Black and Blue - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Black and Blue

 

Her skin was definitely taking on a darker hue. It began with the sides of the nose. She attacked what she took to be blackheads. She scrubbed them with cleansing grains for open pores. She applied refining astringemts. She redoubled her scrupulous facial cleansing night and morning. She tried lemon juice to lighten the colour.

 

The darkening spread slowly, irregularly and ineluctably out from her nose.

 

No-one appeared to notice.

 

Her teeth began to darken too. Light grey became dark grey. Dark grey became black. They loosened somewhat.

 

She took to eating food which required no chewing: mashed potato, potted beef, soft white bread, tinned rice pudding...

 

She avoided smiling, gave up singing, appeared morose as she spoke less and less. Her eyes grew dim, though they often brimmed with tears. She cried herself to sleep night after night.

 

Still no-one drew attention to what she thought was so glaringly obvious. Tact, she supposed. - She consulted her doctor.

 

"You say you noticed a darkening from about six months ago? Well I'm sure it's nothing serious. A bit too much sun, perhaps. - More noticeable to you than to anyone else. - Take one of these tablets an hour before you go to bed. - Come and see me again in about a month." Throughout his monologue the doctor barely looked at her. His gaze and his attention were elsewhere - on his desk? on his prescription pad? on his previous patient? on his imminent lunch?...

 

She consulted a dentist: "Oh well, if it's been going on so long it's probably psychological you know. Have you seen your doctor? What about a psychiatrist?"

 

Were they all mad? Or was she going mad? Surely not. Her face was almost black all over now.

 

She was having a light lunch at work, sharing a table with another woman. She responded monosyllabically to the proffered conversation. - Oh God!  A tooth had finally detached itself! A thin, coal-black, top front tooth plopped into the soup she was eating, and her companion was splashed a little. Murmuring brief, embarrassed excuses, she hurriedly rose and left the table.

 

It was a week to the day after this that her black face fell off, also into the soup.

 

The bones revealed were black too.

 

She could not speak at all now, of course, without lips, and with only a few back teeth; but with her shrunken black-furred tongue she attempted to reply to people who, amazingly, continued to behave as if nothing was amiss.

 

It was the winter that finished her off. Her head was so very cold without the face. Every breath was a chill agony, though she tried to protect the exposed bones by wearing a modified Balaclava helmet.

 

The remaining stumps of teeth were chattering uncontrollably; there was a sudden "Snap!" and her head fell off.

 

It turned out to have been a hereditary problem. What else can you expect when your name is Schwarzkopf?

 

 

Margaret Wilde © 1983

The Doorbell and the Painkillers

Decades ago, possibly when I was in my teens, I read a short story about a doorbell and painkillers. It was during my science fiction/science fantasy days, I reckon. I've tried to find it, or some reference to it, on the internet, but without success. Stripped of its gothic atmospheric detail, the story, as I remember it, was this:

Whenever visitors rang the bell at the door of a remote, castle-like edifice, a strange, piercing sound arose, seemingly from far away - the bowels of the castle? - and an uncommunicative man-servant opened the door to them.

I forget the rest of the story, except that we discover the macabre and cruel secret of the working of the bell. - There are other people somewhere in the castle, underground maybe, or housed in a distant wing. They are in great pain. They are being cared for - nursed/doctored/spoken to solicitously - by person or persons who appear to care about their welfare. The treatment for their pain is pills - soothing pills - painstakingly concocted by their carers.

When they take the pills, the pills appear to help a bit; the pain subsides a bit. They perhaps allow themselves to relax a little. There is occasionally talk of becoming well enough to leave the castle, well enough to return home. But however they may appear to improve, and maybe to rest or sleep fitfully, there are terrible, anguished relapses, when, in concert, the patients scream in agony, clutching their stomachs, as though suffering the torments of the damned.

In brief, dear Reader, the pills they are being given contain tiny metal pieces, and the doorbell governs immensely powerful magnets, cunningly positioned. And when visitors ring the doorbell, the magnetism is engaged, and the tiny bits of metal within the innards of the 'patients' are pulled/attracted by that inhuman mechanism, and tear at the delicate, long-troubled tissues and nerves of those doomed victims of ill-conceived medication. And it is the sound of their screams that alerts the man-servant that there is someone at the door, someone waiting to be admitted... 

And the moral of this story is: Put not your trust in painkillers! They may cause you great harm...

I saw two nurses murder an elderly patient many years ago

I saw two nurses murder an elderly patient, many years ago when I was a patient in a TB sanatorium.

Phyllis was an old lady on the ward. She was a bit odd. She was one of the patients who was allowed to walk about a little bit. Just to go to the bathroom and toilet, and to eat her meals at the table with the other ambulatory patients. Some patients, of course, had to stay in bed all the time. Bed rest.

Phyllis had a 'thing' about elbows on the table. If anyone rested their elbows on the table at all when they were eating, she would startle the whole ward with her outraged cry of, "Elbows off the table!" I used to marvel at her vehemence about something that surely scarcely mattered.

Phyllis was a smoker. In those days most people smoked. But not, of course, on a ward in a TB hospital! Smoking was not allowed. - Nevertheless Phyllis remained a smoker. Her husband used to bring her cigarettes and Guinness when he came to visit her.

She used to drag her thin, frail body to the bathroom to smoke. - She made of it a smoke-filled den, and liberally decorated its floor with gobbets of phlegm as she coughed repeatedly. A productive cough, you might say...

Most people were pretty terrified of this fragile, loud, bad-tempered, very old lady with the coarse voice and the dirty habits. But I doubt that many would have wished her dead.

I rarely slept much in that hospital. The medication I was taking had a side-effect of severe insomnia. I just used to lie there quietly in bed most nights. There was rarely much going on. It was a medical ward: no operations, no surgery. When the two nurses appeared in the middle of the night they arrived quietly. In those days nurses didn't wear shoes designed to make a din and keep patients awake as some nurses do today. They had evidently, so it seemed to me later, decided to 'deal with' the Phyllis problem.

They removed her from her bed without putting her dressing gown or slippers on and, one on either side of her, linking their elbows in hers, they force-walked the old lady up and down the length of the long ward. Until she was dead. Then they popped her back into bed to find, officially, a little later.

Why didn't you shout, Phyllis? - Maybe you did and I've forgotten. - Maybe you tried to shout but no one heard. Maybe, rendered breathless with the unaccustomed exertion of your death march, you struggled in vain to shout. - "Elbows off!" may silently have rent the air...

OUT ON A LIMB - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

She was in hospital after having had a little operation and was unable as yet to perform little personal tasks like cutting toe-nails. It was unfortunate that the nurse cut off her foot by accident.

As the nurse said: "It was a particularly tough nail. It could have happened to anyone."

They got distinctly cross with her for making a fuss about it. If her feet were so important to her she should have waited till she was home again and able to cut her own toe-nails. Anyway it was done now. No use crying over spilt milk. She must look forward, not back.

Her friends were very kind and helpful. "Never mind," they said. "You’ve got another one. It was only your left one after all. You’ll soon get used to it. Footloose and fancy free, eh?"

She found it difficult to keep her balance. Her many falls damaged her arms, her other foot and the left leg itself, which had to be amputated.

Again she was assured she would soon get used to it. "You’ll soon be hopping around like a two year old."

They were a long time in providing a false leg. She tried to hurry them up, pointing out that if she hadn’t previously had to wait so long for the artificial foot, perhaps she’d have had fewer falls and not have had to have her leg amputated.

"You cripples are all the same! – You just think we’re here for your convenience. You had quite a nice solid artificial foot – a bit heavy perhaps – and you’ve had hardly any wear out of it. – Scandalous waste! – And now you chivvy us for an artificial leg. Wait your turn. You’ll probably only go and fall and break it anyway. I don’t know why you can’t be more careful, so’s you don’t fall. You’d think we’d nothing better to do than to make false limbs for clumsy folk like you."

"But it’s not my fault. It was the Health Service robbed me of my foot and that’s why I lost my leg."

"Back to that again! You’ve got a persecution complex. You ought to see a psychiatrist: always looking for someone to blame. – Well you can’t see one. You’re getting more than your fair share of attention as it is."

"Stir your stumps; and for goodness’ sake learn to stand on your own two feet!"

Margaret Wilde © 1985

I took my pain to Brighton once - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

I took my pain to Brighton once. We hadn't been there before. On the way I rang an investigative TV programme. I rang from a callbox and got them to reverse charges because I didn't have enough change to speak for long on the phone. They were a little incredulous at the request but they complied.

I told them about my pain and how I could find no way to get the causes dealt with. I told them I had finally decided to put 'faith-healing' to the test and had arranged to visit a faith-healer in Brighton: a guy called Tom.

I found an inexpensive hotel in which to spend a night. I left my things there and went to the home of the spiritualist healer. He charged no fee. They make a big thing of it, these 'healers'. That they charge no fee. But they go on about the time and spiritual energy they spend praying, and, in those days, about postage and stationery costs. They clearly expect you to pay, to make a 'donation'. I forget how much I put into the collection plate that was prominently on the table beside me. Was it £2 or was it a fiver? I think it was a fiver. I forget. Whatever it was, it was money wasted...

Late that evening as I walked around not far from the hotel, I came across a sort-of drop-in centre cum coffee bar. I forget exactly what it was. At any rate, there were evangelical Christians there wanting to convert people, or help them, or discuss issues of faith or something. I had a coffee and told a young woman about the pain and what had caused it. I asked her if she would help me. She said she would pray for me. Did she pray for me? I don't know. If she did, it didn't help.

I took my pain to Brighton once. And I brought it home with me again.


Margaret Wilde © 2011

David Tench, solicitor and consumer rights champion, who died last month, was remembered on Radio 4's "Last Word" today

David Tench, solicitor and consumer rights champion, who died last month, was remembered on Radio 4's Last Word today, along with four other people. I well remember That's Life, the TV consumer programme from the 70s, for which he worked as legal expert. Until hearing Last Word today, I had not realised that it is David Tench to whom we should all be very grateful for pushing through the Unfair Contract Terms Act of 1977 and the Consumer Protection Act 1987. (See the obituary in the Independent for further details of his life and work.)

We need another such campaigning, public-spirited solicitor/patient rights champion today, to work to reform the appallingly unjust, unfair laws that obtain with regard to medical and surgical treatment both by the NHS and by private healthcare providers. As things are, when patients are harmed by health professionals, they and their families find that the professionals who have harmed them are almost wholly safe from punishment. They are, to all intents and purposes, above the Law. Complaints Procedures are futile and civil court cases are ruinously expensive for the victims who have to pay court costs and wait weary, costly years to get to court at all, if they can manage to stay alive that long.

We need to reduce the terrible toll of suffering and cost that this unaccountability of the medical profession results in. To do that, we need a Law of Contract to apply to doctors and their patients/victims. A law that is not written in such complicated language that lay people cannot understand it, and does not contain terms that are unfair to the patient. We need some lawyers who are on the side of the patients to have a hand in drafting all legal stuff to make sure it protects patients. As it is, there is, effectively, no protection whatsoever for patients against negligent or even deliberately malicious treatment from health professionals. I speak from personal experience on this matter. - Read Fighting the System, which is my online account of my experience. I also wrote a Short Story about this, called Long in the Toothache.

Ariel - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Ariel

She swung in and out of the sun.

"Look, Daddy," her heart sang. "I'm almost flying!"

From far away the loved voice acknowledged her daring.

"I won't fall,"she called out to the world. "I know how to swing."

"Strewth! - Hey, Missus, these swings is for kids, not pensioners. Geroff!"

Margaret Wilde © 2010

The Luck of the Drawer - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

The Luck of the Drawer

She was placed into a drawer and the drawer was closed. She fell asleep and woke because of a nightmare in which she was placed into a drawer and the drawer closed.

Apart from the feeling of suffocation itself, she also was suffering from claustrophobia. - She explored with her hands. She did remember quite well the structure of a chest of drawers and had made one once for her doll, using empty matchboxes and tiny buttons for the handles. But she was sideways, the only way that she would fit the space. It was very difficult to push sideways towards the back of the chest. She succeeded in getting splinters into her fingertips, but not in opening the drawer.

She shouted for assistance but the sounds were muffled of course and were easy to ignore.

They freed her in the morning.

When they lifted her to put her to bed in the drawer again the next night she fought. She screamed and kicked and punched. Such were the energy and persistence she demonstrated that she won the ‘battle’. They put her to sleep on the sofa instead.

She had learned an invaluable lesson very early in life. Namely, that it is a great deal easier to avoid being shut up in a drawer than it is to escape from it later.

Margaret Wilde © 2010

Long In The Toothache - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Long In The Toothache

"These Fat Depressives: they’re always complaining of pain; they’re never happy unless they’re moaning." The consultant was musing to himself. He was a very important man. He hadn’t much time to spare for this silly woman.

He glanced at the notes. She’d complained of an acute abscess to her dentist nearly a year ago and then come afterwards to the Dental Hospital with the same complaint. Well, clearly she couldn’t have had it all that time. She couldn’t have put up with the pain.

True, she’d kept going back to her dentist. But that was the way with Depressives: obsessive about health, always wanting attention. The dentist hadn’t pandered to her, sensible fellow. He hadn’t taken any X-rays. As he’d told the woman last summer when she’d had her breakdown, that proved the ‘pain’ was just her nerves.

Coincidence that she had, after all, developed an abscess on that tooth, and it must have been there a while or the bone wouldn’t have rotted so far. Still, it would have been chronic. Lots of people had so little discomfort from chronic abscesses that they were only discovered in the course of other dental treatment. The pain of acute abscesses was of a different order of magnitude altogether, though they all become chronic if left untreated.

He knew how to deal with Depressives: Shock Treatment. It never failed. Let them know you’ll stand none of their nonsense. They needn’t whine to you for sympathy. If only everyone would treat them in the same way. They’d soon snap out of their silly behaviour then. He prided himself on his decisiveness.

She entered his room nervously. Her eyes were puffy. She appeared tired and confused. Of course, she was on Librium and amitriptyline.

"You Fat Depressives!" he greeted her. "You grind your teeth, don’t you?"

"No," she replied, and started to cry.

"All Fat Depressives on amitriptyline grind their teeth."

"Well I don’t." The silly woman was weeping copiously and blowing her nose. What a mess she looked! No wonder no-one had ever wanted to marry her.

"The last three Fat Depressives I had all ground their teeth. Why should you be any different?"

"I’m not a Fat Depressive; I’m a person. And I’ve got a lot of toothache. My mouth is a sheet of pain."

"A bit of sensitivity: we all get that as we get older. Don’t be childish. The fact is you grind your teeth while you’re asleep and that makes them hurt a bit."

"But I don’t sleep! That’s the point! I’m in too much pain. That’s why I had the breakdown. I’m so desperately tired."

"Rubbish, Woman! Of course you sleep. You just think you don’t. Pull yourself together!"

“And I’m very concerned about my work. I have a good honours degree and a distinction on teaching – but how can I give of my best to my pupils when most of my concentration is focussed on this excruciating pain and I’m so tired I can’t think properly?"

Ah that was it! She needed something to blame for poor performance in the work situation! – A classic example of neurosis!

He raised his voice to drown hers: "It is no good being hysterical with me, Young Woman. You’ve got to learn to be quiet and listen. You Neurotics are fond of the sound of your own voices."

"Tell me, Mr Lambert, don’t ‘Depressives’ ever get toothache? I have had an acute abscess left untreated for nearly a year; I have had a just-detected cracked cusp which has been painful for almost as long, one tooth just filled because it had decay and another still awaiting treatment. There are sympathetic pains all over my mouth. I am in torment."

"Stop exaggerating. - You Fat Depressives are all the same. You eat oranges and drink fizzy drinks all day, don’t you? I know these fad diets."

She looked bewildered at the change of direction of his questioning. "I don’t eat oranges. My teeth hurt too much. I never drink fizzy drinks. And I’m not normally fat. The amitriptyline holds water in my body and has caused me to gain two stones. – But what has any of this to do with the abscess, the decay and the cracked tooth?"

"Fat women always claim they never eat. - I’ll make you a bite-guard to wear at night to stop you from grinding your teeth."

She realised the advantage to the Dental ‘Mafia’ of covering up gross diagnostic errors over such a long period, but surely a consultant would have had a greater allegiance to truth and scientific exactitude than to negligent incompetents, professional colleagues or not. Surely he must realise that it was stretching credulity and coincidence too far to maintain that an abscess, a cracked tooth and two decayed teeth had all appeared by magic on the day that, fighting her appalling weariness, she had made a scene and insisted that her ex-dentist write a note for the Dental Hospital to have another look at the abscess!

The interview was at an end. He had not looked at her teeth, of course. You didn’t need to, with Depressives. The diagnoses were always the same: tooth-grinding, ‘target teeth’, acidic foods, sugary drinks, imaginary pain and exaggeration.

Well, he’d do the operation to remove the abscess and the rotting bone in June. At the same time he’d excise the scar from a previous mouth operation as it had healthy nerve tissue trapped in it. There was no urgency. She was a healthy woman in no pain and could wait four months.

He informed her doctor that she was just a Depressive. It wasn’t possible to have pain in so many teeth. "We have a Pain-Prone Neurotic here, Doctor. If I were you I’d treat any pain she complains about with a pinch of salt. These people waste a lot of our time."

The day of the operations came. He had not told her what to expect. She lived alone and would have made suitable preparations had she known how ill the operations would make her, how long they would take, how much blood she would lose. She was in ghastly pain in some other teeth. They had been treated at last, but the trouble had gone on so long before they were treated that they were taking months to ‘settle down’. Her tongue was exquisitely sore from contact with rough edges of temporary crowns and from encountering oil of cloves – balm for aching teeth but corrosive to tongue and gums. She was desperate, absolutely desperate – genuinely suicidal because of the continual pain, tension and lack of sleep. - She forced herself to remain calm. Some relief was at hand.

He had a student to assist him. He talked ‘at’ the patient. - It was only a local anaesthetic despite the operations lasting well over an hour. She had her mouth open and the scalpel and aspirator in it. Blood and saliva were removed as they appeared. She was unable to reply even if she had wanted to.

"Well Miss – Er -, you will have followed the Falklands Campaign. Brave men. They know what genuine suffering is."

As he cut through the gum during the apicectomy he accidentally cut deeply into the dentine of the perfectly healthy tooth next to the abscessed one. – God! - That’d be painful when the anaesthetic wore off! Rather her than me! Still, she’d be in shock today and it wouldn’t be absolute agony till tomorrow. It’d do her good to have some real pain for a change, anyway.
She was, after all, extremely fortunate to get the services of so eminent a dental surgeon on the National Health!

The following day, after a night of sitting upright to keep the swelling to a minimum, she was amazed to discover its actual extent. Her nostrils were splayed out to either side far wider than the outer corners of her eyes. The space left was too narrow for breathing. She had to breathe through her mouth. Blood and saliva ran down her chin. The upper lip was so swollen that it extended right over her lower lip, touched her chin and turned up at the bottom so that the inside was on the outside, so to speak. She strongly resembled the snouted Trolls she had once seen in a performance of ‘Peer Gynt’.

All was stiff – stiff as a board, she started to think, but realised that if a board were pressed, its rigidity would resist. If this stiffness were to be pressed, what would happen? The blood-gorged flesh would surely tear internally? She must try to keep very still and not touch it or stretch it.
But it was necessary to eat and drink to restore her strength after the loss of blood.

This was not only painful; it was extremely difficult. Her lips did not make a seal, since the upper was so much bigger than the lower. To drink in the normal way was impossible, as the upper lip was unusable. She had to introduce a small spoon into her mouth and ‘pour’ a little liquid from it into the bottom of her mouth and then bend her head backwards for it to reach her throat. It was a messy, immensely slow business.

She had not believed her ordeal could worsen so much. The healthy tooth which had been damaged by the surgeon’s carelessness astonished her by being the most harrowing of all the teeth. The scar excision had proved a much bigger operation than she had been led to expect. Painful throbbing extended from her mouth, up the side of her nose and as far as the outer edge of her left eye.

Her mouth was to her the very jaws of Hell.

The sweet focus was her TONGUE.

How deliciously sensitive the tongue to delight! – How agile a member when all had been well with her mouth! But for three months now it had been constantly chafed by the temporary crown and sticking-up point of the tooth which had been cracked. She had been embarrassed at school by having to use chewing gum to cover the sharp point. This was effective but it had to be continually chewed in order to function. If just left on the point without chewing, it went flaccid and soft in the heat of her mouth and slipped its mooring.

But how was she to chew? – With the great need for inactivity for healing to take place and the swelling to subside?

Unhappily, there proved to be no choice. The tongue’s demands were the most strident. She chewed all day – and all night, since the pain from the tongue would not allow her to sleep. In sleep the chewing gum would leave the tooth, the tongue would relax onto the point and the pain would wake her from that tiny sleep.

How could this torture have been allowed to happen? If an I.R.A. prisoner had been made to suffer as she had, Amnesty International would have intervened. But she was allowed no advocate. Her torturers were the prosecution, judge and jury.

She could feel the tight flesh tearing as she chewed. She could feel the stitches tugging through the delicate skin. She knew that she was doomed.

Lack of sleep. Horrendous pain.

She had the stitches out a week later and begged that the sharp point be ground down. It was, a little, but the remaining tooth tissue had to be conserved at all costs, apparently, even the possible cost of her sanity. She had no strength to argue and her tongue did not permit much speech.

Three days after this the migraines began. She took paracetamol and embarked on a futile expedition to find and purchase a glue to stick the chewing gum into position. She obtained some, but the glue remained in position and the gum slid off! Then the next shopkeeper told her that the glue was poisonous.

The fifth migraine in a day – she had not believed so many were possible in a day – attacked her on her way home. It was the end. No-one would help her. No-one understood her wretchedness and it increased when she sought to explain it. since this involved moving her tongue. So many teeth hurting; gums throbbing; face painful; head pounding; eyes aflame and unseeing.

As a stumbling, purblind, weary, yet supremely lucid and logical act, in order at last to end the pain and blessedly to go to sleep, she stepped in front of the approaching car.

………………………………….

Notes.

Every word I have put into the mouth of the surgeon in talking to me is what Mr Reg Dinsdale (I have used a pseudonym in the story) actually said to me, but there was more than this, of course.

I have telescoped two ghastly interviews into one.

Much of what ‘she’ says in the story was actually written for the surgeon, as I was far too ill to speak much.

He did look in my mouth actually, to see if an apicectomy on the Upper Left 2 would be feasible. But this was only after he had made his ‘diagnosis’ – of Depression and Tooth-grinding!

The car stopped (end of story). I felt contrite that I had frightened the driver – though it was not a pre-meditated act. I went to Dr Hazel Radley and told her I had just attempted suicide. – Please would she help me to get the dental treatment I needed? – Coldly she told me not to be silly. – I was not in pain, she assured me.

Margaret Wilde

Chacon à son goût - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Chacon à son goût

"Jane! I thought I’d just call to see if you’d like to come Blustifening with me. The emulsion is much easier to deal with when there are two doing it – and the rabbits don’t get quite so nervous."

"Oh I am so sorry, Sue. It’s my Tenti-fu class tonight. I don’t want to miss it. We’re on to: ‘How to treat a cerebral haemorrhage by lightly stroking the upper lip with the little finger of the left hand.’ It’s really interesting. – By the way, how’s your Shestu progressing?"

"Well I’ve done the stitching and glueing. There’s still the crushed eggshell to add and I haven’t lacquered the raffia border yet. I do hope I’ll get it finished in time for Robert’s birthday. He’s been so depressed since failing the Speculative Paraphysical Metanomenism course you know."

"But he’s still Pliskering, I take it?"

"Of course. He wouldn’t miss that for worlds. As a matter of fact he got a rise at work when he showed them a photocopy of his Proficiency Certificate, Grade 1. They hadn’t a single Pliskerer on the staff before – and you never know when someone will be called upon to deal with an exploding typewriter submerged in diesel oil, do you?

"Now, can I put you down for the Group’s Slide Show on Saturday? You remember, we said we’d each bring colour slides of our latest diplomas, so that the rest of us can see if we fancy them. It’s so important to ensure that they don’t clash with the décor, isn’t it?"

Margaret Wilde © 1986

PANTOMIME - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

PANTOMIME.

Jenny could not sleep, and had not slept for many nights this winter.

The night-wind shook at the doors and walls, seeking some crack or crevice to get into the over-heated house. It howled outside her window. In her mind’s eye she had seen the house shiver and brace itself against the onslaught. She had drawn the bed-clothes higher and shivered sympathetically, though the temperature in the room could not have been less than 70ºF. Her gas bills were always high, her windows and doors always tight-shut, and she might perhaps, at some time, in a facetious moment, have been moved to describe herself as a distinctly chilly mortal.

The icicle slid along the roof overhang, detached itself and leaped smoothly through the closed window of her room. She watched, unamazed, with raw, red, puffy eyes, as it fell to the floor, rolled along and jumped into her bed. Only then did she become alarmed.

“What the hell am I doing?” she said aloud. “Conjuring up icicles! God, what’s to become of me? How can I exist without sleep?”

Fretful, she rose, shrouded herself in a thick, candlewick dressing gown, and plodded to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Through the kitchen window she surveyed the same cold scene that lived inside her head. It seemed to her that she carried winter around with her.

She sometimes rang the Samaritans for something to do as much as anything. What did you do when night after night you couldn’t sleep and were tired to death?

She dialled their number in an absent-minded sort of way, holding the receiver some way from her ear and only marginally aware of the ringing tone. - Sometimes people said glibly, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, won’t you?” But they wouldn’t appreciate being rung at three in the morning. She had once or twice in desperation over the years rung up friends in the night but they’d never answered, and indeed might not have had sufficient time to answer, because she would ring off, unable to contemplate the futility of the likely conversation: “But what do you expect me to do? It’s not my responsibility! Isn’t there anyone else you can get to help? I’ve got to get my sleep. I can’t manage without sleep. (As if she could!) There must be someone else. I’ve got my family to think of. Why don’t you ring the Samaritans? Why don’t you take some sleeping tablets? Have a milky drink. Look, I must ring off; I’ve got to get my sleep; I’ve a heavy day tomorrow.”

And then talking about her next day: “Do you know, Jenny rang last night in the middle of the night! - I ask you! – No consideration. And then she wonders why we don’t go to see her!”

Ringing the Samaritans was a wearying business. It was always someone different who answered.

“Hello? Yes.” Her voice was low. “I don’t know how to get through the night. I can’t sleep and I’m so cold. – Yes, that’s right. – Yes. My name is Jenny. – Well, no, I’m not upset exactly. I can’t sleep, you see. – Well, really you have to experience it to understand how dreadful it is.”

Hey, this was a good one. The fellow was insisting that she’d feel better if she went out and helped other people! Just who would be out and about in this biting wind, at three in the morning, needing the assistance of a frozen, exhausted, weeping woman, she found impossible to imagine.

Abstractedly she put down the phone. Christmas was the popular time for suicide. But she wasn’t really suicidal, was she? - Just in pain and so very tired and cold.

She was relieved when it was morning, and pleased that there was the phone call to make. – She rang Elaine. - These days she found it difficult to dial. Her fingers were so cold that they often would not move independently and she had to use the whole hand’s clumsy movement to accomplish what formerly she had used one finger for. She’d had to buy a press button phone.

It seemed as though the phone was answered, but it didn’t sound right. A small voice was cross.

“You shouldn’t have done it! Get up at six and then… “

“Elaine! Are you there, Elaine? Is that you?”

Elaine’s voice: “Oh, Jenny. - Yes.”

“Were you talking? Were you talking to somebody? Talking to the cat or something?”

There was a very long, uncomfortable pause, then the tiny, cross voice again: “No more silly phone calls! Auntie Freda will be cross.”

“Elaine! Is there someone with you? We seem to have a crossed line.”

“No. – It’s me. I was talking to myself.”

“But, Elaine, It’s very disturbing. I don’t know whether you’re there or not, or whether the phone’s going wrong.”

“Yes, it is naughty of me. Did Anita get you to ring me? Did she tell you I was going dotty?”

“No, of course not. Don’t be silly. I’m ringing because on your Christmas card you invited me to go to the pantomime with you.”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Shall we go? Would you like to stay the night here afterwards?”

She was not happy about staying the night at Elaine’s but allowed herself to be persuaded. Elaine was certainly in need of company.

They went to the pantomime and were travelling back to Elaine’s in her car. It was nerve-wracking for Jenny. Her companion was behaving so oddly. She was driving very slowly, hands frequently off the wheel, - rubbing her eyes, tugging her hair in distress, banging on the car-roof in anger. She was talking to herself again, and occasionally to Jenny. Fortunately the road was free of traffic.

“Must stop this dreadful behaviour. What will Jenny think? She’ll tell Anita. They’ll talk about you.”

Cold with fear, Jenny pictured the car skidding on the black ice she imagined to be on the road. She closed her eyes, face screwed up tight.

“Jenny! Talk about something happy! Flowers, sunshine, singing, dancing…”

“It’s very difficult, Elaine. I don’t know what to say.” She bore in mind that Anita had been absolutely certain Elaine was OK to drive. But she wasn’t, surely?

“I think perhaps I’d better go home after all, Elaine.”

“No, I’ve got everything ready. – Made the mince pies. – We’ll let the New Year in. – You were always so jolly in the old days. – Must have a better year next year. – It’s been hard, looking after Mummy for so long and not getting out. I’ve got out of touch.”

“Yes, well, now you’ve only yourself to consider, you can get out a bit more, can’t you, dear? - Take up old hobbies. - Do more singing.”

It was a profoundly distressing evening for Jenny. She dreaded nights away from home, away from her comfortable bed, duvet and soft pillow. Knowing she would not sleep. Especially in this bitter cold weather. And Elaine’s behaviour was disturbing, frightening. The tiny, strange voice kept speaking with Elaine’s lips. And unfortunately Elaine seemed to have reconciled herself to behaving strangely.

Nor was she best companion for Elaine, who desperately needed to be cheered up. She wasn’t at all well herself and was so tired and cold and hadn’t energy to be cheerful for two. – Between them they dragged the day to midnight and beyond, and wished each other a Happy New Year.

Her night was a sojourn in an individual frozen Hell. She did not know what to do with her dead, white, stiff, rough-skinned fingers. They were so icy cold that they were agony. She tried them in bed and they stayed cold. She tried them under the pillow and they remained stiff. She put her gloves on and with difficulty wrapped the poor things up, one in her towel and one in her scarf. They did not seem to be part of her. They simply would not get warm. She thought of the hot baths in which she sometimes immersed herself and how strange it felt to be immersed in warm water and yet remain cold. It seemed to defy the laws of physics.

The morning was an improvement. Elaine’s little voice had gone away and she was contrite about frightening Jenny the night before. A civilised and quite cheery breakfast was followed by an uneventful drive back to Jenny’s.

She rang Elaine the next day to thank her for the outing. There was the tiny voice again. She could not get Elaine into proper conversation. Perturbed, she wondered whether Elaine was safe on her own. What would she do when she put down the phone? Would she be all right? – She was still muttering away. Jenny decided to go over there. She would leave the phone off the hook and leave the radio on and hope that Elaine would keep on talking till she got to her. She donned her overcoat, old college scarf and sheepskin mittens, covered her thin hair with a warm bonnet, and trudged out.

She came to where the paths diverged, and stiff with unreflecting weariness, her feet took her along the more familiar one. She reached the house and without acknowledging Anita’s father, who was mowing the lawn, she knocked at the door, staring unseeing at the colourful bedding plants in the planters on the porch. By now she was wondering about the cost of the call. It had taken her so long to get there. Anita answered the door.

She struggled to speak with chilled, cracked lips that had not spoken for a long time. They pressed close to her teeth, and it was a monumental effort to operate mouth and tongue. The slow, husky voice strove for clarity: “What time is it, Anita? – I’m worried about my phone bill.”

“And I’m worried about you, Jenny! Goodness me! High summer and you’re wrapped up as if it was winter! How are you? No-one’s seen you since Elaine’s leaving party and that was months ago. You’re looking rather pale. Are you still having your medication?”

Oh dear. She shivered, teeth chattering. Pain clutched at her breastbone and she stiffened. That icicle was there again. It was on Anita’s face. She lifted a mittened hand and slapped the face to remove it for her.

“How dare you insult me by referring to my medication! Are you trying to say I’m crazy?”

Margaret Wilde © 2007

LEARNED BEHAVIOUR - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Learned Behaviour

She watched on television the newly-hatched snakes immediately snaking off on urgent snake business and admired their purposefulness. – Just as she admired dogs when, dog-certain, they followed their confident noses to apparent predestinations. She would emulate them. She too would follow instinct not reason.

She ate a second cream bun.

Margaret Wilde © 2007

FACES - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Faces

It was his face she would recall. His faces. Always.

She had opened the door to him that first time and her heart had lifted at what she saw: the smile, the slightly quizzical lifted eyebrow as he checked that this was the right place, the right person. They had talked for hours that had sped oh so swiftly.

The next face she remembered was his dejected look. She realised she had unintentionally caused it and swiftly remedied that and it never returned.

The first face – his kind, gentle, smiling face - was the most frequent one.

She was frightened when he became cross because his face changed utterly and he ended the conversation and went to his room. Later he drew himself to his full height and stood ramrod-straight so that she had to bend her head back to see the stern, unsmiling look as he made clear his feelings.

Another time his face crumpled up with tiredness and she wondered if he would start crying.

Yes, it was his face she would remember, rather than his final words. - “I am a cold person,” he said. “Don’t touch me! - You have driven me away.”

Margaret Wilde © 2007

FOOTNOTES - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

FOOTNOTES

The driver parked a lorry on her foot. She hadn’t been standing long. She was just, you might say, collecting her thoughts, when the lorry was suddenly there, on her foot. Not the whole foot, let us say at once in the cause of exactitude, but a good deal of it, including all the toes.

She felt pain of course – my goodness yes – but the initial sensation was mixed with astonishment at the unexpectedness of what had happened and with the academic registering of the crunch, crunch of the bones under the weight and motion of the lorry.

Her mouth opened so wide in an involuntary eldritch scream that it felt as if the top of her head had blown off.

Perhaps the lorry driver was rather deaf, and maybe he suffered from visual impairment at times: at any rate he failed to notice her or her screams. He appeared to satisfy himself that the lorry was not an obstruction to other motorists, secured his vehicle and walked away, whistling, with his hands in his pockets.

Her screams were succeeded by tears. She had dropped her shopping bag and handbag and she desperately wanted to lie down as she felt so weak, partly with the pain, partly from the loss of blood and partly at the sight of her blood – running away down a convenient grating. But the very slightest movement increased the agonising discomfort. The problem was temporarily solved by her fainting. When she recovered consciousness she was lying down and felt no desire to get up.

She called for assistance.

“Sorry, dear. It’s nothing to do with me. I don’t live round ‘ere. I’ve only come on a cheap day return.”

A policeman arrived.

“No, Madam, I cannot move the lorry. I do not have the keys. I do not have the owner’s permission and I do not have a Heavy Goods Vehicle licence. Anyway it isn’t causing an obstruction or anything. You shouldn’t have allowed him to drive over your foot. I certainly wouldn’t allow anyone to park on my feet – they’re less important to a woman, of course.”

“He may be back soon. Probably just gone for his lunch. Have you got a library book with you? You could be reading it to pass the time while you’re waiting for him and it’ll take you mind off your foot.”

“Talk sense! I don’t want to take my mind off my foot. I want someone to take the lorry off my foot! Can’t you call the fire-brigade?”

“Oh I can’t call them, Madam. It isn’t a fire. And it might prevent them from dealing with a sudden emergency.”

“But this is an emergency!”

“Now let’s get this into proportion, Madam. It’s only a foot. It’s not like people possibly burning to death in a blazing building, is it? You must see that.”

“GET THE LORRY OFF MY FOOT!”

“Don’t you think you’re being melodramatic, Madam? You’re obsessed with lorries and feet, aren’t you? We did a bit of psychology on our course. I bet you’re a foot fetishist! Go on, admit it!”

“Imbecile! I never normally think of lorries or feet. I can’t think of anything else now that the one is parked on the other.”

He fetched a doctor.

“Give me morphine and get me to hospital, doctor!” Her voice was strident.

“Don’t try to tell me my job, young lady. I make my own diagnoses, thank you. You are clearly hysterical. Here’s a prescription for tranquillisers. Take three a day and you’ll soon see your problems in a different light.”

She died an hour later.

The police officer was reprimanded for his failure to secure an arrest – of the bleeding, that is.

Margaret Wilde © 1985

BLOODY-MINDED - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

BLOODY-MINDED

Of course, my blood’s the wrong size, you know. It keeps slipping down and getting clogged up in my feet.

And then there’s my skin: there’s bits missing. And it’s not the regulation thickness.

You’d think they’d get the basics right, wouldn’t you? They couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery.

“I want the standard size blood,” I said. I told ‘em. “I pay my taxes like anybody else.”

“The Complaints Department is on the tenth floor,” she said. “There is no lift. All complaints must be made in triplicate, witnessed by a J.P. and certified by a Commissioner for Oaths. There is a small charge for this service.”

“What’re you on about?” I said. I told ‘er. Made it clear, I did. - And about not getting the normal issue skin. And the bones which have got gaps in. - You can’t let them get away with it, can you?

What did she do? you’re wondering. – Well just then I passed out because of lack of blood to my head. Came to outside the building with a piece of paper pinned on my left shoulder. It was a duplicated standard form J/7938/A/A. It said that my complaint was out of time, and that anyway complaints could only be made between the hours of 8.45a.m. and 9 a.m. and only on the fourth Thursday of the month. Furthermore they’d had no other complaints about faulty bodies; p’r’aps it was really my brain that was faulty, and that was a different department, and not covered by the guarantee in any case.

Margaret Wilde ©1990

SPEECH IMPEDIMENT - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

SPEECH IMPEDIMENT

“Does that hurt?”

Rigid with agony, breathing arrested mid-inspiration, fingers digging into the arms of the chair, thrust skull pinning the headrest, she waited for the end of eternity – waited for the drill to stop. It stopped.

Limp and drained, she breathed again.

“Did that hurt?” he asked impassively.


Margaret Wilde ©2007

BEST FOOT BACKWARD - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Best Foot Backward.

“What you have to realise, my girl, is that your foot is really there. – The fact that I can’t see it and that you feel the need to wear a platform attached to your ankle is quite immaterial. Your real problem is psychological. Once conquer your obvious but groundless resentment of the surgeon who operated on it and the foot will return, good as new. You need to be open-minded about these matters, you know. We’re learning more and more about the invisibility of physical parts following lack of trust on the patient’s part. It used to be thought, for instance, that if a foot were there it would obviously be visible, but now we realise that this is far too simplistic a view. The mind works in strange ways. We are learning more and more all the time. – Why, only the other day I was reading about this. I could lend you the book. - It would help you a lot.”

“Look, Professor, this is silly. – My foot has been missing for over two years now. I used to fall down constantly without it until someone with a mind uncluttered with psychological hogwash made me the platform. That has enabled me to avoid many of the falls so that I feel somewhat better and can get about a bit and discuss the matter and pursue it.”

“Ah, yes – discussion – that’s right. You need to talk over your imaginary grievance with a psychiatrist – a sympathetic one, of course.”

“No. I have ventilated the issue enough with my friends. I do need to talk with you about the best type of artificial foot to use, since making artificial feet is your speciality.”

“Well I’ve given you ten minutes already. I really do feel that it’s twenty or thirty sessions of an hour or so with a psychiatrist that you need. It’s a lady psychiatrist I have in mind. Alternatively you might prefer to have your leg amputated. That would stop this obsession about a missing foot.”

“Look: I have a list here of other people who have missing feet, hands, etc. after being operated on by that surgeon. None of us is resentful. Many are outraged – including me. But the addition of the pseudo-psychological claptrap to the severe physical problems makes some people too ill to summon the energy to do anything but suffer. And one artificial limb maker rang me anonymously to say that many of the victims have died following particularly bad falls caused by missing feet.

“We only want you to ensure that all of us get the most suitable prosthesis possible and that the matter of the accidentally severed limbs be properly investigated so that others are saved from this distress in the future. We thought that in so physical a matter there could be no mistake but we were wrong. There seems no limit to the credulity of artificial limb makers – or rather, to the lengths to which they will go in covering up negligence.”

“I really cannot listen to talk like this. It is very upsetting for me. I must recommend immediate referral to a psychiatric ward. Totally away from the misguided friends who encourage your delusions, and out of touch of the similarly deluded wretches you mention, you may very easily recover your senses after a few years – by which time it will be too late for you to sue and that surgeon will have retired anyway!”

Margaret Wilde © 2007

TONGUE-TIED - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

TONGUE-TIED

The plaintiff was being extremely irritating. How awkward can you get? Why wouldn’t she give her evidence?

“Speak up, please. The Court hasn’t all day. We have your written statement but we must hear you give your evidence and you must be cross-examined by Counsel.

“This really is too bad: - making those grotesque noises and poking her fingers into her mouth in that disgusting way! I suppose we’re intended to conclude that because she’s got no tongue she can’t speak. Well it won’t do. She’s prejudicing the evidence.

“Her statement says that the dentist cut off her tongue while performing a minor operation in her mouth. Well we’ve only got her word for it, and only in writing at that! The surgeon says there was no tongue in her mouth when he started to operate and of course he is an expert. I feel we ought to accept his clinical judgement on the matter. He would have noticed a tongue if one had been present.

“The heavy bleeding afterwards, despite necessitating a massive blood transfusion, could well have been spontaneous. ‘Nervy’ people often get nosebleeds, and this could well have been something of that sort.

“In view of the stubborn refusal of this lady to give evidence I sentence her to seven days’ imprisonment for contempt of court.

“Case dismissed! Costs against the plaintiff!”

© 1988 Margaret Wilde