The Healing Time

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Don’t blame you. I loathed jobbing, but night senior was my favourite job.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says.’ She yawned. ‘Sorry. Can’t wake up tonight.’

  Parsons said smugly, ‘You should have taken a walk in the park. I did. Always sets me up no end.’

  Jolly groaned. ‘Oh, the hideous energy of the young! At my age, I need my sleep!’

  ‘What are you then?’ demanded Parsons.

  ‘Twenty-two. Aged! After twenty, one might as well be dead!’

  Parsons nodded kindly and sympathetically.

  Sister William and Mary’s surprised ‘Three nurses?’ surprised us, it being unusual for any extra nurse to appear in any Martha’s ward, or department, unless at the specific sister’s request. Jolly looked uncomfortable as I explained the little I could.

  ‘Really?’ Sister put down her pen. ‘I wonder why Matron’s office have not seen fit to inform me ‒ oh!’ One of her desk phones pinged. ‘Sister William and Mary speaking. Oh, yes, Sister Brecklehurst? Good evening. Yes.’ She glanced at Jolly. ‘Yes … most fortunate we could take him since Intensive Cardiac Care’s full … oh, indeed? Yes, most useful experience, but I wouldn’t have thought … oh, the SMR … W.? But he made no mention ‒ oh. Naturally, there’s no more to be said.’ From her tone, that last was the understatement of the year. ‘What’s that, Sister? Yes. Personally, quite satisfied. Thank you. Good night.’ She put down the receiver. ‘So you’re recently off days in Intensive Cardiac Care, Nurse Jolly?’

  Jolly looked more uncomfortable than ever. ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Then I’m sure we’ll find your assistance invaluable with our acute cardiac admission in William Small Ward Three. He’s with us as I.C.C. haven’t a bed for him and we do have two small wards fitted with the necessary cardiac equipment. As the Night Superintendent feels it will be useful experience for you to special him, I’ll report on him first and then carry on with the full report. If that suits you, Staff Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sister.’

  Sister was never impolite, but nor did she normally go out of her way to show extra civility to her staff. As I had yet to meet the sister who was not ready to spit blood at the mere suggestion of any outside interference in her ward ‒ no matter how well-intentioned ‒ I suspected that beneath her controlled expression she was seething. That extreme politeness provided an impenetrable armour I had learnt in the last month, if not before.

  Parsons was puce with indignation. ‘The sod to tell the Office you can’t cope!’ She murmured out of the side of her mouth as we collected the chairs on which we sat to hear the report.

  I was more disturbed than indignant. I’d grown more or less accustomed to Joel’s weighing into me on duty, but if he was going to continue weighing into the Office on the same count each time we had a really ill admission, Matron would have to think again, whatever my surname. Of course she would offer me another job, but how could I hope for anything that would work out so well at home as this? And this ward I liked. Mentally I echoed Parsons, but being older than she was at the same time I had to appreciate that if Joel seriously thought me incompetent, he’d had no alternative to saying so. He wasn’t responsible for my domestic affairs, but he was for the lives of his patients. And it was a relief to have learnt indirectly that Sister held other views on me.

  I was very sorry for Jolly. She was years my junior and as she clearly realised, in a very dodgy position. She looked paler than ever. Sister took a good look at her as we sat down.

  ‘Nurse Jolly, are you well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sister. I’m always pale.’

  ‘Nights can be difficult if one doesn’t sleep well. I imagine that’s your problem, Nurse Jolly?’

  ‘Yes, but I slept quite well this afternoon.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sister. ‘Right ‒’

  Mr Albert Walter Worstley was sixty-four. His home was in Leeds, he was in the wool trade and had come to London on business for the day. He had had a coronary an hour ago in the taxi that was taking him to his return train at King’s Cross. The driver seeing in his driving mirror his fare collapse had sensibly turned his cab round and made straight for Martha’s. ‘His wife was in the Wing just after it opened,’ explained Sister, ‘and though Mr Worstley had his attack right out of our area, as the driver has decided there’s only one hospital in London, Mr Worstley landed on the doorstep of the Wing Casualty Department. Next-of-kin, his wife, Mrs Florence Clara Worstley. No children, but one nephew who lives and works in London and with whom I’ve been in touch. The nephew’s coming up. I’ve rung Mrs Worstley, but as she’s elderly and has chronic bronchitis, I’ve suggested she waits until morning before coming south as her husband is heavily sedated and requires absolute quiet. Addresses and phone numbers of all concerned in our Admission Book. Now medical details …’

  She had just finished when Joel came round the open screen across the doorway of William Small Ward Three. ‘I’m just going to connect up the monitor, Sister.’

  Our two cardiac monitors were set side by side in the electronic panel in front of the desk. They looked like small-screen television sets. We all watched the monitor on the left as Joel fixed together twin points, pressed one switch, touched one button. Instantly twin pin-points of light appeared on the monitor now live, tracing a moving graph of Mr Worstley’s heart beating in his bed in the little room behind the open screen.

  Sister asked, Well, Dr Kirby?’

  Joel stared at the graph, his shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets. ‘Not too good, Sister, but I’ve seen worse. Early yet, of course, but I wish he wasn’t carrying so much weight.’ He glanced round. ‘Three night nurses tonight, Sister?’

  Sister’s eyebrows shot up, but she was far too professional to ask the obvious question in front of her juniors. ‘The Night Superintendent has kindly provided us with Nurse Jolly to special Mr Worstley.’

  ‘Nurse Jolly and I are well-acquainted from I.C.C.’ He nodded at Jolly. ‘Home from home for you tonight, Nurse.’ He went back to Mr Worstley.

  Sister dismissed Jolly and continued her report. She was nearly through when again the telephone interrupted her. Again it was Liz. Mr Worstley’s nephew had arrived in error in the old blocks and she was bringing him over.

  Sister stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Staff, but I’ll have to take a look at the man for myself. No machine I’ve met yet gives the whole picture. Don’t wait, Nurse Parsons. Start your drinks and set a tea-tray for this relative. Won’t keep you long, Staff ‒ oh, Dr Kirby!’ Joel was back. ‘If you can wait, the nephew’s on his way. I take it you’d like your usual word with him?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll hang on, Sister.’ He held aside the screen for her then returned to frown at the live monitor. ‘I know we hadn’t started using these machines when you left us, but they’re only a more sophisticated version of the old E.C.G.S (electrocardiagraph machines) and if anything make cardiac nursing that much easier.’

  ‘So Miss Dawes tells me.’ His motive for that remark had me as lost as his earlier surprise over Jolly. ‘She gave me a demonstration on her classroom set.’

  He glanced at me sideways. ‘It’s some time since I’ve been along there. How up to date are her models?’

  ‘The bedside monitor’s identical with the two we’ve up here. Her external one’s smaller than these here, but connects up and functions in the same way.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Who’d she demonstrate on?’

  ‘Me.’

  He shifted his stance to face me as well as the monitor. ‘Show me on yourself where she slapped on the three electrodes.’

  I showed him.

  ‘Those first two are right, but you’re far too close to the sternum with your apex beat. Lift your left arm. Now, with any normal heart ‒ right here.’ He tapped the left side of my chest with his third finger. ‘An enlarged heart ‒ round here.’ Another tap. ‘When in any doubt, get hold of the aorta ‒ here ‒ and work from there. Got that? Good.’ He removed his en
veloping hand from my apron bib. ‘Show me on me. That’s right.’ He turned back towards the machine. ‘Miss Dawes explain the alarm system?’

  ‘Yes.’ I re-pinned my loosened bib.

  ‘How does it work?’

  I looked at his profile. ‘After the bedside monitor has been set at a required figure, the alarm bell rings whenever the beat goes above or below that figure.’

  ‘Uh-huh. How about false alarms?’

  ‘They occur fairly frequently and are more likely to be a tachy rather than a brachy warning.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ I said between my teeth, ‘the beat automatically goes up when the patient turns in sleep and the machine is unable to differentiate between muscular and cardiac exertion. Tachycardia being increased heart-rhythm, brachycardia, the reverse.’ Any P.T.S. junior knew those terms. He took them in silence. ‘That all?’

  ‘No. Why bother to acquire the theory since you lack the guts to put it into practice? And what’s going to happen the night you get another admission who needs real nursing and there’s no conveniently experienced fourth-year handy? What good’ll string-pulling do you or your patient then?’

  ‘You mean Jolly? I didn’t ask for her or anyone! Until just now, I thought you’d asked for a special ‒’ I had to stop as Liz Brecklehurst had come into our corridor and was speaking to someone behind her. ‘In here, Mr Duggan.’

  He was wearing his leather jacket. The strip lighting made his fairish brown hair seem pale grey and anxiety made him look unsure and vulnerable and much younger than in the playground on Friday morning. He followed Liz hesitantly, and directly he saw Joel and myself, his face stiffened with hostility, the not uncommon reaction to hospital staff from educated strangers. The less educated as frequently stiffened with awe.

  Then he did a double-take. ‘Mrs Holtsmoor, isn’t it?’ He all but flung himself at me. ‘You work here? Are you looking after my uncle?’ Sister William and Mary had rejoined us. He ignored her too. ‘How is my uncle? Is he going to be all right?’

  Sister William and Mary took over with an authority that left no doubt as to who was the senior female present. She got rid of Liz with a brisk, ‘Thank you, Sister Brecklehurst.’ She sent me for the tea-tray. ‘I’m sure Mr Duggan can do with a cup whilst Dr Kirby has a word with him.’ She was introducing Joel when I made for the pantry.

  Parsons had the tea ready. She looked over my shoulder. ‘He must’ve been quite a dolly gent in his prime.’

  ‘No sugar, love.’ I glanced back as she fetched it. ‘He’s not more than thirty.’

  ‘Long past it,’ she agreed sympathetically. ‘Poor old dolly gent. He spending the night with us?’

  ‘Haven’t heard yet but I guess so.’

  Something was stirring at the back of my mind. I knew what it was before I’d poured and handed the newcomer his tea. He wasn’t much like Marcus and this situation wasn’t much like the one in Albert, but there was just enough similarity between the men and the moments to disturb me seriously. Oddly, or so it seemed to me, this did not make me resent Mr Duggan. I was too sorry for him for that. Sister was trying her best to be nice to him, but her best was so damned professional. Joel had now finished his not-too-evasive medical report, and his expression was sympathetic, but since he was keeping one eye on the monitor it could have looked to an outsider as if he was paying only cursory attention to the subject under discussion.

  Sister kept saying with well-meaning but infuriating firmness, ‘You must try not to worry, Mr Duggan.’

  Mr Duggan looked up at me with the eyes of a drowning man. ‘How can I?’ he muttered.

  Etiquette insisted I stayed dumb. It did not stop me nodding briefly.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said as if I had spoken and touched Joel’s white coat to get his attention. They hadn’t told him anything about that monitor, almost certainly not to frighten him since he had already told us this was his first visit to any hospital. I thought they should. Perhaps I’d been outside too long, or perhaps it was too long since they had come in from the outside. ‘Doctor ‒’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Duggan.’ But the graph suddenly changed rhythm. ‘Just a moment ‒’ The rhythm settled again. ‘Sorry about that,’ said Joel again. ‘Something more you want to ask me?’

  ‘If I can just drag you from your fascinating television programme, I’d like the answer to the one question you’ve all evaded. And I’d like you to remember,’ Mr Duggan’s voice shook slightly with anger as well as strain, ‘I’m asking about the man who was my legal guardian until I was twenty-one and who brought me up as a father. I regard him as my father. I may not be his official next-of-kin, but I represent him, which gives me a legal as well as a moral right to the truth. So will you please skip the medical euphemisms and give me the truth. Is this going to kill my uncle?’

  Sister studied her folded hands ‒ the correct procedure for sisters on these occasions. I watched the two men’s faces. Mr Duggan’s was taut and angry. Joel’s was quite surprisingly kind. ‘I’m afraid it could. I sincerely hope it won’t. More than that, right now, no physician could possible say.’

  ‘Christ! You bloody doctors are all the same! You know all the answers except the ones one wants to hear.’

  Sister had never seen such a fascinating pair of hands. Joel’s expression remained unchanged. ‘Fair comment, but if you want the truth, that’s what you’re getting. Ask me again in five days and if he hasn’t had another, I should be in a position to give a more positive answer.’

  ‘If he has another coronary ‒ no hope?’

  ‘Not necessarily, though obviously it’ll raise the odds against eventual recovery. Some patients get away with it; some don’t. I’m sorry if that seems another evasion, but that’s the way it is.’ He touched the live monitor. ‘This is the way your uncle’s heart is functioning right now. If you’d like to come and see him, I’ll show you how this works. As his appearance may shock you, I think it may help if you realise we’ve got him packed with sedatives. So he’s unlikely to be able to recognise you, even if he opens his eyes. Coming?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Mr Duggan used his hands to push himself out of his chair as if his legs needed the help. He went closer to the monitor. ‘This is what an electrocardiograph looks like?’ He used the short northern ‘a’. ‘Why couldn’t you have told me what this was earlier? You must’ve known I thought you were being bloody off-hand.’ Joel nodded. ‘Didn’t it cross your mind I’d be interested, Doctor?’

  Joel was about four inches shorter than Mr Duggan, but so much sturdier that even side by side, he gave the impression of being the bigger man. There was probably no more than three years between their ages, but Joel seemed considerably the elder and his sartorial elegance contrasted markedly with the other man’s leather jacket, faded blue roll-neck sweater, and weary corduroys.

  ‘Of course it crossed my mind,’ Joel admitted, ‘but if you think it a good idea to confront an anxious man pitched into a hospital for the first time in his life with this gadget plus a precise explanation as to what the picture represents as an opening gambit, I don’t. That could be as I’ve seen too many of these graphs go unexpectedly crazy, or stop.’

  Mr Duggan looked away from the monitor. ‘I should have solved that one for myself.’

  ‘Not your job, Mr Duggan. Mine.’

  I started looking at my hands.

  Chapter Five

  A DANGEROUS NIGHT ENDED

  Dr Cousins, our junior medical registrar, was sitting at the desk with me and writing notes when Liz rang for the fourth time in three hours to ask the same question.

  I said, ‘No change, Sister,’ and gave Mr Worstley’s pulse, blood-pressure, respirations, clotting-time, and graph readings.

  Liz said, ‘H’mm. Of course Nurse Jolly is an excellent special.’

  ‘Excellent, Sister.’

  ‘She can teach you a great deal even though she is your junior.’

  ‘I’m sure she can, Sister.’

  Dr
Cousins was close enough to hear both sides, but he was taking no chances. He stopped writing.

  ‘I hope you’re looking after that Mr Duggan properly. You haven’t forgotten that in St Martha’s we consider the welfare of anxious relatives comes second only to the welfare of our patients.’

  ‘No, Sister.’

  ‘When you make up your nightly bedstate returns you must list him under “lodger” by his full name.’

  I had already done so. And Joel had done a fine job on me. ‘Yes, Sister. Thank you.’

  ‘In triplicate.’ She rang off.

  Dr Cousins was a small Irishman with curly dark hair and a round face. He was twenty-six and without his glasses looked eighteen. ‘Sure to God, Staff, you’re a model of self-control. I’d have wanted to clout the woman.’

  ‘I’m for a quiet life, Doctor. Also,’ I added reflectively, ‘she probably means to be helpful.’

  He grinned. ‘There’s no doubt of that at all. A great girl for helping out is Liz Brecklehurst, and particularly with the medical problems of this Wing. It appears she’s a weakness for ‒ medicine.’

  ‘She was keen on medical nursing when were were training. My set.’

  ‘Was she, now?’ But he took the hint and returned to his request forms. I was aching to hear more of the residents’-eye-view on Liz and Joel, but as this was the longest chat I had yet had with Dr Cousins, the ice was still untested. ‘What’s wanted for Mrs Robinson, Staff?’

  ‘Blood urea and white blood count, please.’

  He wrote quickly. ‘And Mrs Apted?’

  ‘Hormone tablets to take home, mané. She’s run out.’

  He looked up, his pen poised. ‘0-1? 0-01?’

  ‘0-01.’

  ‘God bless you! I’m always forgetting where to put the point and Dr Kirby’d have my blood if I got it wrong. Have you heard him on improperly written scripts?’ I shook my head. ‘Now there’s a weight off my mind. It’d be a terrible experience for a pure-minded, gently-nurtured girl like yourself. Not that one blames the man since he’ll be the one to hold the dead baby and I’ll say this for him, there’s no man I’d sooner have around when things go wrong. Did you know him before?’