On a Turning Tide

by Ellie Dean

  ‘What is going on here?’ Armstrong strode into the room.

  ‘Be quiet,’ ordered Dolly. ‘Ron needs to concentrate.’

  ‘I really must protest,’ he stormed.

  ‘Then do it outside,’ snapped Dolly. ‘Come on, Ron. You know you want to pee, so let it go. Relax, concentrate and pee as long and loud as you want. It will save your life – I promise.’

  Ron seemed to have got the message. He gripped the bottle and closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration.

  Dolly held her breath, but moments later he gave a quavering sigh. ‘I can’t,’ he murmured. ‘I want to, but I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ she said bossily. ‘Come on, Ron. We won’t look if that’s what’s bothering you. But you must wee if you’re to get through this and marry Rosie.’

  ‘If you don’t leave immediately, Mrs Cartwright, I shall call security,’ rasped Armstrong. ‘I will not have my patient bullied, and you have no right to be in here.’

  Ron had closed his eyes again, and Dolly didn’t know if he was asleep or putting his mind to emptying his bladder. Either way, the bottle remained empty.

  ‘I thought it might help,’ she capitulated in despair. ‘Ron has a strong will and can set his mind to anything.’ She reluctantly began to collect her handbag and furs when she heard a dribble of urine go into the bottle.

  ‘That’s it,’ she yelped. ‘Yes, Ron. Yes! Come on, you can do it. More, more, more.’

  Armstrong hurried over and watched in astonishment as a steady stream continued to flow unaided into the bottle. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he breathed.

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ crowed Dolly. ‘This is a prime example of the power of mind over matter.’ She almost laughed at Armstrong’s stunned expression, but was so happy she really didn’t care what he thought.

  She handed Armstrong the bottle, grasped Ron’s hand and kissed his cheek. ‘Well done. Oh, Ron, so very well done. You’ve saved your life. Really you have.’

  Ron’s face was suddenly a better colour as he winked at her. ‘To be sure, I’ve never been applauded for peeing before,’ he rumbled. He looked blearily at Armstrong and managed a ghost of his usual bright smile. ‘She’s a wonderful woman,’ he sighed, and promptly went to sleep.

  Dolly kissed his cheek again and collected her things. ‘That’s my job done here,’ she said cheerfully to a stunned and speechless Armstrong. ‘It’s up to you now to get him back on his feet.’

  Danuta had been called out to help the midwife with a breech birth, and was wearily cycling back to Beach View, her thoughts on breakfast and a couple of hours of sleep before she checked on Ron and had to begin her daily district rounds.

  The startling sight of her mentor and tutor, Dolly Cardew, coming out of the hospital, made her wobble to a halt. Fearing her visit to Cliffehaven General could mean only one thing, she dashed after Dolly as she hurried to her parked car.

  ‘You have come to see Ron?’ Danuta asked breathlessly when she caught up with her.

  Dolly turned sharply and stood stock-still. ‘Yes, Danuta. But you haven’t seen me. Understand?’

  Danuta nodded – of course she understood. ‘Is very bad, I think, for you to come all this way,’ she murmured.

  Dolly shot her a beaming smile. ‘Well it was until I made the old so-and-so wee for England,’ she said in delight. At Danuta’s baffled expression, she laughed and went on to explain.

  ‘Of course, his kidneys might very well have recovered on their own,’ she admitted, ‘and he could have been on the verge of peeing for himself, and it was just good timing on my part. But I like to think I helped – and I thoroughly enjoyed putting a spike in Armstrong’s inflated ego,’ she finished with a giggle.

  ‘But that is wonderful,’ Danuta breathed. ‘Ron must have very strong will.’

  ‘Indeed he has,’ replied Dolly with an affectionate smile.

  ‘You are going back now?’

  ‘Yes, things are moving rapidly on the other side of the Channel and I’m needed back at Bletchley.’ She gave Danuta a hug. ‘But I’ll come back as soon as I can. Just remember that I was never here. It was a certain mysterious Mrs Cartwright who turned up and had the impudence to defy Mr Armstrong and get Ron on the road to recovery.’

  Danuta was quite baffled. ‘But how did you know what had happened in the first place?’

  Dolly tapped the side of her nose. ‘Contacts, Danuta, I’ll say no more.’ She kissed her cheek and gave her another swift hug. ‘I’m so glad you’ve settled back in here again. Will you stay once the war is over?’

  ‘This is my home now, and I enjoy very much my work, but there is much I can do in Poland. I am thinking I might return there to nurse for a while.’

  Dolly nodded. ‘I did wonder if that might be the case,’ she murmured. ‘Peggy will miss you horribly, but if there’s anything I can do to help you, just ring or write, and I’ll be straight onto it.’ She looked at the delicate watch on her slim wrist. ‘Now I must go.’

  Danuta stood in the hospital forecourt and watched her drive away with a cheerful toot of the horn and a wave. She grinned. Dolly Cardew was a force to be reckoned with – as was Ron – and if between them they’d beaten all the odds and got him on the road to recovery, then it wasn’t far short of a miracle.

  Jolyon Armstrong stood by the side of Ron’s bed as the nurse carefully measured and tested the contents of the bottle. The Cartwright woman was a sophisticated glamour-puss, and would have been just his type if she hadn’t irritated him intensely with her sense of entitlement and her refusal to be cowed by his eminent position in the hospital. But by God, the woman had to be admired. She was quite fearless; sure of herself and absolutely determined to do what he’d failed to achieve these past twenty-four hours.

  ‘Mr Reilly has a urinary tract infection,’ said the nurse, holding up the test tube of cloudy and discoloured urine.

  ‘Start him immediately on oral sulphonamide. We can’t risk the infection getting into the kidneys.’

  He wrote the prescription down on the chart and smiled at the nurse, startling her, then dug his hands into his trouser pockets and strolled back to his office. The events of this early morning had to be recorded. It would make a fine article for the Lancet, and provoke a great deal of debate amongst his peers.

  He lovingly stroked the polished surface of his beautiful desk and sat down. He’d always been a realist, and of course it was possible that Mr Reilly’s kidneys had recovered from the shock of the operation quite naturally. Yet the case for mind over matter was definitely one to explore further. There would be no need to mention the part Mrs Cartwright had played in Reilly’s recovery, for she was not the sort of woman to ever read anything more challenging than Vogue magazine, let alone a medical journal.

  20

  Rosie hadn’t been able to sleep, and after tossing and turning in her bed, she’d thrown back the covers and got dressed. She could hear Frank snoring in the spare bedroom and left him to it. He’d been so kind after she’d fainted, and had brought her home, insisting on staying with her for what remained of the night.

  Pauline had looked po-faced about it, but Frank had been firm and told her to spend the night at Beach View with Peggy, who was distraught by it all and needed her family around her – though what earthly good Pauline would do was beyond Rosie.

  Making a cup of tea, she watched the sky lighten from her sitting-room window, and heard a car screeching round the corner into the High Street and roar off into the distance. She saw Danuta cycling along Camden Road, looking rather perky for this hour, and concluded that she must have been called out to some district emergency that had turned out better than she’d expected.

  Rosie lit a cigarette although she didn’t really want one. She’d smoked too much and worried herself silly over these past two days, and was now suffering from a thick head and a bit of a sore throat. But this should have been her wedding day, with all the fuss and laughter and nerves such a thin
g entailed, and the knowledge that it could now be months away – if at all – was just one more stress added to all the others she was trying to deal with.

  What was happening to Ron? Was he holding his own, or fading? She could only take comfort in the fact there had been no telephone call, for it would have meant the worst possible news. And yet, if he really was clinging to life by a thread, why wouldn’t they let her sit with him? It was too cruel, really it was.

  She turned from the window and paced the room. The questions had plagued her to the point where she thought she might go mad. It was all so frustrating, and the only place she really wanted to be was in that hospital with Ron; not wearing a damned hole in her sitting-room carpet.

  Startled from her thoughts by a sharp rap on the side door, she hurtled downstairs to find Fran on her doorstep. Her throat constricted. ‘What’s happened?’ she managed. ‘He’s not …? He hasn’t …?’

  ‘He’s on the mend, Rosie,’ she replied, grabbing her hands, her face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘But how? That doctor said …’

  ‘Well, he was wrong,’ said Fran firmly. ‘And thank God for it. Ron’s kidneys have recovered, his bladder has emptied naturally, and although he has a slight infection, he’s sleeping like a baby.’

  Rosie had to sit down. ‘Oh, Fran, that’s the best news I’ve had in days,’ she whispered. ‘I was so frightened. I really thought I was going to lose him.’

  ‘We all did,’ murmured Fran, her voice not quite steady. ‘But he has a long road ahead of him, Rosie. You do understand that, don’t you?’ she warned softly.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘And I can bear anything as long as he’s alive.’

  Frank came thundering down the stairs barefooted, with his shirt barely tucked into his trousers, his hair tousled and his face grey and drawn with anxiety.

  Fran quickly explained the reason for her visit, and Frank sagged onto the bottom step with relief. ‘To be sure, the old fella has nine lives,’ he managed gruffly. ‘I knew he’d pull through – really I did. But for a moment there …’ He got to his feet and held out his hand to Rosie. ‘We must go and see him for ourselves.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ Fran said quickly. ‘Mr Armstrong’s in theatre all day, but Matron’s on the warpath this morning, and if she catches you, there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘She can do or say what she wants,’ said Rosie, who was quite prepared to go into battle now she knew Ron was on the mend. ‘We’re going to see Ron and that’s that.’

  She gave Fran a hug. ‘Thank you so much for coming straight over with your news. Now go home and tell the others, and then get a good long sleep. You’ve more than earned it.’

  Peggy hadn’t been able to sleep either, and she’d spent the remainder of the night sitting on Ron’s bed waiting for the sun to rise, and dreading the sound of the telephone ringing.

  She gave a sigh as she finished cleaning out the ferrets. Bert Williams had promised to take care of them until Ron was well again, and she couldn’t help but admire him for defying that awful wife of his for once because he wanted to do something to help his old pal.

  Bert’s wife wasn’t the only one who was making life difficult in this time of crisis. Pauline had not been at all helpful with her prophesies of doom and gloom, and her constant moaning about Frank spending the night at the Anchor. Eventually, Peggy’s tolerance had snapped and she’d told her rather sharply to shut up and go to bed.

  When the telephone had rung at two in the morning the entire household had responded, white-faced and tense as Peggy had rushed to answer it. The relief that it was a summons from the midwife to Danuta was almost tangible, and they’d returned to their beds in the desperate hope that it wouldn’t ring again and Ron would survive the night.

  Peggy was alerted by the sound of hurrying footsteps and the opening of the back door. She rushed out to see Fran’s beaming smile, and once she’d heard that Ron was expected to recover, they collapsed into one another’s arms and shed tears of relief and thankfulness.

  ‘I’ve told Rosie and Frank,’ Fran said eventually. ‘They’re determined to visit Ron, but I have warned them there could be trouble from Matron. Something or someone clearly upset her last night, and she’s being snappier than ever. The poor nurse who was looking after Ron was given a terrible ticking-off – I don’t know what about – but I saw her running back to the nurses’ home at the end of her shift in floods of tears.’

  ‘Hmph. I’d like to see her try it on with Rosie and Frank,’ muttered Peggy. ‘Or with me, for that matter.’ Galvanised into action now there was good news, she went up to the kitchen and put the kettle on the hob. ‘Tell the others,’ she said, ‘and then go to bed. You look worn out.’

  Fran ran upstairs and Peggy went into her bedroom to wake up Pauline who was snoring fit to burst in the double bed. She waited until she was fully aware of what was going on and told her the marvellous news.

  ‘I’m going to the hospital,’ she said, ‘and as it’s Saturday, would you mind looking after Daisy until I get back?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Pauline muttered. ‘I feel wrung out with so little sleep and all the worry I’ve been through, and I need to get home and change my clothes.’

  Peggy regarded her with disdain. ‘We’re all wrung out and on the point of collapse, Pauline,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And if you’re that exhausted, you certainly won’t manage the long uphill walk back to Tamarisk Bay. I’m just asking you to mind Daisy until one of the girls can take over.’

  ‘All right,’ she said with great reluctance. ‘I’ll wait here until Frank gets back to walk me home.’

  Peggy swiftly changed into her outdoor shoes and pulled a cardigan on over her jumper and skirt. She kissed Daisy’s brow as the child slept peacefully in her cot, then left the room to fetch her raincoat and umbrella. Hearing the delighted chatter from upstairs, she smiled, then slipped out of the house.

  She was halfway down Camden Road when she saw Rosie and Frank emerge from the Anchor. ‘Wait for me,’ she called, breaking into a run.

  ‘Oh, Peggy,’ breathed Rosie. ‘Isn’t it the most wonderful news?’

  Peggy slipped her hand through Rosie’s arm and hugged it. ‘It most certainly is. I was almost on the point of telephoning Anne and Cissy to tell them to come home immediately when Fran told me. I can hardly believe we’re so lucky to still have him.’

  They trooped across the road and made their way into the hospital. ‘His room’s down this corridor,’ said Frank, leading the way. ‘Keep an eye out for Matron – if she spots us we’re done for.’

  The corridor was busy with porters pushing patients on trolleys or in wheelchairs and nurses bustling back and forth with breakfasts, bedpans and bedlinen. No one took any notice of them as they approached the door, and after a brief hesitation, Frank dared to push it open.

  Matron was standing by Ron’s bed.

  Rosie ignored her and went straight to Ron and took his hand. ‘Hello, darling man,’ she murmured, noting his better colour. ‘I hear you’re on the mend.’

  ‘How dare you come in here?’ spluttered an appalled and furious Matron. ‘Nurse. Get rid of them immediately.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said fearfully. ‘But you really will have to leave.’

  ‘Not until I’ve seen my father,’ said Frank, standing like a monolith in the doorway.

  ‘Please,’ she begged, shooting terrified glances at the stormy-faced Matron who was now bearing down on her.

  ‘To be sure, I’m sorry, wee girl,’ muttered Frank. ‘But neither you nor that woman will see the back of me until I’ve spoken to Da and seen how he is for meself.’ With that, he brushed past Matron and approached the bed.

  Peggy could see the girl was frantic and close to tears. ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble.’ She shot Matron a glare that would have withered a fainter heart – but it seemed Matron was made of sterner stuff, for
she stood her ground and glared back.

  ‘This is my hospital and my nurse,’ she hissed. ‘Should I choose to discipline her, then it’s none of your business. I will not put up with these disruptions. What with visitors disturbing him in the middle of the night and ordering Mr Armstrong around, and now you causing trouble, I have every right to throw you out. And if you don’t leave, I shall call for security.’

  Peggy frowned. ‘What visitors in the night?’

  Matron’s lips thinned to a tight line, and although it was clear to Peggy that she wished to say more, something was preventing her from doing so – which made her even more curious.

  ‘Dolly?’ mumbled Ron from the bed.

  Peggy realised the mystery could be explained and rushed to his side. ‘Has Dolly been here?’ she asked him.

  Ron’s eyes were closed as rolled his head on the pillow, mumbling something incoherent.

  ‘He’s heavily sedated and doesn’t know what he’s saying,’ said Matron. ‘If you would come into the corridor – now – I will explain his treatment in more detail.’

  Peggy could see that Matron was getting as jittery as the nurse – probably dreading the sudden arrival of Armstrong, who would no doubt blow a fuse on finding them all there. She suddenly didn’t feel quite so bold.

  ‘Come on,’ she urged the other two. ‘At least we know he’s all right now. We can come back this afternoon.’

  Rosie kissed Ron’s cheek, and Frank squeezed his hand before reluctantly following Peggy out of the room.

  Matron was positively bristling, her starched cap trembling with suppressed fury. She shut the door and turned to face them. ‘Mr Reilly has made great progress during the night,’ she said flatly. ‘But you bursting in like that will not improve his chances of recovery.’

  ‘Then you should have kept us informed,’ snapped Rosie. ‘Can’t you even begin to imagine what we’ve been through these past few hours by being kept in the dark after being told he might die?’