The Lonely One

by Claire Rayner

  It was perhaps because of her awareness of the dislike she had engendered among the Sisters that she was so nervous now as she followed her friends along the corridor to Matron’s Office. In a hospital the size of the Royal, the nurses saw Matron rarely – she had too little time to have close contact with her junior nurses she would have liked to have had. She depended heavily on the judgement of her Sisters, and Bridget knew this.

  One by one, the nurses who were due to receive the striped belt that would proclaim the fact that they were now second-year nurses and had passed their preliminary exams, went into the office, and came out self-consciously smoothing the stiff, new belts round their middles. Liz and Judith and Bobby went in before Bridget, and while one other girl took her turn before Bridget herself, they stopped to whisper to her as she stood nervously waiting.

  ‘She’s a right old tartar,’ Bobby giggled. ‘Told me I’d scraped through by the merest fluke, and I’d have to wake my ideas up a bit before finals – but I don’t much care. If you pass by a fluke or with flying colours, what’s the odds? As long as you get through.’

  ‘She doesn’t miss much,’ Liz said, blushing a little. ‘Asked me if I was planning to get engaged or anything before finals – ’

  Judith grinned. ‘She didn’t ask me – how do you suppose she knows? I mean, that you and Ken are such love-birds, and that Bobby and me are playing the field?’ For Judith, too, had boyfriends apart from Clive. ‘Maybe she’ll ask you if you’re marrying David?’ she said to Bridget, and grinned wickedly at Bridget’s hot blush. ‘I bet you do, for all you say you don’t really like him. And he’s not a bad catch, you know. Clive says he’s got a private income and that’s quite a thing – ’

  To Bridget’s intense relief she didn’t have to answer, for the other girl came out of the office and stood back to let Bridget take her place. And with her heart in her mouth, she walked in, crossed the wide expanse of carpet to the desk, and stood meekly in front of the woman sitting there with head bent over a folder of notes.

  There was a short silence, in which Bridget found herself intensely aware of the distant sound of traffic from the main road far below, found herself stupidly counting the loud ticking that came from the clock on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Sit down, Nurse Preston,’ Matron said at length, and as Bridget obediently subsided into the hard chair at the front of the desk, looked at the apparently composed young face with a faint line between her brows.

  ‘Are you happy here, Nurse?’ she asked abruptly. ‘Do you enjoy your work?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Matron,’ Bridget said. Enjoy it? I wish I could explain how much, her thoughts murmured, but she said no more than that meek ‘yes’, which sounded unconvincing even in her own ears.

  Matron leaned back, and looked across at her thoughtfully. ‘You puzzle me, you know, Nurse Preston. Your examination results are uniformly excellent, your actual work on the wards appears to be satisfactory, yet somehow, the Sisters with whom you work find you – difficult, shall we say?’

  ‘Difficult?’ Bridget repeated, letting her eyes slide away from Matron’s face, too shy, too nervous to look directly at her. Which was unfortunate, because it made Matron herself wonder if Bridget was sly, unable to meet her gaze because of a lack of honesty in her.

  ‘A nurse needs sincerity, you know, Nurse Preston.’ Matron’s voice sharpened. ‘Her first thoughts should be for her patients’ welfare, not her own concerns. Some of the Sisters seem to feel that you are too wrapped up in yourself – that your good work is due not to a concern for patients’ welfare but to a concern for your own needs. Is that true, would you say?’

  No, no, her mind clamoured. It isn’t. I’m just bad at talking to people, I can’t make the Sisters understand that – I can talk to patients, but not to the Sisters – but all she said aloud was ‘I don’t know, Matron.’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, girl – you ought to know! Do you think of your patients as you should, or don’t you?’

  ‘I – I try to, Matron,’ Bridget said miserably. ‘I try to. I – I like looking after them, truly I do – ’

  ‘Hmm.’ Matron looked at her sharply. ‘I realise that I have no right to interfere with your private life except inasmuch as it affects your work. But I gather you lead a – a fairly gay life, shall we say? I have often seen you and your friends at hospital parties and dances. I hope – I hope you are – sensible about your private relationships.’

  Bridget felt her face go hot, and in an attempt to freeze her shaking lips into stillness set her face into a mould that looked to Matron to be decidedly mulish. Poor Bridget, with her positive gift for giving people the wrong impression. She wanted to please this woman very much indeed, respected her as a person and as the individual who was ultimately responsible for her work and welfare, and would have given anything to be able to talk to her freely, to relax and tell her really how she felt. For a mad moment, she wondered if she could blurt out to Matron about her private difficulties, ask her how to tell David she didn’t like him, how to tell Josh that she did, very much indeed, like him. But even as she thought it, she knew she couldn’t and said only, ‘I try to be sensible, Matron.’

  The older woman sighed sharply, and leaned across her desk to pick up the striped belt that was ready for Bridget.

  ‘Well, Nurse Preston, here is your belt. I must remind you that you have an even greater responsibility now that you have it, that patients will depend on you to a greater and greater extent, and that it is up to you to make yourself worthy of their dependence. Try to be – warmer, more thoughtful, and see if you can get better reports from the Sisters with whom you work from now on. Good afternoon, Nurse Preston.’

  And Bridget almost stumbled from the room, clutching her belt in a cold hand.

  She was glad the others had not waited for her, and went back across the courtyard to her room with her head whirling. It’s not fair, she thought desperately, not fair. Why can’t they understand, why can’t any of them understand? I’m just not a person who can explain to people how I feel, I’m not made that way –

  She locked herself in her room when she got there, to lie on her bed in the dusk of the early winter evening, to think and, to soothe her smarting feelings in privacy. Liz came and battered at her door and tried to open it, but she lay still, ignoring her. She heard Liz calling to the others that Bridget wasn’t there, that she must have gone out somewhere, and Bobby’s reply that she was going out with one of the new registrars, so she’d see Bridget in the morning, and Liz’s footsteps clattered away down the corridor. Still Bridget lay on her bed, heard the other three chatter and giggle as they scampered in and out of each other’s rooms to get ready to go out, heard the silence wash back into the building as they at last clattered away down the stairs towards their evenings out.

  And as she lay there, long into the evening, her hands behind her head, staring at the dim square that was her window, she began to think about herself, about her relations with the three girls who were her friends, about David and Josh, about her work. Part of her knew perfectly well that in a way Liz and Judith and Bobby were bad for her. She had warmed to them first because they seemed to have all the qualities she herself lacked, and had wanted to be with them so that she could learn to be like them, warm and gay and friendly. Yet all that had happened was that she became, if anything, quieter, shyer, less capable of coping on her own, clinging to them as lifelines rather than because she really enjoyed their company – and then she pushed all her thoughts firmly to the back of her mind. It was no good thinking about it. I am as I am, she told herself and there it is.

  They were put on night duty the next night, and for Bridget, this was an intense relief. Although Night Sister had a reputation of being a very stern woman, on night duty, one saw little of her – far less than one saw of a Sister on day duty.

  She enjoyed night duty, the greater freedom to be with patients, the way she found herself doing complicated procedures that on day duty were done b
y third-year nurses, enjoyed being in charge of a ward at night, with a third-year nurse on call from a neighbouring ward for emergencies, and just a junior with her to cope with everything. She enjoyed the last round of the night, tucking patients down, turning off lights until only the shaded light over the desk in the centre was left to illuminate the big ward, enjoyed moving silently from bed to bed as the night wore on, checking that all the men in the ward were sleeping, giving warm drinks to the wakeful ones, even enjoyed the hectic rush of dressings, treatments, breakfasts, and bed-making that the morning brought. It was a male medical ward to which she had been assigned, and the work was heavy, many of the patients being old, needing a great deal of bedside nursing.

  Everything seemed to be going very well, until she had been on the ward for about a month. She came on duty, a few days before Christmas, to find the Day Sister and nurses scurrying about busily. The Christmas decorations were already up, tinsel and paper chains swinging lazily from the light fittings, the huge Christmas tree sparkling with lights and coloured baubles, sprigs of holly and laurel drooping from the chart-racks above each bed. Some of the men, well enough to be up, were clustered round the big radiator, drinking some beer that Day Sister – a kindly woman – had allowed them ‘because it was nearly Christmas’. But at the bed at the far end of the ward, there was a scurrying of nurses, screens pulled round to hide the patient from prying eyes, and a faint hiss of oxygen could be heard above the soft, murmuring voices of the other patients.

  Bridget hurried down the ward to see what was going on while the junior set about the first jobs of the night, and slid round the screens to where Day Sister was leaning over the bed.

  An oxygen tent was set up, translucent folds of polythene masking the occupant of the bed, the huge cylinder of oxygen beside him gleaming dully in the light.

  Sister straightened, and nodded at Bridget. ‘Evening, Nurse Preston. Hope you slept well,’ her usual greeting, given with a sort of absence that made it clear that she was not really very interested.

  ‘This man was picked up by the police down by the railways this afternoon. He’s a tramp – very ill indeed. Clearly hasn’t had much to eat for days, and Dr Winkworth thinks he’s a meths drinker into the bargain.’ She wrinkled her nose with distaste. ‘He certainly smelled pretty ghastly when they brought him in. Anyway, he has lobar pneumonia – very nasty – both bases are completely full, by the sound of him, and his breathing is very poor indeed. Keep this oxygen going – there’s plenty of ice in the cooling system, and see to it that you watch it carefully – it’ll probably need renewing about midnight. He’s on four-hourly tetracycline and you can give it straight into the drip.’

  She indicated the tall stand beside the bed, where a bottle of glucose saline hung, red tubing running from it to the invisible arm inside the oxygen tent.

  ‘Keep the glucose saline going, and watch him – I doubt he’ll last the night, but he just might. There’s a full cylinder of oxygen in the ante-room, though this’ll last well into the small hours. All right?’

  Bridget nodded, and watched Day Sister make the last check on the patient before following her out of the screens down to the desk to take the rest of the report.

  ‘Half-hourly pulse on that man – don’t know his name, by the way – no one’s identified him yet, and I doubt very much if the police’ll find anything about him – and keep an hourly blood-pressure chart, too. And an intake and output record. Right?’

  She rattled through the rest of the report – and to Bridget’s relief there was no other very ill patient in the ward, which meant she could concentrate on the pathetic wreck in bed seventeen – and pulled on her cuffs at last.

  ‘I must go,’ Sister said. ‘There’s a dress rehearsal for the Christmas show tonight, and I’m in it, God help me. Hope all goes well, Nurse – watch that man – and of course, you know about the general precautions? I’ve warned the men they mustn’t smoke of course – see to it they don’t. Don’t want that tent going up in an explosion, do we? Though between ourselves, poor devil in it would hardly know if it did. He’s right out. Anyway, I’m off. Goodnight,’ and she bustled away, the last of the day nurses following her wearily.

  Bridget hurried through the routine, settling the men, warning them again of the danger of smoking when there was highly inflammable oxygen in the ward, and when they were all settled, sent the junior to the kitchen to prepare the breakfast trolleys while she went up the ward to bed seventeen.

  For the first time, she could see the patient inside the tent.

  He was very old, his face deeply lined, the grooves in his sallow cheeks still showing dirt deeply ground in. Obviously, it would take a great deal of washing to get that out, she thought. And he was in no condition for such niceties. He was unshaven, the narrow cheeks covered with rough grey stubble, and his scrawny neck stuck out pathetically from the neck of the hospital’s pyjama jacket. He lay with his head on one side, propped high on pillows, inside the tiny world of the oxygen tent, his lax lips crusted, his chest hardly moving as he breathed.

  She slipped her hands carefully through the sleeves at the side of the tent, making sure that no oxygen escaped as she did so, and checked his pulse, made sure he had a clear airway, and with a sudden access of pity, stroked the grimy old face with a gentle finger.

  Odd, she thought feeling something perilously close to tears in her throat. He was a baby once – it doesn’t seem possible – such a wreck. I wonder what he was like when he was younger, why he’s like this, who he belongs to, or who belongs to him –

  But the old man just lay mutely, his closed eyes deep in his dirty thin face, the hollowing of the temples that indicated the severity of his condition making his head look skull-like.

  And then, sighing sharply, she sealed the tent again, checked the cylinder and the ice, and began to enter the readings of his blood pressure and pulse on to his chart.

  As she finished, and hung the chart back at the foot of the bed, she raised her head sharply, and sniffed. There was no mistake about it – she could smell cigarette smoke, somewhere near.

  Moving with all the speed she had, she came out of the screens, and peered round the ward. The men were all lying humped in their beds, apparently snoring, and she could see no tell-tale glow – and then, a tall figure appeared at the end of the ward, silhouetted against the light. As it came towards her, she, too, hurried towards it, for she could see the bright glow of a cigarette held in its hand. I must put a notice at the door for the doctors, she thought anxiously, and then, she was face to face with the man who was smoking.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, his voice thick and blurred. ‘ ’S’me – David. How’re you, sweetheart?’

  She peered up at him in the darkness, and whispered sharply, ‘David – I’ve got an oxygen tent going – put that cigarette out – ’ and she reached for it.

  He laughed, loudly, so that one or two of the men stirred in their sleep, and teasingly held the cigarette high out of her reach. ‘Whatsamatter, lovey? Want to smoke?’

  ‘Give me that, you idiot,’ she said, louder now, her voice thin with her fear for the oxygen she could hear still hissing behind her. ‘I’ve got a tent up, don’t you understand?’

  ‘Aha!’ And he laughed again. ‘Florence Nightingale on the warpath – scared there’ll be an accident?’

  ‘Of course I am!’ She was nearly crying now. ‘Are you too drunk to care, you lunatic?’ for he was obviously very drunk indeed.

  ‘Got it in one, sweetheart. Been a nice big party in the mess, and I’m as sloshed as a newt – ’ and he raised his other hand high, and she could see the light glint on a half full glass in it.

  Almost sick with terror now, she did the only thing she could do. She turned him by sheer force, propelled him as fast as she could down the ward towards the doors at the end, while he slithered on the polished floor in front of her. They reached the door, and there he set himself against the jamb, and managed to stop her headlong rush.


  ‘Now go easy, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice ugly suddenly. ‘I only came to say hello to you, give you a nice Christmas kiss – ’

  He lurched towards her suddenly, just as she managed at last to wrench the cigarette from his hand, and as he lurched the glass in his hand fell tinkling to the floor, to splash her apron as it went. She smelled the thick reek of whisky, as she ground the cigarette out. And then, off her guard, his arms were round her, and he was pushing her head back in a violent kiss that hurt her mouth, that made her head swim with the fumes of the whisky he had been drinking. He pulled at her uniform, so that her collar burst open under his onslaught, and the bib of her apron tore from the pins that held it to her dress, and her cap fell to the floor as he tried to run one hand through her hair.

  ‘Stop it, you idiot – stop it – ’ She managed to get her hand away from his, tried desperately to pull right away from him.

  And then, suddenly, he pulled away from her himself, and stood awkwardly straightening his tie as he stared over her shoulder.

  She turned herself, fumbling with her collar, agonisingly aware of the torn apron she was wearing, the stain of whisky on her skirt, her cap lying at her feet, to see Night Sister staring at her with a face rigid with shock, blue eyes icy with rage.

  Chapter 8

  David seemed to have been shocked into sobriety by Night Sister’s sudden appearance.

  ‘Evening, Sister,’ he said, and his voice sounded almost normal, though there was still a faint blur about the sibilants. ‘Just going – ’ and he made a move towards the main outer doors of the ward, while Bridget stood in dumb misery, trying to do up her collar, fumbling with the pins on her torn apron.