But not when the nurses were dealing with him. Like now. And she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and thought — How much longer? How much longer can we go on like this and how much longer can I stand it? Get on with it, Joe. Get on and die, leave me in peace, don’t leave me, Joe, what’ll I do without you, Joe, how can I manage everything and it’s taking so long —
She hadn’t realised she was asleep but she must have been, because she actually jumped when he pulled on her skirt and she sat up sharply and stared a little wildly at him and then smoothed her hair with both hands and said stupidly, ‘Oh, hello. How are you?’
‘Check-up,’ he said. ‘Got to have a check-up,’ and stared at her.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said and tried to remember his name. Her brains felt scrambled, what with one thing and another, and she couldn’t even remember when she’d last seen this chap. And she gave her head a little shake and then it came back to her. Mr Holliday; they’d talked in the café downstairs, and his wife — and she flicked a glance over his shoulders, looking for her. If she was here she’d have to go and help the nurses with Joe after all. Bad as it was to see what was happening to Joe, it wouldn’t be as bad as having to sit with that woman jabbering at her —
‘She’s gone,’ he said and stared at her mournfully and she looked at him again and saw the long pale face and the drooping lower lip and felt a stab of irritation.
‘Well, I’m sure that makes no difference to me,’ she said sharply. ‘I wasn’t even talking —’
‘She talks a lot, but she means no harm,’ he said, and then leaned a little more closely, pushing his wheelchair towards her with a pair of bony hands.
‘It’s nice to see a face you know,’ he said. ‘All the other patients I was in with, they’ve gone. Except you —’
‘I’m not a patient,’ she said, and didn’t know why it should matter because in a way she was, wasn’t she? ‘It’s my Joe what’s ill and I have to get back to him —’
‘They’re washing him and all that,’ Mr Holliday said. ‘I heard as I came past. I pushed my chair all the way. It’s good, isn’t it? I’m at the other end of the ward and I managed all this way. Even though it’s so late. It’s easier in the mornings, you see, when I’m not so tired.’
‘Oh,’ she said and leaned back in her chair. If his chattering exhausting wife wasn’t here she could stay. No harm done. And he seemed to want to talk and she might as well let him.
‘I found out what it was all about,’ he said at length. ‘It was on the news, like I said.’
‘What?’ She opened her eyes, which she had allowed to close for a moment, and stared at him a little stupidly. ‘What was that?’
‘Last time I saw you. In the café. I asked if you knew about the doctor who was on the news.’
She made a little grimace. ‘Oh, yes, I remember. This place is always in the papers these days. I can’t say I like it. It’s not supposed to be like that, is it, in hospitals? It’s that sex change of course. Nasty, I call it. All those awful men flaunting themselves around with their earrings and then doing that! I’m surprised they do such things in a hospital like this, I really am —’
‘No,’ he said and stared at her even more lugubriously, and she frowned a little. Irritating man, with his big dark eyes and his miserable expression, always making her feel guilty. It wasn’t as though she’d done anything to him; hardly knew him, really. And she considered getting up and going back to Joe’s bed. They must be finished by now, surely?
‘It was nothing to do with that,’ he said. ‘I meant about the doctor they’re going on about doing abortions.’
‘Oh,’ she said and nodded. ‘Well, yes, they’re always making a fuss about that sort of thing, aren’t they? Just shows how ignorant they are. If they’d been around as long as I have they’d know there’s nothing new under the sun.’ She nodded again and turned down the corners of her lips. ‘There’s always been abortions and always will. Better to have doctors doing it properly than mucking around with pennyroyal and slippery elm the way they used to — not that you’d know of course,’ and then she reddened a little. It just showed you how times had changed. To think she’d ever talk to a man about such things; her old mum’d have had a fit if she’d heard her.
‘I know more than people think,’ he said and he seemed to sit more upright in his chair, and his voice, which had begun to weaken a little, sounded stronger. ‘And I think a lot about what I know.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ she said and sat up a little more herself, moving her bottom forwards to perch on the edge of her chair. She could see over his head down the ward, and the curtains round Joe’s bed. The moment they twitched even, she’d be up and away.
He nodded. ‘Oh yes. They can’t fool me any more. I know what’s right and what’s wrong. And I’ll say so when the time’s right.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Audrey said heartily.
‘I’ll tell ’em I think it’s all right to do what they do as long as the mother gives her permission, see? If she doesn’t — well, it’s wrong then, isn’t it? It’s hers, not theirs to use any way they like. It’s like if I have a kidney cut out, I’d want to know what they did with it. Wouldn’t you?’
She looked at him with her nose slightly wrinkled with distaste. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t. I’ve been around hospitals long enough to know when it’s best to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business. It they took anything out of me I wouldn’t want to know what they did with it! Why should I?’
‘Because it’s you,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it? Part of you? If you had a baby and it — well suppose it died. Wouldn’t you want to know what happened to it?’
She went red. ‘People have funerals,’ she said. ‘And souls go to heaven and that’s all I need or want to know, thank you very much. I really must say I don’t know what you’re on about, Mr Holliday And I’m really not sure I like this sort of talk — dead babies and kidneys — morbid, I call it. Haven’t we got enough to put up with here?’ And she looked at him and to her horror felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m sitting here with my poor husband as hasn’t got above a few days left, though they never actually say so, but I know, I’m not a fool, and I shouldn’t have to listen to such morbid talk. I really shouldn’t.’ And she got to her feet in a little stumble and moved to go.
‘Oh dear,’ he said and then reached out with one slow hand to tug on her skirt. ‘Oh dear, I am sorry. I never meant no — I wasn’t thinking. It was about me I was talking, you see. This operation I had — it was about my operation and the baby —’
She stared down at him, mystified. ‘What baby? You’re not talking sense, you’re not. I’m going to tell Sister — I don’t think you’re feeling right —’
‘Oh, I am,’ he said and nodded again in that infuriating mandarin fashion. ‘It’s just that — I found out, you see, what they did. I saw it in the papers after, and I’d thought it was that, but couldn’t be sure — these new operations with brain transplants, you see. They did that to me. They asked my permission, I signed a form and everything and so did my wife, they said would I agree to a new operation with them transplanting bits of brain to make mine work better and get rid of the symptoms. I tremble a lot, you see, and I get ever so weak and can’t talk properly and everything —’ He gave a little gasp as though to demonstrate his dilemma. ‘So I said of course because I couldn’t be worse off, could I? No.’
He stopped as though to catch his breath and she could have gone then, but now she stood there staring down at him. She could see the anxiety in him again, the way it had been that evening in the café when he’d talked to her, only then his wife with her fountain of chatter had been there and he’d not been able to explain properly. Now he could, and she felt somehow that she had to listen. He had a right to be listened to. And she didn’t know why she thought that. It was just there, a fact that had to be considered.
‘Well, it’s done you some good, hasn’t it? The operation? You’re talk
ing better now than you did when you came in. I remember. You couldn’t talk at all, to tell the truth,’ she said candidly. ‘I was really set up for you when you started talking again afterwards. I thought, that one — well, he’s a lucky one —’
‘But where does it come from, that’s the thing.’ He leaned back in his chair. His voice was getting thin again and beginning to wobble, just like it had when she had talked to him before. He got tired very quickly, she thought, and sat down again. Poor fella, she told herself. Poor fella.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I dare say — I mean they do a lot of things in hospitals we can’t know about. All the blood they give people and the drugs — some of them come from people, I’ve been told. They take bits of people and then extract important drugs. I read the papers too you know —’
‘Blood,’ he said and seemed to dismiss it. ‘That’s all right. People don’t die for that, do they? But babies. That’s different.’
‘Babies?’ she said carefully.
He was sitting with his head resting back on the cushion on the wheelchair, looking rather pale now. ‘Yes,’ he managed. ‘Babies. That doctor that did the abortion — the police came and fetched her from here. There’s to be a court case because she done this abortion. It was to do my transplant, you see. That was what happened. I know now.’
She sat there silently staring at him. And then moved awkwardly and said, ‘Well, you can’t be sure, can you? I mean, it mightn’t be —’
Now he managed to open his eyes. ‘Of course it is. Where else did they get the stuff for the transplant? Anyway, they said to me it was from a miscarriage, so I thought — well that’s all right. A baby too. There was this piece in the paper and it showed a picture of a baby. It was a baby, you know. Not just a miscarriage. A baby —’
‘Well, I’m sure —’ she began and then stopped. What could anyone say to him about such things? It wasn’t right to be even talking about it. Not really.
‘I didn’t mind. I don’t mind.’ He seemed to have found some new energy from somewhere for his eyes were vide open now and he was looking at her. ‘But I do think I want to know if she said it was all right. The woman. I wouldn’t like to think she’d done it for nothing and never knew what a good thing it was. I want to thank her, see. I want her to know what happened to her baby, and tell her she was a good woman. Only no one’ll tell me who she is —’
‘Well maybe she’d rather forget all about it, whoever she is,’ Audrey said. ‘I’m sure if I’d had such a thing done I’d think, least said soonest mended.’
‘It’s all over the papers now,’ Mr Holliday said. ‘So it’s being said anyway, isn’t it? I mean, people are talking about how awful it was to do this abortion but they’ve said nothing about how good it was to help people like me. And not just me. They’ve done a few more, you know, from the ward I used to be in, I keep my ears open, I know what’s going on —’
‘Well, yes,’ Audrey said. ‘I dare say you’re right. Well, I must get back to my Joe now. Nice talking to you —’ And she turned to go, once again uncomfortable to be with him. He really was rather odd, one way and another.
‘I’m going to watch out and I’m going to the court when it all happens and I’m going to tell them,’ he said as she reached the door of the day room. ‘I’ve told her, my wife, she’s a good soul and she mightn’t like it but she won’t go against me. I’ll go to that court and I shall tell them it’s a good thing what that doctor did. It wasn’t bad to do that abortion. There’s me and those other people, look how much better we are. It wasn’t all wasted, you see, was it?’
‘No,’ said Audrey and smiled vaguely at him. ‘No, of course!’ and escaped at last.
The curtains were still closed as she reached Joe’s bed and she hesitated outside, not sure what to do. There was nothing they did to her Joe she shouldn’t be part of, of course, she knew that; Sister had said to her from the start, you stay with him all you want. And she did. But the curtains stood there like a barrier higher and harder than a range of mountains and she had to take a deep breath to make herself go inside.
The nurses had gone and she frowned for a moment. She hadn’t noticed them go, but they had taken all their stuff away with them, and left him quietly lying there, his hands on the sheet in front of him and his head propped against the high pillows, and as she stared at him a rope of fear looped itself round her throat and pulled hard so that she couldn’t move. He wasn’t breathing; Joe was lying there and he wasn’t breathing, and they’d gone away and left him and not told her; they’d gone so he’d died all alone without her there to hold his hand or anything.
She managed somehow to move then and pushed herself across the narrow strip of parquet floor that lay between her and the side of the bed, her hand outstretched and her mouth open to shout her fury at the nurses, at Sister who let them do it, at everyone and anyone. And then stopped as she saw the lax mouth move and the narrow chest cave in in that dreadfully familiar way that showed he was still breathing, just; and she slid to her knees beside the bed and reached for his hand and held on to it. He hadn’t gone yet: oh, Joe, don’t go and leave me. Oh, Joe, don’t keep me in this state. Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe —
Behind her the curtains moved again and it was Sister.
‘I’m so sorry, Audrey,’ she whispered. ‘Nurse told me that he’d — that he was sinking and I came to tell you and fetch you. We wouldn’t have left you not knowing, I promise. Here, my dear, let me help.’ And she put her arm behind Audrey’s back and lifted her and at the same time pushed the chair forwards till it touched the back of her knees, and she sat down, never once taking her eyes off Joe’s face or letting go of the thin bundle of dead bones that was his hand.
‘Thanks, Sister,’ she said. ‘Very good of you,’ and was pleased with herself. She sounded quite ordinary, really, as though Sister had just told her the weather was nice or something of the sort.
‘It won’t be long now, Audrey,’ Sister said. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. He had a minor heart attack while the nurses were bathing him, you see. It does happen that way towards the end with lungs and — well, I was afraid you’d be too late and I knew you’d be upset. I’m glad you still have time to be with him. But it won’t be long, dear. Just a little while —’
‘Yes, Sister. I know, Sister,’ Audrey said, still quiet, still calm while inside her head the words hurled and tumbled, bounced and ricocheted. Don’t Joe, hurry up, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe —
‘I’ll fetch you some tea,’ Sister said. ‘And here’s the bell by your hand. Don’t hesitate —’
But there seemed no sense in any of that. The tea came and stood untouched on the bedside table and the bell sat there in the fold of sheet beside her hand and she held on to Joe until her own fingers felt dead and she couldn’t have moved them if she’d tried. She watched his face, waiting for each breath as it came, so rarely and so convulsively each time, and counted them and heard the sounds from the ward outside coming from a long way away. And none of it was real; none of it mattered. Only the words inside her head mattered, really.
She didn’t ring the bell when he died. What was the point? Why make them come running, make them take her away and start all the disgusting things they’d do to him once they knew? She wanted everything to stay as it was for as long as it could because at last the shouting inside her head had stopped. Joe was dead. She couldn’t shout at him to hurry up, couldn’t shout her fury at him for leaving her, because he was dead. Inside her head was dead too. Numb and cold and dead and that was good. It felt very good, and she wanted to make the good feeling last. Being dead inside was the best thing that could happen to her now.
But Joe being dead wasn’t something she could stop them from finding out. Sister came in and leaned over the bed and then leaned closer and reached for his pulse and then gently took her elbow and made her stand up and took her outside.
‘I’m sorry, dear,’ Sister said and looked over her head to one of the nurses and nodded to her,
and Audrey knew she was telling her to go and do all the horrible things to Joe that had to be done. ‘It’s a happy release, really, dear. He was having a lot of pain towards the end, wasn’t he? A happy release. Now come along and I’ll get you a nice cup of tea.’
Audrey wanted to laugh then. That was what they kept on giving her, nice cups of tea, as though that would make Joe’s dying any better. Or easier. Or slower, or anything else. And she giggled a little inside her head and then the giggle came out of her lips and Sister sighed and said to the nurse who had come hurrying across to her, ‘Fetch me some diazepam, Nurse. Mrs Slater needs a little — yes, come along, dear. You can have a nice lie down in the side ward.’ And led her away, still laughing, to the side ward. And Mr Holliday, who had managed to wheel his chair halfway up the ward, watched her go with the familiar lugubrious expression on his face, and Audrey would have laughed at him, too, if she could. But she was too busy laughing over Joe.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Oh, you’ve done it now, Levy,’ Goodman Lemon said, and his voice dripped with satisfaction. ‘You’ve really done it, haven’t you? You won’t be able to talk your way out of this one so easily.’
Professor Levy sighed. ‘I really don’t know why you’re making such a fuss, Lemon. I was on call that evening and you were not. This man seemed to me to be in need of a genito-urinary investigation so I arranged it. I am the Dean and the Chief of Staff, you know. I do carry overall responsibility here. And you can’t complain when I exercise that responsibility.’
Clinical Judgements Page 32