Queenie Read online

  Martin started whispering dirty jokes. Then Gillian told even dirtier ones. I think they were trying to shock me, but I laughed boldly, though I didn’t understand half of what they were saying.

  ‘Go on then, Gobface – you tell us one,’ said Martin.

  I couldn’t think of a single joke. At school, I’d never been in one of those little gangs where everyone whispered and sniggered together. But then I remembered Uncle Ivor, one of my mum’s long-ago boyfriends, a fat little man with a very red face. He didn’t tell jokes, at least not in front of me, but he did sing silly songs, and from the way Nan tutted I knew they were rude. So I softly sang a song about a lady with funny hair, and Martin and Gillian snorted with glee.

  ‘Wow, that’s really filthy, Gobface,’ Martin spluttered. ‘Teach it to me, go on!’

  I wasn’t sure of Martin’s status now – whether he was still a deadly enemy or almost a friend. Gillian was also flatteringly impressed. I shyly said I liked her hairstyle, and she reached up and showed me how she fixed it, tying up the long strands and then wetting the straggly bits in front with spit so they went into kiss curls. I unplaited my hair and tried hard to copy her, though it was difficult without a mirror.

  I was sure I wasn’t sleepy, and I didn’t want to lie back properly on my pillow because it would spoil my new hairstyle – but I think I nodded off in mid-sentence, because I suddenly opened my eyes, and there were Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis clanking round each bed, doling out bedpans. I didn’t know what I was going to do now, so close to Martin. I felt myself going bright red with the horror of it, but to my enormous relief Nurse Patterson seized hold of my bed rails and trundled me along the veranda, back inside the hospital. She let me jump out in the bathroom and go to the toilet privately. I was so grateful I decided I might like her a little bit after all – not quite as much as Nurse Curtis, and certainly not like lovely Nurse Gabriel.

  She didn’t take me back onto the veranda. She pushed me down endless new corridors, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking horribly on the polished floor.

  ‘Where are we going, Nurse Patterson?’ I asked, sitting up.

  ‘No, lie down, Elsie.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Assessment,’ she said, shortly and mysteriously, her teeth hissing on the four ‘s’s like a snake.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You’ll soon find out,’ she said.

  She took me to a waiting room, leaving my bed in front of a door that said SIR DAVID ROYALE. It sounded such a grand name that I stopped asking questions and hunched up small under the bedclothes. Even Nurse Patterson seemed nervous, biting her fingernails. I thought Sir David would be very big and imposing, with a shouty voice, but when he opened his door he was surprisingly small and thin.

  ‘Come along in.’ He flapped his hand in a welcoming gesture, as if he had invited us for tea. ‘So you’re Elsie. How do you do, my dear,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Hello, Nurse Patterson.’

  She bobbed her head at him, blushing because he knew her name. Her sticking-out ears went painfully red.

  He pulled my covers back and examined me carefully, his hands firm but gentle as he felt my hips and knees and calves. ‘Up you hop, Elsie. Have a little march around my room,’ he said.

  I wriggled out of bed and pattered around, feeling very awkward in the silly hospital gown that showed my bottom. ‘Please can I have my own pyjamas back soon?’ I mumbled.

  ‘Certainly, dear,’ he said, peering at me and making notes.

  ‘They’ve got cats on,’ I said.

  ‘Do you like cats then?’ asked Sir David.

  ‘I love them, especially Queenie,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, we all love Queenie. We’ll put a little shrimp paste on your toes tomorrow, and then she’ll come and give you little loving nibbles.’

  I wasn’t sure if this was a joke or not. He was staring at big shadowy pictures like photo negatives.

  ‘What are those pictures?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re pictures of you, Elsie – your poorly knee,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t keep asking Sir David questions, Elsie,’ said Nurse Patterson, giving me a little shake.

  ‘No, no, I like the children to take an intelligent interest.’ Sir David slid the pictures back in their big paper envelopes and beckoned to me. ‘Come here, dear. I need to measure you.’

  He very carefully measured round each of my thighs. I thought he must be making a mistake.

  ‘It’s my knee that’s bad, Doctor,’ I said, trying to be helpful.

  ‘Sir David’s not a doctor, he’s a consultant,’ Nurse Patterson hissed. ‘And believe you me, he knows what he’s doing.’

  Sir David smiled. ‘I’m glad you have such faith in me, Nurse, but certainly in this case I do know. I’m measuring your thighs, Elsie, because the muscles have wasted a little on your affected leg. And see here . . .’ He touched my knee gently. ‘See how it’s swollen? But we’ve caught you early. Lots of rest and plenty of fresh air and you’ll be a new young woman.’ He pulled my ponytail. ‘Pop back into bed, then you can wheel her away, Nurse.’

  ‘So, will I get better?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, you will, so long as you do as you’re told,’ Sir David said solemnly.

  I whisked back under the covers. ‘Does everyone get better if they rest in hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s what we hope.’

  ‘Even old people with TB in their lungs?’

  ‘Elsie!’ said Nurse Patterson.

  ‘Ah. That depends on the severity of the disease,’ said Sir David.

  I drooped. Nan was coughing up blood, and I knew that was severe. I felt my own throat grow tight and my eyes prickled. I managed to hold it in until I was back on the veranda, but then I couldn’t stop the tears dribbling down my face.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Martin. ‘Have you been to see Sir David?’

  I nodded, knuckling my eyes.

  ‘Is he going to put you in a spinal frame like mine?’

  ‘No, I’m not being put in any frame,’ I said, sniffing.

  ‘Yes you are, you poor sap. You’ve got TB, haven’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t got bad TB. He said I’m going to get better,’ I said.

  ‘He says that to everyone, Gobface. He said it to my friend Robert, and look what happened to him,’ said Martin.

  ‘You shut up,’ I said, and turned on my stomach to cry properly.

  ‘Cry-baby! Well, make the most of it. You won’t be able to wriggle about like that tomorrow,’ said Martin. ‘You’ll be a prisoner too.’

  ‘No I won’t,’ I said, and I buried my head in the pillow. I shut my eyes tight and tried to will myself far away, to be with Nan in her sanatorium. I rubbed her chest with magic ointment and spooned special medicine down her throat, and there she was, my nan, her old self again, so we could scurry back to our flat and get our old lives back.

  I cried and cried because I knew this wasn’t possible, no matter how hard I pretended. And then I cried some more, because I didn’t know what else to do. Martin and Gillian and all the others were still there, and sooner or later I’d have to poke my head up and see them laughing at me and pointing and calling me a cry-baby.

  At last I had to heave myself up to find a hankie, because my nose was running so badly.

  ‘Have you finished now?’ said Martin matter-of-factly – and when my search for a hankie proved hopeless, Gillian told me to lean right over Martin and she’d lend me hers. I couldn’t believe they were letting me off so lightly. At school, crying was the worst thing in the world – something you never ever did if you could help it because you’d get teased so badly.

  ‘I wasn’t crying just because of the TB,’ I said, snuffling into Gillian’s hankie. ‘I was crying because of my nan.’

  ‘Everyone cries sometimes,’ she said.

  ‘I cry lots and lots and lots,’ said little Michael.

  ‘I don’t ever cry,’ said Martin.