After Purple

by Wendy Perriam

  “Not possible, I’m afraid. There’s hardly room for the helpers, as it is.”

  “Well, can’t I be a helper?”

  He took my hand. “That’s a very lovely thought, Thea. A very holy one, in fact, but I don’t think you’re quite well enough, just yet.”

  “I’ll be well enough by Easter.”

  “I’m sure you will. But I’m afraid all our helpers are already booked by now. It’s quite a business, you know — forms and references and things. But we’re bound to see each other down at the Grotto, or at the Blessing of the Sick, or the processions. Lourdes is a very friendly place. It’s crowded, of course, but every group has banners or badges to distinguish them. The children wear little woollen hats, different colours for all the different groups. You’ll find us, Thea. We’ve got a banner big enough to be seen from the other end of France! Just come over and say hallo. Then you can help a little, unofficially. Even talking to the lads is a tremendous service. Sometimes, they feel no one has time to really bother with them.”

  I didn’t answer. Disabled people make me nervous. I’m always scared they’re judging me or envying me, or may suddenly make a grab at me, or weep or shriek or leak.

  “And I’ll tell you what, Thea.”

  “What?”

  “You and Pat could come up to our house in Lourdes and give us a hand — just sort of casually.”

  “Pat?” I frowned.

  “Your friend. Patricia Jane.”

  “Oh, I see.” I’d already ditched her, especially if Ray was on such familiar terms. My mother would never have stood for Pats.

  “We can always do with an extra pair of hands, even if it’s only washing dishes. That’s holy work, you know.”

  I loathe washing up, but somehow the way he said “holy work” made me burn to be a Schweitzer or a Nightingale, to labour and serve like he did, don a Franciscan’s robe and devote myself to lepers. I would go to Lourdes and become a stretcher-bearer, a brancardier, as they were called. My schoolfriends had shown me photographs of those dedicated, self-sacrificing men who carried the sick and led the blind and were the unofficial gods and saints of Lourdes. I lay back on the pillows. I could see myself walking shoulder to shoulder with Ray, dividing the stretcher’s weight between us.

  “What’s the exact date you’re going?” I asked. I wanted to pin him down, turn fantasy into tidy concrete fact.

  “Easter Saturday. Well, that’s when we arrive. We leave on the Friday on a special coach. Most of the package tours fly from Saturday to Saturday.”

  “So we could arrive on the same day?”

  “Mmmm.” He still didn’t sound too rapturous about it.

  “And I’ll see you in the meantime?”

  “If you want to, Thea, of course. But look, we still haven’t decided about your convalescence.”

  I waved it away. “Where do I find you?” I asked. “I mean, what’s the address of your monastery?”

  “It’s not a monastery.”

  “Well, friary, then, or whatever you call it.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly there at the moment.”

  “You mean, you ran away?”

  He laughed. “No. Look, my girl, I’ve got to go now. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you have my address before you leave. I’ll pop in and see you again tomorrow. OK?”

  “OK,” I said. He was probably stalling. There were always tricks in things. But at least I was his girl again.

  When he’d gone, I masturbated. I felt so excited about Lourdes and my First Communion and my service to the sick, I had to calm down somehow. There was a little icecream left in the second bowl. I daubed it on my fingers and smeared it between my legs. Although it had melted, it still felt cold because I was burning hot down there. I kept remembering the way he’d squeezed my hand and said “holy thought” and “holy work”. I ached to be holy. While I rubbed myself, I thought of lepers and spastics and multiple sclerosis. I came so hard, I cried.

  Sister Aidan popped in later on, to take my tray away. She seemed a bit of a simpleton — only good for carrying trays and washing dishes. She had a wide moon face and white eyelashes. You could always get things out of her when the other nuns clammed up.

  “You know Father Murphy,” I said.

  “Yes, dear.” She was removing half a bread roll from the bed. Out in the world, she’d have been a failure and a fool; safe in the convent, she was the radiant Bride of Christ.

  “Where does he live?”

  “Well, actually he’s living here at the moment.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, in one of the hospital maisonettes. Only for a week or two. He’s normally up at the hostel with his handicapped boys. But they had a little fire there. Nothing serious. But everything got soaked. He said the Fire Brigade made more mess than the fire itself. So while they’re mopping up, we offered him a bed.”

  “Is he living alone?” I asked. If we were going to share the stretchers, then I ought to find out all I could about him.

  “Well, he hasn’t got a housekeeper, if that’s what you mean. He doesn’t really need one. He still has most of his meals up at the hostel. The kitchen part escaped.”

  “Do you think he gets lonely?”

  “Oh no, dear. You’re never lonely with God.” I think she really believed it. She carried God around inside her like a pregnant woman with an embryo. “Anyway, he hasn’t time. He works with those boys seven days a week. And half the nights. They’re terrible cases, some of them. Someone told me he hardly sleeps at all. He’s quite a holy man, I would imagine.”

  I felt excited when she called him holy. The word was a sort of turn-on, like those magazines you see on Soho bookstalls. But instead of naked-breasted slave-girls wearing nothing but their chains, it was saints I saw, in tatty cords and gym shoes.

  “I didn’t know Franciscans were allowed to do work like that. I mean, I thought they wore robes and preached to birds.”

  “Well, he does have rabbits, dear. Now, move those books, I want to tidy you up.”

  “Rabbits?”

  “Yes, up at the hostel. It was his own idea. He thought his boys should have something to look after. A pet of their own, to love. He was up a half-past five the other morning, collecting dandelions. I almost fell over him on my way to the wards.”

  I could see Ray creeping through the dew, praising Sister Dawn and Brother Sun, tugging up handfuls of rabbit fodder, while flocks of birds warbled and followed in his wake. He could well be another St Francis in our midst. I suddenly burned to follow him, to renounce sex and take up sanctity. I could see myself like Mary Magdalene, washing his feet with my tears, drying them on the soft towel of my hair. Sanctity seemed not only safer and more wholesome, it also made sense of suffering. My mouth would no longer be the wrecked result of lust and jealousy, but a Cross to be Borne, a holy martyrdom. St Francis himself had received the Stigmata, the five wounds of Christ imprinted on his hands and feet and side. My swollen head and battered teeth were my own Stigmata, the marks of God’s dazzling hands across my face. Leo hadn’t bashed me, only Christ.

  Even St Bernadette had likened herself to Christ crucified. It all tied up. St Francis was her favourite saint, she was mine, and all of us had suffered in God’s cause. I would rise above my suffering and use it to succour other people’s pain. Ray and I would venture out together and save the world. I shut my eyes and lay back against the pillows.

  “I don’t want my pills,” I murmured. “The pain doesn’t matter any more.”

  “You’ve already had them, dear. Now up you get. I can’t make that bed with you in it. Anyway, Sister Ursula wants you to have a little exercise, stretch your legs and see they haven’t rusted.”

  “No,” I said. I hadn’t time for exercise. I had a Mission now.

  “It’s bad for you to lie here all the time. You’ll be getting bedsores next. Sister said you’re to take a little walk in the hospital grounds.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s cold.”
r />   “Nice fresh air, it’ll do you good. Put some colour in your cheeks.”

  “I don’t want colour in them. Anyway, I can’t go out — I haven’t any clothes.”

  “Yes, you have, dear. Mr Rzevski brought some for you this morning.”

  “Mr Rzevski?”

  “He’s your uncle, isn’t he? A Jew.” She said “Jew” as if it were an illness.

  “Yes,” I said, then “No.” Leo wasn’t either. “You mean he was here this morning? Leo?”

  “Yes, dear. You were sleeping and he said particularly not to wake you. He’s coming back first thing tomorrow morning with a suitcase, and he’ll take you home.”

  “Home?” I stuttered. This was home. I had just decided on my new career, on holiness and lepers. Leo wasn’t holy. I couldn’t renounce sex if I was going back with him, and lepers would be impossible. Leo hated sickness. He believed in euthanasia for anything more serious than ’flu.

  Sister Aidan had eased me out of bed into the chair. “I met your husband yesterday. He’s the fair one, isn’t he? I suppose he’s busy tomorrow.”

  She always got things wrong. Surely Leo hadn’t called this morning. What had he come for? Why hadn’t he left a note? How had he even got there? Had Otto brought him in the car? Had they jeered at me together, while I lay there dozing? Was he angry, dragging all that way and then finding me asleep?

  Sister Aidan hadn’t turned the bed down. I could see I was still banned from it.

  “Didn’t he leave a note?”

  “Who, dear?”

  “My … er … uncle.”

  “No. He seemed to be in a rush. Now, where did they put your clothes?”

  “Sister …”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Let me off. Please. I don’t feel well. I’ll go out later, I promise.”

  “Look, if you’re not well, I’d better call Sister Ursula. She’s the one who …”

  “No. There’s nothing she can do. It’s probably the Stigmata.”

  “What did you say, Thea?”

  “Nothing.”

  While she tidied my locker, I sneaked back into bed. It felt cold inside, like a coffin. Sister Aidan was mumbling to herself, or maybe asking God’s advice. He must have been on my side, because after a tiny pause, she tucked me up and even drew the curtains. “All right, have a little sleep, then, and I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  Thirty minutes later, when she popped her head in, I was achingly awake, but I shammed a cross between a trance and a coma, and she tiptoed off, convinced. It was impossible to sleep. Words like home and holy and Leo and lust were all muddled up and shouting contradictions. How could I go home? I was still in pain, still on pills, still had no front teeth. Anyway, I hadn’t any home, not really. Why hadn’t Leo woken me when he called this morning? Was it just a friendly visit (or a guilty one?), or had he come to say it was all over? Perhaps he’d left a secret letter hidden in my clothes, and stupid Sister Aidan had mislaid them both. It could even have been a love letter, or the apology he couldn’t say in person. “Sorry” shining on the page in his bold black handwriting. Leo always used a fountain pen. He despised biros, like he despised people who landed themselves in hospital and then refused to wake up when he’d made the effort to visit them. Perhaps it wasn’t a love letter at all, but a notice to quit.

  I shivered. I was meant to be convalescing, but you couldn’t convalesce in Notting Hill. Even if I returned there, Leo wouldn’t want some weak and hideous woman draped across his bed. With Ray, it didn’t matter. He seemed to see your inside rather than your outside, but Ray was tied up with rabbits, and even Lourdes and Easter were still thirteen weeks away. I might be dead by then.

  I pretended to be dead. I shut my eyes and kept them shut through tea, and then through prayers and visiting hour. They woke me up for supper, but I pushed the tray away and went on feigning sleep until pills and my late-night drink. I kept thinking last Ovaltine, last supper, last night in my safe white cell. I was terrified of leaving. They’d found my clothes and I’d shaken them out and searched through all the pockets, but all I’d discovered was a bus ticket. I held it up to the light in case it had “sorry” written on it, but all it said was “not transferable”. Even the clothes were wrong — white cotton jeans and a T-shirt, when it was bitter January. At least he’d remembered the sheepskin. I had it snuggled across my hospital counterpane, so that I could imagine Leo was lying there on top of me. I sniffed the edge of it. It smelt of him and me combined. I suddenly felt frightened. Clothes meant a return to the world, to strength and health and jobs and dinner parties. I didn’t want any of those things. I sat up in bed. I’d promised Sister Aidan I’d go out later on. She hadn’t meant this much later, but I couldn’t break a promise, not on my last night. I didn’t fancy getting dressed, so I just pulled the sheepskin over the cleaner’s daughter’s nightie (which had turned out blue with little cap sleeves and ruching), and slunk along the passage, past the bathroom and the dispensary and down the stairs. I knew I was safe enough. There was an Emergency at the other end of the corridor, and all the night staff were fawning on the doctor and scuttling about with syringes and masks. The garden door was bolted, but only from the inside. The bolts were kind. They hardly sighed as I eased them down, but the cold was so cruel, it slashed across my face like a scalpel. It was as if someone had ripped out all my stitches and left my mouth raw and pulped again. My tongue was a trip-wire, my teeth were blood and ice.

  I ran across the lawn, trying to move my sensations lower down, to concentrate only on the damp shivering grass squelching under my feet. They were almost numb as I stumbled on to the path which skirted the row of hospital maisonettes. There were six of them — four in darkness and two with their lights still on — all more or less as ugly as each other, except for the front gardens. Some had gnomes and forced crocuses in whimsy little rockeries, others had crazy paving and bare shrubs. Only one came complete with dandelions, so I guessed that must be Ray’s.

  Staring in at other people’s houses is very demoralising. They have the hearth and the fireside, the steaming Horlicks and the double bed, while you’re shut out in the cold, like a pariah, with only the puddles and the privet hedge, the dog shit and the shivers. A woman from one of the lighted houses got up when she saw me and drew her curtains almost in my face. It was like being slapped or ostracised. The curtains were of cheap, unlined cotton with yellow squiggles on them. I glared at a thousand putrid squiggles which glowered back — and won.

  A man was spying on me from an upstairs window, and a dog howled, sort of hungrily. I’d either have to knock or go away. I turned to go. In front of me, the hospital loomed up again. It was the first time I had seen it from outside. I’d been cooped up like a hermit in one of its smallest rooms, without realising how elegant it was — the sort of building Adrian would have visited with a notebook and a sketch-pad, or local Historical Associations had on their conservation list. It was old and ornate and gracious like a stately home, with tall majestic pillars and a marble portico. No wonder the fees were so high. I was doubly depressed that I couldn’t afford to stay there. I had never before lived anywhere so posh. I tried to locate my room, but all I could see were rows and rows of shuttered blinds and drawn curtains. It was as if they had locked me out. I couldn’t pay, so I had no rights as a patient any longer, that’s what they were saying.

  I turned back to the maisonettes. There, I was equally excluded. I had no trim front garden, no friendly gnome to display my house-name proudly on a placard. The yellow squiggles were still sticking their tongues out at me. I could see blurred shapes passing back and forth in front of them; whole, healthy people with teeth and jobs and children. They even had winter jasmine blooming in their garden. I snapped a piece off. It smelt of cold and nothing. Little drops of water fell from the blossoms and wept between my hands. I crept along the privet hedge to the house with the dandelions, and tiptoed up the path. The front door was brown and flaking, and had a number five
on it which had come loose on its screw and lurched to the right as if it was fainting. The lights had gone off by now, but the curtains downstairs were still undrawn. I peered in through the window and saw a bare, peaky room, almost devoid of furniture. If Ray was living there, then it must be with Lady Poverty. Or perhaps Sister Aidan had got it wrong (again) and he was back at the hostel, tucking up his rabbits.

  I felt like a dead-headed rose or a fallen leaf, brown and tired and broken. “Ask and you shall receive,” I muttered. “Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

  I drew in my breath and knocked.

  Chapter Thirteen

  About half a century passed and I got colder and colder, before I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I wondered if it would be some furious nurse or matron, who’d been up three nights already and was trying to catch up on her sleep, or a man with a ravening Alsatian or even Father Sullivan.

  It was Ray. He came to the door in blue-striped pyjamas and grubby anorak. I almost kissed him. Not just because he wasn’t an Alsatian or a matron, but because we matched — both in our blue nightwear with bare feet and our outdoor coats on top. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and he sort of groped and peered in my direction. I tried to smile. I thought for one sinking moment he was going to ask who I was, or say, “No, thanks, I don’t buy from the door.”

  “I brought you this,” I mumbled, before he could, holding out the jasmine. He took it as if it were very precious and very heavy. I could imagine him holding the host like that in the basilica at Lourdes. Holy.

  “Come on in,” he said. You could worship someone just because they didn’t ask “What are you doing?” or “Why are you wearing your nightdress?” or “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  There was only one chair in the room, which he offered me. He sat on a packing-case beside me, cradling the jasmine as if it were a sleeping child.

  “You’re cold,” he said. “How about a drink?” He sounded as calm as if it were only six pm and he’d invited me in for cocktails.