The Quiet Wards

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘The devil.’ But she was still looking at me in that peculiar manner. ‘Gill, you sure you’re all right? You look sort of pale green.’

  I murmured, ‘A pale green horse,’ and then said more clearly that it must be the light.

  She smiled. ‘Not to mention the late hours you’ve been keeping?’

  ‘Only on Friday. Have a heart, Lisa ‒ I was in bed by ten last night.’

  ‘Ten!’ She poured out the tea. ‘Dear girl, you aren’t talking to Home Sister. Tom was standing in for Peter, and Tom told me this morning that he didn’t stop standing until after one. Was it a good party?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ She stared at me. ‘That’s true, Lisa. I was back here shortly after nine. I don’t know what happened to Peter after that ‒ I thought he was on, but I could be wrong. It was Saturday night, and there’s always some party somewhere on Saturday night, so presumably he went on to it. But not with me.’

  Lisa clasped her hands. ‘Dear girl, I’m terribly sorry. I was so certain he was with you. I knew he’d come to the department to ask for you, and then you weren’t at supper and I worked it out.’ She frowned. ‘And Tom said so too, after supper when Blakelock and I were making stock, and he drifted by and was feeling chatty. And then our John also drifted by and asked Tom how long he was going to hold the fort for Kier, and dear Tom said, “Long as the party lasts, sir, I take it.” ’

  I asked what John had said.

  She grinned. ‘John got all matey and asked where was the party, and Tom decided to be a devil and said that the lads were celebrating somewhere in the Medical school, but he thought this specific party was Nurse Snow.’ She clearly expected some reaction, so I grinned back and asked how John had taken that?

  ‘How would you expect dear Mr Dexter to take that? He raised his eyebrows and pulled some of his hair out, and said wasn’t that nice, and please, Nurse Blakelock, could he have Mrs Smith’s, Brown’s, or Jones’s follow-up notes, as he wanted to look up something.’ She became serious. ‘Gill, I wish I hadn’t told you that.’ She handed me a cup. ‘Drink up. It’s getting cold.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ I asked if she had had a pleasant chat with Tom.

  ‘Quite pleasant,’ she said, and changed the subject, as she always did before long when Tom’s name cropped up in the conversation. ‘Have you to go back to the theatre tomorrow?’

  I had not previously been able to understand her reticence to discuss Tom. She was reticent about no one and nothing else. Now I could understand, dimly. And I wanted to reassure her, not only because of what she had just said. I did not know how to do it, so I plunged straight in.

  ‘Lisa, you do realise you don’t have to worry about Tom and me?’

  ‘Eh? How’s that?’ she asked lightly. ‘Why should I panic about dear Tom and you or anyone?’

  ‘Why should you?’ I agreed. ‘But you do.’

  She looked at me, then grimaced. ‘Wow! That hurt. Tell me ‒ was that a good guess, or am I that obvious?’

  ‘You aren’t obvious at all, and it wasn’t a guess. I’ve known for the last few days ‒ but I didn’t know what I could do about it.’

  She said dryly, ‘Which makes two of us.’ Then she smiled, not very happily. ‘I wasn’t worried about your side of it, but I wondered about Tom. I know he likes you a lot.’

  ‘He wants me to be a sister to him,’ I said simply, ‘which shows.’

  ‘Dear girl ‒ you are telling me. What do you think I am? That man,’ she said vehemently, ‘collects sisters! It’s agin nature. We’ve been pals for years ‒ little schoolmates. That’s what’s so damned awful. He’s so used to me that I’m as about as exciting as an old stethoscope.’

  I said, ‘How long, Lisa?’

  She sighed. ‘Years ‒ I’ve always been this way about him.’ Her sigh ended in a laugh. ‘Under my flippant exterior, dear girl, beats an astonishingly faithful heart. It astonishes me. I never knew I was gold, pure gold, within ‒ but I am. Poor Tom would have a stroke if he so much as suspected how I felt. He’d think it highly improper.’

  I thought it over. ‘I don’t think he would.’

  She spilled her tea, and her apron was ruined. She stared at it mournfully. ‘Clean this evening.’ Then she looked back at me. ‘Say that again.’

  I said it again.

  She mopped her apron absently. ‘And you find that technique works?’

  ‘No, quite the reverse. That was where I’ve gone wrong. But perhaps, if you’re crafty, you can profit by my mistakes.’

  Lisa said I was speaking in the best tradition of a true St Joseph’s nurse.

  ‘That’s me,’ I agreed, ‘Sister Tutor’s blue-eyed girl. Even if they are black and I make the odd drug mistake. What does a little missing poppy matter? But don’t deflect me, girl, I’m giving birth. To get back to Peter.’ I was not wearing an apron, so that I could hug my knees with impunity. ‘I think I’ve gone wrong through letting him see how much I liked him.’

  ‘But, according to the books, dear girl, nothing builds up a lad’s ego as much as an adoring young woman.’

  ‘The books aren’t always right,’ I said sententiously. ‘As Tom would say, fact. It didn’t work with Peter ‒ it’ ‒ I shrugged ‒ ‘bored him. Yes, I know you think he has a thing for me,’ I added quickly, as I saw she was about to interrupt, ‘so he has ‒ in a very minor way. I amuse him, and he’s a possessive type, so he’s hung on to me. It’s been something to do in the long winter evenings.’

  She said, ‘Forgive me ‒ but didn’t you say everything was fine and dandy last night?’

  ‘Oh yes, it was. He whispered sweet nothings into my ear and held my hand in the park, but he always does. It’s his only line with a young woman. If he’s not necking he doesn’t know what to do.’ I caught her eye and nodded. ‘Yes, duckie. I have at last discovered that for myself. Taken a long time, I admit, but I’m no bright girl.’

  She smiled, not unkindly, ‘Very rude awakening?’

  ‘Oddly, no. It just came; and there I was awake. And come to think of it’ ‒ I was getting fascinated by my theme ‒ ‘I believe he only took me out last night because Tom asked me to that dance. He probably felt he had missed something Tom saw in me. Then he discovered something ‒ that he hadn’t. So he brought me home and went on to another party.’

  She said she hated to rub this in, but if my approach was such a miserable failure with Peter, why did I consider it would work with Tom?

  ‘Tom isn’t Peter,’ I said obviously; ‘he’s a very different breed. He’s good-natured and rather sweet. I know you know him very well, and he’s a tolerably new buddy to me, but that probably makes me see him more clearly than you. I liked him very much in Robert; he was nice to the men and used to get really worked up when they were ill. He’s got a kind heart ‒ and, having all those sisters, he’s not conceited.’

  She laughed. ‘He comes in the middle. His mama tried to spoil him, but the Thanet girls weren’t having any. No he’s not conceited.’

  ‘Which reminds me ‒’ I told her about his kissing me.

  ‘There was nothing to it, but I’m telling you in case that wretched woman makes a song and dance about it when she comes back tomorrow. She never lets an opportunity to crack go by.’

  Lisa said Sister not only might make the crack; she already had.

  ‘She had coffee with Blakelock in the canteen after lunch yesterday ‒ I suppose she drifted over from the home to see her beloved John. You knew she hadn’t gone away for the weekend?’ I nodded. I knew. ‘Blakelock told me all as an item of gossip over the cotton wool on Saturday evening. She had no conception that it affected me and said she had been very glad to hear it, which annoyed Sister more than somewhat. Blakelock also said she hoped it showed that you were getting dear Peter out of your system. She ‒ she doesn’t go for Peter, much.’

  ‘I gathered that. But, Lisa, you didn’t hold that against me? That was nice of you.’

  She coloured slightly, ‘I d
idn’t love it, but I didn’t lose any sleep. Why shouldn’t he kiss you? It’s a free country.’

  I said I still thought it was very nice of her. ‘You must do something about Tom. You and he make a good pair.’

  ‘Do I throw my arms round him in O.P.s tomorrow?’

  I smiled. ‘That mightn’t be such a bad idea at that. But you’ve got the general effect. Try less of the old-pal-of-me-youth angle and a little more of the little woman.’

  She snorted. ‘Can you see me as a little woman?’

  ‘You’ll have to do it,’ I said sternly. ‘Practise simpering.’

  She experimented in front of the glass. ‘He’ll run screaming if I do this!’

  ‘Rubbish. Flap your eyelashes. Watch Sister; she’s got it taped.’

  I went on to say that, although very bad at my own affairs, I thought I was splendid at running other people’s. Then I recollected how I had upset Carol. ‘I take that back. Only some other people’s.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  I was worried about Carol. I hated to have hurt her, no matter how inadvertently. I told Lisa what had happened.

  She said sensibly, ‘I don’t suppose she took serious exception. You and she are buddies. You don’t take exception if you’re fond of a person.’

  I thought, that’s true.

  ‘Do you think she was warning me about Peter? Do you think he used his line on her at the dance?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Do you mind very much about all this?’

  ‘I haven’t had time to work out whether I minded or not. This has been quite a weekend.’

  ‘Think of it now. No time like the present for facing unpalatable facts ‒ and I’ll stand by with hot tea.’

  ‘Right.’ I looked at her. ‘So Peter is having a splendid time gallivanting with one and all? And last night I was the first instalment of his evening’s entertainment?’

  She said, ‘Right.’

  I looked at her, and she looked at me anxiously. Then, quite suddenly, I wanted to do something I had never before been able to do about Peter.

  I relaxed, lay back on her bed, and rocked with laughter.

  I laughed and laughed, and when she saw that this was no act and I really was shouting the place down, she laughed too.

  ‘Dear girl,’ she spluttered when she had breath for speech, ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am you’ve seen the light. I never fancied that supercilious young man for you. If he had lost his head and married you he would have made you utterly miserable.’ She grew serious. ‘You know, losing that morph. was the best thing that ever happened to you. It made things come to a head. Good thing.’

  I agreed that it had done that. I was not yet sure if it was such a good thing. A lot of peculiar things had been happening to me in the last few weeks, and my new outlook on Peter was not the least peculiar.

  She dropped on to the bed beside me. ‘Gill ‒ who took that stuff?’

  I said, ‘No! No! No! Not again! We’ve been into it too many times. Please!’

  She was not to be put off. ‘But it went.’

  ‘Dispenser’s mistake.’ I was firm. ‘Can’t be anything else. Who wants a grain?’

  She ignored me. ‘Not Tom’ ‒ she ticked him off on her fingers ‒ ‘wouldn’t be John ‒ not the pro, she’d be scared ‒ Carol’s your pal ‒’ She gazed at me triumphantly and tapped her thumb. ‘Do you suppose Peter took it? I’ve never dared ask you before.’

  ‘Just for sheer devilment?’

  She shrugged. ‘It did bring things to a head. Maybe he was worried ‒ thought you had him hooked.’

  ‘No,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘he wouldn’t have done that. Peter’s no fool. Only a fool or a lunatic would have touched that stuff.’ I told her now what John had said in the park. ‘It didn’t add up. It just doesn’t.’

  She yawned. ‘So we blame the dispenser?’

  ‘No one else does ‒ but I do.’

  I went back to my room shortly after that. There was a note from Home Sister on my pillow. ‘If you get this before ten-thirty, will you please come to my office.’

  It was ten-fifteen. I tidied my hair, put on a cap and cuffs, and rushed along to the lift with my heart in my mouth. What had I lost in the theatre tonight? What had I forgotten to do?

  Sister called me in calmly. ‘I’m glad you were back in time, Nurse Snow. Theatre working late?’

  I said I had been drinking tea with Nurse Smith.

  She inclined her head graciously. ‘I merely wanted to see you as I knew you would want to hear about Nurse Ash.

  ‘Nurse Ash, Sister?’

  She said Carol was very poorly and had been admitted to Susan, the sick nurses’ ward, with acute bronchitis.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Sister. How did she get it? She was fine on Friday night.’

  ‘Nurse Ash apparently had a temperature this morning. The foolish child did not report sick, but hoped that she would be fit for duty tonight after a day in bed. Fortunately Sister Ellen noticed how ill she looked immediately Nurse reported for duty. Sister took her temperature. It was over one hundred and three, so she sent for Dr Cutler, and he sent Nurse to Susan.’

  ‘Was she all right last night, Sister?’

  Sister’s brows drew together. ‘Nurse Ash was off duty last night, Nurse. You must have seen her at the party in the Medical School? You both asked for late leave.’

  I reminded her politely that I had not asked for late leave and had come in early. She turned the pages of her Late In book absently.

  ‘You’re quite right, Nurse. I checked you in myself. That is why I like to have it all written down ‒ I do get so muddled at times.’ She beamed at me. ‘I know why I thought you must be together ‒ because of Mr Kier.’

  ‘Mr Kier, Sister?’

  ‘Yes, Nurse.’ She told me that she had seen Peter call for me at seven, and then met him later coming out of the Night Nurses’ Home with Carol. ‘And knowing that you and Nurse Ash are great friends, I assumed that you must have been at the same party.’

  I said, ‘Yes, Sister.’

  She said she would let me know when Carol was allowed visitors. ‘That was all I had to tell you, Nurse. Good night.’

  Lisa was coming out of the bathroom when I got up to our floor. ‘Where are you off to in your cap and cuffs? Theatre call?’

  ‘Home Sister.’ I told her Carol was ill.

  ‘The poor girl! How on earth did she pick it up?’

  ‘Nights,’ I said shortly. ‘You can pick up anything on nights. And she’s not a girl for the fresh air. She hasn’t had my farmyard upbringing, and now that I’m off nights, and not handy to drag her round the park in the morning, she probably never sets foot out of the building.’

  ‘Fresh air,’ she lectured, ‘is the thing for a night nurse, if you want to stay a night nurse. Otherwise you never see the light of day for three months.’

  ‘You do have nights off.’

  She said she was on a soap-box and was not going to be pulled off it with frivolous talk of nights off. ‘Show me one nurse, dear girl, who doesn’t spend her entire nights off asleep.’

  ‘I’ve got you there,’ I said slowly, ‘Carol. Sister told me she was off last night as well, although I didn’t know it.’

  Lisa was a bright girl. She said, ‘She wouldn’t perchance have been dear Peter’s second instalment?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Another girl came into the corridor. ‘Don’t you O.P.s girls ever go to bed?’

  ‘Never,’ said Lisa, ‘the ever-open eyes, that’s us. But we won’t disturb your beauty sleep, dear Nurse ‒ we’re going to Gill’s room to put up our feet for the odd hour before dawn.’ She swept me along the corridor with her and in to my own room. When she had closed the door she said, ‘Maybe we ought to have another good laugh?’

  ‘I dunno.’ I unbuttoned my collar. ‘Maybe we should.’

  She said kindly, ‘He may have just rung her when he got back ‒ or something. He proba
bly felt at a loose end ‒ had the night free and didn’t know you were determined to get back early.’

  ‘He didn’t have to know. My invite was quite specific ‒ two hours. I thought he was on at nine.’

  She had another idea. ‘Perhaps Sister mistook him for someone else. The place is stiff with fair-haired housemen. And Sister’s an old waffler at times.’

  ‘Could be that.’

  She redraped her dressing-gown around herself. ‘Supposing it was him ‒ so what? Don’t forget he now rates nothing so much as a hearty laugh.’

  I said, ‘I wasn’t bothering about him.’

  She said gently, ‘I didn’t think you were,’ and we looked at each other in a gloomy silence.

  I broke it. ‘Lisa ‒ where have I gone wrong?’

  She did not answer me directly. ‘You are pretty fond of Carol, aren’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘We’ve always got along so well ‒ and although we aren’t really alike, we’ve roughly complemented each other. We liked the same things ‒ we worked together a lot as pros ‒ and she was wonderful to me during my first year.’

  Lisa said, ‘You had a black first year, dear girl.’ Her expression was very sweet. ‘I remember you went off to stay with the Ashes that first Christmas. You liked them, didn’t you?’

  ‘Immensely.’

  ‘Gill.’ She was suddenly brisk. ‘Aren’t we making far too much of all this? Even supposing it was Peter ‒ well, now you don’t mind, what of it?’

  I said, ‘I don’t give a damn about Peter, but I give several for Carol.’ I smiled with humour. ‘No doubt Freud would have a word for our relationship. I just know I like her as much as I like anyone in this world, and I hate to think that for some reason she’s avoiding me and didn’t tell me she was off or going out.’

  ‘She was feeling ill. This bug was cooking yesterday.’

  ‘All the more reason ‒ she had only to crawl to the corridor phone to have an S.R.N. on unofficial tap. She knew I’d be off duty some time. I could have got her some aspirin or tea or something.’

  Lisa said she simply had to have a cigarette, and when I produced one she gazed at the lighted end as if it was a strange and beautiful object.