O ! Do
not die, for I shall hate
All women so, when thou art gone,
That
thee I shall not celebrate,
When I remember thou wast one.
John Donne
CHAPTER 78 THE NUFFIELD
“It's bloody awful. I paid taxes all my life. All my life. They puts up ships don't they. Puts they up. Messes about up there no problem. Space ships. But I wants a bit of home help. Nothing. Are you listening to me?”
The Nurse was from Malawi. She sent most of her pay home to support an extended family. This stupid white woman complained about her uncomfortable bed, her “uneatable” food, and now it seemed, the lack of a servant to help her at home. The nurse wanted to take her to the village west of Tiwi and north of the Dzalanyama, where her children and parents slept on the ground and ate Nsima cooked in an old engine sump. But no. She couldn't afford trouble. She pretended with a shrug of her shoulders that she couldn't understand.
“Bloody darkies. They can't get me a proper nurse can they. I said bloody darkies. Are you listening?”
The nurse slowly walked away.
Stuck in the opposite bed, Irene couldn't really help but hear. However, she had learnt to keep her headphones on, and her laptop screen up, so she also could pretend not to hear.
“It's bloody awful. I paid taxes all my life. All my life”
“Aaaaaahhhaaaarrrraaaghuuuh. Oh. Aaaaargh. Uhhhh” said the young girl further down the ward. She really did have something wrong with here, Like Irene, but she was maybe overdoing the bid for sympathy.
“Excuse me? Are you Irene Adler?”
“Uh.” Irene took off the earphones “Yes.”
“Oh, I'm Catherine Cusack, Thorney's significant other.”
“Yes of course. He often told me about you. You're at the OUP1.”
“Yes that's right. I've just popped out for lunch and come up here on the tram. It's like the Starship Enterprise in here. All these curved corridors.”
“Yes.” Irene wondered what this was about.
“It's bloody awful. I paid taxes all my life. All my life”
“Aaaaaahhhaaaarrrraaaghuuuh. Oh. Aaaaargh. Uhhhh”
“Oh dear.” said Catherine “Should I do something to help?”
“Oh God no. The old one is a real bitch. There's nothing wrong with her now. She's had two new knees and a new ankle and she's got six daughters. But none of them want to look after her. They tried her with a home help visiting, but she was so rude they kept quitting. So she's back in here and still moaning.”
“Oh dear.”
“The younger one is quite ill though. That's why she's closest to the nurses. But I think she might be playing on it a bit.”
“Oh. So how are you?”
“Well, I should be OK soon. The Nuffield are very good at this sort of thing .They say once this lot is off.” Irene nodded at the mound underneath her sheets “I should be able to walk again OK. I've still got both legs held by these screw things. I can't move at all. And of course I'm in a sterile bag from the waist down. Which makes going to the loo a nightmare. If I want a poo I have to ask the nurse to bring in a sort of fork lift truck. Most embarrassing. But another week or so and I'll be OK. I'll need to call in to the Tebbit2 every once in a while for a check up of course, but otherwise it should all be OK.”
“That's good. Thorney said Alex was having to push you in a wheelchair.”
“Yes, he was very good. But I think he may have enjoyed it. He said it made him feel useful. Like pushing a pram.”
“Oh. Of course you're a psychologist aren't you.”
“Yes. I try to keep up with it.”
“They say that's why your speeches are so in demand.”
“It's a living. So....How are things at the OUP?”
“Oh fine. Nothing ever changes. You know. Actually I'm here because Thorney asked me to give you this drive. It's some sort of speech for someone. They think you can work some magic.”
“It's bloody awful. I paid taxes all my life. All my life”
“Aaaaaahhhaaaarrrraaaghuuuh.
This page has been visited 5 times. Legal and copyright information can be found here.