Well; Saturday had arrived and unfortunately it
was going to be, ‘One of those Saturdays.’ There was a definite change in the way the
ward ran, but the human traffic that mulled around the nurses station had
certainly diminished. I am sure that if
there had been an emergency it would have been catered for. I was especially down heartened as I had been
told they were not going to be pouring anymore blood in to me. They wanted to allow me to stabilise for
twenty four hours and see how my poor little body was reacting to what they had
done. When your day starts at six o
clock in the morning with the commotion from a ninety five year old, over in
the far corner, the day certainly drags itself along until it reaches midnight. Don’t worry it wasn’t his routine morning
exercise that woke us all up, not that his joints were squeaking and groaning, they
were, although in hindsight that could have been the bed he was holding on to, it
was the fact that after he finished he would bring out his electric razor,
which sounded like a two stroke petrol driven chain saw, and rasp off his
morning stubble.
I was quite surprised that The Scouser was
still on the ward, still showing people how he had been taught how to walk and
stand still, not at the same time of course, after all it was only the army he
was in, well; the marines. I did notice
that a young lady with learning disabilities and or mental health problems was
on the ward. She had her own room and
two support workers. At one point it
sounded as if there was a circus act in the room, that one person was
supporting another, who would be running around the walls of the room, like a
motorcycle on the wall of death. You
could see the hospital nursing staff react, once any commotion started, then
pause and understand that the support workers would handle the situation. It was like watching The Exorcist without the
dog collars. I relaxed, knowing I didn’t
have to get involved, but in a way I missed it, strange that.
I had three books with me, all of which I had
to read, but I just couldn’t be bothered.
I did try, but couldn’t get in to the books, so left them in my bag. I suppose many of us often think how nice it
would be to spend the day in bed, to not have to do anything. But in reality it is so difficult, so
boring. And yet you sort of prepare yourself
for the long haul and before you know it the nurse is at the bottom of your bed
asking, “Have your bowels opened today sir?”
Sunday came and I actually expected for them to announce that I was
cured and could go home. They still had I
suppose what most people would call, ‘Doctors rounds,’ and during my Sunday
morning visit was informed that there had been some improvement but not what
they were expecting. I was to be given
more blood. I was feeling more and more
like a geriatric vampire as they began tapping my arms looking for a vein and
the routine started all over again.
Beds were still being moved around. The old fellow in the corner, no, the other
corner, the ninety five year old clean shaven exercise freak, was on the move
to the heart attack ward, well; that’s what we told him. He was replaced with a friend of the fellow
next to me; the one who had ran the pub in Spain for ten years. They then began holding conversations across
the ward about people they knew and cats that they had had, oh yeah and a
certain pub someone had for ten years in Spain. Then they brought a new fellow in. He looked as if he was sixteen, but he had so
many tattoos on his arms and shoulders that he must have been much older. He looked very young and acted it too, as he
demanded that the curtains remain drawn around his bed.
I hadn’t seen behaviour like it since boarding school,
although if the truth be told we were much worse. Although admittedly we didn’t hide away in
case anyone saw our willies, how could you when at six o clock every Sunday
evening we would be marched off for a shower.
A weekly wash supervised by the Dean, who would flash a bamboo cane
across your arse, if you were not fully immersed in the deluge of fresh cold water. Which was good for you. I would love to get my hands on the idiot who
announced to the world that cold showers were good for your health. I bet it was the same feckin idiot who said
salt was nice on porridge, especially on the lumps. I always found it strange that in the centre
of the shower room there was a huge bath and this was considered to be a
luxury. If you were teacher’s pet, you
would be given a bath while the rest of us stood shivering in the showers,
Irish logic I suppose; well it is when you understand that the bath was as cold
at the fecking showers.
The school was populated by farmers sons and farmers
and farming types, all apart from me of course,
a sophisticated urbanite, in fact we had our own farm at the school so that
might allow you to understand the approach of the students and staff, which is
probably why I was an outsider from the word, ‘Go.’ The fellow in charge of the farm was a priest
known as Father Hackett. We called him Big
Ged. He was six feet seven or eight inches
tall, had bow legs, walking as if he had forgotted his horse, his eyesight was non-existent
and he taught Latin. He was duty priest
one night and caught a bunch of us having a willy measuring contest in the dormitory
bathroom, as you do. It actually makes
life most interesting these days for when you go home and you are in a social situation,
introductions are being made, such as, “You remember Joe don’t you? You two must have been at Violet Hill at the
same time. Joe’s now a barrister.” And you do remember Joe, but at two o clock
in the morning in a cold bathroom with his pyjama bottoms around his ankles
stretching his willy out as if it were a rubber balloon he was about to
inflate.
Just as an aside, Big Ged was the most vicious
of all the priests at Violent Hell. He
was an animal and I know that a good number of boys actually had a go at him,
unsuccessfully I might add, but at least they tried. There’s so many of the feckers I would have
liked to have met afterwards but water under the bridge and all that. In fact Big Ged became a parish priest in Lurgan
and was my Aunty Margaret’s parish priest.
I remember, not knowing that she knew Big Ged, telling her all about the
man and what sort of an animal he was. Margaret
then told me that he was now her parish priest, which shocked me as I had a mental
image of Big Ged beating everyone up at a baptism as the baby wouldn’t stop crying. But she added, “He’s all right now, as long
as he takes his medication.” Meaning that
there must have been something wrong with him when he was in charge of us at Violent
Hell.
But what made me think of Big Ged I suppose was
our Little Welsh preacher in the corner, our little tabernacle trash talker. Big Ged was a very animated man, and violent,
did I mention how violent he was, it wasn’t uncommon to get a punch in the head
if you were late with the communion bell when serving mass for him, I bet baby
Jesus was pleased with that sort of behaviour.
Nothing like mass in Latin with a thump in the temple to make a Sunday
evening go with a zing. It was Sunday evening,
the question had been asked and the correct response had been given, just like communion,
except we were given medication instead of a communion host, amen, praise the
Lord, seconds away, one a, two a, three a…. The lights
came down; the young fellow was still hiding behind his closed curtain so the
ward had a different sort of feel about it.
It was about half past eleven and I knew it was pointless trying to go
to sleep as I would be up and down all night long, but I was tired and couldn’t
be bothered trying to plan for a decent nights sleep. The fellow next door had managed to scrounge
five pounds off his wife, who used to run a pub in Spain with him for ten
years, and was glued to some film on the television. The preacher was in a dark shadow so I couldn’t
really see him, but he was grunting. The
others on the ward were recumbent so I allowed myself to drift away.
Next thing you know is that it is one o clock in
the morning, Monday morning mind you, which is what I found strange about the
whole thing as you normally only get preaching on Sundays. But there he was, Monday morning preaching away,
to himself mainly as it was quite dark.
One of the staff heard the commotion and a door opened, sending a spike
of light onto the ward which highlighted our Welsh pastor standing over the ex-Spanish
publican roaring about God and Jesus and Satan and anyone else whose name crept
into his poor befuddled mind. I
immediately burst into laughter. The ex-Spanish publican was crapping himself as
he thought he was in the middle of an exorcism or sacrifice or the like. The Welsh Preacher was giving it wellie,
screaming about the Lord giveth and he taketh.
I was in stitches for not only did he look like Christopher Lee in full
flow, that’s full Hammer House of Horror flow and not Bond, but he also looked
like Big Ged. Even the young fellow who
had hidden himself away poked his head out to see what was going on. I promise you, if you want a good laugh and don’t
mind not having any sleep for a week then get yourself off to your local NHS hospital,
much more better for you than cold showers and lumpy porridge and you don’t
even have to have a willy measuring contest, well; not unless you want to.
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