The Girl Who Came to Stay Read online

  A Girl Who Came to Stay

  RAY CONNOLLY

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter One

  ‘Benedict Kelly! BENEDICT KELLY! Mr Kelly? Come this way. You’re very late, you know. I don’t know whether doctor will be able to see you today. Have you got your yellow card? Thank you. In here. Now listen very carefully because I only have time to say this once. Take all your clothes off, then get into this cotton gown so that it’s back to front. Can you see? It must fasten down the back so that we’ll be able to get at your bottom. Then put this towelling dressing gown over the top. This fastens down the front. Do you understand? Then, when you’re ready, get back into your shoes—but not your socks. And please look sharp. You’re very late. I don’t know whether doctor will be able to see you today or not.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d better come back another time. I’m really feeling much better than I did when I made the appointment… I mean, I’d hate to waste anybody’s time or anything.’

  ‘Will you hurry up? Be quick! And don’t forget, the cotton goes on first and fastens down the back. And the towelling second.’

  Bright and blue and busy, the little sparrow of a nurse scoots out of the changing cubicle and begins chastising a West Indian cleaning lady farther down the corridor… ‘Be quick,’ she shouts. Off with my clothes, pink Yves St Laurent safari jacket, St Tropez 1971—invaluable for mingling with flamingoes. Down come my Levis, blue suede patches at the knees. Y-fronts and T-shirt, betraying a hidden conservatism, come off with a stoop and a hop and a stretch and over the back of the chair. Naked.

  ‘Will you hurry up? Be quick.’

  God. She’s back, and the curtains are wide apart. Patients, nurses, cleaners, independently-suspended-power-braked-wheelchairs, stretchers and ambulances all leering in at me trying to hide my commonest denominator behind my yellow card. Pull the curtains back. Must have privacy. The woman’s mad. Probably gets a kick out of exhibiting her victims. Can’t be any madder than me. I mean what am I doing here?

  LEAVE NO VALUABLES

  Please make quite sure you have all watches,

  jewellery and money with you

  before leaving the changing-rooms.

  The Hospital Board cannot be responsible

  for missing articles.

  Thank you St Jude’s Hospital Board of Management for your kindly warning. Quickly stuff wallet and credit cards into the pocket of that cheap, towelling, multi-coloured dressing gown so kindly provided. What’s that smell? Dettol? What a lifetime you’ve had, you worthy little dressing gown. What did you do to deserve to spend your life eternally wrapping your smelly little protection around enema victims?

  Out into the corridor. The draught cuts off my ankles like a laser beam. Try snuggling up to the central-heating radiator. Too hot to touch. Late October. Somewhere behind a cream hardboard-and-glass partition, lavatories are flushing in unison and cisterns are screaming their accompaniment like the Hallé Choir. A young girl, 17 maybe, with a sweaty forehead and greasy hair, wanders up and down the corridor, clutching her yellow card into her stomach, her face the colour of last night’s Alka Seltzer. Better not watch. She’ll make me edgy. Wish my ankles were less thin and less hairy, or this gown were another foot longer. I must look like Minnie Mouse, matchstick legs stuck into canvas shoes. The sight of me now is hardly likely to get all those randy young nurses going. Are nurses randy? Is it justifiable to draw a general rule from a possibly lucky experience six years ago with a thirty-two-year-old desperation-stakes SRN from Orpington in the back seat of her Hertz hired Fiat 500 parked on the side of a hill in a vineyard above Alassio? I’d broken her back, she’d told me after. It’s always after. Teach you to save up and hire a bigger car next year, love,’ I said, cut to the quick, and trying to find the money which had spilled out of my pockets and under the seat when her advances caught me and mine by surprise. A cruel, flip answer, once said always regretted.

  ‘Mr Kelly.’ My blue angel of paradise and St Jude’s is back, pecking with her tight polished shoes across the chequered linoleum tiles, starched grey hair whipped back away from her brow and under her spotless cap. The greasy-haired girl moans, races for the lavatories, doubling up.

  This way. We might just catch doctor.’

  Into another cubicle, big as an office almost, and she’s getting into her plumber’s kit, first rubber gloves, then a white overall: hers fastens down the front. And lastly a plastic pinny, halter over her head, strings pulled tight round her waist. My eyes catch a slight brown blemish on her white lapels. Could it be a burn mark? A careless iron? Or is it a memento of her last victim?

  She’s talking, neat and precise, glasses glinting, nose peaked and shining: ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Kelly.’

  ‘No, silly boy, your first name. Show me your card. Benedict Michael. Did your mother call you Benedict? I’ll call you Benedict. Now I want you to imagine that I’m your mother. You’ve nothing to be afraid of, but I know you are, because everyone who comes in here is frightened. Are you listening, Benedict? Just try and imagine that I’m your mother…’

  It would be easier to imagine you as the Beast of Belsen, good lady. Did they ever get her? Is it possible…. Wet lips, tongue so dry it’s sticking to the roof of my mouth. Palms clammy. My mother … did she say my mother? She is mad. Didn’t I lock my mother out of the bathroom on my third birthday and never let her in again? Nobody, nobody at all, has ever seen Benedict Kelly in his most private daily moments since.

  Our Lady of Belsen begins to warm to the intricacies of her vocation. Leaping onto the plastic-sheeted divan with the enthusiasm of a gym instructress, she demonstrates my part in her craft. Right arm on left knee. Lie on left side. Left arm twisted round to right shoulder. Legs slightly bent, head tucked into chest. Keep breathing deeply and slowly.

  “Then when I say “turn”, I want you to swing over like this … so that you’re in exactly the reverse position. That’s to make sure that the fluid gets everywhere. Don’t forget to keep breathing heavily and even if you want to release it you must try very hard to keep it in.’

  Smiles. A gold filling in her right upper incisor. She really enjoys this. Sister Mae, Sister Mae, how many bottoms did you violate today?

  ‘Now off with your top gown and up onto the bed. Remember, keep breathing heavily, and as soon as I say “go”, rush through that door and into the lavatory. Now don’t look. Face the wall.’

  A quick peep over my shoulder. Is it a fire extinguisher? She’s seen me. Face the wall. Her fingers are on the bottom lace of my cotton gown. Pulling it apart. Bend my knees, she says. Further. That’s right. She’s Myra Breckinridge in new drag.

  ‘Now I’m just going to insert this rubber tube into your…’

  Ouch! Rubber? It’s a bayonet tip, I swear. Oh my God … the laws of the sphincter muscle being forcibly broken. Water flowing into me from her contraption. Warm. Must keep breathing.

  ‘Ooooh.’ Tummy ache, sweat glands pumping, stomach knotted. Agony. Can’t hold it. The humiliation.

  ‘Now turn.’ Drags me over. Eyes alight with excitement. ‘Keep breathing slowly. Hold on, hold on.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Go.’

  Dragge
d off the bunk, shoved through the door. Ah! a lavatory. Try to shut the door. Please! She’s holding it open.

  ‘Let it go, Benedict, don’t bother about me. Just listen. Let it go. Be quick. Doctor won’t be able to do you unless you hurry up. Be quick. And don’t pull the chain when you’ve finished.’

  She’s still there? She’s still there! Don’t care. I’m going to cause an awful pollution problem for the Thames Valley Water Board today. I’ll probably wash up on the beaches at Southend tomorrow, and the Government will blame it on some inconsiderate oil-tanker captain from Liberia. ‘Beaches fouled. Sea birds perish in thousands. New menace to holiday-makers. Mystery to be studied by ecological committee. Questions in the House.’ The Daily Express will blame it on the Common Market.

  ‘When you’ve finished, come out into the corridor and walk up and down. Don’t stay in there too long. You’ll catch cold.’

  She’s gone and at last the door closes. Over my shoulder I can turn and see it’s a bright windy day, big ice-cream clouds playing catch just above the rooftops. A row of non-absorbent hospital toilet rolls lines the windowsill. I wish there was a lock on the door. Open window for fresh air, or be suffocated by that sweet foulness? Maybe that’s where it’ll all end up. Foulness. They’ll be able to build their airport on the solidified effluent of Benedict M. Kelly. Why stop there? Perhaps they’ll call it the Benedict M. Kelly Airport. It’s as good a name as John F. Kennedy. Tranquil now, but cold. Shaking. Ah, I see she’s left my Empire Made towelling gown on the peg. And there are my shoes by the door. I hadn’t noticed before. Poor soul. This is her one bit of authority in the world. The one thing she can do better than anyone else. They probably told her it was promotion when they shuttled her off into here and put her in charge of enemas. Will she get a VC for bravery in the face of enema operations? More likely a touch of VD, I should think. Be sure and always wear your protective gloves, my little Harpic rose.

  Quiet. Time to clean up. Box of Kleenex on the floor. They should provide bidets for après-enema cleanliness. Mouth so dry now. Is this how cholera victims feel when they become dehydrated? Must wash my hands. Green kitchen soap, but no towel. Wipe them carefully on the coloured overgown.

  ‘Are you still in here? Be quick. Doctor’s waiting for you. Have you got your yellow card?’

  The door jumps open and Sister Enema studies the contents of the lavatory bowl, while I pretend to be studiously observing the chimneys and rooftops of London.

  ‘No blood?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right, be quick and follow me.’

  And away we go, me about four stones lighter, forehead drying, tongue like a lump of dried lava, her skittling along past the girl with greasy hair, who is now dressed and placid.

  ‘Wait here.’

  And she’s gone. Clickety-clicking away back to her little cell for ablutions. The traffic in the corridor increases, and bored nurses eye me with an efficient coldness, while stretcher cases smile desperately as they trolley back and forth.

  ‘Benedict Kelly? This way please! Have you got your yellow card?’

  An accent, pure Dublin, leads me out of the sunlight and into the dark, luminous-green-glowing precincts of the barium X-ray department. Dr Frankenstein surely had a hand in its design, did he not? A long narrow bunk dominates the centre of the area, while over it hangs a large black and silver, intricate and polished X-ray machine. Around the bunk, nurses and their assistants, in green overalls, poise like butchers in an abattoir. An Indian doctor in white prepares the sacrificial victim, while at the far end of the temple another whitecoat sits before a panel of dials. From him to the bunk sprawls a snaking hosepipe, fastened by brackets above the butchers’ heads and ending in a nozzle rather like that of a petrol pump.

  Towelling gown off again. No, leave shoes on. ‘Remember, when we let you go rush through that door for the lavatory.’ Beginning to get the form now. Lying back on the bunk in the dark, and suddenly a searchlight blinks on just beyond my feet and concentrates its gaze upon my bottom. Everyone goes to have a look. Bend knees. Higher. That’s better.

  ‘Now this isn’t going to hurt.’ Soothing Indian doctor. ‘We want you to try very hard to keep it in until we’ve taken our X-rays. It isn’t difficult.’

  Sweating again now. Shivering.

  ‘I think we have a very nervous man here. Will someone stand by his head, please?’ A green outline moves towards me.

  ‘Oh God.’

  Sterilised towels being placed under me. Nozzle being stuffed into me. Four gallons of super, please.

  ‘Barium on.’

  ‘Oooohhhhh.’

  ‘Stop. We have leakage.’

  ‘Barium off.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  Clean towels. Nozzle plugged deeper into rectum.

  ‘Barium on.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’

  No thoughts of humiliation now, just a battle between body and mind, while the X-ray machine clicks busily overhead, taking snapshots from different angles. Everybody busy. Whatever’s wrong with me can’t possibly be worse than what they’re doing to me. Excruciating pain in left side of stomach. Should have settled for a tumour on the brain, like last year. Less messy.

  ‘Oooh.’

  Someone taking my right hand: ‘Put it down. You don’t know where it’s been.’

  ‘Soon be over.’

  Two big grey eyes smiling down through the gloom. Young face. Is she pretty. Oooohhh, how much longer? Wiping a towel across my forehead. Smiling. Can see up her nostrils. Neat and round and clean. So clean. Yes. Pretty. Suddenly I’m embarrassed: ‘We can’t go on meeting like this. People are beginning to talk.’

  She’s laughing. They’re all laughing.

  ‘Barium off.’

  Off the bed, grabbing gown, leaving go of hand, through the door, and into the sanctuary of the lavatory again, and two pints of barium follow the rest of me down to the sewage farms of the Greater London Council.

  ‘You won’t leave before we’ve made sure that we’ve got all our pictures right, will you? We sometimes have to do it again.’

  Don’t even look up any more. Is there no privacy for the afflicted anywhere? Why bother having a door on the bog at all? There’s no lock and not a chance of retaining the tiniest semblance of modesty. Suddenly exhaustion has shredded me and here I sit, elbows on thighs, jaw cupped in palms. No more shakings, just a dull thudding about the skull. My head is surely on the screw.

  Collect my thoughts and make a slow way back to my changing cubicle. Dressed again, and it’s five o’clock, I see. How absurd I must look in this silly pink jacket. They probably all think I’m queer. And how affected, these jeans. Old enough to know better. And now out I go into the endless waiting corridor. Why do I want to cry? It’s all over. They’ve done their worst.

  It’s all right, you can go now, Mr Kelly.’ A faceless radiographer releases me from behind an armful of cardboard files. Somewhere in there will be my yellow card: my medical persona. Why did I come when I know the tests will prove negative? Out into the main hall, and I must sit down. Feeling giddy now. Quiet spot over by the door. Maybe a blast of fresh air will help. Hospitals always get too hot. Then I’ll get a taxi. Head low. I’ll laugh about this tomorrow. When I’ve slept. When I get home. When I’m better.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Grey eyes herself. Out of her radiographer’s green and into navy blue. Yes, she is pretty. And fair. And so very English. Bet she comes from Tunbridge Wells or Sevenoaks or Westerham. You don’t find her sort on the banks of the Mersey or the Tyne. How old? Eighteen?

  ‘Yes, yes. I’m really fine. Just waiting until I feel fit enough to go. Thank you.’ Never admit, you gallant bastard, that you’re feeling like death.

  ‘Are you going to the bus stop or to catch a tube? I mean if you like I’ll walk with you. I’m off duty now. Well, I mean you don’t look very well.’

  ‘No, really I’m all right. I’ll take a taxi in a minute. Thanks anyway
.’

  ‘Oh. All right then. Goodbye.’

  ‘Bye bye … hum … well, can I give you a lift? I’m going to Kensington. If you’re going that way … or near there… do you live anywhere in that direction?’

  ‘Oh it’s all right, really … well, actually I’m in a hostel in Cromwell Road. Near the Air Terminal. Is that anywhere near you? If you’re sure you don’t mind … and I think it’s starting to rain … you could just drop me anywhere over there…’

  Think I’m going to be sick. Mortification. Wish to God I hadn’t asked her along with me, because I’m certain to show myself up. This is no time for chatting up student nurses, and tonight is no night for the seduction of such. And what glamour can be left in me after she’s spent the afternoon peering into my backside, and holding my clammy, smelly palm? Yet how clean she is. A pretty nurse to sell poppies from a tray. Fiddle in wallet and find a telephone taxi card: ‘Do you think you could call this number and get us a cab? I don’t really feel very well.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Just sit quietly. You’ve had quite a day.’

  Watching her walk away, swish swish, in her silly old-fashioned nurse’s mac, making her look as shapeless as an old sack. Down across the hall to the public telephone booths, blue cap perched forward on her head, while two little girl’s plaits dance around her shoulders. Don’t see many plaits around these days, neither on big girls nor little ones. Whatever happened to the rows of plaits that sat in front of me in primary school? Gone to the permers, every one. I suppose they still have perms in the north. And now there’s nothing for the little boys to swing on. Sad loss. You’re still my favourite girlfriend, Sally Jones, with your two black pigtails and your Hercules three-speed and your wooden pencil-box with the sliding top. I’m sorry you failed the scholarship.

  ‘It’ll be here straight away. Shall we wait for it outside? Do you feel well enough?’

  ‘If I didn’t, could you use your influence to get me an ambulance?’

  ‘No.’

  Then a taxi it must be.’

  Out in the road the bright promising day has turned dull, and the drizzle is cold and uncomforting. Friday night hurry-home traffic hisses by through the wet, and there’s me conspicuous in my poncy clothes trying to pretend that summer’s not yet gone, while winter is here already. A taxi, with its For-Hire light out, pulls in, and Pigtails scurries out of the wet. Inside, and puddles dripping off her mac onto the rubber-matting floor.