Extract from Chapter One

He often wondered if we were all characters in one of God’s dreams. The first thing he discerned when he regained consciousness was a woman in white. This angel was calling him by his first name, Tom, although they had never been introduced. ‘Are you a nun?’ he said. ‘No, I’m Jasmine. I’m a nurse. Come on, Tom, I’ve got to wake you up. I’ve got to put this other pillow under your head. And lift the top part of your bed. Like this . . .’ She manipulated with her foot a lever of the hospital bed so that he was slightly raised. ‘Otherwise,’ she said, ‘you might feel groggy.’ She stuck a thermometer in his mouth before he had time to speak, and took his wrist in her hand, looking at her watch. He saw by her watch that it was twenty past twelve. The sun was visible behind the curtains, so it must have been daytime.

He dozed off while she was still counting his pulse. When he woke half an hour later as it seemed, it was dark, it was ten-forty at night as he learned from the new nurse, the night nurse, name of Edna so she told him. So does our trade direct our perceptions and our dreams he thought: Tom was a film director. Cut into the scene of the morning with the scene of the evening. The same nurse, but was it the same? Anyway it was Edna and the same scene. ‘Where’s the doctor?’ Tom said. ‘He looked in this afternoon. Were you awake?’

‘Perhaps.’ Tom wasn’t sure. He thought he might remember a doctor’s face looming over him.

Edna let his bed down by manipulating the lever. There was a drip inserted in his foot that he had been aware of since he woke but hadn’t been able to remark on. Edna was nearly black of skin. ‘Where do you come from, Edna?’ ‘Ghana,’ she said, or was he mixing her up with someone else? When he woke it was

the daylight of early morning.

Enter a lady in white, this time with a head-veil. ‘You are one of the nuns?’ She was. She was Sister Felicitas come to take a sample of his blood. ‘They took my blood already,’ he said. ‘That was your urine.’ ‘What are you going to do with my blood?’ ‘Drink it,’ she said. ‘What time is it?’ ‘Seven.’ ‘How can you be so larky so early in the morning?’ ‘It’s late. We rise at five.’ ‘Was that you singing? I heard singing.’ ‘That was us in the chapel.’ She was gone in a whisk of white. In came his breakfast tray, supporting it seemed, dusky Edna. ‘Do you call this breakfast?’ ‘First you get liquid, then soft, then solid.’

She poured out some milky tea. He opened his eyes. The tray had disappeared.

He was now thinking of the plans he had made, the vow he had taken, before his operation. He intended to keep it. ‘Good morning.’ Two women came in with a mop and pail. One dusted while the other slopped the floor of that room in the international hospital. Now two nurses came to make his bed. They got him up. They helped him through to the bathroom. They shaved him with expert hands. Oh go on shaving, it’s nice. But then they unplugged the razor. Someone had put an enormous bunch of flowers on the far table, a mixture of roses, lilies and asters, most remarkable and expensive.

The surgeon: You’re going to be all right.

What did he mean, I’m going to be all right? So earnest. I never thought I wasn’t.

Beside his bed a table on wheels, moveable to any convenient angle. On the table was a telephone. Good, I will wait till I feel a bit stronger, after the liquids and the soft. ‘When will I be on solids, Edna?’ ‘I’m not Edna, I’m Greta. You have solids tomorrow.’ ‘Greta, where do you come from?’ ‘Hamburg.’ He felt like a casting director. Greta is absolutely built for the part. But which part? The telephone rang. The difficulty of his turning to lift the receiver was solved by Greta who wheeled the table to an angle where the phone was close to hand. ‘Yes?’ His voice croaked. ‘Is that you, Tom? Tom, is that you?’ ‘I suppose so. I’ll be on solids tomorrow.’ He was actually wider awake than he wanted anyone to know.

‘I suppose I can come and visit this afternoon?’ ‘No, tomorrow.’ Claire, Tom’s wife, arrived in the afternoon. He hadn’t yet told her the plans he had made. She would be intrigued by them but not anxious. That was one advantage of having a very rich wife. You could make plans without her worrying immediately how it was going to affect her budget. Tom once had a wife who referred back every action, every thought of his, to her budget. She was much happier divorced with a well-paid job of her own.

He had a belly-ache. Came Sister Benedict with her injection. ‘Tom! . . . Tom! . . .’ Claire was by his bed, smiling, holding his hand. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ she said. Nobody had said he wasn’t. He said, ‘I want to see Fortescue-brown.’ That was his lawyer, full of fuss and business, never letting you get a word in. I only keep him, thought Tom, because I am too genuinely busy to change. ‘Fortescue-brown!’ said Claire. ‘Yes, Fortescue-brown,’ he said. ‘At a moment like this you want to see Fortescue-brown?’

‘That’s right,’ he said.