The Collector

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I must have gone down four or five times that morning, I was that worried. She was awake but said she wanted nothing, she knew what was what, she shook her head anyhow. At lunch she drank a little tea and then went off to sleep and I sat out in the outer room. Well, the next time I switched on her light it was about five she was awake. She looked weak, very flushed, but she seemed to know where she was all right and who I was, her eyes followed me quite normally and I thought she was past the worse, the crisis as they call it.

She had a bit more tea and then she made me help her behind the screen, she could just about walk and so I left her a few minutes and came back and helped her back. She lay awhile in bed with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, she had difficulty in getting her breath as usual and I was going to go away, but she made me stop.

She started to talk in a low hoarse voice, quite normal mentally, though. She said, “I’ve got pneumonia. You must get a doctor.”

I said, you’re over the worse, you look much better.

“I must have penicillin or something.” Then she began to cough, and she couldn’t breathe and she certainly sweated terribly.

Then she wanted to know what had happened in the night and the morning and I told her.

“Terrible nightmares,” she said. Well, I said I’d stay with her all night and that she looked better and she asked me if I was sure she looked better and I said she was. I wanted her to be better by then, so I suppose I was seeing things.

I promised that if she wasn’t well the next day I would carry her upstairs and get a doctor to come. So then she wanted to go up at once, she even wanted to know the time and when I told her, not thinking, she pointed out it was night and no one would see. But I said none of the rooms or beds was aired.

Then she changed, she said, “I feel so afraid. I’m going to die.” She didn’t speak quickly, there were pauses.

She said, “I’ve tried to help you. You must try to help me now.” I said of course I would, I sponged her face again and she seemed to be dropping off, which was what I wanted, but she spoke up again.

She said in a loud voice, “Daddy? Daddy?”

Go to sleep, I said. You’ll be recovered tomorrow.

She began to cry again. It wasn’t like ordinary crying, she just lay there with the tears around her eyes as if she didn’t know she was crying. Then suddenly she said, “What will you do if I die?”

I said, you’re not going to die, don’t be silly.

“Will you tell anyone?”

I’m not going to talk about it, I said.

“I don’t want to die,” she said. And then, “I don’t want to die,” again. And a third time, and each time I said don’t talk about it, but she didn’t seem to hear.

“Would you go away? If I died?”

I said, you’re daft.

“What would you do with your money?”

I said, please let’s talk about something else, but she insisted, after a pause, she was speaking normally, but there were funny gaps and then she’d suddenly say something again.

I said I didn’t know, I hadn’t thought. I was just humouring her.

“Leave it to the children.”

I said, what children, and she said, “We collected money for them last term, they eat earth,” and then a bit later, “We’re all such pigs, we deserve to die,” so I reckon they pinched the money they should have given in. Well, the next thing was she went to sleep for it must have been ten minutes. I didn’t move, I thought she was well asleep but suddenly she said, “Would you?” again, as if we hadn’t stopped talking. Then, “Are you there?” and she even tried to sit up to see me. Of course I calmed her down but she was awake again and she would go on about this fund she had collected for.

I gave up trying to say it was all silly, she wasn’t going to die, so I said, yes, I would, but she wasn’t, and so on.

“You promise?”

Yes.

Then she said, “Promises.” Then some time after, “They eat earth.” And she said that two or three times while I tried to pat her calm, it seemed it really distressed her.

The last thing she said was, “I forgive you.”

She was delirious of course, but I said I was sorry again.

You might say things were different from this time. I forgot all she did in the past and I was sorry for her, I was truly sorry for what I did that other evening, but I wasn’t to know she was really ill. It was spilt milk; it was done and there was an end to it.

It was really funny, though, how just when I thought I was really fed up with her all the old feelings came back. I kept on thinking of nice things, how sometimes we got on well and all the things she meant to me back home when I had nothing else. All the part from when she took off her clothes and I no longer respected her, that seemed to be unreal, like we both lost our minds. I mean, her being ill and me nursing seemed more real.

I stayed in the outer room like the night before. She was quiet half an hour or so, but then she began talking to herself, I said are you all right, and she stopped, but then later on she began talking again, or rather muttering and then she called my name out really loud, she said she couldn’t breathe, and then she brought up a mass of phlegm. It was a funny dark brown, I didn’t like the look of it at all, but I thought the pills might have coloured it. After that she must have dozed off for an hour or so, but suddenly she began to scream, she couldn’t, but she was trying and when I rushed in she was half out of bed. I don’t know what she was trying to do, but she didn’t seem to know me and she fought like a tiger, in spite of being so weak. I really had to fight to lie her down again.

Then she was in a horrible sweat, her pyjamas were soaked, and when I tried to get the top off to put on new ones she started fighting, rolling about as if she was mad, and getting in a worse sweat. I never had a worse night, it was so terrible I can’t describe it. She couldn’t sleep, I gave her as many sleeping tablets as I dared but they seemed to have no effect, she would doze off a little while and then she would be in a state again, trying to get out of bed (once she did before I could get to her and fell to the floor). Sometimes she was in delirium, calling for a G.P. and talking to people who she’d known, I suppose. I didn’t mind that so much, as long as she lay quiet. I took her temper-ature, it was over 104 degrees, and I knew she was ill, really ill.

Well, just about five the next morning I went up to have a breath of fresh air, it seemed another world out there, and I made up my mind that I would have to get her upstairs and ask a doctor in, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I was there about ten minutes standing in the open door but then I heard her calling again, she brought up a bit more of the red-brown phlegm and then she was sick, so I had to get her out of bed and make it up again while she lay slopped in the chair. It was the way she breathed that was worst, it was so quick and gasping, as if she was panting all the time.

That morning (she seemed quieter) she was able to take in what I said, so I told her I was going for the doctor and she nodded, I consider she understood, though she didn’t speak. That night seemed to take all her strength away, she just lay there still.

I know I could have gone to the village and phoned or got a doctor but for obvious reasons I never had dealings there, village gossip being what it is.

Anyhow I was so without sleep I didn’t know what I was doing half the time. I was all on my own, as always. I had no one to turn to.

Well I went into Lewes and (it was just after nine) into the first chemist I saw open and asked for the nearest doctor, which the girl told me from a list she had. It was a house in a street I’d never been. I saw on the door surgery began at 8:30 and I ought to have guessed there would be a lot of people as usual, but for some reason I just saw myself going in and seeing the doctor straight off. I must have looked daft in the room, with all the people looking at me, all the seats were taken and another young man was standing up. Well, they all seemed to be looking at me, I hadn’t the nerve to go straight through to the doctor so I stood by the wall. If only I could have gone straight in I’d have done it, everything would have been all right, it was having to be with all those other people in that room. I hadn’t been in a room with other people for a long time, only in and out of shops, it felt strange, as I say, they all seemed to look at me, one old woman especially wouldn’t take her eyes off me, I thought I must look peculiar in some way. I picked a magazine off the table, but of course I didn’t read it.

Well, I began to think there all about what would happen, it would be all right for a day or two, the doctor and M perhaps wouldn’t talk, but then… I knew what he would say, she must go into hospital, I couldn’t look after her properly. And then I thought I might get a nurse in, but she wouldn’t be long finding out what happened — Aunt Annie always said nurses were the nosiest parkers of them all, she never could abide people with long noses and nor could I. The doctor came out just then to call in the next patient, he was a tall man with a moustache, and he said, “Next” as if he was sick of seeing all these people. I mean, he sounded really irritated, I don’t think it was my imagination, I saw a woman make a face at the one next to her when he went back in his room.

He came out again and I could see he was the officer type in the army, they’ve got no sympathy with you, they just give you orders, you’re not their class and they treat everyone else as if they were dirt.