The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald Page A

her bed? And who will get me a morning paper? On whom will that duty fall?’
    â€˜You need a clean draw-sheet, Saunders.’
    â€˜Yes, Sister.’
    They went back down the ward and at the duty desk the Sister asked, ‘Delirious?’
    â€˜Yes, I think so, Sister. He’s excitable, anyway.’
    â€˜Temperature 98.2, thirst, vomiting, delirious, restless, that’s all that needs to go in the book. If he’s excitable, probably not a typhoid state. You may make yourself a cup of cocoatina.’
    Only at night were the nurses allowed into the ward kitchen. Like the wards, it was painted dark green up to shoulder height, and above that, cream, with kettles the size of cauldrons. All this was commonplace, but the ward kitchen belonged to the midnight hours, when those who should be sleepers were workers, and the human mind and body sank to their lowest point.
    When a constable called round in the morning Matron absolutely refused to let him see James Elder in Alexandra Ward until further notice. This was her usual policy, and the police were used to it. To the constable’s alarm, he was sent to Matron’s office, to be told that the hospital had been given no address and no satisfactory identification for this patient. The constable offered a report from the station, stating that Elder’s underclothes and his letters, all of which were bills, suggested that he was a gentleman.
    â€˜Are the motives of gentlemen who jump off Blackfriars Bridge very different from those who are not gentlemen?’ asked Matron sharply.
    â€˜I can’t say,’ said the constable, ‘they’re always at it, Matron, as you know. The Respiration’s always on standby. We use the old method, Sylvester’s method.’ The matron frowned. At this point Dr Sage, without invitation, and apparently with time on his hands, joined the conference. ‘Constable,’ he said, with intense feeling, ‘you’ve been sent here by your superiors to linger at the bedside of an unfortunate who has attempted what, in this country, is still legally a crime. If, in fact, he had not attempted but succeeded, if this man had drowned himself, would you have proceeded to drag the oozing cadaver into the magistrate’s court, and asked for a committal? Would these have been your
instructions?’ The constable said that the matron hadn’t so far given him permission to linger by the bedside at all, but the station would like to be notified if Elder was discharged.
    â€˜That is in our hands,’ said Dr Sage, holding both his hands aloft, as if to prove they were there. The constable left, saying that in his experience most of these cases made a good recovery if they were kept quiet and given beef-tea.
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    By the next day, James Elder did not remember saying he lived in Wapping. The envelopes in his pockets had a name, but no address. No friends or connections appeared. There was nothing about him in the newspapers, at any rate nothing was seen by anyone in the hospital who had time to look at them. Matron took the
Morning Post
, the doctors glanced, so they said, at
The Times
, the juniors read the
Daily Mail
and in the hospital kitchen there were copies of
Tit-Bits
and the
Police Gazette
and the local, which came out three times a week. Newspapers were not allowed in the wards.
    Dr Sage put 23 on milk and soda, with alcohol and ammonia as a stimulant, and steel drops to guard against anaemia. ‘We’ll soon see the last of you,’ he said in the voice which comforted many. But James Elder refused to eat or drink anything at all, and since his stomach had been empty when he was admitted, he did poorly.—Talk to him, find a good moment, make him see it’s all for his own good, persuade him.—Daisy was put on the job: have a go at him, Saunders. Strong, reassuring, smiling, never gives up. He knew her voice, his memory seemed to prick up its ears. You were the one on