A Sister's Life: The ups and downs of life as a 1950s Theatre Sister (Nurse Jane Grant Book 3)

by Jane Grant

  Camden resumed his sewing as if nothing had happened, and the only signs of the crisis were the loud thumping of my heart, and a ring of beads of sweat over the anaesthetist’s eyebrows.

  The list was a full one, and I was tired and hungry by the end of the day. It was almost supper time before I could see my way clear through the mess. It was my evening off duty, anyway, and I staggered out as the last manipulation was wheeled off, leaving behind a lot of chaos to be cleared up, and not caring in the least that Maitland would have to supervise it.

  As I went through the swing door Banyard followed me.

  ‘What a day!’ I moaned. ‘My feet ache, I’m hungry, I’m tired out, and I’m in a filthy mood.’

  ‘Ditto three times over in spades,’ said Banyard. ‘Come and have a drink.’

  I changed, and we went down the road in his car to an old-fashioned pub which was always cosy and crowded.

  He ordered a bitter for himself and a sherry for me, and we sat in a comer, just avoiding being stepped on by the darts players.

  He then surprised me by asking, ‘Aren’t you a friend of Donald McKie’s?’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew him ‒ he never said ‒’

  ‘Oh, I met him a day or two ago. A farmer chap who was a patient in here asked me home for a drink, and he was there. You know his mother’s in B2?’

  ‘Oh crumbs!’ I felt guilty. ‘I’ve been meaning to go and see her, trying to pluck up courage.’

  ‘Why? She’s quite harmless.’

  ‘I know. But I feel she’ll start inspecting me for defects.’

  Banyard grinned. ‘I’ve got problems like that,’ he said. ‘Actually she’s an old friend of my Ma, and my Ma keeps writing and asking if I’ve met the daughter. I can read her like a book, and I know she’s trying to get me married off.’

  ‘To Rhona?’

  ‘Yes. Whenever I go that way in visiting hours I’m scared the girl is going to be there. What’s she like?’

  ‘Oh, very young. But rather pretty. Red-haired like Don, with freckles. And very blue eyes.’

  ‘Well, it’s nice of them, isn’t it, to bother about us. They don’t seem to get the idea at all ‒ that one would rather do the choosing oneself.’

  ‘I wish I could get up enough nerve to go and see Don’s mother,’ I said. ‘Knowing I’m on show like this puts me off.’

  ‘Are you going to marry Don?’

  ‘What ‒ tell you so that you can run back to her with the bad news?’

  ‘Oh of course. I run an information service for anxious mothers. It supplements my income nicely.’

  ‘Would you like to be a double agent? What are your rates for keeping quiet?’

  ‘Well ‒ let’s see. If you will just answer a short questionnaire I happen to have with me, I’ll see if it’s worth my while.’

  I laughed and got up. ‘I must get back. Don is ringing me at eight. If I say I’ve been out boozing it will only make for a lot of explanations.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Teddy thoughtfully. ‘I know his address too. I think I’ll drop him a line and let him know.’

  ‘Better still, just let his mother know.’

  ‘Yes, I’m full of little extra kindnesses.’

  On the way home I asked him what he planned to do when his H.S. post was over. He said he was thinking of going abroad. He would like to go to America; he thought there were great opportunities in that country.

  ‘Have you ever thought about it?’ he asked. ‘I know one Sister who has.’

  ‘D’you mean Angela?’ I asked boldly.

  ‘Well, yes, actually. She’s very keen to travel.’

  ‘I know she is.’

  ‘But,’ he added with a rather tight smile, ‘I’m not quite sure who with.’

  Chapter Nine

  The ward was peaceful on this fine spring morning; the birds were singing like mad; one could almost see the buds bursting on the bronzy branches of the trees in the wood.

  Gloria, after a squealing session with the physiotherapist, was knitting up some red wool the occupational therapist had brought. Miss Caulfield had been interrupted in a long story about soap (‘I can’t use just any soap, me skin comes up in lumps, doctor asked me if I had mumps.’). But before poor Miss Caulfield could reach the satisfying crisis of the story, when the doctor was about to tell her ‘Don’t use that soap no more’ and she never did, bossy Nurse Mooney turned her out of bed and told her to go and sit in the corridor.

  Mrs McKie’s leg was now far more comfortable, the plaster being tied round it with a crepe bandage. Sister had fussed around and gone to get a sandbag, and had placed it carefully, with infinite pains and real interest, by the side of the leg, which was now supported on a pillow.

  Outside she watched a drama which was taking place in the rook world. A young rook had fallen out of its nest, and the parents with loud caws were encouraging him to fly. Mrs McKie reflected with satisfaction on the thought that in these days, when so much wildlife was pursued and destroyed, in the grounds of a hospital, a place of healing, wild creatures could live and breed in safety.

  These pleasant thoughts were interrupted by the entry from the corridor of a procession, consisting of a small energetic Home Sister, followed by three very young nurses.

  ‘We’ve come to give you a bed bath, Mrs McKie.’

  As Gloria and Miss Caulfield were getting up, it was obvious that the Fractured Femur had been marked down as suitable for teaching purposes.

  ‘Now, Nurses,’ said the little Home Sister, ‘what is the first rule. Nurse Hankin?’

  ‘Collect all the patient’s toilet requisites, Sister,’ said the little fair girl.

  ‘That’s right. Now have you got them all? What are they, Nurse Forbes?’

  Nurse Forbes, a frightened, ferret-faced little creature, stammered as she seized the sponge bag; ‘Soap ‒ face flannel ‒ talcum, Sister.’

  ‘Yes, Nurse?’

  ‘Er ‒ brush and comb, Sister.’

  ‘Quite right. You have all those? Now what has Nurse forgotten, Nurse Harrington.’

  ‘Tooth brush,’ suggested the eager little schoolgirl in the background.

  ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘Tooth paste,’ said the little fair girl. The frightened one murmured uncertainly, ‘Hot water’ as if she knew that was wrong. The bright little schoolgirl had an inspiration. ‘Back flannel!’ she cried proudly.

  There was a moment’s silence. ‘And what do you propose drying the patient with, Nurse?’

  They all blushed and looked sheepish.

  As the little fair girl thoroughly soaped the flannel before applying it to Mrs McKie’s newly creamed face, for a moment she thought of rebelling. She had already washed thoroughly, as she did every morning. She opened her mouth to protest, but kinder thoughts prevailed. After all, she thought, the poor lassies have to learn on someone.

  Rule Two was evidently; Remove nightgown and cover patient with blanket before stripping bed. Then, the flannel approached, and each portion of the body was washed at least twice by First Nurse, rinsed, limbs held over basin supported by Second Nurse, to be rinsed again, then dried with the towel held in readiness by Third Nurse. It was a kind of Working to Rule, the Rules no one in the ward had time to carry out. Each action, performed under the eye of Home Sister was thorough, and oh ‒ so slow!

  Next the hair. This was brushed hard the wrong way and combed through to an unbecoming flatness.

  ‘Shall I clean your nails?’ asked the eager little student.

  ‘Oh thank you. I have ‒ and yes, I have cleaned my teeth.’

  They tidied everything up and left her. She lay back, almost too exhausted to do her hair again.

  The sun rose higher, and shone across the beds and the polished floor. The grass outside was growing thickly, the big chestnut tree in view was almost out in leaf. Mrs McKie wondered if when the window was opened wide, it would be possible to smell the scent of growing things, but when Nurse opened it she could smell
nothing but Hospital.

  Gloria on crutches had hopped down the corridor, and was returning, and Miss Caulfield was getting thankfully back to bed before tea, when the sound of a trolley could be heard.

  ‘Mind, Gloria!’ called Staff. ‘Get to the right side.’

  The trolley rolled up, and the ambulance men lifted out a woman with a bandaged foot, and placed her tenderly in Grannie Weedon’s old place.

  The new patient was a plump little woman with white, well coiffured hair, and a pink, rather glazed skin. The usual small nothings were exchanged; she revealed that she had had a toe removed; that she had been moved down to the end section from the main ward, to make room for a stream of patients coming in.

  That’s right,’ said Gloria. ‘That’s the new policy, Staff said. This is going to be the finishing off department.’

  ‘Wish I was due for finishing off,’ said Mrs McKie.

  The chat continued. The hospital, it was agreed, was comfortable. The outlook pretty. Experiences were swapped about accidents, illnesses, and when one might expect to go home.

  Miss Caulfield, glad to have a new listener, not only gave Mrs Oaksey the full story of her bunions, but told of the occasion when she had nearly had a poisoned foot. ‘Mother says, “you take that bandage right off.” And if I hadn’t gone and put disinfectant on it, it’d have gone septic and then doctor would have taken it right off, like yours.’

  ‘Well, that was lucky then.’

  ‘Yes, me skin’s tender. I can’t use any soap. I has to use good soap …’

  The two established ward-mates had long ceased to listen; Gloria groaned and then yawned, and Mrs McKie turned her head away and looked at the sky. Mrs Oaksey continued to be sympathetic and make appropriate comments. Perhaps by tomorrow she would know better, thought Mrs McKie.

  By tomorrow, however, she had begun to feel the need to pour out confidences herself, chiefly into the ears of Mrs McKie.

  ‘I walked right out on him when I found him with the woman next door. Mind you, she’s a proper tart, always on the lookout for a man. I walked out and he begged me to go back. But I’d taken all my things, that was lucky, I had some nice things he’d given me when he was trying to make up to me. Now he’s got another woman, calls her his housekeeper.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘But I can’t make up my mind. Shall I go back to him? It’s the money, you see, why should she get all his money? And he’s doing well now.’

  It did seem to be a thoroughly unpromising situation, but Mrs Oaksey did not seem to find anything unusual in this view of marriage as a simple profit-making concern.

  When Angus and Rhona came that evening, Mrs McKie found herself trying to plug Teddy.

  ‘He’s such a nice boy.’

  ‘But you say that about everybody,’ said Angus reasonably. ‘You said it about that tractor driver who sold all our eggs to his father-in-law. And about the assistant vet who diagnosed swine fever when the old sow had a cold.’

  ‘Well, they were nice. It was just that their wives were having babies.’

  ‘Away with you. I don’t remember flogging eggs to your father when Rhona was born.’

  ‘But Teddy really is nice. He’s so kind, Rhona. Rather lost-looking too.’

  Rhona did not seem impressed. ‘Well, he can get lost as far as I’m concerned,’ she said coldly.

  ‘It looks like another of Ma’s infallible character analyses,’ said Angus.

  Mrs McKie, though she knew she should leave well alone, could not refrain from giving examples of Teddy’s skill and kindness. He had felt her knee, told her it was a referred pain. He had been most sympathetic about the tight plaster, had ordered it to be cut off. ‘It’s so much more comfortable now.’

  ‘Good,’ said Rhona. After a pause she remarked, ‘Don’s girlfriend rang up today.’

  ‘Girlfriends ‒ They come round every year like the cuckoo,’ said Angus gloomily.

  Mrs McKie asked eagerly. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘He’s taking her out tonight. That’s why he’s coming here tomorrow instead.’

  This interesting information kept Mrs McKie off the subject of Teddy, and after Rhona and Angus had gone, she mulled it over. On the whole, it made her feel melancholy. Don grown away from the family, and interested in this unknown nurse. What was she like? Perhaps a hard-faced little piece who just wanted a husband. Don was so soft-hearted and easy-going.

  And then there was Rhona to worry about ‒ she looked tired. No wonder with all that work, and only Maude coming in for a couple of hours. She was over-working, ground down, because her mother, like a fool, had tripped over and broken her hip.

  On Sunday the bustle began immediately after breakfast. It was the Surgeon’s Round, and Mr Penhallow was appearing for the first time after his holiday. Sister came round with the envelopes of X-rays and all the notes, and placed them handy to be seen on the bed tables.

  ‘But however I do them, love,’ she said cheerfully, ‘he’ll be sure to find something wrong.’

  At a little after nine one of the sitting patients announced in a loud whisper from the corridor; ‘He’s here!’ The cavalcade could be heard approaching, down one aisle of the main ward, and then retreating up the other side, till it emerged in the corridor and tramped down towards the end section. In the main ward Mr Penhallow had only half a dozen beds, but the four beds in the end section were all under his care.

  They entered; first the great man himself; elderly, medium-sized, with a good head of grey hair, and spectacles. Next, the tall but solid Registrar, the willowy boyish Teddy, hands professionally clasped behind him, and Sister with her official face on. At the tail of the party hovered Nurse Mooney.

  The great Penhallow went direct to the nearest bed, that of Miss Caulfield, and picked up the X-rays. He said ‘Good morning,’ but he said it to the X-rays.

  ‘Hm ‒ yes.’ He strode to the foot of the bed and waited for half a second, expectantly, as a woman will wait for a door to be opened, while Nurse Mooney threw the sheet back over the cage.

  ‘That’s all right. She can go home tomorrow,’ he pronounced, and immediately went on to Gloria.

  Here he could not find, or acted the role of one who cannot find, the latest X-ray. ‘These should be in order, Sister,’ he said testily, muddling them all up.

  ‘This is the one, sir.’

  ‘Very well, yes. She’s on crutches. Very well, she can go home when she can walk properly on them.’ He strode two paces, which brought him to the foot of Mrs McKie’s bed, then wheeled right round and said menacingly to Gloria: ‘You are not to put any weight on the leg, not one OUNCE.’

  ‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t,’ said Gloria in a frightened voice.

  ‘Morning,’ said Mr Penhallow to Mrs McKie, looking at one of the X-ray pictures and at the same time picking up another one. ‘He’ll know me by my bones,’ she said to herself.

  Nurse threw the sheet back and exposed the plaster, held comfortably together in its segments by a crepe bandage. He stared at this contemptuously.

  ‘Who put that on?’ he asked crossly.

  No one answered this tricky question, and he did not seem to expect an answer, but went straight on. ‘All wrong.’ He gave a quick glance from the Registrar to Teddy, then assuming from their silence that they were guilty, he said sharply; ‘Undo that, Sister.’

  Sister unwound the crepe bandage.

  ‘That,’ he said, pointing to the wooden support, ‘isn’t even straight. And it ought to be right up to the knee ‒ that’s no good down there.’

  No one spoke. Mrs McKie, anxious to please, began to bend her knee and wiggle her toes, hoping to be told, ‘That’s very good’ and ‘You’ve got a lot of movement there.’

  Mr Penhallow, however, found all this wriggling a further annoyance. ‘Keep still,’ he said. ‘Please relax.’ He gave one glance at the leg and then turned away. ‘It’ll have to be done again, properly,’ he said crossly, as if the whole thing had wasted some minute
s of his valuable time. Without looking higher up the bed than the patient’s knee, he turned away and went on to Mrs Oaksey.

  This case was evidently to him the bon bouche of his round, and he examined the exposed stump quite lovingly. ‘A bit Of Mr Penhallow’s surgery,’ he said to the Registrar, with a kind of meditative pride. Then he actually gave the patient’s face a quick glance. ‘Stitches out Thursday,’ he said and with a final glance at the toe, as if bidding this bit of fine work goodbye, he went into the corridor and proceeded, followed by his train, to the Men’s Ward.

  A chorus of criticism broke out as soon as the great man was out of earshot. ‘Always so short with one.’ ‘He must have a nasty temper.’ ‘Don’t think he cares how you are, only thinks of his stitching!’

  ‘Well, he’s always been very polite to me, I must say,’ said Mrs Oaksey, full of smug pride. ‘He gave my toe a good look. People think a toe’s nothing, but a toe can be very nasty, very nasty indeed.’

  Mrs McKie, severely dashed by the thought of another plaster, tried to distract her thoughts by watching the birds, the trees, the sunset. But the old peace was gone.

  ‘Look at the big black birds, they rob the little birds, don’t they? Oh, I don’t like those big black crows.’

  ‘They’re rooks,’ said Mrs McKie coldly. ‘And the little birds are sparrows, they can look after themselves.’

  ‘Did you see that great hare this morning. Oh, I do like jugged hare, don’t you? With some nice jelly.’

  ‘They’re coming to do your plaster boot tomorrow, dear,’ said Staff, appearing for an instant in the corridor and immediately preparing to vanish again.

  ‘But, Staff ‒ why are they putting on plaster again?’

  ‘Well, my dear, Mr Penhallow thinks it’s safer. After all, you’ve got to be in bed a lot more weeks. The pin’s not very strong, you know.’

  ‘Oh, but, Staff ‒ after all this time. It was getting on so well. And the plaster was such agony before.’