Children's Ward

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Oh, no!’ Harriet said. ‘Surely not! He mayn’t talk, but he’s not lacking in intelligence – I’m sure of that.’

  Dr Bennett looked at her shrewdly. ‘Don’t get too attached to him, my dear,’ he said gently. ‘He’s a pathetic little creature, I know, but we can’t keep him here indefinitely. This is an acute hospital, you know – not a depository for unwanted children.’

  Harriet, forced to agree, watched Dr Bennett go, and went back to Tod’s bed, to sit beside him and look with a frustrated sympathy at his silent face. They had made some progress with him, and little as it was, Harriet felt a little cheered as she thought about it.

  With infinite patience on her part, she had managed to coax him to eat, putting all the most tempting things she could think of in front of him. Once he had tried something – and Harriet had given him a paper packet of potato crisps, knowing how most children adored them – and had reassured himself that the food she gave him was really meant for him, that he wouldn’t be punished for eating it, he ate hungrily, refusing nothing, drinking hugely, filling his small frame as full as he could.

  But that was all. He refused to play, ignoring every toy they gave him, looking at the brightly coloured books or playthings on his bed as though they were objects he had never seen in his life before. All day, he would sit in the corner of his bed, his legs drawn up, just sitting, making no response to any overtures, even from the other children. Some of them would come and stand by his bed, talking to him, but his refusal to respond chilled them, and they would drift away, back to their toys and other friends, shunning the silent boy in bed seven.

  Harriet had tried to get him to walk, but when she lifted him out of bed, putting a dressing gown onto him, fitting slippers onto his little feet, he just stood there, making no effort either to return to bed, or move away from it. He had let the orthopaedic surgeon examine his feet (and fortunately, there was no fracture to be found) had allowed Harriet to put a supportive bandage on the swelling without fighting, but that had been all.

  There was one good sign, Harriet thought, leaning forward to move a toy near to him, in the forlorn hope that this time he would respond. He had some control over his body, still had some social ability. She had put a potty beside his bed, and gone away, watching him from out of his line of vision, and been glad to see him use it. Whatever had happened to him, it hadn’t had the all too common effect of making him incontinent.

  She leaned forward suddenly, and with an impulsive but gentle grasp, lifted the child out of his corner, and held him on her lap. He did not resist her, but sat there, his legs held stiffly in front of him, his back rigid, staring ahead of him in silence.

  Slowly, Harriet began to rock to and fro, her arms about the slender little body, and under her breath at first, then more audibly, she began to croon a song at him. Quite why she chose the song she did, she never knew, but she found herself singing an old popular song called the Umbrella Man. ‘Any umbrellas, any umbrellas to mend today – he’ll mend your umbrellas and go on his way singing – any umbrellas, any umbrellas –’

  The child on her lap shuddered slightly, then, to Harriet’s intense joy, his body began to relax. She made no sign that she had noticed, just crooned on, rocking at the same rhythm.

  And gradually, Tod softened, gradually his head dropped towards her till his fair smooth hair was just beneath her chin, nestling against the starch of her apron. His legs came up under him, and he thrust the two middle fingers of one hand into his mouth, until he was curled on her lap, sucking at his hand like a child of half his apparent age.

  And soon he slept, but Harriet crooned on until she was sure he was fast asleep. When her staff nurse came over at a sign from Harriet, she looked a little surprised.

  ‘Look Staff!’ Harriet whispered. ‘This is the first time this child has shown any appreciation of any human contact. And I don’t want to spoil it. I’ll have to sit here till he wakes up. Maybe he’ll talk to me then. Can you manage to finish off and get the children settled? There’s the tube feed for the baby in the end cubicle and the skin prep for tomorrow’s orthopaedic list –’ rapidly she gave her instructions, and sent the nurses scurrying round the ward on the evening’s tasks, and still Tod sat on her lap, his head under her chin, and slept on.

  She called one of the nurses to tuck a blanket over Tod’s small body, and watched the nurses settle the children into bed, watched the light diminish as each window blind was pulled down, saw the familiar evening face of the ward appear as the red shaded central lights were put on, and the children were tucked in for the long night’s sleep ahead of them.

  She listened to them all, carefully flexing her stiff legs and arms, doing her best not to wake the sleeping child on her lap, listened to the odd snufflings and little moans that sleeping children always seem to produce, and smiled a little as she listened. It was almost like a room full of small snuffling furry animals, she thought. Warm, baby ones.

  And then, just a little while before the night nurses were due to come on duty, Gregory’s white-coated shape came through the big double doors. He looked round with the characteristic swift appraising look she knew so well, and came over to her as soon as he could make out where she was in the dim light.

  He leaned on the foot of the bed, smiling a little at the sight of her, sitting there in a low bedside chair, a blanketed child on her lap.

  ‘It suits you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You both look – right, somehow. Did you know it suited you to have a child on your lap? Is that why you work with sick kids?’ and his dark eyes glinted at her with rare humour.

  She gave a soft snort of laughter. ‘Of course. And I always choose blonde children to sit with,’ she said. ‘They suit me best of all.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just put him to bed now? He’s flat out. And we’re supposed to be going out to dinner tonight. Had you forgotten?’

  Harriet smiled up at him. ‘I haven’t forgotten. But I’m hoping he’ll wake up before long, and maybe talk to me.’

  ‘Talk to you?’ he sounded puzzled.

  ‘Haven’t you heard about our small mystery?’ Harriet asked. ‘This is the child the police brought us –’

  He came round the bed to perch on the edge and peer into the sleeping child’s face.

  ‘I did hear something – what’s it all about? I haven’t had many patients on this ward this week, so I haven’t been around much –’

  Briefly, she told him, about how Tod was found; the way no one had come to claim him, and Gregory’s face softened as he listened. ‘Poor little monkey,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t imagine how people can be so cruel. Someone somewhere must belong to him. To abandon him so –’

  Harriet looked down at the child, and nodded. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘I couldn’t do it, no matter what happened – I couldn’t do it –’

  ‘He’s fast asleep, Harriet,’ Gregory said, after a long pause. ‘Are you going to sit with him all night? Because I shouldn’t think he’d wake before morning now –’

  ‘I suppose not –’ she stirred experimentally, and very carefully stood up, still holding Tod gently, but he didn’t wake. Gregory pulled the blankets back, and she put the child into bed, tucking him into the covers with a careful touch. Tod moved a little, snuffled softly, and slept on.

  They stood together for a moment, looking down on the fair head, the golden edged fringe of long lashes that shaded the thin cheeks, and then Harriet stretched a little.

  ‘I did so hope he would wake,’ she said regretfully. ‘I thought perhaps that I could talk to him while he was still half asleep, and get him to say something. Anything. I’m sure if I can once get him started on speech, we’ll be able to find out about him – he just needs to start –’

  Gregory looked at her in the half light, and said softly, ‘You’re getting very fond of him?’

  ‘He’s so alone,’ Harriet said defensively. ‘So lost. I can’t bear the thought of him going to an institution somewhere. Oh, I know they�
��re good places, that they do their best, but –’

  ‘I know,’ Gregory looked down at Tod’s sleeping face. ‘I can understand how you must feel about him. But it isn’t much use, is it? You can’t adopt him –’

  All through their dinner that evening, Harriet was abstracted, somehow unable to keep her thoughts away from the child sleeping in bed seven, for once less concerned with Gregory than with her job. Gregory, with the swift understanding she was coming to value in him, didn’t seem to mind her abstraction, only saying, as he said goodnight, ‘I hope your Tod is claimed soon, Harriet. As much for your sake as his. It’s not much fun being as miserable about a patient as you are about him.’

  And Harriet had smiled up at him gratefully, and on an impulse put her hand up to touch his face; more from gratitude for his understanding than because of her ever-present need to touch him, to have some physical contact with him. But he had made a tiny movement, an almost instinctive rearing back, and a little chilled, she had dropped her hand, and said ‘Thank you, Gregory. Good night,’ and gone to bed, unhappy and bewildered again, the ache in her heart sharpened by his lack of response.

  If she had thought about it at all, she had certainly never thought that anything Gregory could do or say could make her any more bewildered and unhappy about him than she was. Until the next morning.

  A child with a suspected intussusception was sent up from Casualty as an emergency at half past nine, and as Gregory was the surgical registrar on call, Harriet sent a message to the mess for him.

  He came promptly, and with all the gentle skill that Harriet found one of the most wonderful things about him, examined the child, and managed to soothe the frightened parents with a few words, arranging to operate later that afternoon. It was when they had finished with the child, while Harriet and Gregory were walking down the ward towards the office, that it happened.

  The ward was unusually quiet for once, many of the children being out on the sunny balcony, listening to the hospital school teacher read a story to them. The few children still in bed in the ward were sleeping, or just lying quietly staring at the ceiling thinking the imponderable thoughts of the very young.

  Then, above the crisp fall of their footsteps, a voice said ‘Greg – Greg.’

  Puzzled, Harriet turned, and looked back down the ward.

  Tod was sitting bolt upright, his thin face unusually flushed, his chin up, staring at Gregory with an intensity that made his blue eyes seem to blaze. And then, never taking his eyes from Gregory, who had himself turned to stare at the child, Tod moved forwards, sliding his thin legs over the side of the bed, to stand swaying a little beside it.

  He looked oddly adult somehow, despite the way his gaily coloured pyjamas hung on his thin frame, the way the trouser legs creased themselves over his narrow feet. He stood still for a moment, and then started to walk, a little wobbly on his legs, legs that had not moved of their own volition in all the three days he had been in the ward, and came pattering barefooted over the polished wooden floor towards them.

  For Harriet, time seemed to stand still. In the quiet sunny stillness she watched Tod come towards them, watched his hair blaze and fade alternately as he went past each bright window, watched his eyes, their intensely blue gaze never faltering from the face of the man who stood as still as herself beside her.

  Tod came to stand in front of Gregory, staring up at him and put a hand out tentatively.

  ‘Greg?’ he said again, his voice high and thin, the voice of a frightened bird. ‘Greg?’

  Gregory looked down at the child, his face closed and expressionless. Then he moved, stepped back, and said in a voice that sounded strangely thick to Harriet, ‘What? What did you say?’

  Tod’s hand dropped and he stood quite still, watchful and suddenly on guard again.

  ‘Greg,’ he said again. ‘Greg. Greg. Greg.’

  Harriet, her head feeling empty and suddenly light, managed to move, to drop on her knees beside Tod, to put an arm round his narrow shoulders, managed to turn her head so that she could look up at Gregory, suddenly seeming to tower above her like a giant.

  ‘What is it – who – you know him, Gregory?’ her voice came huskily, forcing its way past the constriction in her throat.

  Gregory never took his eyes from the child’s face. For a long moment there was silence, then he said roughly. ‘Know him? Of course I don’t. I never saw him before in my life.’

  In the circle of her arm the child never moved, even though she tightened her grasp on him, ignoring her as if she were no more than a fly that had alighted on his shoulder.

  ‘But –’ Harriet felt as though she were lost, groping in a huge dark room, a room with neither walls nor ceiling, just an infinity of blackness. ‘But – he said your name – he knows you.’

  Gregory thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his white coat, and with a voice devoid of any expression said again, ‘I never saw him before in my life. Never.’

  ‘Greg,’ Tod said again, in the same flat monotone, no question in his voice now. ‘Greg. Greg. Greg.’

  ‘I tell you he knows you,’ Harriet cried, her voice high and shrill. ‘It’s the first time he’s spoken – and all he says is your name! He knows you, Gregory – he knows you!’

  Gregory looked at her now, his eyes deeply shadowed, so that she could read nothing in their sombre depths.

  ‘I tell you I never saw him before in my life. I’ll tell theatre about that intussusception, Sister. Have him ready for two o’clock, will you?’ and without looking at Tod again, he turned, and walked from the ward, his footsteps loud in the silence.

  Together, Tod and Harriet watched him go, both of them seeming frozen into immobility, both staying quite still long after the double doors had stopped their slow diminishing swing behind Gregory’s figure, long after they heard the lift gates clatter open and closed, heard the lift whine away to the ground floor of the hospital.

  Chapter Eight

  In a way, Harriet was grateful for the afternoon’s rush of work. In addition to the child who was to go to theatre at two o’clock, three children were admitted from Casualty just after lunch suffering from coal gas poisoning. A fractured gas main near their home had sent them, together with their mother, into the Royal in a state of collapse that was ominous.

  Paul, as the medical registrar on emergency call for the week, came to the ward with them, together with his junior houseman, and the three children, the oldest of whom was just five, the youngest under a year, kept them and Harriet extended at full pitch until long after seven o’clock.

  By then, when Harriet could at last relax a little, she was too exhausted to think very much about Gregory and Tod – indeed, the long struggle to keep the youngest child, who had suffered most from the gas fumes, just breathing, had wrung her dry of any feeling.

  She followed Paul from the big cubicle where the three children were being nursed together, trailing wearily behind him through the darkened ward, past each shadowed bed, past Tod’s humped shape in bed seven, her head spinning with fatigue, the faint sickly smell of gas still seeming to linger in her nostrils.

  Paul subsided into the armchair in her office, while she sat down at her desk and began to write the ward report ready for the night staff. He watched her in silence, only stirring to grab gratefully at the coffee a sympathetic junior nurse brought to them both, watching Harriet above the rim of his cup as she sat with bent head, scribbling away at her report.

  ‘I think they’ll do,’ he said at length, when she had finished, dropping her pen to flex cramped fingers. ‘That baby had me more than a little worried for a while. It must have been a hell of a leak –’

  ‘It was,’ Harriet told him. ‘The ambulance man who brought them in told Casualty Sister that their house was next to that new development up by the rope factory – you know where I mean? He said it couldn’t have been more than half an hour the house was full of gas – seems they knew what had happened on the building site – they’d used
a charge of explosive to shift a main wall they were demolishing, and it cracked a main supply pipe. And for these kids to get enough to have this effect on them, it must have been a hell of a big pipe –’

  Paul reached for the ’phone. ‘Phillips was looking after the mother. I’d better see how she is –’

  The report from Women’s Medical was fortunately a good one; the mother had been deeply unconscious for some hours, but now she too was out of the wood, and beginning to regain consciousness, and Harriet smiled a little tremulously at Paul when he hung up the ’phone, and passed the information on to her.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ she said wearily. ‘It would have been too awful if the three of them had lost their mother –’

  ‘Mmm,’ Paul yawned widely, cracking his jaws and stretching luxuriously. ‘Bad enough to have one apparent orphan in the ward, without three more – how are things with your mystery child? Have they found his people yet?’

  All Harriet’s misery came flooding back at his question. She sat still, her head bent, looking down at her desk, trying to get her thoughts into some sort of order. She knew what she ought to do; Tod had spoken for the first time, and she should tell Dr Bennett about it, so that the police could be told, so that Gregory could be officially questioned about him. She had the first clue to the child’s identity, and she ought to see that this important clue was properly followed up. But Gregory – unconsciously, she straightened, and raised her head to look directly at Paul.

  ‘No,’ she said evenly. ‘He’s still a mystery. They haven’t found his people yet.’

  ‘It’s a problem,’ Paul said. ‘What’ll happen to him? Will they send him to a home somewhere?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harriet said. ‘He’s still not ready to be discharged from the ward – those abrasions aren’t quite healed yet. I – suppose Dr Bennett will decide what to do when he is ready.’

  He got to his feet, and stood for a moment looking down at her. ‘Harriet –’ he began. ‘Harriet –’