The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald

typhoid, but they wouldn’t know that for a few days. Twenty-three became half-conscious and began to mutter and call out, ‘Flo.’ Daisy went to him, sat down by the bed and told him that she was not Flo, she was a hospital nurse and he was quite safe in the Blackfriars. ‘Take my hand, Flo,’ he said. ‘I’m not Flo,’ she repeated. ‘I’m a probationer.’
    â€˜Why did you bring me in here?’
    â€˜You’re not well. You’ve hurt your head, and you’ve swallowed a lot of dirty water.’
    â€˜I had to do that. You know why, Flo. If you don’t know, you can ask the solicitor.’
    â€˜You have to keep calm now,’ said Daisy. ‘You can talk to your family in the morning.’
    â€˜I haven’t any family. I haven’t any money. I don’t want to call you Nurse. I want to call you Miss. I want to call you the Eternal Woman. Are you ashamed of that?’
    â€˜I’m not ashamed of anything.’ To quieten him down, and convince him that he was in hospital, she took his temperature, putting the thermometer back in its glass jar of Condy’s Fluid. The patient complained of thirst, and became agitated when told that he mustn’t, until a doctor had seen him, have anything to drink. She rubbed ice on his forehead, and held his hand when once again he cried out, ‘Flo!’
    â€˜Well, tell me, what is it?’
    â€˜There’s something I want to tell you.’
    â€˜Well, I’m here,’ she said.
    After a year and a half she had become accustomed to the things that patients wanted to tell her, particularly on night duty. Night and darkness in the hospital were a time apart, nine and a half hours, almost, of something like freedom shared with the sleepless under the thin hissing of the lowered gas.
    â€˜Swear you’re listening,’ he said.
    â€˜I’m listening.’
    â€˜I’m a suicide, aren’t I? That’s why you brought me in here. A sad case, a sad waste of brilliant promise. Yes, I took the fatal plunge. I want you to tell me something. Very earnestly, in all sincerity, I want you to tell me this: is there anything about me in the newspapers?’
    Eructations, slight vomiting of mucus mixed with water.
    â€˜I don’t think they’re printed yet,’ said Daisy.
    â€˜What time is it?’
    â€˜Four thirty-two.’
    â€˜Just between dark and dawn.’
    â€˜Not a bit of it, it’s winter. It won’t be light for a long time yet.’
    â€˜When the dawn comes, will it be in the morning papers?’
    â€˜I shouldn’t think so.’
    â€˜When do they print them?’
    â€˜Do you mean that’s all you’re thinking about?’
    â€˜Yes, all I’m thinking about.’
    â€˜Think about getting better,’ said Daisy. ‘If you’ve got no family, at least you must have friends.’
    â€˜I haven’t any friends.’
    â€˜Who’s Flo, then?’
    â€˜Not a friend.’ Daisy by now had managed to get the draw-sheet off and he lay back with his head a little on one side as though listening, then started off again. ‘She might read it in the paper. When the dawn comes up like thunder she may see a headline: WAPPING CLERK ATTEMPTS FELO DE SE.’
    â€˜There’s plenty of clerks in Wapping,’ said Daisy. ‘Wapping’s full of them.’
    â€˜But they don’t all try to take their own lives.’
    â€˜It’s not your own life,’ said Daisy. ‘How did you get that idea?’
    â€˜I don’t think you’re meant to talk to me like that. Give me a drink at once. Run out and buy me a morning paper.’
    â€˜I go off duty at 7 a.m.,’ said Daisy, ‘and I have to be in bed at 9 a.m. prompt.’
    â€˜Where is your bed, Flo?’
    The superintending night nurse, patrolling the wards, approached in time to hear 23 repeating plaintively, ‘Where is