The room had cleared as the other patients had been moved into the I.C.R. Monica Miles had returned and was standing watching with the three other dressers. One asked, ‘Do they always try again?’
Richard said, ‘The ones that mean business, do.’
‘Even after psychiatric therapy, sir?’
‘You can psycho-analyse a man until you and he are blue in the bloody face,’ muttered Mr Waring, ‘plug him with everything in the book, and shock him half out of his wits with electro-therapy, but if he’s really determined to do himself in, soon as you let him out he’ll have another bash.’
‘Then, if you’ll forgive my asking, sir,’ drawled the student with mock humility, ‘is there really much point in trying to save ’em? I mean, isn’t it all rather a waste of time and blood and so on?’
Until then I had never suspected our amiable S.A.O. had a quick temper. He flushed dully beneath his mask. Richard shot him a calming glance before facing the student himself. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he asked gently.
‘Frampton, sir.’
‘And you feel, Mr Frampton, that we should start taking over from God?’
‘I ‒ ? I’m sorry. I don’t follow you, sir.’
‘Surely you must? Since you are suggesting that we are qualified to sort out whom to save and whom to reject, doesn’t it follow automatically that you must consider us capable of assuming the mantle of the Almighty?’
The student was now as flushed as Mr Waring, and very persistent. ‘I didn’t exactly mean that. I just thought that if a chap like this is likely to repeat the performance, wouldn’t he prefer to be allowed to get away with it?’
‘Possibly. And just as possibly not. Why did he do it? Do you know? No. Nor do we. All we know is that his life needs saving, and we can probably save it. To save those we can is our job. If it isn’t a job you care for, don’t take it on. If you do it’ll be your job. As for time being wasted ‒ what the devil do you suppose our time is for? Or, for that matter, the blood in our blood banks? Do you imagine both are there to be used sparingly and only on those we deem worthy of saving? And just supposing that pertained, how would you like to be carried unknown and unconscious into a hospital? Yes, you, Mr Frampton. This lad here could be you. Every patient carried into St Benedict’s could be you. Ever thought of it that way? If not, just you start thinking along those lines, boy.’ He pointed a finger at the figure under the towels and blankets. ‘That’s how you look, after hitting the bottom of the pit on one wet Sunday night in London. That’s how you look’ he repeated, ‘after carefully locking yourself in a public lavatory, taking a razor-blade out of your pocket, hacking away at your own throat, and making as much of a bloody hash of the job as you must have felt you’d made of your life to pick up that razor-blade in the first place. But what if you were wrong? What if tonight you want to die and tomorrow to live?’ The student did not answer. ‘While you’ve still the hope of a second chance, has any man the right to deny you that?’
I could not wait any longer. For the last hour I had been fighting back nausea. The mental pictures his words had sparked off in my mind finished me. I managed to say primly, ‘Excuse me, please,’ and to walk sedately out of the Cleansing Theatre. Then I ran.
Monica came into our changing-room as I washed my face in cold water. ‘I’ve been sent to see if you’re O.K.’
‘I am, thanks. Now.’ I retied my mask. ‘De Wint send you?’
‘No. The S.S.O. Faint?’
‘Nothing so elegant. I vomited plus.’
‘Me too. Only I wasn’t quick enough.’
‘Poor you! Don’t worry. One’s timing improves, with practice.’ Richard’s concern was no comfort. After his week-end he was probably having another avuncular bout. ‘Anyone else coming in? That sounds like another stretcher.’ I opened the door. ‘Yes. Back we go.’
The incoming stream of accidents continued all night. There was no let-up next day. That evening the dressers were drooping with exhaustion. Mr Waring stood first on one foot, then the other. ‘One’s used to black Mondays, but this is ridiculous. This isn’t an Accident Unit, this is a factory-belt. God help my fallen arches!’ The light was flashing. ‘Back on the job, slaves!’
Linda Oxford was off that day. When de Wint sent me to second supper she told me to come back five minutes early, as Sister Casualty wanted to see me.
‘What have I done, Staff Nurse?’
She smiled wearily. She had been on since 7.30, and though officially off at 4 p.m. had scrapped her own off-duty. ‘Relax. It’s only about some change in our rota.’
I looked in my post pigeon-hole en route to the dining-room. There was a note from Margaret. It glowed with content. Dickie had looked well and happy; the weather in Sussex had been far better than in London; they had all enjoyed their various long drives; General Francis had been delighted to get a cable from Bill that afternoon. Bill was flying back tomorrow to see his father before his second op. ‘It would seem we’ve all much maligned your friend Aline.’
Yes? Or had Bill had my letter this morning? Either way, I was glad of the result. I had always liked General Francis, and the more I heard of him from Margaret the more my liking had increased.
Richard was with Sister when I knocked on the half-open duty-room door. ‘Ah, Dungarvan! Come aboard. No, please don’t disturb yourself, Mr Leland. This won’t take a moment.’
He had risen from his chair by hers. He stayed on his feet and went over to read the notices on the wall behind her desk, with his back to us.
Sister said briskly, ‘I’ll tell you straight, gal, I’m about to alter any private arrangements you may have made for your next trip ashore. I’m sorry, but I’ve no alternative. I refuse to allow my senior staff nurses to work themselves into early graves, or any student nurse inside the Unit, until I consider she’s got her sea-legs. I don’t often make mistakes.’ She met my eyes, steadily. ‘But I can make ’em, same as anyone else.’
That was no small admission, to a junior and in front of an S.S.O., even if his back was turned. My respect for her took another leap upward. I said nothing.
She explained she wanted me to stay on the late, late shift until Thursday, to have all Friday and Saturday morning off, and from Saturday to work 1.30 to 10, instead of the day shift, as expected. ‘Any objections, gal?’
‘No, Sister.’ That was true. All this meant was another letter to that solicitor and a note to Margaret.
‘Thank you, Dungarvan. Carry on.’
I ran into Daisy in the Unit corridor, and asked if she knew what was going on.
‘Humber’s coming to us, temporarily, as Oxford’s not coming back.’
‘She’s been chucked out for fainting? That’s hellish tough ‒’
‘Not for fainting. For throwing a full-blown attack of hysterics, and when she came out of that for flatly refusing ever to set foot in the Unit again. She saw Matron at her own request today. I gather Matron and Sinbad were very decent. Sinbad offered to have her back in the Hall until her nerve recovered. Oxford won’t even hear of that.’
‘Honestly? How about her bright, bright lamp?’
‘It’s gone out,’ said Daisy. ‘Just like that.’
The rush continued until Wednesday evening, when it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. After supper and standing around waiting for an hour Nurse de Wint, Daisy, and I sat down to mend gloves, the dressers vanished to their rest-room, Mr Cook doodled on the desk blotter, while Mr Simons and our anaesthetist shared an evening paper.
Mr Waring propped himself against the C.T. doorway. ‘Here’s a sight to unnerve the most case-hardened S.A.O. Never have I seen all my nurses sitting down to their tatting together.’ He smiled on us, then looked back into the corridor. ‘Here’s a sight even you won’t have seen often, Mr Leland.’
Richard looked us over. ‘A pretty picture,’ he observed drily, ‘if a slightly ominous anomaly.’
‘Not the lull before the next storm already, please, Mr Leland!’ excla
imed de Wint.
‘I’d like to say that’s too obvious, Nurse de Wint.’ Richard’s glance rested on me. ‘But life has such a tedious and hackneyed habit of repeating itself.’ He leant against the other side of the door. He looked as tired as I had ever seen him, and something more than tired. His face had grown much thinner lately. It was all angles and shadows, and the weariness in his eyes seemed more than just physical weariness. Something bad had happened to him. I did not know what, but that it had I was as sure as I was that he was standing there. I thought instantly of Margaret, and then of General Francis’s op this morning. From the grape-vine I had heard it had so far been a great success. But there was nothing successful in the manner of the man who had sent General Francis to Mr Remington-Hart originally.
Mr Waring glanced backwards again. ‘Here comes Paddy looking busy. What’s up, Paddy? My line not working? Come to tell us you’ve a customer for us?’
‘Indeed I have not, Mr Waring, sir. Isn’t it a grand sight for a man to see yourself and himself with not a patient to the pair of ye? Quiet we are, as quiet as we were on Sunday, before we had the poor lad in who’d cut his head off. And making a fine recovery, they tell me?’
Richard roused himself to smile briefly. ‘He’s going to do, Paddy.’
‘I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t do me,’ put in Mr Waring. ‘I hear he’s after my blood.’
‘For saving his life?’ queried de Wint.
‘For not leaving him with a neater scar.’
‘No!’ Momentarily de Wint’s indignation gave her away. She controlled it instantly. ‘Something I can do for you, Paddy?’ she asked, as the old porter was still waiting.
‘Well, now, if you’ve the time to spare I’d be obliged of a word with you, Staff Nurse.’ He looked at me as he spoke. ‘Would you care to step this way?’
She went out with him, and they disappeared. Mr Waring looked after them, then turned and spread his hands at the rest of us.
‘Nurse Dungarvan, a moment please,’ called de Wint. She took me to the very end of the Unit corridor before explaining why she had called. ‘You’ve put me in a spot, Dungarvan, but as it's not your fault, we are so quiet, and Nurse Chalmers won’t object, just this once I’m going to let you take an outside call. I’ve told Paddy to put your caller through to Box 9. Make it snappy, and tell him never to ring you again on duty. We both know what Sister would say if she were on, to myself as well as you, despite the exceptional circumstances, which Paddy’s just explained.’
‘Exceptional ‒ Staff Nurse, who’s ringing me?’ But I had guessed, and rightly, before she answered. There was then another question I had to ask. ‘Do you know the official report on General Francis’s op?’
‘Very satisfactory. If the graft takes he should be up and out in twenty-eight days.’
‘Thanks.’ I walked on to Box 9, to talk to Bill. ‘Jo Dungarvan speaking.’
‘Jo, is it really you?’ I barely recognized his voice. It seemed years, not months, since I had heard it. ‘It’s me, Bill. Bill Francis. Oh, my dear girl! You don’t know how glad I am to speak to you!’
He was right. I didn’t.
‘How are you? And where are you?’
‘Ringing from that box outside your main gates. I had to ring you, Jo. I tried to see you. The porter was hellish sticky. He didn’t even want to put through this call.’
‘He’s not allowed to. I’m on duty, and ‒’
He cut me short. ‘To hell with that! I had to talk to you! I’ve just seen the old man again. Jo, you must believe me’ ‒ his voice shook ‒ ‘until I got your letter I’d no idea this was all so serious. I knew he was in Benedict’s, but from his letters I thought he was just having a kind of rest-cure. Even yesterday, when I flew back and came straight up here, he seemed so merry and bright. But tonight, Jo, he looks ‒ God, he looks like death. He’s too ill to talk ‒ too ill to move. He’s just lying there, flat out.’
I would have had to be inhuman not to have a rush of sympathy. ‘Bill, listen. After a big op people do look quite terrifyingly ill. The way he looks tonight isn’t anything to go on. His op went well ‒ as they must have told you?’
‘Yes. They all said that. The sister nursing him was sweet. She reminded me of someone ‒ don’t know who.’
I did not explain that one. This was not the moment. ‘You’re staying the night in the Wing?’
‘No. They said I could. Jo, it’s no good, I can’t do it. I can’t bear to see Dad like that. And it’s not as if there’s anything I can do. That sister said that for the next five days he’s got to be dead quiet. I’d only disturb him. I can’t sit around. So I’ve booked a seat on a plane to Madrid tomorrow morning. I’ll get one from there to Malaga.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I thought I must have misheard.
‘I’d have gone tonight if I could have got on any plane, but they’re all booked. I don’t know what I’m going to do tonight. That’s why I wanted to see you. I can’t stick this on my own, Jo. I just can’t.’
I took a deep breath. It was very necessary. ‘You’re not going to stay around whilst your father’s on the D.I.L.?’
‘Jo, I know how this must sound,’ he retorted petulantly, ‘but face it ‒ what good can I do Dad by sticking around? I’m just not the type to sit still at bedsides. Old Wix is with him, of course. And Dad couldn’t be in a better place, or better hands, could he? Didn’t you tell me yourself Benedict’s is the best hospital going? Aline says the same. She understood when I managed to ring her this afternoon. She’s going to meet me in Malaga tomorrow, well pick up my car ‒ it’s been there weeks ‒ and drive straight back here with it together. We’ll make it easily, inside the five days.’ He paused and, when I said nothing, added rather uncomfortably, ‘You ‒ er ‒ do know about Aline?’
‘Vaguely. You engaged?’
‘Since this afternoon. I had a long talk with Dad about her yesterday. He was very decent.’
There was so much I wanted to say, but as he was unlikely to understand any of it, I only said briefly, ‘I can imagine. Congratulations! Give Aline my love when you see her tomorrow.’
‘But I want to see you tonight. Now. I must, Jo. I can’t take this alone.’
I said, ‘I’m very sorry, Bill, but I’m afraid you’ve got to. I’m on until midnight, and there’s no possibility of my getting off. I’m really sorry.’
He said, ‘I never thought you’d let me down, Jo!’ and slammed down the receiver.
I replaced mine very carefully. No doubt it was not really his fault he had never been taught to give as well as to take, but he must have been taught the elements of good manners. He had not even said ‘Thanks for writing’. Momentarily I felt nearly as sorry for Aline as I did for General Francis. I walked slowly back to the Unit, and when I reached the C.T. the light over the door began flashing again.
Chapter Thirteen
A VISIT FROM RICHARD
I was still in bed when Margaret brought the key of her cottage up to my room in her lunch period the following day. I offered her in exchange a cup of stone-cold tea from my uncleared breakfast-tray. ‘Gwenellen nipped it over hours ago. It’ll be black and stewed as hell.’
‘Never mind. I can always drink tea.’ She sat on the side of my bed, cradling the saucerless cup in her hands. ‘I’m getting old, Jo. This post-op strain is getting too much for me.’
She was looking older again, and as tired as Richard last night. And either my imagination was playing me up again, or there was something very wrong with her too. She looked positively haunted. ‘How’s your General?’
‘Not very well.’
‘That’s a relief, since I know of nothing more worrying than a D.I.L. who’s too bright on his first post-op morning.’ I said unnecessarily, as she knew that far better than myself.
Yet she turned to me with an almost pathetic eagerness. ‘It is quite a good sign, isn’t it?’
I studied her anxiously. ‘Margaret, how much off-duty have you had this week?�
��
‘I had three hours on Monday. None since then. That’s why I took the week-end off.’
‘A day and a half is hardly a week-end!’
She sipped the cold tea. ‘I knew what this would entail when I agreed to take this case. I’ve enjoyed it ‒ until yesterday.’ She looked at me. ‘Jo, has that wretched boy been in touch with you? You know he’s gone?’ I nodded. ‘John Francis isn’t up to asking questions, yet. What am I going to say ‒ when he starts asking?’
That had been one of the problems that had prevented my getting to sleep before dawn. I had not solved it then, but sleep had cleared my mind. ‘Did Bill explain why he couldn’t bear to stay and had to keep on the move? Then, if I were you, as soon as your General’s up to asking questions, I’d tell him the truth. He must know his own son. Presumably he loves him, warts and all.’
‘That’s much what Richard said last night.’
‘When last night?’ I thought of Richard’s expression when he came into the Unit. ‘After supper?’
‘Thereabouts,’ she agreed absently. ‘But how can Richard, or you, begin to understand how something like this must hurt a parent? If Dickie did something like this to me ‒’ She broke off. She was very close to tears. ‘Jo, being a parent myself, I know how this is going to hurt John Francis. I just can’t bear even to think of hurting that man.’
I grew tense, inwardly. ‘You say this to Richard?’
‘Of course I did!’ She turned on me with the impatience of acute anxiety. ‘Jo, I’ve seen that man sweating with pain, without making a sound. All this time in the Wing, and he’s never once, day or night, rung his bell. He’s never made one single demand of Beth Kateson or myself. He’s been in pain for years. He’s been hurt so much. I know life has given him a lot, but, God, has life sent him in a bill! If that sounds like a hideous pun I can’t help it! How can I hurt him more?’
It was a strange reversal of our normal roles to find myself giving her advice. ‘Won’t it hurt him more when he discovers ‒ as he’s bound to ‒ that you’ve lied to him? You’ve been with him weeks, all day, most every day. By now he must trust you. You must be his friend.’
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