By the time I returned to the rose garden, my enthusiasm for weeding had gone. That tiredness came over me, so I stood staring at the weeds in the central bed, fork still in one hand and wicker basket in the other. If I stood still long enough, I would go to sleep.
But I made myself begin. I dropped the basket and began tickling the stony surface of the baked, crusted soil and then, without knowing, as if suddenly wound up, I plunged the fork into the earth rhythmically, mindlessly. The work was automatic, hypnotic, like the days of my life. I was programmed to perform quite well. Everything worked. I moved, spoke and smiled. The fork rang out as I plunged it against the tiny white stones that littered the dry earth. I thrust harder and harder, lifting, bending. Particles of earth spilt onto the crazy paving and my hair fell loose and into my eyes. The prongs of the fork dazzled in the sun and as I twisted my body to avoid the sharp thorns from a green sucker, I plunged the fork into my foot.
My yell of ‘Shit!’ bounced off the walls.
I hardly dare look at the fork prong, rigid and embedded just beneath my big toe, but I had to pull it out. I shut my eyes and pulled. I thought it would all go away if I started digging again, go on as if nothing had happened, but of course that doesn’t work, does it? The nerves in my foot began to recover from the shock and the pain started.
I lifted my foot to somehow shake off the agony and blood was spurting onto the earth. The pain spread everywhere, so I hopped to the garden seat and rocked myself back and forwards in a kind of rhythm to ease the pain. I know I spoke to myself out loud, ‘You bloody idiot.’ And I knew I was going to have to do something. It was pouring blood, a bit scary. I had nothing with me to put round my foot so I half hopped, half limped back to the bathroom.
It was agony running the cold water over the deep hole, but nothing I could do would stem the bleeding and I had only bought a couple of handkerchiefs with me and these were quickly soaked in blood. Back in my room, I found my nylon tights and used them as a tight bandage, but the blood seeped through, so, short of tearing up a sheet or using another piece of clothing, there seemed nothing I could do.
Of course, I knew, with what I can only describe as shame, that I would have to go for help. Hadn’t Father Godfrey said something about a doctor staying with them? Oh, God, really, that was the last thing I wanted to do. But the bleeding wouldn’t stop and I began to feel sick and dizzy.
I leaned outside my door, eyes closed for a moment and when I opened them I saw Brother Joseph standing at the far end of the path, staring at me. It was a relief to see it was him. Somehow it didn’t seem so bad asking him for help, so I called, my voice horribly shrill in that quiet place. The brother jerked into action, like a puppet on a wire, and ran towards me, dragging the rabbit behind him.
He didn’t notice my bleeding foot; he was too interested in looking into my face and grinning up at me. His eyes blinked rapidly. ‘I was coming to find you,’ he panted. ‘Were you looking for me?’ His watery blue eyes longed for me to say, ‘Yes.’
‘You’ve come at exactly the right moment.’ I knew that would please him. ‘Can you help me, please? Look, I’ve hurt my foot. I need a plaster or something.’
He looked to where I was pointing and stared, then turned without a word, and quickly jogged away towards the house, stopping once to see if I was following. He could have been leading me to some priceless treasure, he looked so pleased with himself.
He disappeared into the house and by the time I reached the French windows he was nowhere to be seen. My foot was trailing blood and throbbing badly and I was irritated. Where was he, for goodness sake? The blood was seeping through the tights and I didn’t like to go into the house and drip it all over the place. I wanted to cry. But at that moment Brother Joseph reappeared with someone.
‘She’s hurt her foot. She’s hurt her foot. Dear, dear dear dear.’ And he patted my arm as he stared earnestly at the blood. I could feel the heat of his body.
‘What have you been doing with yourself, then? That’s a nasty gash.’ And the man in the jacket I had seen at breakfast knelt to unwind the tights. He looked up at me and smiled. ‘Wait a minute while I fetch some dressing.’ He walked back the way he had come, almost casually.
The rabbit was sniffing at the blood and I tried to hold it off by pulling hold of the lead.
‘Come away, Francis. Leave it alone.’ Joseph chuckled. ‘Poor Francis got to sleep outside now, haven’t you?’
He looked so hopefully at me, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything for the pain in my foot.
‘Got to go into the old dogs’ run, haven’t you?’ he repeated.
‘Oh dear,’ was all I could manage.
‘We’re not very happy about that, are we Francis?’ And then, ‘You like it in my room, don’t you?’
Thankfully, the man returned with a bundle of cotton wool. With this he mopped up the dripping blood and then, fixing a lump of it over the wound, he took me by the arm and guided me through the door, past the dining room and kitchen to a little room that had in earlier days been a pantry.
Inside was just like the school sickroom. There was a camp bed with a pillow and grey blanket folded at one end, a small, light brown wooden table and two chairs, and the walls were lined with white cupboards. There were some scales on the floor by the window and in one corner a washbasin.
‘Do you want to lie down?’
‘This is fine.’ And I sat on the chair. I knew, of course, that he was the doctor. ‘Sorry to be such a pest.’
‘How on earth did you do it?’
I tried making a joke out of it and he laughed, an ugly guffaw that quite unsuited his dark, musical voice.
He knelt beside me, eased my sandal off, now discoloured and sticky. They were ruined, and I liked those sandals too! He lifted my foot and began to clean the gash. ‘Well, this is not a very good start to your stay, I must say.’ And there was that sensuous tone again, always on the edge of laughter.
He poured some water into a stainless-steel bowl, adding some disinfectant, which he took from one of the cupboards.
I watched him watch me. I think I must have gone white, because I was feeling faint.
‘I think you should lie down,’ he said and helped me from the chair to the patients’ couch.
‘Sorry to be such a nuisance,’ I said again, and then wished I hadn’t.
‘You’ll have to have a tetanus injection,’ he said as he finished dressing my foot. ‘When did you last have one?’
‘When I was about six months old, I should think.’
He laughed. ‘Thought as much. It’s not something we bother about until something like this happens. Well, that’s all right, because I can do it for you.’
He went to one of the cupboards and took out a small vial and placed it on the table. From another cupboard he took out a white plastic dish, a syringe in paper and a needle capped in a blue sheath. He put everything into the plastic dish, then took out some squares of disinfectant tissue. He washed his hands, dried them carefully and then proceeded to fix the needle into the syringe. He had fine hands, strong and skilful, and he radiated confidence. There was something presumptuous about him, which both attracted and repelled me. I wanted to provoke him, to challenge him. I don’t know why. I examined him closely as he pushed the needle into the rubber cap of the vial and drew up the liquid. He was extraordinary, both attractive and strange-looking at the same time. He was tall and wide-shouldered with straight brown hair cut in an uneven fringe over his high forehead, but growing thick and long into his nape. His face was round, almost podgy and his large brown eyes stared out from behind round wire glasses.
‘Roll up your sleeve, please.’
He wiped the top of my arm with one of the antiseptic squares and then, holding the skin tightly between his fingers of one hand, he pushed the needle into my arm and slowly squeezed the plunger until all the liquid had gone. He placed another square over the spot where the needle was before pulling it out and pressing the square onto my arm.
‘Hold that for a moment.’
‘Ten out of ten!’ I mocked.
‘What?’
‘It’s a family joke.’
‘Oh! I scored high, did I?’
I didn’t want to smile.
‘You’ve got mud on your face.’ And he began to wipe my forehead and then my chin with the antiseptic squares. I noted his shoulders and the nape of his neck. He was so sure of himself. I liked that.
‘How’s the foot now?’ he asked, and I sat up as he pulled his chair up to the couch.
‘Well, it’s throbbing, I must say. My whole foot’s dropping off, I think!’
‘Look, I’m going to give you a couple of painkillers and then I want you to lie down for a bit. Don’t come for lunch. I’ll have something sent over.’
There he was, bossing me about, and there seemed no point in arguing. I wanted to ask him what he was doing in this place. Normally I would have done, but I did feel extremely tired, my energy had gone for the moment.