was a shabby Victorian hospital in North London, and probably the room had not been designed as a ward. But it was decent, with pink flowery curtains at the windows, and on runners to separate the beds for moments needing privacy. Because the room was tidied for visiting time the long decorous swathes of pink were tied back. A lot of people sat about on chairs or on the beds. Mothers and sisters, brothers and cousins, friends and children had been coming and going since two in the afternoon. Not the husbands: they would be in later. But there was one husband who sat close to the head of a bed where a pretty woman of about forty-five lay turned towards him. She gazed into his face while he held both her hands, one in each of his. They were large hands, and he was a big man, wearing good clothes, tweedy grey jacket and a white shirt that dazzled, like those in the advertisements. But he had taken off his tie, which hung on his chair back, and this gave him an informal look. The intensity of his concern for his wife and her imploring gaze at him isolated them as if a curtain had gone up on them in their own home.Certainly neither was aware of the visitors who came and went.
He had brought her in at midday and had been sitting with her ever since, before formal visiting hours began.
This was a ward for gynaecological problems, or, as the women joked, a womb ward. The seven other women had had or would have operations or other treatment. No one was seriously ill, and more joking went on than in any other kind of ward, yet low spirits were never far away, and the nurses who were always in and out kept an eye open for a woman weeping, or one silent for too long.
At six o’clock the suppers were brought in and most visitors went home. No one had an appetite, but the husband coaxed his wife to eat while she protested she did not want to. She cried a little but stopped when he soothed her like a father, and she sat obediently with a bowl of custard in her hand while he fed her with a spoon from it, sometimes putting down the spoon to blot her eyes with a large old-fashioned very white handkerchief, for she could not keep back the tears for long. She wept like a child with little gulps and snuffles and heaves of her chest, always watching him with her wide wet blue eyes. Blue eyes meant to be happy, for crying did not suit her.
The other women watched this scene. Sometimes their gazes met, commenting on it. Then husbands came in after work, and for an hour or so the room contained couples in close practical talk about children and domestic matters. Four husbands had come. One old woman sat alone, turning the pages of a magazine and watching the others over it. Another, Miss Cook, had never been married. She, too, watched what went on, while she knitted. The third who had no man beside her read a book and listened to her Walkman. She was ‘the horsey one’. (Whether she was horsey or not no one knew: she was presumed to be, being upper-class.)
Then it was time for the men to leave, and they went: kisses, waves, see you tomorrow. The woman who had come that day clung to her husband and wept. ‘Oh don’t go, don’t go, Tom, please don’t go.’ He held her and stroked her back, her shoulders, her soft grey nicely waved hair, now in disorder. He repeated, ‘I must go, dear. Please stop crying, Mildred, you must pull yourself together, please, dear.’ But she saw no reason to stop. She lifted her face to show a mask of tragedy, and then she laid it against her husband’s shoulder again and cried even harder.
‘Mildred, please stop. The doctor told us he didn’t think it would be anything much. He told us that, didn’t he? I said to him that we had to know the worst, but he said there wasn’t any worst. You’d be out in a week, he said …’ He went on talking like this in a soothing firm voice, and stroked her, and made concerned noises, and she burst out in worse sobs and clung and then shook her head to say she
He had brought her in at midday and had been sitting with her ever since, before formal visiting hours began.
This was a ward for gynaecological problems, or, as the women joked, a womb ward. The seven other women had had or would have operations or other treatment. No one was seriously ill, and more joking went on than in any other kind of ward, yet low spirits were never far away, and the nurses who were always in and out kept an eye open for a woman weeping, or one silent for too long.
At six o’clock the suppers were brought in and most visitors went home. No one had an appetite, but the husband coaxed his wife to eat while she protested she did not want to. She cried a little but stopped when he soothed her like a father, and she sat obediently with a bowl of custard in her hand while he fed her with a spoon from it, sometimes putting down the spoon to blot her eyes with a large old-fashioned very white handkerchief, for she could not keep back the tears for long. She wept like a child with little gulps and snuffles and heaves of her chest, always watching him with her wide wet blue eyes. Blue eyes meant to be happy, for crying did not suit her.
The other women watched this scene. Sometimes their gazes met, commenting on it. Then husbands came in after work, and for an hour or so the room contained couples in close practical talk about children and domestic matters. Four husbands had come. One old woman sat alone, turning the pages of a magazine and watching the others over it. Another, Miss Cook, had never been married. She, too, watched what went on, while she knitted. The third who had no man beside her read a book and listened to her Walkman. She was ‘the horsey one’. (Whether she was horsey or not no one knew: she was presumed to be, being upper-class.)
Then it was time for the men to leave, and they went: kisses, waves, see you tomorrow. The woman who had come that day clung to her husband and wept. ‘Oh don’t go, don’t go, Tom, please don’t go.’ He held her and stroked her back, her shoulders, her soft grey nicely waved hair, now in disorder. He repeated, ‘I must go, dear. Please stop crying, Mildred, you must pull yourself together, please, dear.’ But she saw no reason to stop. She lifted her face to show a mask of tragedy, and then she laid it against her husband’s shoulder again and cried even harder.
‘Mildred, please stop. The doctor told us he didn’t think it would be anything much. He told us that, didn’t he? I said to him that we had to know the worst, but he said there wasn’t any worst. You’d be out in a week, he said …’ He went on talking like this in a soothing firm voice, and stroked her, and made concerned noises, and she burst out in worse sobs and clung and then shook her head to say she
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