He knew he had to cry out, and he mouthed what he thought was Bella’s name, but it was his straining call for ‘Sarah’ that Bella heard from her bedroom, and she rushed to her father’s side. When she saw him struggling to hide the pain and his fear, she busied herself with calling the doctor, and making him as comfortable as she could, in order to postpone her own anxiety. She told him to lie quite still, and she sat by his side, guarding his immobility, until the doctor arrived. She watched anxiously as the doctor examined him, trying not to think about the consequences of her father’s death. She found herself blaming Norman for it all, and the long heart-break that Esther had caused them. But it would be she, she knew, who all her life had given them trouble-free comfort. it would be she who would feel most guilty.
As the doctor unbuttoned her father’s pyjamas, she felt suddenly embarrassed. She was able to look after him, and to mother him when he was fully clothed, but in his nakedness, he became a man, and her father, and she left the room in respect for his privacy. She waited outside a long time until the doctor came out. ‘How is he?’ she whispered.
‘He’s had a mild heart-attack,’ Dr Jacobs said. ‘He’s sleeping now, and if he takes it easy, he’ll recover. But he must take it very easy. He must stay in bed for at least a month. He must not get up at all. Another attack would be very dangerous. How old is your father, by the way?’
Bella had never associated years with her parents, and she could only make the wildest guess at her father’s age. Your span of years didn’t seem to matter until you were dying, when friends could assess whether you’d had a good run or not, and doctors could safely ascribe natural causes to a patient’s condition.
‘Can you manage to look after him?’ Dr Jacobs said. ‘It’s going to be a full-time job. I could get him into hospital of course, but what with Norman being away, between visits you wouldn’t have any time at all.’
‘I’ll get Auntie Sadie,’ Bella said.
Dr Jacobs remembered Auntie Sadie from Mrs Zweck’s last illness. Her efficiency and heartiness frightened him. but he nodded his approval. ‘If Auntie Sadie is willing, one of the family is always better, of course.’ Bella doubted that after the Norman experience, but she let it pass.
‘How is Norman, by the way?’ Dr Jacobs asked.
‘He’s getting better,’ Bella said. It was a meaningless phrase. She was beginning to wonder what better was, as far as Norman was concerned.
‘It’s an extra worry for your father.’ Dr Jacobs said. ‘How soon d’you expect him home?’
‘He has to stay for another three weeks,’ Bella said, ‘then it’s up to the doctors. I don’t know,’ she said weakly. ‘It’s a bad business with Norman. And you’ve always been such a good daughter,’ he said. He was being sorry for her, and only increased her own sense of self-pity. She wished he would go away. ‘Will he really get better?’ she asked, ‘my father I mean.’
‘If he doesn’t exert himself, as I said, he’ll get over this one. After that, in any case he must stop working in the shop, and he must generally take things easy. Here’s a prescription. I’ve written down the instructions. I’ll come again tomorrow morning.’
She saw him out. She was glad her father was sleeping. She needed time to learn how to face his illness in his presence. She wondered whether she should tell Norman, or write to Esther, but she knew that both were pointless and she swelled with the old anger that she had to bear the brunt alone. There was Auntie Sadie of course, but for all her goodness of heart, sickness had become a pleasure for her. Besides, Auntie Sadie had always been a source of disturbance for Bella, because she recognised how like each other they were. They were the family saints, suspected for their virtues, interminably used, and generally disliked for the guilts they evoked in other members of the family who were not playing their rightful parts. Still. it would be someone to face her father with, and there was much relief in that, for suddenly, in the face of his illness, which was so private and physical a matter, she was shy of him. Yes, it was good that Auntie Sadie was coming.
Sadie was Rabbi Zweck’s sister-in-law, Sarah’s younger sister. She had never married. Her marriageable years had fallen squarely into the span of the Great War, during which time she had volunteered and trained as a nurse. There were many young men who sought her hand, but her nursing career took priority. Even when the war was over, she carried on with her work, hiring herself out as a private nurse. Her work so engrossed her that she did not notice her eligibility fall away. and it was not until other people finalised her state, with remarks like ‘Pity you never married, Sadie,’ that she realised that she had been left on the shelf. But there was nothing spinsterish about Sadie. One look at her bank-book was evidence of a life led outside the nursing profession. Or rather, a life tangential to her nursing, for the borderline between professional and unprofessional care can be conveniently thin. There were numerous bequests, ‘in token of her care and attention,’ from old widowers who had died on Sadie’s hands, or more probably in her arms. There had come a time with each patient, when washing them and tucking them in had become faintly less business-like, and there was no doubt that, dying as they were, no-one but Sadie could have given them a warmer send-off.
When Auntie Sadie arrived at Rabbi Zweck’s, she put on her white coat. It gave her confidence, and it inspired, she hoped, more confidence in her patients. ‘Well, who’s been a naughty boy then,’ she said, trundling into Rabbi Zweck’s bedroom.
He was awake and more cheerful and he was glad to see her. She sat on the bed and held his hand, while he stroked hers, surprised at how happy he was that she had come. She was very different from Sarah, and so brought with her no disturbing reminders. She kissed him on his forehead.
‘You must go see Norman,’ he said.
‘Abie,’ she said firmly, ‘it’s for you I’ve come. To look after you. To make you better. After that, I stay a few days more, I’ll go see Norman. All this worry with Norman,’ she said, ‘is no wonder you’re not well. Norman needs you, Bella needs you, I also need you,’ she added shyly. ‘For us all you must get better.’
‘You heard from Esther?’ he whispered.
‘Believe me,’ Aunt Sadie said, ‘she also needs you. But afraid I am to mention her name. She’s well. Every letter she asks how are you. See her, Abie, for your own sake, I beg you, when you’re better, let Esther come home.’
He sighed. ‘I promised Sarah,’ he said.
‘Sarah, God rest her soul, will understand. But first. we get you better,’ Sadie said.
Over the next few days, she talked to him little. She and Bella would sit at his bedside and sometimes read to him. And as the weeks passed, he gained strength and he became more and more difficult as a patient. He felt well enough to get up. He tentatively suggested that they should all visit Norman, because Norman played on his mind and he feared that his on would begin to miss him and worry about his health. But Sadie and Bella wouldn’t allow him out of his room. They tried to get him to talk to Norman on the phone, but he looked upon that as a kind of abdication, and in any case, he thought it would arouse Norman’s suspicions. If he could speak on the phone, and that would tax him enough, then why couldn’t he go and see him and set his heart at rest. But they forbade him, though they both knew that his anxiety for Norman retarded his progress. They were playing with time, hoping either for Norman’s discharge or for Rabbi Zweck’s recuperation.
After a month, Dr Jambs suggested a few hours a day on a chair on the balcony, and he could get up for meals. Bella returned full-time to the shop and most of the day, Rabbi Zweck was alone with Sadie. He wanted to talk to her all the time about Norman, and she allowed it, because it was in a way a substitute for a visit. He told her over and over again, the story of the pills and his hallucinations. of the journey to the hospital and the subsequent visits. He told her about Billy, and he asked her and himself again and again, why people should have to suffer so. He felt better when he’d spoken to her, because she offered
no advice and she blamed nobody. She only had sympathy and a deer rooted conviction, that Norman would get better. When Norman had exhausted him, they talked about their families, Sarah’s childhood, Sadie’s memories of her mother, and her father whom Rabbi Zweck had known and loved. And he too would talk about his life, starting in the present which was more painful, then easing himself gently back into the past. Gradually he gained his strength. His sole purpose of recovery was to visit Norman.
Chapter 16
For the past few weeks, Minister had been behaving in a very strange way. He had become, as it were, unprofessional. He had taken to giving Norman a week’s supply in advance, as opposed to the daily ration that had been his custom. Norman suggested that his conduct as Minister of Health was becoming unethical, but Minister answered that it was easier to balance his books on a weekly basis. He talked as if he’d gone into the big time. He hinted that he had a large number of clients, and that they were spread over all the villas in the hospital, about twenty-five in all, that his business was getting so large, it was almost ready for a take-over.
Norman had no idea where Minister kept his stocks, or from where they were imported, and it would have been highly unethical for him to enquire. Regularly, twice a week, Minister had a visitor from the outside, but it was not always the same man. His cousins, Minister would call them, and Norman could only conclude that they were the carriers, and that for security’s sake, they were varied. But then there was the problem of where he kept them in the hospital. Men were pretty free to wander where they liked from ward to ward, and down to the workshops or the canteen. He could have been stockpiling anywhere. And Minister’s new system of weekly rationing landed Norman with the problem of storage. He was not afraid that he would be tempted to consume them all at one go. His memories of whiteless days were acute enough to stay his hand. But he had to find a place to keep them. He put his problem to Minister. ‘Any ideas?’ he asked. ‘You must know of a good few places.’ Minister winked at him. ‘Sorry mate,’ he said. ‘Top secret. You forget I’m in the Cabinet. You’re as good as asking for a leak.’
Norman could see that no help would come from that quarter. He looked around the ward, but every nook and cranny was exposed. His bed and its iron frame offered no hiding place. He considered his person, but in a place like this, the least private thing was one’s own body. He considered sewing a tuck in the counterpane, provided he could get hold of a needle, but then all the counterpanes were identical and could easily, in the course of bedmaking, be switched from one bed to another. He wrapped his dressing-gown about him, and looking down, found his solution. The dressing-gown, although the property of the institution, was the only thing that belonged exclusively to him. He sat on the bed, and idly picked up the hem. It was broad enough, and its width all the way round was enough to contain at least a month’s supply, without any undue weight or encumbrance. Casually he began to unpick at the stitching. After a few minutes he had made a decent enough break and he stuffed the three cellophane packets inside. He manoeuvred them down to the corner of the hem, and flattened than out. Then he stood up and watched how it hung. They were invisible. He walked over to Minister’s bed. Minister’s dressing-gown was draped over the counterpane. He fingered all around the hem, but it was empty, and he wondered again where Minister kept them.
It was still early in the morning and the patients were already out on the lawns. Norman went outside. It was a fine day, and there was a general air, as there was on some days in the hospital, of well-being. Often such a day ended in a storm, and usually inside the ward. That morning, when he’d first woken up, Norman thought he’d seen them again, but they were not yet dear enough, or in sufficient quantities to identify. Yet despite this, he too caught the feeling of well-being, armed as he was with a week’s supply, and more when it was needed, and proud of his new-found hiding place. He joined Minister on the lawn.
Minister had no close friends in the ward. He didn’t play chess and only rarely did he play ping-pong. He read little, and his past-time was to sit and stare. People were wary of joining him, and he was excluded from most of the groups. Because Minister regarded any gathering of three or more as a Cabinet meeting, he would rattle off the time-honoured minutes that he knew by heart of previous meetings that had never taken place, then he would ask for, and give back an agenda, address the meeting, ask questions, propose and receive a vote of thanks. All this regardless of anyone else’s conversations. Once entangled in this procedure, it was difficult to withdraw, because although every man’s madness, except one’s own, was a monstrous repetitive bore, nevertheless, it had to be respected. You didn’t walk out on someone else’s lunacy. You grinned and bore it, and firmly believed that they should be put away. And so Minister was usually alone, and it was at your peril that you joined him.
Nevertheless, Norman walked towards him. He was sitting in a deck-chair. He was still in pyjamas, and he’d managed to hold on to his own dressing-gown, a threadbare woollen affair, studded with cigarette holes. It was wrapped tightly around him. Norman looked directly at the hem, but noticed that it was narrow and unstitched practically the whole way round. He wore his boots as always, Minister shunned the ward slippers, his boots seemed to guarantee his identity as Minister of the Crown. They had a high shine and reached over his ankles, with black leather tabs jutting out at the back and catching in the hem of his pyjama trousers. Norman pulled up a chair beside him.
“You solved your problem, then?’ Minister whispered.
Minister only whispered when he wasn’t being a Minister. In his role as health superintendent, he spoke loudly and with confidence. As a rank and filer, and Norman never discovered his real name, he whispered. sadly and timidly.
“Yes, I found somewhere,’ Norman said.
Minister was not curious. He just stared ahead. Norman sensed that something was disturbing him. ‘Something the matter?’ he said.
‘She’s coming. She’s coming this afternoon, but if she comes anywhere near my bed. I’ll break ‘er bloody back.’ ‘She’ could only refer to his mother.
‘It’s only an hour or so,’ Norman said. He couldn’t think of any other consolation to offer, except that whatever it was that Minister dreaded, was terminable.
‘She’d better not come near me,’ Minister muttered again. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Norman said. He was sorry he had asked. It was too personal a question for such a place. Though in the hospital the men’s bodies were public, as public as their aberrations, it was not done to enquire into their cause. The scabs and scars were visible enough, what lay behind them, was the only privacy a man could hold on to. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I don’t really want to know.’
‘They really ought to frisk visitors at this place,’ Minister shouted. He was back in the Cabinet. ‘There’s no knowing what the bastards bring in on them. ‘Ow am I supposed to keep this place clean, with all the scum coming and going, in and out, walking over my floors.’ He spoke with the charwoman’s possessive. ‘There’s no knowing what they bring in on them.’
Norman was weary of Minister’s tirade. He wanted him to come out of the Cabinet. ‘Is he coming?’ he asked. ‘The new husband, I mean.’
Minister retained his post. ‘I tried to keep ‘im out of the meeting,’ he shouted, ‘but the old cow voted ‘im in. Democracy, she calls it. My arse. What this country needs is a dictatorship. If I ‘ad my way, there’d be no-one coming to soil this place. It ‘ud be the only ‘ealthy spot left in the world. Yes, ‘e’s coming,’ he went on. ‘They’ll both walk into this place like they owned it. She’ll be covered in cow-pads, and ‘e’ll ‘ave a cock ‘anging out of each eye.’ He was trembling with anger and fear. Then without another word, he got up and walked back towards the ward. Norman looked after him and then followed. At the door of the ward, he waited. Minister was inside at the ward sink. Norman watched him, and he counted the glasses of water with which Minister was flushing himself. Fourteen in all. There seemed no quench
ing to his thirst at all, but only a desperate need to cleanse his soul of his mother’s droppings. After the fourteenth glass, he moved away from the sink. He took a few steps, then he hesitated and returned. Four more glasses. Then, shrugging his shoulders with the painful futility of it all, he dragged his big boots off towards the bed.
Norman returned to the lawns. He went back to his chair, moving Minister’s a little way off. There was an after-presence in Minister’s chair and he wanted to be rid of it. He liked him well enough, but with that edge of hostility that was natural in a relationship of one entirely dependent on another. He didn’t want to think about him, but it was difficult to put him out of his mind. The water-drinking episode had sickened him, and he wished he’d never seen it, and the thought of Minister’s big boots dragging him away from his well, moved him unutterably. There was a kind of inbuilt doom about Minister, and today, more than any other, Norman felt infected by it, and it seemed only enhanced by the bright sun that filtered through the trees on the lawn and the dreadful bonhomie of the patients joking amongst themselves about their own unenviable state. He shut his eyes, and the sun and their laughter pierced them. He turned his face into the canvas of the deck-chair. It was warm against his cheek, but it was dark and comforting. He wondered about his father. Over the past few weeks, he’d tried not to think about him. It was at least a month since he had seen him. Bella fobbed him off with excuses. The journey was too long for him; it was too much of a strain, or he was busy. She had flatly denied that he was ill, but he knew in his heart that she was lying. Bug what angered him most, was not so much his father’s condition, but that it should be kept secret from him, as if he were suddenly an outsider in the family, a contemptible stranger who couldn’t begin to understand. He wondered whether in fact, he had always been an outsider in the family, and whether he had so placed himself, or whether his parents and sisters had so elected him. He worried about his father. He felt sure that he was ill, that no inconvenience or strain had precluded his former visits. He wondered suddenly whether he would ever see his father again and a terrible anxiety shook him.
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