I tried biting my own tongue, even chewing it a little, to see if it had the same sort of flavour, but again there was no resemblance. Mum had worried so much about the weevils in flour, the worms that never grew despite my hopes, and all along she had been feeding me something really dangerous, something close to poison. I’d never take that chance again.
So Miss Collins was out of my life, and her own, and there was also another good-bye that was harder to say. No pets were allowed at the school where I was going, so Charlie would be staying with Mum. This bit of news gave me a pang, but I got over it. Charlie was my best friend, but that had a lot to do with his being my only friend, and if I stayed at home with him I’d never get another. And besides, wouldn’t I be coming home at weekends? Yes, John. Every weekend? Not every weekend — some weekends. Now and then. And will there be holidays? Yes, every now and then there would be holidays. Then I’ll see Charlie on my holidays. Cheerfully I sold out my only friend in the interest of getting a proper education.
At that age I wasn’t able to frame the crucial question: is that in fact what I will be getting, a proper education? What I wanted, really, in the way of education, was to watch boys wrestling without antagonism, wrapping their legs round each other and rolling back and forth. It stood to reason that school was where that would happen, if at all. What Mum didn’t mention, until just before I was due to go, was that there wouldn’t only be teachers and books at the school. There would be doctors and nurses and needles. Some of the needles might have tiny hooks attached. There might be invasions of my mouth and my bottom. Soapy water might be introduced there until I made a tuppenny mess. I would be going to school, yes — there was no real deception involved. There would be lessons, certainly. But I wouldn’t exactly be going to a school. I would be going to a hospital, and the school was tucked away somewhere inside it. The hospital would be there all the time. The school would put in an appearance now and then, as and when.
She told me the truth eventually, in her own way. ‘You’re going to school soon, John dear, but it’s a special school. You see, this is a special hospital that is also a school. So they’re going to make you better and make you clever — all at the same time.’
In fact I would be living in a hospital. To be specific: I would be living in the hospital mentioned in the famous article, the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital, Taplow.
Interlude: Great Western
First I had to get there, to be schooled and hospitalled. Mum and I would travel to Taplow by train — but first we had to get to the train. A special ambulance would take us to the railway station. Before that, though, we had to get out of the front door, and that meant packing. I think the last day or two before I went to Taplow were the ones which taxed my patience most, in all that time of bed rest. Officially the sentence of bed rest might have been lifted, unofficially it went on, since there was so little I could do any more apart from lie down.
Those last few days were my homely introduction to Zeno’s Paradox, the rule that nothing can ever happen, because something else has to happen first, and something else has to happen before that … I truly thought I would go mad in those days, just when my seat was booked on the Sanity Express to Taplow, wherever that was.
I tried to think that packing was an adventure in itself. By ‘packing’ I mean watching Mum put things in a case I would never carry. She laid the things I would be taking out on the table and showed me them before she tucked them away. Spare pair of pyjamas, toothbrush, toothpaste, Mason Pearson brush with a handle, flannel and soap. Most important, as far as I was concerned, was a stack of pre-paid postcards, more important even than the sweetie tin filled with treats like Milky Way. Mum had addressed all the postcards to ‘Mrs L. M. Cromer’ at 5 Westwoods, Bathford nr Bath, Avon. I laughed at the sight of that bundle of cards, all of them under strict instructions to find their way right back to where they were now. It was a boomerang bundle! My hand-writing was atrocious if not actually non-existent, but Mum said it didn’t matter, I must write to her anyway and she would understand.
Unreachable pounds
If I dreaded the labour of writing, I was still in love with numbers, and I worked out the aggregate cost of the postcards in the bundle. I still had several unreachable pounds in my Post Office Savings Account. I felt in my bones that those pounds were as good as gone. The Post Office would probably pass a law that you weren’t allowed to withdraw money if you lived in a hospital, just so they could hang onto my (Dad’s lovely word) spondulicks.
All I had in cash was 8s 5d, saved up from little gifts. Doing the sums in my head, I told Mum that I wouldn’t be able to write more than once a week or it would be too expensive. We had a bit of an argument, with her saying that I could write as much as I liked — it wasn’t going to cost me anything. In my own small way I reasoned back, using the argument that the money for the stamps would have to come from Dad. If it came from Mum, she would only have to get more from Dad when it ran out. Dad had quite enough to do already, without having to work even harder to pay for stamps for postcards to be sent home by me, a boy who couldn’t even write properly.
I reassured Mum that the family money problems would soon be over. After all my health problems were sorted out I would run a jeweller’s shop. Mum could come along and have any watch in the shop she wanted, absolutely free. It was only for now that we’d have to be careful about things like postcards. Finally Mum pointed that the money had been paid already, so it would be Wasting Money not to send all the postcards. Then I gave in, quite pleased for once to be over-ruled, after putting up a good fight on behalf of Dad’s solvency. I regretted it soon enough. I never heard the end of it, about John’s jewellery shop and how terribly sweet it all was.
As far as I was concerned the postcards were the most important things in my little case, but Mum said my toothbrush and paste were vital. I must ask Nurse for a kidney dish, and I must remember to brush my teeth morning and evening. ‘And I do have ways’, she said darkly, ‘of finding out whether you’ve been using your toothbrush. You’ve been well brought up, and if I asked you now, you would certainly tell me the truth. But you may find out in hospital that advantage can sometimes be gained — just for a little while — by fibs.’
I asked Mum if the train was going to be special, like the special ambulance that would be laid on for us. ‘Not really, JJ, but trains are always special to me. I’d live on a train if I could!’ All her life she had a fascination with trains. Roads terrified her, but trains were somehow soothing as well as thrilling. If she had her wish, there’d be more trains everywhere, more trains and more lines and more stations. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were no cars and only trains, no cars anywhere except taxis to take people to the station? Being proposed to by Dad on a train hadn’t crowned her obsession with the permanent way, but it had fallen short of putting her off the romance of the rails.