The Quiet Wards

by Lucilla Andrews

  I heard someone come into the ward and saw Peter was standing at the door. I walked across the ward ‒ Christian was circular and not oblong as were the other wards. ‘Something I can do for you, Mr Kier?’

  ‘Good Lord!’ He stared at me. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Working. Back to the old routine.’

  He grinned swiftly, ‘Don’t tell me the drugs have turned up at last? Is all forgiven and forgotten? That why you’re back?’

  I said I was back because I had had scarlet fever. I beamed at him because I was glad to see him. We had not been alone together for over a month, and now he was here I was delighted to find that his presence meant as little to me as Tom’s had done. Perhaps less. I had become very attached to Tom lately. Kindness is an endearing quality, and Tom Thanet was a kind young man.

  He misunderstood my beam. His eyes narrowed as he said lightly.

  ‘So we’re back to square one?’

  I said, ‘Everyone seems to be saying that around Joe’s lately.’

  ‘You don’t seem to approve?’

  ‘Isn’t it,’ I said, ‘always a mistake to go back?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Darling ‒ what is all this? If we aren’t at square one ‒ where are we?’

  I said evenly, ‘In the middle of Christian and you are about to do a round. Right?’ I turned on my beam again to show I meant no offence but was just stating a fact.

  He bowed, ‘As one keen type to another, I salute you. Let’s look at the chaps.’

  I led the way to the table. ‘I’m still a bit vague about which are yours and which Tom’s. He looked at all the surgical kids.’

  ‘Tom’s an eager beaver these days. I think he’s brooding about stepping into old Garth’s footsteps ten years from now.’

  ‘But I thought he was going to G.P.?’

  Peter looked up from the diagnosis list. ‘You mean because of this business with Lisa Smith?’

  ‘Yes. They won’t want to hang around Joe’s for years waiting to get married.’

  He was considering the list again. ‘William ‒ he’s mine; Anthony Blake ‒ infant hernia in eight; Dorothy; Elaine; Trevor Green ‒ chap with big ears by the cupboard; Mabel Dick.’ He jerked his head. ‘That bunch over there.’

  I looked at my own notes. ‘Tom saw them.’

  Peter said he had better look at them again. ‘Otherwise the boss will be raising the roof again.’

  ‘Again?’ I glanced sideways at him. ‘Our John being difficult?’

  ‘Being ruddy awful. And not only to my humble self. The whole resident surgical staff is creeping round on tip-toe and falling over backward in their efforts to keep on his good side. Real hard it is for us. We’ve always had to watch our step slightly ‒ fair enough ‒ but he was easy enough on the whole. Don’t know why we’re being treated to this sudden show of temperament from him,’ he added glumly, ‘but personally I wish he’d snap out of it. Snap is the operative word where he’s concerned these days.’

  This was the first complaint about John I had ever heard from any of the young men. It was also the first time I had discussed him with anyone but Lisa for some weeks. I had noticed no change in his general behaviour in O.P.s, but then Sister Mack was in O.P.s.

  I said, ‘Maybe you boys ought to send a deputation to Sister O.P.s. She might know the answer.’

  He sat back in his chair and leant his elbow on mine. ‘Darling, I always thought you were a sensible girl, but you do talk the damnedest rubbish at times. First Tom ‒ now old John.’

  I looked round the ward. Christian was not darkened in the same way as the adult wards, and I could see every child’s face from where I sat. They were all right, so I asked him to explain himself.

  ‘All this true love and romance,’ he said, ‘is very touching, in its place, but it’s hardly the be-all and end-all of life.’

  ‘But it does complicate matters.’

  He threaded his stethoscope through his fingers. ‘Only’ ‒ he watched the rubber tubing as if it fascinated him ‒ ‘if you let it. And neither old John nor young Tom are exactly fools. They aren’t the types to mess up the job by taking the lighter side of life too seriously.’

  ‘But Tom and Lisa are engaged.’

  He tugged at the rubber and smiled faintly. ‘Frankly, I take all these red-hot affairs with a grain of salt.’

  ‘Are you still of the opinion that Tom is a rake?’

  ‘He’s fairly serious these days, I’ll admit. But even a serious type has to have an occasional evening off.’

  ‘I see.’ I did. I also saw exactly what I had been to Peter for the past couple of years. And once again I had to remind myself that he never for a moment had given me reason to think I was anything else.

  He rethreaded the stethoscope. ‘I suppose there are times when it’s a good thing to marry early at this game, but those times are pretty few.’

  This was a glorious opening for me, but I had no desire to take it. It was not solely my nice nature; I appreciated that he might be warning me that he was considering doing exactly that himself. It might have been unintentional, but I doubted if it was ‒ Peter never spoke without thinking ‒ which was why I could not now have the satisfaction of blaming him for leading me up the garden path. I almost suggested that he changed his profession; he was a born diplomat. It seemed a shame that he should not be let loose among the United Nations.

  I stood up quickly, ‘I think that’s Harry waking.’ It was not Harry, who was snoring loudly, but it broke up the party. Peter left the table, looked at his children, and, since Tom had written all the notes and filled in all the forms, once he had seen the children there was nothing to keep him in Christian.

  Night Sister, two medical housemen, a medical registrar, and Dr Cutler the S.M.O. came and went in quick succession. Christian, being a mixed ward, was a very social spot at night. John came in after midnight, just as I had given up any hope of seeing him and decided that he must be away for a long weekend, as it was Friday night.

  ‘Good evening, Nurse Snow. How’s the family?’

  I said they were all quiet, thank you, Mr Dexter, and we walked round the cots. He did not say that he was surprised or pleased to see me; he did not ask why, or if, I was happy to be back. He looked at the surgical children, then said formally, ‘That all you have for me, Nurse?’

  ‘That’s all, Mr Dexter.’

  ‘Good. I’ll push off. Good night.’

  I said, ‘Good night. Thank you,’ and he went.

  I sat down at the table, pulled the report book towards me, filled in the date and time, and wrote ‘Christian Ward, Night Report.’ Then I put down my pen, and asked myself what else I had expected him to do? His behaviour had been his usual behaviour on his night rounds. I had seen him walk in and out of wards endlessly in the last few years; S.M.O.s and S.S.O.s are like Felix: they just keep on walking. He had been quite civil and quite impersonal, as he invariably was. And I thought that because I needed to have my head examined that was no reason to suspect that he was in similar need of an encephalogram. I picked up my pen and wrote my report.

  None of the other children in Christian caught scarlet fever, although several more pros went down with it. Since most of the children were convalescents, and the ward continued to be very slack, Matron decided that Nurse Shane and I should not have any nights off duty until the ward closed, and then have them in a bunch at the end.

  ‘Which is all very nice,’ I told Lisa, ‘but what am I going to do with five days? I don’t want to go to a hotel.’

  She said, ‘Of course, Carol has gone down to Cornwall with that aunt of hers. Don’t you want to join her on her sick leave?’

  ‘Too expensive ‒ and too much travelling. I’d spend it all in the train.’

  She offered to ask her mother. ‘I know she’d be delighted to have you, dear girl, and you could meet Tom’s sisters.’

  ‘Sweet of you,’ I said gratefully, ‘and I mean it, but I don’t think I will.’r />
  She said she knew so well how I felt. ‘Night Nurses cannot mix in civilised society. You want to go somewhere and sleep. What about someone near your old home. Couldn’t they put you up?’

  This business of having nowhere to go for my holiday was a new problem. Since my father died I had spent all the succeeding holidays with Carol or at her parents’ home. They had been very good to me, which did not make me feel any happier now. Lisa had given me an idea, so when my holiday was only a few days off I rang up Ann Black. Ann was one of my oldest friends, and she had married the junior partner of our local G.P. the year I started training. When my father died she had written to me, ‘Any time you want a breath of the old air, just ring, or wire, or turn up. If the back bedroom is full you can always share the loft with the apples.’

  I had not seen Ann for years; I had not been back to that part of the country since my father’s funeral. While I waited for the call to go through I wondered if she had moved, or would remember me.

  ‘Gill who?’ The wire crackled, our wire had always crackled.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch ‒’

  ‘Gill Snow,’ I said hopelessly.

  ‘Gill!’ She bellowed so loudly that she could have dispensed with the telephone. ‘Gill, how wonderful! How are you? And when are you coming to inspect my youngest?’

  ‘Is that Tim? How is he?’ I remembered my mother sending a Christening present in my name. ‘He must be pretty grown up.’

  ‘Tim my foot! This one’s called Clare! She’s nearly one. When are you coming, Gill?’

  I said, ‘That’s why I rang. I want to cadge a bed. Can I?’

  Ann and I had been at the same kindergarten, and later at the same day school. Her father was my father’s oldest friend and greatest rival. When I put down the telephone her voice was still in my ears. I had shed four years in that number of minutes. I remembered something my mother once said: ‘You make a host of acquaintances once you grow up but few friends; but when you are a child, all your acquaintances are your friends, and they stay friends all your life.’

  Lisa came over to the Night Nurses’ Home next morning and I told her about Ann. ‘Just what you need, dear girl ‒ a real break. You haven’t been away from the hospital for months.’

  She was off until twelve-thirty, so we went for a walk in the park. She said she needed the air after O.P.s. ‘For two pins, Gill, I’ll play truant and come down to Kent with you.’

  ‘Bad as ever?’

  ‘Worse.’ She added that she was a glutton for punishment. ‘I’m just a merry little masochist. But, seriously, if it wasn’t for dear Tom I’d slit my throat.’

  ‘That affair can’t still be standing still. It’s unnatural.’

  She said we all lead unnatural lives, and she wanted to feed the ducks.

  ‘We haven’t any bread.’

  ‘I have.’ She produced a breakfast roll from her pocket and began chucking it absently. ‘I’m not a one,’ she went on, ‘for the false raising of hopes, but I’m beginning to wonder about that affair. I’ve been talking to Tom.’

  ‘Lisa! Not about me.’

  ‘Dear girl, don’t be dumb! We girls must stick together! No. About John. And Tom says he thinks we’re barmy?’

  ‘Why?’ I asked hopefully.

  She grinned sympathetically. ‘Straw-clutching? Well, listen. Tom says he doesn’t think John ever had much of a yen for our Frances Mack. He thinks John was probably attracted by her face, as they all were when she first arrived, and they were wondering what the Martha’s men were doing letting her get away. Then they saw a bit more of her and understood only too well.’

  ‘But how about those dances and tea dates?’

  ‘Dance. Singular. And tea ‒ well, as dear Tom says, the fact that a man takes a girl out to tea doesn’t automatically mean that he’s going to marry her. Fact.’

  I was not reassured. ‘He didn’t have to ask her out,’ I said gloomily. ‘Does Tom explain that?’

  She said, actually he did. ‘He says that the only reason why she has had dear John in tow when every other young man in the hospital has been running like a stag in the opposite direction is because she got her hooks ‒ forgive dear Tom’s crude expressions ‒ on to John before he saw them coming, and John, being that sadly old-fashioned thing, a little gentleman, has tried to let her down lightly. And that, Tom says, is why she’s been so foul-tempered to one and all lately.’

  I smiled half-heartedly. ‘Lisa, you have got it badly. “Tom says” is your main theme.’

  She laughed. ‘I know. So much for my strong mind, dear girl!’

  The ducks had finished the roll and were clamouring for more. We walked away, much to their disgust, and they complained to each other loudly. Lisa glanced back at them, ‘They are so like the skin clinic,’ she murmured.

  I said, ‘Has Tom found John trying, lately?’

  ‘You’ve heard that too? Yes, slightly.’

  ‘What’s the oracle’s opinion?’

  ‘Not very helpful ‒ he just says the chap is obviously overworked, and due to retire to the glory and leisure of a Consultant. He’s been S.S.O. the heck of a time.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I had not thought of anything as obvious as that. Maybe Peter was right about me. I did have the damnedest ideas. Perhaps Tom was right too. It was a comforting thought, in a way. I admitted this to Lisa. ‘If he must marry someone, I’d rather it was anyone but her. She’d make him so wretched.’

  She flushed. ‘I’ll tell you something, Gill. When I was all worried about Tom suddenly falling for you, at least I did know that if you were in love with him too, he’d be all right.’ She gave me a small, unusual smile. ‘Couple of mugs, you and I. Proper soft.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  SATURDAY NIGHT IN CHRISTIAN

  On my last night on duty before Christian emptied, the children were all so well that, beyond the routine treatment and the small amount of nursing necessary for the acute rheumatisms, there was nothing to do. By ten-thirty I was sitting at the table sewing name tapes on sheets, and the pro was writing up a lecture in the kitchen.

  It was Saturday night and half the men were off; those that were on duty were too busy to do more than put their heads round the ward door, murmur, ‘All right, Nurse,’ and vanish again. I did not know what the flap was about until Peter shot in at ten to eleven. ‘Want me, Gillian?’

  ‘Only two signatures.’ I passed the forms to him. ‘Your kids are flourishing.’

  ‘Thank the Lord for that. I’ll nip off ‒ I haven’t started my round proper yet. I came here first because I knew I could get it over quickly.’

  ‘What’s the panic?’ I walked to the door with him to save time.

  ‘Saturday night in Cas.,’ he said grimly. ‘Just routine.’

  ‘Road accidents?’

  He nodded. ‘Two cars. Both overtaking. They met in the middle’ ‒ he pushed one fist into the other palm ‒ ‘like this. A concertina ‒ according to the cops.’

  ‘Many hurt?’ I asked soberly.

  He said, ‘Three involved. Two drivers, one passenger.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘They aren’t,’ he said laconically. ‘At least two of them aren’t. The boss is working on the other one now, but she is booked if anyone is.’ He looked at me, ‘If those poor devils could come and spend the odd Saturday night in Cas. they wouldn’t be so damned keen on that last drink and a spin down the by-pass. Know what I’ve just been doing?’

  I had never known Peter so grim before. I shook my head. ‘Digging large lumps of by-pass and steering wheel from a poor devil’s face with my two hands,’ he said savagely, ‘so that we can get what’s left of him presentable by the time his wife gets here.’

  I winced. ‘Just like that.’

  ‘Just ‒ like ‒ that.’

  I went back to my sewing; my hands worked mechanically; my body was in Christian, my mind in Cas. I had worked in Cas. on Saturday nights; I could visualise very well wha
t was going on there now; I knew the mixture of frustration, compassion, and anger that affected everyone who had to deal with road accidents. It was in the faces of the policemen, the porters, the staff; and the scene was repeated so often, and was so futile, and so fatal.

  Until then I had forgotten it was Saturday. You lose all account of time at night; and since your nights-off seldom fall at the weekend ‒ as the weekends were the busiest nights of the week, because of the increase in the accident cases from Friday night to Monday morning ‒ weekends disappeared from your life during your three months night duty.

  I did a little mental calculation. That weekend I worked in the theatre, John had been on. That made him on last weekend and officially off tonight. I wondered why he had not gone away.

  Bill Henderson, the Senior House Surgeon, looked in at midnight. ‘All quiet, Nurse?’ Dr Cutler ‒ the S.M.O. ‒ followed him in, and they left together. I expected no more round that night. All the firms had been represented.

  At a quarter past one the outer door opened, and John came in. I had finished the sheets and was making a child’s split nightgown. I put down my sewing and stood up.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Nurse Snow,’ he said wearily, ‘I got held up.’

  I said I had heard about that accident ‘Mr Henderson has been round.’

  ‘Has he? I didn’t realise that. I knew the theatre was working again and I thought possibly he had not managed to get here.’

  ‘Is this Mr Henderson’s weekend on?’ I asked, to be sure.

  He nodded briefly. ‘Yes. I’m off. I meant to go away, but got delayed and decided against it. Since I’m here ‒ how are your children?’

  ‘Very well.’ I thought he would go, but he was leaning on the back of one of the chairs and made no attempt to move. I asked if he would like to see the day report on his cases. He had sometimes asked to see that in other wards.