Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow

One day Mum simply arrived with Gipsy, not because she had forgotten that pets weren’t allowed but because she thought it more important to cheer me up. She must have felt that she had earned her own immunity from Sister’s scoldings, but I wasn’t so sure. The first I knew of Gipsy’s presence was a wonderful scrabbling noise, as she lost her footing on the highly polished floor. All the children on the ward gasped in wonder as Gipsy came skidding and skating into view. The moment she had righted herself she made a dash towards me, where she leaped not onto the bed (her training was too good for that) but onto one of the chairs left out for visitors.

Mum had intervened successfully with Sister Heel about whether I had permission to die, but now I was afraid it had gone to her head. She seemed to think that she and Sister had an understanding. I winced and waited for the explosion, as the Heather imbalance in her character inevitably led her to overstep the mark. It wasn’t more than a minute before Mum trespassed in a big way. She waited until Sister Heel came by my bed, and then she said, without even a token apology for Gipsy’s presence in the second visitor’s chair, ‘I think John needs cheering up, don’t you? He misses his budgie Charlie, and Charlie’s not the same without him. Can’t Charlie come for a weekend?’

It was an awful moment. I was going to lose face with everyone, not just Wendy and Ivy but Geraldine and Sarah, because Sister Heel was about to destroy the budgie fantasy for good, the fantasy which had bolstered my position on the ward for so long. Wendy must have smelled blood, because she called out, ‘Yes, Sister, John keeps saying his budgie’s going to come and live here. He goes on and on about it.’

Sister Heel frowned and said, ‘What have you been telling people, John? Everyone knows pets aren’t allowed on the ward.’ In the pit of my stomach I could feel my status going on the slide as my lies were exposed to the world. I heartily wished that Mum hadn’t chosen to meddle with things she didn’t understand. Why didn’t she stay at home where she belonged? If she wanted attention there were always waiting rooms and bus stops.

Then Heel said, ‘Still …’ At this point it was as if someone else had taken over the operation of her mouth. She said something completely unexpected. From the look on her face, she was at least as surprised as the rest of us.

It was like the ventriloquism lessons from Ellisdons that I had wanted to send off for. This was precisely the effect I would have hoped to achieve, but at my first attempt and without benefit of a single lesson! No one saw my mouth move while the magic words were uttered — not only that, but Sister obligingly moved her lips to coincide with the incredible syllables. ‘I suppose a weekend wouldn’t hurt.’

This first attempt at throwing my voice was a total success, even if all of us were startled by what Sister Heel had said. She herself looked stunned, like a medium coming out of a trance, violently shaken by the departure of her spirit guide. I suppose it’s possible that the whole scene was cooked up between Mum and Sister Heel, but I don’t really think so. It was hardly Mum’s style to make nice things happen and take no credit. Besides, Heel was genuinely astonished by what she heard herself saying.

What happened next, of course, was that she fell in love with Charlie. At the end of the weekend one of the other nurses asked when he would be going back. She said, ‘He’s not. He’ll cheer the whole place up. It’s not just John who will benefit. Budgies should be prescribed on the National Health, that’s what I say.’ Naturally enough, the next question was, ‘But isn’t it against the rules? Won’t they make him leave?’ And the answer to that one was, ‘ Just let them try! ’

Before entrusting her budgie to the care of the dragon, Mum had issued dire warnings about not leaving any windows open if ever Charlie was allowed out of his cage. Sister Heel took her seriously. A window decree went out to the nurses, constantly repeated and underlined. At the best of times Heel regarded nurses as inherently unreliable, leaky vessels needing to be topped up with frequent scoldings, and she dreaded them exposing Charlie to the temptation of freedom.

At first it was an enormous treat when he was let out during rest time — for us as well as for him — but then it became part of the daily routine. Soon he was flying freely around the ward, which was an ideal half-way house for him. The outside world was too hostile for him, and the rooms at Trees a little cramped. Within this converted Nissen hut Charlie could fly from one end of the ward to the other and really spread his wings. First he would sit on the curtain rails, and then he would honour the kids with a personal appearance. He sat on little girls’ heads and made them giggle with delight. He was only a runty blue budgie, but he brought as much colour to the ward as a whole flight of kingfishers, darting and diving in the arrowhead formation.

Heel was right about the general benefit. Charlie made a huge difference to the emotional health of the ward. He had miraculous powers. I saw it happen any number of times. There was no shortage of witnesses to the wonders he worked. Every time he landed on a finger he made someone St Francis for a moment.

He was everybody’s friend, but he would come to me when I called him and sit on my finger. No lover’s nibbling kisses on the lips could be more tender, no secrets chirped in my ear could be more sacred. Gang hostilities were forgotten from one moment to the next as I became the most popular boy on the ward — also the only boy, admittedly, in my little Still’s group at the time. I certainly made the most of the boosting of my status.

God in the telephone

Miss Reid taught Scripture as well as music. The first thing she told us was that God was everywhere. A marvellous lesson. God wasn’t just in the sky, God was in the walls and in the telephone. This was the first thing anyone had said to me about God which made any sense. God was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. I was very happy with that assessment.

Latently I had a huge reservoir of love towards teachers. My tutor Miss Collins hadn’t tapped into that. If anything she had capped it off for a time, even if the reservoir was still there, fed by invisible springs. It made sense that teachers should be greater even than doctors or scientists or priests, since didn’t doctors and scientists need to be taught? My academic love burst out in fierce little gushes at CRX.

Then one week Miss Reid taught us about sin. She read something about gardening from the Bible and explained what it meant. There was wheat and there was chaff. Wheat was like Shredded Wheat at breakfast — wheat was good. But chaff was useless, worse than useless. It would go into the fire to be burnt. There were some things called tares as well. Tares were even worse than chaff.

These bulletins really shook me. I felt myself go very red in the face. Miss Reid seem to be looking directly at me as she expounded her botanical model of the moral universe. Guilt flared, because I had used bad words, I had forgotten to say my prayers as often as I did in the Bathford days, I had neglected to brush my teeth but had wetted my toothbrush to fool Mum. I had ganged up with Wendy against Geraldine. I thought also about general and specific thrills. My admiration for uniforms, my games with taily. I knew then that I was going to Hell.

Sin requires privacy, and there was little enough of that at CRX. There was no private space, unless you count the lockers that few of us could open ourselves, and no private time. The closest thing to either came during rest time after lunch when we were encouraged to take a nap. The curtains weren’t drawn, but sometimes screens would be pulled round our beds. One day a nurse said, ‘You were doing something with yourself during Rest, weren’t you?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I was hardly going to say, ‘Have a heart. It’s my only chance to have a proper talk with taily.’