Queenie Read online

  ‘Then could my nan have one, do you think? She’s got TB too, but it’s in her chest. If she had a big splint to keep her still, would she get better quicker?’

  ‘Oh sweetheart, they don’t treat TB of the chest with splints. Is your nan in a sanatorium?’

  ‘Yes, and I was only allowed to see her once. She was ever so poorly – she just kept coughing. She didn’t really look like my nan any more,’ I said, the tears starting to splash down my cheeks.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Nurse Gabriel, gently dabbing at me with her handkerchief. ‘Poor Elsie, you obviously love your nan very much.’

  ‘I love her the best in all the world,’ I said. ‘So how can Nan get better?’

  ‘She has to rest in bed, just like you. All you children are on total bed rest to stop your TB attacking the rest of your bones. Your nan will have special medicine and complete rest, and they might just collapse her lung for a little while.’

  ‘And then she’ll get better?’

  ‘Some people with TB do get completely better, yes, darling.’

  ‘But not everyone?’

  ‘No, not everyone,’ said Nurse Gabriel sadly.

  ‘Mum says Nan can’t do anything now. She says it’ll be a waste of time my writing to her because she won’t be able to read my letter,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps a nurse could read it out to her. I think she’d love to get a letter from you, Elsie. It would be a lovely surprise. I don’t think she’ll be able to write back, not if she’s on complete bed rest. They have to be very strict with their patients in the sanatorium.’

  ‘I don’t mind. I just want to write to her.’

  ‘Of course you do. Well, you write the letter and give it to Mummy. Is she coming tomorrow?’

  ‘I think so!’

  She hadn’t promised, and I knew it was a very long way, but I so hoped she’d come all the same.

  ‘And if by any chance she can’t make it, then I’ll post it for you.’

  ‘Oh Nurse Gabriel, thank you!’

  I was prepared for Mum to be tired and snappy and in a bad mood if she’d had to make the journey out to see me all over again. I’d begged Nurse Curtis to brush my hair into two neat plaits to please Mum, and I’d practised saying a couple of Martin’s cleaner jokes to make her laugh. I thought if I prepared properly, it would somehow make her come. I even cajoled Queenie onto my bed and stroked her soft white fur and whispered into her delicate ears, ‘Please make Mum come, Queenie.’ She looked at me inscrutably with her green eyes, but purred encouragingly, as if she were definitely considering granting my wish.

  But Mum wasn’t there at the start of visiting time. I wondered if she’d missed the bus and would come tick-tacking in on her high heels, all out of puff. I waited and waited. But she didn’t come at all. I was the only child on the ward without a single visitor.

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said, and started to write my letter to Nan. I didn’t have any writing paper or envelopes, so I used the back of an old temperature chart.

  Dear, dear, ever-so-dear Nan,

  I miss you so much and I hope you’re not too lonely in that hospital. I can’t visit you because I am in hospital too. I have TB as well, but mine’s in my knee. I have to wear a horrid splint thing but it will make it better. Now listen, Nan – you have to try to get well too. As soon as my leg gets better I will come and see you, and that’s a promise. And then I will take you home and put you to bed and look after you, and that’s another promise.

  Lots and lots and lots of love from Elsie

  x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

  I folded the paper up into quarters, and then wrote on the back, even though there were lines zigzagging all over the page. I drew Snow White and Sooty and Marmalade, with little thought bubbles above their heads saying We love Nan and Get better soon and You make us purr. Then I drew a big portrait of Queenie. I wished I had a white crayon to colour her in properly. All I could manage was blue biro for her eyes. I tried shading to indicate her general furriness, but it made her look as if she’d been to the hairdresser’s and had a blue rinse. I had to give her a large speech bubble:

  Hello, Nan. I am Queenie, the Blyton Ward cat. I am REAL (but I’m not really blue, I am snowy white and ever so beautiful). I am Elsie’s friend. I come to visit her every day.

  Underneath I wrote: Maybe you have a cat in your own ward, Nan? I do hope so.

  Then I spent the rest of visiting time putting a kiss into every single square on the page. I kept my head down so I wouldn’t have to look at anyone.

  Michael’s mother leaned over me and offered me a packet of dolly mixtures. ‘Go on, take a handful,’ she said encouragingly, so I did.

  Then Martin’s dad stopped quizzing him about the rivers of the world and came and stood over me, casting a shadow on my page. ‘That looks very pretty,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  I didn’t want to tell him, and my mouth was still stuffed with dolly mixtures, so I just mumbled vaguely that it was a drawing.

  ‘Where’s your mother today then?’ he asked.

  I heard Martin’s mum draw in her breath at his lack of tact and hiss at him.

  ‘She couldn’t come. She has to . . .’ I said, and then I couldn’t quite think what to say next, so I just chomped on my dolly mixture. They didn’t taste right. I wished they weren’t clogging up my mouth. My tummy churned uneasily.

  ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ said Martin’s dad. ‘She’s a very attractive lady, your mum. She brightens the whole place up a bit. Oh well, I expect she’ll be here next week . . .’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said – but I remembered all the times Mum disappeared for months. I tried to swallow, but couldn’t. My tummy flipped right over. I was suddenly horribly sick – all over myself, my bed, and Martin’s dad’s sharply creased trousers.

  IT WAS OBVIOUS I’d been eating a lot of dolly mixtures because they were bobbing about in the sick in a truly ghastly fashion. Nurse Patterson told me off royally when she’d wheeled me away to the bathroom to clean me up.

  ‘You mustn’t eat so many sweets at a time, Elsie! And I don’t think they were even your own sweets,’ she scolded.

  ‘Michael’s mum gave them to me,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, that’s very kind of her, but you’re a big girl – you know the rules, even if Michael doesn’t. You have just one sweetie at visiting time and then hand the rest in. You were told that clearly yesterday. It’s very greedy to eat great handfuls at a time – and dangerous too for all you bed-bound children. If you can’t sit up properly, you could choke on your own vomit, and then where would you be? What would happen to poor little Angus if he tried to stuff sweeties down his throat?’

  She went on and on and on. I tried to imagine the polar bears nuzzling round her knees, jaws snapping, trying to gulp great lumps of Nurse Patterson down their huge throats, and it helped distract me a little.

  ‘Take that smile off your face, you naughty girl! I won’t have this nonsense,’ said Nurse Patterson, going pink.

  She didn’t slap me, but she sponged my face and chest a little too hard, her dabs so fierce they were almost like punches.

  ‘There now! I hope you’ve learned your lesson,’ she said when I was clean and dry again, in new sheets and a regulation hospital nightie. My cat pyjamas were in a soggy heap at her feet.

  ‘I can have my own pyjamas back when they’re washed, can’t I?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Nurse Patterson triumphantly. ‘They’ll have to be sent to the laundry as your mother isn’t here to take them. Oh dear!’ she sighed, as if I might never see them again in that case.

  ‘I think you’re a very mean lady,’ I said.

  ‘And I think you’re a very rude, spoiled little girl. No stories for you this evening,’ she said.

  She was as good as her word. When story time came, she wheeled me back to the bathroom in disgrace.

  ‘I don’t care,’ I muttered, over and over again, but I did care, and it