Calamity in Camberwell by Alice Castle

Author:Alice Castle [Castle, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crooked Cat Books
Published: 2018-08-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Despite Beth’s initial intention to leave hospital the moment she could, she found herself being lulled by the rhythm of institutional life. First came the absurdly early supper. She was used to eating early with Ben in theory, but because she was always rushing around doing something or other, their evening meal never seemed to hit the table much before 6.30 or even 7pm, which was late for a boy of Ben’s age. In the hospital, Beth started hearing the commotion of trolleys of food in the corridor outside at about 4.30, and by 5pm she was settled with a surprisingly good chicken korma with rice, and a nice plain apple for pudding.

When the nurse tried to bed her down for the night at about 6pm, it all started to make sense. The whole hospital was run on a nursery timetable, putting itself to bed as early as possible then rising again with the dawn. The night, a full twelve hours long, was punctuated with as many clangs, crashes, and clatters as the day, though the lights were dimmed. Presumably, the schedule made sense to someone, somewhere, and maybe kept the patients tranquil, since so many were half asleep after the endless disturbed hours.

Though Beth had still not spoken to a doctor, she found the fact curiously reassuring. No-one could be particularly worried about her if she wasn’t getting any treatment beyond four-hourly doses of pain medication. To be honest, she could perfectly well have taken that at home. But maybe there was method to this madness, and a strategy at work that she just didn’t understand. Was this the close observation that they talked about on medical dramas, so essential after a head injury?

The only time she’d thought she was about to see a real live medic was when she’d woken in the night to see a tall, dark, white-coated figure hovering by her bed, but the man had turned away quickly and rushed off when a nurse walked in to shuffle through her charts again and write gnomic scribbles in the margins.

‘Who was that?’ Beth had asked groggily, but the nurse just shushed her, and now she wondered if she’d dreamed it all.

She’d resolved to ask about it again, but when someone bustled in through her door at 6am wearing the familiar blue uniform, it turned out to be a different woman entirely. The other nurse, she was told, had gone off shift hours ago.

Beth hated to admit it, but she was rather enjoying the luxury of being waited on. Even if the food wasn’t quite what she’d have ordered if she’d had a free choice, it was plentiful and really not bad at all. She had porridge for breakfast, and slightly rubbery toast with those weeny plastic tubs of jam and golden folds of butter. And every time cups of tea were brought round, she was given handfuls of little twin-packs of biscuits. It was a bit like being in a rather odd hotel, where they insisted you stay in bed and shun all the sights.

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