Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

by Amy Witting

  This was the Foreign Legion. Your past was your own affair.

  The hooter sounded. They nodded goodbye and returned to their beds for the midday meal.

  Isobel, annoyed by Val’s rudeness in leaving her unintroduced, ate her cottage pie in silence.

  After lunch, Sister Connor came to see how she was faring.

  ‘I feel a bit tired.’

  ‘First day up. You’re bound to feel it a bit. Just shut your eyes and rest up this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, really,’ said Val, when she had left, ‘she might have asked how I was.’

  Exposure to the company of Isobel was apparently an ordeal which might affect the health.

  Isobel lay with her eyes closed as recommended by the authorities while Val turned with a flounce towards the window.

  Can one flounce in bed? Apparently so.

  It can’t be as bad as this. She must improve on acquaintance.

  The sound of a trolley trundled right to her bedside roused Isobel.

  It was, she saw with delight, loaded with books.

  ‘Hullo. So you’ve made C grade. Congratulations. Would you like something to read? Mystery, romance, travel, adventure, biography?’

  The speaker was Mrs Kent, the librarian. Diana had identified her as she passed the window of Room 5: a small, brisk woman of the parrot persuasion, though not excessively so. A blunt, curved nose, high pink complexion and grey hair were enough to sketch in the likeness.

  Isobel had forsworn reading for escape on her three-and-a-half flight attempt on Parnassus. She was pleased to think that now she was entitled to indulge herself.

  ‘Mystery, thank you.’

  She examined the offerings and chose a mystery by Margery Allingham.

  ‘I know your style, dear. Detective with aristocratic connections, very sensitive, long difficult courtship of intellectual female.’

  ‘I’ve read Lord Peter Wimsey right out.’

  ‘Well, when you’ve finished with Allingham, what about Ngaio Marsh? There’s a cultivated type for you, Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn, very high-class background, in love with famous artist, very classy dialogue.’

  ‘Can he detect good?’ asked Isobel.

  ‘Oh, quite the best. He’ll keep you going.’

  ‘I don’t mean to be here so long.’

  ‘Well, that’s the spirit. And you’ve done very well so far. Val, how are you getting on with your library book? Don’t you want to change it?’

  Val looked startled. She fumbled in the pocket of her saddle bag and brought out a book which she handed to Mrs Kent.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had time to open it.’

  Mrs Kent bristled.

  ‘Haven’t had time! What a thing to say to me. When I do so much. May I ask what you do with your time?’

  Val looked blank.

  She’s in Czechoslovakia with Mr Vorocic, thought Isobel. This was her own habitual refuge in moments of difficulty, and it gave her her first feeling of sympathy for Val.

  Having expected no answer, Mrs Kent departed with private thoughts and raised eyebrows.

  Isobel opened Flowers for the Judge and prepared to enjoy the afternoon.

  The hooter sounded its imperative.

  Three o’clock. Rest period.

  Isobel closed her book.

  They lay back, arms extended above their heads, and remained motionless.

  At four o’clock the hooter sounded. They came to life and were served afternoon tea.

  Isobel opened her book.

  Val uttered a whimper of dismay.

  ‘You’re not one of those people who read all the time, are you?’

  Isobel closed her book with a sigh. It was in any case time for Nurse Morris to appear, to check pulse and temperature and enquire into the state of their bowels.

  One was not left long alone at Mornington.

  Dinner.

  Voices rose. They called from room to room, just out of earshot. Lance’s voice took on the rattle of light artillery, though Isobel could not hear what he was saying. He got no response from his room mate and seemed to need none.

  Sister Knox could be heard at the door of Room 1, saying, ‘Now, you will settle down like a good boy, won’t you, Lance?’

  This produced silence until she was out of earshot.

  At the door of Room 2, she said, ‘You will be quiet, won’t you, darlings? You know, it’s little me who gets into trouble when the ward is noisy.’

  In what dimension could statuesque Sister Knox count herself as ‘little’? Certainly not physically.

  She went from room to room, apparently repeating this plea. This was preparation for the doctor’s final round.

  She returned almost immediately with Doctor Wang, who looked weary but smiled at Isobel and asked how she was liking C grade.

  ‘Very much, thank you.’

  There were times when truth must give way to courtesy.

  Lights out.

  Lance’s voice rattled on in the dark.

  Shouts rose.

  ‘Lance! Shut up! Shut up and go to sleep!’

  Silence at last. The ward slept.

  Tuesday began with Diana’s familiar cold hand round her warm wrist and a thermometer thrust into her mouth.

  ‘Wakey, wakey!’

  Isobel watched as Diana counted seconds on her wrist watch and made a note on the chart, removed the thermometer, read, noted and flicked in the familiar routine.

  After that, things were different.

  ‘Bath time. Up you get. When you’ve had your bath, knock at Room 3 next door and call Pat. She’s next. Don’t take too long about it.’

  Without giving her body time to protest, Isobel tumbled out of bed, put on dressing gown and slippers without waking up entirely, seized towel and toilet bag and crossed the chilly hall into the chillier bathroom.

  Diana had not been joking. The water was cold.

  It seemed odd that one must suffer from tuberculosis to have the experience of bathing in freezing water on a winter morning in the mountains, but after the first shuddering shock she found the cold water stimulating, though it did not tempt her to linger.

  Back in her pyjamas, clean, virtuous and glowing, she knocked on the door of Room 3 to call Pat, a small, gypsy-faced girl who answered with a pardonable growl of discontent but appeared shortly at her door in dressing gown and slippers, saying briefly, ‘Thanks for nothing.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. The water’s fine.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  Pat managed a grin. Common misfortune was a bond.

  Isobel got back into her warm bed in a good frame of mind and settled down to sleep again.

  Val had not stirred. Isobel drifted into sleep.

  ‘Isobel!’

  A voice was calling from the past, breaking into her dream.

  ‘Isobel! Wake up!’

  The voice was here, close at hand. Someone nearby was in trouble and calling for help.

  She started awake.

  ‘What’s the matter? Is there something wrong?’

  Val said, ‘It’s morning. It’s time to wake up.’

  ‘Uh.’

  Isobel closed her eyes again.

  Val persisted.

  ‘You’re not going to sleep all day, are you?’

  Isobel mumbled, ‘Too early to say.’

  ‘Oh, why won’t you wake up? You’ve been up and had your bath and now you want to go to sleep again.’

  The distress in her voice was so compelling that Isobel resigned herself to staying awake. She looked at Val in astonishment, wanting an explanation of what she took to be very strange behaviour, and saw terror in her eyes.

  I am stuck with another Mr Richard.

  She said, ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘You certainly did,’ said Val pettishly.

  ‘Aren’t we supposed to?’

  Patients did usually sleep well. It was generally supposed that there was something in the tea.

  ‘I d
on’t snore, do I?’ she asked uneasily, thinking of Mrs Partridge.

  No, she had not snored. Her misdemeanour, it seemed, had been to sleep while Val was awake.

  It became clear during the day that Val’s existence required the active cooperation of another person. To read, write, meditate or even sleep in her presence was an act of cruelty which caused her genuine suffering. Solitude was terrifying to her, and so was silence.

  She was therefore a compulsive talker, with the added disadvantage that she found talking a laborious affair, requiring the racking of brains. She talked, thought Isobel, as if she were drowning and only the sound of her own voice kept her head above water. Even when she had subject matter at her disposal, her delivery resembled a slow, laboured swimming stroke. This made it tiring to listen to her, for one had to resist the urge to come to her rescue.

  Isobel could soon have told Mrs Kent what Val did with her time. She looked out the window, watched and wondered, giving Isobel what was rather a trudging than a running commentary on the sparse events she observed.

  ‘I wonder what Ron is doing out of the laboratory at this hour.’

  ‘There goes Janet’s husband. Poor man. But I wonder why he doesn’t cheer up a bit now that Janet and Brett are doing so well. Doctor says the lesions are clearing up wonderfully.’

  Janet shared Room 4 with her five-year-old son Brett, both victims of the infection.

  ‘Last week he came in the mornings. Now he’s coming in the afternoons again. He came yesterday afternoon and now again today. I wonder…’

  ‘What’s his job, then?’

  ‘He’s a sales representative. The firm were very good, changing his territory to the mountains so that he could be near his family, but you’d think he’d want to come at the same time every day, so that Janet would know…’

  ‘Perhaps he had to fit in with appointments or something.’

  Having done her duty by the conversation, Isobel opened her book, refusing to be deterred by Val’s sigh of dismay.

  *

  Wednesday differed from Tuesday only in bringing a visitor for Isobel.

  After lunch, a short, broad-shouldered man, clothed and shod, appeared smiling in the doorway.

  ‘Hullo. I am Boris. I am come to ask if you want anything from the store.’

  ‘Oh, please! Do they sell writing paper and envelopes, and stamps?’

  ‘All of that, and they post letters, local but not overseas. If you want to write overseas, Mrs Kent will take your letter and post it for you in the town. And Val, can I get something for you?’

  Val shook her head.

  ‘My name is Isobel.’

  Isobel wondered if Val had heard of the custom of making introductions.

  ‘Oh, I know that. You have been on B grade and very interesting. Now you are on C grade, not so interesting but I hope healthier.’

  Isobel never did discover how information was disseminated at Mornington. It seemed to pervade the atmosphere, omnipresent as dust mites or the Deity. She had misjudged Val. Introductions were obviously unnecessary.

  She smiled at his summing up of her situation.

  ‘Much healthier, thank you.’

  ‘I am glad of that. I shall not be long with your shopping.’

  Boris’s face, broad at the cheekbones, narrowing to a pointed chin and radiating kindness and humour, put her in mind of the Cheshire Cat. His grin seemed to remain upon the air after his departure. She found it cheering.

  He arrived shortly with her purchases and her change and settled in the doorway to tell his story. He was a Yugoslav who had been working as a commercial pilot in the Northern Territory until the dreaded dengue fever had struck him down and brought the breakdown with it.

  He had migrated to Australia after World War II, in which he had been a fighter pilot, first for Yugoslavia, then for Britain.

  ‘The trip was free, you understand, so I took the longest, and here I am.’

  He shrugged, amused at fate. Isobel discovered that this was his usual stance, though sometimes one could detect a tremor in his laughter.

  The hooter sounded for rest period and sent Boris away.

  One hour, arms over head, lie motionless, relax. Just that little thing.

  When the hooter sounded again and the ward stirred, the trolley came rolling with afternoon tea. She ate her biscuit, drank her milk coffee, then set about writing to Mrs Delaney.

  She had to make it clear that this was an expression of gratitude and also of farewell. Such charity as Mrs Delaney dispensed could not be maintained for long.

  That Mrs Delaney saw it as a brief adventure to be undertaken with enjoyment was its most endearing feature.

  Isobel reflected and wrote:

  Dear Mrs Delaney,

  I am sorry to have been so long in thanking you for your great kindness to me in a time of need. I have thought of it often with gratitude and should have liked to write to you sooner, but have only this week been promoted to C grade and allowed to indulge in such activities as letter writing.

  I have made good progress and the doctors are pleased with me, so the future looks good.

  I hope the dead dinosaur is not too much in your way. I shall find a new home for it as soon as possible.

  I remember what you said about handing on good deeds and hope that some day I shall be able to follow your example.

  Yours most sincerely,

  Isobel

  She had given considerable thought to that conclusion. Signing had had to mean ‘signing off’, a clear indication that she expected no answer.

  She folded the letter into its envelope, addressed and stamped the envelope, all with a quite extraordinary sense of achievement.

  ‘What does one do with letters?’ she asked Val.

  Val looked startled.

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘But people must write letters. Somebody must take them to the post.’

  Since this topic seemed to make Val uncomfortable, Isobel said no more. She would find out tomorrow on the verandah from other letter writers.

  Thursday was the big day. Thursday was Rounds. On Thursday one had one’s moment of fame as the doctors studied one’s latest X-ray, compared it with the earlier ones, checked one’s fever chart and answered the question one was bound to ask: ‘Any change, doctor?’

  Immediately after breakfast, bed making and strep injection, over which Sister Connor was brisker than usual, an orderly brought the great buff envelopes and propped each one at the end of the appropriate bed.

  One tidied one’s cabinet, was warned not to disarrange the bed, then one waited. One waited. Never was there such silence, such anticipatory tension in C Ward as in the ten minutes which preceded Rounds.

  They are coming. The doctors are coming.

  There they were in the doorway, Stannard and Wang coming in followed by Sister Connor with the fever charts fastened to a clipboard.

  Isobel’s moment of fame was brief. Doctor Stannard nodded, said, ‘Settling in all right?’ glanced at the fever chart and moved to Val’s bed. Sister Connor slipped the chart to the back of the pile and followed.

  It was then that the ordeal began. The impression Val gave of snatching at words to save herself from drowning was at its strongest when she spoke to the doctors. Her situation was made worse by her conviction that a greater degree of elegance was required when one spoke to a doctor. The objective case of the personal pronoun she judged to be unfit for a doctor’s ears. Her reasoning in this matter was clear. Since to say ‘Geoff and I’ was refined, while to say ‘Geoff and me’ was common, the pronoun I must always be preferred in refined speech to the pronoun me. This led to agonising pauses. ‘The doctor said the climate was affecting…was affecting…’ before refinement triumphed over usage and she plunged on: ‘The climate was affecting I.’

  Isobel wondered why she should agonise over Val’s difficulties as she did.

  Doctor Stannard did not agonise. Isobel watched him in wonder as Val wit
h her mouth open waited for the next word to come down the chute. His gentle and attentive gaze showed not a flicker of any suppressed emotion.

  Doctor Wang’s inscrutability was of a different nature. Stannard’s countenance was open, Wang’s was closed. Inscrutability, Isobel decided, was a screen for private feelings. What his private feelings were she did not care to speculate.

  At last it was over. Val had communicated the uncomfortable effect of PAS on her system and the interference with her breathing to be noted immediately after lights out.

  ‘We’ll have to keep an eye on that, Val,’ said Doctor Stannard, moving away, leaving Isobel exhausted and Val dissatisfied.

  ‘I do think he could have taken some action!’

  As soon as the doctors were out of earshot three rooms away, Lance came in from next door tense with rage and sat himself on the end of Isobel’s bed.

  ‘She told him I’m always out of bed! How can she know that? She isn’t always here!’

  ‘Well,’ said Isobel, ‘where are you now?’

  ‘That’s not the point! She isn’t here, is she? And what she doesn’t see she can’t say!’

  He had the air of a brilliant barrister addressing a jury as he argued his case.

  ‘She just wants you to stay in bed and get better, you know.’

  ‘She ought to tell the truth, that’s all!’ He mimicked furiously. ‘“Doctor, he’s always out of bed. I can’t do anything with him.”’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, he told me that I had to keep the rules if I wanted to get better and it was on my account that Sister was worrying. Like hell it’s on my account. Bloody old mischief maker.’

  Sister Connor was neither old nor a mischief maker.

  ‘That’s true, you know. You’re the one she’s thinking of. And the weight of probability is all on the side of Sister Connor.’

  ‘Oh, shit. You would be on her side. You’re just as bad.’

  Though that concluded the argument, Lance did not seem inclined to move.

  ‘What’s this?’

  He picked up Flowers for the Judge from Isobel’s cabinet.

  ‘It’s a book. You don’t read books?’