Paradise Lodge Page 17

  ‘Lis, it seems you know her best,’ said Sister Saleem, ‘can you break the news?’

  Some tickets arrived for a Chopin piano recital and my stomach churned just seeing them. I put them on the hall console so that the ladies and gentlemen could see them as they passed on their way to the toilet. Nothing happened.

  A day or so later, I fanned them out and presented them at teatime. ‘This looks interesting,’ I said, ‘a free piano recital at St James’s.’

  I faked an interest but Mr Simmons seemed to suddenly smell a rat and wondered where the tickets had come from and then said, ‘Actually, I’m not sure I fancy it.’ Meaning the Chopin.

  I had to ring Miss Pitt again. I told her the tickets were much appreciated but that Mr Simmons hadn’t fallen for the lure.

  Miss Pitt said she’d put her thinking cap on and that I should be poised to respond with my catch off. I was beginning to dislike all the hunting and war metaphors. It showed a lack of tact on Miss Pitt’s part and reminded me of her lack of rapport with pupils at school.

  The new drug and pill procedure wasn’t difficult. The pills were sorted into little pots and arranged on a tray laid with a map of the patients. This would then be checked by a second nurse and then the pots would be distributed prior to the coffees at coffee time and then again at bedtime, for those who needed further doses. There was also a breakfast round but that was purely the business of the night nurse. This was how it had been done in the Owner’s Wife’s time and although it seemed unnecessarily official, it was obviously the correct way.

  One morning, as I was going round the day room with the milky coffees, I noticed Matron shadowing me, behaving oddly. I pretended not to look at her but watched via the mantel mirror and was shocked to see that she was taking pills from the little dose cups on the patients’ trays. I watched her do it a few times before I could really believe it. She’d approach a patient and begin a little chat and then, with her hand slightly behind her, she’d feel for the pot and tip it into the pocket of her uniform. I watched Matron a lot after that and noticed that she’d rescue pills from the floor and search for them down the side of the easy chairs where the patients let them fall. And then, one day, I saw her hook a pill out of Miss Lawson’s mouth with her tiny little finger before she could swallow it down, and she glugged down her syrupy stuff.

  I found myself angry with Matron mostly for living up to the bad opinion Sister Saleem had of her and doing something that would certainly result in her being sacked if she got caught. And being in the very situation she so dreaded—jobless and homeless. I knew I should probably do something—confront her or tell someone—but I hadn’t the energy or the heart straight away.

  Then, not long after that, Miss Lawson bit me. She bit me because she was confused and deranged, due to not having taken the tablets and syrup she’d been prescribed to prevent it.

  It was teatime on Miss Lawson’s birthday, I’d fed her two whole Primula Cheese and chive sandwiches and a mushed-up peach and was feeling pleased with myself. I’d lit the candle on her little birthday cake, we’d sung Happy Birthday and I’d taken her bony little hands and held them with both of mine. ‘Happy birthday,’ I said, ‘let’s blow out this candle.’ And I smiled at her. She seemed to smile back but then yanked my hand up and sank her gums into the flesh just above the thumb.

  She gripped tight and wouldn’t let go. I tried to pull my hand away, but she still wouldn’t let go. I pulled so hard at one point she almost fell off the chair (she wasn’t very heavy—approx six stone). It was frightening and embarrassing—and painful, though that was neither here nor there—and all the time she stared up at me with manic eyes. I tried and tried to shake her off without disturbing the other patients but her jaw seemed to have locked shut.

  There was something horrific about the tremulous grip, the jumble of our four hands all by her bony head and the strings of saliva hanging down. It seemed like something very dark and bad and demonic. Miranda stood by, bent double laughing, saying it was like the time Melody fed grapes to a tortoise in Chapel and it had bitten her in exactly the same way and they’d had to call the police.

  Miss Boyd noticed and tried to intervene. ‘You vicious little woman,’ she shouted, and tried to hit Miss Lawson with her stick. I had to fend off the stick to protect Miss Lawson. Miss Boyd yelled down the table, ‘Miss Lawson has got the little nurse in a gum bite and she won’t leave off of her.’

  And Miss Moody, sitting on the opposite side, burst into tears and then said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dearie, dearie me,’ and then called out that she’d had an accident and needed assistance.

  Soon Sister Saleem arrived and evacuated the table so that there was only Miss Lawson and me sitting there. Sister asked me what had happened. I explained and she looked at us for a moment and said, ‘Annie Lawson, I am here now.’ And she put her hands softly around Miss Lawson’s face. ‘Annie, you haven’t been taking your medication, have you? That’s why you’re feeling unwell,’ she said. ‘If you’ll let go of Lizzie’s hand we can get you into bed and help you.’

  And Sister held Miss Lawson’s face like that for some time. My hand was still in Miss Lawson’s mouth, and the three of us were all huddled together with the little candle burning out and a tiny trail of smoke giving off that burnt-wax birthday cake smell. Sister spoke to Miss Lawson about how the doctor would find out what was hurting, because she knew there must be something, and continued talking about her aches and pains and so forth until, after a few minutes, Miss Lawson let go of my hand.

  Sister Saleem didn’t fuss about it. She checked there’d been no puncture of the skin (Miss Lawson’s gums or my hand) and sent me to the kitchen to eat some cucumber, which she said was calming, and have a cigarette, which was also calming. With the help of Nurse Eileen, Sister Saleem took Miss Lawson to bed and was soon back in the kitchen—with Miss Lawson’s notes—ranting about the dangers of patients not taking their medication properly.

  ‘What’s she on?’ She handed the notes to Eileen. ‘I can’t read this.’

  ‘The liquid cosh and a water tablet,’ said Eileen.

  ‘The what?’ said Sister Saleem.

  ‘Largactil,’ said Eileen.

  ‘Patients like Miss Lawson must have the syrup and you must make sure they take it,’ she said.

  Matron nodded, wiped her teacup dry, put it in the cupboard and left the room. I followed her. She started trotting up the stairs, but I caught up with her.

  ‘Can’t you get tablets from the doctor like any normal person?’ I asked.

  ‘You know I can’t,’ she said, looking around to check no one was listening.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Why can’t you?’

  She rushed up the stairs to get away but was soon out of puff and leaning on the banister on the halfway landing. ‘I’m not registered,’ she said, breathing hard.

  ‘So what?’ I said. ‘Go and register. What are you—a killer on the run?’

  She was affronted and waddled off. I followed her to her room and, when she unlocked the door, I barged in and sat on the only chair.

  ‘Don’t report me, Lizzie,’ she said.

  ‘I will unless you tell me the truth,’ I said, and I held my throbbing thumb joint.

  Matron blamed everyone else but herself. It was Sister Saleem’s new lockable drug cabinet, before which she’d been able to help herself to sleeping pills, painkillers and the liquid cosh. It was Nurse Eileen, who kept the drug-trolley key pinned to her tabard. It was the National Health Service and its prying eyes. It was her mother who’d caused problems years ago, it was her monster of a father and it was the Owner’s Wife’s fault—for leaving.

  ‘And now Miss Lawson’s bitten you,’ she said, as if it had nothing to do with her.

  ‘It’s your fault Miss Lawson bit me, you stole her anti-psychotic medication—which you don’t even need, you lunatic,’ I shouted.

  ‘I do need it,’ she said. ‘I need it more than Lawson does.’

&
nbsp; ‘No, you don’t,’ I said. I knew all about prescription drug-takers, my mother having been hooked for years, and I’d seen her top up with Lemsips, dog aspirins and Fisherman’s Friends, baby medicine, you name it—anything to prolong the feeling of being medicated, rather than face the world.

  ‘Please don’t report me!’ she said, and she ran her hands through her hair dramatically. The gesture was weak now that her hair was straw-coloured, and I recalled the drama of her previous shade ‘Raven’s Wing’, which was almost black with a glint of bloody red, and which made you not mind her being such a bad person—having the right hair for it, especially with her little snub nose.

  ‘I am going to report you,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be gone soon.’

  ‘I’m going to report you today,’ I said.

  ‘The world’s changed, Lizzie. It’s all regulations. It wasn’t like that in my day.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with stealing the patients’ medicines?’ I asked.

  ‘I can’t help myself since she came and locked everything up.’

  ‘But that’s the normal, correct procedure,’ I said.

  ‘And she’s more a fake than I am. The owner has no memory of taking her on—she’s just turned up, on the make,’ said Matron, ‘she’s been tipped off by some scoundrel selling coal or in the pub.’

  ‘This isn’t about Sister Saleem, it’s about you,’ I said.

  To my astonishment she then asked if I’d go to the doctor and pretend I had severe chronic back pain and insomnia—and pass on whatever was prescribed.

  ‘Just say you’re totally knackered all the time but when it comes to bedtime, you can’t get off to sleep and your head’s buzzing and if you do drop off, you’re awake again in no time with your heart thumping in your ribs.’

  ‘NO!’ I said.

  ‘Well, then I have no choice but to keep stealing the pills,’ she said.

  ‘But the patients need them. They’re their pills,’ I said.

  ‘I have the greater need,’ said Matron. ‘I have work to do. I can’t sit in the window reading a large-print romance or snoozing the afternoon away.’

  ‘Just go and register with Dr Gurley in Flatstone,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, ‘I’m under an assumed name because I fled here with a fugitive.’

  ‘What fugitive?’ I asked.

  ‘My mother—she smothered my father with a goose-down pillow,’ she said.

  ‘Was he ill?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Matron, ‘he was a beast.’

  ‘How did she have the strength to smother a healthy, full-grown man?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s easier than you think—with goose down,’ said Matron.

  ‘Well, that was your mother, not you,’ I said. ‘Just go and register under your true name.’

  Then her excuses became ridiculous. She told me a whole yarn about taking a wrongly labelled chocolate cake instead of award-winning coffee cake in a self-service café and then, in some kind of disappointed trance, strangling a nun.

  ‘I strangled a nun,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not colluding with you,’ I said.

  I didn’t care about the dad-smothering or the nun-strangling, I told her if I saw her taking the patients’ pills ever again I’d report her to Sister Saleem. And she just sniffed. She didn’t care. Or she didn’t think I’d do it.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I expect I’ll be leaving with Mr Godrich.’

  ‘Mr Godrich?’ I said. ‘He’s not even here yet.’

  ‘I’m hoping to become his live-in companion,’ said the poor, deluded old woman.

  I didn’t believe a word of the cake-and-nun story—mainly because cafés weren’t self-service back then. But I did believe she was frightened, and I felt merciful. I let her talk about Mr Godrich and I wished he’d hurry up and arrive, get better and then leave—with Matron.

  And then, thinking that, I remembered I still had to tell Lady Briggs about the move.

  21. The Purcell Medley

  One day, my sister telephoned. She never usually telephoned because of the lock on the phone and because she hated phone boxes because of the smell of old windowpanes and all the urine.

  I knew something awful must have happened because she was all whispery and said ‘Hi, Lizzie, how are you?’

  So I said, ‘Why are you ringing?’

  And she tried to speak through her tears and I had a horrible moment thinking Sue had died. But it wasn’t Sue, it was Marc Bolan—which was terrible, but certainly less bad (for me) than it being Sue.

  Marc Bolan was a big favourite at Paradise Lodge. Not among the patients, of course—I don’t think they were aware of him—but among the staff he was definitely number one, pop star-wise. Partly because he’d remained important after they’d grown out of David Cassidy and The Osmonds. Also, he was known to be just up the M1 in London messing around being a star and sexy and probably a bit druggy, not all the way over in California being American and out of reach and married to the Church.

  Once the full story was known—Marc died when a Mini driven by his girlfriend, Gloria Jones, hit a tree—I felt sorry for Gloria Jones. People were pointing the finger of blame—as they always do when you’re the driver, especially if you survive. I knew from bitter experience how Gloria Jones felt. Bereft and to blame and yet probably not to blame. In my version of events Marc Bolan had been messing about in the passenger seat—grabbing the wheel as a joke—high on the excitement of being a pop star etc. Not that we can ever know for sure that he was, but you have to assume.

  But Gloria Jones couldn’t say any of this. Marc had died and she knew the country would be in mourning—she couldn’t go blaming him for causing the crash with his crazy behaviour. It was exactly the same as when Miss Mills had died. I couldn’t blame her, I couldn’t say, ‘She kept shouting and making a fuss and disturbing all the other ladies in the ward,’ or, ‘I’d lifted her on to the bed fine, but she wouldn’t shuffle back and toppled forward.’ I had to take the blame, 100 per cent.

  Anyway, Marc Bolan had died and it felt strange. I have to compare it to the day—exactly one calendar month earlier—when the catering grocer had given us an ultimatum about the unpaid bill and Elvis had died and the owner said he didn’t know if he wanted to exist in a world without Elvis. And one of the barmaids at the Piglet Inn had sat and sobbed on the bench outside the bar saying her ‘hunka hunka burning love’ had died on the toilet and she was just going to sit there and think about him and if anyone wanted a pint, they’d have to pull their own.

  The owner and the older staff had been devastated by the death of Elvis, but in general the nurses hadn’t. They’d been saddened but not devastated.

  Marc Bolan was different. Granted he’d had fewer albums and hadn’t brought rock ’n’ roll to a whole generation but he was ours and we’d got used to him and he had his own telly show, smoky eyes and girlish good looks. And you couldn’t imagine him eating two whole burgers or not wanting to have sex. You could imagine him having sex twice and not wanting a burger. That was the difference. I didn’t adore him myself. But the others—including my sister—did. And they wailed and sobbed. Melody got the London bus—even though she’d entered a punk phase—and went to put flowers and glitter by the crash tree and there’d been thousands there (people and flowers).

  Mike Yu turned up with a box of cabbages and carrots that were on the turn for us to use for a stew dinner. And, since practically everyone was in a sad daze about Marc or—in Miranda’s case—on the brink of weeping, Mike ended up making the stew himself.

  Miranda ‘cried’ on Mike Yu’s shoulder in front of everyone in the kitchen as he chopped the carrots.

  Sally-Anne was sad too but she didn’t show it. ‘You don’t look bothered at all, Sally-Anne,’ said Miranda. Sally-Anne calmly replied that she was sad but she couldn’t cry because she was dead inside. And the thought of Sally-Anne being dead inside seemed sadder to me than Marc.

  My sadn
ess about Sally-Anne’s deadness inside meant I must have, momentarily, looked sad and Mike said to me, over Miranda’s shoulder, ‘I’m so sorry the T. Rex guy has died, Lizzie, I know you all really liked him.’

  And, for some reason I can’t fathom, I replied, ‘Oh, he wasn’t really my favourite.’

  Everyone looked surprised. It was a terrible thing to say about a 29-year-old person who’d died and I tried to make amends by saying how dreadful it was when anyone died—especially a young person, and so on. But the damage was done and I seemed so cold—colder even than Sally-Anne, who at least had the excuse of being dead inside.

  Maria Callas’s death, which we heard about later that day, was of course very sad too. The owner shuffled into the kitchen, in floods, and noisily plugged in his Panasonic. And after a lot of rewinding and the sound of operatic music being fast-forwarded, he then played the most God-awful racket anyone had ever heard (the late Maria Callas singing an opera).

  ‘Music is an illusion of a better world,’ he said. ‘Ah, La Divina Maria!’

  Mike Yu popped back in to check on the stew and asked what was the matter with the owner.

  ‘His favourite singer has died,’ I said.

  ‘I thought Elvis was his favourite,’ said Mike.

  ‘That was just for sex with his ex,’ said Miranda, shouting to be heard above the music.

  ‘Who’s this, then?’ asked Mike.

  ‘It’s Maria Callas—she died,’ I said, and I began to cry. I wiped the little tears that ran down my cheek and that very thing was enough to make me cry a bit more. I don’t know what made me cry—it might have been Maria Callas and the rising music or the owner dabbing his tears away with a great big white handkerchief, or it might have been Mike standing there in a cloud of steam and stripy oven gloves.

  Mike gave me a brotherly pat and I felt relieved to have shown some emotion.

  The tickets for a Purcell medley that arrived the next day were more appealing to Mr Simmons than the Chopin recital. Miss Boyd also fancied it and I said I’d go too. The concert was in the Haymarket Theatre which was more modern but had fewer parking opportunities so we took the bus there and had a taxi booked for the return, with time built in for refreshments at the Swiss Cottage just over the road—where Miss Pitt would presumably turn up unexpectedly and have a chat with her stepfather. I telephoned her to let her know we’d be going. Speaking to her on the phone felt disgusting. She was all pleased and cooperative, treating me like an accomplice.