The Seven Gifts (5 page)

“Good Morning, Nellie," the doctor greeted
her with a smile. “How are we feeling today?"

“I'm fine thank you Doctor," replied Nellie,
“apart from the usual. But there is no point in grumbling to you
about that, is there?"

The doctor sighed. He had heard this every
morning for the past four months and was beginning to find it
rather irritating. Why was it some people could never appreciate
what was done for them?

“Nellie," he said in that exasperated tone
normally reserved for recalcitrant children, “how can I convince
you that we are doing our best for you? Life is precious, Nellie,
and we are on oath to preserve it wherever and whenever we possibly
can. Besides, I could be sued if I did what you want and the
Society for the Rights of the Citizen got to hear of it. Good
Heavens woman, you are asking me to kill you. Would you make me a
murderer?"

Nellie also sighed, having heard all this
before too. She took a deep breath in an endeavour to calm herself,
then tried once more to explain her feelings to the doctor, who was
after all not bad, just blinkered: “I am not asking you to kill me,
merely to permit me to die with dignity; there is a difference.
Because this world rejects religion but fails to replace it with
anything else you all think the physical life is the only one. But
I know better, Doctor; I have been there, I have spoken with my
husband. I know there is a new world waiting for me, and all the
beliefs of this life cannot alter the realities of the next. I have
finished with secondary school and now wish to go on to the
challenges of University; and you would deny me that. How long must
I lie here connected to this, being dripped into by that, stuffed
to the eyeballs with drugs? I am not a person anymore, Doctor, I am
an experiment; no more than a rat in a laboratory. You claim that
the preserving of life is sacred. Well, I say this is
blasphemy!"

Nellie was now shaking with her suppressed
anger, and the dials on the instrument panel above her bed began
flickering and gyrating in a most alarming manner. The doctor
leaned over and pressed a red button. A few seconds later Sonia
rushed into the room clutching a huge hypodermic needle, which she
promptly rammed into the wrinkled old flesh of Nellie's upper arm.
Nellie quietly passed out.

The doctor wiped his brow. “Phew," he
muttered. “That was a near thing; I thought we were going to lose
her for a moment there." With a relief that was almost tangible he
watched the gauges gradually resume their normal readings. Sonia
pouted: “Silly old woman. As if I had nothing better to do than
rush in here constantly giving jabs to keep the old bag alive."

This embarrassed the doctor, who in the
quiet of his own house could at times be tempted to experience a
twinge of sympathy with Nellie's feelings. “That will be all, thank
you Nurse," he said in his most formal manner. Sonia sniffed, and
flicked her hair back in a minor gesture of defiance before sloping
off with the now empty hypodermic clutched in her hand. The daily
routine of the hospital reasserted itself; and Nellie's spirit, now
trapped in her body by the drugs coursing through her old veins,
resigned itself yet again to the daily routine of its seemingly
endless prison sentence.

Nellie Matilda finally awoke from her
drug-induced haze just in time to say her prayers before going to
sleep again for the night. She closed her eyes and placed her hands
together, just as she had every previous night for some eighty-odd
years, except that now she could not get out of bed and kneel as
she felt she ought. Although it was not her fault, it still grieved
her.

‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my
life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to come
home. Dear Father, please take me home.' Then Nellie, worn out from
her day, fell asleep; releasing her spirit for a few short hours to
the love and tenderness of her husband.

On Tuesday morning Nellie Matilda did not
wake up. The nurse in panic called the doctor, who was mystified to
discover that all the instruments at the old woman's bedhead were
reading correctly. She was not dead, yet no amount of shaking and
shouting would wake her. In the end they resorted to electric shock
treatment, which did jerk her convulsively into wakefulness;
although it was fully half an hour before her eyes focused properly
and she was able to speak.

“It was just as if she wasn't there, even
though her body was in the bed and seemed perfectly normal," Sonia
said to her friends during the morning tea break. “It was real
spooky, especially after the way she is always rambling on about
going to a new world." And the nurse shuddered at the recollection
of the old woman's vacant face.

“And d'you know what she said when we told
her we'd had to electrotherapise her to get her back alive again?"
Sonia added. The other nurses looked suitably blank so she
furnished the answer: “‘Oh dear God, why cannot these people let me
go in peace?’ Weird I call it". And she stirred an extra sugar into
her tea to calm herself. Really, this old woman was getting too
much, she thought. I shall have to ask for a transfer.

The doctor was feeling equally frustrated
over the behaviour of Nellie Matilda Johnson, although he expressed
his frustrations rather more eloquently than did his nurse, as he
discussed the case over coffee with the senior professor.

“I do not understand it, Charles," he said.
“I have investigated every organ and every system in that woman's
body and can find not a thing wrong with her. Yet she slides away
steadily day after day, despite all the drugs we pump into her. She
will not eat, and we have to force feed her with a number of drips.
What with that and the electronic hookups required to monitor her
condition, due to her frequent and irregular relapses for no
apparent reason, she looks more like a terminal cancer case than a
perfectly fit and healthy woman. She may be fairly old but there is
plenty of life left in her yet. The whole business is a complete
mystery to me. If I was not a rational, scientifically trained
doctor, I could almost believe that she is deliberately and
consciously willing herself to die."

The old professor smiled enigmatically.
“Perhaps she is," he said. “I do believe there is a possibility
that such things can happen. There are a number of surprisingly
well-documented cases amongst primitive peoples with strong
religious beliefs, you know." He got up and went over to the urn to
refill his coffee cup. “Is she religious?" he asked the doctor over
his shoulder, as he carefully stirred in one level teaspoon of
brown sugar.

“Yes," the doctor replied. “She is forever
going on about being ready to move onto the next world. But surely
Charles it is not our business to get involved in that sort of
mystical claptrap? We're doctors, and our job is saving lives:
keeping people alive. Whatever the ins and outs of religion it is
not for us to just let people die. Besides, we would get sued if
anyone found out. And, anyway, how can a person possibly will
themselves to die? I cannot believe that."

The professor reflected for a while. “I
fear, David," he said finally, “that our material world and the
spiritual world, if one accepts that such a thing exists, do not
make comfortable bedfellows. There was a time, a long while ago,
when science and religion co-existed fairly happily as most
scientists then had some form of religious belief. The development
of science has disproved so much of what the old religions believed
in that no self-respecting scientist of today would entertain the
merest whiff of religious ideas. Speaking personally, and off the
record, I am an old man and I have travelled a lot and read a lot,
and I must admit - between these four walls, mind - that I am not
wholly convinced of the current scientific viewpoint. I suspect
that there is more to this life of ours than we think."

The professor paused and took a mouthful of
coffee, then continued: “As for the particular case of Mrs Johnson,
however, the only professional advice I can give you is: keep
giving her the tablets. Then you have at least protected yourself
from the risk of litigation."

Mrs Johnson went to sleep early that night.
But before she did, she put her hands together and prayed: ‘Dear
Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at the
end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please take
me home.'

Wednesday was bath-night; or to be precise,
bath-very-early-in-the-morning. Poor Nellie was woken just before
six, given her breakfast, then treated to the dubious pleasure of a
blanket bath. This was hard work for the nurses as Nellie was
paralysed below the waist so could not move at all. Why she was
paralysed, no-one knew, as the doctors could find nothing
physically wrong with her. Anyway, the old lady bore it all with
her usual stoicism and was shining clean for when the ward sister
did her rounds.

Sister Newman was a plump, kindly,
middle-aged lady, brimming over with common-sense. Although she was
not what one would call religious, she had been in nursing since
her teens and had seen a great many people die. She had also known
a few who had died briefly then come alive again, and every one of
them had recounted more or less the same tale - of walking towards
a bright light and being filled with an overwhelming sense of joy,
only to hear a deep voice saying: ‘It is not time for you yet, you
must go back', whereupon they woke up to discover that technically
they had died for a few minutes.

Sister Newman was not especially
imaginative, and certainly not prone to an uncritical belief in
everything she heard or even experienced, but there was something
about these tales, something about the simplicity of them and the
similarity between them, that had bequeathed to her a more open
mind on the matter than most of her colleagues possessed. So she
had more than a little sympathy for Nellie Matilda's feelings.

“How are you my dear?" she said warmly, as
she bustled up to Nellie's bedside. Nellie smiled. She sensed the
concern in the Ward Sister's voice, and could also see it in her
eyes. “I'm fine thank you Sister," she replied, in a voice that was
undeniably sad and yet just a little chirpier than when she spoke
to the other members of the nursing staff.

The sister felt her pulse and looked her
over carefully, but took no notice of the blinking lights and dials
above the bed. Deep in her heart she knew what ailed Nellie,
although her professionalism prevented her from admitting it to
anyone; even Nellie, although they both knew that she knew.

She turned and looked out of the window. “It
is a nice day, Nellie," she said. “Would you like me to organise
someone to wheel you out into the garden for a while?" She expected
a negative reply. They had all resigned themselves to the fact that
Nellie showed no interest in anything, other than the hope of dying
as soon as possible. But this morning she was surprised.

“Yes," Nellie replied unexpectedly, “I think
I would like that."

There was no reason for anyone to know, of
course, but it happened that it was Nellie's wedding anniversary
that day. One of the pleasures she and her husband had shared was
taking a simple walk in the country on a nice day, and she had a
sudden urge to draw that memory back to her.

“I'll send a porter shortly, Nellie," Sister
Newman said, “and we'll organise you some warm clothes as there is
still a little nip in the air."

So later that morning Nellie was wheeled out
into the hospital garden, where she was left to sit in the sun for
an hour or two before lunch. It was a spring morning, slightly
chilly as yet but bursting with new life and vibrating with that
particular freshness that occurs at no other time. Nellie breathed
deeply of the sparkling air and closed her eyes to listen to the
bird-song and bring back memories from her life. And suddenly she
found herself walking along a road that she could not see, towards
a bright distant light that seemed to fill the whole world with
joy. The bird-song changed to angel-song and Nellie's heart leapt
as she realised that at long last she had shed her mortal strife
and was walking, fit and young again, into her long-awaited new
world.

She was dimly aware of voices rising above
the angel-song. William? she wondered, and called out his name,
over and over and over as the light seemed to fade ahead of her and
she began to feel a fuzziness in her head and the new world began
to disintegrate all around her .....

She was still calling for her husband when
her eyes opened back in the hospital bed and she realised where the
voices had been coming from. “We've saved her!" she heard the
doctor cry out.

And when the end of that long long day
finally came and the evening drew on to her time to sleep, Nellie
Matilda placed her hands together and with tears streaking her
tired old cheeks she prayed: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived
out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long to
come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'

Thursday was visiting day, although no-one
ever came to see Nellie. And at the end of the empty day she would
place her hands together and pray: ‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've
lived out my life. Please take me at the end of this day; I so long
to come home. Dear Father, please take me home.'

On Friday the doctor examined her again, and
left as bemused as ever. Her paralysis had spread upwards to her
neck and the only thing she could do now for herself was pray:
‘Dear Father, I'm weary; I've lived out my life. Please take me at
the end of this day; I so long to come home. Dear Father, please
take me home.'

Saturday was a strange day, full of memories
for Nellie. Suddenly, after being alone in the house through all
the days of the week, the rooms seemed full of people. One husband
and three children may not constitute a crowd but somehow they
filled that house with warmth and laughter and fun. The atmosphere
was quite different to that of a Sunday which was a quiet and
peaceful, reflective, contemplative sort of day. Nellie enjoyed
them both equally, although in different ways. Saturday, she felt,
belonged to the world she lived in; but Sunday swirled with hints
of a wider world: a world that only as she grew older did she
gradually come to recognise as being just as real as the one in
which she currently lived.