No Time At All by Susan Sallis

Author:Susan Sallis [Sallis, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
Published: 2012-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

SAM AND I were in a state of shock all day Sunday. I dreaded going to bed that night. But nothing happened. I didn’t sleep much though and I don’t think Sam did.

There were two wards in the cottage hospital: on the left of the reception desk were the women, on the right were the men. The signs were clear and large but they did not say which way you had to be facing when you worked the whole thing out, so naturally I managed to get into the women’s ward. When I asked for Mr Jenkins I was escorted back to the foyer as if I intended to rape everyone there.

She pointed to the signs.

‘Yes, I know. But if you face the door, this is your right—’

She manhandled me to the door labelled ‘Men’ and opened it for me, soliloquizing about the youth of today as she did so. I could have told her I was half-asleep because I’d been waiting for a ghost train all night, but it didn’t seem appropriate.

The men’s ward had a very high arched ceiling, churchy windows and a vinyl floor that looked like a virgin ice rink but was strangely tacky beneath my trainers. There were ten beds along one wall and ten beds along the other. At the end of the ward was a table where most of the beds’ occupants were gathered. So it was easy to find Gramps. I managed to wedge a chair by his locker and get myself into it without too much fuss. Even so, a hush fell on the ward and everyone looked.

‘Hello, Mr Jenkins,’ I said heartily. ‘It’s me, Matthew Savernack. From Little Kings—’

‘I remember you,’ he replied sourly. ‘No need to shout, I’m not deaf. And watch you don’t knock that lemonade bottle over.’

He was sliding down his back-rest thing, looking as taciturn as he’d looked when he brought Lisa to see us or collected her from Automobiles. I hardly knew the bloke. What on earth Lisa expected, I did not know.

Picking up my thoughts practically uncannily, he said, ‘You just missed her.’

‘Who?’ I knew darned well who.

‘Lisa. She said you’d be in.’ He spoke without any pleasure at all. ‘Reckons you’re still missing your own gramps.’

‘Yeah?’ I cleared my throat loudly. This was embarrassing.

‘She’s got the idea me and ’im were something like. Both a bit mad when it comes to trains.’

I had to put a stop to this. I trumpeted an enormous cough and gasped, ‘How is she?’

He opened his eyes properly and looked at me for the first time.

‘All right. She’s all right. Best thing that could have happened to her, me having this stroke.’

I spoke heartily again. ‘She wouldn’t agree with you there, Mr Jenkins!’

‘Because she’s a sentimental female. But I know what I know. She’ll be all right at Thornbury. Get all those letters she needs to go to university.’ His eyes drooped and he slid further down his back-rest. ‘She’s going to be Prime Minister one day. Did you know that?’

I hooted a genuine laugh.

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