Queenie (17 page)

THEY CAME FOR
me the next morning. They took me through the ward, down all the corridors, and I tried to tell myself that I was simply going to visit kind Sir David again – but they wheeled me right past his consulting room.

‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked.

Nurse Patterson looked purposeful, Nurse Curtis upset.

‘Don’t you fret yourself, Elsie. We’re going to make you better,’ said Nurse Curtis.

‘But I
am
better. I’m not like the others,’ I gabbled. ‘I’ve just got a little limp and I don’t mind it one bit.’

‘You have a tubercular knee,’ said Nurse Patterson, pushing so fast she was out of breath. ‘If you leave it, all your bones will be eaten away and you’ll lose the use of your leg.’

That shut me up. I started crying.

‘None of the waterworks, now,’ she said. ‘You’ll be as right as rain if you keep still inside your splint.’

‘I don’t
want
a splint!’ I wailed, crying harder.

‘Don’t cry, darling,’ said Nurse Curtis. ‘It won’t hurt. It’ll just be a bit strange and uncomfy, that’s all.’

‘Please please please, don’t do it to me. I’ll stay in bed, I won’t move a muscle, but don’t tie me up in one of those awful things,’ I said.

Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis took no notice. I saw a door right at the end, with
TREATMENT ROOM
in large red letters. It could just as well have been labelled
THE MOUTH OF HELL.

I hunched up into a ball, tensing every muscle, and then tried to leap for freedom, but Nurse Patterson was too quick for me. She grabbed me by the shoulders and wrestled me back onto the bed.

‘Oh no, you don’t! You stay put, you naughty girl! Do you want to be tied up?’ She held onto me firmly while Nurse Curtis pulled my bed forward – through the dreaded doors of the treatment room.

It was like a torture chamber, with splints and frames and leather belts and buckles laid out in chilling rows on shelves, but the man presiding over this terrifying equipment was rosy-cheeked and smiley, wearing a brown cotton coat that looked comfortingly ordinary amongst the starched white aprons of the nurses.

‘Hello hello hello,’ he said, like a comic policeman. ‘And who have we here?’

‘We’ve got Elsie Kettle, and she’s a right handful,’ said Nurse Patterson.

‘She’s just frightened, that’s all,’ Nurse Curtis explained.

‘No need to be frightened of me, little buttercup,’ he said. ‘I’m Mr Dobbin. How do you do, Miss Kettle?’

I swallowed hard, barely able to talk normally. ‘How do you do?’ I whispered.

‘Now, these kind, strong-armed nurses are going to lift you up and onto my special table here, and then we’re going to sort that old knee out for you,’ said Mr Dobbin.

‘I don’t want a splint,’ I squealed.

‘Of course you don’t. But this isn’t just any old splint, my dear. This . . .’ He whipped a horrid contraption down from one of his shelves. ‘This is a Thomas’s knee bed splint, a very fine and aristocratic splint designed by Mr Hugh Owen Thomas of
Liverpool,
who is the father of orthopaedic surgery. This wondrous little splint is going to sort your knee out for ever, so don’t shrink away from it. Give it a little pat and say hello.’

I reached out fearfully and plucked at the leather ring at the top. ‘Hello,’ I whispered, and then I couldn’t help giggling because I felt so ridiculous.

‘Now, this particular Thomas’s knee bed splint is simply longing to clasp you gently round your leg, but
first
we have to prepare you. Is this a clean leg, Nurses? Shall we give it another rub and scrub just to make sure?’

They washed my leg carefully and spent ages towelling it dry, patting my spongy knee very gently indeed. They put soft wool around my leg, and then Mr Dobbin stretched my knee out just so, and slipped the bed splint into place. The leather ring felt odd and the splints were strange, but it didn’t actually hurt. They bandaged it all into place, and lifted me even more carefully back onto my bed.

‘There now – is that comfy, Miss Kettle?’ asked Mr Dobbin.

‘I – I think so,’ I said. I tried to wriggle. ‘But I can’t move it!’

‘Exactly! That is the point. You must rest it absolutely. Rest all of that little body, Miss Kettle. But if you get restless’ – he tapped my forehead – ‘go
for
a run inside your head. Hop and skip and dance in your dreams. And
one
day you’ll be able to do just that, in real life. Then you’ll be able to kiss your Thomas’s knee bed splint goodbye.’

I nodded solemnly, because I was good at making things up in my head. In fact it seemed to be the only thing I was any good at. But when I was wheeled back to the others, as trussed up and helpless as they were, it was hard to hang onto this.

‘So you’re a prisoner now too,’ said Martin.

I closed my eyes and tried to clamber right up inside my head – but my leg was still tied up and I couldn’t move. I kept my eyes squeezed shut but the tears started seeping out.

No one remarked on this, but after five minutes Gillian called, ‘Here, Gobface, my secret supply’ – and a sweet landed lightly on my chest. It was an orange cough candy, a medicinally flavoured sweet that I usually avoided like the plague, but I unwrapped it and sucked gratefully.

‘That’s not fair! I want one too,’ said Martin.

‘Oh, shut up,’ snapped Gillian.

Surprisingly, he did. I lay still, breathing cough candy fumes, while my leg throbbed in its new prison. I couldn’t move it at all, not even an inch either way. I thought of not being able to move day after day, week after week, month after month. Then I thought of
poor
darling Nan in a similar prison of her own flesh, and that made me start howling again.

Something poked me in the ribs. It was a folded-up
Eagle
comic.

‘I don’t mind if you have a read,’ said Martin.

I gulped and nodded at him, and then opened up the comic. My eyes were too blurry with tears to read, but I blinked at the pictures. And then, out of nowhere, Queenie leaped up onto my bed. She padded up to me, delicately avoiding the bulk of my splint. She poked her head right up under the
Eagle
, trampled it out of the way, and curled up on my chest. She lay on me, her soft head under my chin, warm and sweet and beautiful. I stroked her very gently and she started purring. I stroked a little more firmly and her purrs grew louder in appreciation.

‘Oh Queenie,’ I whispered.

I had tucked the shiny yellow wrapper from a chocolate toffee under my pillow. I flattened it out of its goblet shape and tried to fashion it into a tiny crown. ‘I hereby declare you Queen Queenie, Queen of all the Cats,’ I whispered, balancing it on her white head.

She gazed at me with her beautiful big eyes, green as gooseberries. Then she bent her head and batted the wrapper away with one quick paw, telling me she didn’t need a tacky paper crown to show her status.
I
was scared she’d jump off the bed again, but she turned round and snuggled back, seeming to sense how much I needed her.

I wondered if they had cats in all hospitals. I hadn’t seen so much as a whisker of one in Nan’s grim ward, but perhaps they’d simply been hiding. I tried to will a cat up onto Nan’s bed. I was sure she’d like it if it cuddled up close on her poorly chest.

I paid more attention to the story when Nurse Patterson read aloud to us after supper. I was getting the hang of the plot now. The children climbed up the magic tree, then up a little ladder right at the very top, and stepped through the clouds into a different land. I knew which land I was after. The Land Where Dreams Came True – and Nan and I would be together, living in our own cosy cottage. It wouldn’t even matter if she was still very poorly. My land would have a special magic bed, and if Nan couldn’t struggle out of it, I’d wheel her around. She’d looked after me when I was little, feeding me and washing me and dressing me, so I didn’t mind taking my turn looking after Nan. We’d live in our cottage all by ourselves. Perhaps Mum might be allowed to visit occasionally, or maybe Laura could come to tea, but no one else. We’d have our very own pets. Queenie would leap up that ladder and stay with us.

I’d cook cheesy beanos and make perfect cups of
tea
for Nan, and saucers of creamy milk for Queenie, and we’d have a big tin of sweeties all to ourselves. I’d wear my cat pyjamas every night, and I’d have a satin party frock for every day of the week with a fluffy angora bolero to match – pink, blue, primrose, lilac, mint green, apricot, and white on Sundays. And I’d never ever wear boy’s shoes. I’d have pretty little patent shoes. I might even have
high heels
.

I went on telling my story to myself long after Nurse Patterson had finished her chapter, but then I was jerked rudely back into the real world by the terrible bedpan routine. It was so uncomfortable and embarrassing that I couldn’t go for ages, and then, when I did, I was so heavy and lopsided now that my bottom tilted and the bedpan spilled.

‘Oh you clumsy clot!’ said Nurse Patterson, sighing heavily. She didn’t really tell me off, just snorted a lot through her nostrils as she and Nurse Curtis struggled to change my sheets with me still in the bed, my leg immobile. Then at last they left me in peace. I tried to go back to my story, but Martin and Gillian and Rita kept whispering. I didn’t feel like joining in this time.

‘Gobface? Have you gone deaf or something?’ Martin hissed.

‘Leave her alone,’ said Gillian. ‘I expect she feels
fed
up. I know
I
am. So pipe down, you two, and let us all have a bit of kip.’

They all seemed to go to sleep quite quickly, though I thought I heard sniffling right at the end, where Angus lay in his terrible plaster bed.

I lay staring up at the ceiling with ugly Donald Duck tucked in beside me. My leg started throbbing and itching and jumping because I so badly wanted to wriggle around and I couldn’t. I always went to sleep curled up on my side, but that was impossible now.
Everything
seemed impossible.

I longed for Queenie to come back, but she was still outside, prowling in the twilight, moon-white in the shadows. Then I heard footsteps squeaking on the polished floor. Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis were going home, and – oh glory! Nurse Gabriel and Nurse Johnson were coming on night duty.

I hoped Nurse Gabriel would come straight over to me. She stopped right in front of my bed, but then Angus sniffled again and she went over to
him
instead. I was so disappointed I started crying again, forcing the tears a little, and making sad hiccupping sounds to be sure Nurse Gabriel heard – but she
still
didn’t come.

I got Nurse Johnson instead, widdle-waddling over to my bed and bending over me with a strange squeaky sound.

‘Are you having a little weep, Elsie?’ She shone her torch in my face. ‘Oh dear, yes. Let’s mop those poor old eyes. I see you’ve got your splint on. It’s not hurting you, is it?’

‘
Yes
,’ I said furiously.

‘Where is it rubbing, pet?’

‘
Everywhere
.’

‘Hmm.’ She pulled my covers down and very gently touched my leg, her fat fingers scrabbling about the bandages. ‘I think it’s all nicely wrapped up like a baby in a blanket. I don’t think it’s
really
sore, Elsie.’

‘It is, it is,’ I insisted. ‘Please, take it
off
.’

‘I can’t do that, dear. It’s got to stay on. It will help you heal.’

‘It’s awful. It’s
torture
,’ I declared dramatically.

‘Now you’re just being silly. And keep your voice down – you don’t want to wake the others,’ she said. She reached down for Donald Duck. I’d flung him out of bed in fury. ‘Now then, let’s cuddle you down with Donald.’

‘I don’t want Donald Dribbly Duck! I don’t
like
him. I want my own elephant and my cat pyjamas and my leg back,’ I sobbed.

‘Oh dear, we
are
down in the dumps,’ she said. ‘I do understand. I know your leg feels a bit strange at first, but you’ll get used to it.’

‘No I won’t! How can you understand?
You
don’t
have
a horrible splint,’ I said, trying to wriggle away as she blew my nose.

‘I’ve got
worse
,’ said Nurse Johnson. ‘Here, take a deck at these.’

She shone her torch on her own skirt and lifted the hem above her knees. She was wearing long knickers, the old-lady kind that Nan wore, but these seemed to be made of plastic. She moved her legs and they made that strange squeaky sound. I blinked at her, baffled.

‘They’re Stephanie Beaumans!’ she said, plucking at them with distaste.

‘They’re . . . Stephanie Someone’s?’ I said, astonished that she was wearing someone else’s weird rubbery bloomers.

‘No, that’s the
make
, silly,’ said Nurse Johnson, giggling. ‘Oh, you kids, you’re so funny sometimes. No, look, I’m showing you because it’s so uncomfortable wearing these shockers all day long –
much
worse than a splint, I reckon.’

‘But
why
are you wearing them?’ I asked, and then I felt myself blushing, because I suddenly wondered if they were acting as a kind of nappy.

‘They’re for my hips,’ she said. ‘They’re special Stephanie Beauman slimming knickers. You wear them and they make you go hot inside and the inches melt away – at least, that’s what the adverts say, and I jolly well hope it’s true because they cost a fortune.
So
, we’re suffering together, you and me.’ She gently pinched my nose and then waddled away, squeaking.

I stared after her, momentarily diverted. I wondered what would happen if she wore Stephanie Beaumans on her arms and legs too, or if she wore an entire Stephanie Beauman all-over suit like a spaceman’s. Would she be the incredible shrinking nurse, getting smaller and smaller every day, until she scurried around at ankle height like a mouse, still squeaking?

I couldn’t help getting the giggles at the thought – and Nurse Gabriel came over at long last.

‘Are you
laughing
, Elsie?’ she whispered, smoothing my hair back off my forehead.