Shutting Up Shop

The Friends Café to close on a Sunday? It was unheard of!

IT was a Sunday, and as usual for a Sunday, it was quiet in the Friends Shop and Café of Fensham Hospital. Jane arrived that morning to find Iris already hard at work, which wasn’t unusual. Iris was a stickler for time-keeping just as much as she was a stickler for everything else.

“Just because a person is volunteering,” Iris would often say, standing stiffbacked behind the café counter, “does not mean they can be sloppy.”

Jane hung up her coat and waited. There was no point in taking the initiative, because Iris knew what had to be done, when to do it, and how to hand out the tasks.

“There’s hardly a soul about yet,” Iris said, “so it’s a good time to sort the cutlery drawer!”

She looked at Jane, who was wrapping an apron around her narrow waist. “Good morning, Jane.” Jane smiled.

“Good morning, Iris.” Iris was better at organising than she was at social graces, but Jane didn’t mind. She was accustomed to Iris’s little ways.

The two women were old friends, and they made an unusual pair. Iris, with her lilac-tinted hair and large, round face, was nearly six feet tall; Jane stood less than five feet three, getting a little smaller (she sometimes observed with a sigh) with every passing year.

The cutlery drawer was taken out and laid on a table behind the counter, and Iris began to tut with disapproval.

Jane imagined that her cutlery at home was arranged so perfectly that Mr Roberts (or Mr Iris, as Jane called him in her head) probably dared not use a spoon or change the position of a knife.

Jane envisaged him eating his rice pudding or his roast dinner with a tilt of the bowl or the plate. Roberts men were known to be almost invisible and mostly silent.

Iris looked at the front of Jane’s apron.

“I suppose I’d better put one of those on,” she said.

The hospital had recently begun its seventieth birthday celebrations, and had announced new branding, which involved a bold, asymmetric pink logo of which Iris was suspicious.

“I applaud the sentiment,” Iris had told the new assistant administrator the week before. “I am exactly the same age as this wonderful institution and I support all its work. But this, er . . .” Iris waved a hand at the display that stood that day in the main lobby.

“This brand-new logo?” The assistant administrator in her black pencil skirt edged away as Iris spoke, eager to be on her way.

“If that’s what it is. I find the design a little brash.”

The assistant administrator, who looked to Jane to be about nineteen, smiled.

“I’m afraid it’s a little late to give an opinion. The branding focus group closed last November.”

“I don’t believe I was invited,” Iris said, raising her voice a little as the woman moved off. “Despite my long service . . .”

But the assistant administrator had gone.

Now, on this sunny Sunday, Iris gingerly took a second pink apron from the wall peg.

She had been the mainstay of the hospital’s Friends since its beginnings, and a line of formidable Roberts women before her had run the Linen Guild, which preceded the Friends and served the patients of 60 and 70 years ago with warm blankets and bed socks.

Iris knew all there was to know about the hospital, and Jane felt that both the Friends and Iris herself might crumble to dust without the work.

The two friends worked at the rearrangement of cutlery, then did a stock check (with the clipboard Iris insisted on) of biscuit supplies and sugar sachets.

A few patients and staff came and went; they made the occasional cup of tea and listened to the wellknown footsteps of reception staff and nurses going to and from the phlebotomy department.

All was calm until several people burst out from the distant lifts like champagne from a shaken bottle.

A long, wide corridor ran between the lifts and the Friends Shop and Café opposite reception, and the two ladies had a chance to observe the approaching kerfuffle for several seconds.

“Get the police!” a woman shouted, her voice high and strained.

“We’ll do that as soon as it’s necessary, Miss Jessop,” Dr Sangera said, hurrying along behind her with his white coat flying.

Behind them came two nurses from the orthopaedics ward. Both looked flustered.

Iris bent so that her lips were near to Jane’s ear.

“Police. That means medical negligence, I expect,” she whispered. “It’s happening more and more. That woman will sue if she doesn’t get satisfaction. I wonder what’s gone on in

orthopaedics today.”

Jane watched them careering along the corridor.

“We don’t know that anything unfortunate has happened, Iris,” she said.

“Clearly something has, and I read a lot of medical literature, Jane,” Iris insisted. “I understand the zeitgeist.”

The frantic woman had reached reception and slammed her hands down on the counter. She was struggling for breath as she leaned across to where Omolola, that day’s receptionist, sat.

“We have to get everyone possible on to this now!” the woman said.

“Um, of course,” Omolola replied, giving Dr Sangera a pleading look.

Iris headed for the café counter flap.

“I ought to offer to liaise,” she said, “as a disinterested party.”

“I don’t think so, Iris,” Jane said, running after her.

“The medical team can get heated at times like these,” Iris insisted. “Things can be said that can’t be unsaid.”

By now Jane had a firm hand on Iris’s arm.

“I’m guessing this is an angry relative,” Iris hissed. “There was an article in ‘The Lancet’ about family reaction –”

“Iris.” Jane slipped her small body in between Iris and the counter flap. “Let’s just wait.”

Iris nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “Marshall our resources. Be on standby.”

Iris had a tendency to leap into situations. Jane remembered the incident of the pregnant woman two years ago, in 1988.

The poor girl had been terribly upset, sitting at a table in the café confused and apparently unable to work out what to do next.

Iris had swiftly diagnosed pre-eclampsia, via depression and anaemia, before Jane had established that the patient simply couldn’t read English to get herself to her appointment.

Iris had suggested more red meat, professional counselling and a multidisciplinary approach, and after Iris was shown to be wrong, Jane had wondered if her friend might tone down the amateur doctoring. But it was not to be.

Only the week before, Iris had sent a young man to the specialist GP clinic to see about a skin condition, when he was in fact trying to find the photocopier to repair it.

Finally, it became clear what was going on with the upset lady.

“He can’t have got far,” Danielle Evans, one of the nurses, said. “It’s not a large hospital site. We have our resources on it already.”

The woman turned to face Danielle.

“This is my nephew we’re talking about. He’s only eight, and that’s his mother up there with her leg broken in two places!”

“Yes,” Danielle said. “He can’t have slipped out more than five minutes ago while we were dealing with your sister.

“We’ll track him down. We’ve sent three ancillary staff to scour the whole site, and those of us who can will join in, too.”

The other nurse, who noticed Iris looking as though she’d explode from lack of accurate information, came over and gave the two friends the low-down.

It turned out that a little boy, Brad, had come to the hospital an hour before, transferred from an A&E 15 miles away in an ambulance with his mum. She had stepped oddly off a kerb, broken her fibula and done nasty damage to her ankle.

She had come to Frensham for a stay on the ward and therapy. The aunt had joined them, and during the hurly-burly Brad had vanished.

The nurse spoke softly to Iris and Jane.

“I don’t think there was time to make the little boy understand what had happened, or that his mum would be fine.

“From his point of view, one minute he was walking along past the shops with her, the next he was being pushed into the background while people milled around his mum, and she wailed in pain.

“It was a nasty break, but she’ll be fine in a couple of months.” Jane nodded.

“You think the boy was terrified?” she asked.

Jane had spent her working life as a nurse and had seen similar cases of distressed young children.

“I do think that, yes. I feel bad that I didn’t chat to Brad more, to calm him down.”

Iris gave a long sigh. “He’s attempting to disassociate,” Iris said firmly.

The nurse blinked at her. “Well, something like that,” she said.

“It’s a well-known psychological reaction,” Iris went on. “The patient wishes the event was not occurring, and tries to arrange their environment to that effect.” She noticed the nurse staring at her. “I’m what they call a gifted amateur,” she said.

“Right,” the nurse said. She took a step back from the counter. “Anyway, Brad’s hidden himself somewhere and we have to find him and bring him back to his mum.”

Once the nurse had departed, Jane restrained Iris from gate-crashing the search party.

“We should stay here,” Jane said. “We need to make sure somebody has an eye on this entrance. Brad might wander in at any time.”

Iris conceded the point, but spent the next 10 minutes hopping from foot to foot.

Omolola asked for tea to try to keep Iris occupied, but Jane could see the enthusiasm in her eyes when the assistant administrator hurried in, looking anxious.

“Omolola, call the police,” she said. “Fifteen minutes is too long. He may have left the site.”

The search by staff had proved fruitless, and the police arrived a few minutes later and calmly took over.

The aunt, doctor and the same two nurses stood near the Friends Café, talking.

The atmosphere, Jane felt, was tense. Iris fiddled with cups and saucers until the assistant administrator, nearest to the counter, turned towards them. “Do you mind?”

Iris dropped a cup into a saucer and looked mortified.

“I am ready to help,” Iris said. “We are ready.”

Jane had to admit that her friend probably looked a little comical to those who didn’t know her. She stood ramrod-straight like a soldier at drill, wearing a pink apron and lilac hair, along with striking orangey lipstick that was applied slightly awry.

Jane imagined Iris each morning she was on shift, so eager to get to the café that she rushed her make-up.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” the assistant administrator said.

She turned back to the group and Jane saw her grimace as she turned. Jane frowned. The assistant administrator had been sharp, and her expression almost rude.

But then, Jane reminded herself, she was new, and dealing with a difficult situation.

Iris opened her mouth again and Jane’s heart sank.

“I have been working at this hospital for decades,” Iris said clearly. “I have local knowledge.”

The administrator turned round once again.

“We are busy here,” she said. “I’d rather you focused on . . .” Her eyes roamed the fairy cakes and rows of

The frantic woman slammed her hands down on the counter

chocolate bars. “Focus on refreshments.” Her tone was withering, and Jane heard a sneering sound in her voice. But the worst of it came a second later when she gave Jane a look of sympathy that said, “You have to work with this?”

Jane turned pink with annoyance as the administrator began a conversation with the aunt.

However eccentric Iris was, she always had the best interests of the hospital and its patients at heart. Iris was sometimes embarrassing and always exhausting, but she was a good person.

“Let’s go,” she said to Iris, who stared back at her. “Let’s close up and search for Brad. There’s nothing to stop us as long as we don’t hamper the police or medical staff.”

“Shut the Friends Shop and Café?” Iris repeated.

“Yes, Iris. Maybe we can be a pair of sharp eyes.”

Jane was at that moment pulling off one pair of specs and fumbling in her bag for another. She noted ruefully that her eyes were not the sharpest, but felt nevertheless that she and Iris had a role to play.

“We shouldn’t close,” Iris said. “We don’t close.”

She ran a loving hand along the counter. Jane saw the assistant administrator glance at Iris and make a comment to Dr Sangera.

Jane felt it might be a good idea to remove her friend from the woman’s sarcasm. Iris seemed bewildered, but was compliant. She took off her apron and grabbed her bag.

“Leave that,” Jane said. “Let’s just do a circuit of the grounds.”

Then Iris did an odd thing. She crouched down and pulled a pamphlet from under the counter.

Jane shook her head; Iris was finally losing her marbles.

The leaflet had cluttered up the café for years. Written in 1973 by Iris’s cousin Glenda, it detailed every event in its history since the dawn of time.

Iris had written to the British Museum years ago offering to supply a copy for display at the museum, and was puzzled that they had not written back saying how thrilled they were.

On the front was a terrible drawing of a building, and inside were pages of detail about new roofing and charitable events of the 1950s.

“Chop chop,” Jane said, turning the key of the till and slipping it into her pocket.

Police officers and senior staff were in evidence all around the main buildings, looking for Brad. Miss Jessop, his aunt, had somehow been spirited away.

“This way,” Iris said, turning off the path that ran between the main entrance and the surgical assessment buildings. “I didn’t need the pamphlet, of course.”

“No,” Jane agreed. “Hang on, Iris. It’s just allotments down here.”

The path became scrubbier as they went, with weeds pushing up through the paving and overhanging shrubs. The hospital site had been reinvented many times over the years, with bits of land acquired or sold off. “Hurry up,” Iris said. She pulled the pamphlet out of her pocket and stopped in the middle of the path, causing Jane to plough into her back. “Right,” Iris said. They had reached a clearing, tucked away in the north-west corner of the site. There, rising among overgrown conifers, was the old water tower.

Jane had forgotten all about it. It had once been a vital feature of the old hospital, built by public subscription in 1879.

“Oh, yes,” Jane said. “We used to be able to reach the tower from the lane near school. It’s a pity the plaque is so damaged. I can hardly read the names.”

Iris was frowning. “Help me find the door!” “It doesn’t have a door,” Jane said, looking up and down the dirty tower.

“All castles have drawbridges and all towers have doors,” Iris stated.

Jane stared at her. Iris was going doolally.

“You never climbed inside?” Iris asked, surprised.

Jane shook her head. Iris moved around the tower, pushing away brambles.

“Here,” she said. “They should have bricked it up properly, especially when the tower was added to the land around the new hospital. I must have been small to get in here in those days.”

Jane followed her friend. Low down on the far side of the tower was a small door. It was exactly the same dull colour as the brickwork, and just as stained by rust, moss and water.

“I came here so often,” Iris said in a voice that was curiously soft. “I hid for hours. Days, sometimes. When I was sick of the teasing.”

Jane’s hand went to her mouth. She was a few years younger than Iris and too young to have been able to see the dynamics of Iris’s peer group. The two women had become friends much later.

“You were bullied, Iris, weren’t you?” Jane said.

Iris turned and blinked at Jane, as though the concept was new to her.

“I suppose they might call it that now,” she said. “Shall we get on?”

Iris took a breath. “Brad? Are you in the castle?” she called.

Iris and Jane listened, their bodies still, trying not to make a sound as they waited.

“Someone has been in here,” Iris whispered. “Fresh rust has dropped off the handle.”

She called again, in a voice that didn’t sound at all like Iris. It was strong, but gentle.

Jane imagined her friend in the water tower years before, crouched inside whatever small chamber was within, hidden but hoping for a kind word.

“I used to think it was Rapunzel’s tower,” Iris whispered. “I wished I had Rapunzel’s golden hair. I wished I could say the right things and not be laughed at, or pitied for being a lump.”

They both heard a sob. “Go back and get people,” Iris said quietly.

Ten minutes later Brad was in the arms of his distraught aunt. He was small for eight, and wide-eyed.

Jane saw Iris give the boy an encouraging smile when he finally emerged, dusty and coughing, and Brad gave her the hint of a smile back.

Jane wondered what Iris had said in those few minutes she had been alone with him on the other side of the ancient door.

Iris was appalled when Staff Nurse Evans suggested the Friends Shop and Café be allowed to close for the remainder of its normal Sunday hours.

She said that the hospital staff were full of gratitude, and that Iris should take a well-earned rest.

“How do you think that looks to patients and their families?” Iris asked. “Especially at a time like this! This is a well-run operation, Staff Nurse.”

Omolola called across from her post on reception.

“Iris is right, Danielle. Gifted amateurs, that’s what we have here. Plus, they make a great cuppa. Thank goodness for the Friends.”

“I second that,” Jane said. “Thank goodness for my friend.”

“That’s not what Omolola said,” Iris remarked stiffly.

“No,” Jane replied. “That’s what I said.” n

Iris was sometimes embarrassing and always exhausting