by John Mellor
Nellie was now shaking with her suppressed anger, and the dials on the instrument panel above her bed began flickering and gyrating in a most alarming manner. The doctor leaned over and pressed a red button. A few seconds later Sonia rushed into the room clutching a huge hypodermic needle, which she promptly rammed into the wrinkled old flesh of Nellie's upper arm. Nellie quietly passed out.
The doctor wiped his brow. “Phew," he muttered. “That was a near thing; I thought we were going to lose her for a moment there." With a relief that was almost tangible he watched the gauges gradually resume their normal readings. Sonia pouted: “Silly old woman. As if I had nothing better to do than rush in here constantly giving jabs to keep the old bag alive."
This embarrassed the doctor, who in the quiet of his own house could at times be tempted to experience a twinge of sympathy with Nellie's feelings. “That will be all, thank you Nurse," he said in his most formal manner. Sonia sniffed, and flicked her hair back in a minor gesture of defiance before sloping off with the now empty hypodermic clutched in her hand. The daily routine of the hospital reasserted itself; and Nellie's spirit, now trapped in her body by the drugs coursing through her old veins, resigned itself yet again to the daily routine of its seemingly endless prison sentence.
Nellie Matilda finally awoke from her drug-induced haze just in time to say her prayers before going to sleep again for the night. She closed her eyes and placed her hands together, just as she had every previous night for some eighty-odd years, except that now she could not get out of bed and kneel as she felt she ought. Although it was not her fault, it still grieved her.
‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.' Then Nellie, worn out from her day, fell asleep; releasing her spirit for a few short hours to the love and tenderness of her husband.
On Tuesday morning Nellie Matilda did not wake up. The nurse in panic called the doctor, who was mystified to discover that all the instruments at the old woman's bedhead were reading correctly. She was not dead, yet no amount of shaking and shouting would wake her. In the end they resorted to electric shock treatment, which did jerk her convulsively into wakefulness; although it was fully half an hour before her eyes focused properly and she was able to speak.
“It was just as if she wasn't there, even though her body was in the bed and seemed perfectly normal," Sonia said to her friends during the morning tea break. “It was real spooky, especially after the way she is always rambling on about going to a new world." And the nurse shuddered at the recollection of the old woman's vacant face.
“And d'you know what she said when we told her we'd had to electrotherapise her to get her back alive again?" Sonia added. The other nurses looked suitably blank so she furnished the answer: “‘Oh dear God, why cannot these people let me go in peace?’ Weird I call it". And she stirred an extra sugar into her tea to calm herself. Really, this old woman was getting too much, she thought. I shall have to ask for a transfer.
The doctor was feeling equally frustrated over the behaviour of Nellie Matilda Johnson, although he expressed his frustrations rather more eloquently than did his nurse, as he discussed the case over coffee with the senior professor.
“I do not understand it, Charles," he said. “I have investigated every organ and every system in that woman's body and can find not a thing wrong with her. Yet she slides away steadily day after day, despite all the drugs we pump into her. She will not eat, and we have to force feed her with a number of drips. What with that and the electronic hookups required to monitor her condition, due to her frequent and irregular relapses for no apparent reason, she looks more like a terminal cancer case than a perfectly fit and healthy woman. She may be fairly old but there is plenty of life left in her yet. The whole business is a complete mystery to me. If I was not a rational, scientifically trained doctor, I could almost believe that she is deliberately and consciously willing herself to die."
The old professor smiled enigmatically. “Perhaps she is," he said. “I do believe there is a possibility that such things can happen. There are a number of surprisingly well-documented cases amongst primitive peoples with strong religious beliefs, you know." He got up and went over to the urn to refill his coffee cup. “Is she religious?" he asked the doctor over his shoulder, as he carefully stirred in one level teaspoon of brown sugar.
“Yes," the doctor replied. “She is forever going on about being ready to move onto the next world. But surely Charles it is not our business to get involved in that sort of mystical claptrap? We're doctors, and our job is saving lives: keeping people alive. Whatever the ins and outs of religion it is not for us to just let people die. Besides, we would get sued if anyone found out. And, anyway, how can a person possibly will themselves to die? I cannot believe that."
The professor reflected for a while. “I fear, David," he said finally, “that our material world and the spiritual world, if one accepts that such a thing exists, do not make comfortable bedfellows. There was a time, a long while ago, when science and religion co-existed fairly happily as most scientists then had some form of religious belief. The development of science has disproved so much of what the old religions believed in that no self-respecting scientist of today would entertain the merest whiff of religious ideas. Speaking personally, and off the record, I am an old man and I have travelled a lot and read a lot, and I must admit - between these four walls, mind - that I am not wholly convinced of the current scientific viewpoint. I suspect that there is more to this life of ours than we think."
The professor paused and took a mouthful of coffee, then continued: “As for the particular case of Mrs Johnson, however, the only professional advice I can give you is: keep giving her the tablets. Then you have at least protected yourself from the risk of litigation."
Mrs Johnson went to sleep early that night. But before she did, she put her hands together and prayed: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'
Wednesday was bath-night; or to be precise, bath-very-early-in-the-morning. Poor Nellie was woken just before six, given her breakfast, then treated to the dubious pleasure of a blanket bath. This was hard work for the nurses as Nellie was paralysed below the waist so could not move at all. Why she was paralysed, no-one knew, as the doctors could find nothing physically wrong with her. Anyway, the old lady bore it all with her usual stoicism and was shining clean for when the ward sister did her rounds.
Sister Newman was a plump, kindly, middle-aged lady, brimming over with common-sense. Although she was not what one would call religious, she had been in nursing since her teens and had seen a great many people die. She had also known a few who had died briefly then come alive again, and every one of them had recounted more or less the same tale - of walking towards a bright light and being filled with an overwhelming sense of joy, only to hear a deep voice saying: ‘It is not time for you yet, you must go back', whereupon they woke up to discover that technically they had died for a few minutes.
Sister Newman was not especially imaginative, and certainly not prone to an uncritical belief in everything she heard or even experienced, but there was something about these tales, something about the simplicity of them and the similarity between them, that had bequeathed to her a more open mind on the matter than most of her colleagues possessed. So she had more than a little sympathy for Nellie Matilda's feelings.
“How are you my dear?" she said warmly, as she bustled up to Nellie's bedside. Nellie smiled. She sensed the concern in the Ward Sister's voice, and could also see it in her eyes. “I'm fine thank you Sister," she replied, in a voice that was undeniably sad and yet just a little chirpier than when she spoke to the other members of the nursing staff.
The sister felt her pulse and looked her over carefully, but took no notice of the blinking lights and dials above the bed. Deep in her heart she knew what ailed Nelli
e, although her professionalism prevented her from admitting it to anyone; even Nellie, although they both knew that she knew.
She turned and looked out of the window. “It is a nice day, Nellie," she said. “Would you like me to organise someone to wheel you out into the garden for a while?" She expected a negative reply. They had all resigned themselves to the fact that Nellie showed no interest in anything, other than the hope of dying as soon as possible. But this morning she was surprised.
“Yes," Nellie replied unexpectedly, “I think I would like that."
There was no reason for anyone to know, of course, but it happened that it was Nellie's wedding anniversary that day. One of the pleasures she and her husband had shared was taking a simple walk in the country on a nice day, and she had a sudden urge to draw that memory back to her.
“I'll send a porter shortly, Nellie," Sister Newman said, “and we'll organise you some warm clothes as there is still a little nip in the air."
So later that morning Nellie was wheeled out into the hospital garden, where she was left to sit in the sun for an hour or two before lunch. It was a spring morning, slightly chilly as yet but bursting with new life and vibrating with that particular freshness that occurs at no other time. Nellie breathed deeply of the sparkling air and closed her eyes to listen to the bird-song and bring back memories from her life. And suddenly she found herself walking along a road that she could not see, towards a bright distant light that seemed to fill the whole world with joy. The bird-song changed to angel-song and Nellie's heart leapt as she realised that at long last she had shed her mortal strife and was walking, fit and young again, into her long-awaited new world.
She was dimly aware of voices rising above the angel-song. William? she wondered, and called out his name, over and over and over as the light seemed to fade ahead of her and she began to feel a fuzziness in her head and the new world began to disintegrate all around her .....
She was still calling for her husband when her eyes opened back in the hospital bed and she realised where the voices had been coming from. “We've saved her!" she heard the doctor cry out.
And when the end of that long long day finally came and the evening drew on to her time to sleep, Nellie Matilda placed her hands together and with tears streaking her tired old cheeks she prayed: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'
Thursday was visiting day, although no-one ever came to see Nellie. And at the end of the empty day she would place her hands together and pray: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'
On Friday the doctor examined her again, and left as bemused as ever. Her paralysis had spread upwards to her neck and the only thing she could do now for herself was pray: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'
Saturday was a strange day, full of memories for Nellie. Suddenly, after being alone in the house through all the days of the week, the rooms seemed full of people. One husband and three children may not constitute a crowd but somehow they filled that house with warmth and laughter and fun. The atmosphere was quite different to that of a Sunday which was a quiet and peaceful, reflective, contemplative sort of day. Nellie enjoyed them both equally, although in different ways. Saturday, she felt, belonged to the world she lived in; but Sunday swirled with hints of a wider world: a world that only as she grew older did she gradually come to recognise as being just as real as the one in which she currently lived.
Saturday in the hospital was a sad day for Nellie, when the loss of her family weighed most heavily upon her, when she felt most lonely. She always tried to get away and visit William but it was not easy with all the bustle in the hospital. Often she would close her eyes and lie for hours trying to get away from her body, with no success. At such times she would pray through all the day: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'
Sunday was perhaps the saddest day of the whole week; the day in which thoughts of the wider world that Nellie Matilda longed so much for welled up into her heart with greatest force. There was a time when the Parson would visit all the patients on a Sunday, but in those secular days of the Snow Queen's reign it was not deemed right that religion should be foist upon the people, so the Parson never came. There was a time when hymns were broadcast on a Sunday morning, but that had been stopped too. There was little for Nellie to do on a Sunday but pray: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'
On Monday Sonia, the nurse who tended Nellie Matilda in the daytime, was not at her best.
“Come on, Nellie!" she grumbled. “You've got to take these pills."
“I don't want any pills," said Nellie wearily. “Just leave me in peace, please."
“But you must take them," said Sonia. “You'll die if you don't."
“I'm quite happy and ready to die," Nellie said calmly. “I've lived my life and it is over. There is nothing left for me here, and it is time now for me to move on."
“Move on?" queried Sonia. “What are you blethering about? I said you'll die if you don't take the pills; I did not say you would move on. What is wrong with this place anyway? You won't find a better hospital in the land. Now be a good lady and take your pills."
Nellie sighed. “You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" she said, knowing well what the answer would be.
“No I don't!" snapped Sonia, “and if you don't take your pills I'll call the doctor and he'll make you, like he did last week. You should know better at your age, causing all this trouble to those who are trying to help you." And she scowled, with the smug disapproving look of one who knows best.
Nellie resigned herself to her pills and said no more. The prospect of being force-injected by that arrogant and ignorant old doctor was too much on a Monday morning. But when Sonia had gone she lay back quietly on her bed with her arms down along her sides and closed her eyes. After a moment or two's concentration she climbed thankfully out of her painful old body and . . . . . . .
* * * * *
The boy stopped reading, confused suddenly. He was sure he had already read that bit. He riffled back through the pages, and discovered that he had been reading a verbatim repetition of Nellie Matilda's first Monday in hospital. There must be a printing fault he decided, so he flicked on a few pages, looking for something new. But Nellie's second week seemed to be a word-for-word clone of her first.
He sat back and thought about this for a little while, then gradually the significance of it dawned on him. He smiled warily, uncertain whether to be amused by the writer's ploy or saddened by the old lady's plight. Then, curious he turned to the last page to see how it finished.
But he could not find the last page. Every time he turned over, expecting to find it, he found the story continuing as ever. Even when he flipped backwards from the end cover he still ended up in the middle of the story, which went on just as before when he attempted to read on again to the end.
Baffled, the young boy put the book down on the table and stared at it for a while. It must have an end, he thought; it is of finite size, therefore presumably of finite length. It was not as though the last page simply petered out, there just was not a last page. However often he turned what seemed to be the last page he found another, and the story went on and on; every week identical to the previous one.
Then suddenly he grinned. It must be a subtle joke of the Angel's, a dig at the Queen's scientists' inability to discover Quantum Physics. She had constructed the book in such a way that he could not observe the end, and thus collapse it into reality.
But what if Nellie was real? What if he was seeing in print somethin
g that was actually happening on the Earth? And his failure to observe the end to Nellie's misery was preventing that end from coming about.
No, he decided. The Angel did not play silly games like that with people's lives. If the story was happening, then he was viewing a version of it in which something was very wrong; in which something essential was missing from the very fabric of Nellie's existence. And that something must be the clue to the gift.
o ------------------------ o
The young boy closed the book on the Second Gift
and remained a while with his thoughts
in the lonely tower at the end of the beach
And the Angel watched over him
o ------------------------ o
The Journey
THE BOY finally closed the second book having given up all hope of finding the last page. What could be missing from this version of the old lady's life, that could in any way be related to a gift? He felt little wiser than when he had opened the book. He had hoped to find this second gift in time to spend the day fishing as the weather was so lovely, but the chances now seemed very slim. Feeling rather fed up with it all he went in search of his tormentor.
The Angel smiled as he approached looking thoroughly glum. “Come on," she called out encouragingly, “let's go for a walk. It's a lovely day and I've got something to show you."