Dresses of Red and Gold Page 14

  ‘It’s really late now,’ Vivienne said, but the old lady was fast asleep between one rasping word and the next.

  Next morning Doctor Caulfield brought a little gift, a puzzle of two linked nails, but became interested in it himself and sat on the edge of Vivienne’s bed till he’d managed to work it out. The Sister stood by glancing disapprovingly at her watch, but Doctor Caulfield didn’t take any notice. He cheered Vivienne immensely by saying that her tonsils had been the largest ever known to medical science and he’d had to rig up a block and tackle to get the left side one out. Then he went behind the screen, staying in there a long time. His voice was unhurried and gentle, even though the old lady didn’t seem to have the slightest idea who he was. She kept muttering querulously that she had to meet someone and where was her silk shawl with the bird pattern.

  Morning tea arrived, then lunch, and afterwards an enforced nap. Vivienne did the nail puzzle under the bedclothes instead, because Cathy’s library books had proved unreadable after the first few pages. Then she entertained herself by watching the leaves fall outside the annexe window. Some spiralled down to join the window-pane frieze, others drifted out across the lawn, some clung stubbornly to their stalks even when tugged by a strong gust of wind. There seemed to be some unfathomable pattern in the sequence of their falling. Autumn leaves would make beautiful dresses, she thought idly, if they could only be preserved and stitched together. Such garments would be breathtaking—a rich gold and red fabric that would rustle at the wearer’s every movement. Mum would certainly be overjoyed if clothes could be made as cheaply as that. Vivienne felt guilty every time she glanced at the new dressing-gown draped over the back of the chair. There’d been no time to run one up from an old coat or skirt, and it was unthinkable to go to hospital without a dressing-gown. If Nurse Durbach was on Admissions, she probably wouldn’t even let you in the front door without one!

  Cathy came alone at afternoon Visiting Hour, because Mum had some crisis with a broken denture, but Cathy was good company today. She invented a lively game of scribbles, all the drawings having to be connected somehow with hospitals. The old lady in the next bed slept through that episode of giggling silliness and through dinner, too, even though Sister herself went in there and tried to coax her to eat. She slept all through evening Visiting Hour, though Mum, denture repaired temporarily with woodwork glue, overstayed the bell by fifteen minutes to make up for not coming in the afternoon. When she’d gone, the annexe seemed bleak. It would have been nice, Vivienne thought forlornly, to have someone in the next bed who would chat, someone who didn’t just lie there floating in and out of consciousness behind a white screen.

  But later that evening there was a flurry of activity behind the screen. The junior nurse, who’d gone in there to settle the old lady for the night, came out again and fetched Sister, who summoned young Doctor MacNeill. Isobel, Vivienne thought, would be very disappointed to know that she’d missed him. She tried not to listen to the conversation, which wasn’t meant for her ears, anyway, for Sister’s voice, which could normally carry the whole length of a corridor, was confined to a whisper. Vivienne caught fragments of it while piecing together the lurid sunset of a jigsaw puzzle which Danny O’Keefe, astoundingly, had given Mum to bring to her in hospital.

  ‘Doctor Caulfield’s been called out to one of the farms, so…No relatives, poor old soul…up and down, rallying one minute and…Doctor Caulfield’s had her on…very little more we can do for the moment…not really much point trying to…’

  Doctor MacNeill came out again and smiled with such breezy charm at Vivienne that she almost forswore her loyalty, but then he ruined it all by saying in passing, ‘How are things going, young Jeanette—how’s the poor leg?’

  Sister turned off the annexe light after confiscating the jigsaw puzzle and tucking the blankets in so firmly that Vivienne felt like a herring being sealed into a tin. She lay awake listening to the eleven o’clock staff change, with Nurse Durbach beginning a stint of night shift and apparently throwing her weight about as soon as Sister left. There seemed to be more torch rounds than usual, and Vivienne wished she could give up all attempts at sleep and read instead. The gentle illumination from the outside garden light was too faint for that, but it was pointless to ask Nurse Durbach if she could turn the bedside light on in the middle of the night. She lay awake listening to the small, subdued sounds of the hospital. The nurses were making themselves supper in the little room down the corridor. Each time the swing door opened, she could hear the chink of cups and snippets of their talk.

  ‘Sister said Miss Bradtke’s got to be checked every half-hour, and ring through to the nurses’ home if…’

  ‘Did you remember to check up about that duodenal having…’

  ‘Don’t look at me, Arnold was supposed to…’

  ‘Oh, who’s the dill put this biscuit-tin lid on so tight—can’t even budge the damn thing!’

  ‘Durbach—she had a proper clean-up in here, reckoned it was a pigsty. A whole month of her we’ve got, God help us…’

  There was another faint conversation taking place nearby, but Vivienne, eavesdropping on the nurses from a distance, didn’t at first realise that the old lady was awake and talking to herself. The words had long spaces between them, as though they were being dredged up from underwater, like shells or pearls. Vivienne wondered if she should press the buzzer; everyone had seemed concerned about that old lady earlier on, but how stupid she’d look if everything was perfectly all right and she’d called for nothing. Nurse Durbach would think her a nosey little pest, interfering in hospital business.

  ‘Houseboat. Mountains. Reflected in the…in the lake. Flowers. When…when we get there we’ll…’

  Vivienne got up reluctantly and looked around the screen. ‘Can’t you sleep, either?’ she asked, but received no answer. The old lady’s eyes were shut and her hands plucked at the bedspread as though searching for something. Vivienne edged around the screen and tried to tuck those hands back under the covers, but found her own grasped. It seemed rude to draw back, even though the grasp was so weak it felt as though a butterfly had settled lightly on her wrist.

  ‘India,’ said the old lady.

  ‘That’s a long way away.’

  ‘A long road. A long old rocky walk it’s been…Tired…’

  ‘You won’t have to walk anywhere for a while,’ Vivienne said. ‘All you’ve got to do is stay in bed and let things heal in their own good time. Like they just about always do one way or another.’

  ‘Dancing by the river. Such dark eyes…’

  Vivienne, trying to stabilise the conversation, shared her idea of how you could perhaps make dresses from autumn leaves if only someone could think of a way to preserve them, but she didn’t think the old lady heard.

  ‘He said…Train. Next time he came we’d take…’

  ‘Maybe I’d better ring for the nurse,’ Vivienne said hastily, not wishing to be responsible for someone who kept drifting away to some other time and place. It was like having to keep an eye on a boat that had cast its mooring, she thought. Just like the time she’d stood by the riverbank and watched helplessly as Cathy’s little boat floated down towards the ferry-crossing. The rumpus Cathy had made afterwards—and it hadn’t even mattered, anyhow, for the boat had just drifted a short way downstream and come to rest, unharmed, in a quiet bend of the river.

  ‘My sister got this tiny little boat for her birthday,’ she said brightly, trying to moor the old lady’s restlessness with words. ‘Dad found it in the shed and fixed it up as a surprise. It’s lovely, all painted blue. Heather and Cathy go out fishing in it, only I have to sit on the bank and watch because I can’t swim properly yet.’

  ‘Such dark eyes. Velvet…’

  Vivienne fidgeted, needing desperately to go to the bathroom, but not liking to take her hand away. The old lady’s voice was getting smaller and dimmer, like a lantern being carried away up a hill. Perhaps she’d stop meandering soon and go back to sleep
. Vivienne yawned, listening to the hospital noises, which suddenly seemed to have changed tempo and grown busier. Someone came hurrying up the corridor from the maternity ward and whispered sharply, ‘I don’t care! Tell Durbach she’s got to come herself, not just send us down that stupid junior! Sylvester’s run off her feet trying to cope, and…What the heck do you think we’ve been doing, woman—playing hopscotch? No one’s even answering at his place, so Syl rang…’ Doors swished open and shut and someone wheeled a trolley at speed the whole length of the corridor. Vivienne detached her hand and went to the door to listen for a while.

  ‘I think someone might be having a baby, and they’re having trouble,’ she said importantly over her shoulder. ‘They’re all rushing around like mad down there! There’s a car coming up the hill, too, sounds like Doctor Caulfield’s rattly old thing…but I guess he’s used to being woken up all hours.’

  The old lady didn’t answer. Vivienne suddenly had a craving for a hot drink of some kind to sip luxuriously in bed. It would be thoughtless to press the buzzer and ask while everyone seemed so busy with that emergency down in the maternity ward, but perhaps no one would mind if she went into the little corridor room and made it herself. She’d noticed other patients do that, stroll in there and make themselves cups of tea and Milo. Perhaps the old lady in the next bed would like one, too, it might help her rest soundly through what was left of the night.

  She went behind the screen, but the old lady had already fallen asleep, one arm dangling over the side of the bed. Vivienne began to tuck it gently back under the bedspread, then halted. She took one frightened step backwards, and stood very still, gripping the edge of the screen.

  Someone…I’d better ring for someone, she thought. But if they’re all down that other end, they mightn’t hear! Better go along the corridor and call those nurses, even though they’re so busy…tell them that one of the patients…that she’s…

  Suddenly she wanted Mum so badly she thought she would run out of the annexe, across the lawn carpeted in leaves and down the hill towards home, run away from the fear that was swamping her now. A deserted road at night, all in darkness, was nothing compared to standing here quite alone, with a person who’d just…But after that quick instinctive step backwards, she couldn’t make her feet obey her. They anchored her to the floor, forced her to stand there staring dazedly, staring at the bed.

  Vivienne became aware of something strange. The old lady, although she still lay there, in some mysterious fashion had gone completely away. She simply wasn’t there at all, but appeared to have slipped very quietly and gently out of the room. Whatever lay there didn’t really seem to have anything to do with her at all. It was just like…like a shawl, Vivienne thought, astonished, an article of clothing finished with and left behind because it was no longer needed.

  I should call someone, she thought more calmly, emerging from her terror like a diver coming up for air. Nurse Durbach, she’s in charge when Sister’s not around…

  But in the quiet room, with the last of the leaves whispering down to settle on the window ledge, she thought that perhaps there was no great urgency. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any need whatsoever for Nurse Durbach with all her hurry and rush, no urgency at all.

  Moving On

  The ghastliness of having to share a room again, even for three nights, with irritating little sisters! Heather thought, trying to find space for her clothes. She scooped an armful of unidentifiable cardboard oblongs from the top drawer and hurled them through the door at Cathy, who said indignantly, ‘Watch it—that happens to be my Welcome Home banner for Grace. I was just about to pin it up out the front.’

  ‘Hypocrite—I seem to remember you wanted to make a Good Riddance one when she left! And you’re only hanging that up because you think she’ll be bringing you back a present from the city,’ Heather scoffed and went stomping out to the kitchen, where Mum, wearing the blouse that made her look like a large floral clock, was basting a roast.

  ‘I was thinking—maybe I should whip up a batch of Yorkshire pudding just in case,’ Mum said. ‘Men never think a roast is a proper one unless there’s Yorkshire pudding to go with it—but then again, Grace never said anything in her letter about inviting Anthony Robinson in for tea. Just that he’d offered to meet her train and give her a lift home. What a nice, thoughtful young man…’

  ‘Probably had no choice,’ Heather said indifferently. ‘Grace most likely ordered him to, she always did treat him like something squishy she’d just trodden in. Fancy her having an old flame—even if it’s just Anthony Robinson with his big curly ears. Forget about the Yorkshire pudding, he’ll have picked her up by now and they’ll be on their way.’

  ‘Oh dear, I wish Grace had said. It’s such a tiny roast, too, barely enough for all you girls, and a wicked extravagance at that. Maybe if I cut all the potatoes in half and made extra gravy…’

  ‘Mum, stop fussing! He’s not likely to even want to come in, anyhow, after twenty minutes of Grace’s company in the car. Bossy stuck-up hag she is, I can’t understand why he’s still interested. You’d think he’d have found someone else since she went off to the city.’

  ‘That’s not a very nice way to talk about your own sister, Heather. And another thing—I hope you shifted all your things out of her room like you were told to.’

  ‘Yes I did—and it’s not even fair! Expecting me to be inconvenienced just because Her Highness decided to come home for a few days! Having to muck in with Cathy and Viv—and muck’s exactly the right word, too! You should see all the apple cores under Cathy’s bed! I can’t believe how revolting it’s got since Aunt Ivy made her clean it out last month. It’s just not fair that Grace…’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your grizzling, young lady. You’re doing far too much of it lately for my liking. That room’s only been on loan and you’ll have to give it back, anyway, when Grace finishes her dressmaking course and comes home for good…wherever we happen to be living then,’ Mum said, suddenly looking very unfestive in spite of the cheerful blouse.

  Heather, too cross to lend a sympathetic ear to that particular problem, took herself off to the veranda, wanting, for devious reasons of her own, to be the first person to see Grace arrive. She planned to nod coolly, say ‘Oh…hello, I forgot it was today you were coming’, then stroll away inside and put her nose in a book for the rest of the evening. But Vivienne and Cathy, perched on the gateposts with the banner held between them, had already set up a wild yell of welcome as Anthony Robinson’s Austin came over the hill. Mum came rushing outside, bright-eyed with emotion, and instantly forgot all about Anthony being invited for tea or not. When she finished hugging Grace and did remember, he’d already put the suitcase on the veranda and taken himself shyly off.

  ‘Oh, you’ve lost weight, love, you’re thin as a rake! I bet you haven’t been eating properly in the city,’ Mum said, gazing besottedly at Grace as though something might spirit her away before she was safely inside and sitting down at the table. Heather, who had spent much time lately despairing over her own puppy fat, eyed Grace’s trim waistline with jealousy. She’d forgotten how elegant Grace could look, even on limited means, how she could somehow make you feel as though you hadn’t brushed your hair for a week, or had a spot on your chin even though you knew there wasn’t one there at all.

  ‘What did you bring us?’ Cathy demanded. ‘Can we have our presents right now?’

  ‘Cathy, that’s very greedy and rude! Leave your poor sister alone until she’s had something to eat,’ scolded Mum, who believed that any train trip was a daunting ordeal and travellers should be nurtured immediately afterwards.

  ‘I’ll get changed first,’ Grace said. ‘This jacket took ten years off my life to make and I don’t want to get marks on it. But they can come and watch me unpack if they like.’

  Heather hesitated, then followed at a distance, because that invitation was of the patronising variety people were inclined to toss at children. But she wa
sn’t a child any longer—surely Grace had noticed how mature she’d become in the past five months? She’d experienced things—secretly examined all the illustrations in the Home Medical Journal Mum kept hidden in the sideboard, sneaked off with Isobel to see a travelling-tent performance called ‘Murphy’s Follies’, even though everyone thought she’d gone to a special Guide meeting…And this year she’d been to the Show with a boy—even if it was only that galoot Dennis Stivens whose hobby was still making balsa wood aeroplanes! Five months was a long time, long enough for a considerable shifting of position to have taken place within a family. No one could possibly include her in the same category as Viv and Cathy any longer! She hovered aloofly in the doorway, hoping that Grace would look up from unpacking and say, ‘I can’t really expect you to move back out with the little kids just because of me, Heather. How about bringing a mattress in here, then we can have a good old gossip tonight?’

  ‘What’s all this arty stuff in your port—sketch-books and paints and pencils?’ Cathy asked. ‘If that’s supposed to be my present, you’re going to get it slung right back at you for Christmas!’

  ‘Don’t touch! They’re mine, I’ve enrolled in an art class as well as that dressmaking thing,’ Grace said, quickly retrieving the sketch-pad before anyone could look inside, but Cathy’s attention, flighty at the best of times, was already riveted upon something else.

  ‘Where’d you get that silver charm bracelet?’ she asked. ‘You never had that when you went away…’

  ‘It was a birthday present. Anthony Robinson sent it to me.’

  ‘Sent you a real silver charm bracelet with a heart dangling from it?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he?’ Grace said equably, and distributed her own gifts brought from the city. Heather felt vaguely dissatisfied with the writing-folder she’d been given, because Grace had bought identical ones for Cathy and Vivienne. It was as though she’d seen a display of them in some shop and thought, ‘Aha, just the thing to take home for the children!’