Coronation Wives

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Polly. ‘But just keep yer hand on yer ha’penny.’

  Carol frowned. ‘I ain’t got a ha’penny. I’ve got twopence. So’s Sean.’

  ‘Good,’ said Polly. ‘That’s just enough for the three of us to get the bus on ’ome.’

  Edna and Colin argued that night. Colin was sitting down at the dinner table, his meal unfinished, head in his hands.

  ‘Sweetheart, if I could do more, I would. Perhaps the doctors are right and Susan should be left to get well without us interfering.’

  Edna slammed the teapot down onto the cast iron stand. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  Colin sighed and tried again. ‘Edna, can’t you be content that Janet’s finding out how she is? She might even get to visit her. We can only sit tight and—’

  ‘I will do no such thing!’

  Edna’s eyes, usually as soft as brown velvet, had dulled with tiredness and worry since Susan’s departure. Now they blazed with anger.

  ‘I’ve decided to go there and demand to see her.’

  Up until now, Pamela and Peter had been watching their parents, wide-eyed, listening to them arguing and getting more worried by the minute. The loud voices were just too much to bear. Pamela began to cry. Peter did too. Edna appeared not to notice.

  ‘Well, I’m not going!’ Colin eased Pamela onto his lap and put his arm around Peter.

  ‘Then I’ll go alone!’ Edna stormed out of the room and thundered up the stairs.

  Hanging from an upstairs window, she gazed at the city lights twinkling in the distance. She didn’t want to go to the sanatorium alone. Hospitals of any sort frightened her. They brought back painful memories from years ago of being unmarried and giving birth. She needed someone to go with her, someone who cared. Her father might, even though her mother was a drag on him. But Susan was his granddaughter. ‘I’m going to ask Dad to go with me,’ she muttered. ‘I can’t wait around for Janet.’

  Skeletal weeds, their leaves fallen and their stalks brown, dripped with rain. Blocks of light fell in a series of squares and oblongs, like building bricks hastily adopted to keep the darkness at bay. Late afternoon was swiftly turning to evening and November was giving way to December.

  Janet eased open her desk drawer, retrieved the spectacle frames, unbuttoned the top three buttons of her cardigan, then swiftly stuffed the frames down the front of her blouse. The afternoon could get even darker as far as she was concerned, the darker the better.

  Professor Pritchard had gone home early complaining of indigestion. Jonathan was having a day off to visit his parents. Even Mrs Prendergast, the almoner, was out inspecting someone’s home prior to a patient being discharged.

  It was best, Janet decided, if she didn’t wear a cardigan. She shivered as she draped it over the back of her chair. The small, cast iron radiator, which she depended on to heat her office, gurgled in warning. As usual it was barely lukewarm.

  The corridors were colder than her office. Rain criss-crossed the windows and flurries of dried leaves blew beneath gaps in the doors.

  She was in luck. It had been raining for about a week and what with the draughts and the wetness, quite a few members of staff were sick with colds and flu.

  By the time she got to the changing room where she’d spotted the uniforms, the sky outside had darkened further. On top of that, a few lights in the corridor had gone out.

  Anyone watching from a distance would not recognize her, especially once she’d set the glasses on her nose.

  After quietly closing the door behind her, she switched on the light. Protective clothing hung from hangers. Some sat in neatly folded heaps on eye level shelves above labels stating what they were. The hangers had names on them.

  PROFESSOR PRITCHARD.

  DR JONATHAN DRIVER.

  Reluctant to wear someone else’s clothes, she automatically went over to the neatly folded piles. She had everything she wanted in her hands and was about to put them on over her own clothes, when a thought came to her. What if someone should see that there were more sets of cover-ups used than needed?

  It would be best, she decided, to wear a set of those already hanging up. Someone might notice if there were three used outfits when she came to put them back. She decided on Jonathan’s and was glad when she detected no residual male aroma.

  Once kitted out in a gown that almost swept the floor, a cap that completely covered her hair, a mask hiding the lower half of her face, and the spectacle frames disguising the top half, she eased her head out of the door like a nervous turtle and looked up and down the corridor.

  No one!

  Thank goodness.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window that lined the corridor from end to end. If anyone did come along, they’d probably burst out laughing at her appearance. She looked more like a bundle of laundry than a doctor.

  It was only a matter of half a dozen footsteps from the changing room to the ward, yet it felt like a mile. Her feet felt and sounded as if she were wearing diver’s boots, the big lead-weighted ones that keep a man in a metal helmet stapled to the seabed while air was pumped down to him through endless lengths of rubber.

  The door let out a long, lingering squeak as she slowly pushed it open. She gritted her teeth as it squealed closed and sighed with relief before studying her surroundings.

  There was a small office to the left and a sluice room to her right. She stopped, listened. A tap dripped. A few seconds passed. It dripped again. No one had attempted to close it off more tightly. From that she deduced the sluice room was empty.

  Keeping close to the partition that divided the office from the vestibule, she crept towards the door. At the same time, she swiftly rehearsed in her head what she would say if challenged. She would introduce herself as a duty nurse; she would have to bear in mind the clothes she was wearing.

  Professor Pritchard is not feeling too good. I’m just filling in.

  Everyone knew he had frequent bouts of indigestion. Most of the sanatorium staff would already know that he’d gone home with yet another attack.

  The office light was on, and although the desk had been left neat and tidy, someone had not long arisen from that chair. Pens were laid in a straight line next to a specimen vase in which sat a single rose, a late, lingering bloom from a summer long over.

  Despite her nervousness, Janet smiled. Conscientious as they were, a few hard-worked members of staff had probably grabbed the opportunity for an extended tea break. All would be fine – as long as Matron didn’t catch them.

  Unsure what to expect, she headed into the main body of the ward. To her relief there were no iron lungs; neither was there the more general arrangement of beds lining the walls as she’d expected.

  There were only six beds and each was separated from its neighbours by solid partitions that gave way at about four and a half feet to glass. Fraternizing among patients was curtailed in the interest of contagion control. They looked like fish tanks, the big oblong ones used by those who bred tropical fish. Only each of these held a small and very sick human being. Adults, who formed the minority of polio patients, were in another ward.

  Janet walked slowly, scanning each face before she realized that the patient’s name was held in a card holder on the outside of each individual cubicle. They reminded her of the hymn boards into which hymn numbers were slotted before a service. Beneath each name were a number of hooks holding various medical charts, each set held together by the stout teeth of a metal bulldog clip.

  Expectant faces watched her walk slowly down the ward, each hoping, perhaps, that she would stop and come to them, even if only to give them medicine. Human contact was more important than she could possibly have imagined – especially to children.

  A brief scan of the name board, and Janet opened the door to the very last cubicle. Susan was sleeping. Her cheeks had a rosy glow, which made her appear very healthy. The truth was very different. Susan was still very ill and had a long way to go before leaving
this place.

  Susan’s eyelids flickered as Janet bent closer and whispered her name before slowly – very slowly – opening and looking up at her.

  Janet smiled behind her facemask. ‘Hello, Susan.’

  Instead of receiving the welcome smile she had somehow expected, Susan’s bottom lip began to quiver. ‘I don’t think I want to get better.’

  Regardless of the threat of contagion, Janet took hold of her hand. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course you want to get better. You want to see your mummy and daddy again, don’t you? And what about Pamela and Peter? You want to see them too, I expect.’

  Susan’s nod was barely perceptible and her lip still quivered as though she were about to burst into tears. ‘Yes,’ she said weakly.

  ‘Well then …’ Janet gripped her hand tightly. ‘So you have to get better.’

  Tears misted Susan’s eyes. ‘I don’t like it here. They hurt me.’

  ‘Oh darling, they don’t mean to,’ Janet said and cuddled her close. It had been her intention to throw off her disguise once she’d found Susan. But I can’t, she thought. If I do she’ll break down, beg for me to take her out of here, perhaps scream and convince someone that I have visited her. And then, she thought, I shall lose my job and no one will be here to keep an eye on her.

  Behind the facemask, she bit her lip resolutely and closed her eyes. Never had she had to make such a hard decision. But there was no doubt she had to do it. Susan’s well-being was in her hands and the responsibility lay heavy on her heart. If these clandestine visits were to continue, she must not let Susan know who she was.

  ‘Would you like me to tell you a story?’ she asked, blinking back the tears as she looked intently into Susan’s face.

  ‘Yes please. A Christmas story.’

  The idea was a good one. December was not far away. Janet racked her brains and swiftly condensed Dickens’s A Christmas Carol so that it revolved around the Cratchit family and left Scrooge and the ghosts out in the cold.

  ‘Right!’ said Janet adopting a cheery voice though she felt like a traitor, ‘Tiny Tim was the youngest of the Cratchit family and couldn’t walk very well …’

  Later she felt positively ill that she’d chosen that particular story and had so obviously focused the main story on Tiny Tim and his affliction.

  Was it wrong to prepare Susan for the great tragedy that was about to befall her? Back in her flat surrounded by a genteel shabbiness from ages past, she sat in front of her dressing table mirror peeking through her fingers. Were those lines of worry she could see on her forehead or newly acquired maturity? She decided on the latter. Things were going well for her. She enjoyed her work, still enjoyed Jonathan telling her in great detail about his work, and adored relaxing on her days off in a room where ladies might once have played the spinet or worked on their needlework while admiring the view from the window.

  She rested her face in her hands. So much had changed in her life. Here she was, a marriageable girl with no boyfriend and no career sneaking about a hospital for the sake of a sick child. If she wasn’t careful she could get into the same kind of trouble she’d got into at the Infirmary. Strangely enough, she didn’t care.

  Just before getting into the snug spaciousness of the four-poster bed, she went to the windows, drew back the curtains and looked out across a moon-kissed landscape. Frost covered the ground and spangled on the roofs of the single-storey buildings of the wards and medical facilities. Like rows of rabbit hutches, she thought, housing a host of bunnies all waiting to escape.

  She consoled herself that her visit to Susan would put Edna’s mind at rest. The fact that someone had visited was better than no one at all. In effect she would be Susan’s guardian angel. She was sure Edna would see it that way and would cease to worry.

  After receiving Janet’s telephone call, Charlotte checked that David was asleep before leaving for Edna’s.

  His faculties were almost back to normal, though a nerve beneath his eye did pulsate on occasion when he was tired or exasperated. Charlotte put his improvement down to being back in his own bed, his own home. Devon was lovely, but home was best.

  ‘I have to go out,’ she explained to Mrs Grey. ‘Can you stay a while until Mr Bronowsky comes home?’

  Mrs Grey was wiping down the kitchen table having just made a steak and kidney pudding for dinner. ‘Is he going to be playing around in my kitchen?’ she asked.

  Charlotte knew that Ivan enjoyed cooking and had made some very enticing meals for them since they’d got back from Devon. But, whatever happened, she mustn’t hurt Mrs Grey’s feelings.

  ‘I expect he’ll be too tired,’ she said.

  ‘Oh I don’t expect so. He’s very good,’ said Mrs Grey and beamed broadly.

  Charlotte smiled as she made for the door. Ivan had won another female heart. Another? She smiled at herself in the rear-view mirror of her Morris Minor. If only she was twenty years younger …

  The roads were busy. It was gone five thirty and clerks, typists, bank tellers and secretaries were pouring out of offices, all aiming to get home as quickly as possible.

  Tightly packed buses pressed against her as she drove through the city centre. Traffic lights changed from red to amber to green and back again. Progress was slow and, for once in her life, Charlotte was impatient. She couldn’t wait to tell them that Janet had seen Susan.

  Bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes and cars weaved in and out of the traffic barely missing other vehicles and home-bound pedestrians running, willing to chance being knocked down if it meant they caught their bus on time.

  The traffic persisted all the way up through Old Market, Lawrence Hill and Church Road only petering out at the St George Fountain where the bulk took the left-hand fork to Kingswood. Charlotte took the Hanham fork.

  Kingscott Avenue had a welcoming look about it. Darkness had fallen. Lights in downstairs and upstairs windows blinked on, winked out or were muted by the pulling of living room curtains.

  Her ringing of the doorbell resulted in running footsteps, then scuffles from inside. She could see no figure reflected in the upper portion of the door, which was made of coloured glass set into a lead-paned framework. She understood the reason why when Peter opened the door.

  ‘Are Mummy and Daddy at home?’

  Peter nodded shyly.

  The sound of arguing came from somewhere inside.

  She made for the kitchen. ‘Edna! Colin!’ She swept in with arms outstretched. ‘I’ve got wonderful news!’

  Colin was sitting at the table, knife and fork poised over what looked like cottage pie and vegetables. Edna was on all fours, a bucketful of soapy water at her side and a scrubbing brush in her hand. Taking hold of the corner of the table for support, she dragged herself to her feet.

  Charlotte pulled at the fingers of her gloves. ‘Janet’s seen Susan. She read her a story last night. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  Colin’s face cracked into a grin. ‘Did that old goat she work for give her permission after all?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlotte, stifling a girlish giggle as she pulled out a chair and sat herself down.

  Edna, she noticed, had also sat down, but couldn’t seem to keep still. The scrubbing brush went back and forth along the edge of the table.

  Never before had Charlotte known Colin and Edna to be so hostile to each other as she sensed they were now. It saddened her and she wanted to help. Perhaps explaining how Janet had disguised herself in order to speak to Susan would lighten their mood. She told them everything and watched their faces for any spark of amusement or relief that might show. None did.

  ‘She won’t die?’ asked Edna.

  ‘No,’ said Charlotte, restraining a sob. ‘In fact, if you don’t get her home for Christmas, you might have her home for Easter, though she might have to go back in for treatment.’

  So far they hadn’t asked whether Susan would be crippled. She prayed God they wouldn’t.

  Colin beamed at Edna. ‘Well, that takes a lot off our mind,
eh Edna? At least we’ve got some idea how she is.’ He threw Edna a crooked half-grin. It was as if he wasn’t quite sure of her reactions. He turned back to Charlotte. ‘Thank her for us, won’t you? At least she’s seeing someone she knows.’

  Charlotte did not say that Janet had not told Susan who she was. Not telling them that Susan was likely to be crippled was bad enough. To inform them that she was still, to all intents and purposes, all alone would be too much.

  After Colin had seen Charlotte off, he came marching back in rubbing his hands together and smiling happily. It dissolved when he saw that Edna was again down on her knees scrubbing like mad at the floor. He was sure she’d only scrubbed it that morning, but he wasn’t going to mention it.

  ‘What a turn up!’ he said to Edna’s back, forcing himself to sound happy as the frills of her polka dot apron flopped like damp wings over her back. ‘It makes this no visiting business a bit easier to bear.’

  Edna stopped scrubbing and looked up sharply. ‘Are you saying you won’t go with me?’

  Colin’s spirits dropped as he recognized the stubborn look in her eyes and the uncharacteristic sharpness in her voice. ‘You know they won’t let us in, love. What would be the point?’

  Never had he seen such hardness in Edna’s eyes. ‘If you won’t go with me, then I’ll find someone who will. And if no one will go with me, then I will go by my bloody self!’

  Edna lay awake until the clock struck one. Sleep wouldn’t come. The pillows seemed full of lead shot rather than feathers and her mind was fixed on Susan. She desperately wanted to see Susan, or at least try to see her.

  She kept to her side of the bed that night, clinging with rigid fingers to the edge of the mattress. Tonight she could not bear to roll close to Colin. He had let her down and she couldn’t quite forgive him, but if she did roll close and felt the heat of his body, him stirring at the feel of her body, she would be bound to respond. It mustn’t happen. There was too much to think about, to plan.

  The following morning she set out for her parents’ house in Nutgrove Avenue with Pamela in the pushchair.