Gemma's Journey

by Beryl Kingston

  Gemma’s letter was written, furiously, later that morning. It was short, sharp and to the point, listing the clothes, shoes and make-up that they were to sort out and bring in to her ASAP, together with a personal folder she kept in her dressing table, and ending with the stern instruction that the rest of her things were to be kept clean and safe until she knew where she would be living when she left hospital. ‘As soon as I have an address I will send it to you,’ she wrote, ‘and then one of you can deliver everything else straight to me, as I am in no fit state to drive, as you well know.’

  After that, as she was in letter-writing mood and anger had recharged her determination, she set to and wrote four more – to the theatre to explain why she hadn’t turned up for her audition, to the agency to tell them that she wouldn’t be available for stage work, ‘until I’ve recovered’, to her insurance company to ask for a claim form and to the DSS to discover what benefits she would be entitled to. Both her operations were over, the next phase of her life had begun, there wasn’t a second to waste.

  By Wednesday morning she’d recovered enough to be taken off the drip, on Wednesday afternoon she persuaded a porter to take her down in the lift and wheel her round the shops, by Wednesday evening she was crowing because someone from the flat had delivered a parcel to the ward, and it contained almost everything she’d asked for.

  ‘I shall get up properly tomorrow,’ she said to Sally, ‘and have a bath, if that’s possible, and get dressed. I want to go to the bank.’

  ‘If you wait till after ward rounds,’ Sally said, ‘you can have your hair done too. We’re going to take your stitches out as soon as we get the OK.’

  ‘Even better,’ she said. Her tatty mixture of long and short hair was an irritation and impossible to brush. ‘I shall have it all cut short. Make a new start.’

  She spoke carelessly as though it was the most natural thing in the world. But, in fact, she was setting herself a formidable challenge, as she explained to the hairdresser the next morning.

  ‘I’ve had long hair since I was fourteen,’ she said ruefully. ‘Now look at it. I can’t bear to see myself.’

  The hairdresser, having dealt with hospital patients for a considerable time, was sensible and sympathetic, ‘A new image takes a bit of getting used to,’ she said. ‘Even when you’ve planned it, it feels like the end of the world.’

  ‘This is the end of the world,’ Gemma said, scowling at her reflection.

  The hairdresser agreed with her. ‘They have hacked it about,’ she admitted. ‘They have to work so quickly, that’s the trouble. I think you’d be better to go for a really short cut to even it up. I’ll leave enough to cover the scar.’

  Gemma took a breath and steadied herself for the next question. ‘Will it grow back?’

  ‘Not on the scar tissue,’ the hairdresser told her frankly. ‘Everywhere else in time but not there.’

  Gemma sighed, accepting it because it had to be accepted. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this then, she thought; with this great train-track running across my head.

  ‘Wait till you see what a good cut can do,’ the hairdresser sympathised. And she picked up her scissors.

  It gave Gemma a wrench to watch the rest of her lovely long hair being snipped away. All those years growing it to perfection and now there it was being dropped on to the floor like a pile of old rags. The waste of it made her stomach clench with misery. And although the end result was neat and clean and covered the worst of the scar, she didn’t like it a bit. It had changed the shape of her face. Before the accident, and framed by her curving curtain of dark hair, it had been a photogenic face, almost heart-shaped with high cheekbones, neat teeth, a shapely mouth, and dominated by her eyes. Now it was all jaw and bruises and hardly any eyes at all. A horrible, lumpy, scarred, unattractive face.

  ‘I shall never make juvenile lead now,’ she said. ‘I shall have to take up clowning.’ And as soon as the word came into her mouth she knew it had to be done at once. That very moment. ‘You haven’t got one of those red noses anywhere about, have you?’

  The hairdresser encouraged her. There were no red noses in her kiosk but she had a wonderful set of false eyelashes ‘better than Barbara Cartland’s!’

  Their effect was devastating even if they were painful to apply.

  ‘Big blue tears, I think,’ Gemma said, hooking her make-up kit out of her shoulder bag and thinking what a good thing it was that she’d insisted on having it brought to the hospital. She must have known she was going to need it. She began to paint the first teardrop on her swollen cheek, enjoying the sense of power and creativity that make-up always brought. ‘Black nose,’ she decided. ‘Huge red lips. Groucho eyebrows. You won’t know me when I’ve finished! I’ll have to tie your haircut in bunches.’

  ‘Not to worry. It’ll brush back.’

  The finished mask was stunning. It cheered her up just to look at it and caused a stir as her chair was being wheeled back to the ward.

  ‘Cabaret,’ she explained to the people who stopped and stared. ‘For Page Ward.’ It was like being back on stage, the centre of a buzz of attention, adrenalin running, happy and excited – and nervous. For now that she’d announced a cabaret, she knew she was going to provide one.

  She arrived at the ward, was pushed towards her bed.

  ‘Ta-ra!’ she called, spreading out her arms. ‘What do you think!’

  Her fellow patients turned towards her, the bedridden sitting up or craning to see what was going on, the walking wounded gathered around her.

  ‘Whatcher done ter yerself, gel?’ the oldest inhabitant grinned.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said, looking round at them all, and plunged into one of her remembered routines, singing in a rough harsh voice to match her appearance, ‘Be a clown, be a clown, all the world loves a clown.’ It was such a bravura performance that her audience burst into spontaneous applause when she’d finished.

  ‘More!’ they called. ‘Encore!’

  She was suddenly very tired: her stump was sore, all she wanted to do was to get back into bed and close her eyes. But her audience was waiting. ‘Right!’ she said and began another song – to a burst of such noisy applause that the social worker, who’d just come into Sister’s office to check that it was a convenient time for her interview, was quite startled and looked through the window to see what was going on.

  ‘That’s your patient,’ Sister said.

  The social worker was troubled. ‘She’s not going to be another oldest inhabitant, is she?’

  ‘Not for another fifty years or so,’ Sister said. ‘But she’s a feisty girl. Treat with caution.’

  By the time the social worker finally reached her bedside, Gemma had been hoisted out of the chair and was sitting up in bed, cotton wool and cleansing lotion in her lap, mirror in hand, carefully removing her make-up. She looked so outlandish with half a clown’s face and the other half shiny with grease that the poor girl was rather put out. But she introduced herself valiantly.

  ‘I’m your social worker,’ she said. ‘Edina.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Gemma said, giving her a brief sideways glance but still hard at work with the cotton wool. And she made a joke. ‘I wasn’t aware I needed a social worker.’

  ‘Well, no …’ Edina said. ‘Not in the accepted sense, I suppose … The thing is, our Dr Quennell asked me to drop in and see you.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Gemma said again in the same noncommittal tone, her eyes narrowed as she removed her blue tears. ‘Why was that, then?’

  ‘He thought I might be able to help you to find some suitable accommodation for when you leave here.’

  ‘Oh did he?’ Gemma said, and her voice was decidedly sharper. ‘What makes him think I won’t be able to find it for myself?’

  ‘You’ve been having some problems in that direction, I believe.’

  The placid assumption that her affairs were common knowledge made Gemma cross. I told him that in confidence, she thought, not to hav
e it blabbed all over the hospital. ‘The flat I used to live in isn’t suitable,’ she agreed. ‘But that’s my affair.’

  ‘We thought you might like a little help,’ Edina insisted. ‘I mean, you’ll need somewhere … well … rather specialised.’

  Gemma rubbed away the last blue tear. Now it was only her Groucho Marx eyebrows that needed attention. ‘So?’ she said, turning them fiercely towards her visitor.

  ‘We’ve got a very nice disabled room,’ Edina offered, trying not to be abashed. ‘In a sort of, well a housing complex, I suppose you’d say. It’s very nice and there’s a warden to look after you and everything.’

  The mere idea of it filled Gemma with abhorrence. One room, she thought, in a house full of people with problems, hidden away so that ‘normal’ people needn’t see us, with a warden to guard us and see we don’t make a nuisance of ourselves. I’d rather live on the streets. ‘Now look,’ she said. ‘I know you mean well and I know Dr Quennell put you up to it but you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t want a disabled room. And I don’t want to be looked after. You go back and tell the great Doctor, thanks but no thanks. I can look after myself. And I can find my own flat. Right?’

  ‘He was only trying to be helpful,’ Edina said, protecting him. But Gemma’s expression was so fierce she decided discretion would be the better part of valour in this instance and beat a hasty retreat.

  The oldest inhabitant homed in on the end of the conversation at once, her face avid. ‘What was all that about then, gel?’

  Gemma explained, crossly. ‘They want me to move into a hostel. They’ve found me a “disabled room”, if you ever heard of anything so repulsive.’

  ‘They’re buggers at that sorta thing,’ the old lady said, settling herself in the bedside chair. ‘They reckon they’re gonna put me in a home. Bleedin’ sauce. Don’t you stand for it, gel. Tell ’em they got another think coming.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Well good fer you! You paid in fer it, aintcher? Paid yer contributions? Well then. Be like me. Tell ’em you ain’t goin.’ That’s what! done. I like it here. I paid in fer it all me life so why shouldn’t I stay here? Worked forty-seven years in that shop, I did, one way an’ another. Never took a day off neither. So they can think again. I ain’t goin’ in no ’ome. You don’t get no sorta life at all in a home. I seen ’em, sittin’ round in their smelly old chairs, dribblin’.’

  ‘Can’t you go back to your own place?’ Gemma asked. She was lively enough so they ought to allow it.

  The old lady looked shifty. ‘Can’t,’ she admitted, needlessly rearranging the tie of her dressing gown. ‘It’s gone, see. Been sold. My son-in-law sold it. Had to. Their kids need separate rooms see. There used to be room fer all of us. That’s why I dipped in, see. It was all right in them days.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, they got a nice little place now, ever so convenient, onny they ain’t got room fer me. I’d ’ave ter sleep on the floor if I was to go there an’ I don’t fancy that. Not at my age.’

  ‘No,’ Gemma said. ‘I can see that.’ And she was thinking, I’ll bet she put her savings in that house and they’ve sold it over her head. Poor old thing. The story put her to shame. Here I am getting cross because I’ve been offered a room I don’t want and she’s got nowhere to go at all.

  ‘They’re clearin’ everyone out,’ the old lady confided. ‘Mrs What’s-it with the hernia’s got to go. Gawd knows how she’ll make out with that son of hers. They don’t care. It’s all league tables nowadays. They get you in, chop you up and off ’ome you go. Like a bleedin’ conveyor belt. And then you get took bad at ’ome, stands to reason, and they have ter get you in again. They don’t care about that neither. They can count you twice, you see. You’re another patient by then. It ups the league tables. They think we can’t work it out. Must reckon we’re all daft. Well they needn’t think they can get rid of me.’

  Gemma didn’t know what to say in answer to all that, partly because it was such a diatribe and partly because the old lady seemed to be blaming the doctors for sending people home too soon. And she was sure it wasn’t their fault. ‘Our Doctor Quennell’ might blab your private affairs to soppy social workers but he wouldn’t turn you out on your ear. There was too much compassion in him for that. And then, for no apparent reason, she suddenly had a vivid memory of the way he’d treated her at the crash and how gentle and reassuring he’d been.

  Chapter 8

  Dr Nick Quennell spent the next two days keeping out of Gemma Goodeve’s way. She was annoying him so much he was afraid they’d have words again if he had to spend any time with her. And one slanging match had been quite enough. The trouble was, although he kept out of her sight he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Fancy refusing Edina’s offer like that. Poor old Edina. She couldn’t help looking gormless and she was only doing her job. Independence is all very well, he thought crossly, but not when you’re recovering from your second operation in three days and not when people are trying to help you. It made him scowl to think of it. The whole thing was ludicrous.

  Luckily he knew how to cope. All he had to do was to keep himself busy on the men’s surgical wards, which was easy enough, and put in the briefest of appearances on Page Ward, which was difficult but possible. Then, starting on Monday, he had three days’ leave, which would solve the problem, at least for the time being. He’d arranged to go and stay with Abdul and his family, right away from the hassle. They were going to take Sacha and the kids to the pictures on Monday afternoon and after that he and Ab planned to spend the next two days out in the wilds somewhere, fishing. It was what they usually did when life got tricky. He’d spent an entire week by the riverside when Deirdre walked out on him in the summer and by the end of it his irritation had been virtually soothed away and he’d come round to the idea that finishing their relationship was actually a good thing. He’d have preferred to end it in a civilised way instead of having to endure all that screaming and shouting but ending it was logical and inevitable. They’d been growing apart for months and she’d been much too sharp and much too critical. Was it any wonder he treated women with caution?

  There was only one snag in the plans he’d made and that was the fact that he’d agreed to have dinner with the aged Ps and his sister Susan on Sunday evening. Normally that was something he would have enjoyed very much because the food was always superb at home and he had a healthy appetite, but this time it was going to be tricky. His father had been in the hospital that morning and someone would have been bound to tell him about Gemma’s second op, so now he’d crow. That was as predictable as daybreak.

  Nothing he could do about it, of course. It just had to be endured. Perhaps Susan being there would make it easier. She was very good at turning conversations, especially if she was in one of her powerful executive moods.

  Which she was that evening. For despite her meticulous preparation, the inquiry had got off to an inconclusive start, so she was tense with lack of success. Witnesses had been called and given what information they could, but none of it had helped; the signalling system had been examined on site and they’d taken evidence from the railway inspectors but there was no fault there; the track had been put under equally close scrutiny and that had passed muster too, more or less. They’d gone on until late the previous evening and they were still no nearer to discovering what had actually caused the crash. And to cap everything, her fellow investigators were all anxious about the possibility of a court case, just as she’d known they would be.

  Now, standing in the hall of her parents’ house, she was putting a brave face on things as she and her mother greeted one another with a kiss. When Nick pulled in at the drive and parked his old Peugeot alongside her brand new Rover, she swept out at once to kiss him too and tease him. ‘How’s my baby brother?’

  ‘Not so much of the baby, if you don’t mind,’ he joked back, walking into the house. ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Slaving over a hot stove,’ Andrew’s voice called from the kitchen. �
�Where else?’

  ‘And quite right too!’ Susan said, leading them all along the corridor to join him. ‘Why should women do all the cooking?’

  ‘In this house?’ he laughed. He was standing by the oven, stirring a sauce. The chopping board beside him was heaped with debris and the table in the corner was set with roast chicken and assorted vegetables steaming succulently. There you are Kate, my lovely. Ready to serve.’

  ‘So how’s the hero of the hour?’ Susan said, reaching up to brush her cheek against his. ‘I saw you on the box. Very dashing.’ Then she realised that Nick was looking miffed and paused, wondering why.

  ‘I hope you’re hungry, you two,’ Catherine said, motioning them towards the table.

  ‘Ravenous,’ Nick told her, as he sat down. ‘Aren’t I always?’

  Andrew began to carve the chicken, breathing in the smell of it as the steam rose towards his face. Maybe he won’t say anything now, Nick hoped. Not when we’re just about to eat. But his father was grinning at him through the steam.

  ‘Was I right?’ he asked. ‘Or was I right? Your famous patient did get a wound infection, so I hear.’

  Nick mumbled agreement, looking at his plate, as Susan sat down beside him, spread her napkin over her lap and wondered what it was all about.

  Andrew’s grin was so broad it was a wonder it didn’t split his face. ‘So I might just have known what I was talking about, after all. Not quite such a fuddy-duddy as you thought.’

  ‘OK. OK.’ Nick admitted, scowling at him. ‘You’ve made your point. Do I get any of that chicken or have I got to sit in a corner and eat humble pie all night?’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ Susan wanted to know.

  ‘The crash girl,’ her father told her. ‘Gemma Goodeve. We amputated her leg.’