Nor would she have known whether a tinkled summons by her patient’s hand-bell was a godsend or an evil omen.
When she went in, Mrs Hunter ungummed her voice. ‘I want to use the seat, Sister.’
‘Are you sure you’re strong enough, dear? Hadn’t you better let me bring the pan?’
‘I am strong enough,’ Mrs Hunter said.
Though normally Sister Manhood hated the business of bundling the old mummy on to the ugly-looking commode, today after all that dusting and emotional hullabaloo, she made a soothing ceremony of it. The commode itself, if you were in the right mood, had a kind of half-cocked dignity, with its knobs and scrolls, and the curved handrails ending as swans’ heads. Flora was reminded of the picture of a real throne in the history book at school.
When she had enthroned her ravaged queen, the waiting-woman upheld procedure, ‘Say if we’re not comfy, love.’
Because everybody ought to know she had not felt comfortable in years, Mrs Hunter did not answer. She sat as though resigned to face a moment of self-imposed terror in a fun fair, clutching rails polished by the hands of other compulsive thrill-addicts rather than the flannel Mrs Cush loved to saturate with O’Cedar.
Flora Manhood, all bash and busyness till lately, felt curiously lulled. ‘When I was a kid,’ she could feel her lips opening, swelling with a lovely warmth and indolence, ‘I seemed to spend half my life in the dunny. Half of that time only looking. Or dreaming. Or reading ads from the papers Mum had cut into squares. I dunno — they can’t have been there that long, but all these papers had turned yellow. In the dunny up the yard. There was always fowls outside picking around amongst the mallows. They’d come and peck at your toes, like they thought your toenails were grains of white corn.’ Never before had she talked to Mrs Hunter like this: it made her feel sort of drunk. ‘Some of the hens used to roost on the seat at night. I could never ever decide if it was the hens that smelt of lime, or the lime of hen dirt.’
Flora stopped. She was ashamed.
Mrs Hunter cleared her throat, and it was going to be serious. ‘What did you dream about — when you were at the — lavatory?’
‘About getting rich, I reckon. Escaping to the city, away from the humdrum of the farm. Oh, and love!’ She was careful not to make it ‘marriage’.
Mrs Hunter was considering the gravest issue. ‘Do you love me, Nurse?’
‘What a thing to ask! Of course I love you. We all love you.’ It was too bright and bouncy, too Big Sister; though it mightn’t strike an old person.
‘If you love me as you say, perhaps you would do me a favour,’ Mrs Hunter persisted. ‘Even if it went against what I suppose one would call your better judgment.’
Sister Manhood smelt a rat. ‘I don’t know about “better judgment”. It all depends what you want me to do.’
The old girl’s eyes were clenched so tight she was more than straining on the loo. ‘The little capsules Doctor prescribed — to make me sleep — would you leave them by me, Sister? So that I could help myself?’
Sister Manhood felt herself perspiring: her upper lip must be wearing a moustache of sweat. ‘Not likely!’ she cried. ‘What a thing to expect! It wouldn’t be ethical.’ She was genuinely shaken.
‘Love is above ethics. And you love me. You said.’
‘That’s unfair, Mrs Hunter. How would I stand if anything happened?’
‘If you love me.’ Her eyes still screwed up.
Flora Manhood shepherded her breasts inside her arms, no longer a nurse, but a woman defending her threatened virtue. (Well, more or less: when technically no virgin, and ethically not altogether blameless, there’s still a theory of good you like to hang on to.)
Mrs Hunter said, ‘Let us forget about it. There are other ways.’
‘But it’s downright immoral — wanting to do away with yourself!’ Oh, cock, cock; the way things were going, you might have to come at it too. ‘And not so simple, believe me.’ As though anybody would.
‘Simple enough. My will shall withdraw, if I decide it’s necessary.’
Sister Manhood blew her top. ‘This may be the time your will doesn’t work. See?’
A silence fell between them.
Flora fumbled for her handkerchief; the old thing would never realize what she did to people.
Presently the nurse asked, ‘Have you finished, dear?’ However others might study to break the rules, there were still formalities to be observed.
‘Have I finished? I haven’t begun!’
Flora remembered Mum used to whistle: that was for the other, though.
Then she heard the pink pink, of one or two pellets, or three, as from an afterthoughtful, or costive, goat.
‘I believe I’ve finished, Sister.’
When she had wiped, and was preparing to hoist the bundle back into bed, Sister Manhood asked, ‘Would you like me to make you beautiful tonight? Wigs and all?’
Mrs Hunter smiled, and answered, ‘No.’ But enjoyed the bosomy waves into which her nurse was lowering her. ‘No,’ she repeated, and her voice rocked and settled. ‘I’m looking forward to a cup of tea. Do you think my cook-housekeeper will have made me anchovy sandwiches? Not if they’re not thin.’
Sister Manhood’s thinned-out smile was the visible expression of her sigh. ‘We’ll see,’ she said.
She had to admit the old cracked gramophone records they played together, over and over, sent her at times, but she would be glad this evening when night came, and with it her relief.
Then as the last quarter approached, and she dusted the crumbs off her embalmed patient’s chin, and sorted out in her mind what to report to de Santis, Flora Manhood knew that for some reason she would have given anything to defer her colleague’s arrival.
You could as easily hold off the night as defer de Santis. Soft and silent, she was standing in the dressing-room. In her navy hat. She was more than usually considerate: just when human was what you mightn’t be able to take.
Sister said, ‘You’ll be glad of your rest, Sister. You’re looking drawn. Nothing wrong, is there?’ Taking off that hat, she held it raised for a moment, detached and purposeless, above her head. ‘Nothing personal, I mean?’
Sister Manhood snort-laughed. ‘Nothing that a boiled egg and a hot bath won’t put right.’ Jesus Christ!
Sister de Santis was airing her dark, rather matted hair by lifting it in places with a hatpin.
‘She must be upset, isn’t she?’ she asked; ‘so much happening too suddenly.’
The grotty old pin, which you had seen often enough before, had an onyx knob: tonight the streaks dividing it were whiter.
‘Upset?’ Sister Manhood would not have liked it known, let alone confirmed. ‘She’s constipated — anyway, a bit — last time on. I’ve dished out the calomel, Sister. You’ll have that to brighten your night.’
De Santis was taking off her coat in such a way it became some kind of dark robe.
Flora’s head was aching by now. ‘It hasn’t been an easy duty,’ she admitted. ‘I think Badgery sees to it that the worst of the morning will take effect only in the afternoon.’
Sister de Santis had begun the more intricate, personal moves in her disrobing. She was a bloody onion tonight. Not that anybody had to watch. Not if they could uproot themselves.
‘They rang the Thorogood Village.’ It sounded muffled from inside a dress. ‘They’re going out tomorrow.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, the princess rang them.’
Flora Manhood took a look at St Mary’s great dollops of breasts as she stooped and hunched to get her slip off.