‘Oh, short hair is cooler when one is in bed,’ Granny Taylor, whose hair had really been long and thick, and who actually preferred it short, would murmur to herself.
‘Let’s give you a nice wave today, Granny Barnacle.’
‘Oh, you’re killing me.’
On the day of the new sister’s arrival, Granny Barnacle and her obvious excitement having been left to the last, it was found, when her turn came, that she was running a temperature.
‘Get me out of bed, love,’ she implored the nurse. ‘Let’s sit up today, seeing Bastard’s gone.’
‘No, you’ve got a temperature.’
‘Nurse, I want to get up today. Get me a will-form, there’s a bob in my locker, I want to make a new will and put in the new sister. What’s her name?’
‘Lucy.’
‘Lucy Locket,’ shrieked Granny Barnacle, ‘lost her —’
‘Lie still, Granny Barnacle, till we make you better.’
She submitted after a fuss. Next day, when they told her she must keep to her bed she protested louder, even struggled a little, but Miss Taylor in the opposite bed noticed that Granny Barnacle’s voice was unusually thin and high.
‘Nurse, I’m going to get up today. Get me a will-form. I want to make a new will and put in the new sister. What’s her name?’
‘Lucy,’ said the nurse. ‘Your blood pressure’s high, Gran.’
‘Her last name, girl.’
‘Lucy. Sister Lucy.’
‘Sister Lousy,’ screamed Granny Barnacle. ‘Well, she’s going in my will. Give me a hand …’
When the doctor had gone she was given an injection and dozed off for a while.
At one o’clock, while everyone else was eating, she woke. Sister Lucy brought some milk custard to her bed and fed her with a spoon. The ward was quiet and the sound of grannies’ spoons tinkling on their plates became more pronounced in the absence of voices.
About three o’clock Granny Barnacle woke again and started to rave in a piping voice, at first faintly, then growing higher and piercing. ‘Noos, E’ning Noos,’ fluted the old newsvendor. ‘E’ning pap-ar, Noos, E’ning Stan-ar, E’ning Stah Noos
She was given an injection and a sip of water. Her bed was wheeled to the end of the ward and a screen was put round it. In the course of the afternoon the doctor came, stayed behind the screen for a short while, and went.
The new ward sister came and looked behind the screen from time to time. Towards five o’clock, when the few visitors were going home, Sister Lucy went behind the screen once more. She spoke to Granny Barnacle, who replied in a weak voice.
‘She’s conscious,’ said Miss Valvona.
‘Yes, she spoke.’
‘Is she bad?’ said Miss Valvona as the sister passed her bed.
‘She’s not too well,’ said the sister.
Some of the patients kept looking expectantly and fearfully at the entrance to the ward whenever anyone was heard approaching, as if watching for the Angel of Death. Towards six o’clock came the sound of a man’s footsteps. The patients, propped up with their supper trays, stopped eating and turned to see who had arrived.
Sure enough, it was the priest, carrying a small box. Miss Valvona and Miss Taylor crossed themselves as he passed. He went behind the screen accompanied by a nurse. Though the ward was silent, none of the patients had sharp enough ears, even with their hearing-aids, to catch more than an occasional humming sound from his recitations.
Miss Valvona’s tears dropped into her supper. She was thinking of her father’s Last Sacrament, after which he had recovered to live a further six months. The priest behind the screen would be committing Granny Barnacle to the sweet Lord, he would be anointing Granny Barnacle’s eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands and feet, asking pardon for the sins she had committed by sight, by hearing, smell, taste and speech, by the touch of her hands, and by her very footsteps.
The priest left. A few of the patients finished their supper. Those who did not were coaxed with Ovaltine. At seven the sister took a last look behind the screen before going off to the dining-room.
‘How is she now?’ said a granny.
‘Sleeping nicely.’
About twenty minutes later a nurse looked behind the screen, went inside for a moment, then came out again. The patients watched her leave the ward. There she gave her message to the runner who went to the dining-room and, opening the door, caught the attention of the ward sister. The runner lifted up one finger to signify that one of the sister’s patients had died.
It was the third death in the ward since Miss Taylor’s admittance. She knew the routine. ‘We leave the patient for an hour in respect for the dead,’ a nurse had once explained to her, ‘but no longer than an hour, because the body begins to set. Then we perform the last offices — that’s washing them and making them right for burial.’
At five past nine, by the dim night-lamps of the ward, Granny Barnacle was wheeled away.
‘I shan’t sleep a wink,’ said Mrs Reewes-Duncan. Many said they would not sleep a wink, but in fact they slept
