Hospital Circles

by Lucilla Andrews

  I asked, ‘Why, Nurse Humber?’

  She shrugged. ‘In my experience patients who worry plus about themselves always enjoy the drama of spreading the worry around, particularly to their beloveds. But I could be maligning the lad. I haven’t seen all that much of him awake, and God knows he’s got good cause to worry. I don’t think he looks at all well.’ That final remark was hospital jargon for ‘I think he looks close to dangerously ill’. A dangerously ill patient, in jargon, looked poorly.

  Gwenellen relieved me again for my night meal at one-thirty. On my return she said my man had not woken and the S.S.O. had been in. She told me this with her lips, not her voice. Lip-reading was an accomplishment we all acquired on nights.

  I mouthed back, ‘He say anything?’

  ‘Not to me. He never does. Maybe I should use the subway?’

  The last few hours had so driven my off-duty life from my mind that, momentarily, I had no idea what she was getting at.

  I wrote a long letter to my aunt next morning. ‘I’ve decided I must have schizoid tendencies. When I switch off my lamp I switch on me, and vice versa, with no trouble at all. And though this may sound macabre, I did enjoy last night once it got going. I like my sick to be sick.’

  I asked if she remembered Old Red, and described meeting him in the subway, but not his current reputation, for that would have been less than tactful, as I hoped one day to marry them off, and unfair, since he had been so pleasant to me.

  I was early for supper that night and on edge until I heard, ‘Nurse Dungarvan to Marcus Ward as special nurse for tonight.’ The Night Super lowered her list. ‘Nurse Dungarvan, when are your next nights off?’

  I stood up. ‘Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Sister.’

  ‘And your holiday starts tomorrow week?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Across the dining-room I saw Humber whisper something to one of the junior sisters and that sister nod in reply. Humber smiled in a relieved way. I sat down again longing to hit something hard.

  Walking up with us to our wards, Aline said, ‘I guess they’ll keep you in Marcus until your nights off, and then shove one of the day staff nurses on nights.’

  Gwenellen looked startled. ‘That a guess? Or have you heard something?’

  ‘Only that Humber’s been raising Cain all day about having to carry D.I.L.s in Marcus proper and Marcus Small Ward, and how, though she’s willing, she can’t be in two places at once.’ She turned to me. ‘I know you specialed that girl in Hope, Jo, and right through, but she was in the main ward, wasn’t she?’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Aline, ‘you must see Humber’s angle.’ Gwenellen and I said nothing. Gwenellen was a kind and tactful girl. I was a girl in a flaming temper.

  Daisy Yates was waiting outside the red screen when I left Marcus main ward after the report. ‘His father’s still with him. I’ve moved out to let them say their private good-nights.’

  ‘How is he?’ I asked. Though I’d just had the official report, I wanted the inside story.

  ‘Not too good.’ She sounded and looked weary. She was a large-boned girl, attractive rather than pretty, with a beautiful skin and naturally curly, short hair. On duty she strode about looking as if she could not wait to get off duty and chuck a discus. Yet out of uniform she looked like a fashion model. She had the best dress sense of any girl in Benedict’s and a passion for altering the colour of her hair. She did this subtly, so as not to offend authority. She was now a discreet auburn, which suited her, but tonight enhanced the whiteness of her face. ‘The lad’s spirits have been flagging somewhat. After supporting them all day I could use some support myself.’

  ‘I can imagine. How’d he take his father’s arrival? Didn’t scare him too much, I hope?’

  ‘I was afraid it would make him turn his face to the wall. Then, luckily, Old Red had the bright idea of suggesting General Francis used his spinal trouble as his main reason for making this unexpected trip to Town. Our boy was quite bucked about that. Apparently his papa loathes hospitals and doctors, having had a bellyful before he had to leave the Army, and since then has flatly refused to discuss his back. But he’s agreed to let Old Red fix him up with an appointment to see Mr Remington-Hart, which is sensible, as nothing sounds so truthful as the truth.’

  ‘Remington-Hart? A neurological surgeon for arthritis? Why? Surely he needs an orthopod?’

  Daisy smiled. ‘Surprisingly enough, Old Red has not given me his reasons. No doubt he has ’em.’

  ‘No doubt.’ I glanced round the screen. General Francis was now standing by the bed, leaning on his two walking-sticks. He was a tallish, spare man. His eyes were the same amber-brown as his son’s, but looked lighter, as his face was more tanned. His dark hair was heavily streaked with grey, but still very thick. ‘I hope someone can do something for him. He’s so crippled.’ I had another look. ‘Much younger than I expected. He doesn’t look anything like my idea of an old soldier. He looks more like ‒ what? I know! A weary poet.’

  Daisy said dreamily, ‘I think he looks a dish. He must have been a knock-out when he was young. And though he’s anti-hospital, his manners are out of this world.’

  She looked over my head and smiled. ‘Ah, here’s Corporal Wix. Come for the General, Corporal? He’s just leaving.’

  Corporal Wix was the retired soldier who now worked for General Francis. He was about fifty-five, short, sturdy, and very neat. His handshake made my knuckles ache. ‘How is Mr Francis tonight, miss?’ he asked Daisy.

  ‘A little tired.’

  Apparently Corporal Wix understood hospital jargon. ‘Like as I said to the General, miss, the young gentleman’ll have to be worse afore he’s better.’

  Bill Francis looked so much worse in twelve hours that I had to control my expression when I went back to him. He was much more restless than last night, and, despite sleeping drugs, much more wakeful. He wanted to talk. As talking had helped Violet, the girl in Hope, I thought it a good idea to let him talk himself to sleep. Humber disagreed. At eleven she sent Gwenellen to take over temporarily and took me into the duty-room. ‘Why isn’t he asleep, Dungarvan? His leg hurting?’

  ‘Not since that injection he had an hour ago.’

  She frowned at his prescription sheet, which she had removed from the bed-table when she called me out. ‘He can’t have anything more for at least three hours. He must sleep. Insomnia can be a dangerous symptom in pneumonia. It’s your job to cope with his symptoms. You are letting him talk far too much.’

  I explained my reason. She was not impressed. She was saying so forcibly when the telephone interrupted her. She dismissed me with a jerk of her head and took the call. I had not been back with Bill Francis two minutes before she appeared. ‘Time I took the weight off my feet.’ She took my chair by his bed. ‘Telephone, Nurse Dungarvan. S.S.O.’

  God, I thought, and what does he want?

  He told me. ‘I’ve had a general report on Mr Francis. I now want to know about his fractured leg. How is it?’

  ‘Comfortable, Mr Leland.’

  ‘Nurse, I want a report, not a placebo!’

  I grimaced at the wall. This was the Old Red I had heard about, and not the man I had met in the subway. I gave him a detailed surgical report.

  ‘I gather he’s not sleeping? Why not?’

  I resisted the urge to retort with his curtness, ‘Because he’s not sleepy’, and gave all the medical reasons I could think of.

  ‘He’s got to sleep. But he wants to talk?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Leland.’

  ‘Then let him. It’ll probably unwind him better than anything else.’ He rang off.

  I assumed my best dumb-brunette expression when handing this on to Humber. I had no idea how she would take it, but on past showing from other senior staff nurses I suspected badly. Trained nurses, in general, object strongly to being taught their jobs either by their juniors or by doctors. Nursing was a matter for nurses. This was a nursing point.

&n
bsp; Humber soared in my estimation. ‘Well, I’m damned! I don’t hold with this therapy, but if the S.S.O. is backing you up, keep on your way. But it had better work.’

  It was another hour before it worked. In that hour I heard about life on a London newspaper, the great novel that was one day going to be written, the shock to the Francis family when the General’s eldest son refused to go into the Army. ‘After four generations of soldiers on both sides the boy cried halt! My mama took it hard, but the old man was very decent. He’s a decent old boy, is my old man. We’ve never seen much of each other, but we have each other’s number. Old Wix, of course, has never forgiven me. Have you seen old Wix?’

  ‘Yes. When he came for your father. He looked sweet.’

  ‘Solid wood, you mean.’ He chuckled and started coughing. ‘I’ll say this for old Wix,’ he went on when the spasm had passed, ‘though he doesn’t approve of me for not toting a gun, he’s bloody good to the old man.’ He was silent. ‘Think they can patch up his back?’

  ‘I don’t know enough about it to answer that honestly. I hope so.’

  He was silent for a little longer. He lay watching me with eyes that were at last getting drowsy. ‘You’re very honest, aren’t you, Nurse?’ He reached for a corner of my apron. ‘You’re the first honest girl I’ve met. Now I’ve met you’ ‒ he gave my apron a little tug ‒ ‘I’m not letting you go.’ His voice was much slower. ‘Any objections?’

  I smiled in answer. A minute later he went out like a light. He did not wake when the usual procession of night sisters and men in white coats came in and out. They were careful not to disturb him. The Senior Medical Officer murmured, ‘Listening in to his chest can wait. Sleep’s the main thing.’

  He had not woken when I returned from my meal at two. Gwenellen and I changed places soundlessly. I took his pulse, then sat back in the chair by his bed, my hands in my lap.

  The uneasy silence of the small hours fell over the hospital. Uneasy, because during those hours so often the dying became the dead. That night, as on every night in Benedict’s, in some ward in every block at least one patient was hovering on the outer edge of life. Sitting alone in that darkened little room, I could sense the shadow of death lying over the hospital as tangibly as I could see the shadows of night in the corners of the room and outside the window.

  Bill Francis was not yet dying. His illness had to run its course to the crisis that would come any time between the fifth and the ninth day. The S.M.O. was of the opinion that this was the third, not second night, and that for twenty-four hours before he was knocked down the patch of consolidation had started forming in Bill Francis’s lung. The S.M.O. said it was not unusual for normally healthy people, particularly young people, to misjudge the gravity of their own symptoms and write off feeling so ill as a hangover. ‘That’s partly because, being unaccustomed to serious illness, they can’t believe something like that can happen to them, partly because they don’t want to believe it. Subconsciously they’re frightened, so they put off seeing a doctor.’

  If the S.M.O. was right, which he was bound to be, being a very experienced physician, then the crisis would come any time from the day after tomorrow ‒ when I would be on nights off. Hell, I thought, hell! That was not only for selfish reasons. He had now grown accustomed to me, and, as he was too ill for any kind of polite act, had left me in no doubt that he liked me. Sister Hope always said that a sympathetic nurse-patient relationship was essential in any severe illness. ‘Picture yourselves, Nurses, feeling ill and wretched and having to put up with someone you disliked touching you, attending to you. It would be enough to send your temperature up each time that someone came on duty.’

  All patients disliked staff changes. If he had a new night special, even if he later grew to like her, he would start by trying to play her up just as he had me, and, since she had told me herself, Daisy Yates. That was not going to help him at all, even if it made Humber happier. God damn Humber, I thought, and got up to write on the charts on the bed-table. My move woke him, and he did not see me. ‘Nurse,’ he gasped, ‘where are you?’

  Quickly I returned to him. ‘I’m here. It’s all right, my dear.’ He clutched me like a terrified child waking from a nightmare. ‘I won’t leave you. There, there.’ I held him against my shoulder. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Not yet. I daren’t.’ He began to shiver. ‘Hold me, Nurse, hold me! I feel so queer. I feel I’m going to float away. Nurse ‒ am I going to die?’

  ‘Of course not! You just feel queer because you’re packed full of drugs and you’ve got a bit of a temperature. Who wouldn’t feel queer with that lot?’

  ‘It’s not that.’ He was calmer, with the calmness of cold fear. ‘I just have that feeling ‒ this is the end of the line. This is where I get off. It’s nothing to do with those drugs you gave me. They made me feel muzzy. I’m not muzzy now. I feel’ ‒ his voice broke ‒ ‘I can’t die! Don’t let me die! I want to live ‒’ He began to cry.

  ‘Now you listen to me.’ I held him in my arms. ‘There’s no question at all of your dying ‒ do you understand me? You’re going to live. You’re going to do all the things you want to do. You may feel queer for a while longer, but that’s only because you’re ill, and illness makes people feel queer. But you are not dying now, and you are not going to die.’

  He lifted his head to look at me. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  I was not sure. There was no time for working on the right, soothing words. I used the first that came into my head. ‘For a start, because I’m not going to let you die ‒ nor is anyone else in this hospital. This is the best hospital in the country. We know our stuff. We’re tough cookies here, and so are you. You’ve got a long and full life ahead of you, chum, so you must now stop worrying and go back to sleep and catch up on the strength you’ll need for living it up when you’re better.’

  He said, ‘I never normally trust women. I trust you. Do you know why?’ He reached up to touch my face as he answered himself. ‘I love you, Nurse Dungarvan. Isn’t that something? I don’t know your first name, but I love you. Do you mind?’

  I was so relieved to see the fear had left him that I would not have minded had he asked me to get into bed with him. Nor would I have taken that any more seriously than I took his actual words. He sounded coherent, but he was too ill and doped to have any idea what he was saying. ‘All I mind is that you should tire yourself staying awake. Will you try and sleep now?’

  ‘You’ll stay?’

  ‘You know I will.’ I helped him lie back. ‘Have one little drink and then off to sleep.’ I reached out behind me for the feeder on the locker-top. I nearly dropped it when I felt it being placed in my hand. I glanced round. Old Red stood by the locker. His nod told me to ignore him. I did so, outwardly. When I next looked round he had gone.

  Chapter Three

  REUNION IN THE CAR PARK

  A junior night sister was waiting at the dining-room door that next evening. ‘The Assistant Matron wishes to see you straight away, Nurse Dungarvan.’

  I did not know if Matron was on that evening, but I did know she invariably did her own dirty work. That was no help to my instant gloom. Before I knocked on the Ass. Mat’s door, in my own mind I had been slung out for encouraging unseemly behaviour from a male patient and was miserably working on the choice of my next career.

  ‘Come in! Ah, it’s Nurse Dungarvan!’ announced the Ass. Mat as if life was full of jolly little surprises. ‘Good. Close the door, Nurse.’

  A closed door in a hospital was an ugly sign. My gloom grew gloomier. ‘Good evening, Sister.’

  ‘And such a lovely evening! Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sister,’ I lied.

  ‘Good.’ She smiled briskly. ‘Sleeping on night duty can be so difficult, particularly in warm weather. Sit down, my dear.’

  I sat on the edge of a chair. Had she been Matron, her telling me to sit down would have told me immediately that whatever her reason for wanting to
see me it was not to sack me. When Matron had to be tough she kept a girl on her feet. But our Ass. Mat, though not as young as Matron, was great on being all-girls-together and thrashing things out across a table. Her opening remark now increased my gloom. ‘Matron has asked me to have a little talk to you about your temporary position as a special nurse in Marcus Ward. I understand you have been nursing’ ‒ she glanced at a note ‒ ‘Mr William Charles Francis since Saturday night?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘A most interesting case.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘And tomorrow night you are due for nights off?’

  My gloom vanished. Suddenly I recognized her attitude for what it was. That had taken me a little time, partly as I was still sleepy, partly as I had so convinced myself Old Red had reported me. I saw now she was softening me up just to ask me a favour. ‘Yes, Sister. I should be off tomorrow night ‒’

  ‘But you are not too happy at the prospect of leaving your special patient at this stage? How well I understand that, my dear! When I was a special nurse in the final year of my training …’

  Ten minutes and five anecdotes later she returned to my nights off. Providing I had no objection, Matron wanted me to work on until my holiday and have three extra days tacked on the end. I had no objection at all. It was another ten minutes before the Ass. Mat let me go. When I did, being a very experienced Ass. Mat, she had managed to give the impression authority was granting me a great favour. ‘Such an invaluable and very rare nursing experience, nowadays. You are very fortunate!’

  In the dining-room Aline grunted. ‘Huh! Matron can’t have any spare staff nurses. Humber’ll create.’

  Humber was too busy to create that night. In the evening rush-hour a lorry had skidded into a car and jammed it up against one of the pillar-boxes outside the hospital. There had been four men in the car. Three of them and the lorry-driver’s mate were in Marcus when we came on. The lorry-driver had escaped with slight shock. The fourth car passenger was still too injured to be moved from the Accident Recovery Room in Casualty.