SUNDAY 13TH JANUARY 1980
Miss Carroll came back last night with more books and a bunch of grapes, and Greg came this afternoon, bringing Janine and Pete, and more books. Also, while they were here and we were talking about Piers Anthony, who Pete likes, and Greg compared to Chaucer (!), Daniel turned up. I didn’t notice him at first, because I wasn’t obsessively looking over at the door at other people’s visitors because I had three of my own for a change. He came sidling up to the bed looking embarrassed. I could see that he wasn’t sure if he should kiss me or not, and in the end he didn’t. He had also brought books, and a big card from his sisters, and more grapes, little red ones. I don’t know why people bring grapes. Are they supposed to be specially healing? Janine brought a Mars Bar, which was rather more welcome, though messy to eat. The food in here is just beyond horrible.
At first, conversation was awkward. I introduced Daniel to the others, and it was clear nobody knew what to say. Greg even said that maybe they ought to go. Then, fortunately, Daniel said he’d brought my Sign of the Unicorn, and it was a case of deciding who got it first, and we all talked about books until the end of visiting time when the nurse rang the bell and everyone all had to go. I didn’t ask Daniel if he was able to wait for another hour at visiting time tonight, but he evidently didn’t as it has come and gone with no more sign of him. Still, it was very nice of him to spare me his Sunday afternoon.
The books Greg brought are all my this week’s ILL arrivals, which he stamped out to me in my absence without my cards. He was joking that this was a standard library service, but of course it isn’t. Unfortunately, they’re all hardcovers and terribly difficult to read at this angle. I can hold a paperback above my head sideways in one hand, but not a hardback. I have Mary Renault’s Return to Night and I can’t even read it. Still, just looking at the spine on my table is something.
A week would be until Wednesday. That would be three more days of agony and hell.
A nurse comes round and offers me painkillers every four hours. “Only take them if you’re in pain,” she says. How could anybody be hooked up like this and not be in pain? I take them, but they barely take the edge off.
I’m sleeping really badly, weird dreams and waking up often because of the pain and disturbances in the ward. The sleeping pills, which they insist I take, make me fall asleep but don’t make me stay asleep.
MONDAY 14TH JANUARY 1980
Last night, or early this morning, my mother tried the night attack again. I woke up and could not move, and I knew she was in the room, hovering above me. It’s never dark in the ward, there’s always a light at the nurses’ station and little lights along the floor, and someone had their reading light on down at the end. There was enough light that I should have been able to see her, but I couldn’t, only feel her presence very strongly. There was so much pain that I couldn’t think what to do. I tried to remember what had worked last time, and of course it was the Litany Against Fear, so I did that, and it worked again. As I calmed down and got control of myself, I could move, as much as I can anyway on the rack, and then she was gone.
How did she know I was here and vulnerable? Why didn’t my protection spell hold? It shouldn’t make any difference where I am.
I saw Dr. Abdul this morning, for the first time since he hooked me into this contraption last Thursday. He poked at my leg, making me scream, dammit, and said I was coming along well. Then he moved off down the ward to his next patient. I am nothing like so confident that I am coming along well. It feels as if it is making everything worse.
I suppose it might feel like that anyway and be working. He’s a doctor. You have to get three As at A Level to even start to train to be a doctor. (Do they have A Levels in Pakistan? I suppose they might, because they used to be British, they were part of British India when Grampar’s grandmother left there. But did they have A Levels then? Nasreen would know, because her father must have done them.) Well anyway, Dr. Abdul would have had to have got the Pakistani equivalent of three As at A Level before he even started training. He’d have to be clever and diligent and know what he was doing. He wouldn’t strap someone to a contraption just for nothing.
Why does the Litany Against Fear work?
Miss Carroll came in at evening visiting time, with books. They’re more Josephine Tey mysteries, which seem just about right, and paperbacks thank goodness. She says she misses me in the library, and that they mentioned my name in Prayers.
TUESDAY 15TH JANUARY 1980
Still on the rack, and feeling really down.