Mad Worlds (6 page)

Heather awoke to a knocking. Her head throbbed. Where was she?

The door opened. She sat up. Of course – at Elsie's.

“How are you, m'dear?” Elsie stood cradling Becky.

She yawned. “Alright.” Though she didn't feel it, after a night spent mainly on tending to her restless child. Even more troublesome were the periods of quiet, when fears and imaginings plagued her over-active mind.

“You had a fair old night of it with the bairn, m'dear.”

“Yes. Sorry for the noise – must have kept you both awake.”

“Och, I'm never much of a sleeper. And Mattie can snore through thunder.”

“Did I sleep through Becky crying?”

“No, m'dear. After we got up at seven, Becky was making wee noises. I peeked round the door and you were asleep, so I took her downstairs. She had one of her jars and baby milk. I sang her to sleep and stayed with her. She's a grand bairn.”

“Thanks, Elsie.”

As if on cue, Becky started crying. “Might be that she's hungry, m'dear.”

“I don't normally feed her again till midday.”

Elsie smiled. “It's gone half-past twelve, m'dear.”

Goodness! She'd last looked at her watch at six a.m… “Gosh, Elsie.”

“I'm happy to feed the bairn now, m'dear, while you get dressed.”

“But what about the shop?”

“Mattie'll manage. Now, shall I go and feed the bairn?”

“Please, Elsie.” Heather downed a couple of aspirins. Dressing, she switched into action mode. After something to eat, she'd ask about phoning her parents.

She'd just sat down at the table, when Mattie shouted through the doorway. “You've a visitor, lass.”

A face peered round the door. The mental man!

“Sam Newman. I thought you'd be here, Mrs Chisholm. Can I come in for a minute?”

“Yes, Sir,” said Elsie, rising from her seat.

Newman remained standing and told Heather his reason for calling.

“But – John – how ill?” was all she could manage.

Newman repeated what he'd been told. “When you come, you'll find out more.” He looked away and added, “Must be serious for them to summon you.”

“I'll have Becky, m'dear. You go and see your man,” urged Elsie.

That settled it. She donned her coat as she followed Newman outside. She wanted to run to the car, but he was exasperatingly slow – seemed to have a limp.

She perched on the front seat beside Newman. The tyres screeched as he rounded the corner. At least he drove fast. She sat back in her seat – and on the journey, through the outskirts of town and along winding roads with high hedgerows and glimpses of fields, could think only about John. She heard Newman speak occasionally, but the words were intrusive. She was replaying memories of happier times with John and feeling the pain of impending loss.

“Up there,” Newman was pointing towards the horizon, “the chimney.” She looked up to glimpse the top of a chimney belching smoke. “All the old asylums have them – I mean of course the mental hospitals.”

She glanced across, and imagined his face had reddened. “Sorry – they used to be called asylums,” he said.

Yes, or loony bins. She peered through the car's front window, but saw only hedgerows and trees.

“This is it, coming up.” Newman swung the car left and chugged slowly down a tree-lined road.

She now had her first real view of Springwell, still a distance away. The place looked grey and austere. She hadn't known what to expect, but this made her shiver.

“Grim-looking, eh?” Newman said.

“It looks like a prison. That high wall – and the building, what I can see of it.” On her Social Studies course, she'd visited a prison – a depressing experience, in a scary, drab place.

They stopped, facing iron gates within a high stone archway. Through the gates on the right was a tiny stone cottage. From this a burly uniformed man emerged, and lumbered towards them through a narrow side gate.

“The Lodge,” Newman said. “Their motto is ‘they shall not pass'.” He got something from his pocket. “My warrant card; he damn well always wants to see it.” He thrust the card out of his window towards the unsmiling man.

The gates were opened and Newman drove down a winding road towards the front of what looked like the main building, at the obligatory ten miles per hour. She noted the lawns with beautiful flowerbeds on both sides nearly all the way down. Nice, in contrast to that prison. Maybe the inside wouldn't be as bad as she feared. They stopped alongside other cars in an area marked ‘staff'.

“Follow me,” said Newman, and started labouring up a flight of stone steps towards a large imposing door. “This is like Fort Knox and we have to be let in.”

At the door he rang a bell, and kept his finger pressed on it. There was a clanking of keys and creaking as the door was unlocked and slowly opened.

A big man in a white coat stood smiling. “Aye, it's you disturbing the peace, Sam.” He beckoned them inside and slammed then locked the door.

Newman introduced him as “Jock Mackenzie, one of the good guys,” and explained the purpose of their visit.

Heather smiled at the man. Must be older than Father, and looked avuncular. What would the bad guys be like, though?

“Och, I'm sorry your husband's ill,” said the man in a broad Scottish accent. He turned to Newman. “So the boss said she's to come. The lad must be special.”

Newman grunted. “Has to be for me to miss the big match.”

She didn't see the significance of this remark – which seemed to go unheeded by Mackenzie – but didn't feel that mattered. Of course John was special. Couldn't they get a move on? John could be dying. She followed the men along a well-lit and high-ceilinged hallway – grand, posh-looking – for a few steps to another large solid-looking door. Mackenzie unlocked it, and locked it again after they'd passed through.

They were in a vast space – austere and bare. “Our Main Hall, Mrs Chisholm. Come with me to the office,” said Mackenzie, pointing to a small room in one corner. She followed as he lumbered across and found the key to unlock the door. He gestured toward a desk with an open ledger-type book on it. “I have to make a note in the Visitors' Book, about the patient you're visiting and your details.”

This was so slow! She gulped out “John Chisholm” and went to stand beside the desk, waiting while the man sat down and took a fountain pen from his pocket. She watched him write the date in one column, then pause at the next.

“What's his name again, lass? I have to get it right.”

She repeated John's name and spelt it for the man as he wrote laboriously in copperplate handwriting. Then, confirming her marital status, she gave her name and address, with spellings, and saw him write ‘Infirmary' in another column.

Mackenzie pressed the sheet with blotting paper, pocketed the pen and stood up. Thank goodness that was over. Where was the urgency?

“You wait over there with Sam, lassie.” Mackenzie pointed to a row of chairs against a wall. “I'll ring the ward, and they'll send a nurse to take you there.”

Heather went and perched on the edge of a seat next to Newman. “Do they always have this palaver? John could have died by now.”

“It's always the same procedure, even on an emergency visit. The only difference will be them bringing your husband down here to see you. I've never before known them let a visitor – even me when I admit a patient – onto their wards.”

He sounded angry. Nothing to how she felt. What were they playing at? She must see John – now! An age passed. Newman limped across to Mackenzie.

A clanking of keys? Yes – a door was opening in the far corner. A white-coated man appeared.

She leapt to her feet.

Mackenzie shouted, “Mr Niven's here from Infirmary, Mrs Chisholm, and –”

She'd reached the open door.

The sullen-looking giant Mr Niven grunted and stood aside to let her pass. She watched impatiently as he fiddled with keys and locked the door behind them.

The next few minutes were a blur of walking in silence behind Niven along gloomy empty corridors. This was eerie, Dickensian, but at least she was being led to John. If only this giant would get a move on. He shambled, with no hint of urgency. Now and again she got a whiff of something nasty and unfamiliar – but this didn't bother her. She'd brave Hell itself to see John.

“We're here, Ma'am.” The man wrestled with his bunch of keys and unlocked the door marked ‘Male Infirmary'. “Wait there behind me,” he said, and opened the door a fraction, shouting, “Sir, she's here.”

More delay! The door opened to reveal another white-coated man. Niven stood aside and motioned her to go in.

The other man extended a hand. “Mrs Chisholm, I'm Mr Macnamara, the Charge Nurse here. Come with me. Your husband's near the other end.”

Walking between the rows of beds reminded her of visiting her uncle on a general infirmary ward, but here really stank. She risked glancing from side to side, glimpsing beds – some empty, others with huddled figures on them – until she saw a leering pyjama-jacket-clad man sitting legs apart on his bed. Cheeks warm, she kept her eyes on the Charge Nurse as he walked ahead of her.

That smell. Same as the corridors, but stronger. Sick-making. And was that howling – and a wolf whistle – somewhere behind her?

Macnamara slowed and halted by a bed where another white-coated man stood. “Your husband,” he said, “and the nurse is Mr Maclean.”

No! Propped up in bed was a strange figure. Something covered his face and a tube ran down to a machine.

“The mask is to give him oxygen,” said Macnamara. “And,” he pointed at the machine, “that's the oxygen cylinder. He's got pneumonia.”

She hadn't been prepared for seeing John in this state. She resisted her impulse to rush over and hug him. That might kill him. She walked over and knelt beside the bed. She took his limp hand and held it, burying her wet face in the blanket covering his loins. “John,” she said. “It's Heather.”

John's breathing sounded laboured; his eyes were open but stared vacantly. She heard Macnamara say “A seat,” and, still clinging to John's hand, rose to sit on a small hard-backed chair.

She wiped her face with her sleeve. Raising herself, she bent over to kiss his brow. It was hot, soaking. She sat back again, holding his hand and squeezing it gently. An unnatural pink spot blemished each of his paler-than-usual cheeks.

Did he know it was her? The unblinking eyes gave nothing away and his wet hand was limp. Did he mumble something? She held her ear close to the mask but couldn't pick up anything coherent. “John, darling. It's me, Heather. Can you hear me?”

No visible reaction. Macnamara's voice intruded. “Your man's delirious, with a high fever. He rambles, but it doesn't mean he's conscious.”

Surely John was dying. She relinquished his hand and stood up to face Macnamara. “He looks very poorly.”

“He's on the critical list, but sure your man's a fighter.”

John was a fighter all right, but was this his last battle? Her eyes blurred.

“Mrs Chisholm, we'll leave you alone with your husband a few minutes.” Macnamara motioned to the nurse and they moved away.

Alone at the bedside, she sat down again, took John's hand and kept pressing it, but she couldn't feel any reaction. She kept talking to him, but got no apparent response. He mumbled again, but her best effort to make sense of this left her feeling more desperate. There was nothing she could do. John was dying.

She heard movement behind her. Macnamara. She bent over to kiss John's brow, then followed the Charge Nurse in silence back along the ward.

He stopped outside the door of a room partitioned from the ward. “Come into my office a minute, Mrs Chisholm. There's something I must ask you.”

She followed him into the office. They remained standing.

“Sure, your husband has a fair chance of survival. This last hour, the fever abated a little.” He coughed and looked away. “But just in case – what's his religion?”

What? “Why?” she demanded.

“Well, if he's Catholic and if it looks like he won't make it, we'll –”

No. “You'd better not let him die,” she yelled, advancing on the man. “You've made him ill. You cure him, or –!” Macnamara was staring down at her.

“All right boss?” Behind her. She swung round and collided into a huge solid white-coated figure. “Steady, Miss,” the man growled. She was a helpless rag doll under the powerful hands, one on each shoulder, that restrained her.

She collapsed onto the chair Macnamara pushed toward her. Her eyes swam. She'd lose her beloved John. And even her temper – which she never lost – wasn't under her control.

She calmed and dried her face with a tissue. “Sorry.” She addressed Macnamara's question. “He's Roman Catholic – though I think he's lapsed. We've not been to a church for ages.” Now she was regretting that.

“Thanks, and I'm sorry for upsetting you.” Macnamara looked haggard. “I'll let our RC chaplain know right away. Our Church of England man called earlier and – because your husband was unconscious – gave some kind of blessing.”

“The last rites,” Heather murmured. Confirmation of her fears.

“I don't think so. Sure it's only Catholic priests give the last rites.”

She had a question. “How did John get pneumonia? He didn't have it when he went into Springwell.”

“I don't know, as he went to our Admissions Ward first.” He hesitated. “Your husband might have had hypothermia before he came in.”

Hypothermia – people could die of it. “No! He certainly did not have that when he was taken to Springwell,” she replied.

She was ready to go, and stood up. “Don't let John die – please.”

“Maybe that's a plea for the Almighty too, Mrs Chisholm? Be sure we'll do our damnedest to see John right again.”

Niven was summoned to escort her. She trailed him through dimly-lit corridors, passing trolleys with urns being trundled along by men in brown coats. The trolleys probably bore food and drink. Smelt like cabbage. A pleasant change from whatever foul chemical stank in the corridors earlier.

Her taciturn companion unlocked and locked doors, and finally she was back in the Main Hall. Newman was with Mackenzie and another white-coated man.

“You're shaking, lassie, like you've seen a ghost,” said Mackenzie.

“I don't want to talk about it, thanks.” Ironic. Maybe she had seen a ghost.

She went with Newman, and doors were unlocked and then locked behind them. They proceeded in silence towards the car. She walked slowly, eyeing the ground. Newman, limping along beside her, kept looking at her. Irritating, but this gave some distraction from her dark thoughts. What a boring little man.

When they reached the car, Newman asked, “How was your husband?”

“He's alive – for now.”

She wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She had questions that maybe Newman could answer. But her weary befogged mind just wanted rest. On the journey back to Elsie's, she feigned the sleep she was craving.