This Perfect World (13 page)

The nurse keeps her face carefully blank. ‘Dr Millar’s a
very busy man,’ she says. ‘He has a lot of patients.’ She fiddles
with her pen, flicking it between her fingers. ‘But I’ll see if I
can find him for you. It’s Mrs Partridge, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, dear. Thank you, dear,’ Mrs Partridge says, and then,
to my total embarrassment, she adds, ‘And this is Mrs Hamley,
whose husband is in the legal profession.’

Heddy’s in a room on her own. There’s a small round window
in the door, which I’d have liked to look through before
going in, as a sort of easing-in measure, but the window’s
too high for Mrs Partridge, so she pushes the door right open
and in we go.

She smells of shit, faintly. That’s the first thing I notice
when I walk into Heddy’s room, that and how fat she is.
How incredibly fat. Puffed up and bloated and swollen. There’s
a large piece of gauze taped onto the flesh where her neck
would end and her chest begin, but on Heddy they all blend
into one, chin, neck, chest. The back of the bed is tilted upwards
so that she can sit, propped up by pillows. Yet she gives the
impression of being boneless, of sinking into herself. The
dressing on her neck serves to hold up her face, else it would
slide down into the rest of her, and her body’s held in place
by the blanket tucked up tight around her. It’s a big baby
blanket, yellow and holey, pulled tight across the mass of her
body. Her arms are out on top, lying straight down, as if
they’ve been placed there, as if they have no movement of
their own. The fat cuffs her wrists in folds. All down her arms
there are crisses and crosses, much like my own, only newer,
redder, more clumsily done. How bizarre that we should wear
the same pattern on our skin, Heddy Partridge and me.

Mrs Partridge goes to the side of the bed and takes hold
of Heddy’s fat, limp hand. ‘I’ve brought someone to see you,
dear,’ she says, patting that hand with her own skinny one.
‘Look,’ she says, ‘here’s Laura Cresswell. You remember Laura
Cresswell, don’t you, dear? Of course you do.’

I stand at the end of the bed and I pray to God that Heddy
Partridge
doesn’t
remember me. ‘Hello, Heddy,’ I say, kinder
than I’ve ever said it before. But I do not know if she hears
me or even sees me; Heddy’s eyes are open, but she is somewhere
else. Her eyes are wide, stark, like a rabbit’s before it
dies.

There’s a bit of dribble, bubbling out at the corner of her
mouth. Mrs Partridge takes the tissue from her coat pocket
and dabs at Heddy’s face. It’s a tender act; I watch, transfixed.
While she’s there, up close, she checks the fixings holding
down the dressing on Heddy’s neck, the strips of plaster stuck
onto her flesh. She loosens her gown a little, easing it away
from Heddy’s skin where it is starting to chafe, along the
edge. It’s a hospital gown. ‘She’s got nighties, of course she
has,’ Mrs Partridge tells me, ‘but this is easier, you know, for
washing her, and tending to her needs.’

Heddy’s breasts roll down her body underneath the cotton,
like the vast slide-down of a cliff, one mound barely discernible
from the mound beneath. I have never seen anyone so fat.
Not in real life. Not outside of magazines and modern-day
freak-show documentaries on TV. And then how superior we
feel, looking on, how
oh-my-God-how-awful
titillated and
gloriously repulsed. I mean, how could anyone let themselves
become so obscene?

By sitting out endless days in a hospital bed, that is how.
Unable to move. Body static, dead but not dead.

Mrs Partridge is busy now, unpacking the contents of
her bag, the towel and the wash-things, and placing them
on the small wheeled table at the end of the bed. She takes
a hairbrush from the washbag and starts to brush Heddy’s
lank, greasy black hair away from her face and over her
shoulders. Lovingly she brushes it, as if it wasn’t plastered
flat and unwashed to her head at all. She brushes it much
the way I brush Arianne’s hair and the similarity shocks
me, horrifies me. She pushes that brush just as I would
through Arianne’s springy, baby-soft curls. I baulk at the
tenderness. How would I feel if this was Arianne – in
however many harsh and damaging years’ time – numbed
out and bloated by the life I’d given her, worn out, yet still
my baby?

Suddenly, ridiculously, the effort of not crying overrides
everything else. There is a lump in my chest the size of a
washing basket and I feel my whole head about to dissolve.
I cannot believe I am here, pulled up like this, made witness
to this tragedy.

At eleven-thirty lunch arrives on its white plastic tray. Mrs
Partridge takes it and mashes it up with the fork, like baby
food. Shepherd’s pie it is, apparently, and carrots and potato.
She mashes it up and spoons it into Heddy and, like a good
girl, Heddy gobbles it up. There’s sponge pudding for afters,
with custard. Heddy gobbles this up, too. Mrs Partridge scoops
up the spill that runs down Heddy’s chin and spoons it back
in, just like she’s feeding a baby. Heddy eats it all up, loose
mouth sucking it in. She registers no difference in taste.

And then comes the toileting, as Mrs Partridge calls it.
The minute lunch is finished, the tray is put aside and it is
all hurry, hurry; a bedpan is found and there is much shifting
of blankets and much shifting of Heddy. Mrs Partridge is
panting from the exertion. She calls for a nurse, but the nurse
doesn’t come. I should help. I know I should, but I can’t
stand it. I just can’t stand it.

Heddy flops over as she moves sideways, off the bedpan,
and she moans then, a low guttural sound. I go to Mrs
Partridge’s aid, I have to – she’s struggling to put the bedpan
aside without tipping it, and at the same time trying to hold
on to Heddy. I go round to the other side of the bed and
push Heddy back up into the middle. She’s very heavy, and
her skin is warm and soft under my hands. I think of all the
times over the years when I have avoided – successfully –
having to touch Heddy Partridge.

Mrs Partridge presses the bell to call the nurse again, twice.
‘It’s always the same,’ she complains, red in the face, anxious.
‘Always. They don’t have the staff, that’s the trouble. Poor
Heddy would be left to herself half the time if it wasn’t for
me.’ She rearranges the pillows as I hold on to Heddy; between
us we get her back in place. I’m still holding on to her shoulders
when she makes that moaning noise again and looks
up at me. She seems to be coming round, coming back from
wherever she’s been, and I can feel her trying to place me.
Her eyes are close to mine, filled with fear and confusion,
and I pull back.

‘Nathan?’ she asks and her voice is deep, not at all as I
remember it. But how would I remember it? When did I ever
hear Heddy say anything? Our shared childhood whizzes
through my head and all I can hear is my own shrill voice,
sneering, jeering, putting her down.

‘Nathan?’ she calls again, louder, and she’s staring at me,
as if I might have Nathan hidden behind my back, ready to
produce him at any moment.

I stare back at her, helpless. Mrs Partridge is at her side,
shushing her, and stroking back her hair and tucking it behind
her ear. Then the nurse does come in, carrying a tray bearing
a little dish with two pills in it with one hand, and checking
the watch pinned to her dress with the other.

‘Nathan!’ Heddy barks, at the nurse now, and Mrs Partridge
hushes her again. And water is poured into a cup and the
pills popped into Heddy’s mouth, followed by the water,
which spills out a little, over her lip.

‘Oh dear, oh dear, these pills . . . I don’t know, I don’t
know . . .’ murmurs Mrs Partridge as she mops up Heddy’s
mouth. The nurse is inspecting the dressing on Heddy’s neck,
peeling it back, peeping inside, and sticking it down again.
Then she’s checking Heddy’s pulse, fingers probing Heddy’s
swollen wrist, her lips moving silently as she counts out
Heddy’s heartbeat against her watch. Heddy is starting to
cry in short, snuffling sobs. Thin tears slide out of her eyes
and snot bubbles up from her nose. It makes me feel sick to
look, but I can’t turn away. I am useless.

I am useless as Mrs Partridge fills a dish with warm water
from the sink and gently washes Heddy’s face and hands
with the flannel from her bag, and pats her dry with the
towel. I am useless as, between them, Mrs Partridge and the
nurse shift Heddy forward a little and loosen her gown and
things are done with talcum powder. And all the time Mrs
Partridge murmurs soothingly, a comforting stream of
There,
there, dear, hush, now, dear
and
All better now, all better.
I
listen to Mrs Partridge’s words, wanting them to comfort me.
My arms hang like heavy weights from my sides; I cannot
lift them. I cannot do a thing. The lump in my chest has
grown to the size of a laundry room. I can barely breathe, I
certainly cannot speak.

Finally they are finished and Heddy is settled back down,
tucked up. The nurse yanks the pole on the side of the bed
and Heddy is horizontal, willed into sleep. All three of us
watch her for a minute, looking at her waxy face and closed
eyes, as if waiting to be sure they don’t open again. It is like
looking at a corpse, checking to see that it’s dead.

Then Mrs Partridge starts rolling up her towel and gathering
up her hairbrush and things and putting them in her
bag. The nurse mops something off the floor with a length
of blue paper towel yanked violently from the dispenser by
the sink. There’s a bin by the door, a bright-yellow bin bag
suspended inside a metal frame; she stamps her heavy black
shoe down on the pedal at its base and the lid flips back
with a clank. In goes the paper towel. Then she rips off
another sheet, smaller this time, and drapes it over Heddy’s
bedpan. She stacks the bedpan on the brown tray alongside
the plate and bowl and cutlery that Heddy ate her lunch
from, and starts heading for the door.

‘Wait!’ Mrs Partridge snaps. The nurse stops at the door,
tray in hand, and I am startled out of my mute and horrified
stupor. ‘I want to see Dr Millar now, please.’

The hard mass in my chest vanishes and my heart kicks
off on a fast, panicked tattoo. I glance at my watch. It’s
twenty to one. I don’t want to see the doctor now. I just
want to get out of here and go home.

‘Dr Millar’s not available,’ the nurse says, and relief flushes
through me. The nurse turns back to the door and raises her
free hand to push it open.

‘Now listen here,’ Mrs Partridge says, and there is a sharp
crackle to her voice. ‘This lady’ – she points in my direction,
jabbing at the air with her bony finger – ‘has come all this
way specially. We’re not going till we’ve seen the doctor.’

I feel a scene coming and I don’t want it. I just want to
go. ‘Really, Mrs Partridge, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure—’

‘It does matter,’ Mrs Partridge interrupts me. She’s starting
to tremble; I can see it, her little body vibrating inside her
clothes. My racing heart starts racing even faster. ‘You’ve
been so good to us, all of your family. Always been so good
to us. Now here you are, given up your time. I can’t have
you going home without talking to the doctor.’

Something like guilt, only thicker and deeper and
disturbingly cold, builds inside my stomach. The crackle in
Mrs Partridge’s voice has turned into a crack, and the muscles
in her cheeks and around her mouth are quivering and
twitching at a startling pace.

The nurse watches Mrs Partridge, and me, that tray
balanced on her arm as if she is a waitress. Her face is carefully
impassive. ‘Well, you can’t see Dr Millar,’ she says. ‘It’s
his day at the Mordon. Dr Wolf’s doing Mitley today. He’s
down the corridor. You can talk to him if you like.’ And out
the door she goes.

I imagine her pasting a smile on her face, gliding among
non-existent white-linened tables and serving up the dish of
the day from that tray upon her arm.

We find Dr Wolf down the corridor, just as the nurse predicted.
He is writing up his notes, having just finished with the
patients who are awake and who are walking round and
round, or sitting, or rocking, in the two glass-walled lounges
at the far end of Mitley Wing. To get to him, we have walked
past a few closed rooms like Heddy’s, and one main ward
with many beds, some with discernible lumps in them, some
without.

He is a tall man, blond, with floppy hair that falls down
into his eyes. He is young, too young, as far as Mrs Partridge
is concerned. I can tell this by the way she starts muttering
and mumbling as we approach him.

‘Always the same,’ she whispers to herself. ‘Always the
same. Not enough staff. Nobody cares. What am I to do?
What
am
I to do?’

The clack of our shoes echoing on the tiled floor alerts
him to our approach. He raises his head from his notes,
tilting it to one side, and smiles a tired doctor’s smile.

‘Mrs Partridge,’ he says kindly, putting out his hand. ‘And
you are Mrs—?’

‘Hamley,’ I say, and one by one we shake his hand, then
follow him back down the corridor to the small office at the
start of Mitley Wing. He walks in big strides with his doctor’s
coat flapping out behind him, and Mrs Partridge and I trot
along like lambs in his wake.

Inside the sparse, unkindly, drab office Dr Wolf perches
on the edge of the chipped teak desk and Mrs Partridge
and I sit in the only two chairs, instantly at a disadvantage.

‘Ladies,’ he says, and then he pauses, pretending he’s got
time for us, when I can see in his eyes that he hasn’t. ‘How
can I be of help?’ He has a faint accent: German, I think, or
maybe it’s Dutch. I was never any good at accents.

‘We wanted to see Dr Millar,’ Mrs Partridge says to Dr
Wolf’s knees, which are only a little below her eye level. Her
voice is quiet, perfectly audible but pinched, halfway to being
defeated.