The New Leaf

by Hugh Canham

  ‘Thanks,’ I said and looked at the engraving inside the ring.

  ‘To G love from Mum.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said smiling wanly, ‘it has some sentimental value but I don’t always wear it, so I hadn’t realised it was missing. But thank you so much – I should have been very sad if I’d lost it.’

  ‘Is your mother still alive?’

  ‘No. Both my parents are dead.’

  ‘I see… Well, how do you feel?’

  ‘Not too good, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What happened exactly?’

  ‘I don’t really want to go into it. Apparently I passed out in the street having been to a church with a friend. I suppose it was somewhere near here.’

  ‘Church?!’

  ‘Yes. Don’t sound so surprised. I don’t go very often – in fact, hardly at all. But I’ve turned over a new leaf, you see.’

  ‘Goodness! I hope that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be frightfully boring in the future!’

  Somehow, Jane was a very reassuring presence to have at my bedside and I dozed off again. How long I’d been asleep I don’t know, but Jane was still sitting beside me reading a book when I woke up.

  ‘Is it still snowing?’ I said.

  ‘No. That was on Saturday. It was lovely on Sunday, today is Monday and it’s quite nice, but still cold.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘It’s a Henry James novel, “The Spoils of Poynton”.’

  ‘I see!’ It occurred to me that Jane was even stranger than I had at first thought.

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘Oh yes, very much indeed.’

  Three of the other beds on the ward were empty; the men in the other two were asleep. As I dozed and Jane read, a mighty rushing wind disturbed the calm and Gloria stood at the end of my bed, glaring.

  ‘Well, here I am,’ she said. ‘Goodness, you look awful!’

  ‘Please don’t shout, darling!’ I glanced at Jane. She’d put down her book and looked faintly bewildered.

  ‘This, Jane, is my secretary Gloria. Gloria, this is my friend Jane. I think you’ve spoken on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, we have,’ said Gloria, who as usual was looking glamorous, wearing a large fur coat and exuding clouds of her perfume.

  ‘Darling, please speak more quietly or you’ll wake the other patients. Just pull up a chair and tell me what you’ve managed to do.’

  Gloria reluctantly grabbed one of the plastic chairs scattered around the ward and placed it noisily on the opposite side of the bed from Jane. She removed her fur coat, threw it onto my bed, sat down and continued to glare at me.

  ‘I’ve managed to put a stop on all your cards and ordered new ones. I’ve had the locks to the office changed by Banhams. Here are two new keys. And here are your spare car keys and a fifty pound note from the petty cash in case you need it. Nobody’s broken into the office and flat, although I suppose your address must have been on the business cards in your pockets or in your diary. But the bad news is that the car seems to be missing from the underground car park. Yes, I checked.’

  ‘Darling, you’re the most efficient secretary anyone ever had. You’ve done wonderfully. Don’t worry about the car; it’s in the car park at Sandown racecourse. Look, you keep the car keys and perhaps you could pick it up tomorrow and drive it back to my parking for me. It’s easy to get to Sandown by train from Waterloo.’

  I thought she was going to go berserk.

  ‘I’m not picking up your bloody car from Sandown,’ she shouted. ‘Wasting all that money on racehorses and betting!’

  ‘But darling, Sir Will won. Forty thousand in prize money and I had a thousand pounds on him at seven to one. All tax free!’

  I hadn’t until that moment taken in the fact that this had considerably eased my immediate financial difficulties.

  ‘That makes a change. It’s a terrible waste of money, racing and betting, don’t you think?’ she said, addressing Jane for the first time, who she no doubt assumed was the last person likely to be interested in horse racing.

  ‘Well, actually, no I don’t,’ said Jane. ‘I was at the races on Saturday when Sir Will won and it was a most wonderful experience. It really was!’

  ‘She was with you?’ said Gloria, glaring at me.

  ‘Yes… ’

  ‘In that case I suggest she picks up the car for you. If, of course, she can drive!’

  ‘What a good idea!’ said Jane, smiling. ‘If you’d like to give me the keys, I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. I remember the registration number; GRE22 isn’t it? You’ll tell me where you’d like me to park it?’

  I wanted to laugh even though I felt so ill. Gloria was absolutely speechless at being outwitted. I’d never seen her nonplussed before. Well, Jane was full of surprises!

  Gloria left shortly afterwards in a very black mood. I tried to get Jane to stay longer, but she said she had ‘something to do’. Why is it that women are so bloody secretive? So I lay there feeling very sorry for myself.

  By the next morning, the ward was full and another doctor came towards me, smiling.

  ‘You may go now.’

  ‘You mean, home, discharged?’

  ‘That’s right. Please get dressed.’

  He started to draw the curtains around the bed.

  ‘But what about the other tests?’

  ‘No more tests at the moment.’

  ‘But what about the results?’

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ll be sent to your GP.’

  I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry as I started slowly to put my crumpled clothes on. I found them stuffed in a locker beside my bed. I’d conditioned myself for staying in hospital for… well, I didn’t really know, but certainly I hadn’t thought I would be leaving so soon. I was glad to see that Cristabel’s pullover and anorak were still with my other clothes.

  ‘You all right?’ A nurse peered in between my drawn curtains.

  ‘I think so.’ In fact I felt a bit light headed, but I wasn’t going to let on. All I wanted to do now was to get out of the bloody place and into a taxi home. But as I walked slowly down the corridors of that vast hospital, it did occur to me that the reason I was being discharged was because they needed my bed for someone else. When they’d done my ECG I was sure they’d said they’d be doing a scan or something the next day…

  There weren’t any black cabs waiting outside, but as I wandered about wondering what to do a very dilapidated car drew up and a swarthy man with a large moustache stuck his head out of the window.

  ‘Minicab, sir?’

  Yes, that would do.

  ‘Where to?’

  I told him ‘Brook Street, Mayfair’, but he seemed to have no idea which way to go. He said he was Turkish – a student. He looked about fifty.

  Eventually, with me giving him directions, we arrived at my office.

  ‘How much?’ I said.

  ‘Thirty pounds, sir.’

  It seemed an awful lot but I didn’t want to argue. I offered the man the £50 note that Gloria had given me from the petty cash and said to take five for himself.

  ‘No, sorry, don’t take fifty pound notes, sir. Boss says may be forged!’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘Got a credit card? We take Visa and Mastercard.’

  ‘Ah, no… sorry!’

  He peered round at me very suspiciously. No doubt I looked scruffy. I hadn’t shaved since going into hospital.

  ‘Maybe you go into that shop. Get some change?’

  ‘No, no. You hold the fifty pounds and I’ll go into my office over there and get something smaller. I may be a few moments.’

  I walked up to the rather splendid front door of my office, but it was shut! And there was no light on inside. Where the hell was Gloria! I fumbled in my trouser pockets for the keys.

  ‘Burglar alarm! Burglar alarm!’ sounded in my brain and I managed to punch in the number on the keypad as I entered. I made straigh
t for Gloria’s desk and opened the drawer where the petty cash box was. The box was there, but the key was not. Where did she keep the bloody thing? Never mind, I had several hundred pounds upstairs in the safe in my flat. But when I got to the safe (cunningly concealed in the back of my wardrobe), could I manage to work the combination? No. I tried five times then had to give up. Had Gloria changed it?

  I went downstairs to explain things to the driver, but as I emerged from the front door I saw the dilapidated car driving away with my £50 note. Ah well, I’d only been overcharged by £15. In my present state of health I didn’t really care. I shut and locked the office door from the inside and sat down wearily on one of my very nice leather sofas. I looked up at Cristabel’s pictures and thought how beautiful she was. But what the hell had happened to Gloria? Perhaps she was ill. Then I saw an envelope propped up against her computer screen. I went over, grabbed it and tore it open;

  ‘Dear Greg,

  You won’t be surprised; I’ve left. I’m sorry to do this while you’re in hospital but you are really impossible to work with and I can’t stand another day of it or else I shall go mad! There’s a note on the computer explaining where everything is and what I have done and not done.

  Gloria.’

  ‘Oh triple shit,’ I said, screwing the letter into a ball and throwing it into a corner. I went upstairs to my flat. All I felt like doing was lying on the bed. I was furious. Gloria must have known that as a matter of principle I couldn’t and didn’t ever use the computer; that’s what a secretary’s for! She’d put everything onto the computer and left it like that so I’d have to get help. Why hadn’t she phoned me in the hospital to tell me she was leaving? It could have been days before I was discharged and the office meanwhile would have gone to rack and ruin! She’d probably left because of Jane and the car. It was all Jane’s fault – had she brought the car back? And if so, where were the keys?

  But after a time I decided that I couldn’t just lie there feeling angry. I got up, tore off my awful crumpled clothes and staggered into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. What a mess! I virtually had a beard, in which I noticed were several grey hairs on either side of my chin. It would have to be removed immediately. It was a very long and painful process. Then I had a lengthy shower and washed my hair three times. After all that, I stood naked and studied myself again in the mirror. I looked as if I’d lost at least 2 stone, but that was impossible after such a short time. There was a saggy bit where my stomach used to be. My eyes looked sunken and hollow. But what was worst of all, my genitals seemed to have shrivelled!

  Oh God! What I needed was something nice to eat. I hadn’t got any cash. Or at least couldn’t get to what I had. I saw no immediate signs of replacement credit cards so it would have to be the club. I’d have to walk to St James’s.

  It was a pleasant day. Pale, wintry sun. I put on one of my better suits which seemed very loose and an overcoat which seemed to weigh a ton. I walked very slowly.

  ‘Your usual, sir?’ enquired Bill the barman.

  ‘Just a single please.’

  ‘Goodness, sir, are you not feeling well?’

  ‘No, I’ve been in hospital.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, sir. Yes, now you mention it, you do look a bit peaky. Nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘No, no. I think I’ve been overworking.’

  ‘Of course, sir. It happens so often these days, doesn’t it?’

  In the dining room I ordered a Dover sole and a small carafe of Chablis. But when it came, I only managed to finish half the sole and a bit of potato. The Chablis tasted very odd. Walking back to Brook Street was agony. I had appalling indigestion and started sweating profusely. I had to sit down for several minutes on a doorstep somewhere. And when I made it back to my flat, having remembered to switch the phone through from the reception so it rang upstairs, I just took off my jacket and trousers and got into bed and stared at the ceiling. There was a rather nasty little crack across one corner. I’d never noticed it before. I’d have to get the room redecorated… sometime…

  After a while I felt very lonely and wondered if there were any messages on the answering service. But there weren’t. Gloria must have come in early that morning, written her farewell note to me, taken them all off and incorporated them into this message or whatever it was she’d left on the computer. I’d have to get a temporary secretary to see to it all.

  And then the phone rang. Thank goodness not everyone had forgotten me!

  ‘Gregory, it’s me, Jane. I’m at the hospital to see you but they say you’ve been discharged. So I rang your office.’

  ‘Yes, they sort of kicked me out this morning. I think they needed the bed. Can you come along here? It’s three hundred, Brook Street.’

  ‘No, I’m awfully sorry, I can’t. I was only going to stay half an hour and now I’ve got something else to do in West London.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, tomorrow maybe?’

  ‘Yes, of course. How do you feel?’

  ‘Terrible.’

  ‘Did they tell you what was the matter with you?’

  ‘No. They said they’d send the results of the tests to my GP.’

  ‘Not very satisfactory!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, see you tomorrow. I brought your car back first thing this morning by the way and gave the keys to Gloria.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m awfully grateful. Do you know where she put them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she say she was leaving?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, she left me a note – she’s gone!’

  ‘Oh dear!’ She didn’t sound very sorry to hear it.

  ‘Yes. Well, do come any time tomorrow!’

  It was getting dark and I was thinking that I might possibly have retrieved my belongings by getting in touch with Lucy’s father – my trainer – but it was getting a bit late now. The phone rang again. It was Cristabel.

  ‘I’ve just rung the hospital and they say you’ve been discharged!’

  ‘Yes. This morning.’

  ‘Does this mean you’re better?’

  ‘No. I think they just wanted the bed!’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Awful!’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Lying in bed.’

  ‘I’d better come.’

  About half an hour later the entryphone sounded, I let Cristabel in and told her where my bedroom was. She tapped on the door very tentatively and said, ‘May I come in?’

  She was smiling as she entered, but then she looked at my face and stopped.

  ‘Goodness, they really shouldn’t have discharged you. Have you had anything to eat?’

  I told her about my visit to the club.

  ‘I’m surprised you made it, the way you look. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes please. The kitchen’s off the living room to the right, but there’s no milk.’

  Cristabel slipped off her overcoat and put it on a chair. She was wearing a tight jumper. God, she was beautiful! I lay there and thought about it while she was away. Soon she reappeared carrying two cups.

  ‘I found some Earl Grey. It’s okay without milk… I’ve been thinking,’ she said, sitting down. ‘You obviously can’t stay here. Where’s your secretary by the way?’

  ‘She’s left.’

  ‘Very helpful of her!’

  ‘I found a note when I arrived here from the hospital. She said I was impossible!’

  ‘Well, maybe you are, but it seems a bad time to choose to walk out.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘been with me three years, too!’

  ‘Look, my aunt runs a nursing home in Hampshire. I’ll see if she’s got room for you. I’m sure you’re not hard up, but it’s a charity so it won’t cost you anything unless you’d like to make a donation when you leave. I’ll go and phone her.’

  She didn’t give me a chance to say no.

  ‘Well that’s all arranged,’ she said
when she came back after a few minutes. ‘I’ll take you now in my car. It’s parked nearby. Do you want any help? You’d better take a few toilet things and pyjamas – and maybe a change of underwear and clothes for when you’re allowed up.’

  I must have slept most of the way on the back seat. When I woke, the headlights showed we were driving down a very narrow lane.

  ‘Ah, you’re awake,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder. ‘I thought I heard you move. We’re nearly there!’

  Soon we drove over a cattle grid, into a driveway and drew up in front of a large house. She opened the back door of the car and helped me out.

  ‘Ah, here’s Auntie. She’s expecting us.’

  I looked at the shrouded figure in the shadow of the porch and could hardly believe it. What the hell had I come to? But as the lady welcomed me, I noticed she had kind eyes and a beautiful face, very like Cristabel’s.

  ‘Come along in, Gregory. May I call you Gregory? I hear you’ve not been at all well, but we’ll do our best to look after you here. I’ll show you to your room. Would you like anything to eat? Supper is over, but we could easily manage an omelette or a boiled egg.’

  I said I didn’t want anything; just to lie down. I noticed the house was Victorian Gothic as we passed through various gloomy corridors with pitch pine panelling, Auntie leading the way, Cristabel holding me with one arm and carrying my bag in the other.

  ‘Here we are!’ said Auntie at last. ‘This is you!’

  And she showed me into a very pleasant large room.

  ‘And here’s your own bathroom. Just sit down and Sister will be along in a few minutes to help you into bed.’

  I sank down into the nearest chair. I noticed vaguely that they were all covered in a William Morris fabric.

  ‘Bye, Gregory. See you again soon,’ said Cristabel, giving me a bright little wave. ‘As Auntie says, you’ll be well looked after here.’

  They disappeared and within a minute there was a tap on the door and ‘Sister’ appeared.

  ‘I’ve come to help you to bed,’ she said. She was dressed just like Auntie and my worst fears were confirmed.

  ‘Oh God,’ I murmured to myself, ‘fucking nuns!!’