MUSIC: ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’ (Little Richard).
The old people – in a memory of their younger selves – perform a full-out song and dance. Then:
Mr and Mrs Earnshaw with Salter and Valentine.
Earnshaw Stay alive … That’s all she had to do. Three months.
Mrs Earnshaw We should have kept her at home. I said.
Earnshaw It’s a hospital. Keeping you alive is what they do. She’s done it on purpose. She never liked me.
The camera crew is trying to sneak in but is blocked by Salter.
Salter Sorry, sorry. Private grief. Private grief.
Earnshaw Come on in. Come on in. I don’t mind.
Salter No, no. These are heartbroken people. We have a duty of care. Dr Valentine.
Earnshaw Why? Weeping? There’s nothing you lot like better.
But Valentine ushers the crew out, before coming back himself.
I want to know why.
Salter Death is a mystery.
It’s the question loved ones so often ask: why?
Earnshaw Not – (Eyes up to heaven.) Why?
Why, as soon as you got your hands on her, did this old lass in relatively good nick suddenly peg out?
Salter Well, she had gallstones and of course she was incontinent …
Earnshaw Listen, Doctor. I don’t know much about medicine, but even I know you don’t die of wet knickers.
Valentine She was eighty-eight.
Earnshaw That’s no age nowadays. I read in the Mail that eighty is the new sixty. I want a post-mortem.
Salter Dr Valentine signed the death certificate.
Valentine She slept away. Try to think of it as a blessing.
Earnshaw A blessing to her maybe. Not to us. We’ve lost money. Where’s the blessing in that?
Mrs Earnshaw (weeping) This was the Pudsey Nightingale.
Earnshaw Don’t talk to me about the Pudsey Nightingale. I’ve never heard a nightingale, but if they are anything like your mother, I don’t wonder they’ve become extinct.
Salter Who was on that night?
Valentine Alma. (Correcting himself.) Sister Gilchrist. She’s a very experienced nurse.
Salter No one more so. She’s up for the Bywater Medal
Earnshaw I don’t care if she’s up for the V fucking C. I want an inquiry.
Mrs Earnshaw We loved her
Earnshaw Love nothing. We want compensation.
Enter Pinkney with a bag.
Pinkney We thought you might like the contents of Mother’s locker. A bottle of Lucozade, half full. An opened packet of Quality Street …
Mrs Earnshaw And what’s that?
Pinkney A tissue with some rhubarb crumble she’d saved from supper.
Mrs Earnshaw She used to do that a lot, squat food. Said you never knew where your next meal was coming from.
Earnshaw We can use the Quality Street. Though knowing her, there’ll be no soft centres. She’d always wolf them down first go off.
Mrs Earnshaw I think we’d like to donate the Lucozade, wouldn’t we?
Earnshaw It’s cost us a fortune, this. It’s cost us my retirement. Where were we going? Not Spain. Not Marbella. Colwyn Bay.
This is what you get for being modest in your aspirations. Robbed, that’s what we’ve been. By an eighty-eight-year-old woman. It must be a record.
Salter I will show you out. Very often, I have to say, at this age there is no obvious cause of death
Earnshaw And if they do have a post-mortem, they won’t find anything because I’ll tell you what she died of … Spite.
Pinkney comes after them.
Pinkney You forgot your Quality Street.
Earnshaw shoves them viciously in his pocket as they go. The expelled camera has crept back.
Cliff Anything?
Valentine (to camera) Ordinarily, it has to be said, rage at the death of a loved one of advanced age is happily rare, with relief more often the norm … The whole business these days coming under the name of closure … Closure to the guilt of not having visited or only staying half an hour when one does; closure to the boredom of talking to someone who is often incapable of talking back; closure to the boredom of having to talk to someone who is often disinclined to talk back. ‘A blessing’ is what relatives say. ‘A happy release’ … for everybody.
Thumbs up from Cliff. The camera withdraws.
Gilchrist has come on.
Gilchrist And closure, too, to the unpermitted thoughts.
Valentine What are those?
Gilchrist The uncaring thoughts. The real thoughts of a carer.
Salter returns.
Salter You do have the death certificate?
Valentine Of course.
Salter And cause of death?
Valentine Whatever fancy name we choose to give it – old age.
Salter Quite so.
If he does make a complaint, he hasn’t got a hope. Particularly so as ultimately any complaint ends up with me. The buck stops here. One feels almost sorry for them. Though at this age, most relatives are grateful.
Valentine (drily) They did donate the Lucozade.
Salter And post-mortems by request don’t come cheap. These days they have to contribute.
Valentine, a word.
An entirely unrelated matter. I’m not in the slightest bit worried about this, but one of the ladies has seen fit not actually to complain but to suggest that you’ve been touching her … inappropriately, stroking her …
Salter No no. Not stroking her anything. Just … stroking her. Taking her hand. That sort of thing. Being affectionate.
Valentine And should I not?
Salter Oh no no. Of course you should. And some of the old biddies I’m sure appreciate it. After all they’re not untouchables (sorry!) but what once upon a time would be called bedside manner these days borders on … interference.
Valentine I’ve been too loving?
Salter No–o. Though on another occasion you were seen to make an inappropriate gesture.
Valentine What sort of gesture?
Salter You … blew the old ladies a kiss.
Valentine That’s forbidden?
Salter Just endeavour to be more detached. A whisker less affectionate. More … unfeeling. In a word, more professional.
Valentine Touching the patient has always seemed to me part of the treatment.
Salter Oh it is. It is. It’s just a question of being less … well, remembering that you’re a doctor, you can be less human.
Incidentally, we’re in duty bound to enter this on your record, not that anything will happen. Just so that we’re all of us in the clear.
Valentine Of course.
Back on the geriatric ward.
Hazel (coming across Ambrose in his chair) I like you, Gilbert. You’re more refined. Do you want to go for a little ta-ta?
Ambrose My name’s not Gilbert and no, I don’t.
He reaches for his earphones, but she puts them out of reach.
Hazel No. We’re practising the art of conversation. They’ve put me in this cardigan. I said to them: tangerine’s a common colour.
You’ve got lovely fingernails. Were you a dentist?
Ambrose gets hold of his earphones and puts them on.
I thought she was going to be someone a bit more classy, that Pudsey Nightingale. ‘It was my house.’ I said, give over. I was awake when she went. Next thing you know they’re fetching on the trolley. Exit the Pudsey Nightingale.
I’ve never heard a nightingale. Have you? You don’t get them in industrial areas. I did hear a cuckoo once only that was over towards Harrogate where you could understand it.
Ambrose has taken off the earphones in despair. Valentine comes on, and Ambrose wildly signals for help.
Valentine Hazel. You’re wanted.
Hazel Me? Me and Gilbert were just having a nice little chat.
Valentine Pop along to Shirley Bassey. Do you know where that is?
Hazel Course. Shirley Bassey was Princess Margaret. I’m not barmy.
She goes.
Ambrose One wonders how it is Hazel has managed to survive so long without being throttled.
Valentine No.
Ambrose Am I a joke?
Valentine Ambrose, you’re old, that’s all. Are you still expecting your visitor?
Ambrose Well, he hasn’t been.
Valentine That’s good though, isn’t it? The important thing is to have something to look forward to.
Ambrose Yes. I wish I could just slip away like Mrs Maudsley. Only life has one in its jaws and it doesn’t give one up without a struggle. They talk about the jaws of death. Well, it’s not death that has jaws. It’s life. And now, here comes pain with its gull’s beak.
Valentine We’ll get you a tablet.
He wheels Ambrose away.
Mavis Has he ever mentioned a Mrs Ambrose?
Lucille Not to my knowledge.
Mavis That’s sad.
Lucille Maybe he’s not cut out for it.
Mavis What?
Lucille Marriage.
Mavis Course, when we first started, marriage was still the gateway to sexual intercourse.
Lucille Well, yes and no. I jumped the gun a bit. What was yours like?
Mavis Ellis?
He’d been well brought up.
He always asked first and said thank you afterwards.
Lucille What did you call it?
Mavis We didn’t call it anything.
We didn’t talk about it.
Lucille We never talked about anything else. Except football. I had three husbands, all of them football mad.
I’d outlaw football.
Mavis With Ellis it was pigeons. Pigeons and model aeroplanes.
Lucille Pigeons. Football. Still, it was better than this.
Andy wheels Joe into the ward.
Andy Here we are again. Fatima Whitbread.
Joe So. Have you worked out any more small talk?
Andy shrugs.
Actually, never mind small talk, I’m busting for my bottle. Where is it?
Andy I’m not sure if I should be giving it to you.
Joe Why not? Give us it here.
Andy Health and Safety.
Joe I’m busting.
Andy holds it out, then takes it back
Andy What do you say?
Joe No, you little sod. Give us it here.
Andy A little word? Beg. Beg.
Joe Please, you rotten bugger.
He gives him it and Joe pees.
Joe ‘Thank you’ my arse. You don’t belong in a hospital, you. You ought to be in a Borstal.
Andy Borstal? I’ve got a GCSE.
Joe So what? Our Colin’s got ten, not to mention the ones that come after.
Andy What?
Joe A-Levels. Four. Starred.
You must be sorry the mines have gone, you.
Andy Why?
Joe Because they let you in no questions asked. You, you’re going nowhere. One won’t get you far.
Andy They’ve done you in, though, haven’t they?
Joe What?
Andy The mines.
Joe I was happy.
Andy And now you’re an invalid.
I bet at your Colin’s work they don’t all pile into the baths like you did. He won’t be scrubbing the Minister’s back.
Joe He’s scrubbing it already.
Andy He’d probably have been happier doing all that.
Joe All what?
Andy Showers and that.
Joe What’s that supposed to mean?
Andy All that Lycra and stuff. That’s what he likes. Is
that why he went off to London?
Joe (does some of this bring on his coughing?) You dirty-minded little arsehole.
Andy ‘Have a go on my bike.’ We know what that means. He was trying it on.
Joe Our Colin? He never was. And if he was, it wouldn’t be with you.
Andy Who would it be with? Another Mr Ten-A-Levels? He doesn’t realise things have changed up here. There’s gay clubs in Barnsley these days. That’s where they scrub each other’s backs now.
Joe Where is she?
Andy Who?
Joe That nurse. She was due to cut my toenails.
Andy You’re an old fart, you. What’re you doing in hospital? My grandad’s not in hospital and he’s older than you.
Joe I have a rare disease.
Andy Bollocks.
He jigs the wheelchair about.
Joe Stop jogging me.
Andy Why, do you not like it?
He does it more.
Joe I’m entitled to respect.
Andy You’re old. You’re entitled to fuck-all. Here.
He gets the pee bottle and starts taunting him with it.
Joe Leave off. It’s splashing me.
Andy Oh dear. I am sorry. I’ve spilled a bit. Butterfingers.
He sloshes the contents of the bottle over Joe.
Joe Get off. Stop it, you rotten bugger.
Andy You’re lucky it’s your own, not mine.
Joe Help. Nurse!
Pinkney comes in.
Pinkney What is it? What’re you shouting about Joe?
Joe I’m all wet.
Andy If he’d said, I’d have taken him.
Joe This, it’s not me. Honestly. It’s him.
Andy Can I help?
Pinkney No, I’ll see to him.
Andy clears off.
Joe It was him, the blighter.
Pinkney I thought he was your friend.
Joe So did I. He poured it over me.
Pinkney Never.
Joe He was showing off. It was him. It wasn’t me.
Pinkney You’ve only wet your ’jamas. It’s not a tragedy.
Joe It is for me.
Pinkney Why?
Joe If it goes down on her list, I’m done for.
Pinkney Don’t be so silly. Only I’ll have to tell her.
Joe Why? You could just change me. Come on. Be sharp and she won’t know.
Pinkney is already on her mobile.
Pinkney It’s Rosemary. Have you got a minute? Fatima Whitbread.
Joe No. No.
Pinkney She keeps a record. She has to know.
Joe Her list.
Pinkney It’s part of her economy drive.
Enter Gilchrist.
Gilchrist What is it?
Pinkney I’m afraid Joe’s had a little accident.
Joe I never have.
Gilchrist Joe? This isn’t like you.
Pinkney I thought I’d better tell you.
Gilchrist You did right. Dear me, Joe. I don’t know. You’re all the same in the end.
Joe It’s not me, this. Honestly. It’s him, the little monkey. He did it. The lying little sod. He poured it all over me.
Gilchrist And why would he do that?
Joe Out of devilment. It’s the way they are when they’re young.
Pinkney Andrew? No. He’s got a GCSE.
Gilchrist I’m disappointed in you, Joe. You’ve spoiled your record.
And my dancing partner. I don’t want a partner who wets himself.
Pinkney We’ll get you some dry things. I’m sorry.
Joe Judas.
Gilchrist Ramesh. Don’t get over-excited. We may have a bed coming up.
Tonight or first thing.
I’ll be in touch.
MUSIC: a pre-echo of the waltz that Gilchrist and Joe will dance later.
Two of the old ladies dance.
Joe talks to his son on his mobile under the bedclothes.
Joe It’s your dad.
Where do you think I am? I’m in bed. On the ward. Where are you?
A box? What kind of a box?
The opera? I didn’t know you liked opera.
If you don’t, why do you go?
You’re with the Health Secretary? Does he like opera?
Well, why does he go then?
Who lends him the box? Pharmaceuticals? Do they like opera?
Speak up. What’s all that going on?
Tosca?
No, I don’t want to listen. You listen to me. I’m ringing to say goodbye.
I may not be here in the morning.
Why? Because I’m like a trophy. The longest-living patient. The King of the Jungle. I’m on her list. I thought she liked me.
Don’t ‘Dad’ me.
Why have you got to go?
What big number?
She stabs him? What did he do? Wet himself?
What’s it about?
Love.
I bet that’s not cheap, a box.
Opera in the Minister’s box. Goodbye, Colin. You’ve come a long way.
Gilchrist in the ward with a mug of milk.
Joe Here you are, Alma, prowling the ward.
Gilchrist I don’t prowl. I patrol.
Good news.
Joe Yes?
Gilchrist Your infection’s cleared up.
Joe Why is that good news?
Gilchrist You’re much better. You’re eligible for discharge.
Joe When?
Gilchrist Tomorrow.
Joe Tomorrow? No. Where do I go? There’s no room at The Cedars.
Gilchrist That’s what I thought. Only you’re in luck. Someone’s died.
Joe He’s the lucky one. It’s a bin. I’m not going back there. I’m not.
Gilchrist Drink your milk.
Joe I liked us dancing.
Gilchrist Same here.
Joe Do you want a go now?
Gilchrist If we’re quiet.
They dance.
MUSIC: ‘I Can Give You the Starlight’ (Ivor Novello).
Joe (as they finish) It’s the last waltz.
Gilchrist Don’t be so daft.
Joe I’ll miss you getting your medal.
Gilchrist No.
Joe With going to The Cedars.
Gilchrist Oh yes. Well, never mind.
Aren’t you going to drink your milk?
He doesn’t say anything.
Well, it’s there if you want it.
Goodnight. God bless.
The scene ends with him staring at the milk.
Colin, Valentine, Salter and Gilchrist, the following day. Colin in suit and his office clothes, having plainly just arrived.
Colin I was sympathetic up to a point, but I was in the middle of an important meeting. I wasn’t free to talk.
Gilchrist Your father said you were at the opera. Tosca.
Colin Yes.
Gilchrist With the Health Secretary.
Colin We had things to discuss. The opera was incidental. What else did he say?
Gilchrist He was very proud, but he was upset you couldn’t talk.
Colin I did talk.
Gilchrist I left him a cup of something. To settle him down.
Colin What sort of something?
Colin He said he was going to die. He was on a list.
Salter I have to say, Mr Colman, such fantasies are not unusual.
Valentine And he had been ill. A chest infection. Which would make him vulnerable to quicker deterioration.
Colin He was in fear of his life.
Salter Patients often feel threatened, imagine that their belongings have been taken, for instance, the world a hostile place.
Colin Have there been other unexplained deaths?
Salter Valentine?
Valentine To die at eighty-six is hardly unexplained.
Colin What are the figures? How does the death rate compare with that in equivalent institutions?
There is a silence.
Don’t you know?
Salter Valentine?
Valentine I don’t have the figures at my fingertips. Comparing like for like, I should be surprised if they were unusual.
Colin Any spike? Five minutes on the computer would tell you.
Valentine Supposing the figures were high, geriatrics is the end. People die.
Gilchrist And, the ward was immaculate. What relatives came to visit remarked on it.
Salter And no one ever complained.
Colin Though what?
Salter What Valentine is referring to is a complaint, specious in my view, over a patient – Mrs Maudsley – her daughter and son-in-law having found themselves disadvantaged by Mrs Maudsley’s decease and are seeking compensation from the hospital.
Colin Do you carry out post-mortems?
Valentine Not invariably.
Colin ‘Not invariably’?
Valentine Not usually. These were patients in their eighties and nineties.
Colin So you keep saying. Who signed the death certificates?
Salter Dr Valentine, naturally.
Valentine It was a matter of course. Here, death is no stranger.
Salter Sister Gilchrist, have you anything to add?
Gilchrist I am not sure what is being suggested. That I was negligent?
Valentine Or that I was?
Colin I am not suggesting anything. Like any other grieving relative, I would just like some answers.
Colin on the mobile to George as the old people assemble.
It’s what I thought about this place from the start. It’s too cosy.
They’re having an inquest on this other old lass, Mrs Maudsley, but only because the family kicked up. If I want one I shall have to wait on that.
I know my father’s dead, George. But on the plus side, none of this is going to do the hospital any good.
MUSIC: ‘Sunny Side of the Street’.
Mary approaches Cliff with the camcorder.
Cliff Hello, darling.
Mary She seemed right as rain. Still going on about her house. I don’t want to get anybody into trouble.
Ambrose I do apologise but I’m afraid I can’t be there at your presentation.
Gilchrist No problem. I wish I didn’t have to be there myself.
Ambrose The truth is I’m expecting a visit from one of my old pupils. He’s just got back from …
Gilchrist You don’t want your bag emptying?
Ambrose Addis Ababa.
Pinkney (starts to wheel him into position) Where did you say?
Ambrose Addis Ababa.
Pinkney Oh, he won’t be coming now.
Ambrose Why? We don’t know.
Pinkney Yes, we do. There’s been a bus strike.
Salter Friends. Because we’re all friends here. Some of you old friends.
There is banging on the tray from Molly.
Thank you. (Meaning it to stop here, which it doesn’t.)
Gilchrist That’s enough, Molly.
Salter And if you’re seeing this courtesy of Pennine People, then you’re likely to be a friend, too. One of the many thousands loyal to our much-loved hospital, and who have given us your support. We can all be truly proud of ourselves. I’m afraid, though, that there’s no decision yet, so there’s still the threat of Tadcaster.
Hazel Where’s Tadcaster?
Salter It’s not where it is. It’s what it is. Big, modern and with a huge catchment area, some people say Tadcaster is the future and that we belong to yesterday already. Well, here at the Beth, cosy, friendly and above all local, we believe that yesterday is the new tomorrow.
Finally, an unexpected pleasure and a great honour for our hospital. Our longest-serving nurse is due to retire in a few weeks’ time and, in recognition of her service, the Royal College has awarded her its Bywater Medal, which I am now delighted to present. Sister Gilchrist, our own Lady with the Lamp.
Gilchrist steps up and he pins on the medal.
Some applause, though one call of ‘stab her’ as he pins it on.
Molly bangs her tray.
Salter That’ll do, Mrs Ridsdale.
She continues to bang.
Gilchrist Molly. Knock it off.
She promptly stops.
Salter Sister Gilchrist.
Gilchrist I won’t keep you long. Mrs Mathieson wants changing and we’re waiting to do the drug round; Miss Proctor’s cannula is leaking through its bandage; and I’ve all the paperwork to do with Mr Colman’s unexpected departure this morning. You’ll forgive me if I don’t gloss over these mundane and possibly distasteful concerns, but they are the small change of a nurse’s day. I have switched off my pager, or it would doubtless be reminding me that it’s time for Mr Satterthwaite to take his prostate pill, and Mrs Hainsworth her Losec.
Nursing is thought to be a calling. To be a nurse one is expected to have a vocation. My vocation came about like this.
My mother was a widow. I was an only child. When I was thirteen, no older, my mother took to loaning me out, hiring me to be more exact, to anyone who needed help with a senile parent. Typically, it would be someone who said, ‘We have to do everything for them.’ When anyone says that, as I soon learned, it means they have to do one thing for them … clean them up, and this I did. Joyless though my life was, I was still doing it six years later when my mother went the same way and so became what one might call my client, and I her somewhat uncaring carer. Then she died, and I had to find a job.
It was only then that I realised that what I had regarded at best as distasteful and at worst as slavery was in fact my apprenticeship. And so I became a nurse. It was not easy. Nobody had told me that nursing meant passing examinations. Thanks to my mother I had missed much of my schooling so I wasn’t much good at that. But I managed the basics, and via a care home graduated to geriatrics, where the finer skills are seldom required. I don’t know who the other recipients of the Bywater Medal are, but I imagine they will have credits and diplomas galore. Not me. Because nursing is not my chosen vocation but just where I’ve landed up though it doesn’t make me any less of a nurse … as this medal seems to acknowledge …
Salter thinks she has finished and gets up.
Gilchrist … It has not been easy but all I can say is that I have done what I could.
I shall wear my medal with pride, but it will be a reminder of what nursing used to be like. If I am an award-winner, it is because I am old-fashioned. I have comforted the afflicted. I have treated the sick and I have consoled the dying. Nursing, I have made room.
Salter Thank you, Sister Gilchrist. Outspoken as ever.
The choir sings again.
MUSIC: ‘Congratulations’ (Cliff Richard).
As they perform, Alex and Cliff are with Salter. They have a laptop. As Salter watches it, cross-fade to:
The camera crew, once more in evidence, this time focusing on Gilchrist. A voice interviewing her, but no light on the interviewer.
Gilchrist Not at all. I was actually looking forward to retirement and hanging up my Marigolds.
When I first started nursing, there was much talk of targets. Targets was the new and exciting idea that was going to galvanise the Health Service. Put in charge of old people, I found it hard to see what targets there could be. And nobody told me.
On any other ward, the target was recovery and discharge. But here if there was recovery there was often no discharge. So there was just one target and that was death.
Voice And you helped them achieve that?
Gilchrist A more rapid turnover on the ward seemed to suit everybody. And I mean everybody.
The doctors, for obvious reasons, the loved ones, socalled, who seldom visited, and when mother or father died, the relatives seemed glad to be relieved of the obligation.
Voice You say everybody seemed pleased. Does that include the patients?
Gilchrist I was a facilitator, self-appointed, I agree, and in any other profession – and nursing is a profession if it is allowed to be – in any other profession, I would be called a progress-chaser.
Voice Did nobody ask?
Gilchrist I am not a doctor. I am a woman. I’m a nurse. Nobody was interested.
Voice Was it just random?
Gilchrist Certainly not, I’m a professional. I didn’t just pick on anybody. There had to be a criterion. What makes most work on wards like these is incontinence. I had a list, and as soon as anybody started to soil themselves, they went on it.
Voice Was that where you drew the line? Nobody ever asked?
Gilchrist Not until Mrs Maudsley.
Voice You were fond of Mr Colman?
Gilchrist Well, normally he was clean. I kept a record. I have a notebook somewhere.
Voice Yes. We have it.
Gilchrist I felt I was making a contribution.
Voice By killing old people?
Gilchrist By helping them to die. Clearing the decks.
Voice It’s no less murder for being a metaphor.
You say life was a burden to them. Do you think this is what they would have chosen?
Gilchrist How should they choose between life and death? Most of them can’t even choose between mince and macaroni.
Voice We’ll take a break there. Interview suspended at 15.35 p.m.
It’s only fair to say that you’re looking at a very long sentence: life, and with no one to commute it as you so kindly did theirs.
Another interview comes into focus on the other side of the stage: Valentine’s hearing.
Voice You’re in the news. This nurse. Did you know her?
Valentine Of course.
Voice And you never twigged?
Valentine It’s hardly what one expects.
Voice You don’t have a suspicious mind. Whereas I do. It’s what I’m paid for.
I see you had a student visa but stayed on. Well, at least you didn’t come in with a truckload of oranges.
So, what makes you think you would be an asset to this country?
Valentine I am a doctor.
Voice Besides that. We have doctors of our own. You must remember that in England there’s not an infinite amount of room. On a Saturday afternoon you can’t move, even in Pontefract. Anything else?
Valentine I work with old people.
Voice It’s true there’s no shortage of those. Mostly white, I take it?
Valentine Why do you say that?
Voice The point I’m making is that being less advanced than we are, you tend to keep your own old people at home. Now, the questions.
I won’t insult you by asking who won the 1966 World Cup, but I see that the hospital where you work has a choir.
Valentine It has.
Voice Are you in the choir?
Valentine I sometimes help out.
Voice Well then, you won’t mind, just as a formality, if we ask you to sing something. ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Do you want the words?
Valentine No.
Voice That’s good.
Valentine (sings)
Land of Hope and Glory,
Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee,
Who were born …
He stops.
Actually, I can’t.
Voice Oh, I was rather enjoying it.
Valentine I’ve never liked it. Even Elgar hated it.
Voice What’s he got to do with it?
Valentine He wrote the music.
Voice But it’s not the music you’re objecting to, is it? A pity. You were doing so well.
Valentine I’m auditioning to be English. What you’re wanting is a Brit.
Voice Good morning, Dr Valentine. Nice try.
Pause.
Oh, and when the time comes, I’d have my bags packed. They tend to call early in the day.
Colin and Salter watching the titles sequence of the documentary.
On the monitor: the opening ninety- second title sequence of their now complete documentary – WHEN CARERS KILL: DEATH AT THE BETH, a prime-time special. Cut fast, to music with commentary or captions putting together the highlights of the story:
Salter saying nobody likes old people.
Valentine holding Lucille’s hand.
Gilchrist in full kit.
Choir singing, plus the Pudsey Nightingale.
Death of Mrs Maudlsey.
Award of the Bywater Medal.
Salter reading a statement outside the hospital.
Gilchrist escorted to a prison van with screaming crowd.
Salter You ask me if I knew. I reproach myself now, but to be honest, I knew and I didn’t know, which is often the case when circumstances not of one’s choosing contrive to work to one’s advantage.
Colin I have mixed feelings. I grieve for my father, naturally. But I’m not sorry about the closure, though it was none of my doing. And there is a lesson here. It is that one person with conviction and a degree of self-regard can even by accident defeat the entirely worthy efforts of all the rest. Forget the beds trundled up Penyghent, the urologists abseiling down Gaping Ghyll and the midwives plunging across Morecambe Bay, all go for nothing when one person with an agenda of their own wills it otherwise. Democracy nothing. Will, that is what matters. What carries the day is will.
Salter Yours or hers?
Colin Will and chance. Never mind how many patients she saw off, she certainly killed the hospital.
The patients file on (in their outdoor clothes?) ready to go to Tadcaster, now accompanied by Pinkney, Gerald, Fletcher and Ramesh.
Lucille You’ve got yourself dolled up.
Mavis Well, we’re off to Tadcaster.
Hazel (pushing Ambrose’s wheelchair) We’re looking forward to it, aren’t we, Gilbert?
Ambrose ‘We’, Hazel? ‘We’? You and I do not belong together even in the same personal pronoun.
Hazel Well we might at Tadcaster.
Pinkney You won’t know you’re born. There’ll be WiFi, and you’ll be able to Skype your loved ones on a daily basis. Skype! Skype!
Neville The other one was a villain. Now this one’s taken leave of her senses.
Pinkney Trust me. Tadcaster will be heaven. (To Ramesh and Fletcher.) Are you coming?
Ramesh No.
Fletcher No fear. There’s a posh clinic just starting.
Pinkney Where?
Ramesh The in-place.
Pinkney Dubai?
Fletcher Hull!
Mary Tadcaster’s a bit far for folks to come, visitors.
Cora Well they never do come.
Mary Yes, only now they’ll have an excuse.
Ambrose Are you not coming?
Valentine To Tadcaster? I’m not asked. Having presented my furtive self for examination and been found wanting, I shan’t be available. Besides, I’ve been told I’m too hands-on.
He takes Ambrose’s hand.
Ambrose I shall miss you. You’ve saved my life.
Valentine No.
Ambrose No. You’re right. Nobody saves anyone’s life. Just postpones their death.
Valentine That’s the spirit.
Valentine pats him reassuringly.
Valentine He’ll come.
Ambrose Oh yes. In some shape or form.
Valentine turns front.
Valentine Nurse Pinkney was right when she said Tadcaster was going to be heaven. Only she never got to be an angel there, a casualty of the downsizing that privatisation inevitably involves.
Still, with the nurses largely from the Philippines, where they are brought up to treat the old with more respect, there were no complaints from the patients.
Who now go off, singing.
MUSIC: ‘Side by Side’ (Dean Martin).
Salter Though I managed to snap up the hospital buildings for one of my property companies, I was hoping for some appropriate recognition of my services in the form of a knighthood. Thanks to Sister Gilchrist, all I’ve ended up with is a measly CBE. However, after some well-placed philanthropy, at our local university I managed my heart’s desire in the form of an honorary degree. So now I am at last Doctor Salter.
And perhaps we see him in his academic robes.
Colin Salter notwithstanding, the sale represents a healthy capital gain for NHS funding, the hospital having reinvented itself as a boutique hotel, with, in a graceful acknowledgement of its previous existence, the principal suites named after Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell. For the moment, its best-known nurse remains uncommemorated, though a play about her is threatened at the local theatre.
Valentine I see Alma, as I’m now permitted to call her, from time to time. It’s a place in the wilds of Lincolnshire.
In the prison garden.
Gilchrist I’m not unhappy.
I share a garden which I’ve never had. I prefer plants that grow in the shade. And I paint. All that. I’m still a celebrity only it’s wearing off. I don’t imagine I will ever be released. Though in case it would help I was advised to say sorry. Show some remorse.
Valentine And did you?
Gilchrist I did … but no one believes me.
And they’re quite right … I took … a short cut … several … I can see that. But if people love their parents why do they put them away?
Gilchrist No. That’s what I asked them. They said it wasn’t remorse.
Only it’s honest.
She takes his hand.
Will you come again?
Valentine How can I? I am forbidden these shores.
Gilchrist Will you write?
Valentine (turning out front) It was a difficult conversation and in one of the many pauses, for want of anything better, I said –
(Turning back to her) When I was doing my training, before I plumped for geriatrics, I was very keen on surgery. Through observing and even participating in colorectal surgery, I was struck by something extraordinary, namely that the flesh of the bowel of mature and even aged patients was no different from that of the flesh of a child or a young person. Unique among every department of the body, the bowel does not seem to age. So these ancient and faltering persons, carry within their venerable bodies a remnant of their infant selves, part of them still young and ageless.
Why? Solve that and you would undoubtedly get the Nobel Prize.
So you see, Alma, nobody can be quite written off, even the Pudsey Nightingale.
Gilchrist Perhaps.
She continues to garden. Valentine turns front again.
Valentine Well, at least she has her place, even if that place is prison. Me, I have no place.
Come unto these yellow sands and there take hands. Only not mine, and so, unwelcome on these grudging shores, I must leave the burden of being English to others and become what I have always felt, a displaced person.
Why, I ask myself, should I still want to join? What is there for me here, where education is a privilege and nationality a boast? Starving the sick and neglecting the old, what makes you special still? There is nobody to touch you, but who wants to any more? Open your arms before it’s too late.
In the meantime, though I cannot be English, I remain a doctor, if only in places where nobody asks questions … a doctor on a cruise ship for instance where, who knows, I might even meet somebody and have a shipboard romance.
So when you next go on a cruise to the Adriatic or the Greek Islands and get that nasty tummy bug, take another look at the ship’s doctor.
It might be me.
He smiles.