She gave up on Mrs. Anderson’s neighbour and dropped the plastic spoon into the bowl. She went to the end of Mrs. Sidney’s bed and stood looking at her. It was plain that she was expecting nothing; except death. After some time had passed, Mrs. Sidney acknowledged her with one serpentine blink. “You know you’re going to be moved, don’t you, Mrs. Sidney? Are you listening? You do know what’s going on?”
Expect a mummy to answer you, Staff thought. Expect Tutankhamun to boogie into the sluice. The old lady stared through her as if her solid bulk were gauze. “Want me to comb her hair?” Mrs. Wilmot said. “Course, perhaps you want the student to do it?”
“I wouldn’t bother,” Staff said. “She’s got so little of it left, and wouldn’t it be just our luck if today’s the day it falls out entirely? You know what relatives are. Still, they’re very good. Second time in eight weeks. They were phoned up about her move. Not that she knows them. Pointless really.”
“Pointless,” Mrs. Wilmot agreed. “Course, walls have ears, don’t they? So she might be able to tell what you say.”
“I do sometimes wonder,” Staff said. “I do sometimes wonder what goes through her head, staring and blinking, blinking and staring all day long. You wonder what goes through any of their heads.”
“Course, you’d think they’d cure them.”
“Oh, there’s no cure.” She’d tell anybody; anybody who came on her ward. “There’s no cure for the march of time. I wonder what her son will say, about moving her. They’ll be here any minute, I expect.”
“Well, I’ll just look in on the gentlemen,” Mrs. Wilmot said. “Seeing as I’m here, seeing as I’m done for now.” She dragged off across the corridor at her usual abject pace, her eyes downcast. “Spread a cheery word,” she said.
Coming upstairs—they were the only visitors around—Colin said to Sylvia, “Could you just give me some idea of what this is about? I come home, pour myself a drink, and you start in on me.”
“Nothing,” Sylvia said, balefully.
“There must be something. I mean, there must be something that set you off.”
A silent car ride lay behind them. He combed through the day’s words and events to find something that could have offended Sylvia, and yet he was conscious that she was not so much offended as sad and puzzled, floundering in a morass of unwelcome thoughts. He knew the signs; he could diagnose them in other people. “Perhaps it’s the prospect of visiting my mother,” he said. “Is it? I’d have come alone.”
Sylvia didn’t answer. She had never let him come alone. When they reached the ward, she said, as she always did, “The smell.” He said, as always, “I expect you get used to it.”
She felt self-conscious, in her outdoor clothes, and in her shoes which made such a noise. Walking down the ward beside Colin was like walking down the aisle; heads turned, to pin you with a judgemental stare, and suddenly you were large and clumsy and you felt your face going red. Here they were at the altar, this shrouded stonelike object. They stopped at the foot of the bed.
“Hello, Mum,” Colin said in a loud voice. There was a sudden little movement from the patients all along the ward, as if they were joined by an electric wire from bed to bed. It subsided; they were still, mute. Mrs. Sidney had not joined the demonstration. Would she blink or would she not, was the question.
Sylvia sighed. “I’ll get us two chairs,” she said. She crossed the ward. She felt that the deaf watched her, that the blind heard her pass; she was an intrusion, a big woman blown in from the outside, her body glowing with its self-conceits. The Staff Nurse came up. It was the one with the overshot jaw, the red-faced woman who’d been here last time.
“How are we?”
“Fine, fine.”
“You know doctor wants to move her?”
“Hardly seems any point.”
“The thing is, off B Ward, they sometimes go home.”
Sylvia’s eyebrows shot up.
“Oh, not in this condition. But if she showed signs, you know…the fact is, they want to close this place down, and anybody they can get out, they will get out; because although we’re having a new geriatric unit at the General, we’re not going to have enough beds.”
“But look at her. She’s not showing signs, is she?”
“No, well, but the doctor must think she is. Course, I’m not saying it could happen. I mean, if she shaped up a bit, started to feed herself, she could go on C Ward. Sit in the day room and watch the telly. It’d be more of a life for her. Know what I mean?”
“But that’s ludicrous,” Sylvia said. “There’s as much chance of her sitting up and watching telly as there is of you winning Miss World.”
“Well, you never know,” the Staff Nurse said rather huffily. “We have to try and hold out some hope, you know. Otherwise we’d all do ourselves in, wouldn’t we? Shall I take those flowers?”
She strode off, stiff-armed, holding the bunch well away from her apron. Sylvia dragged the chairs over to Colin. He was leaning over his mother now, his expression intent. “You know,” he said, “you know, really, I think she might be a bit better. I think there was just a flicker of something, I think I caught it in her eyes as I bent over her.”
“Oh, Colin.” She dumped the chair. “You’ve been saying that for years.”
“I expect you’re right.” He sat down heavily. “But you’re the one who always brings her flowers.”
“It would look so mean if we didn’t. What would they think?”
They conversed in whispers. It would be just like every other visit; they would sit for twenty minutes, a length of time which seemed respectable, and then they would put their chairs back by the wall and walk away, Sylvia
