Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

by Amy Witting

  ‘Ain’t got much time for them, kiddo. Too much like school. Didn’t go much on school. Used to cut it a lot.’ Perceiving that she was being drawn into an illicit conversation, Isobel said, ‘Better get back to bed.’

  ‘Everybody’ll be up as soon as rounds are over.’

  ‘Well, that’s not now, is it?’ said Isobel, feeling sympathy for Sister Connor.

  ‘Once,’ said Lance, ‘we was down in the park, a couple of fellows and me, and a prefect came down and told us we was caught and we was to come straight back and go to the head and we was going to get death when we got there. Didn’t know what to do. One of the fellows said he was going home. His old woman would give him a note to say he was home sick all day.’

  This was said with the unemotional rapid-fire delivery she had overheard from the next room the previous evening, but his expression was one of recollected dread.

  ‘No use asking the old man. Well, he might have, but you’d never find him. Don’t work regular, see. He’s on the pension. Does a good thing of raffling ducks in pubs. Wouldn’t have known where to find him, see.’

  ‘What did you do, then?’

  ‘Went back.’ His eyes were stilled by remembered horror.

  Isobel did not press for details.

  ‘How about getting back to bed now?’

  Her tone was softened by a sympathy which she soon found to be a serious error.

  He could not be dislodged, but sat silent, hunched and gloomy, like a bedraggled raven, until patients began to appear on the verandah. Then he left without a word and went to join them.

  Conversation was particularly brisk on Thursdays. There was news.

  Pat was for surgery.

  ‘I asked him, “Any change?” and he grinned at me and said, “The time has come, the walrus said.” No laughing matter to me.’

  ‘Well, it had to happen sometime, Pat, and the sooner the better.’

  ‘Yes.’ Pat sighed.

  The remote future did not compensate for the immediate threat.

  ‘When he smiles at you, watch out!’

  Eily was for Medical next morning, as a preliminary to her promotion to D grade.

  Others had news for their particular friends.

  It was on the verandah that Isobel received her education.

  We are wogs. We know that we are wogs. That is what we call ourselves. We speak with envy and anger of famous people who are just as much wogs as we, but have somehow managed to beat the rap. A famous film star, known to be a wog, starred in a film made in the US. How come they let her out? She’s just the same as we are, really. Doctor Stannard has done a lot to educate people, to employ wogs, to get over their prejudice against us. He goes to international conferences, raises money for the fight against TB. They reckon they’re going to wipe it out. With strep they’ll wipe it off the earth. That’ll be the day. ‘I like Doctor Wang myself, as a doctor, I mean. After all he’s one of us. Knows what it’s like.’

  Once D grade had been allowed to go into town once a week, until a few hoodlums came back drunk and Doctor Hook put a stop to it. Spoilt it for everyone. Of course that’s Hook. He’s tough. Well, that’s his job.

  Some of D grade were on their third time round. They would go home, break down, come back. Different now with the operations. People had lobectomies, got better for good. But I wouldn’t care for a thoracoplasty. Rather have my bugs, I reckon, take my chance. What’s a thoracoplasty? They saw through your ribs, collapse your lung for good. Dorothy had a thora. She says it’s like carrying a bundle under your arm all the time. And she’s one of the lucky ones. What’s the difference then with an AP? Except that you have to go on having it? Give me my old AP. Kept me going this far, hasn’t it? What’s an AP? They feed air into your lung to collapse it. That’s why pregnancy is good for wogs. The pressure compresses the lung…But what you gain in pregnancy you lose having the baby.

  Voices are hushed then. Poor Gladys. Poor old Glad. Never should have risked it.

  Sunday was the day for general visiting. Relatives and friends arrived from the city. Lunch was early, cleared away by half past twelve, so that the visitors had more time before the hooter went at three o’clock. Isobel thought when she heard that hooter on Sundays that the message was visitors ashore!

  On that first Sunday she met Val’s regular visitors, her husband Geoff and a young woman named Pauline, the daughter of their next-door neighbours. Pauline was a tall young woman of magnificent bearing, sleek, dark brown hair worn short and close to her shapely head and pale skin pitted with acne scars. Geoff was shorter, thickset and somewhat Celtic in appearance, black-haired, blue-eyed and blue chinned. They came with clean washing, bags of fruit, cakes home-made by Pauline’s mother, and anxious enquiries about Val’s health.

  Pauline was also well-mannered. She circumvented Val’s reluctance to perform introductions by smiling at Isobel and saying to Val, ‘You have a new room mate,’ and to Isobel, ‘This is Val’s husband Geoff and I’m Pauline.’

  ‘Isobel Callaghan.’

  Isobel nodded in appreciation of the social effort.

  Pauline unloaded and stowed the offerings and asked Isobel’s permission to borrow her armchair.

  Permission given and an apology offered, Pauline settled with her back to Isobel, who lay admiring the straightness of her spine and the graceful set of her head on her shoulders.

  The conversation was about constipation. This was a matter of some importance in a regime which excluded exercises and offered a diet high on milk and low on fruit and salads. A nurse came round in the evening dispensing doses of cascara to defaulters.

  Val disapproved of aperients. One became dependent. Isobel had grown accustomed to the daily report on Val’s bowel movements: failure, causes of failure, success, cause of success, degree of success, degree of difficulty, time involved, quantity and quality of output. When the last was minimal, Val was faced with a serious intellectual or ethical problem: Could she honestly say that her bowels were open? This problem occupied her, and therefore Isobel, at some length.

  Isobel had been tempted to suggest, ‘Ajar?’ but perceived in time that the suggestion, apart from its unseemly levity, was capable of misinterpretation.

  The conversation today was more general. It was not precisely a conversation, since Val talked while the others listened.

  Pauline’s father had been a martyr to the condition and had cured himself by an effort of will, going every day at exactly the same time and sitting and sitting.

  ‘Like me at the typewriter,’ thought Isobel, who should not have been listening. And that after sometimes going five days without. The number of days one could safely go without…the folk remedies…Val had heard from someone that an infallible cure was to eat a very ripe banana, very slowly, first thing in the morning.

  ‘Of course your state of mind has a lot to do with it. You have to keep very calm while you eat it.’

  Isobel, who had been devising a mantra that would assist the calm ingestion of the curative banana, and had decided on a hushed murmur: Slither thither, was overtaken by a mannerless guffaw which she tried to disguise as a racking cough.

  The manoeuvre was painful, which served her right, and was not instantly effective, since she saw Pauline’s body stiffen and understood that she was not deceived.

  Isobel stared at her book and felt her face redden. Pauline’s manners were a reproach to her own.

  Of all the dirty, mean, commonplace little tricks…none of her business what Val and her visitors talked about, and listening in to conversations while indulging a private snicker was…plain damned vulgar.

  Isobel had many sins, now filed firmly away under the heading ‘Illness’. This one was new.

  I am in danger of going stir-crazy, in a small, mean way. Have to watch it.

  She tried to fix her attention on the adventures of Albert Campion, resolved in future to respect the privacy of others. First lesson of life in confined spaces.

  On Monday th
ere was a special visit from members of the Red Cross.

  The Red Cross supported Mornington. From time to time members of a branch of that association came on an excursion, to see the results of their fund raising, their fetes, their theatre parties and their afternoon teas.

  These visits were not welcomed by the patients.

  ‘Not my idea of fun,’ said Eily, ‘rubbernecking at people in bed. It takes all sorts.’ When the special early lunch had been cleared away, Sister Connor came along the ward, looking in each doorway to order away any causes of embarrassment such as panties draped over armchairs, unwashed glasses or any other signs of disorder, and to remind the occupants that these ladies worked very hard in their interest and were entitled to courtesy at the very least.

  ‘We shall be good little orphans,’ said Isobel, who was beginning to feel some confidence in Sister Connor.

  ‘Well, yes. I hope so.’

  She nodded and went on her way.

  The visitors had been entertained in Medical by Doctor Wang. Now they began to drift along the verandah, looking into the rooms with tentative smiles, to which Val responded with much eagerness.

  ‘We weren’t exactly asked to wag our tails,’ thought Isobel sourly.

  However, Val was an excellent buffer, always ready to answer that she was indeed lucky to have such a beautiful view, that the doctors were wonderful, that everyone was very grateful for the wonderful work of the Red Cross. To the credit of the visiting ladies, this last remark usually sent them hurrying on.

  One stout lady, encouraged by the friendly reception, paused in the doorway, saying, ‘Would it be all right, dear, if I came in and sat down for a bit? So much walking!’

  ‘Oh, do!’

  She came in and took the armchair beside Val’s bed.

  ‘Lovely to get the weight off your feet and have a bit of a chat. Wonderful work, of course, and so polite, that nice young Chinese doctor showing us the X-ray machines and the laboratory and all. A wonderful place, but I thought I might just miss the grounds and have a rest. Though I shouldn’t be saying that to you, should I? Being one of the lucky ones myself. I went to one of those buses they have at the railway stations, you know, with the signs up: BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY and IT COULD BE YOU. Dorothy, my sister-in-law Dorothy, said it was a duty. She is a very serious-minded girl. Oh dear. She won’t be too pleased if she notices that I’m missing. I’m hoping she won’t notice.’ The visitor sighed. ‘Well, I went into the bus and had the X-ray and believe me I was relieved. They say the unlikeliest people. Is that how you found out, dear? What a shock it must have been, you poor girl.’

  ‘Everything went black,’ said Val. ‘As soon as I saw where the letter was from. Fortunately my next-door neighbour came in. We’re very close, she drops in most mornings for a cup of coffee, and she found me, just blacked out. She opened the letter and read it, and she rang my husband up at work. Geoff has been marvellous. Of course it was detected very early, before much harm was done to my lung. That’s the point of all these mass X-rays. As Geoff said, better to find out early than late. I was in bed at home for a month, then the doctor thought I would be better off here. And Geoff comes to see me every Sunday. He never fails. Some unfortunate people never have a visitor. You’d think everyone had forgotten them.’

  Isobel hoped that this was tactlessness rather than malice, but she felt uneasy.

  So did the fat lady.

  ‘It’s a long way to come from the city, isn’t it?’ She looked towards Isobel and added, ‘What about you, dear? How did you find out?’

  ‘It just crept up on me.’

  Val asked, ‘What part of Sydney do you come from?’

  They were on their way to discovering common acquaintances when the visitor looked at her watch.

  ‘I’ll have to be going. It’s your rest period soon, isn’t it? During your rest period we have to go and look at Surgery, the operating tables and all, to which I don’t look forward. Only through the glass door, thank goodness, we can’t go in. A doctor’s going to tell us all about the wonderful operations. I only hope I don’t pass out. Well, it’s been lovely talking to you. So nice to meet you.’

  She got up refreshed, smiled to Isobel, squeezed Val’s hand in appreciation and walked out.

  In two minutes she was back, looking scared and puzzled.

  ‘I think there’s something wrong with the boy next door. The one in the bed by the window.’

  Val looked at Isobel, who had somehow assumed responsibility for Lance.

  ‘I’ll go and see what he’s doing.’

  She put on her dressing gown and slippers and went to investigate.

  Lance was sitting up in bed looking malevolently cheerful.

  ‘What did you do?’

  He responded by raising each fist to scratch an armpit in an ape-like gesture, turning to climb the bars of the bedhead, leaning outwards with one hand to snatch imaginary peanuts. It was a lively performance, but most unlikely to impress Matron.

  Isobel giggled.

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have. Now I have to go back and tell the nice lady what a rude little beast you are.’

  He scratched at his armpits, snarled and said, ‘Suit yourself.’

  Isobel returned.

  ‘He was playing at being a monkey in the zoo. Catching peanuts. Sorry,’ she said.

  The visitor was thoughtful.

  ‘That’s just what I said to Dorothy. I said, “I wouldn’t thank anyone to come looking at me in bed as if I was an exhibit in a zoo.” But Dorothy said we had to support the Society and I supposed she was right. All the kinder of you to make me welcome. The little boy was really very clever. I’m sorry I was too dumb to see the joke.’

  ‘You could have thrown him a peanut,’ said Isobel as she climbed back into bed.

  The visitor said, uncertainly, ‘Would he have liked that?’

  ‘No, but it would have served him right.’

  ‘I think it’s wonderful of him to show so much spirit. Well, it was so nice to meet you. I really have to go. I’ll just call in on the little boy and tell him I appreciate his humour.’

  That’ll fix him, thought Isobel with satisfaction and felt positively affectionate towards the visitor.

  ‘That was a very nice woman,’ said Val.

  ‘Very nice indeed,’ agreed Isobel.

  ‘Dear me. I thought she’d be too normal to suit you.’

  The hooter went then to mark the beginning of rest period, which spared Isobel the need to reply.

  Janet’s husband was observed to have changed the time of his visits to the morning.

  ‘It is very strange,’ said Val. ‘If he comes tomorrow morning…there has to be a reason.’

  In the afternoon Miss Landers, who was in charge of occupational therapy, came to visit Isobel. She was also of the bird persuasion, but more ibis than parrot or raven—a long-legged bird, recently startled. Her kind, open countenance went well with her job. She offered Isobel the choice of basketry, soft toys or knitting. Isobel chose knitting. Miss Landers departed and returned with a bundle of heavy, iron grey wool and a carton containing knitting leaflets and needles of various sizes. She looked depressed as she counted out skeins of wool, as if she wished she had better to offer.

  Isobel took two leaflets, one with directions for a classic pullover, the other with directions for a blouse knitted with fine wool in a complicated pattern of narrow vertical leaves outlined and veined with lace. She took a pair of No 8 needles for the body of the pullover and finer needles for the basque.

  ‘If you can get somebody on D grade to help with the winding, dear. Don’t overdo it.’

  Arm movements were still restricted on C grade.

  That somebody was already at the door, smiling his Cheshire Cat smile.

  ‘I can do this for you,’ said Boris. ‘So often I have held the wool for my mother while she rolled the wool into a ball. I know to wind over my fingers in the proper way. You may hold the wool and keep your arms still
, while I roll the ball.’

  ‘Yes. That would be the best thing,’ said Miss Landers with relief. ‘So good of you, Boris.’

  She left. Boris took the armchair and separated a skein from the bundle. He looped it over her hands and set to work.

  This was restful, for he did not seem inclined to conversation.

  Val said, ‘I’d like to see the pattern.’

  Boris handed over the leaflets and continued to roll the wool.

  ‘What do you want this one for?’

  Val held up the leaflet with the directions for the lace pullover.

  ‘I thought I’d like to try the stitch.’

  ‘But it’s for 2-ply. You don’t have any 2-ply, do you?’

  ‘I’ll reduce the number of repeats, that’s all.’

  ‘But isn’t that wool 8-ply?’

  Val pursued the topic with the tenacity she devoted to the observation of the movements of Janet’s husband.

  ‘But it will work out all right if I reduce the number of repeats.’

  ‘You don’t mean that you’re going to knit a lacy pattern in 8-ply. You can’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you can’t. Everybody knows you can’t. Nobody ever knits lacy patterns in 8-ply.’

  ‘Always a first time.’

  Boris finished the ball and went to retrieve the leaflets. Val appeared to be in such distress that she was capable of confiscating the offending pattern. He set them on Isobel’s cabinet, gave her a private, sympathetic grin and separated another skein from the bundle on the floor beside him.

  Isobel found herself forced to placate Val.

  ‘I’ll just try it and if it doesn’t work, I’ll pull it undone and try something else.’

  Talk about measuring out your life with coffee spoons! Salt spoons would be more like it.

  ‘Of course it won’t work. I don’t know why you waste your time trying it.’

  They rolled a second ball.

  ‘Enough for today,’ said Boris. ‘I shall put your wool in your wardrobe and I shall come back tomorrow morning. Put your arms down and rest now.’

  Isobel had no intention of resting. She cast on, counted her stitches and began on the basque, frustrated when the hooter went. The hooter was the law. She put down her knitting without finishing the row and took the rest-period position.