by Jane Yeadon
‘Yes, and anyway Margaret can do Second Part somewhere else. There’s lots of choices. I’ve actually got a friend joining us to do hers here. I’m looking forward to it. She’s quite a card and …’ Cynthia twitched her nose as if this was a strange concept, ‘rather good fun. Actually we’re thinking of moving into a flat. Get away from that awful woman MacCready, and before I forget, that’s what I’ve to tell you.’
Looking round as if she wanted a bigger audience, she drummed her fingers on the table in exasperation. ‘Margaret’s just missed this bit of news. A pity. She’ll not expect to find men fumigating her room.’
‘Men!’ Marie’s scream had perfect pitch.
‘Why?’ Seonaid asked, beginning to show more interest.
‘I just mentioned to her I’d delivered a woman covered in lice. I’d wondered why she was wearing a cap, but she was delivering so quickly I didn’t have time to put one on myself. I just asked MacCready if she had any insect repellent in case,’ Cynthia shuddered , ‘any had landed on me.’
‘And had they?’ Already I felt my skin crawling.
‘Of course not! But of course she carried on as if I’d brought infestation to the entire Home and to our floor in particular. As I speak, she’s on red alert with everything, but men are coming to fumigate our rooms and, get this, they could well be wearing breathing apparatuses .’
Seonaid screwed up her nose. ‘It’s well that I never told her about my last delivery then. My wee mother I was delivering was moving, now, moving and when we washed her hair all that happened was the nits hatched in the warm water.’
Marie seemed lost in devout contemplation, doubtless sending up a prayer for God’s poor, the unwashed, the lost and the lice.
Behind the service counter Daisy was promoting tattie scones. They were a favourite of mine but not enough now to keep me at the table. Cynthia was sitting that bit close whilst Seonaid, with slapping hands, was imitating someone covered in fleas.
Appetite ruined and trying not to scratch, I rose. ‘Thanks for that, girls, but you’ll have to excuse me. I think I need a bath.’
27
A PROFESSOR CALLS
‘And how’re we feeling today?’ asked Lorna as if a class full of ashen faces and nervous chat was an everyday norm. ‘And Margaret, you’re surely not thinking of visiting church?’ She pointed to her watch. ‘You’ll hardly have time. Our practical exam’s any minute now.’
Margaret, loitering at the classroom door, was wearing a suit that had all the brown style and charm of a monk’s habit. Neither lipstick nor eye-shadow adorned her pale heroic face. Even the wings of the big butterfly brooch pinned to her lapel drooped as if sad, knowing that flight was impossible.
‘I’m not doing it,’ she said. ‘I’m only here to wish you all good luck and say goodbye.’
‘What rubbish!’ Miss Harvey, brisk and business-like, suddenly appeared at her shoulder. ‘Go and get changed right now and hurry up. You haven’t much time and we don’t want the consultants waiting, do we?’
But Margaret’s compass was set on martyrdom. ‘Matron’s said it’s best I leave.’ Her lips quivered. ‘So that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t want to waste anybody’s time.’
Miss Harvey’s native Scottish thrift was plainly outraged as she rolled her eyes and spoke slowly and very clearly. ‘Well you’ll certainly be doing that if you leave now. And after all my work and effort putting you through First Part? Now that is a waste! Don’t be such a silly girl. Go and get changed. Quickly now! Or your examiner won’t give you the same chance.’
‘Oh, well if you put it like that,’ Margaret said, throwing in the towel. Scarlet-faced, she slunk off, whilst our tutor, dealing with the day’s first challenge as easily as flea bites, gave the rest of us the names of our patients and where we would find them.
‘Nurse Macpherson. You’ll find Mrs Scullion in Sister MacNutt’s ward.’
‘But that’s Post-Natal!’
‘I think, Nurse, you’ll find your patient’s expecting you as well as a baby.’ Miss Harvey was in no mood for argument so, notebook in hand, heart in my mouth, I hurried to the ward assuming Pussy would relocate me. Instead, and appearing as if from nowhere, the soft-footed Sister pointed to the side ward I’d last seen occupied by Mrs O’Hagan.
‘Missus Scullion,’ she said, stressing the title as if it was my patient’s most important feature, ‘is ready for you. Now why would that baby be crying?’ She disappeared into the nursery where, very quickly silence reigned. Pussy’s soothing voice often had that magical effect.
I could have done with the same treatment. I’d also have appreciated it if she’d said Annie Scullion was not only married but was a mistress of mirth too. A chorus of laughter flooded into the corridor as Sally, opening the door, trolley-reversed out.
‘Great to share a joke, and that one’s a cracker, so it is, Missus. Now,’ she leant on her trolley, ‘you be sure and tell this wee nurse that one. She loves a laugh. Oh! But you’re a caution …’ Tucking a stray grey lock under her cap’s anchorage, she kept the door open and said in an encouraging way, ‘You’ll both be grand, so you will.’
Had it been anyone other than Sally I’d have said she left with a skip in her step. She must have swapped the bleach bottle to concentrate on lavender polish. She’d certainly been busy with it. Its smell triumphed in a room freed from clinical restraint. Flowers brightened every corner whilst the room’s occupant flashed the same wide smile as the two youngsters in the silver-framed photograph on the locker beside her.
The open window gave out onto a tree in full May blossom. Sunshine, joining in colour, poured gold in to what was apparently the room’s resident sunbeam.
Her tanned face may have made her eyes especially blue, her teeth a gleaming white, but only good health could be responsible for that clear skin and shining blonde hair. She looked like a Swiss dairymaid advertisement. What on earth was she doing in hospital?
There was certainly nothing wrong with her athleticism either. Mrs Scullion jumped into bed with gazelle-like grace. She sat up, clutching her knees as if to stop them bouncing her out of bed. ‘Holy Moly! Is this not a grand honour! Never did I think I’d be grand enough for a student’s final exam but now, here you are. Wait till I tell Michael. He’ll be sure to die laughing.’
‘Michael?’
‘Me husband. He’s staying at home looking after the children. Says he never thought it’d be such hard work.’ She gurgled with laughter, then added, ‘So you’ll be looking to see what’s wrong with me?’ She snuggled down as if waiting to hear a good story. ‘See if it’s any different from Mr Coles.’
I wrote down the name carefully, glad to have something to put down on paper.
‘And he’s your consultant. Like him?’
‘He’s great. Lovely man. Wears a three-piece suit and all. Says I’ve to stay here for a wee rest.’ She slapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Uh! I’m not supposed to say that, am I?’ Merriment shivered the blankets. ‘Wait till I tell Michael.’
Aware of the Professor’s imminent arrival, I examined my patient from head to toe. Maintaining a degree of sobriety under fire from her giggles interspersed with remarks on my resemblance to Dr Finlay’s Janet and what she would tell the long-suffering Michael, I hurried on with questions about her previous and present pregnancy, all singularly lacking in problems.
Other than a dose of the giggles, a very early bleed and an expected delivery in three weeks, Mrs Scullion appeared to be in robust health and worryingly up-beat about being in hospital.
‘Such questions!’ she said, clapping her hands and flashing her dimples. ‘I’d never have thought the half of them. Anyway, I wasn’t going to challenge Mr Coles about coming here. Well, he’s a consultant, isn’t he? Anyway, I’m having a grand holiday and Michael’s finding out about child care.’ Another gust of laughter and a flash of very strong teeth. ‘Mind, you’ve been very thorough. You’ll be bound to pass.’
I remembered
Miss Harvey’s lecture stressing that there must be something unusual for somebody to be admitted here. I grew anxious. I went over my notes, picking out a few anomalies much the same as clutching at straws and was about to say, ‘OK. I give up,’ when the Professor arrived.
With a sinking heart I made the introductions.
Sobered either by his air of gravitas or watch chain, Mrs Scullion assumed an air of quiet suffering. She looked out the window, apparently more fascinated by the pink-blossom view than the findings of her pregnancy I so laboured over and was now presenting to the Professor.
He was unimpressed.
‘But what else?’ He sounded tetchy. ‘It sounds like a perfectly normal pregnancy to me.’
I knew it was hardly riveting stuff. Mrs Scullion had so lost interest she stretched luxuriously and yawned largely. I went over the details again, slowly. At this rate and with a bit of luck, I might just bore him to death.
Instead, he grew irritable. ‘I know, I know. Heard it all already. What else have you found?’
I’d only one trick left in my bag. Mrs Scullion swore it was her first clue to pregnancy.
I hadn’t thought I’d need to use it but it was certainly a surprise aspect to my patient’s history. Miss Harvey had never mentioned the condition and I didn’t think it appeared in any midwifery textbook . Maybe then my patient was here to make medical history. Ah ha!
I took a deep breath then, trying unsuccessfully to modify the Scots accent and like a conjuror producing a rabbit, announced, ‘She’s got a wart in her ear.’
At least I’d surprised the Professor. Robbed of speech, he’d gone puce.
Still, Mrs Scullion had convinced me and I had seen the wart. I said, ‘That’s how she knows she’s pregnant. It goes once she’s had her babies.’
‘And I suppose you’ll have diagnosed this one’s sex dangling a ring over her abdomen.’ At least the Professor’s power of speech, if not colour, had returned.
‘Indeed, and who’d be listening to that oulde wives’ yarn?’ A small cloud scudded over the bright countenance of Mrs Scullion, now completely awake. As if he posed a threat, she folded her hands protectively over her bump. ‘And what would you know about it anyway? You’re not even my doctor!’
This was bold talk and plainly not what the Professor was used to. In a flustered way he thanked Mrs Scullion then, exiting the ward with a lot less grace than Sally and her trolley, he suggested he and I find somewhere more private.
In a small room, and now safely away from a peasant’s revolt, the Professor resumed his inquisition.
‘I’ll have to ask you again, Nurse.’ His voice rose and his eyes narrowed in an alarming way. He really was cross. ‘Was there anything else you found out about your patient?’
I groaned inwardly. There was nothing for it. I’d tried everything and still hadn’t come up with the right answer.
Seriously in want of a vital clue I sent a silent message to my careersorting angel. Get on my case! Otherwise Margaret’s not going to be the only one about to leave.
‘I couldn’t find anything really wrong with Mrs Scullion.’
‘Precisely!’ The Professor gave a shout of triumph. He could hardly contain himself or the waistcoat buttons heaving under the strain of his emotion. The watch chain quivered. ‘At last! It’s so obvious. Wouldn’t you agree, that woman’s a bed blocker, Nurse, nothing else?’ Had he been a lesser mortal, I’d have said he spat the words. Certainly I hadn’t been expecting that reaction.
Even if I wasn’t sure what he meant I was anxious not to put anything in writing, so I just nodded.
‘Her consultant’s keeping that bed for one of his private patients. It’s a dirty practice and I’d like it stopped. This is a National Health Hospital and should be treated as such.’
Soundlessly, magically, Pussy appeared. ‘Are you nearly finished?’
‘We certainly are,’ said the Professor, obviously just as pleased to see her. ‘We’d have been done ages ago had I not been fobbed off with some fool tale about warts.’
‘As a sign of pregnancy, d’you mean?’ Pussy chuckled. Her soft accent, so efficient with the babies, was blessedly having much the same effect on my examiner. His waistcoat buttons settled back and his face resumed a normal colour.
Pussy said, ‘Come on, Prof., let’s have a nice cup of tea and we can both have a good moan about consultants and how the National Health Service is abused nowadays.’
As they went, her voice floated back, ‘You wouldn’t have been giving Nurse Macpherson a hard time would you?’
The Professor’s reply was lost as the office door banged shut.
I was really relieved. For a giddy moment I’d thought Pussy was about to enfold him in those long arms and tuck him up in the Nursery.
28
ON THE ROAD !
It was the end of the first six months. We’d completed the course, sat all its exams then, to our relieved astonishment, all passed. Second Part beckoned.
I was looking forward to it. The memory of the nightmare interview with the Professor was already receding but, even with a hundred per cent success rate, we’d failed to impress Miss Harvey.
Calling up her native instincts, well-honed in doom, she’d said, ‘Don’t think you can rest on your laurels. You must realise you’re only qualified to take more responsibility. You’ll be out on District with little or no medical backup and you should certainly know by now that childbirth can be anything but straightforward. Remember the lecture the Professor gave you right at the end of First Part?’
He’d been very keen on hospital confinements, listing with discernible relish a catalogue of problems that could attend home ones. ‘And you might be the only one around to deal with them,’ he’d said. Then, as if fearing we still hadn’t got the message, he’d added, ‘If you were dealing with a burst appendix, would you take it out on a kitchen table?’
When Cynthia and Margaret chorused they might if they had to, he was appalled. ‘That’s the thing, though. The point of your skill is to ensure your patient gets to hospital if she needs to. Now you might choose to keep her at home,’ he pointed an accusing finger at Cynthia, who puffed her cheeks as if she might go into orbit, ‘but I, as a fullyqualified surgeon, would ensure she got the best of treatment in the right place. Hospital!’
Hopefully not to practise surgery by stealth, Margaret had gone to be a staff nurse in an Antrim hospital. I wondered if Cynthia missed her. We did but were happy she’d gone for a bright and sparkling future with Brian, who’d been transferred there.
‘Antrim’s got a nice wee racecourse, so it has,’ Seonaid had said. ‘We’ll come and meet up with you and Brian. Have a cup of tea and go on to have a wee flutter. Sixpence both ways maybe.’
Knowing my pal’s notion of hospitality might involve someone else in full scale catering for an unlimited period of time, I thought a day at the races was the least of Margaret’s problems. But she was happy, waving a finger and watching her engagement ring catch the light.
‘Sure. Why not? At least I won’t be the one getting into the saddle.’
Thinking of the Royal Maternity ones, I thought it was a pity we’d all failed to get Margaret cycling proficiently. She was going to miss the joys of tootling about Belfast on a bike, free from hospital’s constraints, with the privilege of seeing patients and getting an insight into their lives at home.
I was as excited on our first day on District as I was when first called ‘Nurse’. Desperate to saddle up and get going, I couldn’t believe it when told that our first lecture concerned our bikes and their maintenance .
Sister Marks was in charge of the District unit. She was young, dark and pretty, with a nice line in dry humour. She delivered the talk in the bike shed, flashing an old battered jotter before us. ‘This is the Accident Report Book. You’ll need to read it and hopefully learn from other people’s mistakes.’ She pointed to a bike chain with a finger carrying a suspicion of grease. ‘I expect you all know th
e basics. Pumping tyres, checking brakes and so forth, but if this comes off, I’m presuming you’d know how to put it back on?’
I nodded vigorously. This was easy! I’d been riding a bike since I was a kid. Loving the freedom two wheels could provide, I fancied I’d be the class’s cycling expert.
‘Good,’ said Sister Marks, noting my confidence, ‘but mind, biking can be dangerous, especially on busy roads.’ Her tone was light but I was disappointed.
The vision of effortlessly sailing along the Falls Road might need refining. Even if it did recognise a caring person on a bike, there was no guarantee traffic would scream to a halt to allow her to go about important duties.
We leafed through the book, astounded by its litany of disasters. One in particular grabbed our attention. ‘Furniture removal reversed into bicycle, thereby causing some scratching to the paintwork.’ There was no mention of the rider.
‘Nice that they look after the bikes so well,’ said Seonaid with caustic humour.
‘I’m thinking Margaret had the right idea after all.’ Marie’s face was puckered in worry. ‘I never thought cycling would be so hazardous and I was really looking forward to a wee spin.’
‘Nonsense!’ I got hearty. ‘You’re the one who was dying to get on a bike. You’ll be fine. Remember, the trick is to go at a steady pace and look ahead. Keep your eyes on the road. Now, come on! Sister Marks has given us directions to get to that GP’s antenatal clinic. Apparently it’s at a surgery. If we don’t get moving, we’ll miss seeing the patients.’
We steered the bikes out of the shed. From a previous encounter, I should have remembered they were so heavy they needed the care of handlers dealing with skittish colts. Maybe the front baskets carrying our black bags, laden with everything from a foetal stethoscope to a puncture repair kit, affected the steering but those steeds were intent on going everywhere but on the road.
