Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

by Amy Witting

  ‘Shake your hand about a bit, will you? This is like trying to get milk from an old dry cow.’

  ‘Sorry!’

  She shook and massaged, feeling shame at her incompetence, and at last the young man got his due of blood which he squirted from his hypodermic into a test tube.

  ‘That’s it, then. You can go back to the ward.’

  Max was waiting outside with the wheelchair. The journey back to the ward was speedy, since it was lunch hour.

  There was no special lunch today.

  Meatballs and mash.

  Food is muscle.

  Couldn’t have been better put, she thought, and for all her determination could manage only half a meatball. She pushed the plate away and decided to plead fatigue if she was questioned.

  In mid afternoon, Sister Connor returned.

  ‘You’re to see Doctor Wang. Can you walk it? It’s only a few doors along.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Sister Connor led her to the end of the corridor, knocked at a door, said, ‘Here she is, Doctor,’ and departed.

  ‘Will you strip to the waist, please? And lie down on the couch.’

  More tapping, listening, prodding and noting.

  The young Chinese, who had seemed like a stripling beside Sister Knox, gained in stature as he practised his profession.

  How much one learnt from the touch of hands: skill, confidence and a kind of courtesy—like freedom, thought Isobel. You can’t define it, but you know when you don’t have it. Doctor Wang passed the test of touch.

  As she put on her pyjamas, he asked, with some amusement, as if he recognised the question as a password, ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘You too?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I am a member of the world’s least exclusive club.’

  His question, she perceived, had been a kind of intelligence test. She appeared to have been given a pass mark.

  ‘Shall I see you back to your room?’

  ‘Thanks. I can find my way.’

  She wondered, as she made her way down the corridor, how many of the staff had tuberculosis and whether there was any way of telling them apart.

  Next morning, after Diana’s visit, an orderly appeared and left the now recognisable manila envelope at the foot of her bed.

  After it came Doctor Stannard, less daunting in a limp and sagging white coat, and with him Doctor Wang and Sister Connor.

  ‘Feeling a bit better?’ asked Stannard.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘That ambulance trip did her no good, Doctor,’ said Sister Connor. ‘Sitting up all that way next to an open window. Clare was on Reception. She had it out with the driver but he said he had had no instructions, and the attendant had to travel in the back with the stretcher case. He hadn’t been told she was a stretcher case.’

  ‘They were not cooperative,’ agreed Doctor Stannard.

  Clearly it was us against the world at Mornington.

  ‘Why was she not at North Shore in the first place?’ asked Doctor Wang.

  Isobel looked warily at Doctor Stannard.

  He said vaguely, ‘It was an emergency.’

  He had taken the two X-rays from the envelope and was studying them.

  ‘I’ll have the fever chart, please, Sister.’

  He reflected. He named a number of ccs of streptomycin.

  The strep didn’t take. Pam had been going home not cured because the strep didn’t take. But that didn’t happen often.

  Doctor Stannard said to her, ‘Now you’re on your way. Starting tomorrow morning.’

  He handed the fever chart back to Sister Connor, put the X-rays back in their envelope, nodded and departed with Wang.

  Sister Connor stayed to say, ‘Any questions?’

  Isobel shook her head.

  ‘I’ll just wait and see.’

  Sister Connor departed.

  The orderly appeared to take away the X-rays and life resumed its pace.

  Streptomycin was administered by injection into the buttock every morning by Sister Connor. Pulling down pyjama pants, even to the discreet distance the injection required, established forever one’s social status, which was humble.

  The side effects of streptomycin were controlled by a drug which the doctors called PAS and the patients, without affection, called Paz. It too had side effects, such as nausea. This was known to the patients as feeling pazzy. Later in their acquaintance, Doctor Wang made a small grimace and begged Isobel to refer to the drug as PAS. Isobel replied that she had always found it wise in Rome to do as the Romans did. He answered this with the silent laughter which was his usual response to a retort.

  PAS presented its own difficulties. It came in enormous tablets with the circumference of a two-shilling piece and as thick as a stack of four of them. Diana, who distributed six tablets to Isobel every morning, instructed her in the technique of swallowing them. One dunked a tablet on a tablespoon into a glass of water, waited for the precise moment when the covering softened to the consistency of an oyster, then tipped it down the throat in one movement. If one delayed too long, the covering dissolved and the life-giving contents fell into the water. One then had to drink the water, a fate to be avoided, or, if one was not under observation, tip it quickly down the sink.

  Though the administration of streptomycin was humiliating, its effect was startling. Isobel gained strength every day. She negotiated with Diana, refused the bedpan and asked to be allowed to go to the lavatory. This was condoned, so long as she escaped the attention of the authorities. The authority in this case was Sister Connor, whose movements could be easily monitored.

  The bathroom itself was out of bounds, but she took the washcloth from willing Diana and washed herself, feeling catlike but more independent.

  Periods of energy grew longer.

  She took out her poets and read some familiar pieces, not yet ready to tax her brain with the new.

  The doctors visited again and were pleased with her progress.

  After ten days, she went back to Medical for an X-ray.

  Now there were three in the large envelope which the orderly brought. The third one, it seemed, brought good news.

  Doctor Stannard held it to the light, compared it with its predecessors, said, ‘This looks to me like a sudden flare-up. No spread. Fundamentally pretty stable.’

  He looked at Isobel. ‘Too much high living? Too many parties?’

  Isobel thought of her cold attic, the newspapers stuffed for extra warmth between the mattress and the sagging iron frame of the narrow bed, the gas ring, the sink, the latrine bucket in the corner.

  She said sourly, ‘You flatter me.’

  Doctor Stannard retreated into abstraction.

  ‘Certainly a very positive reaction,’ said Doctor Wang.

  ‘Think she can handle C grade, Sister?’

  ‘I hear that she has promoted herself already,’ said Sister Connor.

  So she had not been unobserved.

  ‘Right. Give it till the end of the week. She could go into Room 2.’

  ‘What is C grade like?’ Isobel asked her informant Diana, when she came to take her afternoon temperature and her pulse and ask whether her bowels were open.

  ‘The same only more so. Have you gone up a grade?’

  ‘Yes. Starting next week. I’m moving to Room 2.’

  Something flickered in Diana’s face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Well, you’ve got nearly a week, so make the most of it.’

  III

  MORNINGTON C GRADE

  Room 2 was, like Room 5, part of C Ward, a row of small rooms, each with two beds, opening to the west on the wide, open verandah, which, with its planking and its waist-high railing, suggested a ship’s deck, though it overlooked not sea but an oceanic expanse of mountains. The inner door of the room opened on a corridor which separated it from a corresponding row of bathrooms, lavatories and store rooms.

  It linked the administration block (reception, o
ffices, Medical, laboratory, X-ray, upper wards, dining room and parts unknown to patients) with the lower block (surgery, recovery ward, main wards, kitchen and other parts unknown). At each end of the verandah there was a flight of three steps, leading beyond Room 1 to Doctor Wang’s office, beyond Room 12 to a small room furnished with a couch, a table and chairs, known as the visitors’ waiting room, though no visitor was ever seen to wait there.

  Room 5, though situated in C Ward, was not of it. It was kept for emergencies, for patients needing special care. Now Isobel was to become one of the crowd, a genuine member of C Ward.

  On Monday morning, Diana came immediately after breakfast with the bath trolley.

  ‘Make the most of it. You’ll be head of the bath queue tomorrow. Six o’clock and not a minute later. All baths have to be over by ten o’clock. I hope you don’t mind cold baths.’

  Isobel, plying her washcloth, took this to be a joke. She discovered next day that it was not.

  ‘The girls will be wanting to strip your bed. As soon as you’ve finished there, you can start moving your stuff to Room 2. You might as well get into your dressing gown now and I’ll take you along to meet Val.’

  C grade was certainly a change of pace. Isobel, bathed and towelled, put on pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, and packed books and toilet gear into her duffle bag with the required speed. Diana cleared the wardrobe and the cabinet of scuffs (which Isobel obligingly hid in the duffle bag), clean pyjamas and dragon coat, which she carried over her arm along the corridor to Room 2, Isobel following, glad of her promotion but apprehensive about the future.

  ‘Well, here we are. Val, this is your new room mate. Her name is Isobel. You can tell her anything she wants to know.’

  Diana hung Isobel’s clothes in the new wardrobe and departed, saying, ‘See you later.’

  Val was a woman in the late thirties or early forties, Isobel thought—she was not good at estimating age. Val’s red-gold hair was not yet touched with grey. It was drawn back severely from a rounded brow and a handsome face, somewhat marred by the smallness of her green eyes and the near invisibility of her eyebrows.

  She greeted Isobel with an eagerness which was disconcertingly like a drowning clutch.

  ‘I hope you speak English.’

  ‘Well, yes. It is my native language.’

  ‘Oh, what a relief! The last one hardly spoke a word of English. I told them I could never put up with such a thing again. “At least,” I said, “give me someone who speaks English!”’

  She had, it seemed, suffered terribly from the proximity of Olga, a New Australian who, besides speaking little English, wore earrings in bed and had visitors who spoke a foreign language without the slightest consideration for Val’s feelings. Her resentment of this insult vibrated in her voice.

  ‘Once, she had visitors who stayed for two hours and spoke a foreign language the whole time. At the end of it, I was so exhausted and I had such a terrible pain, here in my spine and in the nape of my neck, that Sister had to call Doctor Wang. He was very nice about it. He gave me a tranquilliser to calm me down and he talked to me about stress and explained why people talk about pains in the neck.’

  Isobel, who had been listening to this outburst with dismay, and finding Val’s English quite as exhausting as any foreign language, said, ‘To Doctor Wang, English is a foreign language.’

  Silenced for a moment by astonishment, Val brought the full force of her intellect to bear on this extraordinary statement.

  At last she said, slowly and firmly, ‘English is not a foreign language.’

  Isobel decided not to argue.

  ‘I thought they would move her to another room when they found out how much she was upsetting me, but they didn’t. Sister did apologise and said, if I was upset by Olga’s visitors, I could go and sit in the visitors’ room. Though I don’t see why Olga couldn’t have gone there instead of me. It didn’t happen again, thank goodness.’

  ‘What became of Olga then?’

  ‘Oh, she was always complaining to the doctors about pains here and pains there, and eventually they took her up to X-ray and then they moved her straight away in an ambulance. Found more than they were expecting, apparently.’

  Isobel wondered dismally if any of Olga’s pains had been in the region of the neck.

  Bed making had begun.

  A reedy young voice from the next room cried, ‘Haven’t you got a kiss for me, beautiful? You don’t know what you’re missing!’

  Tamara came in laughing, saying, ‘Funny little ting!’

  Elaine followed, saying, ‘I don’t think it’s funny at all. At his age. You ought to report him.’

  ‘Is not worth fuss. No harm done. If he lays finger I smack hard, no worries. Hullo, Isobel. You got move, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve made C grade.’

  ‘Good. Out of bed now.’

  Isobel wondered what Val thought of Tamara’s demonstration of English as a foreign language. Herself, she was delighted to hear it again.

  She mustn’t take against Val. She mustn’t go on first impressions.

  It will settle down, we shall co-exist, she thought as she unpacked her duffle bag and thrust her handbag into the pocket between the bed and the wall.

  Then she climbed into bed and waited for the next item on the day’s programme.

  That was the arrival of Sister Connor with the strep injection, and the added embarrassment of the presence of a room mate at this humiliating ceremony.

  She averted her eyes from Val’s naked posterior and trusted Val to show her the same consideration. One learnt the special courtesy required in institution life.

  Morning tea or coffee came next. One was not left long alone at Mornington. Food and drink arrived with frequency: early morning tea, breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Lunch was the main meal, dinner rather resembling supper.

  After her cup of milky coffee—Isobel was conscientious in the ingestion of milk, and coffee essence was a good way of disguising its taste, which she disliked—the moment she had been looking forward to with eagerness arrived. Free hour.

  On C grade, patients were allowed to get up for an hour before lunch. They could drag (but not carry) their cane armchairs to the verandah, they could walk about and visit other rooms, so long as they did not stray beyond C Ward.

  As soon as the hooter sounded, Val got up, put on dressing gown and slippers and went out, leaving Isobel to make her own way.

  Isobel followed, feeling shy and thinking that Val might well have waited for her and introduced her to other patients.

  Fortunately, on the verandah she met Eily, who greeted her as a friend and was truly happy at her promotion.

  ‘How did the bronc go, Eily?’

  ‘Waste of bloody time. They didn’t find a thing. Only got to put on a bit of weight and I’ll make D grade. According to the old firm of Stannard and Wang, I’ll be home in a month.’

  ‘Oh, Eily! That’s wonderful.’

  ‘Well, yes and no.’

  Eily stared gloomily at the mountains. Home, it seemed, had little to offer.

  ‘Oh, Gawd. Here comes young Romeo.’

  The remark was overheard, as no doubt she had intended, by the youth who was approaching. This must be the young sex offender of the morning, who would get hard smack if he laid finger on Tamara. He did not look like a sex offender. He had a keen, clever face in which dark eyes shifted uneasily like small animals seeking escape, and short dark hair on a fine head set on an emaciated body with stooped shoulders pitiably bowed.

  ‘This is Lance, wolf cub from Room 1 and a right little nuisance. Just keep him in his place.’

  ‘Oh, Eily!’

  Lance belied the intelligence his face promised by assuming a ludicrous air of melancholy.

  ‘Dying duck in a thunderstorm,’ said Eily without sympathy.

  ‘Eily, don’t be so cruel. You know that, deep down, you truly love me.’

  ‘Maybe so. I haven’t got do
wn as far as that yet. Get on your way, you silly little bugger. And pick up your feet.’

  Isobel was to hear this admonition often. The dragging step with which Lance had approached was known as the TB shuffle, and was monitored by any patient who observed it. The cry ‘Pick up your feet,’ was often heard on the verandah and was obeyed without rancour by the offender.

  Lance responded by exaggerating the dragging step as he moved away.

  Eily stared after him, saying, ‘Poor little bugger,’ with an anger which was not directed at the boy.

  ‘You’ve moved into Room 2, have you, with Val? She’s buddies with my room mate Gladys. She’ll be down there this minute giving her the news.’

  ‘I hope the report is good.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Eily glanced thoughtfully at Isobel but said nothing.

  ‘It’s a pity about Gladys. She was doing fine until she had that last baby. Shouldn’t have had it. After all, she had three kids already. Now all the kids are in care and Glad is eating her heart out. Her husband does his best, takes them every weekend. The more she frets the longer it’ll be, Sister Connor keeps telling her. Talk’s easy. Poor old Glad.’

  ‘Doesn’t she ever see them?’

  ‘You can’t bring kids in here. Sometimes he brings them up on Sunday and they stand in the garden and wave to her. It’s risky talking to Glad those Sunday nights.’

  ‘How’s Lois?’

  ‘Huh. Still the same when I left. The others play up to her too much. She’ll wake up to herself some day, maybe.’

  Isobel had been enchanted by Lois’s dream life with the amorous doctors. She was saddened to learn that Lois must pay for it.

  ‘Do you have anything cheerful to tell me?’

  ‘Well, you’ve done all right. Three weeks ago you were on your last legs.’

  ‘Doctor Stannard says it was a sudden flare up. Accused me of riotous living.’

  She was sorry at once that she had offered this opening to the past. She did not intend to arouse any interest that might lead to the discovery of her entry into Saint Ursula’s, knickerless and raving.

  Eily however showed no inclination to enquire further. This too was part of institution manners. If you wanted to tell your story—she was soon to discover that many people were eager to do so—then you found listeners, but nobody asked you how you came to be there.