Rachel's Holiday
Page 33

‘Hello,’ I said to her. ‘Go back to your own bed.’ Friendly but firm. Now, hopefully, I could resume my sleep.
‘I’m the night nurse,’ she said.
‘And I’m Coco the Clown,’ I said. I could out-derange her any day she liked.
‘Come on, you’re on breakfasts.’
‘Why isn’t Chaquie on breakfasts?’ I had heard somewhere that it was best to reason with lunatics.
‘Because she’s not on Don’s team.’
Suddenly the words ‘Don’s team’ rang a strange and unfriendly bell.
‘Am I… am I… on Don’s team?’ I asked haltingly. It had dawned horribly that perhaps I was. Didn’t I agree to something yesterday evening…?
‘Yes.’
A sensation of great loss descended upon me. I might have to get up after all.
‘Well, I’ve just resigned,’ I offered, hopefully.
She laughed in what might in other circumstances be described as a kindly way. ‘You can’t just resign,’ she cajoled. ‘Who’s going to do the breakfast if you don’t? You can’t let everyone down.’
I was too tired to argue. In fact, I was too tired to understand what was going on and get annoyed about it. I grasped one point and one point only. If I didn’t get up, people might not like me. But I was going to find this Don, whoever he was, and tender my resignation forthwith.
I was so tired and cold that I thought I might die of shock if I had a shower. And I was afraid to turn on the light and wake Chaquie in case she started talking at me again. So, in the darkness, I put on the same clothes that I had thrown on the floor the night before.
I wearily went to the bathroom to clean my teeth but there was already someone in it. While I shivered on the landing, waiting for the bathroom to be empty, the flashlight lunatic reappeared.
‘You’re up, good girl,’ she said, when she saw me. ‘Sorry I had to introduce myself like that. I’m Monica, one of the night nurses.’
I moved my toothbrush to my other hand so that I could shake hands with her. She seemed nice and kind. Motherly. Although not like my mother.
The bathdoor finally opened and, in a cloud of Blue Stratos, Oliver the Stalin lookalike waltzed out. He was just wearing his trousers and a facecloth slung jauntily over his plump shoulder. He looked nine months pregnant. His huge, bare, grey-haired stomach seemed to have a life of its own. He winked at me and said ‘Clean and Polish, wha’? It’s all yours.’
After I had half-heartedly thrown some water at myself, I dragged myself down the stairs. I was all set to find this Don and explain firmly to him that it was my sad duty to have to tender my resignation…
The moment I got into the perishingly cold kitchen, a plump, middle-aged, little man rushed up to me. He was wearing a tank-top and again I had that feeling that I had taken some hallucinogens a short time before.
He panted, out of breath, and said ‘Good girl yourself, I’ve got the black and white puddings on, will you do the sausages…?’
‘Are you Don?’ I asked in surprise.
‘Who else would I be?’ He sounded annoyed.
I was confused. Don was an inmate, I had seen him several times the previous day, in the thick of the brown jumpers. How come he was one of the team leaders? Haltingly, I said as much.
And he explained what I had already suspected. In the tradition of the Betty Ford Clinic, the inmates of the Cloisters did the majority of the housework themselves.
‘It’s to teach us responsibility and teamwork,’ he said, hopping from foot to foot. ‘And I’m this team leader because I’ve been here nearly six weeks.’
‘How many teams are there?’ I asked.
‘Four,’ said Don. ‘Breakfasts, that’s us, Lunches, Dinners and Hoovering.’
I started to explain that I couldn’t be on this team. Or on any team for that matter. I was allergic to housework, and, anyway, there wasn’t anything wrong with me, I knew all there was to know about responsibility and teamwork. But Don interrupted.
‘We’d better get cracking,’ he said. ‘They’ll be down any minute, bellyaching and demanding to be fed. I’ll just go and get the eggs.’
‘But…’
‘And keep an eye on Eamonn, would you?’ He said anxiously. ‘He’d eat the raw rashers if he could get his hands on them.’ With that he rushed away.
‘It’s not fair on the team leaders putting an OE on the breakfasts…’ he called back over his shoulder.
‘What’s an OE?’ I shouted after him.
‘Overeater,’ said a muffled voice. I turned and found Eamonn was also in the kitchen. I didn’t know why I hadn’t noticed him until then. Christ knows, he occupied about half of it.
The reason his voice was muffled was because he had the best part of a loaf of bread in his mouth.
‘I suppose you’ll report me for this?’ he said, with a hangdog expression, as he stuffed slice after slice into his mouth.
‘Report you?’ I exclaimed. ‘Why would I report you?’
‘Why not?’ He looked and sounded hurt. ‘You’re supposed to care about me, you’re supposed to help me overcome my addictions, like I’m supposed to help you.’
‘But you’re a grown man,’ I said in confusion. ‘If you want to eat a family-sized sliced-pan…’ I paused and touched it. ‘… a frozen, family-sized sliced-pan in under a minute, that’s up to you.’
‘Right then,’ he said belligerently. ‘I will.’
I had said the wrong thing. And I was only trying to be nice.
‘Wum!’ He glared at me as he crammed his mouth full with more slices of bread, ‘Um eat unuther wum now!’ Muffled but adamant, he started on a second loaf. At least it was only the second that I was aware of. God alone knew how many he’d eaten before I arrived.
There was the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor and Don arrived back. He had Stalin in tow and both of them had their arms full of cartons of eggs.
Ah lads, lads.’ Don didn’t look too happy, as he took in the breadless scene.
He turned to me with an outraged expression. ‘What’s going on here? Ah now, lookit, Rachel, he’s after eating nearly all the bread, there won’t be any left for the TOAST!’ His voice had risen in pitch throughout the sentence, with the grand finale ‘TOAST’ uttered in a soprano that could have shattered glass.