‘What’s wrong now, Antoinette?’ I heard her ask, and then a note of concern crept into her voice. ‘Antoinette, look at me.’ Her hand touched my forehead briefly. ‘My God,’ she exclaimed, ‘you’re burning up.’
Hastily telling me not to move, not that I thought there was any possibility of that happening, I heard her cross the room into the small hallway where the telephone was kept. She dialled and spoke rapidly into the phone.
A few minutes later she came back with a blanket, which she wrapped gently round my shoulders and informed me that the doctor was on his way. How much time passed I couldn’t tell as I descended into a temperature-induced daze. I sat alternately shivering one moment, burning up the next. I was aware of a knock on the door and the voice of our local doctor and I felt a sense of relief, sure he would help me.
A cool thermometer was placed in my mouth, fingers held my wrist and all the time the figures in front of me blurred. The doctor informed my mother that I had a temperature of 103, and that I had inflammation of the kidneys. ‘Nephritis,’ he called it, insisting on phoning for an ambulance immediately.
I heard the vehicle come, felt my mother holding my hand on the journey but hardly felt being carried on the stretcher to the children’s ward, nor being placed on the bed to await an examination. I just wanted to sleep.
The next few days are only a dim memory, a blur of feeling constantly sick, of sharp needles injecting into my buttocks a substance that later I would learn was penicillin, of hands turning me over and a damp cloth periodically wiping my feverish body. Other times my sleep would be interrupted when my head was held and a straw placed into my mouth, allowing cool liquid to trickle down my parched throat, or when a cold metal bowl was slid under my bottom and voices told me not to sit up, but to lie flat until I was stronger.
Those first few days seemed to roll into one, where only the ministrations of the nurses punctuated my sleep. Visiting time would be the only hour that I felt the necessity of keeping my eyes open.
The children around me would watch the double doors at the end of the ward, staring impatiently at the clock as the hands crept slowly round to the hour when the doors would swing open to admit a stream of smiling adults carrying gifts of toys, books and fruit.
My head would turn on the pillow, my eyes fixed to the doors, straining to look for my mother. She, on the doors being opened, would rush to my side in a cloud of perfume, sit by my bed, hold my hand, brush the hair from my face and kiss me in a public display of affection. My father’s smile as he gazed at me showed his concern, while the smile he flashed at the nurses won him answering beams from them.
I’d worried her, my mother told me, given her such a fright. However, now I was in good hands and must be a good girl and get better. I was, she explained, to stay in the hospital for several weeks, in fact not only in hospital but in bed. She went on to tell me that I had a very severe kidney infection and that I was only allowed a diet of glucose and barley water. She said that the house was quiet without me, that Judy missed me and she knew I would get better as soon as I could. Looking up at her from my prone position while she talked, my eyes would focus on her face until the force of my father’s stare would draw them away to meet his.
The smile on his lips was always the smile of the nice father, but in his eyes I could see the nasty one, the one invisible to everyone else, the one that lived inside his head.
As the days became weeks my strength gradually returned and with it an interest in my surroundings. Although still confined to bed, I could sit up against the pile of pillows, which had increased from one to three over the same number of weeks. Now that my eyes had ceased their droopy tiredness, reading became a pleasure again. Twice a week I eagerly awaited the trolley bearing suitable books. On the first visit, when I’d informed the visiting librarian that my favourites were detective stories, I received a look of dismay at such an unchildlike taste and a tut of disapproval. However, we settled on Agatha Christie’s stories of the antics of Tommy and Tuppence, followed by Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Luckily for me, Agatha was a prolific writer and my supply seemed inexhaustible.
The unvarying routine of the ward brought its own comfort. First the early morning round of bedpans for those children confined to bed. There we would perch, straining away like rows of battery hens, knowing that the contents of these cold metal containers were going to be scrutinized before being wheeled away. Next would come bowls of water for our morning ‘top and tail’ wash, when for modesty’s sake the curtains would be drawn around us.
Breakfast followed. Protein-rich eggs and brown bread served to the nearby beds would make my taste buds moisten but I received only my cup of pale grey, viscous glucose.
Only after the trays were removed could I reach for my book and search for the solution to mysteries before the current detective had effortlessly revealed the culprit.
I was scarcely aware of the constant hum of activity of the busy ward around me. The swish of the nurses’ blue and white uniforms, the soft tread of their white lace-up shoes on the grey industrial flooring, the chatter of children recovering and the metallic tone of the curtain rings as they were drawn round the bed of a child sicker than I all blended into the background as, engrossed, I turned the pages.
Lunchtime smells would assail my nostrils, my deprivation of any protein meaning that all food smelt good. I would gaze enviously at the trays as my glutinous drink was served to me.
‘Drink it up, Antoinette,’ would be the cheerful command as I stared mutinously at the unappealing liquid. ‘It will do you good.’
I wanted food.
‘It will make you better, and then you can go home.’
I wanted cake, ice cream, sweets and a plate piled high with brown toast, dripping with yellow butter, mixed with swirls of dark brown Marmite. Pictures of such treats floated in front of my eyes as my mouth watered with memories of their tastes. Then I spooned the unappealing mass in my cup into my mouth, forcing myself to swallow. The effort of getting better, with its starvation diet and the endless pricking of needles, appeared an arduous and lengthy journey.
After lunch came bed making, where the sheets were straightened so tightly that they left us immobilized. Then, with arms tightly bound and neatly combed hair, we would await matron’s rounds.
The double doors would burst open and a stately presence would sweep in, followed by an entourage of doctors, a blue-clad ward sister and a staff nurse. A starched ruffle would keep matron’s formidable white-capped head erect, her cape swinging behind her. She paused imperiously at the end of each bed to ask each mummified child how they were feeling.
On hearing, ‘Very well, thank you Matron,’ she would proceed to the next bed until her round was completed. Then the doors would once again open and, with her regal exit, a collective sigh of relief would emit from both staff and patients. Arms would wriggle out of bedclothes; bodies would slide down into comfortable positions as the afternoon nap that preceded visiting hour began.
Night-times always came too soon for me; they always interrupted my detective unmasking the most unlikely person in the book to be the villain, but, much as I resented my adventure by proxy being halted, I usually fell quickly into a mostly uninterrupted sleep. Only the rare admission of a night-time patient would disturb me. It was on one of those occasions that I saw the baby.
I heard the slight rattle of the curtain hooks two beds away from me, opened a sleepy eye and saw a small form with, in my child’s mind, the head of a monster. A head completely bald and so large that any movement, I felt, could have snapped its fragile neck. An overhead lamp cast a dim orange glow onto the cot. A woman leant over it, her hand touching the baby’s tiny fingers, then the curtains rattled again as they were closed and I fell back into a restless sleep.
For two days the curtains around that bed remained shut as both nurses and doctors eased themselves in and out, keeping the sight of what was in there away from our eyes. On the third night, as though in a
dream, I saw the woman again, and knew by her posture that she was grieving. I saw a bundled form being held in the arms of the ward sister as she carried it through the doors, saw the light go out and then my eyes closed.
The next morning the curtains were drawn back, an empty cot was neatly made up and of the baby there was no sign.
With that instinctive knowledge children sometimes have, I knew it was dead. I also knew not to ask about it.
Each afternoon I watched the children looking at the doors as they waited for their families with excited anticipation. I saw their faces light up, saw their arms rise for their hugs, heard their squeals of excitement and felt my own flicker of dread. Lying in that hospital bed I could not avoid my father’s eyes nor the fear I felt of him.
Six weeks after my admittance he arrived alone. Memories, which the gentle routine of the hospital had partly diminished, rushed back into my mind and my fingers grasped the sheets tightly.
I wondered where my mother was, as he took my hand and leant over to kiss me on the cheek. In answer to my unspoken question he told me that she had a bad cold and didn’t want to bring her germs into the ward. His thick wavy hair gleamed with brilliantine that day and his smile sparkled at the nurses. But the nasty father lurked in his eyes and slid out of his mouth with every word he uttered.
Still holding my hand while I slipped further down my pillows, he said, ‘Antoinette, I’ve missed you. Have you missed your Daddy?’
The puppet me took over. ‘Yes,’ I whispered and my newly acquired strength seemed to leave my body.
‘Well, when you come home, sure I’ll have a present for you. You’ll like that won’t you, Antoinette?’
I didn’t ask him what the present was; I knew. I felt the pressure of his hand as he waited for my response. I looked up at him and gave him the answer he wanted.
‘Yes, Daddy.’
He beamed at me, and I saw the self-satisfied gleam in his eyes. ‘Now you be a good girl, Antoinette. I’ll be back tomorrow.’ And he was.
The nurses kept telling me what a good father I had, how he loved his little girl, how it would not be too long before I went home.
After his third visit I waited until the other children had fallen asleep. I took the cord from my dressing gown, tied one end around my neck and the other end to the bed head. Then I threw myself towards the floor.
Of course I was found. The night nurse seemed to think I was depressed because I wanted to go home. She repeatedly reassured me that it would not be much longer. She tucked me back up in bed and sat beside me while I drifted off to sleep. The next morning my dressing gown cord had been removed.
That visiting time both my parents came through the doors. My mother took my hand while my father stood with his arms folded.
‘Antoinette,’ she said, ‘I’m sure last night was some mistake. Matron rang me today. Now I’m sure you don’t want to worry me like that again.’
I saw the bright smile and knew the incident had been placed firmly into the box marked ‘Not to be talked about’. The game of happy families was still in place and she the central character in the tableau.
‘Daddy and I have been talking,’ she went on, including him in her smile. ‘You’re obviously going to be run down when you leave here. So we’ve decided to send you to Auntie Catherine.’ I hardly knew Aunt Catherine, but I had always liked her on our rare visits. ‘A few weeks in the country will do you the world of good. We won’t talk about this silly business again, dear, and of course we won’t mention it to your Aunt Catherine. We wouldn’t want to worry her now, would we?’
I felt my father’s stare as I looked at my mother, feeling her jerk the cord that bound me to her. Wanting her approval I replied, ‘Thank you, that will be nice.’
With their mission accomplished both parents relaxed for the rest of visiting time, then, as the bell announcing its end rang they left with a flurry of kisses. I wiped my chin where my father’s lips had landed, then picked up my book and lost myself in the pages.
True to her promise the dressing-gown cord incident was never referred to again. My mother’s pattern of tackling problems was already firmly in place: ‘If we don’t talk about it, it never happened.’ As if her denial was contagious, neither did any of the hospital staff.
My father only visited on his own one more time.
‘Remember, Antoinette, what I’ve told you. You don’t be talking about our family business my girl, do you understand?’
‘Yes, Daddy,’ I replied as I slid further down the bed, trying to avoid the glare of his eyes. In their depths I could glimpse the seeds of the rage that would be unleashed should I ever dare to disobey him.
Every day I waited for my mother to come through the double doors again, and was repeatedly disappointed. When at last she made another appearance she was full of apologies. Her excuses drifted around my head and I, wanting to believe her, nodded my head at appropriate times. Work, she told me, had tired her out. Such a long way to come by bus, she continued. She told me that Auntie Catherine was looking forward to my visit, and that because her family were well off she did not need to work. She wished she could afford to take time off to look after me but she knew I would understand why she couldn’t. I must be looking forward to my visit as well.
I, at eleven, only knew I wanted to go home to my mother, but my desire to please remained as strong as ever.
‘It’ll be nice to see Auntie Catherine,’ I replied and was rewarded by a brilliant smile and two kisses planted on each side of my face.
The final days in hospital blended into one as I read, played with the other children and waited to be told that the following day was to be the last one there. Finally it came.
I dressed early that morning, packed my small suitcase with the accumulation of books and clothes that I had acquired over the three months I’d spent there. When that task was finished I sat patiently on my bed and waited for my mother.
?
Chapter Fifteen
My mother had taken me by train and bus to the large rambling house on the Kentish coast where my aunt lived. Here I had been given a pretty room where the wallpaper matched the flower-sprigged eiderdown that covered my white-painted bed. This, I had been told, had been Aunt Catherine’s daughter’s room, but now Hazel was in her teens she had moved into a larger one so it was to be mine for the duration of my visit.
My Aunt Catherine was not a blood relative, but my mother’s closest friend. In the fifties adults’ names were often prefixed with the title ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ to anyone under twenty-one. She was a pretty woman with the shoulder-length hair of a mousy-brown hue that was fashionable then, belonging to a generation that relied little on the artifice of hairdressers’ skills. Her evocative perfume, a mixture of a light floral scent and delicious baking smells, lingered in the room after she left it. Her nails, unlike my mother’s, were short, varnished with just the palest pink polish, and on her feet she wore flat sandals. High heels, I noticed, were only worn on special occasions, such as days when she took me to tearooms reminiscent of my early childhood.
The first outing I had with her was to a large department store, where she asked me to choose some material.
‘You’ve grown tall in hospital, Antoinette, and so thin that none of your clothes seem to fit.’
Thus she tactfully dismissed my case of hand-me-downs, gratefully received by my mother and greatly despised by me. ‘Let’s choose something pretty together.’
Taking my hand she led me into the lift where its guardian, a war veteran dressed proudly in the store’s uniform, his empty sleeve pinned across his chest, rested against a stool as he recited the goods of each floor until we reached haberdashery. Those were the days of post-war England, before automation made such jobs extinct.
Passing through the section where the buttons, wools and various knitting accoutrements were, we came to the fabric section. Bolts of fabric in every colour of the rainbow met my delighted eyes; colours I’d never seen bef
ore. Delicate silver cloth and beaded chiffon caught my attention first. I wanted to rush over and examine them all, but Aunt Catherine gently took my hand and steered me to the more appropriate cottons.
‘Look,’ she exclaimed as she pulled a delicate pink and white striped roll towards me, ‘this will suit you.’ Then, before I could answer, she pointed to another pale blue fabric. ‘Do you like that one?’
I nodded, scared the spell would be broken. The excitement had stilled my tongue and made me hold my breath.
‘Well, then we’ll have both,’ she exclaimed happily. ‘Now, we need one for best.’
She saw my eyes alight on a rich tartan, like the fabric from the favourite dress I had now outgrown.
‘We’ll take that as well,’ she told me. Then, with our purchases wrapped and bagged, she took me to tea. I felt I could die of happiness, not one new dress but three. I trotted along at her side with a smile so wide it almost made my cheeks ache.
Knowing this was a special day, she allowed me a piece of cake, despite my restricted diet. As I swallowed the soft sponge and felt the sweetness of icing on my tongue, happiness enfolded me and I felt I wanted to stay with her for ever.
Entering a life previously only glimpsed before from the conversations of other children, I had gone ‘through the looking glass’, like Alice, and had no wish to return. That day I forgot about Judy, how much I was missing her, and allowed myself to savour every moment. My obvious pleasure animated Aunt Catherine as she chattered on about different outings she had planned for us.
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