The Nurse Novel

by Alice Brennan

  Agnes hung up on him.

  “He’s a quack,” she said trembling. “I can tell from the way he talked to me. He has no thought about his patients. He doesn’t care. He offers suggestions on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. I wouldn’t have a doctor like that touch Ellen.”

  Her mother said, her voice still cold, “Dr. Bronley is a specialist in his field, Agnes. And it was you who told me to take Ellen to him in the first place.”

  “All right,” Agnes said, close to the breaking point, “I was wrong. We’ll find another doctor for Ellen.”

  “It won’t do any good,” her mother said. “Look at Ellen. Listen to her. Stop closing your eyes and your ears and your mind. Ellen’s very sick and I refuse to sit here beside her and watch her die.”

  They parted with harsh words and bitter accusations. “Don’t wait those two weeks,” her mother said. “Find a place and someone to take care of Ellen. I no longer want the job. I’m bowing out. I refuse to be around to see my granddaughter die needlessly.”

  “I don’t need you,” Agnes screamed at her. “You weren’t there when Harvey walked out on me. I managed to get through that on my own, and to have Ellen on my own. I can manage this without your help, too!”

  Her mother’s face was soft with pity, “I’m sorry for you, Agnes.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Smog clouded the air that morning, stung the eyes and made each breath agony. The elms and the few palms along the street were ghostly sentinels.

  Merry felt dispirited. On days like this she was frequently overcome with a desire to go back to Michigan where there wasn’t any smog, where the air was pure and clean.

  She sighed and turned toward the bus window to see the air that was thick and yellow and hung like a curtain shutting off most of the view.

  Under her breath she said, “Southern California in the smog would make a great background for one of those old English horror movies. Strange that it hasn’t been done.”

  Tammy glanced up vaguely and shrugged. “Yeah,” she said. She felt miserable. The wonder of the last two nights was gone. Her head ached and her stomach rumbled. She’d eaten far too much rich, spicy food she wasn’t used to. She’d drunk vodka and champagne and the two hadn’t mixed. And poisoning her thoughts was the fear that Pierson Webb had only been putting her on, that he had no intention either of talking to her or of thinking of her for a screen test.

  She focused dully on the feet of the woman hanging onto a strap directly in front of her. The heels of the woman’s shoes were worn on one side, and the leather on the toes was ripped. Above the shoes the woman’s ankles bulged heavily.

  Tammy closed her eyes quickly. Ugliness depressed her. The ache in her head got worse. “I don’t feel sorry for people,” she thought. “Not even for my patients. I take care of them and do all of the things that have to be done, but it’s automatic. I don’t have any compassion. Not even when they die.” The knowledge frightened her a little. “How did I get to be like this? Maybe I was born with something missing.” She felt more depressed and wished the bus ride would end. Maybe she could lose herself in work for the next eight hours.

  * * * *

  Merry turned from her intense concentration on the window to examine the passengers who crowded the bus to capacity. Everyone seemed engrossed in his own private miseries. A child coughed and then whined, and the mother held him tighter against her, as if her very nearness could protect him.

  She switched her attention covertly to Agnes, who was staring straight ahead, her face blank. There were dark circles under her eyes and her mouth drooped as if she had slept little or not at all.

  She had come in very late from her San Francisco trip, but both Merry and Tammy had been awake. Agnes had declined Merry’s offer to fix her something to eat, and had made herself a cup of coffee and gone into the bedroom with it, closing the door firmly and emphatically behind her.

  “Well,” Tammy had shrugged. “I think she’s trying to tell us something.”

  Merry said, “Let her alone, Tammy.”

  “Sure, sure,” Tammy said. “If you were to ask me, I’d say that was exactly what she was telling us—‘let me alone.’ So…” She shook her head at Merry. “I’m telling you,” she told her. “I shouldn’t have gone to that second party with Arch. Two parties in two nights is one party too much for little old me.”

  She groaned and Merry laughed. “Not that I don’t feel sorry for you,” she told Tammy, “but you do look funny.”

  “Sure, sure,” Tammy said bitterly. “I feel far funnier.”

  * * * *

  The bus lumbered to a stop and the three girls got off. Agnes, usually slower than the other two girls, brushed ahead of them.

  “I’d say,” Tammy said wryly, “she doesn’t want any conversation with us.”

  Merry nodded but said nothing. She ducked her head and held the collar of her light coat up around her mouth and nose to help erase the effects of the smog. She half ran, half walked the remaining block to the hospital, Tammy close at her heels.

  “Hey,” Tammy said, when they reached the haven of the hospital corridor, “you run a neat mile, my friend. I’d hate to be in a race against you.”

  Merry laughed, although she wasn’t in the mood for laughter. “Didn’t you know?” she said. “I was on the track team in high school. The only girl.”

  “I’m ready to believe it.”

  * * * *

  When they reached the lockers, Agnes had already put away her things and stood adjusting her white cap on her dark, wind-blown hair.

  She barely glanced at them on her way to the elevator that would carry her up to the fifth floor. “Lousy day,” was her only comment.

  Merry nodded, and Tammy said cheerfully, “I think we agreed on that before breakfast.”

  Agnes pressed the up button. “I shouldn’t behave like this,” she told herself, “but I can’t help it. I don’t want to talk…or think.” She bit at her underlip as she boarded the elevator. “I don’t even want to be!”

  Merry, watching Agnes walk away, thought, “It’s just like Pierson Webb’s party. I think Agnes should have gone, because it would have taken her out of herself. She should talk to someone now, if not me or Tammy, then someone. She really needs to talk.”

  She sighed and smoothed her blonde hair. There was nothing anyone could do for Agnes, unless she herself asked.

  As they stepped onto the elevator, Tammy said, “You look thoughtful. Agnes?”

  Merry merely nodded.

  “Well,” Tammy said, philosophically, “she wants to keep it a private misery. And wouldn’t you be the first one to tell me that it’s her right?”

  Merry grinned wryly. “Touché.”

  She was still thoughtful as she approached the nursing station. Mrs. Keyes, on duty at the desk, glanced up coldly. “There’s a number for you to call, Miss Neil. It says urgent.”

  Merry frowned. Panic grew in her. Her mother? Had something happened to her mother? No one she knew would phone her at the hospital unless it were really necessary. She drew her breath in sharply.

  Her voice trembled as she picked up the phone and asked for an outside line.

  When she got the number Mrs. Keyes had given her, she heard a voice say coolly, “Oh, yes, Miss Niel, Miss Pries wishes to speak to you.”

  Merry breathed into the phone, “Miss Pries? You mean Natalie Pries?”

  The voice at the other end of the line laughed. “There’s another Miss Pries, dear?”

  While she waited for Natalie to come on. Merry looked at the nurse bent over a chart book at the desk. She thought in dismay, “Does she think I arranged this?”

  And then Natalie’s sultry sweetness came over the wire. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re very busy working at this horrid hour of the morning,” she said.

  Merry
said carefully, “I’m on duty, Miss Pries, and we aren’t allowed to have personal calls at the hospital.”

  Natalie remarked impatiently, “Who pays any attention to rules, sweetie?”

  “What is so urgent that you had to phone me here, Miss Pries?”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s exactly urgent,” Natalie laughed, “but I want to have lunch with you, Merry. There’s something I want to tell you. And I think you should know this. I mean I really do.”

  Merry tried hard not to be angry, but she was embarrassed that Natalie had phoned her at the hospital and that Mrs. Keyes could think that she had given her permission. She said, her voice as steady as she could make it, “I couldn’t; I’m on duty until five tonight.”

  “All right, then we’ll make it dinner,” Natalie proposed.

  Merry was desperate to get her off the phone. “Not tonight; I can’t make it. Tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I’ll be waiting for you outside the hospital.”

  Merry hung up quickly. She was curious about what Natalie had to tell her. About Jeff, she thought, and dismissed the coldness that thumped against her. “I should have told her I wasn’t interested.” She drew in her breath, “But that would have been a lie.”

  It angered her that she had to admit to the interest. She picked up her records for the day, and Mrs. Keyes said, the coldness clearer in her voice, “Please tell your friends, Miss Neil, that the hospital is not the place to conduct personal telephone conversations.”

  Merry flushed and said, in quick defense, “Miss Pries isn’t a friend of mine. I’ve met her, that’s all. And I had no idea she was going to phone me here today.” She added, under her breath, “Or any day.”

  The older nurse’s heavy eyebrows rose slightly. “Well, well,” she said, “what have we here? I’m sure most girls would be more than willing to admit to friendship with Natalie Pries.”

  Merry shrugged, “Perhaps.”

  She turned away from the desk, and the nurse said, “Oh, yes, Dr. Horne wants to see you before you leave the hospital.” Merry nodded and moved away, puzzled. She had had no contact with Dr. Horne since Pierson Webb’s operation. He was a surgeon and she was not a surgical nurse.

  It was eleven before she was free to seek out Dr. Horne, but then he was in surgery.

  When she finally saw him it was four. He smiled at her and motioned her to a seat. “Miss Neil,” he said, “I’ll come straight to the point. Pierson Webb phoned me last night and insisted that I persuade you to leave the hospital to become his private nurse.”

  Merry shook her head. “I can’t, Dr. Horne. I told Mr. Webb when he asked me the day he left the hospital.” She spread her hands in a hopeless gesture. “I’m a hospital nurse, Dr. Horne. I wouldn’t want to be anything else.”

  He sighed and smiled at her again, as he got to his feet. “I told him as much,” he said. “But if you know Pierson at all, you know he isn’t a man you can say no to. He doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.”

  “I’m sorry,” Merry said lamely.

  He said slowly, “You were in surgery when he was taken there.” Merry nodded, and he continued, “So you are aware of his condition.”

  “Yes.” She felt distressed. “In spite of that, Dr. Horne, I can’t do it. He doesn’t really need me. There are all kinds of fine nurses he could hire. I don’t think he even really wants me, I mean not as me. I think it’s just because I…”

  Dr. Horne smiled encouragingly at her. “Because you told him no,” he finished. “Of course you’re right. And you needn’t be sorry at all.”

  As she left Dr. Horne’s office she thought, “But I am sorry for him. I’m sorrier for him than for any person I know. To have led such an empty life and then have to die.”

  Tammy, passing by, gave her a nudge. “Hey,” she said, “you look horrible.” Her eyes crinkled in delight. “You just came out of Horne’s office. Did he make a pass at you or something?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped.

  When she left the hospital the smog was still as thick and acrid as ever. She found herself wishing that Arch Heller’s white Jaguar would be waiting at the curb.

  She rode home on the bus with all the other coughing, miserable people who cursed and berated the smog.

  As Merry climbed the three flights of stairs, she heard the frantic ringing of the telephone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She hurried inside and picked up the receiver impatiently.

  The operator’s voice was calm and unhurried. “I have a long distance call for a Mrs. Harvey Miles. Is she there, please?”

  Merry repeated, her voice puzzled, “Mrs. Harvey Miles?”

  Just as she realized that the call was for Agnes, the receiver was snatched from her hand and Agnes, her voice brittle with anger, said into the telephone, “My name is not Miles. It’s McLeod. Do you understand? It’s McLeod!”

  Merry stood to one side. “Mrs. Harvey Miles.” That meant Agnes had never divorced her husband. She turned to leave the room, having no desire to listen to the private conversation.

  But Agnes’ voice had risen and carried into the kitchen. “Dr. Bronley,” she screamed, her voice shaking, “Ellen is my daughter. Mine! Not my mother’s. Mine. And I’ll say what’s to be done about her!”

  Merry heard her drop the phone violently back on the cradle. At first there was silence and then Agnes’ wild, uncontrolled weeping filled the small apartment.

  Merry rushed into the other room and knelt beside Agnes. “Don’t, don’t,” she begged. “Nothing can be so bad as all that.”

  “A lot you know about it. But Ellen isn’t your daughter, is she? All you have to worry about is—is whether or not to go to a party. Or if—if one of us comes in late for dinner when you’re cooking. You don’t have any real worries.”

  She glared up at Tammy who had come in and was standing against the door watching the scene with wide-eyed wonder. “And you,” she flung at her. “All you have to worry about is whether you can maneuver some guy into seeing you get a screen test, and what dress to wear to what party. And…and!” She burst into even wilder sobbing.

  Tammy shrugged. “My, my, my, but she’s really putting one on, isn’t she?”

  Merry shook her head at Tammy and mouthed a silent no.

  Tammy said, “Whatever I’ve blundered into, I had nothing to do with.” She tried for lightness. “Honest injun.” Holding up one hand so Agnes could see her crossed fingers.

  And then suddenly as it came through to her, her eyes widened even more and her mouth flew open. She said, staring at Agnes, “What do you mean ‘daughter’?” Her eyes fixed on Agnes’ bowed head. “That ‘friend’ you’ve been going to San Francisco to see,” she said, “is really your daughter. No wonder you’ve been so upset.” Her voice was suddenly warm with pity. “Agnes, I didn’t mean to be silly sounding. If I’d known…”

  Agnes lifted her head, not bothering with the tears that streamed down her cheeks. “So now you know,” she said, her voice filled with pain and defeat. “Her name’s Ellen and she’s five years old, and my mother and one quack of a doctor are trying to make me believe there’s something wrong with her heart, and if she doesn’t have surgery to correct the condition, she’s going to die.”

  Merry and Tammy glanced quickly at each other and then at Agnes. Tammy asked, her voice unusually gentle, “Is she Harvey’s child, Agnes?”

  Agnes said roughly, “Of course she is. Who else was I married to?”

  Merry asked slowly, “Does he know about this heart condition, Agnes? Being a doctor himself, he’d know more about something like that than you would. What does he say?”

  Agnes’ shaky voice was tinged with defiance. “How can he know about her condition?” she said. “When he doesn’t even know she exists?”

  Tammy asked, her tone incredulous, “He doesn’
t know he has a daughter? That’s a little…unfair, isn’t it? I mean if he’s her father, doesn’t he have the right to know about it?”

  Agnes’ trembling lips tightened. “No!” she said. “He never wanted her. He walked out on me when I was pregnant. He’s never given a damn about her. About anyone, except that stupid medical career of his!”

  Tammy said carefully, “You’re tripping all over yourself, Agnes. How can he care about someone he doesn’t even know exists?”

  Agnes said bitterly, “Even if he’d known I was going to have her, it wouldn’t have made any difference to him; he’d still have left me.”

  Tammy said, “If I’d been in your place, he’d darn well have known about her. And he’d have provided for her, too.”

  Agnes said coldly, “I had too much pride to beg him for anything. I’d rather have died than accept a single penny he offered me. I’d rather die now.”

  Merry asked hesitantly, “Is it money, Agnes? Is that why you’re worried over the suggestion of surgery?”

  Agnes shook her head. “I can take care of Ellen,” she said stonily. “But I don’t think she needs surgery, just because my mother and that quack of a doctor think that she…”

  Merry broke in carefully, “Who’s her doctor, Agnes?”

  “Dr. Paul Bronley,” she said defensively. “You don’t have to tell me he’s a specialist:. I know he is. But that doesn’t make him any less a quack!”

  Merry shook her head. “You shouldn’t be afraid of surgery. You’re a nurse, Agnes. You know the wonders it’s accomplished. Heart surgery isn’t the gamble it was only a few years back. It…”

  “Don’t go quoting statistics to me! I don’t care if the statistics say only one in a thousand die. If my Ellen is that one, then the statistics don’t mean anything!”

  Tammy asked, “What if she needs surgery and doesn’t have it? What happens? Does she die, Agnes?”

  Agnes’ face twisted. “Stay out of this,” she said. “No one asked you to interfere. Doctors aren’t always right, you know. They’ve been proven wrong a good many times.”