It comes as no surprise when Labby asks if I would be an “absolute sweetie” and hold the fort while she pops off to share a few stolen moments with Tom Richmond. Sometimes I wonder who suffers most from their relationship, the patients or the rugby team.
She gets a call at about two in the morning and pads off eagerly leaving me to the gloom and the stirring bodies. I try to read a book but I can’t take in the words and decide to make a tour of the ward.
Mrs Tiger’s mumbling can be heard three beds away. “Oh man, oh man, oh man. Take it away.” She pants as if in a fever. “Take it away!”
Her eyes are closed but her hands are moving down the bedclothes as if pushing something from her. It is all rather spooky and a bit kinky.
I can see Mrs Black’s eye glinting so I go over to her and ask if she is all right. Her back is turned towards Mrs Tiger’s bed and she nods very gently as if not wanting to draw attention to herself. “Always the same. Always talking, they are.”
I imagine that the “they” refers to all the Mrs Tigers in the world but Mrs Black’s next words make me change my mind. “He was here again last night. All the mumbo jumbo. I don’t like it. This is a women’s ward. Why should he come out of visiting hours?”
I should have done something about those pills, I think to myself. I wonder if I dare give her something without consulting anybody?
“It’s very trying,” I say. “But you must try and get some sleep.”
“I’m not going to sleep until the man’s been.”
“There’s no man, Mrs Black. You probably saw one of the house surgeons doing his rounds.”
“We don’t have any blackies. Black as your hat, this one. Scraping away with his sticks.”
Her voice dwindles away but the eye that I can see remains defiantly open. There is no point in talking further so I go back to the circle of light in the middle of the ward. How menacing it suddenly seems. An undefended camp surrounded by darkness. I wonder what the sticks were that Mrs Black was talking about. I can’t think of— and then it comes to me. Bones are like sticks.
I look down the ward and wish that Labby would come back. Even Night Sister would be a welcome visitor at the moment. I feel angry that I should be left alone to shoulder all the responsibility, but most of all I feel afraid.
From where I am sitting I can see Mrs Tiger thrashing in her bed and as I watch, the curtains over the French windows seem to have picked up the motion. I must be dreaming because—no, it can’t be. For an instant I think I can make out a figure standing at the bottom of Mrs Tiger’s bed. I close my eyes and when I open them the figure has gone. The curtains are still moving, though. Funny, because the windows can’t be open although that is what it looks like.
Without really wanting to I leave the imagined safety of the light and walk down the ward. A cold draught meets my face and I can see that the curtains are moving. It must be the wind—unless there is someone standing behind them. The latter thought does nothing to make me quicken my pace and it is in something approaching a panic that I stick out a hand and press the rippling fabric. The French windows are open.
Holding my breath, I go out onto the balcony. It is raining and I can see the drops picked out in the street lamp opposite. There is no sign of anyone. The windows must have been left open when the day nurses went off duty, although it is strange that I did not notice anything when I was talking to Mrs Black.
Feeling relieved and a little foolish, I shut the windows and draw the curtains tight. Mrs Tiger has stopped thrashing about and appears to be sleeping peacefully. She is lying on her back with her hands outside the sheets and resting on her lap.
I turn to go back to my table when my foot strikes something. I know what it is before I look down. A bone. One of a pair lying crossed at the foot of the bed. At the moment my foot touches it Mrs Tiger cries out and begins to stir. I pick up the bones and immediately her movements become more pronounced. The bones look exactly like the ones Sister waved under our noses. I don’t like touching them and drop them on the end of the bed. Immediately Mrs Tiger’s movements become less jerky and her mood calmer. It is as if her actions are governed by the position of the bones and that to interfere with them is to cause her discomfort. Her hands are still moving restlessly up and down her body so I take the bones and my courage in both hands and return the thin splinters to their original position on the floor.
Immediately Mrs Tiger sinks back like a deflated balloon and her hands stop moving. I breath a sigh of relief and see that Mrs Black is watching me.
“Did you see him?” she hisses. “He shouldn’t be here. I don’t want no blackie putting spells on me when I’m sleeping. It’s not nice.”
“I didn’t see anybody,” I lie. “Try and get some sleep. Mrs Tiger is quiet as a mouse.’
“It’s not right, he should come at the same time as the other visitors.”
I leave her muttering about the loopholes in the National Health Service and return to my table just as a ruffled Labby hurries into sight.
“Rosie, guess what happened?” she trills.
“Tom caught his prick in the driving band of a vacuum cleaner?”
I know it is not a very nice thing to say but I am feeling rather overwrought and eager to release tension.
“He asked me to marry him!”
“That’s fabulous but you ought to hear what happened while you were away.”
“I said yes, I thought about waiting until he got a registrar’s job but—”
“Mrs Tiger is being treated by black magic.”
“I didn’t think she was allowed chocolates. What is it? Some new kind of—”
“I’ve been through all that,” I shriek “I mean voodoo, obiah—that kind of black magic. There’s a witch doctor who slips into the hospital and leaves crossed chicken bones at the end of Mrs Tiger’s bed.”
Labby takes a step backwards and puts a hand on my forehead. “Have you been at the brandy again?” Her expression becomes menacing. “Or are you just trying to upstage my greatest moment?”
“Come and see for yourself,” I beg her. “I think it’s smashing about you and Tom and I hope you’ll be very happy,” I give her a kiss on the cheek. “Now come and see these bones. They’re just like the ones Sister found.”
Labby pads along behind me and I can tell that she thinks I am mad or playing a joke. “There you are.”
Labby stares at them sceptically. “I suppose I get an electric shock when I pick them up?”
“You won’t,” I say.
“Well, whatever they are, we can’t leave them there. Sister will go off her teeny rocker.”
Before I can stop her Labby bends down and picks up the bones. Immediately Mrs Tiger gives a yelp and rises up in bed as if hauled by a rope. Labby is so shocked that she drops the bones on the floor and I hurriedly rearrange them in a crossed position. Mrs Tiger sinks back onto her bed.
“Now do you believe me?” I say.
“It’s uncanny,” says Labby. “You’re sure you’re not joking?”
“Don’t be daft. How could I be?”
“I’ll fetch Tom. He’ll know what to do.”
Labby’s faith is touching but Doctor Richmond is reputed to be as thick as a lorryload of sanitary towels and I do not reckon that he is the man to deal with a problem of this delicacy.
“Don’t do that,” I say. “I know exactly what to do: leave the bones where they are.”
“What’s Sister going to say tomorrow