No Talking after Lights Read online

  Lionel tried to turn round and extract something from underneath his pillow, but he couldn’t move his body far enough to reach his hand across, and after grunting heavily for a bit he sank back in exasperation and said, ‘You get it. Can’t reach. Fish about and you’ll find it.’

  The heavy smell of her clothes and her body loomed for a moment as Henrietta rummaged behind him.

  ‘Oh, look!’ she cried triumphantly. ‘It’s a letter from James!’

  The thin blue airmail paper crackled in her fingers as she read it hastily.

  ‘“… promotion promised for next year, provided all goes well… new man out from England seems a good chap … brought Juniper to his cocktail party to meet the troops …” Juniper? Who’s Juniper? Lionel, do we know who this Juniper is? We don’t know anyone called Juniper. Not a very English name. Oh, dear, I do hope James isn’t being silly. He brought her to the Chief’s cocktail party … well then, I suppose she must have been suitable, though it’s a curious name. Anyway, then he says, where was I? Yes: “I shall be minding the desk for Roger Ormiston while he’s on home leave, and after that I plan to come home myself for six weeks. Didn’t mention it before in case …” Lionel! Do you realize he’ll be home in less than a month?’

  O God, I thank Thee for this Thy bounty, that my son will see his father before he dies. Almighty God, Father of us all… bring him home safely through Thy boundless skies - and please, she couldn’t help adding, if she is to be important to him, let Juniper be a decent girl, worthy of him, and English.

  Nine

  It was now so close to the end of term that the Lower Fourths were making caterpillar calendars on which to count off the remaining days. First they would draw several overlapping small circles with a protractor, then a larger one at the end for the caterpillar’s head, sometimes embellished with long-lashed eyes and antennae, and always with a joyous message like HOME! or LAST DAY OF TERM! Using scissors they would cut round these circles, each with its pin-prick centre, and finally colour them in with waxy Lakeland pencils. These creations were pinned to the inside of their desks and every morning one circle would be cut off and thrown away. This ritual was proof that the holidays were approaching as the curling caterpillars grew shorter every day.

  The hot weather continued, light and heat hanging in the stifling air. The girls were sluggish, heavy-limbed, slow-moving, too hot to argue or revise. Several complained of aching limbs and headaches. The staff, immured in their cramped room during Break and after lunch, snapped at one another irritably and complained about their pupils. What was the point in setting and marking exams, when they would all be suitably married within ten years to dull, rich husbands, for no purpose but to create another generation of pampered drones?

  At night in the dormitory the girls were listless, slow to undress and reluctant to lie under even a single sheet. The attic rooms were close and airless, although the windows were wide open and the curtains drawn back. Charmian was fretful, whining about a headache. She didn’t feel well, her bones were all funny, it made her legs hurt.

  ‘Mine too,’ said Anne Hetherington. ‘I wish Mummy was here. I wish this rotten term was over.’

  ‘Come on, girls, none of that nonsense. I’m up to my eyebrows,’ said Miss Peachey. ‘Lights out. No talking. What is it, Charmian?’

  ‘Peach, I don’t feel well.’ Charmian sighed.

  ‘I’ve got too many on my hands in the sanatorium as it is,’ said Miss Peachey. ‘Don’t you start. Too much sun, that’s your trouble. Fair-skinned people should stay out of the sun. Look at you. Bright red! Now then, bedtime. Night-night all!’

  They listened as her crêpe soles squelched away down the corridor. Then Fiona said, ‘Tell us a story, Gogsy. Go on. Be a sport. Tell us the Thingummy and Thingummybob one. You know.’

  Constance remembered the outline against the night sky, a pair of horses mating.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she muttered. ‘Go to sleep. No.’

  Charmian’s voice came thinly from across the room. She lay in a graceless heap on her rumpled bed. ‘Pleease, Gogsy,’ she said. ‘My head feels all funny. Tell us the story.’

  ‘Shut up then and I will,’ said Constance. ‘I’ll just finish off Sohrab and Rustum and then you lot leave me in peace, OK? Well, now, where … oh, yes. So you remember, they had this tremendous battle, with everyone from the two armies watching, until even the horse let out a dreadful cry and the air was filled with thunder and lightning and the river rushed and the two of them battled to the death. Suddenly Sohrab’s sword splintered into a thousand bits. Rustum saw his chance, and he lifted up his head and uttered his battle cry and gave a huge shout of “Rustum!” When Sohrab heard that he was so amazed - ‘cos you remember, Rustum’s the name of his long-lost father - that he dropped his shield and Rustum drove his spear at him and Sohrab fell to the ground.’

  ‘Dead?’ breathed Anne. ‘You mean, he got killed? The son died?’

  ‘No!’ said Constance, her voice strong with anger. ‘No, he didn’t. He staggered to his feet and grabbed Rustum’s sword and thrust it deep into his side, thinking, there you are then. That’s for what my father did! And he stood over Rustum, who lay dying on the sand. “My father abandoned me all those years ago and I’ve been searching for him ever since, but I can’t find him, so you can die instead!” And so then, finally, with his dying breath, Rustum told him that he’d had a son once, and had put a mark on his arm so he would know him again. And Sohrab showed him the mark - like a vaccination, sort of - on his arm, and at last the two of them knew they were father and son. Rustum wanted to embrace him and get his forgiveness for having left him, but Sohrab wouldn’t, because he thought it served him right for having gone away and left him on his own. That was his punishment. So he pulled out the sword, and his father’s blood gushed out on to the sand, and he died. And Sohrab was the winner. And,’ she added, ‘that meant he got the horse.’

  ‘Good,’ said Fiona. ‘I’m glad it was the old man that died. It’s a wizard story, Gogsy. Jolly well done.’

  ‘OK, so now everyone’s got to go to sleep. ‘Night,’ said Constance.

  She rolled over with her back to the others and lay curled up under the sheet. As she drifted towards sleep she had a vision of her parents and herself, joined by a cord, a long, plaited cord in three colours, one for each of them, pulsing like the blood in her finger, like an umbilical cord. It was stretched tight because her parents were so distant, and she feared in her half-sleep that it might break. If I ever have children, she thought, I’ll never leave them.

  Sitting in a biology revision class, Constance nursed her throbbing finger. Poison had swollen the top digit to three times its normal size and the skin was shiny from the pressure inside. With each beat of her heart a needle stabbed her. She breathed heavily, held her breath, then expelled it in a sigh, sometimes a groan. The others turned to frown at her, but she could not respond to anything but the rhythm of her own pain.

  Sylvia Parry heard the sighs, clenched her fists and turned her back to the class, drawing diagrams on the blackboard so as not to see Constance’s bowed head, her evident lack of interest in the lesson. The sighs went on. Miss Parry felt her anger like a rising tide. Behind her back, every minute or so, she could hear another dramatic groan. The girl was merely drawing attention to herself. If she ignored it, the groaning would stop. No-one spoke, no intelligent questions were asked. Suddenly, like a tidal wave breaking across the shore, she reacted.

  ‘For God’s sake, Constance King, will you stop that interminable sighing! I am trying to teach. Now be QUIET.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Parry. It’s my finger. It really hurts.’

  ‘Poor little Baba, den. Does urns finger hurt?’ she sneered, while the class quaked, avoiding her eye. ‘Jesus Christ, why am I stuck with this bunch of halfwitted infants? Get out of my lesson. Out! Away! Be off! Get lost!’

  ‘Shall I stand outside or … ?’

  ‘Go and see Matron, anybody, I don’t
care where you go, as long as the rest of us can get on with some work. OUT! NOW!’

  Constance left the room thankfully. Miss Peachey wasn’t anywhere to be found, but on the topmost dormitory corridor she bumped into the medical sister, formidable, straight-backed Miss Girdlestone. She was hurrying past clutching an armful of pillows, followed by Anne, who looked feverish, with glittering eyes.

  ‘Miss Girdlestone …’ Constance began.

  ‘Can’t you see I’m busy? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m sorry - it’s my finger again. It honestly hurts like billy-o. Can you … ?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Constance! It’s only a whitlow. Haven’t you ever had a whitlow before? It’ll go away in a day or two. I’ve got much more important things to worry about. Why aren’t you in your form-room?’

  ‘Miss Parry sent me out …’

  ‘Well, go and sit in the Reading Corner. Anywhere. Just leave me in peace.’

  The hall was quiet, dark and cool. At her back, the tall trees were motionless in the still air. Listlessly Constance turned the pages of Punch and The Children’s Newspaper. She put them back on the oak table and enfolded her throbbing finger again. So much pain enclosed in such a small area. She could hear the blood surging through her ears. She moaned to herself, rocking gently.

  The door of the study opened and the school doctor ushered Mrs Birmingham ahead of him. The Head was saying, ‘I shall require a second opinion of course, doctor. It may be nothing more than heat stroke. If you will speak to your Mr Maclntyre in the paediatric department and let him know that I shall be telephoning, I will try and reach him after lunch.’

  ‘Keep our fingers crossed,’ said the doctor, and Mrs Birmingham said, ‘I shall pray.’

  At that moment she caught sight of Constance.

  ‘Constance King, why aren’t you in a lesson?’

  ‘Miss Parry sent me out,’ said Constance and stood up, suddenly audacious. She knew they would be shocked. She walked over to the doctor and thrust her hand at him.

  ‘I was sent out of Miss Parry’s class for moaning, but my bad finger hurt so much that I couldn’t concentrate. Look!’

  Her finger was the size and colour of a rotten plum. Her hand shook as she held it towards him.

  ‘Good gracious, child!’ said the doctor. ‘That ought to be seen to. Have you told Matron?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Constance, ‘and she sent me away. She said she had more important things to do.’

  ‘It needs lancing,’ said the doctor. ‘It ought to be done at once. Mrs Birmingham … I had better take this girl up to the sick-room and deal with this. I’ll find my own way out.’

  Mrs Birmingham’s blue eyes, enclosed in fine wrinkles, smiled down at Constance with momentary tenderness.

  ‘Poor old sausage,’ she said. ‘It does look nasty. Never mind. Doctor Duncan’ll soon have you right as rain. Good thing you happened to be here.’ She turned and walked back into the study.

  The doctor escorted Constance up the main staircase, the one the girls weren’t supposed to use, and straight into the sick-room. He sat her down, washed his hands, reached for an enamel kidney-shaped bowl and balanced Constance’s wrist over it, her palm upwards.

  ‘You’ll be surprised,’ he said. ‘This won’t hurt a bit. Promise.’

  Constance watched in fascination as he sliced through the ball of her middle finger with a fine sharp instrument. Immediately the flesh sprang apart and a thick torrent of yellow pus veined with bright red blood oozed out. He squeezed the two sides of the cut together and patted her shoulder.

  ‘Brave girl!’ he said. Top marks. Now then, strictly speaking I ought to put a couple of stitches in this, but let’s try a butterfly plaster and hope for the best.’

  He criss-crossed a plaster over the flabby white incision and wound a gauze bandage several times round that, till the finger looked as swollen as before.

  ‘Now, it doesn’t hurt any more, does it?’

  ‘No,’ said Constance, grateful and astonished. ‘For the first time in days and days it doesn’t hurt any more.’

  ‘I’ll see you again tomorrow, have a look at how it’s getting on. Run away now. What lesson was it?’

  ‘Biology.’

  ‘Ah, biology … queen of the sciences. Tells us how we’re made. Ever thought of being a doctor? No? You’ve got a good steady hand. That’s one thing you need. Away with you now! I’ll talk to Sister.’

  Bloody woman, thought Dr Duncan. Deserves to be sacked. And I personally will see to it. That poor kid would have been reason enough on her own, but to ignore the symptoms of a major epidemic, in a place like this, was criminal. And unless I’m very much mistaken, what we’ve got here is polio.

  ‘Polio?’ said Mrs Birmingham. ‘Are you absolutely certain it’s polio?’

  ‘Polio, yes, I’m afraid so,’ said Mr Maclntyre. ‘Five definites and two possibles.’

  In the drawing-room Mr Maclntyre and Dr Duncan sat facing the Head and her Deputy. Sister Girdlestone and Miss Peachey sat rigidly side-by-side on another sofa. Sunlight streamed across the carpet, illuminating the faded colours of the Turkish rug in front of the empty fireplace. A slight breeze had started up, fluttering the edges of the curtains and blowing summer into their nostrils; a smell of cut grass mingling with the cloying scent from the bowl of roses on the table. The heat outside was unrelenting; today was the hottest yet, with the mercury rising towards the nineties. On the long slope of lawn beyond the windows the gardener was bent across the roller, mopping his brow. The topmost branches of the cedar moved sluggishly.

  The specialist had finished speaking. Mrs Birmingham met his gaze.

  ‘What must I do?’ she asked.

  ‘One, inform the parents of the sick girls who’ll need to be taken into hospital. Parents may want to have them nearer to home. It’s up to you to decide whether to close the school but in my view, there’s not much point at this stage. The incubation period is normally two to four weeks. The girls have all been exposed to it by now. It’s too late to shut the stable door.

  ‘Do I tell the girls?’

  ‘The rumours must be all over the school already. Once they see the ambulance arriving, they’re not going to believe in the heat-stroke theory any longer. But you know more than I do about how they’ll react. Adolescent girls are prone to communal hysteria, and soon you won’t be able to tell the real cases from the self-deluders.’

  O God, prayed Mrs Birmingham, still holding his eyes steadily, O God, shed Thy comfort upon these Thy sick children. Grant that they may recover, and not be paralysed for life. And grant to me, O Lord, in this heavy time, the humility to know what is best for me to do. Forgive us all our sins, for the sake of Thy Son. Amen.

  ‘Can you explain to me exactly what polio is?’ said the Head, in a firm voice. She glanced across at her Deputy and gave her a faint, encouraging smile. Peggy, she knew, would be devastated, though her face was impassive. They both looked at the two matrons, but their heads were bowed. The four women listened to the specialist in silence.

  ‘Poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis, is, as the name suggests, more common in children than adults, though it can be contracted at any age. It is a virus that attacks the central nervous system and can, in some 50 per cent of cases, result in partial or complete paralysis. Very, very rarely indeed it is fatal. It is most commonly spread by contaminated food or water. It starts with the kind of fever, headache, sore throat and aching limbs that in a hot spell like this may be mistaken for heat stroke. Those affected just want to stay in bed, lying down. They are weak and usually motionless. This stage is followed by increasing muscular pain, a very stiff neck and complete, prostrating weakness. The onset of paralysis may occur at this stage. If it does not, there is an excellent chance of full recovery. If it does, however, there is very little that we can do about it. Good nursing and total bed-rest go without saying.’

  As he spoke, his voice as precise as though he were describing a species of mos
quito from the Nile delta, Henrietta Birmingham suddenly saw a clear image of herself at sixteen. Those long summer days behind drawn curtains, beside her brother’s sick-bed. The atmosphere of pain and weakness invaded her consciousness like a scent. She narrowed to become the slender girl she had been then, passive and silent through hours of vigil, galvanized into hearing by James’s brusque, coarse, visceral memories. Her arms lost their creased texture, her hands their lumpy veins, as she saw her young arms stretch over the coverlet to lay the back of her hand coolly against a throbbing artery in his neck. Since then she had dreaded illness more than anything - much more than death. Yet she had married a hypochondriac who now lay dying. But Lionel was old. It was sickness in the young that plunged her into despair. Her adored brother Jamie, his leg monstrous and putrescent; that poor child’s finger had looked just the same.

  ‘Now, we have here five unmistakable cases, and another two which may or may not develop into the full-fledged illness. I have made arrangements for all seven to be admitted to St Patrick’s immediately. All other children, and for that matter, members of staff, should be watched carefully for any of the symptoms I have described.’

  ‘Have we been remiss? Could it have been prevented?’ Mrs Birmingham asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. My guess would be that it was picked up outside the school and brought in, possibly by a member of staff, or by a girl who hasn’t yet contracted the illness herself. When was the last time the girls went home?’

  ‘Half-term. Four weeks ago.’

  ‘That would be about right. One of them may have carried it back to the school.’

  ‘And school hygiene?’ asked Miss Roberts.