Oh well.
Thursday 17th January 1980
It didn’t feel this bad even right after I did it.
They took more x-rays. Dr. Abdul wanted to talk to Daniel, and seemed cross that he wasn’t there, as if I kept him in my pocket. They let me go, eventually, insisting I take a metal stick instead of using my perfectly nice fairy one. I only just made it to the bus stop, and then from the bus stop to the other bus stop. It’s a good thing there are walls to sit on. It was never this bad before. I think they’ve made it worse, I think they’ve wrecked it forever and that’s what he wanted to tell Daniel and wouldn’t tell me.
I’m back in the library. Miss Carroll thinks I should be in bed. She brought me a barley sugar and a glass of water, even though eating in the library is strictly forbidden.
Pain, pain, PAIN.
Friday 18th January 1980
In bed in the San. Lying down with pillows and no rack is wonderful. Lying still doesn’t hurt all that much. I never appreciated school food before either. Of course, one good thing about hospital was visitors. Nobody can visit me here except Deirdre and Miss Carroll. They’d have a fit at Janine or Greg, and probably expel me if Wim came, not that he would.
I’m catching up on the school work I missed, well, I’ve done it all except the maths. I don’t have maths brain anyway, and somehow I can’t keep the numbers straight when there’s all this pain. In geography, we are doing Glaciation. I have done this before, so I have no trouble with it. In fact, it’s boring, yes, glaciers, cwms or corries, terminal moraines, u-shaped valleys. Deirdre hadn’t heard of it before and confessed to nightmares about it. I was very good and didn’t tell her the story of Clarke’s “Forgotten Enemy.”
I won’t be able to go to town tomorrow, but I hadn’t arranged to meet anyone anyway. Miss Carroll will take my library books back and collect any new ones. Maybe by Tuesday I’ll be all right. Or as all right as I was before.
I want my mobility back. I feel trapped. I hate this.
Return to Night is excessively and unsubtly Freudian. It does have some good bits though.
Saturday 19th January 1980
Daniel came to see me, which was a surprise. He put his head around the door. “Who do you think I’ve brought?” he asked.
I hoped for Sam, but I guessed right that it was his sisters. I was surprised that it was only one of them. “Hello, Aunt Anthea,” I said, which made her jump. It was just a guess of course, but a guess based in experience. Usually if there’s just one of them, it’s Anthea, who is the oldest.
“I just couldn’t resist coming to see the old place,” she said.
“I’m surprised the others could resist,” I said, as Nice Niece as I could be.
“There wouldn’t have been room in the car, dear.”
Now Daniel’s car, like most cars, like every car in the world apart from maybe Auntie Teg’s little orange Fiat 500, holds four people. Even Auntie Teg’s car, which we call Gamboge Gussie the Galloping Girl—Gussie because the registration number starts GCY—can hold four, it’s just a bit of a squash, especially if any of them are tall. So that was when I realised that they’d come to take me back with them.
“To convalesce,” Daniel said.
It seemed to me that it would have been more use if Daniel had come on a weekday and talked to Dr. Abdul, but it seemed he’d spoken to him on the phone—I wonder who initiated that call? In any case, it seemed as if the school thought it would take me a little while to be back in class, and I’d be better off being nursed at home. Well, that might be the case, for people who have homes. I tried every argument I could think of to stay in school, including a few outright Nice Niece ones, like not wanting to miss the hockey match against St. Felicity’s, but none of them held water.
I found myself being helped down to the car. That sort of help is actually a hindrance. If you ever see someone with a walking stick, that stick, and their arm, are actually a leg. Grabbing it or lifting it or doing anything unasked to the stick and the arm are much the same as if you grabbed a normal person’s leg as they’re walking. I wish more people understood this. A number of girls saw me leaving, and of course Nurse knows, so I expect someone will tell Miss Carroll and she’ll think to tell Greg who will tell the others. “The others,” I say, and I do mean Janine and everyone as well as Wim. But I should admit that mostly I mean Wim. I think I have a bit of a crush on him. And I stupidly left his Zelazny books, which I was saving, in school, so I can’t even read them.
Sunday 20th January 1980
There’s half a gale blowing, and it feels as if it could shake the Old Hall down. It bangs against the windows and creeps through the cracks and whistles down the chimneys. Lying here I can feel the whole house singing with it, as if it were a sailing ship.
I have plenty of books, and Daniel comes up now and then to ask if I want more. I have pillows, and I’m not hooked to a rack. I can hobble to the bathroom. I have a decanter of water, a real decanter with a proper crystal stopper. They bring me meals, which are no worse than school meals. (If there’s magic in the food it’s the magic of the Old Hall going on as it always has without any disturbance, that’s all I can feel.) I have a radio, which plays the news, and the Archers, and Gardeners’ Question Time and, to my surprise and delight, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! It’s terrific as a radio play. I suppose I could retune the radio away from Radio 4, which Grampar still calls the Home Service, to Radio 1, which people used to call the Light Programme. The only advantage of this would be annoying the aunts, because Radio 4 might have other unexpected gems like HGttG, whereas all Radio 1 would have would be pop music. Most of the time I just read anyway.
How long am I going to be stuck here?
I hobbled downstairs for supper, which is what they call dinner when it isn’t formally served. It was macaroni cheese, overcooked and on the edge of inedible. They all sat there eating it and making inane remarks, nodding and smiling. I played Nice Niece. Actually I’m longing to talk to Daniel about the possibility of Glasgow at Easter, but I want to do it when there’s no chance of them hearing.
Afterwards, I asked if it would be okay to phone Auntie Teg. They couldn’t very well say no, with Daniel right there, so I called her. She was horrified to hear about the hospital and that she hadn’t known, and didn’t believe that it seemed to have made things worse. She always tries to look on the bright side and find every silver lining, which is very nice sometimes, and there’s nobody in the world better to celebrate with, but isn’t very useful at the moment. She said she’d explain to Grampar why I hadn’t been in touch and give him my love. I hope it doesn’t upset him—but it won’t, she’ll probably say it’s making me better and soon I’ll be running again. I wish it was. Even when my leg isn’t actively hurting there’s a kind of an ache all the time now. I’m sure it’s worse.
The phone is in the corridor, and on a sort of table with a padded bench attached. I was sitting on the padded bench while I talked to Auntie Teg. After I put the phone down, I wondered who else I could call, while I was here and everyone else was out of the way. The trouble is I don’t know numbers. There’d be no point trying to call Greg at the library on a Sunday night anyway. I don’t know anyone’s home number, not even Janine’s. There was a phone book next to the phone, a home-made one, with people’s numbers written in, not a big Yellow Pages type book. I flicked through it, not seeing anyone I knew, until I came to M, and there was Sam, his address and also his telephone number.