CHAPTER SIX
Over the next two days of grueling work, I came to know more about Portis House. I learned to coax water from the reluctant taps in the laundry, where we filled our buckets for daily washing. I learned how to rub polishing wax onto a floor so it wouldn’t look opaque. How to buff the convoluted knobs of a brass bedstead without missing a spot. How to carry a bowl of hot soup up a flight of winding stairs without spilling any on the tray. How to fold a bedsheet properly at the corner of a bed, though I was slower and clumsier than Nina, and had to watch her more than once from the corner of my eye, admiring the fast, sure way she hefted the mattress with her beefy hands.
I also learned how to spend just five extra minutes in the lavatory, rubbing my aching feet; and, for a wonderful, beautiful quarter hour, I found a deserted spot outside the kitchen door, out of sight of the windows, where I smoked a cigarette, my eyes closed in a rapturous daze, the breeze blowing last autumn’s leaves over the cobbles in front of me and out over the low, rolling grounds beyond.
West, the soldier with the missing legs, had lost them to a grenade lobbed into his trench by advancing German infantry; his fiancée had abandoned him after he came home in a wheelchair, and his family had sent him to Portis House after he’d embarrassed them by weeping at his coming-home party. Other men were here because of anger fits, drunkenness, the inability to get out of bed, and—the worst cases—delusions and even catatonia. The last catatonic patient, however, had been removed some three weeks earlier, it having been decided that Portis House was too remote and far too understaffed to care for such a case.
All of this I learned from Archie Childress, the soldier Nina had taken broth to on my first day. On the second day he was assigned to me. “He can’t eat. You’ll have to coax him,” was all Nina said. “You’ll see for yourself.”
The infirmary was on the same floor as the men’s bedrooms, though down a corridor and near the entrance to the west wing of the house, which was completely closed off. It was large enough to accommodate three beds, a working sink, a cupboard with linens and basins, two wooden chairs, and a small table, which I assumed was for dressings or doctors’ instruments. It had a single window, and the patient lay here alone, unattended and looking at nothing. It took me a moment to realize that the room was so large because it had once been the master bedroom.
That first day I entered, carrying a bowl of hot soup and a cup of tea on a tray, I found a man sitting on one of the beds, fully clothed but for shoes, leaning on the headboard with his legs stretched out, his hands folded politely in his lap. The curtains on the window were closed and his face was half lit, though I could see he was too thin for the patient’s uniform he wore.
I set the tray on the table and straightened. The quiet fell like a blanket. The man on the bed made no move.
Perhaps I should say something, I thought. No one had told me what ailed this man, so I had no idea what to expect. “I’ve come with your supper,” I said, my voice loud in the silence. He took a deep breath and shifted a little, and in the intimacy of that sound I realized this was the first time I’d been alone—completely alone—with a patient. We even had this section of the house to ourselves; the rest of the men, with the exception of mysterious Patient Sixteen, were downstairs. My throat closed a little.
What was I supposed to do? He didn’t look feverish, or bleeding. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t eat supper with the others? My back hurt; my hands stung from the disinfectant we’d used to wash the main-floor lavatory. My arms were shaking with exhaustion, but I readied myself anyway, wondering whether I could defend myself. He looked well enough to come off the bed and at me.
He breathed again—it sounded like a sigh this time. He leaned forward and unfolded his hands.
“My name is Nurse Weekes,” I said in my nervousness. “I can help you. That is—do you understand?” I bit my lip. “Can you speak?”
He leaned farther forward. His hands now rested on his narrow thighs, on their backs, cupped loosely as if waiting to catch something. The daylight filtering through the window made everything as sharp as a pencil drawing, and I saw that his hands shook, both of them, shuddering against the fabric of his trousers, an uncontrolled tremor that moved with its own rhythmic purpose. He curled forward over them a little, as if they were injured, looking down at them. He had sandy brown hair, a gaunt face, a narrow, well-shaped nose, lips set in a determined line. Stubble lined his jaw and cheeks.
I blew out a breath. The shaking hands must be why he had trouble eating. My mind turned the problem over. “Perhaps we could—”
“I sss—” The sound came from him in a resentful growl, and I stood in silent surprise, watching him wrestle with himself. “I speak,” he said finally to his hands. “It’s just that I am tongue—that I am tongue-tied when I am around ladies.”
Well. No one had ever mistaken me for a lady, but I let it go. “You should eat something.”
“No, I’m quite well, thank you. Are you the new nurse? Nurse R— Are you Nurse Ravell’s replacement?”
It was a curious stutter he had, in which he sometimes backed up and ran over his words again as if in a motorcar. “Yes, I suppose I am. Was she the one with the freckles?”
“Yes. A curious girl. Very—very quiet.” He glanced up at me, something embarrassed in his expression. “Do you know if she’s all right?”
“I don’t know, I’m afraid. I think she quit suddenly. You really should eat.”
“No, thank you. You sound—you sound like a London girl.”
“Yes.”
“That’s nice.”
“Look, Mr. Childress—”
“Archie. Call me Archie.”
“Archie, then. You really—”
“How long have you worked here?”
Now I realized he was parrying me. “You should eat your supper.”
“No, I’m—I’m quite well, thank you.”
“But I just think you—”
“Do I look like I can eat my supper?”
His face flushed red. He was still but for his shaking hands, glaring at me.
I took a breath. I would not back up. I would not run. “You look like a man who can try.”
“Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you?” Anger made his stutter disappear. “I have tried. My hands have been shaking for sixteen months. It takes an hour to cut and eat a simple piece of meat. I have to be—I have to be fed like a child.”
Suddenly I was near tears, wanting to scream. “Very well.” I turned for the door. “It’s nothing to me. Good night.”
“What are you—?”
“I’m leaving,” I said, the words pouring out of me. “For God’s sake. I’m tired, my feet are throbbing, my own supper is waiting, I’m bloody starving, and I have hours of work to do before bed. I’ve no time to coddle you while you feel sorry for yourself.”
“Wait.”
I paused, blinking hard, my face turned away from him.
“I’ll t—” His stutter was back, and I winced. “I’ll try. You’re—you’re right. And I—I am hungry.”
I heard the bed creak, and turned to see he had moved to the table and was sitting down before the bowl of soup. He took the spoon in one shaking hand, dipped it in the broth. I stood frozen by the door, watching in helpless fascination. The spoon lifted slowly, so slowly, from the bowl of soup. He levered the spoon up, with painful deliberation, the tremors shaking the liquid from side to side, jettisoning broth over the edges. By the time the spoon reached his mouth, only a tiny amount of liquid was cradled in the bottom; much of this was lost down his chin as he tried to empty the single swallow down his throat. The entire maneuver was executed in perfect silence.
Sixteen months like this, I thought. All I could say was, “Archie.”
He dabbed the napkin to his chin with a shaking hand and looked me in the eye, speaking with perfect clarity. “You’re not much of a nurse, are you?”
I shook my head. “No. Actually, I’m the worst nurse you’ve ever seen.”
Suddenly we were both laughing. And that’s how I made friends with my first patient at Portis House.
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