John Halkin - Squelch

‘Are you sure she wasn’t knocked down by a car?’

‘The bike wasn’t damaged. We think she simply lost her balance. There was some roadwork going on and she fell awkwardly across a pile of kerbstones with one leg twisted through the frame. Must have been lying there in the dark for an hour before they found her.’

‘Naturally I’ll talk to her if you think it’ll do any good,’ Ginny said doubtfully.

‘Shall we say four o’clock at the hospital?’ He got up, glancing at his watch. ‘Ask for me at Reception. And don’t look so nervous! I think your visit will cheer her up.’

At the door he kissed her on the side of the mouth and said he was grateful she’d agreed to help. Was he merely trying to involve her in good works, she wondered. Well, she’d soon put a stop to that. She waited as he made a dash for his car, then waved and closed the door, glad to shut the weather out.

By afternoon the rain had blown over, leaving sodden roads. Diversion signs indicated that her usual route was closed because of flooding; as a result, she arrived in Lingford late.

The hospital consisted of a network of one-storey wards radiating like spokes from an elegant country house which accommodated the administration and outpatient departments. Ginny parked at the side on the patch marked ‘Doctors Only’ and went in. Bernie was waiting in the entrance hall, talking to a white-coated young man whom he introduced as Dr Sanderson.

‘Afraid I have to rush, Ginny, but Dr Sanderson will look after you,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop by the cottage later.’

Dr Sanderson had that sanitised look about him, familiar from American TV hospital series. He wore his white coat buttoned high at the neck, plus frameless glasses. Ginny disliked him immediately. He said very little to her, but walked slightly ahead as he guided her through the maze of corridors linking the wards; though he did suggest she should not raise the subject of moths herself, but wait for Mrs Kinley to bring it up. It was obvious he thought her some sort of mental case. Or lying.

When they reached the ward, she was not in the main room where a lively conversation was going on, but by herself in one of the alcoves near the entrance.

‘You’ve a visitor, Mrs Kinley!’ he announced from the foot of the bed. ‘Someone to see you. All right now?’

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and departed, leaving Ginny face to face with the patient. She was a woman in her late fifties with greying hair which had once been black, and dark, scowling eyes. Her right leg — in plaster — was held up two or three feet above the bed by means of a sling around her ankle.

‘Who are you? From the Welfare?’

‘No.’ Ginny fetched herself a chair.

‘They said to expect someone from the Welfare.’

‘My name’s Ginny,’ she explained, sitting down. ‘Dr Rendell asked me to drop by. He’s my brother-in-law.’

‘He’s a gentleman, is Dr Rendell,’ the woman said. ‘Listens to you, he does. He’s what I call a real doctor, not like that bugger who brought you here, with his fancy glasses and his silly coat. I told the nurse, he’s a gelding if I ever saw one. Know what I mean? Doctor?’ Her voice spat scorn. ‘He’s the one who’s been doctored, ask me.’

‘D’you like grapes?’ Ginny fished in her shopping bag. She’d felt she ought to bring something. ‘Got ’em cheap at the supermarket. I suppose we ought to wash ’em first. Should I ask the nurse?’

‘I’d leave her. She’s having her tea.’

‘Okay. Have some.’

‘It’s all clean dirt, innit?’ She separated a couple from their stalks and put them in her mouth. They were large, purple, and bursting with juice which spurted on to her nightie as she bit into them. ‘Years since I last tasted grapes. Seems you’ve gotta come in here before anyone gives you grapes. Did Dr Rendell explain what happened to me? You wouldn’t credit it.’

‘He said you’d had an accident on your bike,’ Ginny answered cautiously, taking another grape for herself.

‘An accident? This was no bloody accident. It was deliberate, I can swear to that. I was riding me bike, not doing any harm to anyone, when all of a sudden they just come at me.’

‘Who did?’

‘Bloody moths.’

‘Moths? You’re sure?’

‘Big bastards, like I’ve never seen before, and I’ve lived all my life in these parts. Thought they was bats at first, but I know bats. These was moths all right. Vicious buggers.’

‘What kind of sound did they make?’

‘What d’you mean — sound?’ Mrs Kinley stopped chewing and stared at Ginny suspiciously. ‘Why have you come here?’

‘I told you, Dr Rendell asked me to drop in,’ Ginny repeated calmly. ‘So what kind of sound did they make? Why did you think they were bats?’

‘That squeaking noise. And if you want to know, they was attacking me — in me hair, flying into me face, me eyes, everywhere. I was on the bike, you see, trying to keep me balance, but I got into such a tizzy with these things, over I went. Which is why I’m in here, innit?’

She stopped and eyed Ginny cunningly. ‘Didn’t tell them nothin’. Not about the squeakin’.’

‘The doctors?’

‘Them bloody doctors. That gelding thinks I’m mental. I heard him. It’s all fantasy in her head, he said. From the drink.’ Unexpectedly the tears began to roll down her strained cheeks. ‘I dunno. Sometimes I saw them moths, sometimes I think I’m making it up. Maybe I really am going off me rocker, then they’ll keep me locked up, won’t they? That’s what they do, you know, to the likes o’ me.’

‘I’m going to talk to Dr Rendell, so don’t you worry,’ Ginny stated firmly. ‘You did see the moths.’

‘You’re just saying that.’

‘Oh, I don’t accept that they attacked you, but you certainly saw them.’ Briefly, Ginny tried to describe her own experience of them on that first evening, stressing how beautiful they were, and how gentle. ‘So you understand, I saw them too. They do exist. When you rode into them in the dark like that, they were probably just as frightened as you were.’

‘They didn’t have a go at you though, did they?’ Mrs Kinley sniffed. She groped under her pillow and produced a grubby handkerchief with which she dried her eyes. ‘Them moths is bloody vicious, so you watch out for ’em. Watch yourself.’

‘I’ll tell the doctor they’re real anyway, not just in your head.’

‘They’ll be back, young miss. You mark my words.’

Somehow she seemed to have offended the woman rather than reassured her, Ginny thought. She stood up and returned her chair to its allotted place by the wall. Then she paused at the bedside, feeling dissatisfied.

‘Can I come again?’ she asked.

‘You’ve better things to do than waste your time with me.’ Mrs Kinley’s dark eyes were suddenly alive with mockery. There was no trace of self-pity. ‘You’ve done your bit o’ charity. I’m not saying I’m not grateful.’

‘I’d like to bring a friend.’ She was thinking of Jack. ‘He had a similar experience to yours.’

‘You’d be more welcome if you brought a half-bottle of gin. You’ve got nothing to drink in your shopping bag, have you?’

‘Only a carton of milk. Sorry. I should have thought.’

‘You just make sure Dr Rendell gets me out of here, that’s all I ask. Away from that bloody gelding. It turns my stomach to have him near me.’

Ginny laughed. ‘Is he really that bad?’

‘Oh, I know I’m not much to look at these days, but when I was younger, he’d never have got near me for the crush, doctor or no doctor. So now you know.’

Ginny found her own way back to the main building. She sought out Dr Sanderson in his office but ignored his invitation to sit down. There was nothing to report really, she informed him coldly. His patient had ridden into a swarm of moths, panicked and fallen off her bike. Why did he think she was making it up?