school photos 15
By celticman
- 1504 reads
I didn’t feel at all tired, but in the muggy heat of the ward, as the hospital lights became muted, the nurses talked in scratchy whispers, I must have dozed off. I dreamt I was back home, sitting in the tan plastic-leather chair near the living room window, my legs tucked up under me to keep my feet warm. Little Ally was sitting scrunched up on the rug near the fireplace, playing hide-and-seek, face comically buried in her hands, counting down from ten-nine-eight-seven. Lily, who was hiding under my bed, put her finger to her mouth to shush me into not telling where she was. In my dream, I could see them both clearly, even though they were in different rooms.
Ally screeched, her voice rising, as she got nearer the chase, her hands fell from her face, she looked across at me, willing me to count down with her. ‘Three, two, one, ready or not, coming to get you and you’ll get caught.’ She barrelled towards the door, hands flapping in excitement.
I got a whiff of smoke, but couldn’t get off the soft chair quickly enough. Ally pulled open the living room door and flames jumped out of the hall to claim her. My mouth opened to scream her name, but no word came out. Instead a frothing river of water poured out, making me gag, but too late to quench the flames. My feet kicked out and I sat up in bed.
‘It’s not just me then.’ Doris voice was low. Smoking and the muted lights seemed to isolate her, make her seem more vulnerable and less adult. ‘That can’t sleep,’ she added, with a smile.
‘Sorry.’ I was sure I’d shouted something out. The other patients in the ward showed no sign they’d heard.
‘Don’t be daft.’ She began coughing. ‘It’s just the smoking’ she said, speaking through the coughing fit and taking another drag, another lungful of smoke, sighing, ‘that’s better’.
‘It’s just when I can’t sleep, I smoke.’
‘That’s ok.’
‘I’m sweating like a pig.’ She fanned her face and the smoke with a hand. ‘I toss and turn. Go to the toilet. Have another cigarette. Go to the toilet. Tell myself I’m going to kill myself if I don’t get to sleep. Then in the morning when everybody’s getting up, I don’t want to kill myself, I just want to get some sleep.’
‘Can’t you get something from the doctor? My eyes drifted from her warm eyes, nose and mouth and darted to the globe of white breasts showing at the top of her nightdress. I was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t like to bother them.’ Her voice adopted a jaunty tone, ‘but what about you? You’re young, how come you can’t sleep?’
‘I can,’ I said, adopting the same jaunty tone. ‘I’ve just had a bit of a nightmare.’
She asked what it was about. I tried telling her as best I could about Ally and Lily and my sister and my family and everything that had happened. I’d the feeling of talking far too much, but she didn’t seem to mind, asking questions and dotting our conversation with the light of one cigarette lit off another.
‘I’d a little girl too.’
She told me this just before the changeover when the dayshift started drifting in and settling themselves at the nurses’ station, screeching chairs over the once shiny floor, a war party round the desk, getting ready to hear the night shift’s report. I felt a lump of anger in my throat and stomach as if I’d been cheated. She’d made me talk about myself because she wanted something from me. Something I couldn’t give her.
‘The thing about death is it’s an absence, but also a presence. There’s not a minute in a day I don’t think about my Jamie.’ Blotchy tears appeared on her face, rolling down her cheeks. She sniffled making no move to wipe them or hide her grief.
‘Ah’m sorry,’ I wanted to hide my head under the hospital blanket and feign sleep, but the sorrow in her eyes pinned me to a sticking place. I found myself saying ‘when you go up to his grave, he’s playin’ football in the field beyond you. He’s eleven now. And he tells his friends that he’s got to go, because his mum really needs him. He says the new house is nice, but you need to get a colour telly. A house is not a home without a telly. He’s sorry about Dad and what happened between you. Don’t be sad, he said, you’ll meet someone nice too.’
The overhead lights buzzed as the nurses switched them on and they began their rounds, patrolling the rooms and corridors of our wards. A stocky older woman, wearing a blue hat at a jaunty angle, began mopping outside the entrance to our bay. We heard the thump and the slosh as she kicked the bucket, sliding it, manoeuvring it along with one dainty black shoe, until mopping behind the partition wall we could only see her shoulders moving from side to side and a wet slug trail filling the air with the whiff of disinfectant.
‘How dare you talk such balderdash,’ Doris said. ‘Intrude in my grief in such a way. You shouldn’t be in this ward. And I don’t think you’re right in the head.’
The patients in the other bed were sitting up, struggling out of the cocoon of hospital- cornered blankets. The woman with the bed near the window already padding towards the toilet stopped mid-step to listen. ‘What’s he done duck. Tried to get in bed beside you and get his leg over?’
Doris turned her head, allowing me to snatch my eyes back from her glare, as she addressed the other woman. ‘You’re nothing but a foul mouthed old cow. You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Doris. Doris. Easy Doris,’ said the woman in the bed across from us. ‘She’s just having a little joke.’
‘Ha. Ha.’ Doris pointed the gun of her index finger and thumb at me. ‘I intend to have a word with the matron and have you moved to another ward. In the meantime, don’t speak to me, don’t look at me and don’t come anywhere near me. Is that clear?’
My neck and cheeks were flushed to plum-purple. I nodded in agreement and stared at my feet entombed in clean blankets. I desperately needed to pee, but was scared to get up and go to the toilet with so many eyes on me.
Doris yanked the curtains that were on a rail and separated the beds across so that I was cut off from her and partially cut off from the other patients. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or mortified. I settled for a bit of both, willing the nurse to come so she could act as a distraction and I could get up and go to the toilet.
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Comments
I like the edgy atmosphere,
I like the edgy atmosphere, the insomnia and unpredictability of mood Elsie
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That's a fantastic opening
That's a fantastic opening paragraph. And the one beginning:
"Ah’m sorry,’ I wanted to look away,"
is damn fine too.
The change in Doris' demeanour is quite startling. Personaly I think that the reader feels his mortification so I'm not sure that you need the line in about it. Contrasting it with "gratitude" does a fine job of taking the edge off the exposition though. Another brill' instalment matey. Keep 'em coming.
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Talk about misunderstood..
Talk about misunderstood...Doris certainly had a change of character, certainly wouldn't want to get on her wrong side. Still enjoying and on to next part. Jenny.
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You've been busy CM. Liked
You've been busy CM. Liked this one. It's beginning to open up now, really enjoying reading this. On to the next...
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Hi CM
Hi CM
I was interested that your hospital had mixed sex wards. I've never been in one that did.
Good chapter, as always. Poor guy can't win. He feels he has to spout out about the afterlife, and then when he does, he's castigated for that too.
Jean
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Very interesting how his gift
Very interesting how his gift is evolving, without his control. Very nicely done with Doris turning on him. One point - she says she had a little girl, but then they talk about her son.
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Fair enough, but you need to
Fair enough, but you need to be more clear that he made a mistake - right now it reads like only you did. :)
Also, not sure about having John make a mistake. Just when you're building him up to be a spirit talker, seems out of place to have him talking rubbish. Having him be right is far spookier and more in keeping with what you've been doing, in my opinion. Of course you can ignore me completely!
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