Queenie (26 page)

I wriggled. I knew it was true. But I also knew it was all pretend. She didn’t truly like any of us children – and she
especially
didn’t like me.

‘I’m going to wash you now, and don’t you
dare
say I don’t do it properly,’ she said.

She washed me thoroughly, rubbing a little too
hard
, as if I were a dirty mark and she wanted to get rid of me altogether.

‘Now for your wretched leg . . .’ She spent a good ten minutes soaping and rinsing and wiping and powdering. ‘There – is that good enough for Madam Muck?’ she said at last.

‘Yes, thank you,’ I said. I was trying to be polite, but it seemed to infuriate her further.

I had to endure the whole toileting process, and then she powdered my bottom too, as if I were a little baby.

‘Why are you doing that?’ I asked.

‘Because madam’s clearly got such sensitive skin. We don’t want any sores whatsoever,’ said Nurse Patterson. ‘If Sister sees so much as a spot on you, it’s clear I’ll get the blame. She could get me referred. I could even be thrown out altogether, when I’ve wanted to be a nurse ever since I was six years old.’ She looked as if she might burst out crying again.

I squirmed in embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,’ I mumbled.

‘Yes, well, it’s easy enough to say sorry, but it’s too late,’ said Nurse Patterson, and she switched off the light and flounced off.

I was left lying in the dark. I wondered if Nurse Curtis might come and trundle me back to the ward, but she didn’t come near me.

‘I don’t care,’ I said aloud, in case Nurse Patterson was listening. ‘I
like
it here all by myself.’

But it was very dark and very lonely and very quiet, apart from the steady drip of the tap. I had always found the snores and sighs from the other sleeping children irritating, but now I longed to hear them.

I tried to imagine myself back into Grandma Land, but I couldn’t do it properly any more, and the thought of Nan herself made me cry now. I told myself to hang on. The nurses changed shifts soon. When my dear Nurse Gabriel found me lying there, all forlorn, she’d be kind and comfort me.

I waited and waited and waited. At last I heard more footsteps and murmurings.
Thump thump thump, patter patter patter
– ‘Goodbye, Nurse Patterson’ . . . ‘Hello, Nurse Gabriel’! She’d give me a cuddle, let me have a private little weep, and then wrap me up tenderly and push me back to the ward with all the others. Yes, she’d put her head round the door . . .There she was! She’d shake her head at me sorrowfully – yes! And then – and then . . .

‘Oh Elsie!’ she said softly, and
she walked straight out again
. She left me on my own, in disgrace.

I couldn’t bear it. I thought she might come back in five minutes, or maybe ten, just to teach me a little lesson. Maybe she’d come back when she’d checked on
everyone
else. She didn’t. Nurse Johnson didn’t come either.

I cried and cried so the tears dripped into my ears. And then someone pattered ever so lightly across the floor, steadied herself, and leaped onto my bed.

‘Oh Queenie, it’s you!’ I said.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ she purred, and she walked delicately up my covers until she got to my face. She put her own soft head down, nuzzled under my chin, and felt my wet tears.

‘Dear dear dear,’ she purred sympathetically, and she put out her pink tongue and carefully licked my salty skin to give me a wash. Her tongue was a little raspy and tickled, but I lay there gratefully, still as a statue. Then she rubbed the top of her head against me, acting like the softest towel, and settled herself around my neck like a white fur stole.

‘Oh Queenie, you darling,’ I whispered. ‘You’re the best little cat in all the world.’

‘And you’re the best little girl,’ she purred. ‘Take no notice of those silly nurses. We’ll be fine together, just you and me, my Elsie.’

‘My Queenie,’ I said.

I whispered and she purred long into the night. A nurse might have looked in on us once or twice, but we took no notice. We had our eyes shut, fast asleep.

NURSE GABRIEL WAS
still a little cool with me in the morning.

‘Poor Patterson. She was distraught. You probably didn’t
mean
her to get into serious trouble, Elsie, but it’s very naughty to complain like that, especially when you know it isn’t true,’ she said reproachfully as she pushed me back to the ward.

‘I
didn’t
mean to,’ I said. I meant to sound sorry but it came out sounding sulky.

‘Now then, missy,’ said Nurse Gabriel, making
little
tutting sounds as she slotted my bed back between Martin’s and Michael’s.

‘I say, you’re in
serious
disgrace,’ Martin told me, sounding awed.

‘You’ve certainly got them all in a tizz,’ said Gillian. ‘Nurse Patterson was booing her eyes out.’

‘Good,’ said Angus. ‘Serves her right. She acts all nicey-nicey but she’s horribly mean in lots of little ways. It was horrid of her to shut you away in that scary bathroom all night long.’

‘I didn’t mind,’ I said. ‘I had company.’

‘You what?’ asked Martin.

‘Queenie,’ I said proudly. ‘She’s my friend.’

‘She’s friends with
all
of us,’ said Gillian.

‘Yeah. Queenie comes to Gillian whenever she calls her, so ya boo sucks to you,’ said Rita.

‘You wait. Queenie will come to
me
,’ I said. ‘So ya boo double sucks to you, Rita Rubbish.’

Queenie was out on her morning round of the garden, threading her way stealthily through the shrubberies and lying down for a little snooze under a peony bush. But she wandered back at lunch time, lured by the smell of food. She wasn’t really supposed to have any lunch – just a dish of mashed-up whiting for breakfast and again for supper. Queenie clearly felt that this wasn’t enough and came on the scrounge.

We only had fish for lunch once a week, but Queenie wasn’t too faddy an eater. She was partial to boiled egg or a little liver, and she loved milky puddings. I leaned as far out of bed as I could with my splinted leg and enticed her with titbits. Soon she came running straight to me even if I had only bubble and squeak to offer her, a dish we both detested.

She didn’t talk to me in front of the others, but when she lay on my pillow, she rubbed her soft head against my ear and purred gently. It was plain as can be that she was saying,
I love you
.

‘And I love you too, dearest Queenie,’ I said, stroking each of her ears and tickling her neck so that she wriggled with pleasure.

Sometimes I carefully raked her furry back with my fingers, pretending to be a brush, and she purred so loudly then that my whole bed vibrated.

I tried using my real brush, but Nurse Patterson swiped it from me.

‘Stop that, you stupid little girl. Do you want to get fleas?’ she said.

‘Queenie doesn’t have fleas, she’s absolutely squeaky clean,’ I said indignantly.

‘Don’t argue with me, you cocky little madam,’ said Nurse Patterson. She took the brush and didn’t give it back. ‘I’ve sent it off to be thoroughly disinfected,’ she told me.

I asked for it the next day. She looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

It was only a grubby hairbrush, a pink baby affair with a cartoon lamb on the back, but it was
my
hairbrush, one of my few remaining pieces of home, and I cried at its loss.

‘Don’t show her you care, or she’ll pinch something else of yours,’ said Martin. ‘She’s really got it in for you now.’

I kept a very careful eye on Albert Trunk and my kitten button box and my Coronation coach, clutching them all in bed with me at night just in case Nurse Patterson tried to steal them out of my locker. It was as well to be vigilant. One evening I spilled cocoa down my cat pyjamas and Nurse Patterson took the jacket ‘to soak the stain away’.

I waited twenty-four hours before confronting her. I did it in front of Nurse Curtis so she could act as a witness.

‘Please can I have my pyjama top back?’ I asked.

‘Which pyjama top, Elsie?’ said Nurse Curtis.

‘The cat one. My special one,’ I said.

‘Well, what have you done with it, chickie?’ said Nurse Curtis.

‘I spilled cocoa on it and Nurse Patterson took it
away
to be washed and she didn’t bring it back,’ I said.

I looked Nurse Patterson straight in the eye as I said this. She pulled a silly face, a cartoon of puzzlement.

Nurse Curtis frowned. ‘Oh Elsie, are you telling naughty stories again?’ she said.

‘No, she
did
take it,’ I insisted.

‘I think you’ve got a bit muddled, dear,’ said Nurse Patterson. The way she said ‘dear’ made it sound as if she meant the exact opposite. ‘I don’t do the laundry.’

‘I think maybe your mummy took it home after visiting,’ said Nurse Curtis. ‘Don’t look so worried. You’ve got a hospital nightie.’

I didn’t want a wretched hospital nightie. I wanted my own dear cat pyjama top.

‘Just you wait till my mum comes,’ I muttered.

But Mum didn’t seem that interested when I told her the next Saturday.

‘Typical!’ she said. ‘Hospitals are hopeless. They always lose stuff. When I was in the maternity ward having you, someone pinched my pearl powder compact right out of my handbag.’

‘That nurse took it. She doesn’t like me because she got into trouble about my leg. You know, when you got Sister.’

‘Yes, how
is
that sore leg? Any sign of it getting
better
?’ Mum peered under the covers gingerly, as if she might find a mouse under there. ‘It looks just the same to me. I don’t know, here’s you stuck in here, and your nanny in the sanatorium—’

‘Did you go and see her last Sunday, Mum? Did you give her my letter?’

‘What’s this, the Spanish Inquisition? I told you, she’s not well enough for visitors. Cough cough cough, every time she tries to talk, and spitting all the while into that little pot. It really turns my stomach.’

‘Oh,
poor
Nan.’

‘Stop that – there’s no point upsetting yourself.’

‘Mum, could you get me new cat pyjamas?’

‘All these demands! I can’t help feeling you’re getting a bit spoiled, lying back here like Lady Muck, being waited on hand and foot. I’m not made of money, you know, but I’ll do my best to get you another pair,’ said Mum.

‘
Will
you? Pink ones from Woolworths, with white cats all over them? Oh Mum, wait till I tell you! I’m still Queenie’s favourite. I am, I absolutely am – ask any of the others. She jumps right up on my bed every day and gives me such a lovely cuddle,’ I said.

‘I thought I told you to pack that lark in, it’s not hygienic. Oh my Lord, Mr Perkins is a
stickler
for hygiene. I made him a cup of coffee the other day and he noticed this teeny smudge of lipstick on the rim.
Someone
else must have used it, probably me! I’d just rinsed it clean under the tap. He nearly hit the roof, acting like lipstick was deadly poison or something. I had to take the coffee away and scrub that cup till I damn near broke it. Goodness me, what a palaver! He has this thing about germs. He’s always washing his hands. He leaps up to do it right in the middle of dictation. I thought he had a bit of trouble with his waterworks and was just going for a wee, but this is really just washing his hands . . .Lovely hands, they are, with very clean nails, not like most blokes. He’s clean all over. His
shirts!
They look so crisp and white it’s like each one’s fresh out the packet. And he’s got this lovely clean lemony smell about him. He never pongs even when he gets het up.’

I listened to Mum sing the Perkins praises for a full ten minutes without drawing breath.

‘Is he going to be another uncle?’ I asked eventually.

‘What? No! Good Lord, he’s much too posh and rich. He’s Perkins Ballpoint Pens Manufacturing, silly. They sell all over the country – all over the
world
. Think of it, all those Froggies and Eyeties scribbling away with their Perkins pens. I’ll see if I can bring you some – they’ll be good for your drawing. Mr Perkins is right out of my league – not to mention the fact that he’s got a snooty wife with a voice like
she
’s sucking acid drops. She’s forever phoning up about this and that. He’s got two kiddies too. There’s a photo of them on his desk. He lives in one of them houses up the hill – you know, the huge ones with big gardens. Ever so posh, they are. Seven bedrooms and just as many bathrooms. He can wash his hands in a different room every day of the week.’ Mum laughed uproariously at her own remark, tossing her hair about.

Martin’s dad was staring at her. So were the other dads. She was wearing her last year’s pink blouse with little puff sleeves and her pencil skirt. The blouse looked littler than I remembered. I was worried Mum was going to burst right out at the top.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Are you getting a bit fatter, Mum?’ I asked.

‘You
what?
Cheeky little devil! Still, I must admit this waistband’s a bit tight. I’m used to two hours’ dancing practice and a long show every night – and I’ve eaten fish and chips every supper time because I can’t be bothered to cook for myself. Oh Gawd, I
am
getting fatter, aren’t I?’