The
Burn Dress lay in the drawer, wrapped in mothballs, for nearly four years.
Every summer Mummy took it out and tried it against Ruthie and then folded it
up again, commenting,
“You’d still look like a little waif
in it. Maybe next year.”
It was a dark turquoise color with
an orange and brown plaid design. The skirt was full with ties at the waist,
and there was a round white collar. Ruthie thought it was beautiful and each
year she hoped that at last she would have grown into it, but she did not seem
to be very good at growing.
Mummy said that she had grown slowly since the scald. She
also said that Ruthie’s hair used to be curly before the scald and Ruthie
herself could see the results of that event in the brown dimpled skin on her body
under her left arm. There seemed so many things that had happened ‘because of
your burn’. Most of them were not good but, Ruthie reflected, there would have
been no Burn Dress without it so, she supposed, in the end good things and bad
things get all mixed up together.
Ruthie was one and a half the year of the burn. Mummy and
Daddy had hired a caravan for a fortnight’s holiday in Polzeath. For the first
four days it had been a nearly perfect holiday. They were close to the beach so
they could spend the morning there and then come back in the afternoon for
lunch and naps, so Mummy did not have to pack everything needed for a
six-month-old baby and a toddler for a whole day out. The weather had been warm
and dry but not uncomfortably hot, and having a caravan with a small built-in sink
made it easier for Mummy to wash out nappies than if she had had to bend over
the portable baby bath which they used when they camped in a tent. Cooking was
easier too as they had a small gas stove. No pumping a primus for them this
year!
On the morning of the fifth day, as Mummy boiled the milk for
the coffee, Ruthie started asking Daddy to put butter on her Shreddies. This
was a treat Daddy had introduced some months before, little realizing how
popular and how bothersome it would prove. As Ruthie began clamouring for
butter, Samuel began to cry.
“Can you pick him up, please?” Mummy asked. “I’m just pouring
out the coffee and then I’ll feed him.” Feeling ignored, Ruthie knelt up on the
bench and stretched across the table for the butter.
“No, no, Ruthie. Sit down,” Mummy told her, as she put the
first cup of boiling hot coffee onto the table and turned back to pour out the second,
but Ruthie obstinately persisted in her object and reached right across the
cup. As she picked up the butter dish and brought it back her small hand failed
to support the weight of the dish with its half pound of butter and it fell
down on top of the cup and tipped it over. The hot liquid puddled across the
table and fetched up against Ruthie’s chest pressed to the side of the table.
She screamed as the coffee penetrated straight through her thin cotton blouse.
Putting down the milk pan quickly, Mummy put the other cup of coffee in the
sink where it could not come to any harm and snatched up Ruthie, pulling the
blouse off as she did so. To her horror the skin underneath was already red and
blistering.
“Cold compress,” whispered Daddy hoarsely, unable to move with
Samuel in his arms. Mummy took the tea towel and wet it thoroughly under the
tap, before wrapping it around Ruthie’s body. Ruthie continued to scream and by
now Samuel was also screaming in fear.
“What shall we do?” asked Mummy.
“We’ll have to take her to the hospital,” said Daddy.
“Where’s the nearest one?”
“Twenty miles,” Daddy said shortly. They looked at each other
fearfully, wondering about the logistics of the journey. Both knew that twenty
miles along narrow Cornish roads would be almost an hour’s journey, and both
wondered whether Ruthie could wait an hour for treatment.
“God, give us wisdom!” Daddy breathed, and just at that
moment there was a knock at the caravan door.
“Is everything alright?” sounded the voice of their
neighbour. Daddy let her in and explained the situation briefly.
“I’ll take the baby,” she said immediately.
“I haven’t even fed him yet. I’m breast-feeding. I haven’t
any formula,” Mummy said anxiously.
“Don’t worry. You need to get that one to hospital. The shop
will be open soon. I’ll get some formula for him.”
Kindly and efficiently she helped them wrap Ruthie in a
blanket and saw them into the car before returning to the caravan and finding
clothes and nappies for Samuel.
Daddy drove as fast as he could on the winding roads and
Ruthie lay in Mummy’s arms. Gradually her sobs quieted as she cried herself to
sleep and presently the only sound in the car was an occasional hiccup as the
last few sobs forced their way out. Mummy and Daddy were silent for many minutes
and then as he pulled up at a junction, Daddy put his hand gently on top of
Mummy’s.
“It’s alright,” he said softly. “She’s in God’s hands.”
“I know,” Mummy nodded. “I’ve been thinking that.”
At the hospital, the doctor had both good and bad news for
them. The good news was that falling asleep in the car had probably saved
Ruthie’s life.
“I’ve see children with less traumatic scalds that this one
lose their lives from shock,” he told them; but he also said she must stay in
hospital for several days. The burns would need dressing to prevent them going
septic.
Grimly, Mummy and Daddy were forced to leave Ruthie alone in
the hospital when visiting hours were over. They almost wept themselves as they
heard her desolate crying and knew that they must stonily go out of the door;
but now their hearts were torn, as they remembered Samuel back at the caravan
and wondering how he had managed without them.
The next few days were hard for the whole family but in later
years Ruthie only had slight memories left. She could see a silver cot in the
corner of a white-washed room, with a small window high above it. On the side of
the cot hung a green plastic mug. It was the same shape as her own faded pink
mug at home, but it had a funny taste.
There was great rejoicing when the doctor finally released
her from the hospital, even though there were still trips for dressings every
other day. The biggest problem was that none of Ruthie’s clothes would go on
over the bandages, so Daddy went into Polzeath and returned with a dress large
enough to cover the bandages, but which came down nearly to her ankles.
“She looks like a little waif,” Mummy said, and it was in
that role that Ruthie was to be found in all the subsequent family photos, so
that years later when looking through the photo albums it was easy to identify
the year of the burn by the Burn Dress topped by Ruthie’s curls.
