The nurse on the desk at the entrance to the Diana Ward in the Princess Wing smiled and waved at Ruth. There was a shiny photograph on the wall with HRH THE PRINCESS OF WALES written on it in curly writing. Sarah watched the reflections her feet made on the gleaming tiles. Long fluorescent tubes hung from the ceiling, making white stretches of light on the floor which Sarah tried to walk in. It was like step-on-cracks-break-ya-mother’s-back. Careful, careful, careful. Even the white of the nurses’ uniforms reflected on the floor in smooth white squares. The uniforms had been blue before, and the floor a dull brown. The smell hadn’t changed though. Sharp, piercing in through the nostrils.
The Baden-Powell Ward, that was it, the ward she’d been in before. The be bloody prepared ward, for it might happen to you ward. A dim shape danced behind Sarah’s eyes: a shape from that other ward, with the brown floors and blue-uniformed nurses. Kari strapped in and strapped around, with pins and needles poking in her everywhere and Ruth sobbing and sobbing and Sarah in her school uniform glaring at Ruth and glaring at a nurse who didn’t know where the drinks machine was and yelling at her that she was a stupid slut of a nurse. She hadn’t looked at Kari after that, just stayed near the window, kicking her feet on the floor and waiting to go. Most of the other visits she’d practised number patterns in her head, just sat staring at the wall, going three-five-seven-ten-twelve-fourteen-sixteen-nineteen. Or sometimes just counting in twos or threes. She usually got up to at least fifteen hundred before she was ready to fall asleep right on the visitor’s chair beside the bed.
It was there again, the far-away feeling, like she was floating away, like nothing could touch her. The no-feeling feeling. She watched her feet stomp along the Diana Ward, but as if her head and all the inside of her was somewhere else, away from her body.
Ruth pushed at a pair of wooden swing doors. There were three beds in a row, each surrounded by a small nestle of brown chairs and a crowd of pipes and tubes. The walls were a pale green, and fresh air was blowing through the room through a large open window. A tree was just outside, the leaves rubbing at the window, and Sarah could hear a faint chirping. Other sounds in the room. Not chirping, gurgling. Coming from the bed at the end of the room, a throaty watery gurgling. Breathing through snot. Sarah didn’t want to look. It wasn’t Kari, that was for sure, not that one up there, gurgling.
‘Hello, darl. Look who’s here to see you.’ Ruth’s voice was overloud and bright, yelling towards the centre bed and bending towards it, all cheerful. She turned to Sarah. ‘See, it’s very bright isn’t it? It’s a lovely room, really. That’s David over there.’ She pointed to the end bed, mouthed the words ‘car crash’ and sat down on one of the vinyl chairs.
Sarah nodded and sat, thinking instead of Zan’s curls, Zan’s laugh. Then, no, that didn’t work, that led to places she didn’t want to be, so she remembered instead the shape of her old high-school uniform: the square box pleats and thin belt. The precise shade of bottle green, and how her white collars had always been dirty inside the neck and how she’d hitched her skirt up over her belt so that she could have room to swing her legs.
There was a coughing sound next to her, creaking and cackling. She tried harder to remember, but the coughing was right there. Coming from the small shape on the bed, the small shape with the clear tubes leading from its nose and mouth and arm and joining into one long container propped up on a metal stand. Her hair had been cut short, cropped close to her head and her eyes were still open, staring like before. The coughing made her body shake and her eyes roll back, like a shaken doll.
‘They say it’s muscular, all the coughing, but it’s been worse lately. The infection’s set in. She’s had loads, loads of infections, it was only that this one was so much worse that they said not to use the antibiotics. I dunno if she knows ya here, but say hello just in case, love. Garn.’
‘Hi Kari.’ Sarah couldn’t make her voice loud and bright like Ruth’s. She’d never been able to do that, not in all the visits to that other ward, the Baden-Powell ward, with all the nurses saying how sad, so sweet, so easy for them to fall and hurt themselves when they’re like that. And Sarah sitting, back then, with her mouth closed and her eyes fixed on a point far away. If she’d learnt one thing from Ruth, it was that, how to do that.
There was another coughing sound from the figure on the bed, the un-Kari Kari. Some dribble fell from her mouth and slid down onto the sheet. It was thick and dark, not clear at all, like normal spit, but almost black. Ruth pulled a hankie from her sleeve and leaned over to wipe the cheek of un-Kari. ‘That’s the girl, it’s okay, love, no need to worry, ay? Nothing to worry about. Hold this would ya, Sarah?’
A sharp taste filled Sarah’s mouth. The black spit covering the hankie (ladies’, lace-edged). She remembered then, the other chant. This is not my sister, this is not my sister.
Ruth was fluffing pillows up and smoothing the sheet under the shape’s chin. ‘They’re usually very good in here. Neat. Clean windows.’ She gave a final flick to the sheets.
‘Good.’ Sarah smiled across the bed at Ruth. Made sure she didn’t look at the face attached to the shape lying on the bed. Too thin, the face and the shape.
Ruth smoothed at her skirt. ‘Sometimes I read to her. Every third or fourth day after work I come. I stopped coming every day after you left. She doesn’t know. They tell us she doesn’t know anything. It’s not like turning off a life-support machine. It’s not like that. They just stop treating her, that’s all. We should have let it happen at first, but we wanted, I did, I wanted it to be okay, I thought something might happen.’
‘Something already had happened.’ She didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to remember, but the numbness wouldn’t come back. She clenched her teeth together, let the fury be there instead.
Ruth was silent, smoothing the sheets again.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, the sheets are fine. Just leave it, Mum. This place stinks anyway.’
Ruth scrabbled for her purse, keeping her eyes down. ‘I’ll go and get some coffee. Would you like a cake from the canteen? Biscuits?’
‘No. Nothing. Just leave it.’ Just shut up.
‘Okay darl. Fine.’ The wooden doors swung heavily behind Ruth tottering on red heels.
That coughing again and more black gunge dribbling down. Sarah didn’t want to touch it, just left it there on the pillow and on the chin of the shape. On the chin of Kari. Once, early on in the Baden-Powell ward, just after it happened, Sarah had been left alone with Kari. She’d tried to look into Kari’s eyes, tried to send signals with her own, was sure – just for a moment – that they’d been received. She’d been trying to say something important, wanting to send an important message to Kari, one that would make her get better. So she’d sat and stared into the mixed-up brown and green of her sister’s eyes and thought come on, Kari really hard. Then she’d thought that maybe Kari wouldn’t want to get better, because she’d have to tell what happened. So then Sarah tried to send to her: You’ll never have to tell. I won’t tell. Just wake up. She was sure the message had gone through. But it was just the flicking about of the eyes really fast, that did it, made you think there was something going on in there inside the head. That was the biggest mistake, to think that, because nothing was. Nothing was going on. It was just muscular, like the coughing, and Sarah had been really, really stupid to think that it might get through. This time, alone with Kari, Sarah said nothing and thought nothing. She didn’t even have to concentrate on it, she could just make her mind blank blank blank.
‘Hot chocolate and chocolate shortcake, just in case. Do ya know, I think they’re building another wing over across the courtyard. There’s some building or somethin goin on there. Cement mixers and stuff. Hereya go, love, take it.’ Ruth handed a flimsy paper plate to Sarah, with a squashed looking slice on it.
‘I don’t want a cake. I said I didn’t.’
‘No love, I know, it’s just in case.’
Just in case what? In case the hospital got besieged by Martians and they had no food and Sarah would survive because of her wonderful chocolate shortcake? Just in case she starved?
‘When do they stop feeding her?’ Sarah sounded sharp-edged and hard, that was good.
The steaming coffee in Ruth’s hand spilt. ‘Dunno love. It’s not feeding anyway. They’ll talk to us about it tomorrow.’
Sarah ran her nail across the top of the shortcake. How can you not know about your own daughter. You learnt to drive, for god’s sake, you’re not stupid.
Ruth took a sip from the coffee. ‘I made the decision to have them stop. I want your father to be here when they name the time.’ When she looked across the bed at Sarah, her eyes looked bright and clear. ‘I’m doing the best I can, that’s all.’