Christmas Wishes (10 page)

‘Wonder how you’ll like that there St Hilda’s, when you start,’ Vera said idly, holding the piece of knitting she was working on up against herself. She peered inquisitively at the work Gillian held. ‘What’s that, then? Mine’s a lacy top for when I go dancin’ in the summer.’

‘Squares to make into blankets for African babies,’ Gillian said. ‘Didn’t you knit them when you were at Bold Street?’

‘Oh aye, that’s right,’ Vera said. Her needles, Gillian saw, fairly zipped through her work compared with her own slow progress. ‘So as I were sayin’, how d’you think you’ll gerron at St Hilda’s, without your twin to back you up?’

Gillian gave Vera a pitying look. ‘We’re thirteen, not three,’ she said reproachfully. ‘As for twins backing each other up, well, often we disagree just like other people do; sometimes we’re worse
because
we’re twins, if you understand me. But I might not take up the scholarship, though I haven’t told Dad yet. He’s keen for me to go, but whilst Joy is still struggling to get over the accident … oh, I don’t know, it seems mean to go off to St Hilda’s when Joy’s so poorly. Still, time will tell.’

Vera nodded sympathetically. ‘Aye, you’re afraid young Joy may miss you, even miss the arguing,’ she said. ‘But she’s a nice kid, your Joy. She’ll soon make pals at Bold Street and be as happy as Larry. And she won’t have to work like stink, which you will, young Gillian, because everyone from round here who’s gorra scholarship says it’s awful hard work keepin’ up.’

Soon after this the two girls went up to bed, Vera to snore all night and Gillian to lie awake, staring at the ceiling and worrying over her twin, until the church clock chimed two and she fell into an exhausted and nightmare-ridden sleep.

Joy awoke after a sleep so deep and delicious that she felt, had it not been for the bandage round her eyes, she could have jumped out of bed, run along to the canteen or the kitchens or wherever it was they prepared food and helped herself to the biggest plate of porridge in the world. But then she remembered she had had an operation on her eyes and felt a thrill of excitement. Mr Burton had told her that he and his team would be doing a ward round at ten o’clock that morning, when he meant to remove the bandages and dressings, so that they – and Joy herself, of course – might see how successful the operation had been.

Joy sighed. She had been told that her eyes had been badly damaged by the jagged glass which had speared her when the windowpane had crashed back into her face. Mr Burton had operated twice at the time and then again last week, and he was hopeful that he would not need to do so again. Joy certainly hoped so, because when she had come round after the final operation she had felt very poorly for several days. Today, however, was different; she felt well and was looking forward to her breakfast, though that must be some time away for the ward was totally quiet … no, not totally quiet. She could hear the snuffling of little Amanda in the next bed, who had had her tonsils out, the rustle as a child turned over in its sleep and, far off, the click of a nurse’s shoes as she hurried along a distant corridor.

Joy sighed again; she had noticed how much better her hearing had become since the accident and guessed that this was because she had been deprived of sight whilst her eyes healed. Idly, she wondered whether her hearing would become duller once more when the bandages came off.

They were such good bandages, too! They had not allowed so much as a chink of light to penetrate their folds. And all of a sudden it occurred to her that, since today was ‘bandages off day’, she could give herself a little preview. Why not? She could hear, now, the distant clatter of crockery and guessed that the staff were laying up the early morning tea trolleys, for hospitals came to life at six o’clock. The trolleys had not yet begun their journey from kitchens to wards, so if she just poked a finger up under the bandages she could smooth everything down again before the orderly reached her.

Joy wriggled up the bed a bit, then began to fiddle with the irritating bandages which obscured her vision. It was odd that she could see nothing but blackness; she would have thought some light at least would have filtered through the cotton. She poked at it and managed to slide a finger up the side of her nose, which should have let in at least some light. There was something on her face, below her eye, something sticky. She tried to look down, and then, with an impatient jerk, she pulled the bandage clear of her eyes.

Then she screamed.

Gillian and Joy came out of the hospital hand in hand, while Alex carried Joy’s little suitcase, circling round them like a sheepdog who finds itself in charge of two very foolish sheep, Gillian thought. She whispered as much to her twin, but Joy was concentrating on her feet and did not comment.

‘The taxi’s here, my loves; I’ll just open the door and help Joy in whilst the driver gets the luggage aboard.’ Alex had flung open the door of the cab and now he pressed gently on Joy’s head. ‘Don’t go banging your noggin on the taxi roof,’ he said cheerfully, though with a shake in his voice. ‘This is the happiest day I’ve had for a long time, because once you’re back home we’ll be a proper family again; I don’t intend to spoil it by taking you back to Casualty with a bump on the head!’

Gillian, following Joy into the taxi, laughed dutifully, but Joy’s face did not change, nor did she speak. Gillian filled the gap by chattering to her father as he climbed into the cab’s front passenger seat, but though Alex tried to respond Gillian could see it was a real effort, so she sank back in her seat and let her mind go over the past few weeks.

Once Joy’s bandages had been removed, Alex had told Gillian that Mr Burton had said, with real regret, that he had done everything possible but had to admit failure; unless there was a miracle, Joy would never see again.

Gillian thought that the next few weeks were not going to be easy. Of course, it would be hardest and worst for Joy, who had been in hospital for more than three months and would have found it hard to re-join the outside world even had she not lost her sight. But both herself and her father would suffer almost as much, he from his inability to do more to help, and she from the feeling that she would be deserting her sister when she went off to her new school after Easter.

The taxi drew up before No. 77 and Alex got out, but whilst Gillian was still struggling to emerge from the vehicle and before her father had got the key out of his pocket, the door shot open and Grandma Lawrence came out to stand at the top of the three small whitened steps, still in her outdoor clothing and with her face set in its habitual expression of discontent.

Gillian, halfway out of the cab, stopped short, staring. Grandma seldom left her small house save for a monthly visit to her chiropodist, occasional forays into Fuller’s café, and funerals of friends and acquaintances. Grandma never missed a funeral, always arriving in a cab and attending first the church service and then the wake in order to see how many members of her generation were still at the obsequies and not, so to speak, taking the central role. Gillian touched her sister’s arm. ‘Grandma’s at our house; heaven knows how she got in, but she’s standing in the doorway, scowling,’ she whispered. As Alex straightened up and saw his mother, Gillian grabbed his jacket. ‘What’s
she
doing here?’ she demanded. ‘She never visits, except at Christmas.’

Alex turned and grinned at his daughter. ‘I don’t know, and I don’t know how she got in, either,’ he hissed back. ‘Heaven defend me … is that a suitcase that I see behind her? Oh dear God, she can’t mean to come and stay …’

Joy, who had clearly overheard the exchange, began to say that things were bad enough without adding a disagreeable old woman to the mix, but Gillian hushed her and then helped her twin out on to the pavement. ‘Dad will deal with her,’ she whispered. ‘Poor old thing, she’s probably only trying to help.’ As the girls approached the front door Gillian kept up a running commentary, hoping to see her sister smile, even if she could not raise a laugh. ‘Grandma’s in her Sunday best,’ she murmured. ‘You know, her black coat with the fur collar which you once said was made out of dead cats, and her black cloche hat with the artificial violets pinned to the crown. Gracious, she’s wearing those boots that lace and button from ankle to knee; I wonder how the devil she got them on without you or me to do the laces up for her.’

‘Auntie Serena probably went round,’ Joy said. ‘In fact it’ll be she who ordered the taxi and gave the driver our address and everything, same as she does at Christmas. Oh dear heaven, don’t say Auntie Serena’s hidin’ in the parlour! I just hope Daddy kicks them out at once, otherwise I mean to be very, very rude indeed.’

‘You mustn’t; she’s Daddy’s mother, don’t forget, and we both like Auntie Serena,’ Gillian murmured, guiding Joy across the pavement. ‘I expect she’s just popped in to say welcome home, poor old thing.’

‘Huh!’ Joy snorted, and shook off her sister’s helping hand. ‘Do stop treating me like a new-born baby. I can get into the house without you shoving me. There are two steps … oh, oh, oh!’

‘Three,’ Gillian said wryly as her twin sprawled on the hall floor. She glared at her grandmother, who had stepped hurriedly back to avoid being mown down, and heaved Joy to her feet, not surprised to see her sister’s mouth wobbling dangerously. What a homecoming! Grandma had never bothered with them much before, so why should she do so now? But Daddy had finished paying the cab driver and now he came over and slipped a strong arm round Joy’s waist.

‘Don’t try to run before you can walk,’ he said dryly. ‘Isn’t that what Mr Burton said? I expect Grandma has just popped in to make us all a cup of tea.’

‘I were comin’ to stay to give a hand like,’ Grandma said in a hurt tone which Gillian had never heard her use before. ‘Oh, Joy, me love, if I could tek your place …’

‘Well you can’t,’ Joy snapped as her father led her down the hallway and into the kitchen. ‘The doctor at the hospital said I should be allowed to learn where everything is, and that means everybody, too. You’ll just clutter up the place, Grandma. Go home!’

‘Well, if that’s how you feel …’ the old lady began indignantly, but her son interrupted.

‘It’s early days, Mother,’ he said gently. ‘Come into the kitchen and have that cup of tea – Gillian will make it, won’t you, darling? And then I’ll get another taxi and take you home.’

His mother sniffed. ‘Tryin’ to help … tryin’ to do me best,’ she muttered. ‘And that’s all the thanks I get. I were going to get Serena to bring round the old camp bed which you used to use when you were a lad …’

By now they were all in the kitchen and Gillian had filled the kettle and put it over the flame. She was getting cups down from the sideboard when her father spoke again. ‘Oh, Mother, it’s really good of you, but it’s not necessary, honest to God it’s not. Why, you’re used to sleeping in a double bed; you’d probably roll off that little camp bed the first time you tried to turn over.’

Grandma sniffed again. Upon entering the kitchen she had sat down on the only comfortable chair and now she took off her hat and patted her crimped grey curls before replying. ‘The camp bed weren’t for me, it were for you,’ she said indignantly. ‘I were goin’ to sleep in your bed, and why not, pray? You spend a good deal of your time, nights, waitin’ for a call-out, so you’re used to sleepin’ in a bunk. I don’t suppose the camp bed would be much different.’

Gillian, pouring water from the kettle into the teapot, kept her head averted to hide her amusement, and saw her father put a hand up to his mouth to disguise a grin. He had begun to say that he did not fancy the camp bed since it had not been made for a grown man but for a boy when Joy interrupted. ‘Daddy is
not
going to sleep anywhere but in his own bed, or in his bunk at the fire station,’ she announced firmly. ‘And how did you get into the house anyway, Grandma? I’m sure you weren’t invited.’

‘I telled ’em at the station that I’d got a cake for you, and needed to gerrin to mek a cuppa to go with it,’ Grandma muttered. ‘One of ’em – a young feller – said he’d get in through a back window what had been left open.’

‘Breaking and entering,’ her son said, smiling. ‘I imagine it was Chalky; he’s like a perishin’ mountain goat for climbing. Well, Mother, where’s this cake?’

The old lady heaved herself to her feet and went, groaning and with a hand to the small of her back, over to the pantry, returning with a very small jam sponge, the sort Gillian recognised as being the cheapest confectionery sold by the baker down the road. But it’s the thought that counts, she told herself, and ignored Joy’s whispered demand to be told if it were a rich fruit loaf or a Battenberg, her particular favourites.

Alex, however, said firmly that it was a jam sponge, and very nice too, though Joy gave a contemptuous sniff. ‘I like fruit cake,’ she said. ‘I may not be able to see what Grandma’s brought, but I know what I like.’

Grandma glared at Joy’s small, pale face. ‘You’ve not got false teeth,’ she snapped. ‘Them fruit cakes have nuts in; I can’t abide nuts.’

‘But you aren’t the one who’s just come out of hospital.’ Joy’s face was flushing with indignation, and Gillian judged it time to interrupt.

‘I’ll get you a fruit cake when I go marketing tomorrow, if I can,’ she told her sister. ‘I know the war’s over but everything worth having is still on ration, and what isn’t on ration isn’t usually available, unless you buy black market.’ She poured four cups of tea to the accompaniment of grumbles from her grandmother and some mutterings from Joy, then went and stood beside Joy’s chair so that she could guide her twin’s hand to the cup.

Once Joy, with both elbows on the table and her cup held between her hands, was sipping, Gillian fetched a knife from the dresser drawer and divided the cake into four equal pieces. She handed a slice each to her grandmother and her father, waited until Joy, with considerable caution, put her cup down, and then walked round the table, speaking cheerfully as she did so. ‘Here’s your share of the cake, Joy.’ She tried to put the cake within Joy’s reach, but her sister snatched her hand away, shaking her head vehemently.

‘I don’t want it,’ she said bluntly. ‘Take it for next door’s chickens.’