by Anne Douglas
Forty-Three
The April evening had gradually darkened by the time they hurried into the Royal Infirmary’s main entrance and found Reception, but the great hospital was still filled with noise and activity, not yet ready for night. Elinor, used to the same sort of atmosphere, still found herself as full of dread as Hessie and Corrie, still as strained as though she were like them, with no experience at all. For of course it was true, she too had never known what it was to have someone close in a place like this. What a difference that made!
‘Walter Rae?’ the woman on duty in Reception repeated, looking down at a ledger on her desk. ‘Oh, yes, he came in recently – he’s with the doctors at present.’
‘Can we see him?’ Hessie asked, twisting her hands together. ‘I’m Mrs Rae – this is Mr Rae’s daughter and his son.’
‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to see him just now,’ the receptionist replied kindly. ‘But someone will come to speak to you soon if you wait in the general waiting room. That’s just to the right there.’
Having thanked her, they made their way to the room she had indicated where several people were already waiting, staring into space, and took seats on hard wooden chairs. There was a low table in front of them, covered in well-thumbed magazines, but they made no move to read anything, only sat like the others, eyes cast down, waiting in silence.
Time passed. A large wall clock ticked.
‘Ma, maybe I could find you a cup of tea?’ Corrie whispered at last, but Hessie shook her head. No tea. Silence descended again, suddenly to be broken by a young nurse who opened the door and called someone’s name. A man leaped to his feet.
‘If you’d like to come this way, please?’
‘Oh, yes, yes!’
Away he went, the door closed, and silence again fell.
‘Oh, God, canna stand this,’ Corrie muttered and, picking up one of the old magazines, was flicking through it when two more people were called, and then another, and suddenly the Raes were alone.
‘What’s happening?’ Hessie wailed. ‘They’ve forgotten us!’
‘No, they haven’t,’ Elinor told her. ‘It’s just that the doctors must still be with Dad – we’ll have to wait till they can tell us anything.’
‘Oh, but where’s that wee nurse, then? I just wish she’d come!’
In fact, it was a doctor who came. A youngish, dark-haired man wearing a crumpled white coat and smelling of disinfectant. He walked with a limp and his expression was grave.
‘Mrs Rae?’ He looked at Hessie.
‘Yes, I’m Mrs Rae.’ Hessie’s voice was thin and reedy.
‘I’m Dr Drewer, one of the doctors who’s been attending to your husband, admitted with apoplexy some time ago.’
Apoplexy. The Raes exchanged glances. Now they had a name for Walt’s illness, and didn’t like it.
‘Apoplexy?’ Corrie repeated. ‘Is that the same as a seizure?’
‘A seizure can cover a number of things, but Mr Rae is certainly suffering from apoplexy – what some call a stroke, or in Scotland, a shock.’
‘A shock?’ Hessie whispered. ‘That’s what I was afraid of. But how is he, Doctor? How is he?’
‘At the moment, he’s stable and has been transferred to a side ward, but he’s not conscious and we’re monitoring him. Tomorrow we’ll be carrying out some tests and will be able to give you a better prognosis then. I mean, a better idea of . . .’
Dr Drewer hesitated and Corrie asked quietly, ‘Of his chances?’
‘We’ve every hope he will pull through, but, of course, these cases are difficult at this stage to assess.’
‘Can I see him?’ asked Hessie. ‘Can we all see him?’
Again, the doctor hesitated. ‘Just for a moment. Just from the door, perhaps.’
It was terrible to see him, even from the door, his face so heavily purple, his breathing so slow and laboured, his eyes closed. He didn’t look like himself – that was what was wrong. Didn’t look like the darkly handsome man whose presence ruled them, who could alter everything for everybody by just a change of mood. Now, he seemed . . . what was the word Elinor sought? Powerless. Could anyone who looked as he did ever regain power? Or even ordinary feeling?
Both she and Hessie were crying a little as a nurse led them away, and Corrie was very quiet. There was no sign by then of the doctor, and it was the nurse who told them to telephone next morning to see how Walter had got through the night.
‘Telephone?’ Hessie repeated blankly.
‘It’s all right, Ma, I’ll ring up from the Primrose,’ Elinor told her. ‘They’ll let me use the phone.’
They went out together into the night, walking slowly, eventually finding the stop and catching their tram without seeming to know what they were doing.
‘Are you still going to the Primrose tomorrow?’ Hessie asked Elinor.
‘Well, I’ll be needed, I think I should, but I’ll come back in the afternoon and then we’ll go to the hospital.’
‘Depending how he is,’ Corrie said with stiff lips. His face, Elinor noted, was mask-like, wiped of all emotion, but somehow she wasn’t surprised when they arrived home and he sank into a chair and covered his eyes with his hand.
‘This is all my fault,’ he muttered. ‘I did it, I brought it on. I knew how he felt, he’d been upset before when I said I was going to enlist, and I still went ahead and told him. So, I’m to blame.’
‘You are not to blame!’ Elinor cried, as Hessie went about making tea, with her lips pursed and her reddened eyes only on the kettle. ‘How can you say that? If you want to join up, you’ve every right. It was Dad who was in the wrong, flying off the handle because you wouldn’t do as he said. I don’t know if being in a rage had anything to do with what happened, but I do know it had nothing to do with you!’
‘Ma doesn’t think so,’ Corrie said wearily. ‘I can tell the way she’s looking at me.’
‘Ma, that’s no’ true, is it?’ cried Elinor. ‘You know Corrie was right to volunteer, just like other men. Their fathers are proud; it was only Dad who got worked up, and he shouldn’t have done.’
‘He only got worked up because he couldn’t face Corrie being in danger,’ Hessie said flatly. ‘And that’s the truth of it. Corrie needn’t go to war. There’s no conscription.’
‘I thought you said you understood, that I had to go,’ he said sharply.
‘Oh, I don’t know what to think,’ she cried, her face working with emotion, and burst into tears. ‘Look, let’s no’ quarrel, with your dad lying in the Royal,’ she wailed. ‘Let’s stick together, eh? I don’t want to upset you, Corrie.’
‘And I don’t want to upset you, Ma.’
Mother and son clung together, while Elinor quietly made the tea and poured it out.
‘You’re right, Ma,’ she said quietly. ‘We should stick together. We’re going to need all our strength.’
‘All our strength,’ Hessie agreed, and they drank their tea, holding back the tears, then hugged and prepared to go to their beds, hoping to get through the night somehow.
Forty-Four
Mr Rae had come through the night, Elinor was told when she rang the infirmary next morning, but there was no change in his condition. No change. That meant he had not regained consciousness. When Sister Penny asked with sympathy how her father was, Elinor’s look was troubled.
‘He hasn’t come round yet. That’s no’ so good, is it?’
‘Well, it’s disappointing, but it can take time, you know. The doctors will be doing all they can.’
‘Oh, yes, I know. But I have the feeling that what’s happened to Dad is pretty serious. I mean, I’ve heard of other people having these attacks and recovering quite quickly – is that no’ right?’
‘They can, of course, but every attack is different, and patients are different, too.’ Sister Penny put her hand on Elinor’s shoulder. ‘Try not to worry, anyway. See how things are when you go to the Royal this afternoon.’
‘Than
k you for giving me the time, Sister. I do appreciate it.’
‘That’s quite all right. You need to be free to see your father and we’re all hoping you find some improvement.’
Improvement. They were desperate to find it – Elinor and Hessie, with Corrie, who’d been given an hour or two off to join them at the Royal. Desperate, yet still hopeful, until they stopped at Reception and asked if they could visit Mr Rae.
‘Mr Rae?’
As soon as she saw the way the receptionist’s eyes slid away, an icy hand seemed to squeeze Elinor’s heart and glancing at Corrie she could tell by his face that he was feeling the same. Hessie, however, had noticed nothing and when she was told that Dr Drewer wished to speak to her, she seemed to accept it as something to be expected.
‘He’ll be telling us what they’ve found,’ she murmured, as they made their way to the waiting room. ‘They were going to do some tests, eh? Oh, I do hope your dad’s come round by now.’
Even when Dr Drewer asked them to step along to a smaller room where no other people were waiting, she still gave him a quiet look of expectancy, until she saw his face more clearly, when her own face changed.
‘Mrs Rae, I am so sorry . . .’
He had pulled forward a chair and was gently making her sit down. ‘So very sorry – there was nothing we could do.’
‘What . . . what are you saying?’ Hessie’s eyes were wide. ‘Corrie, Elinor – what’s he telling me?’
‘Oh, Ma,’ Elinor whispered, as she and Corrie put their arms around her. ‘Ma, Dad’s gone.’
‘Mr Rae had what we call a massive stroke,’ Dr Drewer was saying softly. ‘There was never a great deal of hope, but one never knows – sometimes patients rally, sometimes last for weeks – but Mr Rae never recovered consciousness. He slipped away, very peacefully, at five minutes after twelve noon.’
‘Peacefully,’ Hessie repeated. ‘Aye, peaceful at last. Poor Walt, poor Walt. No more working himself up, eh? No more finding things wrong with the world. Your dad’s found peace, you bairns. We needn’t cry, we needn’t cry.’
They did cry, though, when Dr Drewer asked if they’d like to see him and showed them into the side ward where Walter lay, looking, yes, wonderfully peaceful. The high colour in his face was fading fast, his eyes were closed as before, but a lock of dark hair lay over his brow, and he did seem more like the man they knew than when they’d seen him the previous evening. Except for the strange tranquillity which had never been his, even when in a good mood. Always, there’d been movement in his face, his dark eyes showing emotion of some sort – passion, temper, high feeling, anyway. Now, of course, there was nothing. That was what death meant. No more feeling. Only rest.
‘There is a minister here if you’d like to speak to him,’ a nurse murmured, but they shook their heads. They weren’t great kirk-goers. Later, there would be the funeral service to arrange; perhaps they would find consolation talking to the minister then. Now they just wanted a little more time with Walter, until they had to face all that had to be done.
There was so much to be done, after a death; neither Elinor nor Corrie had realized how much. Hessie, though, had had experience.
‘Aye, I buried both my parents,’ she sighed, sitting at the kitchen table that first evening they were without Walter. ‘And a struggle it was, to find the money. Made me decide to put something away for funerals every week, so when your dad’s folks went, we’d no’ be scratching round, trying to borrow.’ She put a hankie to her eyes. ‘And now it’s your dad’s turn, too. I canna bear to think of him, all alone at that undertaker’s.’
‘Ma, it’s best for him to be there,’ Elinor told her. ‘We couldn’t have brought him back here, and the undertakers are taking care of everything.
‘At least I’ll be able to give him a good send-off,’ Hessie sighed.
‘Seems to me an awful thing to spend money on,’ Corrie muttered. ‘I mean, buying coffins and that. What do the dead care about the way they’re buried?’
‘Corrie, that’s a terrible way to talk!’ Hessie cried. ‘You want your dad in a pauper’s grave?’
‘No, it’s just that this business of having to pay out to undertakers when folk have so little – seems no’ right to me.’
‘We’ve a lot to take care of tomorrow,’ Elinor murmured, changing the subject. ‘I’m wondering if I can get some time off, to give you a hand, Ma.’
‘I’d be glad if you could. There’ll be the neighbours round tomorrow, bringing what they can – folk are good like that – but they canna help with all we’ve to do.’ She rested her eyes on Corrie. ‘And you’ll get to the funeral, eh?’
‘You know I will. I don’t report to the regiment till the next day.’ He sighed. ‘And look, we’ve been through all this. You know I wish I hadn’t to go – specially now we’ve lost Dad – but I’ve no choice. It’s duty.’
‘Aye, well, let’s say no more. I think I’ll just go in the other room – be on my own for a bit.’
As her son and daughter remained at the table, Hessie went quietly into the bedroom she’d shared with Walt and closed the door. Elinor and Corrie exchanged looks.
‘What’s going to happen to Ma?’ Elinor asked, after a moment or two. ‘When the shop is let to someone else, they’ll want this flat. Where will she go? Where will any of us go?’
Corrie’s eyes glazed. He put his hand to his head.
‘Oh, God, the shop! I never thought! Dad’s gone and Ma’ll have to find somewhere else to live. And what’s she going to live on?
‘We’ll have to see how things work out.’
‘We know how they’ll work out! Somebody’ll take the shop and want the flat and Ma’ll have to find somewhere to live, without Dad’s money or mine!’ Corrie stood up and began to pace in agitation about the room.
‘Listen, I think Ma will manage,’ Elinor told him quickly. ‘She’s got her cleaning job and might do more hours, and she’s got me to help, as well. Try no’ to worry. You’ve enough to think about as it is.’
When Corrie threw himself into a chair, shaking his head, she added hesitantly, ‘About Dad, did you ever think we’d miss him so much?’
‘Miss him?’ Corrie put his hand to his brow. ‘I don’t mind telling you, there were times when I wished him gone. Maybe you were the same?’
‘I never wished him dead. Just, you know, that I could have somebody easier – for a dad.’
‘Aye, well, no one could ever say he was easy.’
‘But he did care for us, Corrie. I found that out when he came to find me that time. And he was different after that – mostly. I did love him, really.’
‘Mostly. I’m no’ sure he’d really changed. But the thing is, now he’s gone, it’s hard to imagine life without him. Funny, eh?’
‘I’ll miss him,’ Elinor said slowly. ‘He wasn’t a happy man, he knew he shouldn’t be as he was. Maybe he was only learning to change when he died.’
‘Still had a last row with me.’ Corrie fixed Elinor with earnest eyes. ‘You say I needn’t feel guilty, I still do. I wish it hadn’t happened.’
‘Corrie, it’s true, you needn’t feel guilty. The real worry now is that you’re going away.’
‘I’ll be coming back.’
‘So easy to say!’ She waited a moment. ‘You’re in the same regiment as Barry Howat, you know. I don’t want ever to see him again, but I’d be small-minded if I didn’t wish him well. You could tell him that.’
‘Elinor, I’ll be in a different battalion, I’ll probably never see him. Hope I don’t, to be honest, after the way he treated you.’
‘All over now.’ Suddenly Elinor’s face crumpled and she flung her arms round her brother. ‘Oh, Corrie, come back like you said, just come back!’
‘I promise you I will,’ he said huskily, and when Hessie came out of her room to find them both in tears, the three of them stood together, supporting one another, for quite some time.
Forty-Five
Hessie had been ri
ght about the neighbours. Every day, people came over from the tenements, bringing what they could – soup, or pieces of ham, shortbread, if they could afford the butter to make it, scones, jars of pickle, or jam.
‘Will you look at this place?’ Hessie cried. ‘It’s like a shop, eh? Still, it’ll all come in handy for the funeral tea.’
All arrangements to do with Walter’s death had been completed, with Elinor, who had been given some time off, doing most of the work, and now all they had to do was get through the funeral which was to be held at their nearest kirk. The next day, of course, was the day of Corrie’s departure, but they were trying not to think of that.
One piece of good luck had relieved the family’s minds, for Hessie’s future in the flat over the cobbler’s shop was assured. The landlord had let the shop to a widow from Nicholson Street, who wanted premises for her dressmaking and alterations business, and did not require the rooms upstairs.
‘Oh, what a relief!’ Elinor remarked to Corrie. ‘That’s a huge worry out of the way, especially as he’s taken a shilling off the rent, seeing as Ma’s a widow now. You’ll feel better, eh?’
‘Aye, I will. I’ve been lying awake at nights, wondering what we could do.’
‘Me, too,’ said Elinor. ‘I sometimes wonder if things will ever get back to normal.’
Then she stopped, biting her lip, for things for Corrie were not going to be normal in any foreseeable future.
Still, the funeral went off well, with a good crowd to mourn Walter, and a fine spread laid out afterwards in the cobbler’s shop, as Mrs Elder, the dressmaker, had not yet moved in. With enemy ships blockading British shipping, food was in short supply, but it was hard to imagine it, seeing all that the neighbours had managed to find for Hessie, and everyone was very cheerful and full of chat, as was usual at funerals.