Silent Song

by Lucilla Andrews

  Frank’s wool eyes stared blackly as I tied the bow. Richard opened one eye and flung both arms round my neck. ‘Nice Nursie. Frank said you’d come to kiss us good night.’

  ‘Frank’s a clever bear, darling, and you’re a clever boy.’ I kissed him. ‘Go back to sleep in your smart new room.’

  ‘Jolly smart, isn’t it?’ He slid back to sleep smiling.

  I watched him a little longer though the dining-room staff would be peeved. ‘You’ve missed the soup, Staff. I could fetch you some, but it’ll be cold.’ Monday’s soup was always Sunday’s gravy. I could do without, I thought, and tried not to think of the child or children I hadn’t borne. They would have been younger than Richard. Around the age of the Grant’s twins.

  I couldn’t remember if Dave had any twins on his side.

  I wished I knew about myself. One of the most disconcerting things to being adopted, in my experience, was the way I kept coming up against personal blank spaces. In my teens this had seriously bothered me and I had decided that as soon as I could afford it, I would get the best private eye in England on the job. I had no idea how I would find him, but I knew what he would look like; Sean Connery acting James Bond. I had a selection of scenes for the day he traced my real parents, scenes that depended on my mood. After my recriminations, either I promised my aristocratic, unaccountably aged and married to each other parents, their secret would be for ever safe with me, before storming off into the night with my fantasy private-eye I called Mike; or having discovered them ailing and destitute, I vowed to be a prop to their few remaining years, come what may. In this scene my Mike-figure gazed at me adoringly throughout before muttering brokenly ‒ always brokenly though I wasn’t sure what that meant but thought it sounded right ‒ ‘Can I have this assignment for life, Anne?’

  Midwifery finally cured that hang up. The mother of the fourth baby I delivered as a pupil was sixteen and at boarding school when she found she was pregnant. It had happened at a party she couldn’t remember much about, or even the boy’s name. She just remembered he had been in some second-year sixth. ‘Not that I’d marry him if I knew his name, Nurse. How could I? I don’t know him. Does ‒ does that make me sound an awful tart? I’m not, honestly. I’ve never slept with anyone. It ‒ it was the first time. It only happened once.’

  It was too late to tell her our senior consultant gynaecologist’s passionate belief that every mother in the land should hang, framed, over her infant daughter’s bed, ‘Once is enough to make a baby’.

  She had good parents. She had told them too late for an abortion, and once over the shock they dealt with everything for her with great kindness. She wanted her baby to go for adoption and didn’t change her mind after his birth. He was a beautiful baby. Frequently, when she handed him back to me after his feeds, she wept not as a schoolgirl, but a broken-hearted woman. ‘He’ll never forgive me, Nurse. One day he’ll grow up, think of me, and hate me. Everyone says this is best for him and I truly want him to have the best. But I do love him so ‒ oh, Nurse, I do ‒ I do. I pray and pray he’ll be safe and happy ‒ but I don’t suppose God wants to listen to me now.’

  That time I told her about my brother and myself. ‘We couldn’t have had better real parents. We loved them very much.’

  ‘Honestly, honestly?’ She gave a shuddering sigh. ‘Do you hate your real mother? Please tell me the truth.’

  ‘Truthfully, no, I don’t. I’m just very sorry for her as I expect she went through hell too.’ That seemed to comfort her and luckily she didn’t ask how long I had felt that way. Had she done so, I would have lied. It would have been the least I could do after all she had done for me. I had Christmas cards from her until she wrote two years ago saying she was getting married. I did not know her married name, hadn’t heard from her since, and thought she had done the right thing. By then I had learnt that until one stopped looking backward one couldn’t go forward without blundering into something.

  Just as I left Richard’s room, I heard a glass drop next door and then the fumbling sounds of a sleepy patient trying to reach for it. The corridor was temporarily empty of staff, so I pushed 2’s door open a little wider to see what was happening before, as etiquette insisted, calling a ward nurse.

  A large bed-cradle over the foot hid the head of the bed from the doorway. From the mingled scents of anaesthetic and wet plaster, the patient was not long back from a minor orthopaedic operation, but known to have come round from the anaesthetic. Red lights were only used in small wards after a patient had come round and none after a major operation would at this stage have been left unattended in a Martha’s side ward.

  I went closer and had a kind of electric shock as the patient raised his untidy fairish head to peer over the cradle. ‘Hallo, George,’ I said.

  He flopped back from giddiness. The size of his pupils explained his lack of surprise and slightly euphoric smile.

  ‘You were right. I had cracked my patella. You should’ve read medicine, Mrs Dorland ‒ sorry ‒’ his speech was a little slurred ‒ ‘Anne ‒ not that it’s any use. I always think of you as Mrs Dorland. What’re you doing here?’

  ‘Calling on your neighbour.’ I picked up the glass. ‘I heard this drop. As you’ve got two, would you like a little drink?’

  ‘Thanks. I’m dry as hell.’

  ‘Just sip it, or you’ll be sick.’ I slipped a hand under his head and held the glass for him as his hands were unsteady. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He blinked as focusing was a problem. ‘Isn’t this against union rules?’

  I smiled. ‘Yes. How’s the leg?’

  ‘Can’t feel it. I was trying to check what they’d done when I knocked over the lamp. I caught it but it caught the glass. I’ve never had an anaesthetic before. Extraordinary feeling.’ He touched my arm. ‘You’re real.’

  ‘Yes. You’ll touch down when you’ve had some sleep.’

  ‘Better than last night on ice.’ He grinned up at me. ‘Bloody silly turn-up this.’

  I thought of this morning. ‘Isn’t it? I think you should go back to sleep.’

  ‘I feel I’ve slept weeks. I couldn’t think if it was night or day when I saw you. What’s the time?’ I told him and he shook his head. ‘I think I came in here this morning. I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s all like a dream.’

  He couldn’t have been less aware of what he was saying, had he been dreaming. I had had countless similar seemingly coherent conversations with other patients in his present mental twilight between anaesthesia and full consciousness. None later remembered a word and only a handful seeing me at the time. ‘The shot they gave you when you came round’ll underline that. Remember it?’

  He thought. ‘No. Did I have one?’

  ‘From the way you look and can’t feel that leg.’

  ‘Can’t remember. Which ward is this?’

  ‘William and Mary. Sick staff often come into these small wards after minor ops. I expect they’ll let you out soon as your plaster’s dry.’

  ‘Not on this one. Not a walking plaster yet. I’ve cracked the sod quite badly. Hell of a nuisance all round.’ His voice was more drowsy. ‘I had to be back this evening as from tomorrow I was meant to move into the team as Second Ass. Charlie Lloyd’s going up to First. You know Charlie? Nice chap.’

  ‘Yes. Very.’ He was sliding too far under to take in my expression. Charlie Lloyd had been Second Assistant surgeon in the Heart-Lung team for the last three months, was a Martha’s man and great friend of Joe Mathers. ‘You’re not just an ordinary post-grad?’

  He smiled dreamily and rather sweetly. ‘Sounded better than locum dogsbody. Not that Roseburn didn’t warn me he tries his provisionals out on every job from theatre porter upwards when he asked me over. Been quite amusing starting at the bottom again ‒ and that’s where I’ll find myself when I get back ‒ very good for my ego after my last job up north. Week after I started ‒’ he yawned ‒ ‘sorry ‒ week after ‒ our team boss had his coronary. Mister God Alm
ighty Farler by the end of that year. Thought I knew my stuff ‒ all the answers. Watching Roseburn ‒’ he yawned again ‘cut me right down to size. Superb technique ‒ bloody artist with a knife. Had to come after he wrote to me. When I got his letter ‒ couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘I believe you. Go back to sleep, George.’

  ‘Must just tell you ‒ don’t know why ‒ just must. God, I thought ‒ would have to be Martha’s. He’s a Martha’s man ‒ of course, very big place ‒ anyway she’s probably married again and left years ago ‒ can’t pass this up ‒ don’t like raising ghosts ‒ big mistake raising ghosts ‒ but no cardiac surgeon in his right mind would pass up the chance to work with Roseburn ‒ very big place ‒ worth the risk.’

  His eyes were closing. ‘You work in this ward?’

  ‘No. Stop talking and go back to sleep.’

  He smiled with his eyes closed. ‘You have a very pretty voice. Gentle, not slushy. I like it.’

  ‘Good. Sleep well.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He was asleep in a few seconds. Sleep made him look younger as it made all but the very old, and gave his face a strange gentleness. Strange, since his square jaw started jutting out from just below his cheekbones. I tried to work out why this gentleness was only visible in sleep and to study his face as if I had never seen it before. As I had, I walked away.

  Chapter Four

  Hospital news is made in strange ways. George’s arrival in Martha’s had gone unremarked outside of Heart-Lung until his appearance as a patient on the orthopaedic theatre table put him on the hospital map. By the end of that week in the absence of any hotter inter-staff gossip, the Benedict’s guy with the knee in Willie-May was the pet talking point in Wing 2 and particularly in Coronary Care as by the following week most of the staff had met him whilst visiting Richard and we had suddenly slackened.

  Previously, nothing about the department had had any connection with Dave for me. Once on duty our soundproofed doors had shut out my past along with the rest of the hospital. I had thought this a great advantage. Possibly ostriches thought the same until forced to take their heads out of the sand. That period gave me a new, improved sympathy with ostriches.

  Joe Mathers gave me a blow-by-blow on George’s pre-Martha’s professional career that included the cardiac repair Mr Roseburn had chanced to watch from a theatre gallery after visiting a colleague with a coronary in a northern English teaching hospital. He threw in Mr Roseburn’s comments to Charlie Lloyd on men who couldn’t stand on their own two feet on a bit of ice. ‘Roseburn doesn’t hold with accidents or ailments unless they affect the heart.’

  I concentrated on the Brigadier’s monitor. ‘He was seriously peeved?’

  ‘Yes, but not on this count. They’ve had a tough week above stairs. Lost two, and like us now have empty beds and are sitting round on their backsides. Enough to make any man suicidal. Charlie says George Farler’ll be all right. Very bright guy, he seems, and bright enough to keep it to himself. Quiet guy. Charlie says he seldom opens his mouth.’ He looked at me keenly through his gold-rimmed spectacles. He was a chubby, very clever little man and nice with it. ‘What’s bugging you about our Brig, Anne?’

  I studied the sleeping man behind the glass door of C.3 before answering. Beneath the transparent oxygen mask, military moustache and hair-cut, the sensitive, scholarly face was calm as a face on a tomb. ‘He’s sweet, but he’s not on our side.’

  ‘The poor old guy’s done too much fighting. Think it would help if L.B. told him how well he’s done after his coronary?’

  ‘Think he wants to do well, Joe?’

  ‘I wish to God I did. I wish they hadn’t retired him. He misses the mess life, loathes golf, gardening, being an impoverished country gentleman and doesn’t over-fancy his wife. Nor would I,’ he added not unkindly, ‘if she were mine. Has she taken in that warning L.B. gave her?’

  Mrs Brigadier was a large lady with neat blue hair, an impressive bosom, tight mouth and small imagination. ‘I’m afraid not. We had a long chat last night. She kept insisting whilst there’s life there’s hope and Gerald’s always been a great old fusser about his health. That could be just her defence mechanism. Pity they’ve no kids.’

  ‘Yep. They might help now.’ He made a note. ‘Seen Richard today?’

  ‘Going up at six when I’m off.’

  I visited Richard daily, but much as I enjoyed seeing him, each time had to nerve myself to take the lift up to the ninth floor. I didn’t run into George that evening, his door was shut and from the sound of voices was entertaining his own visitors.

  Richard was now allowed visits from his adult fellow patients as another stage in easing him back into the world before his fast-approaching discharge. He enjoyed holding court and had had a sociable day. ‘Lots of the Mary ladies and William gentlemen have been to see me and Frank and play ludo and read us stories, but they can’t draw us lots and lots of funny pictures like Mr Farler. Sister says the jolly funny picture Mr Farler drawed of me and Frank having breakfast this morning is super and Mr Farler ought to paint it. Sister says Frank’s a fine figure of a bear. Sister says I’m a mucky pup to get more egg on my face than in my tum. Sister says’, he continued in the tone of an old hospital hand with a private hot-line to Delphi, ‘me and Frank and Mr Farler are jolly good occupational therapy.’

  Jilly Smythe generally had this effect on her patients.

  Jilly was a trim brunette and quite pretty despite a too-tight hair-do, severe expression, and the toughest nanny-knows-best approach in Wing 2, if not all Martha’s. Few patients objected to this since she obviously knew her job and it made them feel safe. Personally, I thought her the type of nurse I would only tolerate near my sickbed were I desperately ill. Then, if my life could be saved, Jilly would save it. She took such personal umbrage when one of her patients died, that our set had long agreed most patients were far too scared of Jilly to attempt it. She didn’t scare Richard, partially as he was so used to hospital life, partially as she was good with children, being the eldest in a large family. From Richard’s move to her ward ‘what Sister says’ carried more weight with him than anything said in Coronary Care or Heart-Lung.

  George had been up on crutches once his plaster dried. On his first mobile day he had been sitting on Richard’s locker when Jilly ushered me in. In a navy roll-neck sweater and maroon cords with the seams of the left leg split to mid-thigh and held together over his plaster with huge safety pins, he had looked so much more like his younger self that I had felt physically peculiar.

  ‘Mr Farler from next door kindly keeping Richard amused whilst he’s waiting for his mother.’ Jilly handed over the second crutch as George balanced on his good foot.

  ‘No weight on that plaster, please, Mr Farler. Done your afternoon exercises, yet?’

  George and I had exchanged the same polite smiles as on New Year’s Eve and in the Grants’ sitting-room, before he left with Jilly. He was swinging down the pale blue corridor when I left Richard with his mother. There were none of the staff around, which was as well as I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen him. ‘I’m sorry about this, George.’

  ‘Tedious, but not serious.’ He hung over his long crutches. ‘I take it you’ve heard your diagnosis was correct? Surprised me. Didn’t think I’d bashed it hard enough for a crack.’

  ‘Maybe I heard the crack more clearly.’ I changed the subject for both our sakes and asked if there was anything he wanted. ‘Books? Papers?’

  He shook his head, smiling. ‘I see you’ve never been a patient in this ward.’

  ‘Never. Life highly organized?’

  ‘Action-packed. One non-stop round of meals, rounds, temps, visitors, library ladies lending us books, trolley-shop ladies flogging us after-shave, morning paper-boys, evening paper-boys, cleaning ladies, chaps to French polish the floor, physios slapping us around, and, of course, nurses soothing the long, lonely bedridden hours with little chats.’

  ‘George, I’m exhausted.’<
br />
  ‘It takes real stamina. I’m now convinced one needs to be exceedingly fit to stand up to the physical strain of being a hospital patient. My first time this side.’

  ‘I hope your last ‒ and guess you do, too.’

  ‘It’s ‒ an experience. Very like school.’

  I smiled. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ I explained Jilly was my old set and had the flat below mine.

  ‘Excellent ward sister.’ He changed the subject and looked beyond me to Richard’s door. ‘Roseburn did a good job on that kid. Very nice child. Nice parents.’

  ‘Very.’ I looked properly at his averted face. That was a mistake. I could still see that damned straw hat. ‘Were you in on his op?’

  ‘Only as an observer on the theatre floor.’

  I said slowly, ‘I hope this won’t set you back too much from making the team.’

  He turned to me in surprise. ‘Where’d you hear that one? Of course!’ He smiled. ‘I’d forgotten how good the grapevine can be.’

  ‘Things do get round.’ I didn’t remind him how much more he had forgotten. ‘Sorry, but as I’ve quite a bit to do before going back ‒’

  ‘I’m sure. Don’t work too hard.’

  ‘Take care of that knee.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Sister’ll let me do otherwise?’

  We exchanged more polite smiles. He didn’t suggest I called in on him when visiting Richard in future and nor did I. After that we only met occasionally and had a set form for the occasions.

  ‘How’s the knee?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. How’s Coronary Care?’

  ‘Nicely, thanks. Richard’s looking well.’

  ‘Flourishing.’ And if we were with Richard, ‘Couple of frauds, aren’t we, Richard?’

  Richard nodded with the normal small child’s love of repetition. ‘Frank says he’s a fraud bear. Do you have to go and pick up your socks with your toes for your physio lady as I’ve got another visitor, Mr Farler?’

  ‘Unless I want her to shop me to Sister for not doing my exercises.’