Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop

by Amy Witting

  He came in and with minimal recognition of Isobel’s existence—that settled the pulse all right—he sat down beside Val and began to talk about her case.

  There had been doubt for a while about the necessity of operation. However, in the light of the advantages…a lobectomy was the only complete cure yet known. The rest of the lung expanded to compensate for the absent lobe and very soon after surgery the patient was as good as new.

  On the other hand, the lesion was minimal. (At Mornington, minimal lesion was a cause of shame. Val winced at the mention of it.)

  Let us say that an operation was not absolutely necessary. If she took care of herself, the prognosis was good, but the operation promised a future free of tuberculosis. What did Val think?

  ‘I’d like to take your advice, doctor.’

  ‘Would you like to talk to your husband about it?’

  ‘He would say the same. We both trust the doctors and we are very grateful for what has been done for us.’

  Val was at peace, comforted by this attention.

  Isobel, who would have been very frightened, was going to be very frightened when, if, her turn came, was impressed by Val’s courage.

  ‘Well, I think the operation is the better option. It is a very safe procedure, and otherwise, you might always have it hanging over your head…’ he paused and decided not to threaten Val with the sword of Damocles.

  The point was—the reason he had come to talk to her was—that there was an unexpected gap in the programme and they could take Val immediately. She could phone her husband from the office. There would be the special medical examination when Mr Prior arrived at the weekend.

  Val listened and nodded.

  There was the bronchoscopy, a procedure in which the doctors inserted a tube with a light down the patient’s throat in order to inspect the bronchi. This was not to be feared. They had never lost a patient yet.

  He was using a gentle, hypnotic tone intended to lull. It did lull Val.

  It wouldn’t have lulled me, thought Isobel. How could Val, who woke every morning with terror in her eyes and called for help, for company, to save her from a moment’s solitude, be so composed when she contemplated a bronchoscopy and a lobectomy? Sixty stitches, they said.

  At least for a lobectomy they put you out, you got a general. With the thora, you had locals, saw your own blood spurting…brrr.

  Still, a lobectomy, and Val taking the news so calmly.

  ‘Right, then. We’ll have the special medical on Friday. Mr Prior will want to examine you himself, you understand. And the bronc next week. A month or so and you’ll be home and as good as new.’

  He got up to go, paused, meditating a final gesture, a squeeze of her hand, perhaps…decided against it in favour of a smile.

  A man for all occasions, Stannard. As with Isobel. The atmosphere in Room 2 had now changed. Val’s importance was restored and with it her equanimity.

  As soon as rest period was over, discipline broke down and visitors gathered.

  Eily, survivor of two broncs, was called on to report.

  ‘You just have to go with it, and remember that they know what they’re doing. It’s not too bad, you know. They give you a shot of happy drug. Maybe they gave me a bit too much last time. I got the giggles and he got quite snotty with me. “Stop that nonsense at once, Eily.” He sounded just like Hook. Shut me up all right.’

  Gladys said broncs here were a whole lot better than in other places. The morphia made all the difference.

  There were nods, encouragement.

  ‘Pat’s doing fine. Says it’s the best thing that ever happened, knowing that it’s gone. Gone for good.’

  Val nodded.

  ‘He said it was the only complete cure.’

  ‘Yeah. Look at it all ways, we’re lucky. Would have been different once.’

  They nodded, remembering the often repeated story of Tamara’s husband’s young brother.

  ‘Whole family move out and leave him. Only Alexey go back, take him food. He sitting on pan, say, “I think I like an apple,” then he say, “Help me, help me,” and Alexey put his arms round him to lift him and he die.’

  The bad old days which it was sometimes salutary to remember.

  Isobel kept to her resolution and lay before breakfast with her eyes closed, playing possum, though Lance stood protesting with great bitterness, ‘You’re not asleep, Izzy. I know you’re not. You’re just pretending. You’re mean, mean, mean.’

  That’s right. I’m a mean bastard. Bastards get better.

  Boris arrived on guard duty, but he was hardly needed, since Val was the centre of attention. He kept watch for all that, barring the way to Lance in the doorway.

  Mrs Kent stopped on her round to talk to Val about the bronc.

  ‘They say there’s just one moment when you think you’re going to choke. You think something has gone wrong and you panic. If you just remember that it’s normal and it happens every time, you won’t panic.’

  Just about as easy as remembering a deathbed confession, thought Isobel. That list of sins she had memorised in her childhood for the deathbed repentance that was going to save her from hellfire—how worried she had been that death might be too distracting, might make her forget something in the list.

  In Val’s position she would be very frightened—not so much of suffering as of losing control and behaving badly. There was one woman who confessed to having attacked a doctor and ripped his shirt…‘Somebody’s shirt got torn,’ she had said with a self-conscious giggle.

  Suppose that was me? How could I ever face Wang again?

  Bastards don’t care what people think of them.

  Besides, it isn’t me. It is Val, whose calm, I admit, fills me with admiration.

  Val had her bronchoscopy and came back in a wheelchair, croaking but triumphant, to report at length on all that had been said and done.

  Isobel said, ‘You should be resting your throat.’

  In vain. The saga continued until Val had no voice left.

  Isobel thought she must really be in pain. Could silence be so terrible that she must suffer to prevent it?

  She did complain to Sister Connor that her throat ached terribly.

  ‘Isobel says I am talking too much,’ she said with injured dignity.

  Sister Connor avoided Isobel’s eyes.

  ‘It’s a factor,’ she said. ‘Your throat won’t get better if you keep forcing your voice.’

  This connection between cause and effect fretted Val considerably.

  ‘Can’t you give me something for it?’

  ‘Silence is the best cure,’ said Sister Connor.

  Val maintained the healing silence for almost ten minutes.

  Three days later she went to surgery.

  Sister Connor reported that Val had had her operation and was making a good recovery.

  And Isobel’s fever was subsiding.

  Sister Connor had prevailed. The boys were to be moved to a ward.

  ‘Doctor Stannard thought at first that it would be better for them in a room. He didn’t want them among the men, learning bad language and listening to rough talk.’

  Isobel grinned.

  ‘I think Lance could teach the men a few new words. He taught me some.’

  ‘Well, you’ll survive. It’s just impossible for me to keep him in bed. There’ll be more supervision in the ward and really, the men are quite decent. They’ll look after him.’

  ‘What about Garry?’

  Isobel often asked herself that.

  ‘Garry is all right. He just keeps to himself and concentrates on getting better. He is getting better.’

  She looked despondent.

  Isobel guessed.

  ‘But Lance isn’t?’

  ‘I can’t talk about other patients, you know.’

  ‘No, of course not. Sorry.’

  But she knew that Sister Connor would have shared the news if it had been good.

  Lance followed and took his p
lace on the end of Isobel’s bed.

  ‘We’re moving. Going down to the wards.’

  He looked depressed.

  ‘Will you come and see me, Izzy?’

  ‘Of course I will. As soon as I make D grade. And Lance…do try, love. Stay in bed and do what they tell you!’

  ‘Won’t have much choice. Real bitches, those nurses down there on the wards.’

  ‘They’ll be all right if you behave yourself. Lance, you just have to.’

  ‘Nobody down there to talk to.’

  ‘What about Boris? He’ll come and talk to you.’

  ‘Huh!’

  He wandered away, disconsolate.

  They’ll be kind to him, Isobel told herself firmly. He would never have got any better if he’d stayed here.

  And she had herself to think of.

  The boys in Room 1 were replaced by two quiet young women happy in each other’s company.

  Katie took Val’s place in Room 2.

  Isobel moved further down the bath queue, into the hot water zone.

  Katie talked, but mostly to her reflection in the glass. It seemed though that what she saw in the glass was not a woman in her thirties, somewhat run to tooth and bone, but a lovable little girl of six or seven.

  Katie was on D grade. After strep, she was allowed to dress.

  ‘I shall wear a big floppy bow,’ she said fondly to her reflection as she dressed, ‘I don’t care who calls me Pussycat.’

  This was very sad, for no-one seemed inclined to call Katie Pussycat or any other endearing names.

  Isobel discovered Katie’s problem from Sister Connor.

  When Isobel rolled over and pulled down her pyjama pants to receive the injection of strep, Katie was still.

  ‘Your course is finished, Katie,’ said Sister Connor. ‘You don’t need any more strep. And your temperature has been normal for weeks. You know what the doctor says. You need more activity.’

  At this Katie dug under the blankets, refusing to answer. Isobel thought of her own moment of terror, when she had cowered like a beast in hiding thinking of the predator outside. For Katie the predator was the whole world outside.

  When she had gone, Katie said to Isobel, ‘They should know I’m running a fever. My body temperature is much lower than the normal, so when it goes up to normal, I’m really running a temperature. I tell them that and they won’t believe me.’

  On Rounds, Doctor Stannard passed her by after saying, ‘More activity, Katie.’

  He was gentle and sympathetic, but one day soon he would call her in and tell her that her bed was needed and that she must go, into the outside world which she seemed to fear more than illness.

  After his visit, Katie would be silent and depressed. Then she would rally, get up and put on a frilly blouse and talk affectionately to the little girl in the mirror. Then she would be off on a round of visits and Isobel would see her no more till rest period.

  That was well, for her situation filled Isobel with fear.

  I have to get out of here while I’m still able to face the world. You can get to be like those prisoners who don’t want to leave gaol. If there’s nothing in the outer world to call you…

  She had Tom Fenwick’s letter, his parcels of magazines, Olive’s offer of a room. And she had her typewriter.

  She finished the grey lace pullover and by it achieved some local fame. Miss Landers took it and showed it about in the wards. She came back to say, with new animation, that a woman in A Ward wanted to copy it.

  ‘But she doesn’t want to tackle that stitch. She wants an eight-row pattern with a purl back and, she says,’ Miss Landers quoted shyly, ‘no nonsense about knitting three together through the back of the loop.’

  ‘I could knit you some samples, if you bring me the leaflets.’

  Her pleasure in this small achievement was, she knew, immoderate. It was gratifying to see Miss Landers enlivened by it, but it wasn’t the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nevertheless she took great pride in knitting the samples and sending them down by Miss Landers to the interested party in A Ward.

  Boris was discharged and came to say goodbye.

  ‘I’ll miss you very much,’ she said. ‘And I owe you a lot. You’ll write and let me know how you’re getting on, won’t you?’

  She saw at once that this had dealt him a blow.

  Through lips he could scarcely keep from quivering, he said, ‘I shall get on well enough. I shall not write to you, Isobel, because I am forty-three and you are twenty-one, and for other reasons. I ask of you one thing only.’

  ‘Say the word.’

  ‘Please be well. Happiness one can’t arrange for, but let me think that somewhere in this world you are alive and well.’

  ‘If you’ll make me the same promise. I’ll keep to it if you will.’

  That at least was better. He managed to smile.

  ‘I promise. Goodbye then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  So there was love and there was sex. Did they ever come together?

  It would take you over. You wouldn’t have time for anything else.

  ‘Miss Landers wants to take you round to the stockroom,’ said Sister Connor, ‘to have a look at the wool. You might get some bright ideas about it. Doctor has given permission.’

  Since she was still looking askance at Isobel over her forbidden excursions, she found her mission embarrassing and had no difficulty in reading the message of Isobel’s raised eyebrows.

  ‘All right. Say it.’

  Isobel however wished to please Miss Landers, who was waiting in the doorway smiling hopefully. Besides, a trip to the stockroom or into any unknown region had all the attractions of a weekend abroad.

  ‘No disloyal thought has crossed my mind,’ she said in virtuous indignation.

  ‘And I’m Marie of Rumania,’ said Sister Connor. ‘All right, Miss Landers. Don’t keep her too long, will you?’

  ‘It’s so kind of you, dear,’ said Miss Landers, as Isobel in dressing gown and slippers followed her along the inner corridor into the upper block towards Reception. ‘You were so clever about the grey wool. I do have a problem with the wool. One has to face it. It isn’t very attractive.’

  ‘Cheap at the price, though,’ said Isobel.

  She was proud of her ability to charm Miss Landers into a real smile, not the nervous apologetic twitch with which she responded to the comments of the patients.

  ‘Yes. You have to admit that.’

  Beyond the dining room and before reception there was a side corridor which led past Doctor Stannard’s office and closed unidentified doors to Miss Landers’s store room. It was a large room, shelved like a shop, with stacks of basket shapes ready for the hanks of raffia stacked above them, boxes labelled ‘Koala’ and, filling two whole shelves of the short wall opposite Miss Landers’s table and chair and her filing cabinet, a stack of neatly twisted skeins of khaki wool.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Isobel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Landers.

  ‘How long has it been here?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear. It was here when I came.’

  ‘It must have been a pleasant surprise. It looks as if it was left over from the war.’

  ‘It must have been. The patients won’t take it even for children’s clothes. They like something a bit brighter, and you can’t blame them.’ She allowed herself a moment of resentment. ‘I don’t know why they suppose that TB sends you colour blind.’

  ‘No.’ Isobel had been contemplating the stack of wool, reflectively. ‘They think it improves the character. Somebody had a vision of rows of good little wogs sitting up in bed, knitting socks for soldiers, proud to be part of the war effort. It doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘No,’ said Miss Landers. ‘Indeed it doesn’t.’ She sighed. ‘Isobel, dear, I mustn’t keep you standing.’ She moved the chair from behind her table and Isobel sat. ‘I was just hoping, you know, that you might think of something.’

  It was astonishing, even dis
turbing, that Isobel cared so much to succeed in this small enterprise. Of course she wanted to help poor Miss Landers, but there was more to it than that, and worse. It’s no big deal, she said to herself, knowing that it was a far bigger deal than it should have been.

  ‘It’s not such a bad colour, if you forget about socks for soldiers. Do you have any white?’

  ‘Only baby wool. Or 2-ply.’

  ‘I could double the 2-ply. Suppose I knitted a plain sweater with the Basques and the cuffs and neck band in white, and then sewed a flower onto the shoulder. In white, I mean. It might work. You could keep it for a sample and see if you get any takers.’

  Miss Landers brightened.

  ‘There might be other colours that would go. We could look through the bins.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  The bins were filled with odd quantities of left-over wool donated by the Red Cross. Two ounces would do, they agreed, for the contrast colour.

  They spent a companionable hour rummaging in the bins, each holding a skein of the khaki wool against possible contrasts.

  They agreed that turquoise was perfect, accepted baby blue, shuddered at lemon, considered and rejected pale green, had an unexpected success with pale beige, of which there were eight whole ounces, a bonanza.

  ‘Oh, Isobel!’ Miss Landers spoke impulsively. ‘It’s wonderful to have somebody to take an interest. It’s so discouraging always. I’m just sure this is going to work. Just giving people something that they’ll like…it isn’t easy.’

  Positively, Isobel blushed.

  ‘I’ll need patterns for the flowers. Do you have any books on Irish crochet?’

  Miss Landers laughed.

  ‘You truly are a surprise. Irish crochet! I never would have thought it.’

  ‘My grandmother was Irish. She taught me. I’ll never be as good as she was, but I can manage most of the motifs.’

  ‘I’ll look through the leaflets.’

  ‘If we don’t have anything, Mrs Kent can find us something in town. We’ll make up kits. I’ll keep the Koala boxes. This is fun.’

  She looked at her watch and said in alarm, ‘Oh, Isobel! It’s nearly lunch time. You should have been back half an hour ago.’

  Isobel was counting out skeins of khaki and white.