The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, Marianne Cronin [top fiction books of all time txt] 📗

‘I want to see Father Arthur,’ I said.

She peered around for backup – a passing doctor or another nurse would do.

‘I’m not discussing this any further. I have a lot to do.’ And then she went back to the spreadsheet on her computer. Clicking and dragging and clicking and dragging and then pressing delete several times in quick succession. Ha, I thought, you made a mistake.

I think she hoped that if she ignored me for long enough, I would go away. Like a wasp. But I still couldn’t. She did some more clicking and dragging, and even though she was staring at the screen, I could tell her peripheral vision was on me. I stayed there, wondering if I, with my light hair and pink pyjamas, resembled a child in a horror film. She clicked and typed and I waited.

Finally, Jacky looked back at me. This time with fire in her eyes. ‘Do you know what? If you don’t move from this desk right now, I will call security.’

‘I don’t want to be at this desk, I want to go to the chapel and see Father Arthur.’

‘I’ve told you, you have to wait.’

‘I don’t have time!’ I let out a growl of frustration which drew the attention of a passing set of parents.

‘To be honest, Lenni, I don’t have time either,’ she said. ‘I don’t have time for your theatrics and I don’t have time for this ridiculous stunt.’

‘But you do have time.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve probably got a good forty years left. Well, maybe more like twenty-five or thirty if you keep smoking, but you’ve still got more time than me.’

Without my consent, a tear broke free from my eye and decided to make its own way in the world, rolling down my cheek and hitting the floor. I hoped that it would keep going, roll on and on, all the way to the chapel to find Father Arthur and tell him I was being held prisoner.

‘That’s it,’ she said, and she picked up the telephone and dialled three numbers. She waited, and I waited. Another renegade tear made its way to the floor, in hot pursuit of its comrade.

‘Security to the May Ward please,’ she said when someone finally picked up on the other end, ‘I have a patient who is obstructing the nurses’ station.’ She waited again, sternly said, ‘Okay,’ and then put down the receiver. I said nothing.

She shuffled some papers on the desk and clicked off the lid of a green highlighter. When she started highlighting bits of her paper, I was sure that she was just pretending to be doing something so it would seem like I wasn’t annoying her in the slightest.

‘Can I go to the chapel now?’ I asked. ‘I’ll take myself if you’re busy.’

‘This isn’t The Lenni Show, you know,’ she said. ‘I know that there are certain members of staff who give you special treatment, but you are just the same as everybody else, except you make twice as much work for everyone.’

‘No I don’t,’ I said, but without providing any evidence to the contrary.

‘Ridiculous,’ she said under her breath.

Another tear broke free.

When security didn’t come at once, I wondered whether the hospital security hated Jacky as much as I was starting to. It was nice. It undermined her need to swiftly deal with me, so I stayed there, refusing to wipe the tears from my eyes. Clearly thinking the same thing, Jacky picked up the telephone again. ‘Yeah, it’s Jacky from the May Ward,’ she said, ‘I called for security …’

The door buzzer for guests, staff and other May Ward prisoners buzzed, and a tall figure emerged through the doors wearing a security uniform. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.

The tears were out of my control now, rolling down my face and dripping onto my pyjama top. My nose decided to get in on the action too, leaking down my top lip.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Are you … okay?’

‘I want to go to the chapel, to see the priest,’ I said.

‘Excuse me?’ Jacky said to him sharply.

‘Sunil. But everyone calls me Sunny.’ He held out his hand, but Jacky didn’t shake it.

‘I’m the one who called you,’ Jacky said. ‘This patient is obstructing my nurses’ station.’

‘I want to see my friend,’ I said again, as more tears slid down my face.

Sunny looked from me to Jacky and back again. ‘I’ll take her,’ he said lightly.

Jacky looked like she was going to explode.

‘No,’ she said, ‘she has to wait. I’ve told her to wait.’

Sunny seemed perplexed. ‘It’s really no trouble.’

‘We can’t have one rule for her and a different rule for everyone else.’ She jammed the lid of her highlighter pen into the palm of her hand.

‘Is there someone else who wants to go to the chapel too?’ Sunny asked. ‘Cos I can take them all, I don’t mind.’ He smiled.

The cruelty of strangers never usually upsets me, but the kindness of strangers is oddly devastating. As Sunny asked me if I was okay again and offered to take me wherever I wanted to go, I really started bawling.

‘I called you so you could escort this patient back to her bed,’ Jacky said. ‘If you can’t do it, I’ll find someone else who will.’

Sunny glanced at me. He seemed unwilling to come and physically move me. He took a step towards me and said, ‘In that case, young lady, would you mind escorting me to your bed?’

I nodded and sniffed. I started walking and he walked ever so slightly behind me so that anyone else on the ward would think I was leading the way.

I reached my bed, from which Jacky and the nurses’ station were still visible. She had her neck craned round so that she could see if I’d made it. Like a heron searching for a worm in the grass. I sat on the end of my bed and she turned away, satisfied.

Sunny pulled the curtain so that Jacky couldn’t