by Aubrey Flegg
When they had arrived at the clinic, Yola was walked for miles down corridors, crutches slipping on polished floors. Finally, they had turned into a bright, clean ward with four empty beds that looked so comfortable, Yola would gladly have climbed in, clothes and all. A nurse helped her undress and then pulled the curtains around her bed, but Yola was already asleep.
She was woken by someone peering at her between the curtains. It was a girl, but she was so fair and fuzzy that Yola found herself blinking at her in disbelief.
‘Oh, hello. Are you awake?’
She was younger than Yola, but it was difficult for Yola to tell how old Europeans were. The girl slipped in through the curtains.
‘I’m Catherine. I can’t shake hands because I don’t have my arms on. I was in physio when you arrived. You must have been tired. I’ve looked in on you a couple of times and you were asleep. Wasn’t I good not to wake you? It gets boring in here sometimes.’ She plonked down on the edge of Yola’s bed. ‘You don’t mind, do you. Sister gets furious when I sit on people’s beds. There’s three of us in here, and now you. Susan’s only little. She’s got callipers ’cos her leg’s all shrunk. Then there’s Brigid the Hump. Lots of trauma – car accident – lost a foot, I think; she spends a lot of time with the shrink.’
‘Sorry,’ interrupted Yola, hitching herself up in the bed, hoping to slow the flow of talk, ‘what is a shrink?’
An anxious look crossed the girl’s face; she was very pretty. ‘Sorry, me speak quickly. You speak English? You African?’ Yola had to laugh.
‘Yes I speak English, but there are words I don’t understand like, well, shrink?’
Her new friend looked relieved and patted Yola reassuringly on the knee. ‘Oh good, I’d die if I couldn’t talk to you. A shrink is a psychiatrist or psy… something, at any rate poor Brigid’s head’s all messed up after her accident. Trauma, like I said. That’s why I call her The Hump – not to her face, of course. When she sees me coming she pretends she’s asleep and hunches up. I know when I’m not wanted. I wouldn’t know about trauma, see, I’m congenital – born like this.’
She waved her arms in front of Yola, only the vestiges of fingers remained on the shortened forearms. Yola felt sorry for her, but felt more than a pang of sympathy for poor Brigid. She didn’t understand half of what the girl was saying, but decided it was easier to let the flow of talk run on. Anyway, she was fascinated by the girl’s bright, bright blue eyes. Catherine seemed to know all about the clinic and what was going to happen to Yola.
‘They’ll measure you up tomorrow. You’re an above-the-knee amputation, aren’t you?’ Yola nodded. ‘See! I told you so, I could tell from the blankets. Then they’ll X-ray you. You might need surgery,’ she said with relish. ‘The physiotherapists are the ones that knock you about, Pummel and Poke we call them. They will give you all sorts of exercises to do. It’s fun really. They wear blue; the occupational therapists are the ones in green. I was told they’d try to make me knit or weave baskets, but it’s sensibler things like learning to tie your shoelaces.
‘Let me see, what next? Oh yes, next they will make a cast of your stump. That’s fun. There’s this cute boy working in the labs. I fancy him. He’s learning. They are working on my new arm at this very moment. It will look great. Oh hell!’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘You know what? I can’t catch you out now! Pity, ’cos what I really like is shaking hands with someone new and watching their face! It’s really gas when they suddenly feel this dead thing in their hand. You see them longing to drop it – Yuck! – but then they realise that would be rude, so they begin to shake it, not a normal shake but like they were shaking a dog’s paw. It will be great though, with my new hand I will be able to grip them like Frankenstein. Come to meet thy doom,’ she intoned in a sepulchral voice. At that moment there was a clatter at the door. ‘Great! The shop trolley – want anything? – see you,’ and she was gone.
Feeling slightly battered, Yola lay back and digested what Catherine had said. It was all so nice here. She thought of the rough and ready conditions at the hospital in Nopani. Through the gap in the curtains left by Catherine’s sudden exit, she could see a vase of yellow flowers on the windowsill. The only place she’d seen flowers in a vase before had been in a magazine. For all Catherine’s gruesome delight, Yola wasn’t frightened, not even of surgery. Her tears in the car yesterday seemed ridiculous now. She had come all this way to get a new leg. Of course she wanted it!
It all happened much as Catherine had outlined. The X-rays of Yola’s leg were excellent, there were no ‘spurs’, as they called them, growing on the bone, which meant she wouldn’t need another operation. The doctor was full of praise for her surgeon in Nopani, especially when he heard about the power cut during the operation. A technician in a white coat, called Mr Dwyer, explained how they would cover her stump with cling film before making the cast. Yola had never heard of cling film, so he showed her a roll. Then they would cover this over with a thick layer of plaster of Paris, a sort of cement that would set in a few minutes. It might get a little warm as it set, but that was all. Then they would slide the plaster shell off and make a soft plastic socket for her stump from that.
Catherine was waiting for her at the door as she set out for the fitting-room.
‘Goodbye Yola, be brave, it’s been nice knowing you.’ She flicked a mock tear from her eye. ‘My hand in friendship before you depart.’
Yola, who had grown very fond of the child, put out her hand without thinking. Her yip of surprise echoed down the corridor. It was bad enough when she gripped this dead-but-alive thing Catherine offered, but when it began to tighten around her own hand it was just too much. A nurse looked out to see what was going on and shouted at the otherwise delighted Catherine.
‘Catherine Maloney, if you scare one more person with that hand of yours I’ll have it off you!’
Yola was still smiling when she got to the fitting-room. So that was Catherine’s Frankenstein grip!
Mr Dwyer, the technician, kept up an easy flow of conversation as he worked, covering her stump with cling film. She hardly noticed the boy who was working nearby, mixing something, plaster of Paris she presumed, in a plastic bucket. She was still smiling to herself, thinking about Catherine, when she looked up and found him looking at her. It was rather like her first meeting with Hans – she hadn’t meant to smile at Hans either. The boy smiled back, but then looked away.
She looked down at her leg. It glistened ultra black under the cling film. A memory, vaguely disturbing, was forming in her mind; a smell, familiar but frightening, was teasing her nostrils. Apprehension pricked: what did her leg remind her of? Then she had it – it was that time when Hans had taken Gabbin and her up to see the demining on the hill. Hans had opened a mine like the one that had wounded her and it had lain in his hand like an oyster. She felt panic growing in her like a sneeze, it was rising … rising. She tried to hold her breath against the cinnamon scent. A bell was ringing down the corridor – Managu’s, perhaps? Mr Dwyer moulded the first dollop of plaster about her leg. Then suddenly she knew! That was not her leg, it was a detonator, black and shiny, and the white stuff was the explosive.
‘Hans! Gabbin! Get away! Don’t press the trigger! Don’t press it! It will go off …’
The scent of cinnamon exploded in her nostrils and she was screaming. Her head was pressed against the white coat of Mr Dwyer, who was holding her and shouting to the boy to strip the plaster and the cling film from her leg. People were running. The whole hospital seemed to be focussed on her. Yola screamed and screamed. Suddenly she wanted these nice complaisant people to know what it was like to suffer. She lifted her head and filled her lungs – she was enjoying herself, but then she was aware of someone watching her, someone who knew what she was doing. The boy had staggered back, his hands white, cling film hanging in streamers, and she was staring into his eyes. Something in the boy’s expression reminded her of Father. She opened her mouth to scream again, but the power seemed
to have gone from her lungs. Against her will she saw herself as the boy was seeing her – a small girl looking for attention – and her scream died to a sob; she dropped her head.
Mr Dwyer moved back; concerned hands helped Yola to stand. A rainbow of coloured uniforms had swirled to her aid. She heard Mr Dwyer saying, ‘Don’t worry, there’s no hurry. We’ll try again some other time.’
Then he turned to the boy. ‘Fintan, we’d better get this cleaned up before it begins to set.’
Yola couldn’t look up.
That evening Fintan wrote in his diary:
A strange thing happened today. There’s this little African girl, Yola somebody, who threw a wobbly when we were trying to make her cast. I had to take the plaster and cling film off her stump – quickly. All the while she was going at it some. Lots of noise, everyone rushing to help. I got the cling film off and was standing back dripping plaster when – strange – even though she was still going at it hammer and tongs, something told me that the crisis had passed. She looked up at me then, taking in air for the next blast. Without thinking, I gave her our old science teacher’s ‘sceptical eyebrow’. I don’t know how, but that did it; she collapsed in a heap, genuine tears, fit over. Cured. For about half a minute I felt really pleased with myself – I’d snapped her out of it. Now I feel such a fraud. Who am I to stop that kid yelling out in protest – and that’s what it was. While Dwyer was working, her good leg was stretched out beside him, beautiful, like a young athlete’s, and some bastard has to blow the other one off down to an obscene stump.
10
Fintan
‘You lucky thing! Fintan to show you around, oh passion!’ Catherine struck her chest and sighed theatrically. ‘Patients are not allowed in the labs, you know – at least I’m not! How did you manage it? He’s gorgeous!’
‘I didn’t manage it. I just got a bit upset when they tried to make my cast; they think it may help if I can see how they make them – casts and legs and things.’
Yola was nervous of another attack and she was also apprehensive about the boy. She felt he’d seen a side of her that she would have liked to conceal. She had been enjoying having everyone rush to her aid; then she’d noticed him looking at her as if he could see through her – see that the fuss she was making was no longer genuine. She groaned inwardly. It was bad enough having a father who could mind-read you! She tried to picture the boy. He was shorter and darker than Hans, and he had dark, penetrating eyes. His smile before her panic attack had been nice.
‘Look Catherine, please. I want to think.’
‘Thinking’s bad for you. I never think,’ said Catherine with genuine concern.
At that moment there was a knock on the door. Yola saw the flash of a white lab-coat.
‘Oh do come in,’ called Catherine. ‘Sadly, we’re quite decent.’
‘It’s Miss Abonda I’m looking for.’
Yola realised she wasn’t going to have time to think. This must be Fintan now. Catherine swooned convincingly, but it was wasted – Fintan didn’t come in to the room.
Yola had been given new elbow crutches with rubber caps that didn’t slip but squeaked on the polished floor. The boy didn’t look up when she came out, he turned to lead the way down the corridor. Yola followed him warily, keeping to the opposite side of the corridor. They came to a pair of swing doors. He opened them for her, giving the far door a flick so that she could get through before it swung to behind her. He still hadn’t met her eye.
They entered a large laboratory. While Yola looked around, Fintan went off to find his boss. Workbenches divided up the room. Feet and legs stuck up in the air from the benches, as if their owners were taking a nap somewhere underneath. A hand rose from a bench and clutched at the air while its owner drowned somewhere among the paint pots and brushes below. A man was working at one bench. He had turned back the stocking sheath on a leg and was working with a screwdriver on a complicated joint, which Yola realised must be a knee. He looked up and winked at her. Then Fintan came back.
‘Mr Dwyer says he is sorry but he is very busy so he can’t join us. He’s asked me to show you around. Do you mind?’
‘No, I’d like to see … well, everything.’
‘Not … bothered anymore?’ he asked tentatively.
‘No, I think not. Sorry, I …’ she wasn’t sure how to finish.
‘I thought it was great.’ He smiled for the first time. ‘Come on, let’s talk to Sam. He’s our paint and colour expert.’
For the next hour they moved through the lab. Yola felt relaxed, like she did with Hans. The technicians were delighted to show her what they were doing. Sam, in particular, was pleased.
‘I’m sick of pink!’ he exclaimed. ‘Show me your hands, dear. Beautiful! Fintan, just look at those, stroke them! Pure mahogany.’
Fintan went pink; he was good at explaining the workings of the lab to her though. She saw how the metal joints worked and how these were sheathed in carefully moulded and painted plastic so that the limbs looked indistinguishable from the real thing.
‘We’ll cross over to the casting room now,’ Fintan said when they had finished in the main lab. ‘It is rather noisy in there; the pumps are running.’
In the casting room, a white-coated man was sanding down what was obviously the plaster cast of a stump; a second was peering into an oven. Fintan flicked the lights on and off and they turned to see who had come in. He mouthed something to them and they both responded with smiles and thumbs-up signs.
‘The men in here,’ he shouted, ‘are deaf, so the noise of the vacuum pumps doesn’t bother them. But don’t think that they can’t understand what you’re saying. They can lip-read at a hundred metres!’ The man at the stump grinned and wagged a finger at Fintan. ‘See what I mean!’ he laughed and mouthed something to the man at the oven, who raised three fingers in response.
‘Three minutes and the plastic will be ready,’ Fintan shouted to Yola. Then the man looked at Fintan and, with a grin, tapped his jacket and imitated someone playing a flute. Fintan shouted in Yola’s ear, ‘Watch this!’ He fished in his coat and pulled out a tiny little flute and held it sideways to his lips. He nodded to the technician, tapped with his foot one, two, three, and started to play. Yola leaned close to him, so that she could hear, then to her amazement the technician, who was a big man, suddenly began to dance. She couldn’t believe it; the man was dancing in perfect time to Fintan’s playing, despite the noise. She had seen dancing like this on the television in the ward.
‘Riverdance!’ she shouted in delight.
Fintan nodded without stopping. The music went on, then, without any apparent signal between them, the dancer and flute stopped on the one note and Fintan and the white-coated technician bowed solemnly to each other.
‘That’s our party piece,’ Fintan shouted as Yola applauded. ‘Don’t tell Mr Dwyer, but that’s how we fill our day.’ He pocketed his flute.
‘But how–?’ Yola started.
Fintan laughed. ‘It’s a secret! Look. He’s about to make a socket. Come over.’
Yola let him take her arm and draw her over to the oven, from which the flushed technician was taking what looked like a small window frame. Beside him was the machine that was making all the noise; mounted on it was the plaster cast of somebody’s stump. Instead of glass, the frame contained a sheet of hot plastic. Slowly and carefully he lowered this down over the stump so that it draped over it like a shroud.
‘Now watch how the vacuum sucks it tight on to the cast!’ Fintan said in Yola’s ear.
Feeling almost as if it were closing about her own leg, she saw the plastic shrink and tighten to a perfect fit. She gave a little sigh and, for the first time, began to feel really comfortable with the idea of a new leg. It had been a good idea to come and see all this.
The technicians were leaving for lunch, hanging their coats behind the door. They waved to Yola and Fintan and left. Fintan reached in behind the machine and flicked a switch. A welcome silence fel
l over them.
‘So the whole thing’s not too frightening, is it?’ He lifted down a socket like the one they had just seen made, blew some dust off it and handed it to Yola.
‘Go on, feel it, this is what you will actually have against your skin. See, it is quite soft and flexible. It will fit you like a glove. As you get stronger your muscles will be able to push this in and out as they work. We can also leave space in the casing that we put around this so that, if you lunge forward, it won’t hurt. The leg is bolted on firmly, and then the whole socket is enclosed in an outer casing hand-painted by artist Sam.’
‘Won’t it fall off? How will I keep it on?’ Yola asked.
‘You’ll be shown. First you will bandage your stump tightly – that will make it smaller and your leg will slip into the socket easily. You will pull the bandage off through this hole; your leg expands then, so that when you seal the hole the leg stays on by suction. Simple!’ Yola looked sceptical. He laughed. ‘We’ll have you running in a few weeks if you really give it a try. But look at the time, sorry I’ve kept you so long.’ He turned to put the socket back on to the shelf.
It came as a shock to Yola that this was the end. She would go back to her ward now, but there were things she still needed to ask him, like how the technician had danced without hearing, and … and, well, other things. She wanted to see him again, but she couldn’t very well ask.
