He stopped at the bottom step, and I thanked him yet again. He smiled for the first time in our acquaintance. He had a charming smile. It began in his eyes and spread slowly over his face, illuminating it as if a light had been switched on inside him. Now that I could see his eyes, I discovered they were his most outstanding features; they were well-set, hazel, with most improbably thick, dark lashes. He said, ‘Mind if I say something?’
I stifled the immediate answer that occurred to me, which was that I would be only too enchanted if he would utter just one more sentence, and replied, ‘Of course not. Please do.’
He took his time. ‘It seems that you occasionally get yourself into difficulties.’
I could not help smiling. ‘You could call that the understatement of the year. Yes, I do.’
He nodded. ‘You want to watch your step. Mind how you go on the road or if you’re working with machinery. Never force that. If you do, it’ll break.’
I nodded. ‘I’m going to try to be careful. The snag is, I’m bad with mechanical things. I get infuriated by what my Granny calls “the cussedness of inanimate objects”.’
A smile flickered in his eyes; they glinted like green fire. ‘If you get infuriated again, you can give me a shout. I’m Tom Dillon.’
I was absurdly pleased and touched by his offer. ‘Thomas ‒ I mean, Mr. Dillon ‒ how kind of you! Thank you.’
He looked down at his feet. He told them he was usually called Tom, but did not object to Thomas. Then he looked up and beyond me to the front door. I took the hint; clearly his personal code was not going to allow him to shift an inch until I was out of his self-imposed charge and safely in the Home.
‘I mustn’t keep you any more and I really have to change. Thank you for everything. Goodbye.’
‘That’s all right, Miss Fraser.’
I was half-way up the steps. I swung round. ‘I forgot to tell you my name. How did you know it? And hadn’t you better call me Susan?’
He shifted the Gray’s from his left arm to his right. ‘I heard my Cousin Mabel say it.’ He nodded at the Home. ‘Your Home Sister in there is my mother’s first cousin.’ He did not answer my last question. He looked as if he had answered quite enough questions for one day; in fact he looked downright disapproving, and I was quite sure I had offended him deeply until I realised he was not looking at me at all, but at Nurse Chalmers, the Senior Probationer in Catherine, who had come out of the front door.
Chalmers ignored me and smiled broadly at Thomas. ‘Tom dear, how nice to see you again! How are things? And how’s Mark? I haven’t seen either of you about for ages. Have you two been having another holiday?’
Thomas said simply, ‘No.’ He gave her a brief nod. ‘Got to go to a lecture, Monica. Forgive me. See you around.’
I did not stop to see Chalmers’s reaction. I rushed up to Jill’s room to give her my news. Her room overlooked the road, and I found her leaning out of the window.
‘What were you doing with Thomas?’
I told her. ‘And his name is Tom Dillon. His mother is Home Sister’s first cousin. She’s his Cousin Mabel. And he likes to be called Tom, but doesn’t object to Thomas.’
Jill said she thought he ought to be called Galahad. ‘Who would have thought he could be so gallant?’
‘Can a man be gallant and speak in monosyllables?’
‘Deeds speak louder than words,’ she announced tritely. ‘And don’t forget he’s getting married. He must have broken out of his silence to ask his fiancée to marry him.’
I stared at her momentarily. ‘So he is. I’d forgotten that. I’d better go and change.’ I left her room quickly. I had never wanted to be alone like that before in my life. I could not understand what had come over me. I felt very thoughtful as I changed into uniform.
Chapter Two
That afternoon and evening in Catherine Ward were as hectic as Jill had forecast. When I limped off duty at last, I almost wished that I had taken her advice and had a rest this morning. Then I thought about my outing and changed my mind. I had enjoyed meeting Thomas. I thought he was kind, restful and possibly much quicker on the uptake than his appearance would suggest. Now that Jill had reminded me of his approaching marriage, I realised that our acquaintance was doomed before it had got fairly started. There was no point in regretting that I had not met him before. I had only been in the hospital two and a half months. And it was considered bad form ‒ so Nurse Chalmers told us, for juniors in their first few months in the hospital to aspire to a social life.
Now that I was aware of Tom Dillon’s existence, I found myself watching for him whenever I saw a crowd of students, or on the many errands I was sent on to every corner of the hospital. I saw his tall figure occasionally.
I did not acknowledge his presence, because he never appeared to notice me or looked in my direction, and although I was not shy of my contemporaries individually, I never was able to confront a bunch of twenty odd medical students in cold blood.
Jill said that a bunch of medical students did not merely unnerve her, they terrified her. ‘I would rather face a bevy of Sisters any day,’ she said. ‘Students in bunches scare me. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to chaperon on teaching rounds.’
‘By that time, dear, you’ll be so senior yourself you’ll look down your nose at students the way Chalmers does.’
Jill smiled. ‘She doesn’t always. Do you remember that morning you met Thomas? And how I was watching you all from the window? Well, I watched Chalmers, too. She smiled at him as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I think she is just upstage with them on duty from force of habit. She is the same with everyone except Sister.’ She looked at me. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, Sue. Have you done anything special to put her back up? She is always giving you ugly looks these days.’
‘Not that I know of. But Chalmers always has given me ugly looks. There’s nothing new about that. I’d feel lost without them.’
We were tidying the sluice-room for the night as we talked. A couple of minutes later Chalmers came in. ‘When are you two going to be finished in here?’ she demanded. ‘Sister will be back for Prayers in ten minutes, and this ought to have been finished long ago. What about the sterilisers, Nurse Fraser? Are they empty?’
I explained that the sterilisers had not had their full boiling time, which was why I was now in the sluice.
‘If you did not spend so much time nattering to the patients as you do your dusting,’ she replied, ‘you would get the sterilisers finished and empty before you came in here. Really, Nurse Fraser, you must learn to behave as if this is a ward, and not a garden fence. You were a good five minutes doing Mrs. Franks’s locker tonight. What in the world were you discussing?’
I knew she would disapprove no matter what I said, so I answered her literally. ‘The colour of her sister-in-law’s flat. She has painted all the walls a different colour to brighten the place for when Mrs. Franks goes there to convalesce. Poor Mrs. Franks is terribly upset, because she detests the smell of paint, and doesn’t care for bright colours, but doesn’t want to hurt her sister-in-law’s feelings because she is a nice woman.’
Nurse Chalmers looked down her pretty nose. ‘Really, I’ve never heard such nonsense. Nurse Fraser, if you aim to be a nurse, don’t you think it’s time you started acting like one and stopped having these long heart-to-hearts with our patients? I’m sure they get frightfully bored with your constant nattering.’
I felt my colour rise. I had not thought of my chatting in this light. I said, ‘I expect you’re right Nurse. Sorry,’ and scoured a bowl violently to relieve my feelings.
When she had gone out of the sluice, Jill said, softly, ‘You’re used to her ugly looks ‒ you’ll just have to get used to her cracks, too. You mustn’t let them worry you, Sue. And as for it being wrong to natter to our patients ‒ well, Sister and Dexter haven’t told you to stop. If they didn’t approve they would have told you soon enough.’
I felt a little more cheerful. �
�Maybe you’re right, Jill. Incidentally, I meant to tell you, you were right about Sister Tutor creating because I’ve been writing up my lectures in one batch. She stopped me in the corridor after tea and told me I must do them one at a time, as instructed.’
‘How did she guess you hadn’t?’
‘Simple. The ink was the same colour. Talk about being surrounded by Sherlock Holmeses.’
Jill stacked the bowls as I finished them, and said she herself was getting as good at detecting as Sister Tutor. ‘Who do you think I keep seeing?’
‘You tell me.’ I was feeling tired and could barely raise any interest.
‘Thomas.’ She chuckled. ‘I’m always walking into him in the clinical-room. It’s a wonder you didn’t knock him over when you dusted in there just now. He is always brooding over the microscopes.’
I pretended to be still only mildly interested. ‘Maybe he doesn’t own a microscope and uses ours. The students are often using it.’
She said she had thought that at first too. ‘But he never looks down it properly, Sue. He just broods over it and then moves out of the way when I want to clean. He is becoming so much part of the clinical-room furniture that soon I’ll be dusting him as well.’
I grinned. ‘You’ll need a step-ladder to do that. I only come up to his shoulder, so you must be round about his waist.’ I glanced over my shoulder. ‘There’s Sister. Come on, quick! Chuck those two towels on the horse and tell me if my cap’s straight. Thanks.’ I pushed her through the door in front of me and raced into the ward to switch off and empty the sterilisers in the few seconds I had in hand, while Sister was in the duty-room talking to her Staff Nurse.
The clinical-room, duty-room and sluice-room that lay side by side off the small corridor leading to Catherine Ward from the main outside corridor, were called ‘the flat’. With the exception of the kitchen, the flat was Jill’s province, and I only cleaned in those places when I was helping her officially, or unofficially. My main cleaning lay ‒ apart from the ward itself ‒ in the seven-bathroom annexe that was built at the far end of Catherine. Consequently, I did not have many opportunities to discover if she was right about Thomas haunting our clinical-room; what opportunities I had, I took ‒ or made.
The clinical-room held not only the microscope, but shelves of test tubes and specimen glasses, flower vases, a high acid cupboard fixed to the wall, a large square soiled-linen bin on wheels, and a smaller round bin for soiled linen. The room stood directly inside the front door of the flat, and was the one room in the ward to which the students were allowed access without permission. There were several hundred students in the medical school; they came in all shapes and sizes. They might, and did, intimidate Jill, and make me feel slightly nervous, but they were always very considerate in the wards and pleasant to the patients, who were often exceedingly fond of ‘my nice student, Mr. or Miss So-and-so’.
I found that Jill was quite right about Thomas; his large presence was frequently filling our smallish clinical-room, but no one could have protested that his behaviour was even fractionally out of line. He appeared to find the clinical-room an ideal place for studying.
One afternoon, towards the end of that week, we had a longer Theatre list than was usual. It was also an admission day, and nine new patients were expected at one o’clock. When Jill and I reported on duty after lunch, we found the ward in a state of orderly turmoil.
Sister sent Jill to help Nurse Dexter with the operation cases. ‘Nurse Fraser, you must admit the new patients.’ She handed me a list of names and bed numbers. ‘They have just arrived. I want them all ready and in bed by the time we open for Mr. Spence’s teaching round at two-fifteen.’
I hustled away. The new patients had all to have baths or be bathed; their personal details entered in the admission book; their temperatures, pulses and respirations taken and charted; their clothes packed in their suitcases, and the suitcases labelled and removed to the store cupboard in the duty-room. Sister had marked the names of the patients who were well enough to bath themselves. Only two needed blanket-baths. The patients smiled shyly as I introduced myself to each in turn, explained the procedure, and ushered them, one by one, to the various bathrooms. I heard them discussing hospital life ‒ and myself. ‘You really can’t think how these girls can manage. They all look so young, and so fresh. That tall child who brought us up here moves like quicksilver. You can see she knows what she’s doing.’
I leant momentarily against a bathroom door and grinned weakly. I only knew I was trying to do nine things at once, and I could not think how I was going to manage. I bounced away from the door as Chalmers walked into the annexe. I did not bounce quickly enough. ‘Fraser! What are you doing? Don’t you realise the ward is busy this afternoon?’
I swallowed. ‘Yes, Nurse, sorry.’ I fled back to the ward to collect another of the new ladies.
When my up-patients were in their beds, I attended to my two bed-patients.
I was brushing the hair of one, Mrs. Stevens, when Sister’s head appeared round the drawn cubicle curtains. ‘Nurse Fraser, it is sixteen minutes past two. What have you been doing to take so long? Mr. Spence will want to see Mrs. Stevens, and he is due directly. Have you done everything? And is Mrs. Stevens quite comfortable? Anything to report? Very well.’
She did not give me time to murmur more than, ‘Yes, Sister. Yes, Sister. No, Sister.’
‘Then pull these curtains and go straight to the Theatre. Ask Sister Theatre for Mrs. Paul’s notes. They have not been returned with her, and I must have them at once, stat.’
I met Jill returning alone to the ward when I was on my way to the Theatre. She was dressed in Theatre clothes and had a file of notes under her arm. I stopped on one foot. ‘Are those Mrs. Paul’s?’
‘No. Mrs. Mercer’s. Why?’
‘Sister wants Mrs. Paul’s at once.’
Jill sighed. ‘Oh, my goodness, I was in such a rush getting Mrs. Paul back. The porter went at the double, I must have left them in the Theatre itself.’
‘How are you getting on as Theatre escort?’
‘I’m not getting on at all,’ she said ruefully. ‘Every time I get to one place, someone sends me somewhere else. I’ve been ricocheting between Dexter and Sister Theatre for the past hour.’
‘What about the Theatre cases? You’re all dressed up. Aren’t you going through the ops with the patients?’
‘Chalmers is doing that; Dexter is dealing with the ward end. I’m just the go-between. I got dressed up because Sister Theatre told me to dress up. I’m sure Dexter will be annoyed when I walk into Catherine in a Theatre gown, but I’d rather have Dexter annoyed than Sister Theatre. She is grim, Sue. A kind of elderly Chalmers and twice as broad.’
‘I can hardly wait to ask her for Mrs. Paul’s notes.’ I suddenly realised Sister Catherine had said ‘At once’. ‘I can’t waste another second.’
I was forced to wait a good many seconds in the Theatre. One of the porters received my request as there did not seem to be a nurse about. ‘The nurses are all in with this case, Nurse.’ He shook his head gloomily. ‘Don’t know as I can fetch them out to you until the case is over.’
‘Oh, dear! How long do you think this case will last?’
He cocked his head to one side. ‘Let’s see. It’s the Senior Surgical Officer as is doing it. He’s on the quick side. Won’t be more than forty minutes.’
‘I can’t wait forty minutes. Sister Catherine said at once.’
‘Sister Catherine said as she wants them notes stat?’
I was in an agony of impatience. ‘If stat means at once, yes.’
‘That’s what it means, Nurse. Now why didn’t you say that in the first place? I’ll knock on the door and send word to Sister Theatre by the dirty nurse.’
As he did this I asked, desperately, ‘How can you decide what’s urgent and what isn’t?’
He looked at me calmly. ‘Not been here long, have you, Nurse?’
‘No. I’m junior set.�
�
‘I thought as much.’ He removed his Theatre cap, smoothed his hair and replaced it. ‘It’ll be this way, see. When a Sister or one of the residents says as they want something stat, at once to you, seeing as you are new, that means they wants it stat and no questions asked. They don’t send that message along unless it is urgent.’ The door opened and some notes were thrust out. He took them and handed them to me.
‘I see. Thank you very much. I’ll certainly remember.’ I rushed back to Catherine chanting under my breath, ‘Stat means at once; at once is stat; both mean open sesame!’
Sister Catherine took the notes from me. ‘Mr. Spence has been waiting, Nurse. You have been a long time. Go and help Nurse Dexter now until it is time to do teas.’
Staff Nurse Dexter said, ‘Put the electric cradle on in Bed No. 18. Miss MacCrombie is going to be very shocked when she gets back from Theatre; she’ll have to have blocks as well. Get two sets; the eighteen inch and the twelve, and put both under her bed. I’m not certain yet which we’ll use.’
Mr. Spence, the consulting surgeon who was doing a teaching round, swept down the ward to Bed No. 17 as I was approaching Bed No. 18 with my armful of heavy bed-blocks. Mr. Spence was followed by Sister, his registrar, his house-surgeon, and a crowd of about thirty students. I stepped aside to let the oncoming ranks go by, and dropped one of my blocks. It fell, making a crash that reverberated round the quiet ward like thunder. I saw Sister glance round, frowning, as I bent to pick it up.
A very quiet voice with a hint of laughter in it murmured, ‘Hang on to what you’ve got, Nurse. You don’t want to drop another brick. I’ll get it for you.’ And the student who had spoken went down on all fours and groped under the bed beneath which the block had slipped. He cordially placed it on top of the three in my arms. ‘Hang on tight,’ he advised me again, and returned to his place in the throng.
He was a tallish, fair young man, with an attractive expression. I was grateful to him, but I wished he had not come to my aid. Sister’s frown had deepened. I retired quickly and gratefully behind the drawn curtains round the empty Bed No. 18. My sanctuary was immediately invaded by Nurse Dexter.
The Fair Wind: A moving 1950s hospital romance (The Anniversary Collection Book 6) Page 3
