The Laying on of Hands - Alan Bennett [45]
‘I thought you were going to be a bit of company,’ she said. ‘You’re tired out.’ She fetched a pillow and they went out into the waiting room. The Indians had gone.
‘Lie down,’ she said. ‘I’ll wake you if anything happens.’
Around five an alarm went off, and there were two deaths in quick succession. Midgley slept on. At eight he woke.
‘You can’t lie down,’ said a voice. ‘You’re not supposed to lie down.’ It was a clean, fresh nurse.
Two women he had not seen before sat watching him.
‘The nurse said she’d wake me up.’
‘What nurse?’
‘If anything happened to my father.’
‘Whose is that pillow?’
‘Midgley. Mr Midgley.’
‘It’s a hospital pillow.’ She took it, and went back inside to her desk.
‘Midgley.’ Her finger ran down the list. ‘No change. But don’t lie down. It’s not fair on other people.’
Midgley went and looked at his father. No change was right. He felt old and dirty. He had not shaved and there was a cold sore starting on his lip. But with his father there was no change. Still clean. Still pink. Still breathing. The dot skipped on. He walked out to the car park where he had left his van and wondered if he dared risk going out to buy a razor.
He went back in search of the doctor.
He cut across the visitors’ car park, empty now except for his van, and took a path round the outside of the hospital that he thought would take him round to the entrance. The buildings were long and low and set in the hillside. They were done in identical units, every ward the same. He was passing a ward that seemed just like his father’s except where his father should have been a woman was just putting her breast to a baby’s mouth. A nurse came to the window and stared at him. He looked away hurriedly and walked on, but not so quickly as to leave her with the impression he had been watching. She was still staring at him as he turned the corner. He experienced a feeling of relief if not quite homecoming when he saw he was now outside Intensive Care. He picked out his father’s room, saw the carnations on the window sill and the head and shoulders of a nurse. She was obviously looking at the bed. She moved back towards the window to make room for someone else. Midgley stood on tiptoe to try and see what was happening. He thought there was someone else there in a white coat. The room was full of people.
Midgley ran round the unit trying to find a way in. There was a door at the end of the building with an empty corridor beyond. It was locked. He ran up to the path again, then cut down across the bank through some young trees to try another door. A man on the telephone watched him sliding down then put one phone down and picked up another. Midgley ran on and suddenly was in a muddy flower bed among bushes and evergreens. It was the garden around the entrance to the Reception Area. Upstairs he ran past the startled nurse at the desk and into his father’s room. Nobody spoke. There was an atmosphere of reverence.
‘Is he dead?’ said Midgley. ‘Has he gone?’ He was panting. An older woman in blue turned round. ‘Dead? Certainly not. I am the matron. And look at your shoes.’
Behind the matron Midgley caught a glimpse of his father. As a nurse bustled him out Midgley struggled to look back. He was sure his father was smiling.
‘I’ve just been to spend a penny,’ said Aunty Kitty. ‘When you consider it’s a hospital the toilets are nothing to write home about. Look at your shoes.’
She was beginning to settle in, had brought a flask, sandwiches, knitting.
‘I know Frank,’ she said, looking at Country Life. ‘He’ll make a fight of it. I wouldn’t thank you for a place in Bermuda.’
Midgley went to the gents to have a wash. He got some toilet paper and stood by the basins wiping the mud off his boots. He was stood with the muddy paper in his hands when an orderly came in, looked at the paper then looked at him incredulously, shook his head and went into a cubicle saying: ‘The fucking public. The fucking dirty bastard public.’
Midgley went down to ring his Uncle Ernest on the phone outside physio. A youngish woman was just dialling.
‘Cyril. It