by Jane Grant
‘Must I?’
‘All sorts of things. Cutlery, TV sets, linen. Just the thing if you’re setting up house! Heavens, you’re as mean as my husband!’
We parted with our half-crowns and with more rallying on both sides Copley left us. Theo’s resonant voice could be heard saying, ‘Not another word. My treat. I’ll see Matron ‒ she’s an old friend of mine ‒ and get four tickets.’
‘Four tickets?’ Don inquired. ‘Four tickets for what?’ he added suspiciously.
‘Matron’s Ball,’ said Theo. ‘It’s always a wonderful show ‒ they have a top band and all that.’
Mrs McKie said rather hesitatingly, “We were saying you could make up a four with Rhona and ‒ and Teddy.’
‘So Jane and I play Cupid,’ he said cuttingly.
The bell for the visitors to leave cut short any more dissension, but as we walked up the corridor with Theo she said with bland cheerfulness, ‘I’ll give the tickets to your mother, Don. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’
We murmured false thank yous and she told us not to thank her, she was glad to do it. We parted from her at the corner and looked at each other, relief and consternation mixed in our faces.
‘Thank goodness that’s over,’ said Don. ‘What a woman! Where’s she stomping off to, now?’
‘She’s going to visit her old palsy, Matron,’ I said.
Chapter Eleven
Mrs McKie was aware that the interview with Don’s girl had not gone well. She talked to Angus about it the next night.
‘She seemed very sort of withdrawn. I don’t think she took to me. Of course I talked too much. And just as we were getting going, Theo turned up.’
‘Oh, Theo!’
‘Well, I don’t think she was awfully at ease either. She never is with young people. She came in this morning and was very charming. Only I do wish she wouldn’t try to run everybody. I told her about the pain in my knee, and she went off to inquire and put everybody’s backs up. She even went to the office and told them the shooting of the rooks had upset me. It’s so kind of her, but it generally makes things worse.’
‘Well, keep her off my back, ducky, won’t you? I don’t want her coming round and telling me what I ought to do about you.’
‘She told me what you ought to do. Go and see Penhallow and ask him if you can have another opinion.’
‘Oh, she said that, did she?’ said Angus indignantly. ‘Her experience of surgery is about twenty years old and of course she knows the lot.’
Mrs McKie realized that having told Angus Theo’s opinion, she had unwittingly stopped him making a nuisance of himself to the surgeons, which he had been showing some signs of doing. She felt some relief at this.
‘You are all right, darling, aren’t you?’ he asked.
‘I’m sure I am. Of course they don’t tell you at first what a long job this is. If they did it would be bad for morale.’
He sighed. ‘Well, I suppose we’re nearly halfway through now.’
‘Oh yes.’ But she thought of the Registrar’s estimate, and remembered she had not dared to ask him how long it would be before she could walk. She dreaded adding to the burden of Rhona and the men; Rhona’s life was a mad rush already, and Angus and Don, owing to the late season, were behind with ploughing, sowing and harrowing.
Theo came in that evening with a nice collection of hospital gossip. She had a slight acquaintance with Matron, and was buddies with Sister Wood, the Assistant Matron, who had worked with her years ago on a clinic, and who still had a deference towards her. From Theo, Mrs McKie learned that the Registrar had lost his wife in childbirth with a pulmonary embolism two years before. ‘He’s looking for another, and half the nurses in the hospital are in hot pursuit.’
‘Is he interested in any of them?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. These surgeons get so spoilt. I expect he’s looking for some society deb with a bit of money.’
The Sister of the Heart and Chest Ward, Sister Tyson, was round the bend, according to Theo.
‘They say she’s been overworking and that has caused a nervous breakdown, but actually of course she’s been crackers for years. They’re going to shove her upstairs in a private ward and keep her doped for a month or two, and then compulsorily retire her. This means there’ll be a general post among the Sisters.’
‘I hope we shan’t lose Sister Sadd.’
‘You will, my dear. But that’s another thing. The tarty piece from next door has been too obvious over her chasing of the patients.’
‘You don’t mean Sister Cramphorne?’
‘She’s going to be moved in here. I don’t envy you.’ Theo’s voice took on a tinge of bitterness. ‘A woman like that really shouldn’t be in a teaching hospital. Teddy met her when he was still a student.’
‘Theo! You don’t mean Teddy is one of her victims?’
‘Don’t for heaven’s sake let him know that I know. But I could see there was something wrong with him and I nosed about and found this woman has been keeping him on the hook. But I think he’s now found her out and it’s all over. That’s partly why I hope Rhona ‒ but Teddy’s got plenty of sense, and I think he’s getting over it.’
She sighed, and Mrs McKie felt a pang of fellow sympathy. ‘It’s so awful,’ she said. ‘They grow up and suffer and don’t tell us.’
‘I’d really forgotten what hell love is. I can’t do much to help him; if I’d known before I could have laid some poison about her and got her transferred. Wood hates this sort of thing as much as I do. But the damage is done now.’
‘He’s young. He’ll get over it.’
‘I only hope Don’s affair goes all right. Some of these nurses, you know, are tough as blazes.’
‘Don’t ‒’ said her friend wincing. ‘I couldn’t bear it if Don or Rhona got hurt.’
Theo made a final visit the following morning, to say goodbye, as she was returning to London by an early train. Though Mrs McKie wished to thank her for her efforts, not to mention the magnificent presents she had brought, and though she was really appreciative of Theo’s good-heartedness, at this last interview they almost quarrelled.
‘Take care of yourself, my dear. From all I hear these pins are tricky affairs.’
‘Thank you so much for all you have done.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing. I hope we’ve been able to get something in train between Teddy and Rhona. And after what I said to Matron and the Secretary, I’m sure you won’t be worried by the farmers shooting near the hospital.’
‘No. Though I daresay they’ll shoot in the wood.’
‘Oh, of course they’ll shoot on the perimeter, after all the shooting is let to them by agreement. And I must say, Betty, I’m surprised at you, a farmer’s wife, not having more detachment.’
‘I suppose you think I ought to slap on layers of plaster round my feelings. That’s what detachment is, isn’t it?’
‘You’ve got plaster on the brain, Betty.’
There was a pause. Each woman was feeling angry with the other, and each was striving for patience. Theo looked round the ward.
‘I’m surprised you don’t get Nurse to throw out those flowers. They look dead.’
‘Dead? They’re in bud.’
‘Oh? They look dead. They’ve got such lovely flowers in the main ward ‒ a mass of colour.’
‘Have they? What kind?’
‘Don’t ask me what kind. I’m no gardener.’
‘That’s obvious, Theo, if you don’t mind my saying so, when you tell me my budding wallflowers are dead.’
‘You’re a bit touchy today, Betty, aren’t you? Having a lot of pain?’
Mrs McKie did not answer this query. If I tell her I’m in pain, she thought, she will only go and make a fuss over Sister’s head and upset everybody. She said, changing the subject; ‘With all your high connections, do find out when Sister Sadd is leaving.’
‘Oh, not for a bit.’ Theo dropped her voice. ‘And don’t spread it abroad. She’s going
eventually to the Chest Ward.’
‘I wish she wasn’t leaving.’
‘I expect you’ll be home anyway by then. They’ll get you up after the X-ray, and when you can walk on crutches you can go.’
‘It’s a wonderful thought. But I’m afraid I shall be a lot of trouble at home.’
‘Nonsense. A girl like Rhona will take it all in her stride. By the way, I mentioned the tickets for the ball to Teddy. An evening like that is just the thing to bring kids together.’
She went at last. They embraced warmly, and talked of their next meeting. How Theo felt, her friend did not know, but she herself felt chiefly relief at Theo’s departing back.
The days passed, and spring gradually gave place to summer. The buttercups had faded; the daisies were shaved off the lawn every day by the mower. The tamarisk tree outside the window came out in a pink cloud; for an instant, it seemed, it and the deep violet lilac displayed colour and contrast, with the glinting of the copper beech behind; then the lilac was over and the tamarisk began to drop. Pink roses began to show in the centre bed on the lawn, their leaves twittered in the breeze, green-silver with reddish shoots. There was a smell of hay.
A series of patients arrived in the end ward; recovered, and departed again. Not many of them had character and individuality; thought of in a crowd they were mostly faceless and nameless. Some remained in the memory. The attractive young woman whose parents constantly visited her, bringing her small son, and who regularly explained the absence of her husband as ‘having had to go abroad on business.’ ‘Yes,’ said one of the nurses, ‘he was abroad last year too ‒ when she came in for a toe straightening.’
There was the tired woman with a slipped disc, whose husband was an invalid, and who had got the injury lifting him. The sad little woman with a growth on her knee, who talked constantly of her married daughter in the north, and whose husband came only once and sat by her emitting complaints of his discomfort at home.
Hospital, it seemed to Mrs McKie, was not only a refuge for the half-witted, it was a refuge for the half-married too.
The end section was now filled up with the less serious of the recovering cases. At one time there were three Bunionectomies, and the conversation was enough to make one’s big toe ache.
‘Mr Penhallow cut mine straight down.’
‘Oh? Mr Morley cut a short bit from underneath and lifted the skin.’
‘He did with mine too. It’s supposed to be better.’
‘It jolly well isn’t. The serious cases they cut straight.’
‘Mr P’s a bit old-fashioned.’
‘What rubbish, he must know best, he’s the senior surgeon.’
There was a pause, feelings mounted high, then oil was thrown on the waters by the most peaceable of the three women.
‘Well, anyway, they’re jolly painful, bunions, girls, aren’t they? However they do them.’
‘I’ll say. I believe they’re the most painful operation you can have.’
‘I couldn’t sleep without tablets, could you?’
‘I can’t sleep with them.’
‘I can’t bear it when I’m awake.’
Mrs McKie was glad to get rid of the Bunions. Their place was taken by two refreshing characters, one with a foot and the other with a wrist injury, who exchanged back-chat all day.
‘Can you recommend a nice illness for me to have in here next year, dear, when I want a holiday?’
‘Let me see. Got to be painless, I suppose?’
‘Oh, absolutely. And fairly mobile, so I can get down to the day-room like you can.’
‘That’s right. I’m just off to supper now. Shall I ask the butler to send you up something on a tray?’
‘Certainly, with the best silver. Oh — and send something up for the birds too, on a salver.’
‘That sparrow will burst.’
‘No, it’s not for the sparrow, it’s for that poor old rook with his trousers coming down.’
‘Just look at the splay-footed way he’s walking.’
‘My dear, I’m sure he’s got bunions! Perhaps he’s on his way to Out Patients.’
The humorous efforts of the Spittoon Man were on the other hand, rather laboured. ‘Why’s this ward called the Waldorf? Don’t know? Why, because it’s Walled Off from the main ward, see?’ ‘Y’heard they’ve sacked all the bakers at the Co-op, luv? No? Well, see, they’ve been caught loafin’.’
Other entertainment was provided when one of the old Grannies started to walk for the first time. A procession passed along the corridor consisting first of Staff Nurse, walking backwards holding a chair. Next came old Grannie Ford, white-haired, withered, holding on to the arms of the chair, a junior nurse walking sideways to catch the old lady if she fell.
Last came Sister, making encouraging noises. ‘That’s right, love. You can do it, love. Now the other foot. You’re doing fine!’ The procession proceeded nearly to the end of the corridor; it then returned with Grannie being pushed in the chair and Sister telling her how well she had done.
Mrs McKie asked several times after Grannie Weedon, but could only hear indirect news, such as that she did not seem to settle, that her leg would be a long job, and that she very rarely had any of her family to visit her.
Some patients were self-pitying, some cheerful. Some never settled down; others from the first day knew all about the routine and how to adapt it to their own and their friends’ comfort and advantage. As soon as they were up they were helping with morning tea, taking messages, plumping up pillows, shouting for nurses in emergencies. They always knew at once which patient was in wrong with Staff; was a favourite with Sister, was due for discharge, had had a haemorrhage, nightmare or X-ray, had got up for the first time or been carted away for the last.
Now it was really summer. The roses were all out, pink in the centre bed, crimson to left and right. In the rough grass, cut and dead-looking, pigeons rooted about for seeds, and across the huge expanse of lawn in front of the hospital could be heard the eternal purr of the mower.
Mrs McKie was told by the current Information Centre: ‘Mr Penhallow’s on his way now. He’s a day early.’
‘Oh heavens! Tidy my locker. Sister’s never brought the notes.’
‘No, he’s caught Sister this time. That’s right. Shove everything in there, dear. Hear you’re for another X-ray.’
‘Really? Oh good!’
‘Soon be home now.’
After all this excitement the Great Man barely noticed her, concentrating all his attention on some other patient’s arm. She received smiles from the Registrar and Teddy, and a brief ‘All right?’ from Penhallow. Sister, however, returned after seeing them off the ward.
‘The Chief couldn’t find anything to complain of this morning,’ she said. ‘Seems to like it better if we haven’t got things ready for him. All he could think of to say, just as he was going, was “Why don’t you have yellow roses instead of that sickly pink?”.’
‘It wasn’t your fault this time, anyway.’
No, love, that’s what I thought. He’s fixed your next X-ray for Wednesday.’
Mrs McKie could hardly wait to tell Angus the news, and she felt the days would never pass till the great moment arrived. Wednesday was a beautiful day; the Spanish maids off duty wafted around the grounds in summer frocks or jeans; the builders’ boys at work on the new theatre lay on the grass without shirts in their lunch hour, and were too hot to kick their usual football about.
Quite suddenly, with no preliminary warning, Fred the porter appeared with his trolley.
‘You’re for X-ray, dear.’
There did not seem to be any nurses about to help, but that sort of thing was nothing to Fred. He quickly pulled back the bedclothes, lifted Mrs McKie onto the trolley beside the bed, and tucked a blanket round her.
The journey through corridors and past wards, over a shining expanse of floor, was an interesting one to her who had wondered about the geography of the place. Up in the lift, then more c
orridors to the door of the X-ray room. Here an old unshaven man under an army blanket was already waiting on a trolley.
Fred put his head in at the door. ‘Will you take the lady first?’ he asked chivalrously. ‘Sorry,’ he said, turning to her and shrugging his shoulders. The doors opened, a white-coated individual took in the old man.
‘Got to go now,’ said Fred cheerfully. ‘Busy on the ward. Toodle-oo. See you later.’
After an age of waiting, the little old man was pushed out and abandoned in the passage, and the young harassed X-ray man asked her; ‘Are you the lady with the hip?’
She said she was, whereupon be made the idiotic comment ‘Hip, hip’ to which, sinking to his level, she added ‘Let’s hope it will be Hurray.’ She had the feeling that this corny jest had been made before.
He looked at the papers and questioned her about her Christian name, date of operation, and whether she had a pin or a plate or both. Next, apparently being of a suspicious nature, he inquired whether she had anything on under her nightgown.
‘No, nothing.’
‘Nothing whatever?’
Does he think, Mrs McKie wondered, that I wear three thicknesses of woollen pants in bed?
At this point a girl appeared through the swing doors and handed him a bundle of papers.
‘Oh no, not all those!’ he exclaimed self-pityingly. ‘I’ve got to go at four.’ Crossly, he handed Mrs McKie an extraordinary garment. It was shaped like a rough pattern, just cut out, of bathing trunks, was a bright blue colour, and had strings attached to the sides.
‘I’ll wheel you over there and you can put it on,’ he said. ‘Do you mind being as quick as possible.’ Giving the trolley a sharp shove, he turned his back.
It was all very well to say be quick, but Mrs McKie had first to discover the principle of the trunks, and then to lift herself with one hand while inserting them under her nightgown. They then had to be tied with the appropriate tapes. When properly in position they turned out to be a kind of lower-half bikini.
She was rather afraid he would be cross when he came over for her, but he merely pushed the trolley close to the X-ray table, said, ‘Oh dear’ when he had to help her on to the higher level of black marble surrounded with chromium and covered with a white sheet. She was told to lie straight and found the hard cold surface very uncomfortable.
