After that he accepted her continued presence without question. He provided her with money to run their small m’nage, to pay Mrs Weston for her cleaning, and to pay the doctor and the nurses, and for medicines. In fact, he was very generous, saying things like, ‘Get yourself something pretty, a nice blouse or something. A young girl likes pretty things.’
He still kept a strict control of pub accounts. Ill as he was, and despite the fact he never went into the bar, he seemed to know exactly what was going on. Every morning Terry had to come upstairs and go through the previous day’s sales. He had to give the number of customers in the bar, the number of sales and the quantity of stock consumed, and all was reckoned against the cash in the till, which was counted and entered in the ledger. Julia watched all this and marvelled that her father was so much in command. He seemed stronger while Terry was with him, and his mind was clear and focused. She also realised that it was only by maintaining such strong control that a publican could avoid being robbed by his staff. With hundreds of glasses of liquor being sold to customers every evening, it would be the easiest thing in the world to skew the money. Her father seemed to know from the daily sales what stock remained, and he placed all the orders himself and signed all the payment cheques. He was known by everyone as the Master, and his daughter came to admire his business acumen greatly. Her father would sink back on his pillows, exhausted and sweating, after Terry had gone; frequently he was coughing and trembling all over and needed his linctus and a cooling drink to get him over the ordeal. One day he said to Julia, ‘Them doctors don’t know anything about business. Wanted me to go away for six months, they did. That would have been a good day for the jackals if I’d gone, wouldn’t it? There would have been nothing left by the time I got back.’ He chuckled at his own astuteness, although Julia wondered what there was left of him through
not
going away to a sanatorium.
The doctor had advised she contact the Nursing Sisters, and as soon as Julia saw the heavy figure of Sister Evangelina lumbering upstairs she recognised her as the nun who had come to nurse her brothers when they were ill a decade previously. Sister was out of breath and grumpy by the time she got to the flat. She went straight to the sick room, sat down and demanded a cup of tea. Julia had expected a nun to be all holy water and prayers, but her opening remarks were about money.
‘I will come each day, if you want me to, but it is going to cost you something, I warn you. We are an Order who nurse the poor. The Master of the Master’s Arms is not poor. If you want me, you will have to pay handsomely, so that we can treat the poor for nothing. Take it or leave it and yes, two sugars please.’
Mr Masterton chuckled, which brought on a fit of coughing. Sister Evangelina sat drinking her tea, but watching him over the top of her teacup with an experienced eye. Eventually he was able to splutter, ‘I agree, Sister, name your figure and I’ll double it. There are thousands round here who can’t afford to pay for the medical treatment they need.’
‘Thousands?’ she snorted. ‘Tens of thousands would be nearer the mark. We see them all the time.’
She stared aggressively at Julia, who felt very small and didn’t quite know what to make of the big nun.
‘I suppose you don’t know anything about good nursing, or any nursing at all, for that matter?’
Julia shook her head.
‘No. I thought not. Ignorant girls. Dizzy young things. It seems to be my fate always to be landed with these flibbertigibbets. Well, I suppose you are better than nothing, so let’s get on with it. Postural drainage is what the patient needs. Potions and pills and linctuses are all very fine, but they won’t get the phlegm out of his lungs. Postural drainage,’ she added emphatically and stood up. Julia was obliged to take a step backwards.
‘In the bar I saw several trestle tables. That is what we need. Go to the bar and get the men to bring one up,’ she commanded Julia, who stood looking bewildered. ‘Go on, go girl. Don’t stand there gawping. And we will need a mattress.’
‘A mattress?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But we’ve got a mattress.’
‘We will need another one. Now go on, go on. I haven’t got all day, you know.’
Hastily Julia ran down to the bar. She was quite overwhelmed by the big nun, but she told two men to carry a trestle table upstairs, and then to fetch a mattress from the attic. The Sister looked at the equipment and grunted with satisfaction.
‘Right, you fellows. Leave the table like that with the legs folded in, and lean one end against the bed, sloping gently – further up – yes that will do. Now pull that chest of drawers up to wedge it so that it can’t slip. That will do nicely – now put the mattress over it. Good lads. Perfect.’
She glared hard at Terry.
‘It’s Terry Weston, isn’t it?
He nodded.
‘I thought as much. I knew you when you were about thirteen – you had eaten too much of something that didn’t agree with you and couldn’t get rid of it. Constipated for a fortnight, you were. I had to give you two enemas to shift it. Hope that taught you a lesson.’
Terry blushed scarlet, and the other man sniggered. Mr Masterton also laughed, which brought on the coughing again.
Sister shooed the men away, and when the coughing had subsided, she said gently, ‘Now, Mr Masterton, we have to get some of that fluid off your chest. I want you to lie head down on the mattress. I am going to palpate your back, and show your daughter how to do it. I will help you to get into the right position.’
Julia marvelled at the gentleness of Sister Evangelina as she handled her patient. After behaving in such a brusque manner, it was unexpected. The nun was kind and respectful in every way as she helped Julia’s father to get up and to lie face downwards on the sloping mattress. She explained that the position would drain fluid out of his lungs. ‘Now I am going to palpate your back, cupping we call it, and massage from the lower lungs to the upper lobes, to try to shift some of the muck. We will need a bowl or a chamber pot for you to spit into, so fetch one, will you, nurse – I mean Miss Masterton?’
Julia did as she was bidden, then Sister began to work on her father’s back. ‘Watch me carefully,’ she said, ‘In a minute I am going to ask you to do it.’ Her father coughed uncontrollably and brought up copious amounts of frothy fluid, streaked with thick ropes of greenish phlegm. ‘You will feel better after this,’ said Sister Evangelina to the sick man. ‘Now come here, Miss Masterton. You have a go.’
Julia was terrified of touching her father’s back, which looked so thin and fragile, but she could not disobey this commanding woman. ‘That’s right. Shape your hands like cups and slap from lower to upper lobes; keep going – round the sides also. Now some massage. You have the idea. You have a feel for it. Ten minutes is enough. Now cover your patient, he must be kept warm.’ Then to Julia’s utter astonishment the nun smiled and said, ‘Good girl. Well done.’
To Mr Masterton she said, ‘This must be done every day, twice a day. Your daughter can do it, and afterwards you must lie for about twenty minutes head down. It will make you feel a good deal better. I am going to leave you now, but I will call each day.’
Once they were in the sitting room, Sister turned to Julia and said abruptly, ‘This will not cure your father. Nothing will cure him short of a miracle. But it will make him feel easier. Eventually he will drown in the fluid which accumulates in his lungs, but in the meantime it is our duty to make him as comfortable as possible. Apart from which I usually find that such drastic treatment encourages the patient into thinking that something positive is being done. This stimulates hope.’
She grunted and humphed, gathered up her things and plodded heavily downstairs. In the bar she called out, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Terry. In the meantime, keep ’em open, then you won’t get bunged up again,’ to the immense discomfort of the poor fellow and the hilarity of the lunchtime customers.
Julia nursed her father for three months, and during that time she grew to understand him more. His reticence and reserve appealed to her temperament; the way he shrugged off suffering won her admiration; his desire not to be a nuisance was touching; and his gratitude for the least thing she did for him was unexpected. His constant interest in and care for his pub was consistent with the man she had known throughout her childhood. She admired the huge effort he made each morning, going over the accounts with Terry, and she always stayed in the room in order to help her father, should he need help. Sister Evangelina came each day, and together they administered postural drainage and massage, and she saw the fortitude with which her father endured it. He always seemed a little better an hour later, so they continued.
He never openly showed affection, but one evening he squeezed her hand and muttered, ‘You’re a good girl, Julia, the only one left. Go to that cupboard and get the box out. I haven’t seen it for years; we’ll look at it together.’
Julia did as she was bid. Her father sat up in bed, his eyes bright, his breathing laboured.
‘Open it, lass, will you? I can’t any more.’
Opening the box, so long unopened, revealed more of her father than anything else could have done. Inside was a jumble of children’s toys and books, colouring pencils, pictures drawn by a childish hand, a small teddy bear and a china doll. At the bottom was a wooden Noah’s Ark.
‘Get it out, Julie, we must look at it.’
Julia opened it up and took out the wooden animals. Her father chuckled.
‘I remember you all playing with these. Do you?’
Of course she did, and the memory nearly choked her. He fingered the giraffe, and the lion, and the ghosts of her brothers seemed to enter the room.
‘There’s another box in there. Lift it out, will you?’
She did so, and it was full of toy soldiers. Her father handled them eagerly, his eyes bright.
‘I bought these as a birthday present, once. The boys played with them for hours.’
The dying man closed his eyes.
‘I can see them now, all over the floor with their soldier games.’
Julia looked at him, and a wave of tenderness swept over her. ‘All gone, all dead,’ he murmured, and his hand fell limply on the counterpane. But then he brightened. ‘There’s a little cotton bag in the bottom; pull it out.’ Inside the bag were some hair ribbons and a child’s bolero, the ones he had asked her to send to Gillian for her birthday when the family were in Skegness. He took the bolero, which was made of soft angora, and rubbed it up and down his cheek. ‘Is there a card there? Read it to me, will you?’ Julia read the card from Gillian, which said how lovely the bolero was, and how she wore it all the time and would not take it off. Her father chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t take it off, bless her,’ but then his face crumpled, and tears started in his eyes. He turned his head away quickly, ashamed of his weakness. ‘Go and get a cup of tea, there’s a good girl.’
Julia left the bedroom in tears. So he had cared after all, and she had not known it. She lit the gas stove, put the kettle on and drew the kitchen curtains. The sounds from the pub were starting downstairs, but she hardly noticed them any more; they were just part of life. The singing and dancing would begin soon, but she no longer resented them. She sat down at the kitchen table and leaned her head on her arms and sobbed. Why was he dying now, just when she was getting to know him? He was the father she had never had but had always wanted, because all girls want a father to love.
The tears did her good. She stood up and washed her eyes in cold water, then made the tea and returned with it to the sick room.
Her father appeared to be asleep, with toys and books and childish things all around him, so she decided not to disturb him. She poured herself a cup of tea and sat down beside him. She took his hand, and he responded with a little squeeze; the other hand held the fluffy pink bolero. He stirred a little. ‘Do you want that cup of tea, Dad?’ she whispered. ‘By and by,’ he croaked, ‘by and by,’ and he drifted off to sleep again. She sat quietly beside him, as the sounds of ‘Pack up yer troubles’ floated upstairs. She shut the window, but he roused again. ‘No, don’t do that. It’s nice to hear them enjoying themselves.’ She opened it again and the shouts of ‘.... in yer ol’ kit bag and smile, smile, smile’ came flooding in. ‘Smile,’ he croaked. ‘That’s what we gotta do. It’s a funny old world, eh, Julie?’ And he drifted off into sleep once more.
Julia sat beside him for several hours; she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. Darkness fell, and the tea grew cold. The noise from the pub ceased at closing time but continued in the street for a while. Raucous shouts and shrill cries grew fainter as the customers wandered or staggered away to their homes. A few tuneless attempts at a song, accompanied by a guffaw of laughter – and then all was quiet.
Julia fell asleep in her chair, and when she awoke the Master of the Master’s Arms was dead, surrounded by children’s toys.
THE MISTRESS
I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’
‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, by John Keats