The Laying on of Hands: Stories

  He opened the dressing-table drawer, and found a new shirt still in its packet. They had given it to his father as a Christmas present two years before. He put it on, carefully extracting all the pins and putting them in the cut-glass dish. He looked for pants and found a pair that were old, baggy and gone a bit yellow. Some socks. Nothing quite fitted. He was smaller than his father. These days it was generally the other way round. He went downstairs, through into the scullery to polish his shoes. He remembered the brushes, the little brush to put the polish on which as a child he had always thought of as bad, the big noble brush that brought out the shine. He stood on the hearthrug and saw himself in the mirror, ready as if for a funeral, and sat down on the settee about to weep when he realised it was not his father’s funeral he was imagining but his own. On the end of the tiled mantelpiece of which his mother had been so proud when they had had it put in in 1953 (a crime getting rid of that beautiful range, Joyce always said) was his dad’s pipe. It was still half full of charred tobacco. He put it back but rolling over it fell on to the hearth. He stooped to pick it up and was his father suddenly, bending down, falling and lying there two days with the pipe under his hand. He dashed out of the house and drove wildly back to the hospital.

  ‘No change,’ said the nurse wearily (they were beginning to think he was mad). But if there was no change at least the old man didn’t seem to be smiling.

  ‘I’m wearing your shirt, Dad,’ Midgley said. ‘The one we gave you for Christmas. I hope that’s all right. It doesn’t really suit me, but I think that’s why Joyce bought it. She said it didn’t suit me but it would suit you.’

  A nurse came in.

  ‘They tell you to talk,’ said Midgley. ‘I read it in an article in the Reader’s Digest,’ (and as if this gave it added force), ‘it was in the waiting room.’

  The nurse sniffed. ‘They say the same thing about plants,’ she said, putting the carnations back on the window sill. ‘I think it’s got past that stage.’

  MIDGLEY WAS SITTING on the divan bed in Nurse Lightfoot’s room in the nurses’ quarters. The rooms were light and modern like the hospital. She was sitting by the electric fire with one bar on. There was a Snoopy poster on the wall.

  ‘People are funny about nurses,’ she said. ‘Men.’ She took a bite of her bun. They were muesli buns. ‘You say you’re a nurse and their whole attitude changes. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘No,’ lied Midgley.

  ‘I notice it at parties particularly. They ask you what you do, you say you’re a nurse and next minute they’ve got you on the floor. Perfectly ordinary people turn into wild beasts.’ She switched another bar on.

  ‘I’ve given up saying I’m a nurse for that reason.’

  ‘What do you say you are?’ asked Midgley. He wondered whether he would be better placed if he went over to the fire or he got her to come over to the bed.

  ‘I say I’m a sales representative. I don’t mean you,’ she said. ‘You’re obviously not like that. Course you’ve got other things on your mind at the moment.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Your dad.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  The duty nurse had been instructed to ring if there was any sign of a crisis.

  ‘He is lovely,’ she said, through mouthfuls of bun. ‘I do understand the way you feel about him.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Midgley. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Old people have their own particular attraction. He’s almost sexy.’

  Midgley stood up suddenly.

  She picked something out of her mouth.

  ‘Was your cake gritty?’

  ‘No,’ said Midgley, sitting down again.

  ‘Mine was. Mine was a bit gritty.’

  ‘It was probably meant to be gritty,’ said Midgley, looking at his watch.

  ‘No. It was more gritty than that.’

  ‘What would you say,’ asked Midgley, as he carefully examined a small stain on the bedcover, ‘what would you say if I asked you to go to bed.’

  ‘Now?’ she asked, extracting another piece of grit or grain.

  ‘If you like.’ He made it sound as if she had made the suggestion.

  ‘I can’t now.’ She gathered up the cups and plates.

  ‘Why not? You’re not on till seven.’

  ‘It’s Wednesday. I’m on early turn.’ She wondered if he was going to turn into a wild beast.

  ‘Tomorrow then?’

  ‘Tomorrow would be better. Though of course it all depends.’

  ‘What on?’

  She was shocked.

  ‘Your father. He may not be here tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Midgley, getting up. He kissed her fairly formally.

  ‘Anyway,’ she smiled. ‘Fingers crossed.’

  MIDGLEY SAT by his father’s bed and watched the dot skipping on the screen.

  ‘Hold on, Dad,’ he muttered. ‘Hold on.’

  There was no change.

  Before going down to sleep in the van he telephoned home. It was his son who answered. Joyce was upstairs with her mother.

  ‘Could you ask her to come to the phone, please,’ said Midgley. The ‘please’ was somehow insulting. He heard brief shouting.

  ‘She can’t,’ said Colin. ‘Gran’s in the bath. Mum can’t leave her. What do you want?’

  ‘You go up and watch her while I speak to your Mum.’

  ‘Dad.’ The boy’s voice was slow with weary outrage. ‘Dad. She’s in the bath. She’s no clothes on. I don’t want to see her.’

  He heard more distant shouting.

  ‘Mum says if she can get a granny-sitter she may come over to see Grandad.’

  ‘Colin.’ Midgley was suddenly urgent. ‘Colin. Are you still there?’

  ‘Sure.’ (Midgley hated that.)

  ‘Tell her not to do that. Do you hear? Tell her there’s no need to come over. Go on, tell her.’

  ‘I’ll tell her when she comes down.’

  ‘No,’ said Midgley. ‘Now. I know you. Go up and tell her now.’

  The phone was put down and he could hear Colin bellowing up the stairs. He came back.

  ‘I told her. Is that all?’

  ‘No,’ said Midgley. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something? How’s Grandad? Haven’t you forgotten that? Well it’s nice of you to ask, Colin. He’s about the same, Colin, thank you.’

  ‘How was your grandad?’ said Joyce, coming downstairs with a wet towel and a bundle of her mother’s underclothes.

  ‘About the same,’ said Colin.

  ‘And your dad?’

  ‘No change.’

  THAT NIGHT MIDGLEY dreamed it was morning when the door opened and his father got into the van.

  ‘I didn’t know you drove, Dad,’ he said as they were going into town. ‘When did you learn?’

  ‘Just before I died.’

  His mother, as a girl, met them outside the Town Hall.

  ‘What a spanking van, Frank,’ she said. ‘Move up, Denis, let me sit next to your dad.’

  The three of them sat in a row until he saw her hand was on his father’s leg, when suddenly he was in a field alone with his mother.

  ‘What a grand field,’ she said. ‘It’s spotless.’

  He was a little boy and she was in a white frock, and some terrible threat had just been lifted. Then he looked behind him and saw something much worse. On the edge of the field, ready to engulf them, was an enormous slag heap, glinting black and shiny in the sun. His mother hadn’t seen it and chattered on how lovely this field was and slipping nearer came this terrible hill. Someone ran down the slope, waving his arms, a figure big and filthy, a miner, a coalman. He slid down beside them.

  ‘Oh,’ she said placidly, ‘here’s your father,’ and he sat down beside her, coal and muck all over her white frock.

  Then they were walking through Leeds Market. It was Sunday and the stalls were empty and shuttered. It was also a church and they walked up through the market to the choir screen.
It was in the form of a board announcing Arrivals and Departures, slips of board clicking over with names on them, only instead of Arrivals and Departures it was headed Births and Deaths. Midgley wandered off while his parents sat looking at the board. Then his mam got up and kissed his dad, and went backwards through the screen just before the gates were drawn across. Midgley tried to run down the church and couldn’t. He was shouting ‘Mam. Mam.’ Eventually he got to the gates and started shaking them, but she had gone. He turned to look at his father who shook his head slowly and turned away. Midgley went on rattling the gates then someone was shaking the van. It was Nurse Lightfoot waking him up. ‘You can call me Valery,’ she chanted as she ran off to her big breakfast.

  Later that morning Midgley went in to see his father to find a smartish middle-aged woman sat by the bed. She was holding his father’s hand.

  ‘Is it Denis?’ she said without getting up.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Alice Dugdale. Did he tell you about me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He wouldn’t, being him. He’s an old bugger. Aren’t you?’

  She shook the inert hand. She was in her fifties, Midgley decided, very confident and done up to the nines. His mother would have called her common. She looked like the wife of a prosperous licensee.

  ‘He told me about you,’ she said. ‘He never stopped telling me about you. It’s a sad sight.’

  The nurse had said his father was a bit better this morning.

  ‘His condition’s stabilised,’ said Midgley.

  ‘Yes, she said that to me, the little slut. What does she know?’ She looked at him. ‘You’re a bit scruffy.’ She stood up and smoothed down her skirt. ‘I’ve come from Southport.’ She took the carnations from the vase and put them in the waste-bin. ‘A depressing flower, carnations,’ she said. ‘I prefer freesias. I’m a widow,’ she said. ‘A rich widow. Shall we have a meander round? No sense in stopping here.’ She kissed his father on the forehead. ‘His lordship’s not got much to contribute. Bye bye chick.’

  She swept through the waiting room with Midgley in her wake. Aunty Kitty open-mouthed got up and went out to watch them going down the corridor.

  ‘That’ll be your Aunty Kitty, I take it.’ She said it loudly enough for her to hear.

  ‘It is, yes,’ said Denis, glancing back and smiling weakly. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘No, thank God. Though she probably knows me.’

  They found a machine and had some coffee. She took a silver flask from her bag.

  ‘Do you want some of this in it?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Midgley.

  ‘I’d better,’ she said. ‘I’ve driven from Southport. I wanted to marry your dad only he said no. I had too much money. My husband left me very nicely placed. He was a leading light in the soft furnishing trade. Frank would have felt beholden, you see. That was your dad all over. Still you know what he was like.’

  Midgley was no longer sure he did.

  ‘How do you mean?’ he said.

  ‘He always had to be the one, did Frank. The one who did the good turns, the one who paid out, the one who sacrificed. You couldn’t do anything for him. I had all this money and he wouldn’t even let me take him to Scarborough. We used to go sit in Roundhay Park. Roundhay Park!’

  A woman went by, learning to use crutches.

  ‘We could have been in Tenerife.’

  Midgley was glad to have at least this aspect of his father’s character confirmed.

  ‘I didn’t want to let him down,’ said Midgley. ‘That’s why I’ve been waiting. He wants me to let him down, I know.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ she said, looking at the woman struggling down the corridor.

  ‘What was your mam like?’

  ‘She was lovely,’ said Midgley.

  ‘She must have had him taped. She looks a grand woman. He’s showed me photographs.’ She took out her compact and made up her face. ‘I’ll go back and have another look. Then I’ve got to get over to a Round Table in Harrogate. Killed two birds with one stone for me, this trip.’

  ‘YOUR MOTHER’D not been dead a year,’ sniffed Aunty Kitty. ‘I was shocked.’

  ‘I’m not shocked.’

  ‘You’re a man.’

  ‘It wasn’t like your dad. She’s a cheek showing her face.’

  ‘I’m rather pleased,’ said Midgley.

  ‘That hair’s dyed,’ said Aunty Kitty, but it was a last despairing throw. ‘They’re sending him downstairs tomorrow. He must be on the mend.’ The drama was about to go out of her life. ‘I only hope when he does come round he’s not a vegetable.’

  ‘I’VE TOLD SHIRLEY to ring if anything happens,’ Valery said. ‘Not that it will. His chest is better. His heart is better. He’s simply unconscious now.’

  Midgley was brushing his teeth.

  ‘I’m looking forward to him coming round.’ She raised her voice above the running tap. ‘I long to know what his voice is like.’

  ‘What?’ said Midgley turning off the tap.

  ‘I long to know what his voice is like.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Midgley. ‘Yes.’ And turned the tap on again.

  ‘I think I know what it’s like,’ she said. ‘I’d just like to have it confirmed.’

  ‘You don’t seem to like talking about your father,’ she said as she unzipped her skirt. ‘Nice shirt.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Midgley. ‘It’s one of Dad’s.’

  ‘I like it.’

  He went and had a pee and while he was out she took the receiver off the phone and put a cushion over it. When he came back she was already in bed.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, getting in and lying beside her. ‘It’s a bit daft is this.’

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘It happens all the time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Midgley. ‘So I’m told.’

  They kissed.

  ‘I ought to have done more of this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This,’ said Midgley. ‘This is going to be the rule from now on. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’

  He ran his hand between her thighs.

  ‘It’s the nick of time.’

  ‘First time I’ve heard it called that.’

  ‘I hope this isn’t one of those private beds,’ said Midgley. ‘I’m opposed to that on principle.’

  ‘You’ve never asked me if I was married,’ she said.

  ‘You’re a nurse. That puts you in a different category.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘He’s on an oil rig.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Midgley.

  Later on he had a cigarette and she had a cake.

  ‘I was certain they were going to ring from the ward,’ he said.

  ‘No.’ She lifted up the cushion and put the receiver back.

  He frowned. Then grinned. ‘No harm done,’ he said.

  They were just settling in again when the phone rang. She answered.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Midgley.

  She put the phone down and looked away.

  He was already out of bed and pulling his trousers on.

  ‘Had she rung before?’

  She had turned to face the wall.

  ‘Had she?’ Midgley was shouting. ‘Was she ringing?’

  ‘Don’t shout. There are night nurses asleep.’

  At the end of the long corridor the doors burst open.

  ‘It’s the biggest wonder I’d not gone into see Mrs Tunnicliffe,’ said Aunty Kitty. ‘She’s in Ward 7 with her hip. She’s been waiting two years. But I don’t know what it was. Something made me come back upstairs. I was sat looking at a Woman’s Own then in walks Joyce and next minute the nurse is calling us in and he has his eyes open! So we were both there, weren’t we.’

  Mrs Midgley nodded. They were all three stood by the bedside.

  ‘He just said, “Is our Denis here? Is our Denis here?”’ said Aunty Kitty, ??
?and I said: “He’s just coming, Frank.” And he smiled a little smile and it was all over. Bless him. I was his only sister.’

  The body lay flat on the bed, the eyes closed, the sheet up to the neck.

  ‘The dot does something different when you’re dying,’ said Aunty Kitty, looking at the screen which now showed a continuous line. ‘I wasn’t watching it, naturally, but I noticed out of the corner of my eye it was doing something different during the last moments.’

  ‘I think he’s smiling,’ said Mrs Midgley.

  ‘Of course he’s smiling,’ said Midgley. He went and looked out of the window. ‘He’s won. Scored. In the last minute of extra time.’

  Mrs Midgley came over to the window and said in an undertone: ‘You disgust me.’

  A nurse came in and switched off the monitor.

  They went out.

  ‘It’s a pity you weren’t here, Denis,’ said Aunty Kitty. ‘I mean when it came to the crunch. You’ve been so good. You’ve been here all the time he was dying. What were you doing?’