She waited half-an-hour; no-one rang back. William was bellowing to be fed. Chattie charged about trying to be helpful and getting in the way. Sevenoaks, having decided it was time for a walk, lay across the landing moaning piteously. Jonah was thrashing on the bed now groaning in anguish, chattering, deliriously, about coachmen and the horses not being ready in time.
In despair Harriet rang Elizabeth Pemberton. She could hear bridge party noises in the background. She could imagine them all stuffing themselves with chocolate cake, and tearing everyone to shreds.
‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth unhelpfully.
‘Cory’s gone to the States. Mrs Bottomley’s out. I think Jonah’s very ill. He’s complaining of pains in his head. I can’t get hold of Dr Rowbotham or Dr Burnett. Can you suggest anyone else?’
‘I’ll have a think,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’m awfully tied up at the moment, Harriet.’
‘Bugger you,’ she was saying, thought Harriet.
‘Try Dr Melhuish in Gargrave,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He’s old-fashioned but very reliable. Ring back later if you need any help.’
Dr Melhuish was also on his rounds. She could hear Jonah screaming with pain. Harriet took a deep breath and dialled 999.
‘I’m stuck in the house with a baby and two children, and the boy’s seriously ill. I think he’s got brain damage or something. Please can you help?’
She was trying so hard not to cry, she had great trouble telling them the address.
‘Don’t worry, luv,’ came the reassuring Yorkshire accent, ‘we’ll be over in a minute.’
She was just getting down Jonah’s suitcase, trying to dress William, comfort Chattie and not fall over Sevenoaks, when the telephone rang again.
It was Sammy.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Jonah’s ill. I’ve rung for an ambulance.’
‘Good for you. I’ll come straight over. We’ll take Chattie and William. Yes, of course we can. We’ll manage. You must go with Jonah.’
‘What will Elizabeth say?’
‘She can stuff herself,’ said Sammy. ‘She won’t be looking after them anyway. Keep smiling. I’ll be right over.’
Harriet charged round gathering up pyjamas, toothpaste, an old teddy bear, Jonah’s favourite Just William book. She wanted to write a note to Mrs Bottomley, but she couldn’t find a biro. Cory always whipped them all to write with.
Sammy arrived with the ambulance, her round face full of concern.
‘I got away as soon as I could, the unfeeling bitch and her bridge parties. I’ll sort out the bottles, the nappies, and Mrs Bottomley. Don’t you worry about a thing.’
Two ambulance men, who had camp voices and left-of-centre partings, came down the stairs with Jonah on a stretcher.
He was quieter now. Sammy smiled down at his white pain-racked face.
‘Poor old love, you do look poorly. Never mind, the nurses’ll make you better. I’ll bring you a present tomorrow.’
‘Can I sleep in the same bed as Georgie?’ said Chattie.
‘How old is Cory?’ said the doctor at the hospital.
‘Thirty-four,’ said Harriet.
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
‘Oh I’m sorry. Cory’s only his first name. We call him Jonah. He’s eight.’
The doctor underlined the word Jonah with a fountain pen and went on to ask her a lot of questions — when did Jonah first sit up and walk? Had he had all his injections? — none of which she could answer.
Then they were taken down endless passages into a room with one bed. Everything was covered in cellophane; the nurses came in in masks.
‘Just a precaution until we find out what it is,’ said one of the nurses.
It was a nice little room. On the blind was painted a village street with dogs and cats and people buying from a market stall. The church clock stood at three o’clock; a chimney sweep was cleaning an immaculate chimney; children looked out of the window. Harriet gazed mindlessly at it as she waited for the results of Jonah’s lumbar puncture.
Thoughts of typhoid, smallpox, polio chased themselves relentlessly round her head. Oh God, don’t let him die.
Jonah’s blond hair was dark with sweat but he seemed calmer. Harriet bent over him, sponging his forehead.
‘Your tits are too low in that blouse,’ he said with a weak grin.
‘I didn’t have time to put on a bra,’ said Harriet.
Half an hour later, the nurses took off their gowns and masks. Much later a specialist arrived. He was a tall man with untidy grey hair, scurf all over his collar, who stank of body odour.
‘We think it’s early meningitis,’ he said. ‘We’ve found far too many white corpuscles in the fluid, but that’s not too much to worry about unless there’s a growth. But I think you should notify the boy’s parents.’
Then followed the hassle of trying to find where Cory was in America.
Harriet tried very hard not to show Jonah how panicky she felt. The only thing that sustained her was the thought of talking to Cory on the telephone. Never had she needed him so badly.
She was frustrated, however, at every turn. Cory’s agent in London had closed his office for the weekend and couldn’t be found at home. She hadn’t enough money to dial the number Cory left her in New York. Noel’s agent said she’d gone to Paris for the weekend, was due back on Tuesday but had left no forwarding address. A queue of large swollen ladies in quilted dressing gowns from the Maternity Ward were waiting to use the telephone and starting to mutter. In desperation she rung Elizabeth Pemberton, who promised rather unwillingly to see what she could do. Afterwards Harriet had a word with Chattie. Her heart was wrung listening to the choked little voice:
‘Elizabeth asked me if I used a dry brush or a wet brush to do my teeth. I wasn’t thinking. I said dry. It was horrid. Everyone’s gone away, Daddy, Mummy, Jonah, you. I do miss you, Harriet.’
As the night nurses came in Jonah grew increasingly worse; his temperature shot up to 106 again. He couldn’t keep any of the antibiotics down. He kept asking for water, but every time he drank he was violently sick. Soon he became delirious, crying for Noel, for Cory, shouting out about the black coachman who was coming to get him. Harriet kept hoping he’d gone to sleep, then his eyes would open and he’d groan. On other occasions he’d drop off, then wake up, be all right for a few seconds, and the pain would take over.
Harriet clung on to his hot dry hand and wondered how she’d get through the night.
Chapter Twenty-one
The noise of the floor-polisher was like sandpaper on her brain; the bleep of a doctor’s walkie-talkie made her jump out of her skin. After twenty-four hours in hospital with no sleep, she seemed to have Jonah’s head — even the slightest sound, running water, the air conditioner, seemed to be magnified a thousand-fold.
Jonah was no better. He had kept nothing down. In between bouts of delirium he complained of a stiff neck.
‘No-one’s trying to make me better,’ he groaned. ‘You’re all trying to kill me.’
Harriet was very near to breaking. She had been unable to locate Cory or Noel. She had not slept at all, and she had taken against the new day nurse, Sister Maddox, who was a snooty, good-looking redhead with a school prefect manner. I’ve got twenty-five other children to see to in this ward, so don’t waste my time, she seemed to say.
‘We’ve seen much worse than Jonah, I can tell you,’ she said briskly as she checked his pulse.
‘Dying, dying, dying,’ intoned Jonah like a Dalek.
‘Now pull yourself together, young man,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to make you better.’