Queenie Read online

  ‘And I’ll write to Nan and tell her all about it,’ I said.

  I wrote her a really long letter, recounting almost everything I said and the Queen said – though I left out the part about Prince Charles’s Coronation because it didn’t seem tactful.

  I made Nan a picture too. I drew our beds all along the veranda, with me sitting up in the middle in my bolero talking to the Queen. I gave Her Majesty a crown instead of her lilac hat to make it clear to Nan who she was.

  ‘That’s a really lovely picture, Elsie,’ said Nurse Gabriel.

  ‘I’ll draw you one too if you like – but this picture’s for my nan,’ I said.

  ‘Of course it is,’ she agreed.

  ‘I need Mum to come so she can give it to her,’ I said. My voice went a bit wobbly. ‘Do you think she’ll come next week, Nurse Gabriel?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘I wish Nan could have my letter right now,’ I said, sniffing.

  ‘I’ll post it for you, sweetheart,’ said Nurse Gabriel. ‘I’ll put it in a nice white envelope.’

  ‘My nan’s name is Violet Kettle— Oooh!’ I wailed. ‘I don’t know her address at the sanatorium.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll find out the right address. Don’t worry. Hand it over, sweetheart.’

  ‘You are so lovely to me, Nurse Gabriel. I’ll always love Nan most, but you’re definitely my second-best person in the whole world,’ I said.

  I was so glad I had Nurse Gabriel because I kept losing everyone else. Nan was in the sanatorium, Mum had disappeared – and now Martin was gone too. He couldn’t walk really properly yet, but he could shuffle along using his crutch. Sometimes he stood on both legs and aimed his crutch at everyone, pretending it was a machine gun. They said he had to have a lot more physiotherapy, but he could live at home now.

  His mum and dad came to collect him. Nurse Bryant helped him put on his outdoor clothes. His jersey sleeves were much too short and his trousers showed a lot of bare leg.

  ‘Oh darling, I didn’t realize just how much you’ve grown,’ said Martin’s mum, starting to cry.

  ‘We’d better get you some long trousers, old chap,’ said Martin’s dad.

  ‘Really? That would be so wizard,’ said Martin. ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Say goodbye to all your friends, dear,’ said his mum.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Martin, giving a lordly wave.

  ‘Martin! Say goodbye nicely.’

  So he hobbled round to each of us.

  ‘Cheerio,’ he said to Angus. ‘Don’t let all these soppy girls get you down.’

  ‘Ta-ta, small fry,’ he said to Babette and Maureen.

  ‘Toodle-oo,’ he said to Rita.

  ‘See you later, Miss Kiss,’ he said to Gillian.

  I waited. He went to his locker. He was meant to have cleared it, but he still had a whole pile of Eagle comics.

  ‘You can have this lot, Gobface,’ he said.

  ‘What did you call her, Martin?’ asked his mum.

  But I knew Martin meant it kindly, and I took the comics from him gratefully.

  Little Michael was crying because he looked up to Martin so. Martin didn’t say anything at all to him, but he gave him a quick hug.

  Then he stumped hurriedly down the veranda. It looked as if he were trying hard not to cry himself.

  I needed Queenie badly that night. She was missing Martin too, clearly puzzled by the empty bed, stripped down to a bare mattress. She circled it twice, and then jumped up beside me for reassurance.

  ‘I know, Queenie. It’s weird, isn’t it? I never thought I’d miss old Farty Marty, but I do,’ I whispered. ‘Still, we should be pleased. He got better. I’m going to be better one day.’

  My broken leg was fully healed and I could waggle my toes and tense my calves at Miss Westlake’s command, though my poorly leg was still a wizened dead thing in its hateful splint. Sometimes at meal times I took my knife and played cutting it off at the hip. I didn’t press hard, it was just pretend, but it felt as if I’d really left my useless leg behind in the bed. I’d jump down and hop about the ward like a lopsided frog, free at last.

  Martin’s bed didn’t stay empty for more than a couple of days. A big girl called Ann came to join us. She was only a year older than Gillian, but she wore lipstick and had a proper lady’s figure under her nightie. She had long thick wavy hair that she set in pin curls at night. She looked very pretty, even when her head was all over metal grips. I saw she walked with a bad limp when she went to the bathroom the first night – she utterly refused to use a potty.

  ‘I’m not weeing with all these kids watching me!’ she said firmly.

  I admired her enormously and hoped she might be my friend, but it was clear she looked down on me. The only one of us she talked to was Gillian – and in a day they were best friends.

  ‘What do you want to be friends with her for?’ said Rita when Ann was wheeled off to have her surgery in the main hospital. She had to have an operation because her limp was so bad.

  ‘I think she’s really, really nice,’ said Gillian, smacking her lips together and then pouting. Ann had let her borrow her lipstick.

  ‘But you’re my best friend.’

  ‘I can be best friends with both of you, silly,’ said Gillian.

  Rita didn’t look convinced – with good reason. When Ann came back from the main hospital, in plaster instead of a splint, she was very distressed, especially when she couldn’t sit up properly to fix her make-up or do her hair.

  ‘Can’t you do it for me?’ she asked Nurse Smith.

  ‘I should cocoa!’ she said. ‘I’ve got my hands full as it is. And you shouldn’t be wearing make-up and having a perm at your age! You’re still only a little girl.’

  Ann called Nurse Smith a very rude word indeed. Nurse Bryant was more sympathetic, and did try to pin Ann’s curls into place that night, but she wasn’t very good at it.

  ‘You’re doing it all wrong,’ said Ann ungratefully.

  ‘I’ll do it! I know exactly how to do it. I’m going to be a hairdresser when I’m grown up,’ said Gillian. ‘Nurse Bryant, if you’d please push my bed right up close to Ann’s, then I can reach over and pin it up for her. Go on, there’s a darling.’

  ‘Girls girls girls! I’m here to nurse, not play Musical Chairs with the furniture!’ said Nurse Bryant – but she pushed the beds right up close even so.

  Gillian did Ann’s hair for her that night, and combed it out beautifully in the morning.

  ‘Do my hair, Gillian,’ Rita begged.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Rita. Yours is just a kiddy’s bob cut. It just needs a quick brush. You can do it yourself,’ said Gillian.

  In a few days Ann had learned to hitch herself upright gingerly and do her own hair, but she begged to keep her bed pulled right up close to Gillian’s. The nurses separated them whenever Sister Baker came on a round of inspection, but they were allowed to stay squashed up together at all other times. They lay whispering and giggling all day long.

  Rita tried to join in, but she was too far away to hear properly.

  ‘Besides, we’re talking private big girls’ stuff,’ said Gillian. ‘You don’t know about film stars and fashion.’

  ‘Or boys,’ said Ann, and they both started giggling again.

  ‘I do so know,’ Rita lied, and then started crying.

  She was so miserable that Nurse Bryant tried pushing my bed next to hers when we were out on the veranda.

  ‘There! You two can keep each other company,’ she said.

  I didn’t really fancy keeping Rita company at all, but I did try to be friendly to her. I even told her a private Queenie story as a very special favour.

  ‘Did you know Queenie came padding very quietly up to my bed last night, and when I reached out to stroke her, I felt these strange fluttery, feathery things coming out of her back,’ I started.

  ‘What?’ said Rita. ‘Had she been catching birds again?’

  ‘Well, I wondered th