Bottomley popped in to see him, and went away looking shattered.
‘Poor little lamb, lying between death and life,’ she said telephoning Sammy when she got home. ‘Still where there’s life. .’
She brought Harriet a change of clothes — a tweed skirt, which Harriet hated, a brown jersey that sagged round the waist, and a cream shirt that had no buttons.
Might as well stay in jeans, thought Harriet.
Eventually at mid-day Dr Williams rolled up, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Too much Sister Maddox, thought Harriet.
‘You’ve got to do something,’ she pleaded in desperation. ‘I don’t think he can take much more.’
Jonah started to scream out about the pain killing him.
‘Hush, darling,’ said Harriet. ‘The doctor’s here.’
‘And you can shut up,’ said Jonah, turning round and bashing her in the face with his hand, ‘Shut up! Shut up! You’re all trying to kill me.’
‘He’s losing faith in all of you,’ said Harriet with a sob.
Dr Williams drew her outside.
‘The child is getting too demanding,’ he said. ‘He’s playing you up and you’re overreacting. He senses your panic and it panics him too. I suppose his parents will turn up eventually. How long is it since you ate?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Harriet.
‘Well, go downstairs and have something.’
Down in the canteen, Harriet spread marmalade on toast the consistency of a flannel. All round her nurses were gossiping and chattering about their lives. They all ought to be upstairs making Jonah better. Sister Maddox and Dr Williams obviously felt she was hopeless and hysterical and were trying to keep her away from Jonah. She mustn’t get paranoiac. She mustn’t build up a hatred.
Upstairs she found Jonah having his temperature taken, the thermometer sticking out of his mouth like a cigar. With his slitty eyes and his hair brushed off his forehead, he suddenly looked very like Cory. Oh, I love him, I love him, she thought.
As the afternoon wore on he grew more and more incoherent, and difficult to quiet, now semi-conscious, now screaming with pain.
‘Daddy, Daddy, I want Daddy. I don’t want you, I want Mummy,’ he shouted. ‘Why can’t I have a Mummy? Everyone else at school does.’ He struggled free from the blankets. ‘I want Daddy.’
‘You shall have him very soon. Kit’s finding him.’
‘I want him
Oh so do I, thought Harriet.
She hoped Jonah was falling asleep, but just as she tried to move away, she found him gazing at her in horror, trying to bring her face into focus.
‘Harriet! Oh it’s you. Don’t leave me!’
‘Of course I won’t.’
‘I’m so thirsty.’ The hands clutching her were hot, dry and emaciated.
‘This isn’t my room. Why am I here? I want to go home.’
Dr Williams came back in around six. He looked even more bored.
‘We’re going to put up a drip now. He can’t take anything orally and obviously isn’t responding to treatment.’
A junior nurse popped her head round the door.
‘There’s a Kit Erskine on the telephone for you in Sister’s office,’ she said to Harriet.
‘Darling Harriet, are you all right?’ said Kit. ‘I gather from the nurse Jonah’s not too bright. Don’t worry, I got a message through to Cory. He’s on location, but he’s flying back tonight. He should be with you tomorrow afternoon. I’ve left a message for Superbitch too. All that rubbish about a weekend in Paris was absolute crap. She’s been frantically losing weight at a health farm, so she may descend on you too, I’m afraid.’
Harriet didn’t care about Noel. That Cory was coming back was all she could think about.
The drip was up when she got back, a great bag of liquid seeping into Jonah’s arm. He was delirious most of the time now, his cheeks hectically flushed, his pulse racing. In the end they had to strap his arm down, as the needle kept slipping and blood came racing back down the tube.
Sammy arrived next with Chattie. ‘It’s long past her bedtime but she wanted to come.’ Sammy brought Jonah a book about Tarzan, Chattie a balloon she’d bought out of her own pocket money.
‘William’s fine,’ said Sammy. ‘Chattie and I’ve been looking after him, haven’t we?’ Harriet felt guilty yet relieved they hadn’t brought him; her well-springs of affection seemed to have dried up. ‘Elizabeth’s been the last straw,’ Sammy went on, ‘telling all her friends how she’d taken the baby and Chattie in to help Cory out.’
Chattie seemed quite cheerful, but she hugged Harriet very tightly. ‘Can I see Jonah?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Harriet, ‘but whisper and don’t worry if he’s not quite himself.’
Unfortunately, just as Chattie was walking into the room, the balloon popped. Jonah woke up with a start and, not recognizing any of them, started raving incoherently about monsters coming to get him.
‘I’ll stay with him,’ said Sammy. ‘You take Chattie down to the canteen for an ice-cream.’
Chattie charmed everyone, her long blonde hair swinging as she skipped about the canteen talking to all the nurses. Then suddenly she clung to Harriet, her eyes filling with tears.
‘He’s not going to die, is he?’
‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Harriet, hugging her, but feeling inside a sickening lack of conviction.
‘I heard Mrs Bottomley telling Sammy it could go either way. What does that mean?’
‘Nothing really,’ said Harriet.
‘If he died he’d go to heaven wouldn’t he?’ said Chattie.
‘Of course he would,’ said Harriet, ‘but he’s not going to.’
‘Then I’ll never see him again,’ said Chattie, ‘because I’m so naughty, I’ll go straight to hell.’ She broke into noisy sobs.
Harriet cuddled her, trying to keep control of herself. ‘Darling, of course you’ll go to heaven.’
‘I don’t really believe in heaven anyway,’ sobbed Chattie. ‘I’ve been up in the sky in an aeroplane, and I didn’t see it.’
Harriet sat biting her nails watching two very young nurses fiddling with the Heath Robinson equipment constituting the drip. Bubbles were streaming down the tube, as they tapped away and the needle kept slipping out of the proper place. Jonah lay in a rare moment of consciousness, the tears pouring down his cheeks.
Harriet turned to the nurses, her control snapping. ‘Why the bloody hell,’ she snapped, ‘can’t one of you make it work?’
As a result, Dr Williams gave her a talking-to.
‘We’re going to give you a mogadon tonight,’ he said. ‘We know you feel responsible with both the parents away, but you
‘But why can’t he have proper pain killers and sedatives? If he felt you were doing something to make him better, I know he’d relax and stop fighting you.’
‘Jonah’s a very brave child, Miss Poole,’ said Dr Williams coldly. ‘It’s you who can’t take the pain, not him.’
‘He’s very very ill isn’t he?’ said Harriet. She had heard the nurses talking about the intensive care unit.
‘He’s certainly not a well child,’ said Dr Williams, ‘but where there’s life there’s hope.’
By midnight Jonah had gone into a coma. Harriet had pretended to take her mogadon, but had thrown it down the lavatory. She sat hour after hour fighting exhaustion and despair, listening to his heavy breathing, holding his hand and praying. Through the glass panel, she could see the black night nurse moving round the wards, adjusting blankets, checking pulses. In a minute she’d be coming into Harriet’s room to change the drip. This time tomorrow Cory would be here. How could she face him if anything happened to Jonah? She put her head in her hands and wept.
She must have fallen asleep. When she woke up it was nearly light. Jonah lay motionless in bed. For a terrifying moment, Harriet thought he was dead. She felt his forehead; it was cold; he was still breathing faintly.
