‘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.
‘Just a bit. I thought of something funny,’ I said. I’d decided to be very cool and stand-offish as she’d chosen to go to Angus first and not me, but it was impossible now that she was beside me. I breathed in her soft sweet smell of soap and talcum powder and longed for her to cuddle me properly.
‘You’re being very brave,’ she said.
‘Not really,’ I mumbled, because I’d been making an awful fuss all afternoon and half the evening.
She fiddled with Donald Duck, trying to get him to snuggle down with me.
‘I don’t like him much,’ I said.
‘Mm, I can see why. He’s got a very odd expression. Oh well, I think you’ll probably get your own teddy back tomorrow.’
‘He’s not a teddy, he’s an elephant – Albert Trunk,’ I said.
‘Ah yes, how could I forget? Then you can give Donald Duck here back to Potter Ward, where he belongs.’
I craned upwards a little, trying to look along the line of beds. ‘Have any of the others got teddies or elephants?’ I whispered.
I was very worried that Martin and Gillian might jeer at Albert Trunk.
‘I think they’ve all got a soft toy somewhere or other,’ said Nurse Gabriel.
‘I haven’t seen them!’
‘Well, they’re mostly nocturnal. Do you know what that means? They only come out at night.’
‘Nurse Gabriel, has Martin got a teddy?’ I asked.
‘Ah, you’ll have to ask him. I can’t give away anyone’s secrets,’ said Nurse Gabriel loudly, in case Martin was still awake – but she nodded at me.
‘Not Gillian?’ I asked, because she seemed practically grown up, but Nurse Gabriel nodded again.
I peered down the row of beds. ‘I can’t see them,’ I said.
Nurse Gabriel picked up my blanket and pointed underneath, indicating that they were tucked inside, out of sight.
I heard Angus sniff again. ‘And Angus?’
‘Yes – although poor Angus can’t really cuddle his teddy properly,’ said Nurse Gabriel.
‘Why is he in all that plaster?’
‘It’s to help his back straighten.’
‘Does it hurt him?’
‘I don’t think it hurts too much physically, but he feels very unhappy about it.’
‘He doesn’t talk to any of us.’
‘That’s because he’s feeling sad.’
‘But he was talking to you, wasn’t he?’
‘We have special little chats, yes. Poor old Angus,’ said Nurse Gabriel.
‘Is he your favourite?’
Nurse Gabriel laughed. ‘Nurses aren’t allowed to have favourites, Elsie.’
I wasn’t sure that was true. I was determined that I was going to be Nurse Gabriel’s favourite.
I SEEMED TO have been marooned in the hospital for many years. It was hard remembering that only a few days had gone by. I had almost stopped thinking about Mum. I never stopped thinking about Nan, of course.
Saturday seemed a very different day. It started with a much better breakfast: a fried egg and a rasher of bacon and two slices of toast.
There was no school on Saturday morning. After being wheeled out onto the veranda we were handed old comics and puzzle books. I was given a join-the-dot book of animals. Someone – many someones – had already joined the dots, but their efforts had been rubbed out until the paper had become fuzzy. I only had a stump of pencil to make the animals spring to life again, but I dutifully joined dot after dot after dot, and created an elephant and a giraffe and a monkey and a variety of big cats – a stripy tiger, a spotted leopard, and a lion. I drew a little cat on the end paper, with a tiny crown on her head. The writing underneath the lion said he was King of the Beasts. I wrote under my cat that she was Queen of the Beasts.
Queenie herself prowled from bed to bed. Martin tried to entice her by offering her a crust of toast, but she ignored him disdainfully and jumped up on my bed instead.
‘Oh Queenie, you lovely cat! You like me, don’t you?’ I whispered, stroking her. She purred back that she liked me very much.
Then, after breakfast, just to make the day more special, Nurse Curtis came bustling along the veranda. She was carrying a large brown paper bag.
‘Here’s a parcel for a Miss Elsie Kettle,’ she said, dropping it carefully onto my chest.
I opened it up – and there was Albert Trunk rearing up at me with desperate happiness.
‘Oh, my Albert,’ I said, so overcome I buried my face in his soft grey skin right in front of Martin and Gillian. But then I pushed him away, my nose wrinkling, because he smelled so wrong – dry and dead and chemical, and his skin was pale and dull as if he’d been very ill too.
‘What’s happened to him?’ I said, holding him at arm’s length.
‘Nothing’s happened. He’s just been fumigated so he’s not all nasty and germy,’ said Nurse Johnson. She waggled Albert’s trunk in a very familiar fashion. ‘You’re fine, aren’t you, Jumbo?’
Albert Trunk gazed back dumbly, his small glass eyes bleary, as if they were full of tears. I tucked him down under my covers, wrapping the hem of my hospital gown around him. I wouldn’t need it now because my new cat pyjamas were in the parcel too, though they didn’t look new any more. They looked as if they’d been swirled in Nan’s wooden washtub a hundred times, though they didn’t smell clean. They had that same harsh chemical smell as Albert. But they still had their little white cats prancing on the pink material, and Nurse Johnson exclaimed at them too.
‘Aren’t they nobby!’ she said. ‘You really will look like the cat’s pyjamas in them, Elsie! Shall I dr
ess you in them?’
I could only wear the jacket now because the trousers wouldn’t fit over my huge ugly splint. I pulled off the hospital gown and rolled the pyjama trousers round Albert Trunk instead.
‘What else have you got in there?’ said Nurse Johnson, shaking the big bag curiously.
I took out my Girl comic, and then Nan’s kitten button box. I picked up Snow White and Sooty and Marmalade, all their buttons slithering and sliding inside the box.
Martin stuck his head up, peering hopefully. ‘Is that all your money?’ he said. ‘You must have heaps!’
‘I’ve got a piggy bank at home and it’s so full it won’t even rattle any more,’ said Gillian.
‘So have I,’ said Rita immediately.
‘Oh dear, you’re not allowed to keep money on the ward, Elsie. You’d better give your money box to me for safe-keeping,’ said Nurse Johnson, reaching out for my kittens.
‘No! It isn’t money – honestly. It’s buttons,’ I insisted, taking off the lid and showing her.
‘Buttons!’ Martin gurgled, and Gillian and Rita sniggered.
‘What do you want all these buttons for?’ asked Nurse Johnson.
‘I collect them,’ I said grandly.
I took out my last treasure – and this time the other children were impressed. It was my little Coronation coach with its eight tiny horses. I worried that it might have got chipped or spoiled, but it was still perfect, the gold untarnished, and it smelled of its own special metallic tang.
‘Oh look, she’s got one of those Coronation coaches! You lucky thing, Elsie – I wanted one of them!’ said Gillian. ‘Let’s have a proper look at it, Elsie, go on.’
I didn’t want to relinquish it but I liked impressing Gillian. I leaned over as far as I could to pass my coach to Martin. ‘Show Gillian,’ I said.
Nurse Curtis had turned away to attend to the little ones, but now she came dashing back. ‘Careful!’ she said. ‘You mustn’t lean over like that! It’s strictly forbidden. You could fall out and do yourself serious damage and waste all the good work of being in your splint.’
I’d only been in mine for a day, so it hadn’t had a chance to do any good work yet, but I wriggled back meekly.