In the Light of What We See

by Sarah Painter

  ‘Sister Atkinson says, “More haste, less speed”,’ Barnes said, turning her bovine face briefly to Grace.

  At once, she had the wild urge to say something shocking, something Evie-like. ‘Sister Atkinson can jump off the roof for all I care.’

  Barnes snorted and turned back to her task, washing up glass measuring flasks like a woman possessed.

  Grace went to the sink on the opposite wall and began rinsing down the pans. The impossible list of jobs marched through her mind. She’d changed the sheets and remade all of the beds but she still had to finish the pans, tidy the linen, polish the castors on the beds and get the morning drinks done, and all before eleven.

  ‘Oh!’ Barnes let out a little cry. ‘Damn and blast.’

  Grace left her pans and turned to her. Barnes never swore. She was one of those wholesome girls, ruddy and outdoorsy. Grace sometimes pictured her in a farmhouse kitchen with a lamb tucked into her apron pocket and a mixing bowl in her hands. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Barnes lifted her hands out of the water and revealed a broken beaker. ‘The glass will be everywhere now. What will I do?’

  Grace was shocked to see that Barnes had gone pale. Her mouth quivered as if she might cry.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Grace said, in as bright a tone as she could manage. ‘We can sort this out in a jiffy.’ Grace carefully put her hand into the sink and found the plug. She rescued as many beakers as she could while the water whirled away. After a moment, Barnes helped and they soon had a draining board full of beakers and a sink with some shards of glass and a few bubbles in it.

  ‘Shall I get some newspaper?’ Grace said.

  ‘No time.’ Barnes began gingerly picking the glass out. ‘I’m behind already. I’ll never get done and now this. Sister is going to kill me.’

  To Grace’s complete astonishment, Barnes stopped picking up pieces of glass and slid her back down the cabinet to sit on the floor. ‘I can’t do it. I’m a terrible mess and Matron will send me home.’ She wasn’t crying loudly but the tears were simply pouring and, soon, her nose was even redder than her cheeks and her eyes were swollen.

  Grace crouched down and patted her shoulder. ‘Come on, now. It’s not that bad. We’re all really busy; we’re all getting things wrong . . .’ What had started as something meant to be comforting had given Grace a lump in her own throat. She felt a prickling in her eyes and blinked rapidly. Now was not the time to dissolve. Barnes needed her. Besides, if Grace didn’t get her mopped up and off the floor, Sister would catch them sitting down on shift and they’d both be on the rug.

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ Barnes said between sniffs. ‘You’re a natural.’

  Grace opened her mouth in astonishment. ‘I most certainly am not,’ she said, finally. ‘I haven’t a clue most of the time.’

  Barnes produced an enormous handkerchief and mopped her face. The tears seemed to have stopped as suddenly as they’d started and Barnes just looked wrung out now, as if the storm of weeping had drained her. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, so quietly that Grace almost didn’t hear her.

  ‘Believe what you like,’ Grace said, ‘but I’ve never been so exhausted in all my life. Sometimes I think I’m going to drop down dead from it all. And I’m frightened all the time.’

  ‘What of?’ Barnes was looking decidedly perkier. The news that Grace felt awful was obviously cheering.

  Grace looked at her own hands. ‘That I’ll get something serious wrong and I’ll hurt a patient.’

  ‘Little chance of that, we don’t get to do anything medical.’ Barnes voiced the regular grumble of the juniors.

  ‘Yes, well, that doesn’t stop me from fretting about it,’ Grace said. ‘And I worry that I’ll get a hundred little things wrong and Matron will get fed up of shouting at me and just send me home.’

  ‘That’s what I worry about!’ Barnes spoke as though this was miraculous and entirely new information, as if she herself hadn’t voiced the very same fear just a few minutes ago. Grace felt a surge of protectiveness towards her. Barnes barrelled around the place like a bull in a china shop and looked so sturdy and strong that everyone assumed she had a thick hide to match. Maybe that wasn’t true after all.

  ‘Come on.’ Grace stood and took hold of Barnes’s hands, hauling her upright. ‘We’ll be all right. We’ll look out for each other.’

  ‘What about this?’ Barnes looked mournfully into the sink.

  Grace took the lid off the bin and rummaged until she found some old socks which Sister had declared too disgusting and holey even for mending. She held them out and Barnes wrapped the shards. They buried them at the bottom of the bin and got back to work.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul,’ Barnes said, glancing at the top of the bin. ‘Even if Matron calls me in.’

  Grace wondered if she’d forgotten that she’d been the one to break the glass in the first place. She crossed her heart, though, and nodded in a conspiratorial fashion.

  ‘Nurse Kemp.’ Sister Atkinson’s voice could have peeled paint and for a terrifying moment Grace thought that Barnes and she had been heard talking. She felt every muscle in her body tense and turned to face the ward sister.

  ‘Billy has gone downstairs,’ she said, her tone softening slightly. ‘I thought you might like to visit.’

  Grace tried to process the words. Was Sister trying to tell her that Billy had died? He’d been doing so well, the paralysis in his legs had begun to wear off and word on the ward was that the worst of the polio had passed.

  ‘He’s been asking for you,’ Sister said, peering over the top of her spectacles. ‘You may go at quarter to four if you’ve completed all of your tasks.’

  Once she had walked away, Barnes shook her head. ‘Time off to visit a sick kid? I don’t believe it. Sister’s lost her mind.’

  Grace wanted to explain that Billy was special – all of the nurses on the ward adored his good manners and kind nature – but she couldn’t speak. Downstairs was where the hospital’s new iron lung was kept; it meant his paralysis had grown worse. That his improvement had been a respite, not a recovery.

  Barnes patted her arm. ‘Cheer up. I’ll give you a hand with the tea trolley.’

  The iron lung had its own room and it was very warm in comparison with the frigid corridor. There was a fire burning in the grate and the contrast between the homely sight of those orange flames and the cold grey metal tube was stark and strange.

  Billy’s head looked painfully small protruding from the massive machine and, although Grace had spent the last hour of her shift preparing herself for the sight, it still stabbed her between the ribs. ‘Hello, young man,’ she said, amazed at her jolly, nurse-like tone. ‘Isn’t this marvellous?’ It was astonishing, Grace thought, how effectively you could lie when you cared enough about the person you were lying to.

  ‘I couldn’t get me breath,’ Billy said, the words coming out in a rush.

  The sight of his sweet face was too much for her to bear. Grace focused on a spot in the middle of his forehead to avoid bursting into tears.

  ‘Sister Atkinson says I’m the luckiest boy in the hospital.’ Billy’s mouth turned up at the corners in an approximation of a smile. His voice was so quiet it was almost drowned out by the steady wheeze of the respirator.

  ‘She’s quite right,’ Grace said. She knew that the machine was saving his life, manually forcing his lungs to work when the polio had robbed them of their function. Grace knew that, without the contraption, he would die. Billy knew it, too. But, Grace wondered, did he know that they called the lung a steel coffin because so many of the children who went into it did not come out? Not Billy, though. Billy was going to be one of the lucky ones. She simply would not allow any other possibility. Grace busied herself checking the dressing around the neck seal, making sure the nurse in attendance had used lanolin to stop his skin from chafing. ‘I’ve been to the kitchens and you’re having jam sponge today. Cook heard what a brave boy you’re being and wanted to make you so
mething nice.’

  Billy smiled weakly. ‘I wish I had my train. It got lost.’

  Grace reached into her pocket and produced the toy with a flourish. She’d found it underneath the bed, next to the wall. ‘I was keeping it safe for you while all the fuss was going on.’

  Billy’s eyes, red from crying, shone with their old light. ‘Thank you, Nurse.’

  ‘Call me Gracie,’ she said as the door opened, letting in a blast of cold air.

  Dr Palmer took a sweeping look around the room, as if checking for other staff, and then said, ‘Kemp. You look like the sturdy type. You’ll do.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ he said, in an unpleasant tone that suggested otherwise. ‘We’re short-handed in surgery and I’ve been looking everywhere for a spare body.’

  Grace opened her mouth to say that she was off-duty but he clicked his fingers. ‘Come along, Nurse, I haven’t got all day.’ Grace didn’t dare disobey.

  In theatre, she stood at his side for hours, light-headed with exhaustion. She passed instruments with hands that felt numb, and he didn’t look at her once.

  Barnes, who liked to read romances and had a dreamy disposition, said that Dr Palmer was ‘sweet on’ Grace but she knew differently. There was malice in his face. A current of danger in his voice. He was toying with her. Enjoying his power. Something in her called to him; maybe he could see the broken parts and, like a boy with a magnifying glass held over an insect, he wanted to see how long he could torture her before she burned away.

  ‘Not that way,’ he snapped as she handed him a scalpel. ‘Do you want me to cut myself, Nurse?’ Then, to the other surgeon, he said: ‘I do wonder at the calibre of the girls they take in these days.’

  Grace could feel her cheeks flaming and was glad of her face mask. She still felt dizzy, though, and swayed a little.

  ‘If you’re going to faint, you’d better get out,’ Palmer said, without even glancing in her direction. Grace fled and went straight to her room to lie down.

  ‘Where have you been? Weren’t you off ages ago?’ Evie said, unrolling a stocking and inspecting it.

  Grace was too tired to answer. She pushed her face deep into her pillow and tried to block out the mocking sound of Palmer’s voice.

  The next week, Grace was walking to the dining hall when Barnes shot out from her room. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she said, in that slightly aggrieved tone he often used. Since the crying jag in the sluice, Barnes had been particularly friendly towards Grace, which was both gratifying and a little stifling.

  Grace plastered on a smile. ‘You found me.’

  ‘Did you want to play table tennis later?’

  ‘I can’t, sorry,’ Grace said, almost automatically. She and Evie had the same off-duty and had plans to visit the Blackbird for tea and scones.

  ‘Why not?’ Barnes said.

  Grace hesitated. She ought to invite Barnes to join them, but she knew that Evie would be unimpressed with a third wheel. Plus, unkind as she felt admitting this to herself, Grace was in need of a break from everything hospital-related, including Barnes. ‘I have other plans. Perhaps another time?’

  ‘With Evie?’ Barnes said. ‘You two are thick as thieves.’ And she walked away, back held very straight.

  MINA

  I had moved on from staring at the photographs in the book and was now reading the text. I uncapped my pen and opened a notebook, enjoying the familiar and comforting feeling that I was studying.

  I heard the sound of magazine pages turning and glanced across the room. Queenie was peering at me over her copy of Hello! ‘What’ve you got there? Book?’

  ‘History of the hospital.’

  Queenie wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t you want to escape this place, not read about it?’

  I gave a small shrug. Queenie couldn’t bother me today; nothing was going to bother me today. Thankfully, the book was well written and I became so engrossed in it that I lost track of time. I didn’t know if my brain was starved of facts, or whether the machinations of the hospital council during the 1960s really was a riveting read, but either way it kept me going all afternoon. I ate my chicken chasseur with one hand, holding the book open with the other. By the time Stephen appeared, my eyes felt gritty from reading. I put the book to one side and took in the sight of an off-duty Dr Adams. It was peculiar. Even though I’d never seen him in a white coat and he hadn’t taken off his staff security badge, there was something different about him. I checked to see if his tie was loosened, but it looked the same as always. Perhaps it was just the knowledge that he wasn’t about to take my blood pressure or examine my joints, the knowledge that he was by my bedside out of choice, not duty.

  ‘I love this.’ I tapped the front cover of my new favourite thing. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Stephen looked a little bit embarrassed and I wondered if I’d calibrated my tone of gratitude too high. Or maybe he blushed easily, which would be incredibly endearing.

  ‘How was work?’

  ‘Not too bad. Lots of sick people.’

  ‘Occupational hazard.’

  He nodded, sitting in the high-backed chair next to my bed. ‘Sometimes I forget what well people look like and I’m out somewhere and I start thinking about what’s wrong with everyone.’

  ‘Do you find yourself trying to diagnose strangers?’

  He laughed. ‘Sometimes. If I’ve been really busy I find it hard to switch off.’

  ‘I used to see people’s insides,’ I said. ‘I mean, not really, but I’d find myself picturing their X-rays, their MRIs, imagining them—’ I stopped talking. ‘I’d forgotten I did that.’

  ‘I told you stuff would come back.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me I’d remember being such a weirdo, though.’

  He held his hands up. ‘You can’t hold me responsible for that.’

  There was a pause and I suddenly felt awkward, like I’d been looking at him for a second too long. He cleared his throat. ‘So, is there anything else you’re desperate for?’

  The words hung there for a moment and I wondered if he was going to blush again, but he looked away instead.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Just to go home. Get back to normal.’

  ‘Your flat’s nice.’

  The reminder that he had seen my flat when he went to get my laptop made me anxious. It felt alarmingly intimate and I grew defensive. ‘I suppose you’re in a penthouse apartment overlooking the sea.’

  He looked surprised for a moment but said, ‘Oh, because of the massive NHS salary.’

  ‘Consultant. Must be pretty good.’ I didn’t know why I was suddenly being arsey, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  Stephen didn’t appear put off by it, though. ‘Not a consultant. Senior doctor. Too young for consultancy.’

  ‘Is there a law?’

  ‘You’d think so, the way the board talks.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m doing okay, though, if that’s what you want to know.’

  It was my turn to blush.

  ‘So, that was your mum. Yesterday.’

  ‘No, my aunt Pat.’

  ‘Oh.’ I could see he was momentarily stumped. ‘Right. She really looks like you.’

  I stiffened, about to deny it, before I realised how ridiculous that was. ‘She’s my mum’s identical twin.’ I waited for him to ask why my mother hadn’t been with Pat, why neither of my parents had visited me.

  ‘Was it okay?’ he said, instead. ‘The visit? She must’ve been really worried about you.’

  ‘We’re not all that close.’

  Stephen looked confused. ‘Why was she here, then?’

  ‘She brought me up,’ I said. ‘My mum died when I was born.’ I always hated saying that. Died in childbirth sounded Dickensian. The more honest ‘I killed her coming out of her body’ was a bit dramatic for everyday use. Plus, it encouraged people to reassure, to sympathise and make those sad faces with their heads on one side.
I didn’t deserve any of that. I knew it wasn’t my fault. Not strictly speaking. If anything, I was a joint culprit with Geraint.

  ‘We probably would have lived with Pat anyway. My mum had a few difficulties,’ I found myself saying. ‘She didn’t get enough, I don’t know, nourishment or blood while she was in the womb. It’s called twin-to-twin syndrome.’ I didn’t know why I was telling him. Perhaps it was his white coat, it made me babble.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I waved a hand. ‘It’s fine. She was fine, apparently. Lucky. It can be really serious. Lots of twins don’t survive. She was just born underweight and had a few issues.’ The last words came out in a rush. ‘Some cognitive impairment.’ They’re the same words they’ve been using about me since the coma and it hit me that I finally had something in common with my mother. It wasn’t the stuff of greetings cards, but it was something.

  ‘That must have been tough, growing up without a mum.’

  I snapped back to the conversation. ‘Not really. I had Pat. She’s a force of nature.’

  ‘Still—’

  ‘I had Geraint, too. He’s my twin.’ I didn’t know why I hadn’t said ‘brother’ like I usually would. Why I’d mentioned him at all when my entire brain was screaming at me to change the subject. It was like my mouth was no longer taking orders.

  ‘Are you two close?’ Stephen hesitated and added, ‘Is that a stupid question?’

  I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘I can’t remember when I last saw him. I don’t know if we had a fight or something.’ I broke off before the tears came. I didn’t want to be a sobbing mess in front of him.

  ‘It will come back. It’ll be okay.’

  ‘But I remember my work, now, and Parveen, and living in Brighton, and Mark. It doesn’t make sense I don’t remember seeing Geraint.’

  ‘Well, Mark is your boyfriend. And your day-to-day life is bound to be more ingrained in your memory.’