Tiger Country

by Nina Raine

  JOHN. Then the anaesthetist was right. She was dead on arrival.

  EMILY. We had to do an arrest with one nurse, an FY2, an anaesthetist who couldn’t wait to call it and half the drugs missing off the trolley. We weren’t exactly giving her the benefit of the doubt, were we?

  Beat.

  That is not an arrest team. And I shouldn’t have been leading it. She didn’t stand a chance.

  She looks at JOHN. He is expressionless.

  What is wrong with you? You’re the one who’s fucking dead, you know that?

  I was looking down at her and her face was this grey colour and all I could think was, that’s me. She was my age.

  Can you hear what I’m saying?

  JOHN. Yes. I can hear what you’re saying.

  He turns on his heel and goes.

  VASHTI comes up to EMILY.

  VASHTI. Try not to care so much. Not to care about the doctors, not to care about the patients.

  VASHTI goes.

  Suddenly, the old lady, GILLIAN, is there, standing in her nightie. Throughout this next exchange she is extremely matter-of-fact, dispassionate.

  GILLIAN. I thought you’d forgotten about me.

  EMILY (dully, automatically – she is miles away). No, not forgotten about you.

  Beat. She rouses herself.

  Shouldn’t you be in bed? What ward –

  When did you get your speech back?

  GILLIAN. Yesterday.

  Beat.

  EMILY. Who’s… who’ve we got looking after you now?

  GILLIAN. I don’t know.

  EMILY (going towards her, then stopping). What ward have you come from?

  Beat.

  GILLIAN. I don’t want to be put in a box.

  Beat.

  EMILY. I’m sure there won’t be any need for that.

  GILLIAN. You won’t let them put me in a box.

  EMILY. No.

  GILLIAN. Who are all the people? (Gestures round vaguely.) This room is full of people.

  It is deserted.

  EMILY (puts a hand on her). You should be in bed.

  GILLIAN. They’re all here. (Looking directly at EMILY.) They come and sit on my bed.

  (Confidentially.) I need to get back. He can’t look after himself.

  A NURSE comes up.

  NURSE. Come on, darling, this isn’t where we usually have our cocktail parties. You’ve had us all looking for you.

  (To EMILY. In an undertone.) She’s a bit confused.

  GILLIAN (to EMILY). Don’t forget about me.

  EMILY. Of course not.

  GILLIAN. I won’t forget about you.

  You’ve got a heavy gold chain around your neck.

  EMILY takes a step away from her, puts her hand up to her neck. There is only her stethoscope.

  It doesn’t suit you.

  You’ve got cobwebs on your face.

  It doesn’t suit you.

  NURSE (gently but firmly leading her away). Come on now, my love.

  GILLIAN (reassuringly). I won’t forget about you.

  The NURSE leads her away.

  The Consultants’ Office

  VASHTI sits, slumped, in a chair. BRIAN comes in.

  BRIAN. I want to apologise, Vashti.

  He doesn’t register her state of mind. As he speaks she shows no reaction.

  In your interview tomorrow they’re going to bring up your conduct with the junior members of your team and ask you to justify it. Mark put in a bullying form against you, a month ago. I’m sorry. You should have complained to the consultants when you wanted to. You would have got your story in first. Your instincts were right.

  Beat.

  I gave you the wrong advice.

  Beat.

  Your chances are still good because academically you’re far and away the strongest candidate, I’ve had a look at the list. Play it right, it’s yours. It’s all in the playing.

  Beat.

  All they want is –

  VASHTI. A team player.

  Beat.

  BRIAN. Yes.

  Finally VASHTI speaks, flatly.

  VASHTI. I’m interested in this ‘team’ business. What does it mean?

  BRIAN. Being able to work together.

  …Sharing responsibility…

  …Getting on with people.

  Beat.

  VASHTI. Mark can’t.

  BRIAN. If Mark doesn’t sort himself out then he’ll damage his prospects too.

  He’ll screw things up for himself very nicely, don’t you worry. He’s not happy, poor sod. Half his problems stem from the fact that he didn’t go to public school.

  VASHTI. Yes.

  Slowly.

  You know, I think I’m a bit like Mark.

  Thanks, Brian. For telling me.

  BRIAN. That’s okay.

  He is disconcerted by her passivity.

  Are you all right?

  VASHTI. Who’s going to be there in my interview?

  BRIAN. The usual, plus a representative surgeon from a different specialty. You know, for the sake of keeping it –

  VASHTI (interrupting). Who’s the representative surgeon?

  BRIAN. Mr Milward.

  Beat.

  Has something happened?

  Beat.

  VASHTI. The funny thing is, Brian…

  I am a team player. I wish I wasn’t. Because if any one of my team fucks up, that’s my fuck-up. That’s why I wouldn’t let Mark finish stitching up after me that day. Because his crap scar belonged to me as well.

  Beat.

  And right now, my aunt’s lying in a bed, peritonitic, on Cowley ward, because not only Milward made a fuck-up, but his whole team.

  BRIAN. Your aunt?

  VASHTI. Milward rogered her bile duct when he took her gall bladder out and nobody noticed that she was getting worse and worse, instead of better and better. I found out last night.

  Beat.

  And then I found out that there was fuck-all in the notes. And then Mr Milward didn’t answer any of my calls. No one here does work together. They’re all out hunting, for themselves.

  BRIAN.…Don’t let this affect your interview.

  VASHTI. I won’t let it affect my interview. But Mr Milward might.

  Beat.

  I’m not going to hang about any more. I’m going to go over his head. I’m going to get her transferred. I’m going to ring up my old consultant at Tommy’s and get her transferred to a surgeon who knows what he’s doing.

  BRIAN. You can’t.

  VASHTI. I can. I just have to pick up the phone. It’s not yet five o’clock. Prof’ll still be there.

  BRIAN. Vashti, this is suicide.

  VASHTI. I read, in the BMJ, when we settle a score, the same neurones in our brain experience activity as the ones stimulated by eating something sugary. In other words, revenge is sweet.

  BRIAN. You’re losing your objectivity.

  VASHTI. I think I lost it a long time ago.

  What is it about this place that makes you into the opposite of what you are? Pretend you’re a man if you’re a woman, pretend you’re English if you’re Indian, I mean listen, listen to the voice I’ve invented for myself. It’s like something out of Jennings. ‘Jolly bad show!’ I’m like Prof Bhatacharia, a poncy Indian man in a pin-striped suit with a watch on a chain who shuns everything Indian.

  This place has hurt one of my family and I can’t take it.

  BRIAN. If you go over Milward’s head and take your aunt out of this hospital then you can kiss that job goodbye.

  VASHTI. If I don’t, she’ll die in that bed by the window. Because if you’re a real team player in this place, you never take any responsibility for anything. You’re part of a team so you’re safe.

  There are animals who are happy in this place, and animals who aren’t.

  I’m kissing goodbye to the job. I should have done it a long time ago.

  She starts to dial on a phone.

  Emily’s Room

&nbs
p; JAMES sits on the bed, drinking a can of beer. Morning light streams through the window. He is watching daytime television – Doctors. EMILY comes in.

  EMILY. What are you doing?

  JAMES. What does it look like I’m doing? I’m having a beer and watching daytime television.Doctors, to be precise.

  EMILY. Why?

  JAMES. Because I’ve just finished a night shift.

  EMILY. So have I. Am I cracking open beers and watching shite?

  Beat, filled with the dialogue from Doctors.

  I can’t bear this.

  She turns it off.

  We didn’t get her back.

  JAMES. Who?

  EMILY. A twenty-four-year-old cardiac arrest.

  JAMES. You win some, you lose some.

  EMILY sits, slowly.

  EMILY. When we were trying to resuscitate her I looked up and I saw her. Up in the corner of the room. Just before she completely flatlined. The anaesthetist said there was no rhythm, that it was just interference.

  Beat.

  JAMES. You’re tired and freaked out.

  Beat.

  EMILY. All through the rest of the night shift my shoulders were stiff and aching. I couldn’t think why and then I realised. It was the CPR that I’d given that girl. I felt… dirty. She’d got into me. That dead girl.

  Pause

  …I thought I could do this job. I can’t.

  JAMES. You did your best.

  He puts an arm around her. She detaches herself from him. She is crying properly, for the first time.

  EMILY. No I didn’t. I couldn’t read the signs properly. I don’t know why she died.

  JAMES. We’re just detectives, we look at the clues. Sometimes the arrows point in different directions.

  EMILY. I felt that girl’s rib break when I was giving her CPR.

  JAMES. Things get mended, things get broken. It’s like a car, you get in there and try to fix it.

  EMILY. We were trying to bring a dead person back to life. And we couldn’t.

  She winces.

  JAMES. What’s wrong?

  EMILY. A pain. In my back, in my chest. (Her arms are wrapped around herself.)

  JAMES. How long have you had it for?

  EMILY. I don’t know. I ache all over, all of the time, I feel dirty and sick all the time, I’m sick of the smell in this place, I hate breathing in the smell of shit on Care of the Elderly –

  JAMES. So breathe through your mouth, that’s what I do.

  EMILY. Yeah, breathe through your mouth, wear gloves, stop listening when they’re going on. Shut down, don’t let them in.

  JAMES.…Why have you got your arms like that?

  EMILY. ‘To keep myself sterile.’

  Beat.

  This place is making me sick. It stinks of death. It’s making you sick too, James, you’re drinking beer at nine in the morning.

  JAMES. It isn’t nine in the morning, as far as I’m concerned it’s nine in the evening, I’ve just finished a hard day’s work, I’m having a few beers, and I’m watching Doctors. As my escape from reality.

  EMILY. But it’s not nine in the evening. You’re upside down.

  JAMES. I don’t give a fuck. That’s what I do when I finish a day’s work. That’s what I do. What, the girl went some place in the sky, that’s in capital letters just slightly out of focus? This is all bullshit.

  EMILY. Yeah. You’ve changed.

  JAMES.…I can’t believe you actually just said that.

  EMILY. You go into this job because you care. To stay in it, you have to stop.

  JAMES. And what does ‘caring’ mean, exactly? So someone dies and all you can think is that you’re fucking hungry and when are you going to get the chance to eat that tuna baguette. So what? What we feel isn’t some standardised A4 thing, Emily, it’s torn-up, bits, bobs, scraps, Post-its. Whether you’re a doctor or not. Don’t go on about lacking the appropriate emotions because who has appropriate emotions anyway? If you think that makes us inhuman then you’ve got a fucking stupid idea of what being human is. And you haven’t got the monopoly on it.

  Pause.

  EMILY. Something’s broken… like a tiny cog inside a clock that’s jammed… and I can’t mend it.

  Pause.

  I slept with somebody else.

  Beat.

  JAMES. Who?

  EMILY. Mark.

  JAMES. Why?

  EMILY. Because he wanted to.

  Beat.

  JAMES.…You fucking idiot.

  EMILY. Because we’re finished. It’s a weird feeling, it’s just outside the frame, but it’s a massive fracture, bleeding internally.

  JAMES. Why him?

  EMILY. It’s not about him. Nothing more is going to happen with him. It’s because you stop caring out there and you stop caring in here, the traffic is two-way –

  JAMES. Please please please don’t use that fucking word again!

  EMILY. What word?

  JAMES. Care! How do you know I don’t care?

  Beat.

  EMILY. It hurts. Here. (Her chest.)

  Beat.

  JAMES. So see a doctor.

  He leaves.

  The Ward

  Morning. Sunlight. VASHTI stands irresolutely. Holding a purple form. It is obvious she has been crying. The middle-aged nurse, OLGA, walks by, sees her.

  OLGA (double-takes).…Is everything all right?

  VASHTI. It’s nothing.

  OLGA. Have you been…

  VASHTI blows her nose.

  VASHTI. No… No. It’s… my aunt. She’s not very well.

  OLGA. Your aunt? What’s happened?

  VASHTI. Nothing…

  OLGA. Oh, I am sorry, what…

  VASHTI (swallowing down tears). No, no, it’s fine. It’s boring.

  There’s just some things I’ve got to do before I go.

  OLGA. Go?

  A beat while VASHTI tries to regain composure.

  VASHTI. It’s a long story. I’m going on leave, and before I go, I’ve got to… finish everything off here… (Gestures, off.) I’d better get on with this. It’s the last thing I’ve got to do.

  OLGA. Oh. – The DNR form. For Mr Mercer.

  VASHTI. Yes. I’m waiting to go in…

  VASHTI takes a deep breath, unfolds the purple form.

  OLGA. We’re not going to see him on the telly again, are we.

  VASHTI. No.

  I’ve got to decide whether to tell him or not. That we’ve reached the end of the line.

  I don’t think he’s going to want to know.

  Pause.

  OLGA. So will you tell him?

  Beat.

  VASHTI. Only if he wants to be told.

  Beat. OLGA is looking at VASHTI closely.

  OLGA. Do you want me to go in with you?

  Beat.

  VASHTI. Yes please.

  Cardiology

  EMILY and JOHN together. EMILY is sitting, JOHN is standing, with a stethoscope. He has a new dressing on his neck.

  JOHN.…How would you describe it?

  EMILY. A dullness…

  He puts his stethoscope to EMILY’s chest.

  What can you hear?

  Pause.

  JOHN. I can hear… lots of things…

  I can hear your heart…

  JOHN removes the stethoscope from EMILY’s chest. Looks at her.

  Stressed?

  Beat.

  EMILY. Is it my heart?

  JOHN. I don’t think it’s your heart.

  Pause.

  What you’re feeling there is probably what we call, ghost pain…

  My guess is you’ve damaged some nerves in your neck, I don’t know how… And these nerve endings supply other parts of your body, like here… (Her chest.) or here for instance, your hand… (Indicates her hand.) And they’re telling you there’s a pain there when there isn’t.

  EMILY. A false alarm.

  JOHN. Kind of.

  Beat.

  EMILY (indica
ting the dressing on his neck). What’s that?

  JOHN. Oh… had to have a little procedure done. Just waiting for the all-clear now.

  EMILY. Nothing serious?

  JOHN. No. Like you. Nothing serious.

  He gently takes her hand in his.

  You can feel – when I do this? (Runs a finger down the side of her hand.)

  EMILY.…Yes.

  JOHN. Any numbness – down these two fingers here?

  Beat.

  EMILY. No…

  JOHN. But you’re a nervous person…

  EMILY. How do you know?

  JOHN (holds up her hand). You bite your nails…

  Pause. They look at each other.

  You’re feeling a pain… but it’s just a ghost. It doesn’t exist.

  EMILY. But if I can feel it, it exists.

  JOHN. So take something to stop feeling it.

  Tell your body a little white lie.

  That’s what we’re good at here.

  Pause.

  You think you can’t do the job. But we have to do the job. I thought I couldn’t do it. I thought I was dying.

  EMILY. How do you feel now?

  Beat.

  JOHN. Alive.

  The Ward

  VASHTI and OLGA are with MR MERCER, who we now see lying in a bed. He is much more wasted than he was in Act One – very ill. Throughout this scene VASHTI is different to how we have seen her before. Very warm; very kind.

  VASHTI. Mr Mercer!

  MR MERCER. Doctor!

  VASHTI. How are you?

  MR MERCER. All the better for seeing you…

  VASHTI. Listen to him…

  They laugh.

  He’s a terrible flirt!

  Well, Mr Mercer, I just wanted to pop in on you, and… See how you were doing… I see we’ve still got you on the gentamicin…

  MR MERCER. Yes…

  VASHTI. Right… (Looks at the chart at the end of his bed.) But he’s off the Clexane injections?

  OLGA. Yes. Came off them a week ago.

  VASHTI (continuing to look at the chart). Good. Good. That’s… all as it should be.

  MR MERCER (there is something urgent in his voice). But… how am I doing?

  VASHTI. Well –

  MR MERCER. I mean, how am I doing now, doctor?

  VASHTI (takes his hand, squeezes it). You’re doing very well.

  MR MERCER. But am I doing any better?

  Beat.

  I need to know the truth.

  I need you to be honest.

  Beat. VASHTI nods.

  VASHTI. Mr Mercer…

  We have no drug that can control your cancer now.