said, Clare?’

  ‘I said ‒ which book?’

  ‘Oh, hell, darling! The book-from-which-there-is-no-rubbing-out. What other book would I mean? I have to stop now, they want the ’phone. Cheers, girl. I’m glad we met. Take care of yourself on that bike of yours. The rate you go one day you’ll bump yourself off for sure. And that’s all I have to say.’ There was a faint click as he rang off.

  I jiggled the telepho
ne furiously. ‘Exchange? Can you tell me where that call came from, please?’

  ‘Sorry, miss. We don’t keep a check on incoming calls. I can only tell you it was a trunk. That any help?’

  ‘Not much. Thanks all the same.’ I replaced the instrument thoughtfully. I wondered how much Joe had left unsaid, not about myself, but about his illness. How badly had he got it? I remembered the men in the Acute Medical Block. Three-quarters of those men had been tubercle patients when I worked there. Joe had sounded quite normal; they often sounded perfectly normal, even when they were moribund.

  The ill-temper and depression from which I had suffered all evening vanished. I was suddenly wildly angry. I cursed aloud the silent telephone, the exchange, Joe, the War, and all men for being so downright childish. I used all the foul language I learnt, not from the troops, but from the M.O.s and my fellow-V.A.D.s. I discovered cursing did not relieve my feelings at all.

  When I went on duty that night my anger remained white-hot. I was desperately sorry for Joe despite that anger, but his ostrich policy inflamed me more with each passing minute. What good did he think he was doing himself? He knew, far better than I, how important a boosted morale is to all patients, particularly to anyone suffering from a long, lingering illness like his. He was going to need every available ally; and he thought he could fight alone. Dimly I could grasp why he was acting in this way; I understood because of my brothers. I knew that in most young men there was a hidden Galahad who could on occasions come to the surface and make a man behave in a highly chivalrous and utterly impractical manner. Joe planned to fade gracefully from my life since he was now technically a burden, without stopping to ask whether I wanted any part of that burden. In fairness I had reluctantly to admit that he could have no notion that I did; but I refused to be placated. His cloak and dagger act was maddening, and going to be a waste of time, since I intended to pull every string and ask questions, if necessary of every M.O. and Q.A. in the hospital. Someone here was bound to have some friend on the staff of the hospital in which Joe had been boarded. Failing that, there was Mary, who had dozens of Army connections; and if he was in a civilian hospital Uncle Michael might be able to help. My father had had ex-colleagues from Matthew and Mark’s in practically every large hospital in the country. Someone would be able to track down exactly where Joe was for me, but it was going to take so much time, and time was something I had not got. The nights in Families were always busy, and in the day I was too sleepy to do more than climb the stairs to my attic and fall asleep. Agnes always had to shake me to life in the evening; if she did not do that I would simply sleep on.

  I cursed round the kitchen, slamming on saucepans and kettles, ignoring the cockroaches unless they dared get under my feet. The unfortunate insects who proved daring were destroyed ruthlessly. For once the disgusting crackling sound left me unmoved. Miss Best came in for her tray. ‘You seem to be having a field day, Dillon. What’s all the noise about? By the sound of it you’re having a private air-raid in here.’

  ‘Sorry, Sister.’ I dumped the heavy urn on the gas, spilling some of the water on my apron. ‘Oh, blast! Sorry.’ I apologized again. ‘I’m in a flaming temper. I didn’t realize I was making such a noise.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ She set her tray. ‘Didn’t you sleep to-day?’

  ‘Like a top, thanks. No. It’s something that’s cropped up this evening’ ‒ and as I had to put my Fifth Column into action some time, I told her about Joe. ‘Have you ever heard anything so idiotic, Sister?’

  ‘Illness often makes young men want to act like heroes at the outset. They don’t appreciate the difficulties their heroics can make for themselves and other people. You get this sort of thing in the wards; a man swears blind he’s not in pain ‒ as if you can’t recognize when anyone’s in pain! But no. He’ll grit his teeth and hang on, feeling very brave, and all that happens is that finally you have to give him twice as much dope to knock out the pain, it takes twice as long to have effect, and gives all concerned twice as much work. And this young man of yours is an M.O.? He would be. Doctors always make the most difficult patients.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve heard that.’ I let her qualification pass. People would be more disposed to help me if Joe was officially considered my young man.

  ‘Was he ever stationed here? Do I know him?’

  ‘I expect so, Sister. Joe Slaney.’

  ‘Joe Slaney’s got tubercle! Dillon, I am sorry! But now I come to think it over ‒ I’m not surprised. Poor man. No wonder he’s been walking round looking like death these last few months. I wonder if he guessed he had it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I remembered that afternoon he had fainted, and how he had insisted that I ignore his faint afterwards; I remembered how exhausted he often looked, and his leisurely air that had once irritated me. A man saving his strength would move as Joe had moved. Above all, I remembered the way he never touched me; that last evening in his car he had sat as far away from me as he could, and when he had coughed he had leant out of the window. ‘I don’t know. I think he may have had a hunch.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ She looked at me. ‘I’m remembering something Sister Theatre once said about Slaney’s passion for wearing two masks in the theatre. I expect he wanted to be on the safe side ‒ just in case. Of course, it’s so easy to be wise now, but someone should have insisted on his chest being screened before. Only I suppose everyone’s been too busy these last few months to bother to notice the M.O.s. It’s rotten luck for him. And so you’re the girl he was keen on? We knew he was keen on someone, but not whom. How long has this been going on between you?’

  ‘Not long. Sister, where do you think he had his Board? Millbank?’

  ‘Possibly. Could be elsewhere. He didn’t even tell you that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, of course, you want to know where he is to be able to visit him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not frightened of picking up his bugs?’

  ‘Not after working in the A.M. Block.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She lifted her tray-load of cups. ‘I’ve got a friend at Millbank. A girl I trained with. Like me to ask her if she knows anything about Slaney?’

  ‘Would you, Sister? Thanks.’

  ‘I will. We’ll ask Sister Mackenzie, too. Perhaps she can get something out of Major Scott when he does his night rounds. But there’s just one point.’ She stopped in the doorway and turned to look at me. ‘Forgive my asking this, Dillon, but are you certain you want to find where he is, and visit him? If you do manage that you’re going to give him ideas. A man in a hospital bed has plenty of time for thinking and hoping; he’s also the easiest person in the world to lead up the garden path. I have no brief for young women who do that kind of thing; it’s not fair to raise a man’s hopes just because you feel sorry for him and fancy yourself as a visitor of the sick. Pity is not enough to offer a man who’s fond of you; it can only hurt instead of help. Are you quite certain this desire to find him is not something that’s been born out of the heat of the moment?’

  I thought this over. ‘It has come to me in the heat of the moment, Sister,’ I said at last, ‘but I am quite sure that it’s what I want to do.’

  Her smile was extraordinarily kind. ‘Then we’d best find Slaney for you. I think your news will do his chest a power of good. We’ll talk to Sister Mackenzie about it at supper.’

  Chapter Eight

  BABIES, BOMBS AND COCKROACHES

  Miss Mackenzie knelt on the hearth as she toasted the bread of our scrambled eggs. ‘The man who really could give us the answer is Tommy Lomax.’ She removed a piece of toast from the end of the long fork and substituted for it a piece of bread. ‘You know whom I mean, Best? “Lungs” Lomax; the great Sir Thomas. He’s a nice man for all that, and we think he knows more about chests than anyone in the country. I’m almost certain he’s at Millbank; I know he was there. He’s been in the Army since February. He may even have seen Joe Slaney yesterday.’ Miss
Best asked the question I did not like to ask.

  ‘That’s all very fine, Mac, but how does Dillon contact your Sir Thomas? She can hardly write to him out of the blue. Surely there’s someone lower down the scale whom we can tackle?’

  Miss Mackenzie said she had not expected me to write to Sir Thomas Lomax. ‘I was thinking of that friend of yours, Best. She’s on the spot. She could ask someone to ask old Tommy, or ask him herself. He’s a very approachable man, and not at all like a pundit.’ She wrinkled her smooth forehead. ‘I don’t believe I know one woman up there now. Everyone I know has gone overseas. But perhaps we won’t have to go to such lengths; Major Scott may know all about it. He’s very late for his round, but I’ll try and ask him when he comes. If he hasn’t heard tonight he may hear in a day or two. These things always get round the inter-hospital grape-vine.’ She handed another piece of toast to Miss Best, who was now presiding over the butter. ‘Are the eggs coming along, Dillon? Toast’s finished.’

  ‘Be ready in a few seconds, Sister.’ I removed the saucepan from the fire and beat the eggs furiously. ‘They’re setting now.’

  Miss Mackenzie pushed three chairs round the fire as I dished up the eggs. We always ate our midnight meal in the small office on the second floor, since we were unanimous in our dislike of sharing a meal with the cockroaches.

  ‘I do enjoy this eating in peace,’ said Best, settling down with a tray on her lap. ‘You’ve brought us quiet nights, Dillon. We’ve not had one baby, or one bomb, to disturb our supper since you came on nights.’

  Miss Mackenzie rolled her eyes. ‘My dear Best ‒ what a thing to say! I’ll probably have twins at least before I’ve finished half my eggs.’

  ‘Are you expecting any babies to-night, Sister?’ I asked. ‘Could I have the salt, please?’

  ‘I’ve got two who might come off, but I don’t really expect they will until morning, so long as we don’t have a raid. Nothing like a raid for bringing on a baby. Is there any pepper?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Sister. The pepper tin was empty. I couldn’t find any in the cupboard, but if you like I’ll go down and have another look.’