Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody

ten, while the doctor and sister conferred, Tabitha gently wiped the T from the man’s forehead. The tetanus injection had come too late to prevent lockjaw. The patient had a name: Stanley Spence. Stan to friends and family. Tabitha knew this because yesterday evening, when he was still clinging to hopes of staying in this world, they began the letter. She recognised his accent. He was from Keighley, a millwright. When she told him she was the daughter of Braithwaites Mill, he chuckled. It tickled him to have her look after him. A boss’s daughter.
    By quarter to three she felt frayed at the edges and leaned against the wall in the sluice room. There was a shudder, as if someone in the adjacent room had hammered on the wall. The vibration rattled a shelf, causing a urine bottle to fall and break. That was all she needed. More work. At least it was empty. Tabitha went to find a dust pan and brush.
    ‘Is someone hammering?’ she asked.
    ‘It felt like a tremor, a quake,’ Sister said. ‘It’s upset the men on the shell shock ward.’
    Tabitha had seen men die before. But this seemed so unfair, to have come all this way, to be so near home and yet to be beyond hope. She should be off duty now but would not go. Stan Spence’s hands shook. Wool-gathering fingers folding and unfolding grasped the air.
    She took his hand. He sighed. Something inside him seemed quieter now, reassured by her touch. She had placed screens around the bed and pulled her chair close.
    A stranger’s voice startled her. ‘I’ve come to relieve you.’
    Tabitha turned. A young woman appeared by the side of the screen. She slid into view and stood by the bed. Tabitha did not want to be relieved. She felt knotted to the chair. This was where she would stay, for eternity, or at least for Stan Spence’s eternity.
    ‘Sister sent me.’ The woman went round to the other side of the bed. She was about Tabitha’s age, with an open friendly face, smooth healthy skin and lively eyes – too alive to belong in this corner of last resorts.
    She perched on the edge of the bed. You weren’t allowed to sit on the beds. Sister was a stickler over that.
    ‘Sister says report to the office,’ the woman said gently. ‘You’re off duty.’
    Tabitha did not trouble herself to shake her head. The man in the bed did enough shaking for both of them.
    His other hand flailed on the counterpane. The intruder took his hand and held it. Each of them stroked a hand, Tabitha on his right, the intruder on his left. Stan Spence seemed calmer, and to sigh, but only for a moment.
    It was as if invisible bolts of lightning jolted Stan’s frame. Some sound came from deep inside him, a terrible rasping noise, like a machine that needed more than oiling.
    Tabitha leaned forward and encircled him in her arms to hold him still. He rolled towards her, and back, and towards her. Some powerful leaping motion seemed to propel him forward, as though to catch the thin-spun thread of his own life.
    And then he was still, and grey as undyed fleece. That change in his skin seemed too sudden, too dramatic, too unnecessary. As if Death was laughing, and impatient.
I’ve got him now. He’s mine.
    Tabitha stroked his still hand, and thought of him strolling among the looms of a mill. The man who could fix things and get the weaver working again. She knew he had children. He mentioned them in his unfinished letter.She thought of Edmund, her brother. Killed in action, the telegram had said. She thought of how he had held a cricket bat, and how he always said she held it wrong.
    Stan Spence must have held a cricket bat, and laughed, and hit a ball for six. She hoped so.
Howzat?!
Edmund had called.
Out! Out!
    Tabitha watched the intruder close Stan’s eyes and cover his face.
    They walked side by side back to the nurses’ room. Tabitha went to tell Sister that Stan Spence had died. She felt for his letter in her pocket, and wondered what to do. She was too tired to think, worn out and