The Nurse Novel

by Alice Brennan

  “What the devil was the matter with your lawyer?” Burns expostulated. “He should’ve won your case!”

  David drew a shaky breath and smiled. “The patient’s wife had a shrewd lawyer, too—and the damaging testimony of the surgeon.”

  “I know.” Burns nodded. “Walter Peck. He’s had it in for you since the time you beat him out of that scholarship. But you won it fairly. Surely he wouldn’t stoop to perjury to get back at you.”

  “He didn’t have to. All he had to do was decline to justify my failure to come up with the right diagnosis. Their lawyer did the rest, including the implication that the man would have been alive and well, had I sent him to a competent neurosurgeon right away.”

  “Like Walter Peck!” Burns said wryly. “So they honked you for damages. What rotten luck!”

  “I wouldn’t mind the money so much. If an oversight, or error in judgment, caused the family financial difficulties in addition to their grief, I was willing to help them, even though it left me broke. What knocked me out was the damage to my professional reputation. I was just getting a good start in my practice, but I had very few patients left by the time the trial was over. That’s why I wrote to ask you what the possibilities would be for a practice out here where I hope no one has ever heard of me.”

  “I think you’ll like our set-up here,” Dr. Claibourne told him. “My father founded the clinic, but I no longer own it alone. It’s a cooperative affair, which I believe is a safeguard for patient and doctor alike, giving the patient the benefit of more than one expert opinion. It would virtually preclude the sort of disaster you’ve just experienced. We have no clinic beds, but use the facilities across the street at the Las Lomas Community Hospital. It’s a fine hospital, and could be still finer, I believe, if we had more clinic doctors on the staff to cooperate in a few innovations to improve standards of procedure and equipment. What we’re most in need of now is a promising young general surgeon. I understand you specialized in surgery, then dropped it for further study in diagnosis and internal medicine.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” David squirmed inwardly; he’d hoped this wouldn’t come up. “A few trying experiences—nothing I goofed on myself, particularly, but a combination of things that convinced me I didn’t want to face a lifetime of a surgeon’s responsibility. I figured that medication and diagnosis were more in my line. And as a result,” he chuckled harshly, “I guess I blew my first big test.”

  “Then I hope you’re willing to give surgery another try. I need a clinic surgeon who can not only make staff across the street, but qualify above Elwood Browne. I’m not saying anything against Browne as a surgeon; he’s done some brilliant work. But we don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of hospital procedure, and he’s considered a prime candidate to succeed Stan Matthews, the chief of surgery, who’s due for retirement soon.”

  “Aren’t you afraid you’re picking a rather lame duck for such an ambitious flight?” David couldn’t hide the bitterness.

  “If you considered yourself a lame duck—yes.” Claibourne’s tone was dry. “A surgeon needs confidence in himself. I’m making my offer on the strength of reports I’ve received, and Graham’s hearty recommendation. I hope you’ve sent your forms and fingerprints ahead to the California Board. Since you weren’t deprived of your license back home, there should be no problem getting it here. And if a period as clinic associate proves satisfactory, you’ll be offered full cooperative membership. That is, of course, provided you want to accept a position now on the terms I’ve laid down.”

  “I’ll accept!” David said fervently. “I’d be a damn fool if I didn’t!”

  Chapter 2

  “Come on out to the patio for a drink as soon as you’ve changed into something comfortable,” Graham said at the door of the room he’d declared was at David’s disposal for as long as he needed it.

  “Thanks, I will—and you’re sure it isn’t an imposition for me to…”

  “Wouldn’t think of letting you go anywhere else. For one thing, there are angles to the clinic and hospital set-up I’d like to discuss. And you must meet my wife.”

  “Oh, I remember Mildred well! It’ll be good to see her again. Has she gone back to nursing now that the kids are grown?”

  A stiffness came into Graham’s manner as he moved further into the room, smoothing back his thick white hair. “That’s what I wanted to explain before…that is… Mildred has gone back to nursing, all right. In fact, she’s superintendent of nurses at the hospital. But… This will surprise you, David, but Mildred and I are no longer married.”

  David felt his jaw drop. Of all the marriages he’d expected to endure, that of Graham and Mildred Burns could have headed the list. He remembered Mildred as a large, capable, delightful woman, genial, but with a quick, sincere sympathy that won the confidence of patients, doctors, and friends. She’d been a graduate nurse before Graham finished medical college, and her work had financed the rest of his education after their marriage. She’d postponed a family until his practice was well established, then devoted herself to rearing a couple of the best behaved children David had ever known. Mildred wasn’t a beautiful woman, but her personality made looks unimportant—and it had always seemed to him that she and Graham were deeply in love.

  “I—I can hardly believe it,” he murmured, wondering how one should reply to this sort of announcement. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “It’s just one of those things,” Graham said, averting his glance. “We outlived our marriage, maybe became different persons from the boy and girl who once needed each other. Mildred took it very well when she understood, and of course she’s making a good life for herself.”

  “Of course. Where are the children?”

  “They’re not children any more. Don’s at U.C.L.A. and Peggy at Pomona. They didn’t approve of the divorce, but kids can’t be allowed to run their parents’ lives. I’ve married again. Coralee’s having a golf lesson this afternoon, but she’ll be along soon.

  “Well,” he started for the door, “I’ll go mix us a drink.”

  David blinked at the closed door for a moment, then turned his attention to the room. It was constructed and furnished in Spanish style like the rest of the house, and bore distinctive marks of affluence. As David showered in a bathroom that was half onyx tile and half mirrors, he couldn’t throw off a sense of hurt on Mildred’s behalf. Maybe it was as Graham had said; they outgrew their early love. But it seemed a dirty shame, after the financial struggles they’d been through, that they couldn’t enjoy these years of luxury together. Naturally she “took it well.” She was that sort of person. But she didn’t deserve to be junked because a younger model had come along—if that’s what had happened. David found himself resenting Coralee already.

  The sunlight was dappled by the slender leaves of a white-trunked eucalyptus tree when David, attired now in gray slacks and a blue sports shirt, stepped through the sliding glass doors to the patio. Graham sat beside a kidney-shaped swimming pool, surrounded by an array of garden furniture. He gestured lazily toward a plastic-webbed chaise and handed David a cocktail from a portable bar.

  “Let’s drink to your future in Las Lomas. I think Cyril liked you, right off. I can tell whether he’s pleased or not.”

  “You’re the one who counts,” David said sincerely. “I hope you’ll never be sorry you recommended me for…”

  “Don’t give it a thought! We need a smart young surgeon, and I’ve heard from friends back there that you did some remarkable work as resident. I can’t understand why you…”

  He stopped, his face lighting, as a golden yellow convertible pulled into the carport beside the house, parking next to the conservative black Buick that occupied the other half.

  David thought at first the girl at the wheel must be Graham’s daughter, back from Pomona. But he remembered Peggy as definitely blond, and the curls this girl wore tied back with a
gauzy scrap of yellow scarf were ebony black.

  “Here’s Coralee,” Graham said in a hushed tone that just missed being reverent. David knew he was staring, but couldn’t take his eyes off the girl as she stepped nimbly out of the car.

  She wore tailored white shorts and a pale yellow sweater that fit her slim form snugly. She looked definitely more than Peggy’s age now, probably in her mid-twenties, and as beautiful a girl as David had ever seen.

  “So you’re David,” she said when Graham introduced them. Her voice was in such flat contrast to her appearance that it brought him out of his near-trance and he could breathe normally again.

  “Graham says I can help you find an apartment,” she went on in a tone that had neither resonance nor depth. If he had heard her first on the telephone, David thought, he’d have pictured her as a dull, drab, dishwater blonde, probably chewing gum.

  “That would be nice of you,” David said cautiously, wondering if Graham had suggested, or simply consented to her offering help. “House-hunting’s a chore—but I don’t want to impose.”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be an imposition!” Her eyes sparkled and her voice almost came to life. “I love looking at houses and apartments. You should have a bachelor studio—like some of those cute little houses in the Lomacita section.” She turned to Graham. “Don’t you think so?”

  Instead of answering, Graham took her in his arms for the delayed kiss of greeting. Her response was no casual wifely peck. She lifted her arms to circle his neck as her lips parted beneath his and her lithe body tilted against him. Graham pulled her fiercely close, and David tore his gaze away from them on a surge of feeling that was half embarrassment, half vicarious thrill.

  When Coralee had gone inside saying she’d be back for a cocktail as soon as she got into dinner clothes, Graham sighed deeply and sat down.

  “Isn’t she a knockout?” he asked, picking up his drink and staring at the glass doors through which she had disappeared. “I tell you, David, it’s like starting all over to fall in love with a girl like that. It’s added years to my life.”

  Or has it added years to your age? David wondered, again noting the network of lines under his leathery tan. And what about Mildred? She must have had to start life over too, but with no enchantment.

  “I have to admit you can still pick ’em,” he managed to say lightly; then, in a tone of wonder, he added, “Where the devil did you find her?”

  “Right in the clinic, believe it or not! She came to Claibourne as a patient, and when he found she was down and out, he gave her a job. She’s a top steno, but that isn’t the career she wanted. She damn near starved trying to get into movies or TV after winning a beauty contest back home. You’d think a girl with her looks could make the grade—but I guess beauty’s a drug on the market in Hollywood.”

  “I’d say it was her voice,” David suggested, and Graham shrugged.

  “I suppose so. I’ve had her taking vocal lessons, and she can achieve a richer tone when she tries. But she keeps forgetting, and the natural flatness creeps back. I’m so used to it now I hardly notice—but I guess it did shut a lot of doors in her face.” He smiled brightly. “Which was a break for me. Without that sort of trouble she’d never have fallen for a guy old enough to be her father.”

  David heard the shower running inside, and a surprisingly brief time later Coralee came out looking like a Polynesian. She wore a dark red Hawaiian sarong dress that left her smooth, golden-tan shoulders bare. Her straw sandals revealed scarlet toenails, each a perfect oval. Her hair, wet from the shower, was an onyx cap that broke into clusters of curls at her neck. David was stunned anew at the beauty of her face as she lifted the Manhattan Graham had mixed for her, and smiled.

  “To your success in Las Lomas, David,” she said, her flat tones softened to little-girl breathlessness. Then their glasses touched, and she drained her Manhattan in a few swift gulps.

  “Not enough bitters,” she said, handing Graham her glass. “But I’ll take another. Emily says dinner won’t be for an hour, so that gives me time to catch up with you. Let’s go inside. It’s getting chilly.”

  The sun had disappeared behind a magnolia tree, leaving the breeze a little sharp, but David couldn’t feel cold while Coralee’s presence set his pulses pounding.

  Cut it out! he told himself as they went inside. Surely he had better sense than to get steamed up over the wife of his best, and perhaps only, friend here.

  A fire had been lighted on the hearth, and Coralee sat on a pillow in front of it while Graham poured them each another drink. When he sat down, she moved her pillow close to rest against his knees.

  “Where shall we start looking for David’s new home?” she asked, tilting her head to give her husband a smile that somehow had the intimacy of a caress. “If you won’t need the convertible tomorrow we’ll start out first thing.”

  “Really, it won’t be necessary,” David protested, becoming alarmed at the idea of spending time alone with her. “I’ll find something.”

  “Don’t be silly!” She cut him off lightly. “You won’t even have a car till they measure you for size and equipment. The bus service in this town is lousy. Too few people need it. And I come cheaper than taxi fare. Don’t I, darling?” Her voice was hushed again as she gave her husband the intimate smile.

  Graham laid a caressing hand on her hair, then dragged his attention back to David. “What she means is that Cyril likes his clinic doctors to use cars equipped with safety belts and telephones. You won’t be going out on ordinary house calls. That is, if a stranger phones and wants a doctor, you refer him to the clinic office or the Physician’s Exchange. But there will be a few calls necessary among your regular patients, and it’s imperative that the clinic and hospital be able to get hold of you when you’re out in your car. Coralee will drive you to the agency that supplies us, and he’ll take your order. Then you might as well let her help you find a house or apartment. She has a wonderful faculty for tracking them down. Besides, if she’s made up her mind, you can’t escape.”

  They smiled at each other in a way that momentarily left David out. When they came back to him, he started asking questions about the clinic and the hospital, trying to keep his mind, as well as his eyes, off the fascinating creature who lounged at Graham’s knees. She made it no easier by training her eyes on David, so that every time his glance strayed her way it was caught by her warm, probing gaze.

  Las Lomas Hospital, David learned, as he struggled to keep his attention on the subject, was a two-hundred-and-twenty bed and twenty-eight bassinet edifice, founded in 1900 and incorporated in the State of California as a nonprofit charitable institution.

  “Some day this week I’ll take you to meet Kurt Miller, chairman of the board,” Graham promised. “And if you drop around by the hospital tomorrow I’ll introduce you to Jimmie Bristow, the administrator, a good example of what it does to a man to remain a bachelor too long. Not that he isn’t highly efficient, and a fine fellow, but…oh, well… There’ll be a staff meeting Friday night, so you’ll meet your medical associates then. And… But to get back to this bachelor business…” His eyes narrowed quizzically. “How have you escaped marriage so long?”

  “I don’t like that word ‘escaped’, darling,” Coralee chided, her sultry mouth pouting a little. “It makes women sound so—so predatory! Maybe Dave just hasn’t found the right girl.” She turned to him, her dark eyebrows arched inquiringly.

  “I found her,” David said, his voice low with hurt that was diminished now, but had never quite left him, and perhaps never would.

  “You remember Diane Pritchard, don’t you, Graham?” he asked.

  “John Pritchard’s little girl? Sure, I remember. A sweet, blue-eyed child with golden hair. You mean she was old enough for you?”

  “She was twenty-one when we discovered she had a congenital heart condition—Patent Ductur Arteriosus.”


  “I know what that is,” Coralee broke in. “I learned a lot while taking dictation at the clinic. It’s when a big blood vessel that bypasses the lungs in an unborn baby, fails to close off after birth.”

  “That’s right,” Graham told her, then he frowned at David. “Couldn’t it be ligated? It’s been done successfully even at that age, if no other cardiac anomalies are present, and if bacterial endocarditis hasn’t already set in.”

  “I know. They ligated, and everything seemed to go fine. Two of the best heart surgeons I know did the job exactly as I’d have done it, but with more experienced skill. That’s when I decided to give up surgery, I guess—though I’d already considered it. A few days after the operation the duct ruptured and recanalization took place around the ligatures. Multiple pulmonary emboli developed and she was dead in two weeks. It was concluded on autopsy that the ligature had been tied too energetically. But how is a surgeon to know at just what degree of stress a ligature will hold without injuring a congenitally fragile duct?”

  “A surgeon can’t berate himself for errors like that!” Graham said sharply. “It can’t even be called an error if he has used his highest skill and best judgment. That particular ligation is a gamble in an adult, anyway. It should be done when a child is four or five years old.”

  “If it’s discovered, yes, but…”

  “Excuse me, Dr. Burns!”

  They all turned to the doorway where a plump woman had appeared. “Excuse me,” she repeated. “But dinner is ready.”

  “Thank God!” Coralee exclaimed, scrambling nimbly to her feet. “You doctors were getting too damned technical!”