Janette Turner Hospital Collected Stories by Janette Turner Hospital

Brendan’s life when her work was so important, people depending on her, matters of life and death. There had been, of course, grey spaces of betrayal in his eyes. That was the way it was with her men. Impossible demands and messy endings.
    But this was misting away at the periphery of her mind. She changed lanes, jockeying for the exit. She always stayed in the fast lane until the last possible minute, defying entanglements, winning the off ramp. She parked in her reserved space at the hospital.
    Odours come coded. The brackish tang of seaweed can sting the nostrils and suddenly one is feeling for a pitted anklet of scars and hearing an old scream hurtle off the rocks, childhood blood spurting from oyster shells.
    Angela smelled the familiar wave of disinfectant, bed pans, assorted medicinal fumes, and felt invigorated. Other people might turn faint at that smell but Angela inhaled power. Within its ambience she had a certain licence to bind and loose. She made mortal arrangements.
    Her case-load was heavy but it was the latest admission which most immediately concerned her. The bed of Beatrice Grossetti floated in its own haze of mustiness. The smell of the last century, thought Angela; of oiled furniture and old photographs; the smell of a person long unused.
    Only a small fetal arc disturbed the bedding but the face on the pillow was gnome-like and ancient. Angela glanced at her clipboard. This was the clinical data: Beatrice Grossetti was seventy years old. No living relatives. Weight: eighty pounds.
    The ancient eyes of the child-body opened.
    Angela said briskly, “Good morning. Miss Grossetti.”
    â€œMrs Grossetti. Are you the doctor?”
    â€œNot a medical doctor. I’m here to help you sort out anything that might be worrying you.”
    The eyes closed again. “I thought the clergy did that.”
    â€œThey do, if that’s what you prefer. Would you like to see a priest?”
    â€œNo.” Mrs Grossetti’s eyes, startled and skittish as dragonflies, darted out from cover. “I don’t know … perhaps later … Is it so urgent?”
    She was wounded now, a cornered animal.
    Angela, releaser of traps, liberator of caged spirits, sat beside the bed.
    â€œNo rush,” she said.
    She was confident that the timing depended on her patient and herself. None of her cases had ever gone before they were ready. She had a certain knack, and the dying have instincts of their own.
    â€œYou will know when. And I will be with you.”
    Mrs Grossetti’s face contorted itself into what would have been a scream if any sound had come out. She clutched at Angela who took both gnarled hands between her own, leaning forward to press them against her cheek.
    â€œIt’s all right, it’s all right,” she murmured. “You’re not alone. I am with you.”
    â€œHow can knowing … how can just the knowing … ?” The voice of Mrs Grossetti struggled to assert itself over some rushing undertow. “Two days ago everything was … usual. Slow and weak … just the usual slow and weak … just age. I watered my geraniums and my tomatoes. They’re ripening so I have to watch out for the pigeons … I grow them in my window box you know, they’ll be ready in about ten days … And then my … Mr Bernstein, the man in my little supermarket … he said – such a nice gentleman – he said: ‘I’m worried about you, Beatrice. You’re looking a little thinner every time I see you. I wish you’d see a doctor.’ And just to please him, you know …”
    There was a long pause while Mrs Grossetti’s forces deployed themselves. They tapped some wild energy of insight and she sat up abruptly.
    â€œBut nothing has changed! Just knowing cannot make any difference. Nothing has changed. I want my tomatoes.”
    She slumped back wearily.
    â€œCouldn’t I go home to my tomatoes?” she