She looked at the doctor’s face, to read it. ‘Ah, doc, I don’t feel too bloody good,’ she said. ‘And I just don’t feel easy with that bitch in charge. I just feel anything might happen.’
‘Come, come, the poor woman’s overworked,’ he recited. ‘We all like to be of help if we can and in any way we can. We are trying to help you, Granny.’
When he had gone Granny Barnacle whispered over to Miss Taylor, ‘Do I look bad, love?’
‘No, Granny, you look fine.’ In fact, Granny Barnacle’s face was blotched with dark red.
‘Did you hear what the doc said about my blood pressure? Do you think it was a lie, just so’s I wouldn’t make a fuss?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘For two pins, Granny Taylor, I’d be out of that door and down them stairs if it was the last thing I did and —’
‘I shouldn’t do that,’ said Miss Taylor.
‘Could they certify me, love?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Taylor.
‘I’ll tell the priest.’
‘You know what he’ll say to you,’ said Miss Taylor.
‘Offer it bloody well up for the Holy Souls.’
‘I daresay.’
‘It’s a hard religion, Granny Taylor. If it wasn’t that my mother was R.C. I would never of—’
‘I know a lady —’ It was then Miss Taylor had said, rashly, ‘I know a lady who knows another lady who is on the management committee of this hospital. It may take some time but I will see what I can do to get them to transfer Sister Burstead.’
‘God bless you, Granny Taylor.’
‘I can’t promise. But I’ll try. I shall have to be tactful.’
‘You hear that?’ said Granny Barnacle to everyone in the ward. ‘You hear what Granny Taylor’s goin’ to do?’
Miss Taylor was not very disappointed with her first effort at sounding Dame Lettie. It was a beginning. She would keep on at Dame Lettie. There was also, possibly, Alec Warner. He might be induced to speak to Tempest Sidebottome who sat on the management committee of the hospital. It might even be arranged without blame to dreary Sister Burstead.
‘Didn’t your Dame promise nothing definite then?’ said Granny Barnacle.
‘No, it will take time.’
‘Will it be done before the winter?’ ‘I hope so.
‘Did you tell her what she done to Granny Duncan?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘You should of. Strikes me you’re not on our side entirely, Granny Taylor. I seem to remember that face somehow.’
‘Whose face?’
‘That Dame’s face.’
The difficulty was, Miss Taylor reflected, she could not feel the affair to be pre-eminently important. Sometimes she would have liked to say to the grannies, ‘What if your fears were correct? What if we died next winter?’ Sometimes she did say to them, ‘Some of us may die next winter in any case. It is highly probable.’ Granny Valvona would reply, ‘I’m ready to meet my God, any time.’ And Granny Barnacle would stoutly add, ‘But not before time.’
‘You must keep on at your friend, Granny Taylor,’ said Granny Duncan, who, among all the grannies, most irritated Sister Burstead. Granny Duncan had cancer. Miss Taylor often wondered if the sister was afraid of cancer.
‘I seem to remember that Dame’s face,’ Granny Barnacle kept on. ‘Was she ever much round Holborn way of an evening?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Miss Taylor.
‘She might be an old customer of mine,’ said Granny Barnacle.
‘I think she had her papers sent.’
‘Did she go out to work, this Dame?’
‘Well, not to a job. But she did various kinds of committee work. That sort of thing.’
Granny Barnacle turned over the face of Dame Lettie in her mind. ‘Was it charity work you said she did?’
‘That kind of thing,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘Nothing special.’
Granny Barnacle looked at her suspiciously, but Miss Taylor would not be drawn, nor say that Dame Lettie had been a Prison Visitor at Holloway from her thirtieth year until it became too difficult for her, with her great weight and breathlessness, to climb the stairs.
‘I will keep on at Dame Lettie,’ she promised.
