Queenie Read online

  ‘No she didn’t! Nurse Gabriel said—’

  ‘Oh, I know, but nurses will say any old thing. Fancy coming out with that cow fairy story! As if you could catch TB from a glass of milk! If Mr Perkins knew that, he’d never have a cup of tea again, which would make my life a lot easier. I have to make him a fresh cup at least five times a day. Anyway, we can’t afford for me to catch it too, else we’d all be in Queer Street. Do stop looking at me like that, with those big eyes. You’re starting to look like a cow now. You’ll be mooing next.’

  I shut my eyes tight.

  ‘And don’t go to sleep on me either! I thought you were desperate for me to visit you, writing me little letters! You love your mummy really, don’t you, you funny little kid?’

  I nodded obediently.

  ‘I can’t wait to see you in your new baby-dolls. You’ll look so sweet,’ said Mum.

  I saved wearing them till the next Saturday, so they’d be clean and uncreased. Nurse Curtis cut the ribbon round the box in half and tied each piece round the end of my plaits.

  ‘There, you look as pretty as a picture,’ she said.

  But our efforts were wasted. Mum didn’t come at all that weekend.

  I HAD LEARNED not to count on Mum coming. She’d might say she’d see me next week, but that didn’t mean she’d actually turn up. She stayed away the next two weekends too. Nurse Gabriel asked if I’d like to write another letter, but I didn’t want to.

  Mum turned up the next week. She came loaded with gifts: a violet soap and talc set, a new blue brush and comb, and a little gilt brooch with the Queen’s head on it.

  ‘You’ll want to smell nice and keep fresh and tidy while you’re stuck here in bed – and I thought you’d like the little brooch. It’s cute, isn’t it? You know who the lady is, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s the Queen,’ I said. A fresh wave of missing Nan overwhelmed me.

  ‘What’s up now?’ said Mum, looking cross. ‘If you don’t like the brooch, I’ll have it back.’

  ‘No, I do, I do. It’s just I was remembering – Nan and I were going to the Coronation,’ I said mournfully.

  ‘Oh dear, yes. And here you are stuck in your beds. Well, I don’t know whether to tell you this, Elsie. It seems a bit mean under the circumstances – but I’m hoping to be able to go myself.’

  ‘You’re going to the Coronation?’ I said.

  ‘There’s a chance I might be able to watch it in comfort,’ said Mum. ‘Mr Perkins has a very good friend who works in an office ever so near Westminster Abbey. We’re going to watch from his office window. We should have a wonderful view.’

  ‘You lucky thing,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Well, you could always try and get better and then you could come too,’ said Mum.

  ‘I am trying, Mum,’ I said.

  I asked Nurse Gabriel that night if she thought I had any chance at all of getting better by the Coronation.

  ‘I’m afraid not, pet,’ she said, taking hold of my hand.

  ‘When will I get better?’

  ‘Perhaps . . .perhaps by Christmas?’

  ‘But that’s ages and ages away.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘And I’ve been here ages already.’

  I knew it was only a couple of months or so, but it felt like a century. It was hard to imagine myself in my old life now. I knew I’d once walked to school and played hopscotch and run down to the shops on errands for Nan, but it seemed like something I’d made up in a story. I’d lift the blanket and peer down at myself. My good leg now seemed just as useless as my bad leg in the splint. I wasn’t sure I’d ever remember how to walk properly again. Perhaps I’d end up in a wheelchair – but then who would push me?

  I clutched Queenie in panic that night.

  ‘Calm down, dear,’ she purred. ‘You must keep on feeding me titbits and then I’ll grow and grow. By Christmas I could grow as big as a tiger, and then you could climb on my great strong back and I’d carry you anywhere you wanted.’

  ‘Oh Queenie, yes please!’ I said.

  I started saving her a good half of each meal until Nurse Patterson caught me feeding her my entire portion of battered cod.

  ‘What is the matter with you, Elsie Kettle? How dare you waste good food like this! You children are given the best of everything to build up your bones and make you fit and strong. What’s the point of us giving you your injections and taking such care of your splints – yes, Elsie! – when you wilfully throw your food away,’ she ranted.

  ‘I’m not throwing it away. I’m giving it to Queenie.’

  ‘And just look at her! She’s not exactly starving, is she? The cook boils a whiting for her every day. She doesn’t need your fish. You’ll only make her sick if you give her any extra.’

  ‘Yes, Nurse Patterson. No, Nurse Patterson. Three bags full, Nurse Patterson,’ I said sullenly – and ended up spending hours by myself, banished to the bathroom.

  ‘I hear you’ve been in the doghouse again, Elsie,’ said Nurse Gabriel when she came on duty that evening.

  ‘The bathhouse, Nurse Gabriel,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a shocker, Elsie. You plague the life out of poor Nurse Patterson. Can’t you try to be a good girl just for the next week?’

  ‘Why a week?’

  ‘That’s when our tour of duty finishes. We’ll be off to other wards then.’

  ‘Nurse Patterson is leaving?’ I said, not properly concentrating.

  I’d assumed the nurses were permanent, as much part of the hospital as the beds in the ward.

  I felt a rush of happiness that we’d be rid of Nurse Patterson at last – and then my stomach turned over at a new and terrible thought.

  ‘You won’t be going, will you, Nurse Gabriel?’ I asked, my throat so dry that my voice came out all croaky.

  ‘I’m being transferred to one of the men’s wards in the main hospital,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no! I’ll miss you so!’ I wailed.

  ‘And I’ll miss you too, Elsie. I’ll miss all of you. But when I’m on nights I’ll pop in and visit during the daytime if you like,’ said Nurse Gabriel. ‘If you’re a good girl, Elsie.’

  ‘I’ll be like a little sunbeam,’ I said, remembering another of Nan’s favourite hymns.

  Nurse Gabriel laughed and gently pinched my nose. ‘You’re a caution, you are.’

  ‘You really will come back and visit me when you’re no longer on the ward?’

  ‘I promise.’ She crossed her fingers and grinned. ‘Cross my fingers and hope to die if I tell a lie.’

  Miss Isles suggested we all make farewell cards for the nurses in our art lesson. I spent ages and ages on Nurse Gabriel’s card. I drew a picture of me lying in bed waving. Queenie was on the bed too, waving her front paw. I still didn’t have a white crayon, so I couldn’t colour her in, but I did her outline very carefully, making tiny jagged lines to indicate her fluffy fur. I did every little red heart on my baby-doll pyjamas, and then I drew more, in a little trail up to the top of the page, where I draped them over my printed message: I will miss you so, Nurse Gabriel.

  ‘Are they hearts?’ said Martin, peering. ‘It’s a goodbye card, not a blessed Valentine, Gobface.’

  ‘Oh, does it look silly?’ I said, stricken. I didn’t want to embarrass Nurse Gabriel.

  ‘You shut up, Farty Marty. You’re just being mean because you can’t draw as well as Elsie,’ said Gillian.

  I left out the elaborate hearts on Nurse Johnson’s and Nurse Curtis’s cards, though I tried hard with them both because I liked them. I didn’t try at all with Nurse Patterson’s. I drew a pin-girl me and I didn’t give her a smiling face. I was very tempted to write at the top: Goodbye and good riddance, Nurse Pyjama-stealer, but in the end I wrote Sorry in very tiny letters.

  Nurse Patterson was trying hard to be nicey-nice to all of us. She sometimes sang as she went about the ward or pushed us up and down the veranda. She was going to a maternity home. ‘I shall be nursing all the mum