Harriet looked in as I was getting into bed. ‘How’s the golden boy?’
‘Don’t know.’ I explained. ‘Been out with Stan?’
‘Not tonight! It’s Tuesday! Julian! I must wash my hair. Is there time?’
‘If you do it in your room. The bathroom lights’ll be out in ten minutes.’
‘Not if I’m in the bath first!’ she vanished.
Sister altered her off-duty next day. She wanted that afternoon and evening free instead of a half-day on Friday before her holiday. She was discussing this with Addy and myself when my patient in Room Four had a second coronary. He was barely over it when Sister sent for me. ‘You must move Mrs. March from Room One to Florence Ward immediately. The Cardiac Unit are sending us an emergency. His name is Leslie John Barry, aged nine. As you are off from ten till one, Nurse Vint must special him.’ She gave me the child’s notes.
Leslie had been a blue baby. The hole in his heart had been repaired eighteen months ago by our Cardiac Unit, and his heart wired to a pacemaker battery that controlled the beat. ‘A fault in the time, Sister?’
‘Presumably. His pulse-rate is falling, and he is growing cyanosed according to the telephone message I have just received. His father is driving him from Hampshire with the usual relay of police escorts. He should have gone to the Cardiac Recovery Ward, but they have just had to fill their last bed. He should be here soon.’
Leslie had arrived, and his timer was being repaired before I went off. The battery was a little larger than a packet of ten cigarettes. The fault had been caused by one of the external wires breaking.
His father, a farmer, was drinking tea in the corridor when I got back on duty. ‘He’s having a good sleep now, Nurse ‒ and I wouldn’t mind one myself! I’ve never pushed a car the way I did this morning! We changed cops at every county border, and each lot seemed to step on it harder than the last! It was like a bad dream at the time!’ He mopped his face. ‘I’ve got to take my hat off to them! I don’t know London well and how they got me through all that traffic and down side roads was nobody’s business! God, was I glad to see this place! There were moments when I didn’t think we’d make it.’
His son’s lips had been dark blue and he had been gasping pathetically when he was carried in. Vint was sitting with him in the room. She stood up, smiling with her eyes. ‘Isn’t he a poppet?’ she whispered.
He was a dark-haired little boy and small for his age, but his chubby face was healthily tanned and serene. Asleep he looked three, not nine. I thought, poor little baby, and then remembered a few years back he would now be a dead boy. He looked a happy child, and his father had a kind face.
‘Nurse Rowe.’ Another of my team was at the door. ‘Could you come? It’s Tom Elkroyd.’
It was the first attack of acute pain Tom had had since his injection dose had been increased. We gave him another injection, but this time it was a very long while before it took effect. When the pain had gone Tom was more exhausted than I had ever known him. While he was asleep I took his bed-ticket along to the duty-room. Sister and Addy were at lunch. I thought things over, then asked the switchboard to buzz Mr. Todd.
‘Sorry, Nurse, Mr. Todd’s operating.’
I had forgotten that girl from Catherine. ‘Then will you try Mr. Gordon? Thanks.’
I waited by the telephone. Robert rang from the canteen a few minutes later. ‘Gordon. Yes?’
I told him about Tom. ‘He’s so weak. I’d like someone to see him as he is now. Could you call up before your afternoon eye clinic?’
‘Yes.’ He rang off.
I replaced the receiver thoughtfully. He was never loquacious, but it was some time since he had been so terse with me. He had sounded like the old Robert.
That was how he looked when he arrived. We looked at Tom without waking him. He was still too limp with exhaustion. His face was unnaturally swollen, and the skin had an unhealthy shine. His pulse showed that the pressure in his skull was rising.
Back in the corridor, Robert asked, ‘As bad as before?’
‘It’s hard to tell. Perhaps not quite, but it gave his heart a much worse beating. If he starts having these between now and Saturday …’ I left my sentence unfinished.
He frowned at the bed-ticket. ‘This’ll have to be stepped up. I can’t do it without Muir’s O.K. as both he and Brown-plus-E specifically said not to. He’s due in Eyes this afternoon. I’ll talk to him.’
‘Thanks.’ I sighed with relief. ‘Sorry to have dragged you back.’
‘That’s all right.’ He tugged at the back strings of his gown, and one string snapped.
‘Let me.’ I got behind him. ‘You’ll break the lot if you fight like that.’
He said softly, ‘The way I feel right now, Anna, I could break this whole bloody place with my two hands.’
‘I know.’ I took his gown. ‘Cap, please. And mask.’
‘Sorry.’ He handed them over. ‘I’ll talk to Muir before the clinic if possible. If not, as soon as I can.’ He added another note to the case history. ‘Talking of talks, though this isn’t the time or place, it’s the only place I ever see you, and I want to talk to you. When are you off today?’
‘I’ve been.’ I was curious and rather disturbed. He was not trying to date me for fun. He had never dated me ‒ and it was Sabby’s half-day. ‘Why? What do you want to talk about?’
‘I can’t go into that now. I’m due in Eyes. I’ll be there till four. I hoped you’d be off this afternoon and we could have tea somewhere. Mark’s on, so I could get out for an hour or so. Tonight’s out as I’m on Cas call in the A.R.R. (Accident Recovery Room) from eight. We’ll have to fix something tomorrow.’ He walked away before I could tell him tomorrow was out as I was going down to Wylden after lunch and would not be back till Friday night. Sister Mary had invited me for my this week’s day and a half at my last visit. She was expecting me for early tea, as I had explained in my letter to Nick. Of course, I could say I had been delayed in the ward and stay on to learn what Robert had to say to me, and Sister Mary would believe me. That was why I could not use the excuse. I then realised it was Sister Mary and not Nick I was bothering about, and had another of those guilty pangs the thought of him kept giving me lately. Fortunately I was on duty, and so the pang was short-lived.
Sister and Addy returned. Sister asked why I had recalled Mr. Gordon. She received my answer coldly. ‘You did not, I hope, allow Mr. Elkroyd’s notes to leave the ward? Then you had better go down to the Eye Department now and wait with them for Mr. Muir’s opinion.’
I had not visited Eyes since the night Robert and I had talked in Sister Eyes’ office ‒ the night before my first week-end in the cottage. The department looked as different in daylight as my private life looked since that particular night. Momentarily I wondered which had been the catalyst? That talk with Robert, Nick’s detached retina? Then Sister Eyes came out of her glass-walled office.
Mr. Muir was with the Dean. ‘Wait by all means, Nurse Rowe. He shouldn’t be long.’
I waited just inside the clinic-room doorway. It was very quiet, though the clinic had started. Eyes had the best appointments system in Barny’s and its staff had the best reputation for punctuality. The two house men were already seeing their first patients, and only three others waited their turn on the bench against the far wall.
The registrar’s desk was empty. It stood near one window, between a piebald rocking-horse and three tropical fish tanks. Then Robert came out of the dark room pushing an old man in a wheelchair. ‘That’s fine for another month, Mr. Brunton. The nurse will push you along to join your wife in the canteen. Mr. Yates should be back from holiday by your next visit.’
‘You done me nicely, son,’ said the old man jovially. ‘And that Mr. Yates done hisself nicely having his sickleaf and his holidays in this weather. Lovely bit of sun we’ve had this year.’
Robert handed him over to the Eyes nurse, then walked up to me. ‘I haven’t seen him yet.’
�
��Sister said he’s with the Dean. She said he won’t be long.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on that. I forgot the housemen switch round next Tuesday when I was up in Observation just now. If Muir doesn’t like the Dean’s candidates he’ll be there all afternoon. Shall I ring you?’
I hesitated, then shook my head. ‘Sister Observation told me to wait. I’d better do that.’
‘Please yourself.’ He went over to the patients’ bench. ‘Sorry to delay you, madam. Will you come over here, please?’
The junior ophthalmic houseman took his man into the dark room. Sister Eyes gave two newcomers their cards and showed them to the bench. The nurse returned from the canteen, took a look around, then began embroidering ‘Eyes’ in red on a new sterile towel. I went on waiting, and watching the clock and the back of Robert’s dark head alternately.
His new patient was a middle-aged woman with dyed blonde hair, a nervous giggle and a coy manner. Her multi-coloured shift would have looked fine on a teenager. It accentuated her age.
She had already been seen by the houseman and asked to wait for the registrar. ‘I don’t know why the young doctor had to fuss, Doctor,’ she confided. ‘It’s not as if there’s anything really wrong with silly little me! I expect you think I’m having you on about seeing two of everything!’
‘No.’ Robert was squinting into his ophthalmoscope. ‘I don’t think that, madam.’
He had been moving his hand behind his head. It was now stationary. ‘Just look at my hand. Try not to blink. Good.’ He lowered the instrument and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Will you now look straight at that nurse by the door? And keep looking at her.’
‘That tall pretty nurse with the lovely red hair you were talking to, Doctor?’ She slapped her knee archly. ‘She your young lady?’
‘No,’ said Robert. ‘But she’s the one I want you to look at.’
The Eyes nurse caught my eye. She was in Vint’s set. When Robert escorted his patient, now giggling delightedly, into the dark room she came over to me. ‘Do you think Sister Observation would like me to go in there and chaperone him, Nurse Rowe?’
I said primly, ‘Won’t that depend on Sister Eyes?’
She shot me the sort of glance a well-trained fourth-year would give a staff nurse who had suddenly turned very senior and went back to her sewing.
I wanted to kick myself. It was not her fault that truthful monosyllable should have so irritated me. Naturally she knew about Robert and Wardell. Vint apart, it was common knowledge. I had known it for weeks, so why let it rile me now?
For once I had time to stand and think. I was still doing that when Robert and his lady reappeared and went back to his desk. She was less coy now, rather scared because he wanted her to stay and be seen by Mr. Muir, and he was being very nice to her. When she moved back to the bench to await Mr. Muir and he asked for his next patient he glanced round again to see if his boss had arrived. This time he looked through me as he had done hundreds of times in the past. I had never minded that at all. I minded it so much now that I saw the astonishing truth. I could not conceive how, after so long, this could have happened to me. The fact remained it had. I had no doubts, no confusion. It was so simple, and so senseless.
I looked round the room as if expecting other people to notice some outward change in me. I might have been invisible. The housemen were looking into their patients’ eyes; Robert was taking notes; the nurse was intent on her sewing; Sister Eyes was writing; the waiting patients were reading magazines. The rocking-horse was staring belligerently out of the window, and even the tropical fish in their tanks were swimming away from me.
Mr. Muir was another twenty minutes. Then I rang Observation. Addy, now in charge, told me to return via the dispensary.
Later, Tom savoured the flavour of his new medicine. ‘What’s this, then? Run out of needles?’
Next morning he said he felt a new lad. ‘Happen that’ll be a tonic? That new mucky stuff?’
‘Something like that.’ I felt like Sapphira, wife to Ananias.
I had had no chance to talk to Robert on personal matters since after lunch yesterday, and though I could have left a message for him at the lodge or with one of the other men, knowing our grapevine, I decided to break a few rules and leave it with Tom.
‘Oh, aye. I’ll tell him. Doing more painting?’
‘That’s right. Thanks, Tom. See you Saturday.’
‘Aye. Sh ‒ Sh ‒ Saturday.’
Sister was at first lunch. She had deputed Addy to take my report and tell me to go to second lunch and stay off. I met Jill coming up as I was going down our blocks stairs.
‘The very girl I wanted to see! Off now, Anna? Go and have lunch and change at the double, and Dr. Stock’ll give you a lift as far as Astead. He’s coming up to collect his mended car and is calling for you at two! Hurry! He has to be back in Astead General by three-thirty.’
‘Jill, that’s awfully nice of him.’ We cantered down together. ‘And thank you for coming up. You ask him to give me a lift? Thanks a lot. How are you? And how did the week-end go? I haven’t seen you to ask, and I’ve kept meaning to ring you, but there’s never time.’
‘Do I not know it! Elizabeth is hectic!’
‘And how did the week-end go?’ I asked again.
‘Perfect! We’ve finished the kitchen. You’ll love it!’
‘I’ll bet. How was Nick?’
She had been smiling radiantly. Briefly her smile vanished. Then she turned hearty. ‘Making a textbook recovery. Marcus Stock is most satisfied.’
There was something different about her. ‘Jill, you’ve cut your hair.’
‘No. Just had it done for a change!’
‘It looks terrific!’ It did, but it was not the only alteration to her appearance. She was wearing face powder, which she never wore on duty, and though only a trace, a definite trace of eye shadow. ‘You had a facial, too?’
She flushed. ‘I had to do something, my child! I mean ‒ well ‒ oh, dear! There’s the Ass Mat, and I must see her. Have a nice time, and give my love to Sister Mary.’ She sailed down a side corridor to the Assistant Matron. ‘Sister, may I have a word with you?’
I walked on with my head over my shoulder and straight into Peter Graveny and two other registrars. Peter asked where I was going so fast.
‘Wylden. Marcus Stock is giving me a lift.’ I polished my nails on my apron bib. ‘That’s the kind of girl I am! Pundits give me lifts!’
‘To Wylden?’ He seemed almost startled, and exchanged an odd glance with his companions. ‘Nick expecting you?’
‘Lord, yes! Have you been down to the cottage yet!’
‘Er ‒ yes. On Monday.’
That surprised me. He had stood me a coffee on Tuesday. I asked why he had not mentioned it then.
‘Didn’t I? Surely. No? Oh, must have meant to and forgotten. Nice little place, that cottage. Just the thing for Sister Mary.’
‘Ideal.’ I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with my eyesight. Now Peter seemed to be looking different. ‘Peter, was Nick all right?’
‘Great!’ He was as hearty as Jill. ‘In very good form and being shockingly pampered by Sister Mary. Trust old Nick to have the luck of his namesake,’ he added dryly. ‘But I expect you want to get on, Anna. You won’t want to keep your tame pundit waiting!’
Everyone seemed so anxious I should not keep Marcus Stock waiting that I skipped lunch, bought myself a couple of sandwiches in the canteen, and ate them in my room while I changed. I was ready by two, and had time to face the fact that I had gone into the canteen to see if Robert was there . He had not been.
I enjoyed my drive to Astead. Marcus Stock did not talk or act like a pundit, but neither did he behave as if we belonged in the same age group. We talked about Nick, Sister Mary, the cottage and the great changes he had noticed in Barny’s after an absence of several years. He entranced me by having been a student when Matron was training, and a junior houseman when Brown-plus-E was o
ur youngest S.S.O. ever. He laughed at my reaction. ‘I’m from the dark ages of medicine, Nurse Rowe! I remember the no touch technique, and life when penicillin was in powder form and had to be made up fresh for each injection! I even saw the old M and B 693 in constant use ‒ and heard the patients warned off onions and eggs while on it!’
‘What happened if they ate them, Doctor?’
‘It was supposed to turn them navy blue ‒ but that I never saw!’ He laughed again. ‘Face it, Nurse Rowe! You are driving with history! What else do I remember ‒ ah, yes! The present Sisters Elizabeth and Observation as raw P.T.S. juniors!’
I could not visualise Sabby Wardell as a raw anything. ‘I’m sure Miss Wardell was as neat and calm as she is now.’
‘Very true. And Miss Collins used to blow round like a gust of fresh air, with her cap on the side of her head and a forgotten mask round her neck.’
‘So Miss Collins hasn’t altered either?’
‘Also very true,’ he agreed, and asked a question about Observation. ‘It must be most interesting to be using so many of the new techniques. I gather you often use high-pressure oxygen on your patients. Sister Elizabeth showed me the pressure chamber. It looked to me like the interior of a spaceship. Doesn’t all that apparatus worry the patients?’
‘Luckily not at all. And the women love the tasteful pink paint covering it all.’ Our pressure chamber had been in use this morning. ‘Did you look through the peephole?’
‘No. I saw it empty one day last week.’
As we neared Astead the conversation went back to Sister Mary. He said he was delighted to have her as a nearish neighbour. He had been asked to tea last Sunday and had helped with the kitchen painting. ‘I fear I was more hindrance than help. Jill ‒ that is, Miss Collins ‒ had to chase me round with a paraffin rag. Our young expert Dexter was not pleased with my handiwork! The shoemaker should stick to his last. Now then, which is your best bus stop?’
I did not enjoy the bus ride. I no longer had any excuse for avoiding thinking about Nick and what I must say to him some time in the next thirty-six hours. Remembering David, the thought made me squirm. I knew exactly how Nick was going to feel, unless by some miracle he had changed as much as myself.
A House for Sister Mary Page 17
