The Time is Now

by Gill Sanderson

  THE TIME IS NOW

  By

  Gill Sanderson

  It's Scrub nurse Jane Cabot's twenty-ninth birthday and she would like to be married before she is thirty. Her life is full - theatre nurse, Samaritan's Counsellor, choir member, hockey player - but so far she has not found the right man.

  Could the new anaesthetist David Kershaw be the one? He's a good worker, thoughtful of staff and patients, obviously interested in her - and drop-dead gorgeous. But she has been warned about him. He only likes casual relationships.

  As she gets to know him she realises that he has problems - as she does herself. Could they solve their problems togther?

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  ‘All you do is stand behind me and watch me,’ Scrub Nurse Jane Cabot told Mary Barnes, the nervous student nurse standing next to her in Theatre. ‘I'll try to tell you what I'm doing and why, but if I don't have time, remember to ask me afterwards.’

  ‘There's a lot to remember,’ Mary said, ‘and it's my first time in Theatre. I hope I don't do anything wrong. I usually carry a notebook with me which I can refer to.’

  ‘It's a good idea. But not in an antiseptic environment.’ Jane had seen the notebook in question when the two of them had scrubbed up. Of course, it had been left behind.

  The nurses in Theatre were her responsibility, a responsibility she took very seriously. She looked critically at Mary, making sure that there were no wisps of dark hair showing. Mr Steadman – years ago, before they'd come to know each other better – had once shouted at her, asking her what the junior nurse was doing with spiders' legs sticking out from under her cap. Since then Jane had been careful about hair. Her own long blonde hair was held tight in a French plait, pinned safely on top of her head.

  ‘You'll be all right,’ she told Mary. ‘Remember what you've been told, and try to relax. Don't get too tense.’

  ‘This Mr Steadman. He's got the reputation of being a bit of a tartar.’

  ‘He's a good surgeon — he just likes to have things done right.’ Jane smiled, even though she knew Mary couldn't see her lips. ‘I had a new nurse in here once, just watching like you, but she was so tense and breathing so heavily that she went into tetany.’

  ‘Tetany?’ It was obviously a new word for Mary.

  ‘It's most commonly found in infants with too little ionic calcium in their blood, but adults can get it, too. The muscles go into spasm. The commonest feature is called Chvostek's sign, where the muscles of the face contract when the cheek is tapped. Anyway, I sent her out and she took some calcitrol, and the next time she came in she was fine. So don't breathe too heavily.’

  Mary reached backwards, seeking her notebook. But it wasn't there. ‘Will you run through that with me afterwards, please?’ she asked.

  ‘Happy to. Now relax.’

  In fact, the little lecture Jane had just given had had the desired effect. Mary now had something to think about, to remember, and her body grew noticeably less rigid. ‘Just do what I tell you, and never move too quickly. You'll be all right. You're here to learn.’

  ‘Morning, Jane. Dr Lane.’ Mr Steadman swept into the theatre, followed by two students. He nodded at the anaesthetist. The surgeon was a short, broad-shouldered man, aged about fifty-five, with terrifying eyebrows above his green mask. ‘Now, first of all we have an abdominal hysterectomy. Reason — uterine fibroids.’

  Without looking up, Mr Steadman reached out his hand and Jane placed in it the scalpel she knew he'd need. The first incision. She reached for the diathermy machine to seal off the blood vessels. The operation proceeded. The surgeon was skilful, fast – everything and everyone was working well.

  The mishap was only a minor one. Jane had moved away from her trolley to fetch more swabs, but Mr Steadman was in a hurry. ‘Retractor! Retractor!’ he bellowed.

  Mary blinked – perhaps he was shouting at her? She reached, confused, towards the trolley.

  ‘Get your hands off those instruments!’ This was more than a bellow.

  Jane returned swiftly to her place and handed the required instrument to the surgeon. ‘Retractor, Mr Steadman.’

  There was a grunt and the operation proceeded, Jane looked at the quivering nurse by her side and winked at her.

  Later there was a more serious delay on another case. It wasn't a major operation, being the excision of a blocked Bartholin cyst. But where was the patient? Apparently there was a problem with the anaesthetic and the anaesthetist wasn't quite ready. Mr Steadman stood, silent with rage. Eventually the patient was wheeled in, the anaesthetist behind him.

  ‘Sorry, got caught up in something,’ the anaesthetist said eventually.

  ‘It was good of you to join us,’ Mr Steadman said. ‘May I begin now?’

  ‘Edmund, this is Nurse Mary Barnes. She's trying to learn. Today was her first day ever in Theatre and you were unkind to her.’

  The morning's list was finished. Jane was in the anteroom with her student nurse and Mr Steadman was walking through. The surgeon looked at the flinching Mary and then at Jane, who stared serenely back at him. After a pause he said, ‘I remember my first day in Theatre. Can be a bit of a shock. Just do what Cabo here tells you and in time you might be as good a scrub nurse as she is.’

  Then he turned and left, and Jane heard Mary sigh with relief. ‘See, he is human,’ Jane said. ‘Now, come on and we'll get out of these greens. Then you report back to the ward.’

  ‘How come you can speak to the old man like that? I daren't.’

  Jane was in the corridor, walking towards the hospital canteen, when Henry Lane, the anaesthetist, fell in beside her. She looked at him, a middle-aged, rotund little man with a permanent scowl on his face.

  ‘We've been together for a long time.’ She shrugged. ‘He forgives me a lot.’

  ‘More than he forgives anyone else. Well, I'm leaving soon and, quite frankly, I'll be glad. That little oversight of mine in the theatre — any competent surgeon could have dealt with it.’

  She wasn't having that. Edmund Steadman could be awkward but he was her friend and, more than that, he was completely, ruthlessly professional.

  ‘I would have said that any competent anaesthetist would have ensured that the situation didn't arise in the first place.’

  Henry Lane stopped short and looked at her furiously. ‘You're only a nurse! Are you questioning my professional —?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,’ Jane said briskly. ‘I think Mr Steadman was absolutely right.’ She wasn't going to be browbeaten by this man. ‘And, incidentally, I am not "only a nurse" — I am a nurse and a good one. We all have our jobs in Theatre, and we rely on each other.’

  For a moment the two glared at each other and then the anaesthetist obviously decided not to carry on the conversation. He muttered something inaudible and walked away. Jane was glad – if he argued she was going to argue back. You got nowhere in this world if you didn't stand up for what you knew was right.

  There were none of her particular friends in the canteen so she sat by herself to eat her salad. However, five minutes later Edmund Steadman walked in, collected a steaming plate of the day's special – roast beef, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding – and came over to join her.

  ‘Calories, Edmund!’ Jane said, pointing with her fork.

  ‘I need the energy and so do you. We're working all afternoon.’

  Edmund could have eaten his lunch in the consultan
ts' dining room, but always preferred to eat in the main canteen. Once he'd told her, half-jokingly, that the canteen was the hospital's brain, not its stomach. ‘Everything important is discussed here, Jane. You'd be surprised what I've picked up.’

  Now he said, ‘Have you heard that Lane is leaving soon? I'll be glad to get rid of him. The man's a menace.’

  ‘Hush, Edmund! Let's have a bit of professionalism! You're not supposed to complain about other doctors to the nursing staff.’

  ‘Professionalism is no excuse for idleness or incompetence. But I suppose you're right.’ He tasted his beef with obvious enjoyment. ‘I still miss Judy.’

  ‘So do I. I phoned her last night. She sends her love and says everything is going well.’

  Judy Parsons had been the anaesthetist Edmund had always used. The three of them had formed a team that could almost reach each other's minds. But Judy had left to have her first baby, and had told the team quite firmly that there was no chance of her returning for at least a year. ‘It's too risky a job when your mind is on other things, and your body is tired, too. You won't see me until I'm certain I'm ready.’

  ‘So who is replacing Dr Lane?’

  ‘We're appointing a new consultant anaesthetist. Picked a young fellow from Lady Mary Hospital in Birmingham — he's very well recommended. Name's David Kershaw. He would have come earlier so we didn't have to put up with rubbish like Lane, but they wanted to hang onto him. He'd better fit in.’

  ‘I'm sure he will,’ Jane said, deciding to say nothing about Edmund's loud remarks about their present anaesthetist. ‘Now, we've got an interesting case this afternoon …’

  It had been a good but tiring day. She changed into her trousers and the jacket with the fluorescent patches and trotted across the quadrangle to the boiler-house where she left her bicycle under the watchful eye of her friend Herbert, the boiler man. Whenever the weather permitted it, she left her car at home. After a hard day in Theatre she enjoyed the exercise, cycling the five miles to Challis.

  Her hospital was Emmy's – the Emmeline Penistone Women's Hospital. It was in an area which once had been the home of rich middle-class merchants. Now most of the ornate Victorian terraced houses had been converted and subdivided. It was an area for students and for transients. Cars regularly disappeared from outside Emmy's – and bikes too, even when securely fastened to railings. So Jane left her bike inside the boilerhouse.

  She shouted a greeting to Herbert, collected her bike and fastened on her scarlet helmet. Once she had scrubbed for an operation on a fourteen-year-old cyclist who'd had a depressed fracture of the skull. ‘If every cyclist wore a helmet,’ the surgeon had said, ‘then I should be out of work.’

  It was October now, and getting chillier as she cycled home. But she would cycle as long as she could. The five miles passed quickly, and she now knew all the short cuts.

  She shared a house in Challis with two other girls – Sue, a midwife, and Megan, a senior house officer. They had been together for two years, now all working in the same hospital. They got on well because they didn't live in each other's pockets, but this evening she knew that things might be a little different.

  She unlocked the front door, and smiled. Bobbing against the ceiling; there was a collection of brightly coloured, helium-filled balloons, with streamers dangling from them. The biggest balloon, a purple one, had a message on it – HAPPY 29TH BIRTHDAY, JANE! Sue and Megan heard her come in and rushed out of the kitchen to kiss her.

  ‘You're not allowed in the kitchen, birthday girl,’ Sue said. ‘Into the front room and have a drink until the meal is ready.’

  ‘It practically is ready,’ said Megan. ‘Let's all have a drink. And a parcel came for you this morning, Jane, from London.’

  Jane sat, and accepted a glass of chilled white wine, poured with due solemnity. None of the three drank to any great extent. Then she smiled as she opened her small parcel, for she recognised the handwriting on the outside. Inside were three CDs chosen with care, and a birthday card, reading, 'Happy Birthday, sister!' Someone had inserted the word 'scrub' before 'sister'. Inside was a message. “Much love, big sister. I'm working like mad, enjoying every minute of it — though there's plenty to do and learn. With any luck I'll get a couple of days soon and come up to see you. Big headed me is sending you a picture. Love again! Peter.”

  It was a good picture, of a curly-haired lad in a regulation white coat, smiling outside a gloomy London hospital.

  ‘Let's see,’ said Sue. Jane passed it round and explained to Megan, ‘It's my brother, Peter. You know he qualified as a doctor this summer, and this is his first house job.’

  ‘He looks lovely. I envy you, Jane. I've got no brothers or sisters.’

  ‘I have,’ said Sue. ‘Well, I suppose I have. And he's trouble. Anyway, here are our presents.’

  From Megan Jane had a fine woollen scarf to keep her warm while she was cycling. From Sue there was a black silk teddy. Laughing, she stood, wrapped the scarf round her neck and held the teddy in front of her.

  ‘Both suit you,’ Megan said. ‘That teddy looks very sexy.’

  ‘The trouble is, no one is likely to see the teddy but me. No man, certainly. And it's a pity to keep it just for myself.’

  ‘Give it time,’ Sue advised. ‘You're sure to find the right man. Now, let's go into the kitchen and eat. It should be ready by now, judging by the smell.’

  The three were friends, but had decided early on that trying to eat together every day was too difficult. They all worked shifts and had different obligations. So they had joint meals only occasionally, and when they did they enjoyed them the more. This evening's was a typical meal. Sue had cooked a hearty chicken curry with basmati rice, while Megan had created a number of dainty sambals. They had another glass of white wine each. All of them ate well – they worked hard and needed the energy.

  Then, after much giggling in the pantry, Sue emerged with a cake, twenty-nine lit candles flickering on top. ‘Shut your eyes, blow and wish,’ she said, after the cake had been carefully deposited on the table. ‘But don't burn your eyebrows.’

  Jane took a great breath, shut her eyes and blew. The other two cheered.

  ‘I'm not having any more birthdays,’ Jane said as Sue efficiently cut the cake. ‘You won't be able to find a cake big enough to hold all the candles.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Sue said, passing her an inordinately large slice. ‘You're still only a child. Now, Megan's filled the glasses so here's to you, Jane!’

  ‘It's the big three-O next time,’ Jane said gloomily. ‘My biological clock is ticking. This year is my last chance. Either I find a man or I give up and become a medical old maid. I'll put the fear of God into all the new young doctors and nurses.’

  ‘You do that already,’ Megan put in, ‘you and that Mr Steadman.’

  ‘He's a good surgeon,’ Jane said amiably. ‘He just wants everything to work perfectly. Not much to ask, is it?’

  ‘Anyway, what's wrong with the men you meet already?’ Sue chipped in. ‘You've got dozens of male friends. What about Eric Thingy? You know, the radiographer fellow. I saw you with him a lot in the canteen.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Jane said darkly. ‘That's well over. All he wanted was a sock-washing woman. He asked me if I'd like to move in with him. Invited me round to his flat. I took one look at it and decided that the bachelor life had gone on too long. There was no way I was going to try to civilise him.’

  The others laughed, and Megan said, ‘Well, there was that solicitor you went out with last year. The one with the big black car.’

  ‘Reggie? Could you really imagine being married to a man called Reggie? I never found out, but I suspect that even his pyjamas were pinstriped. He wanted a respectable wife. No, I'm happy in my job and I've seen so many people take second best and then be miserable that I'm not going to do it myself. It's the right man or none at all. And at present it looks like none at all. Now, it's my birthday and I fancy another piece of cake. And how abou
t —?’

  The telephone rang. There were extensions throughout the house, one very useful one in the kitchen. Jane picked up the receiver, and a female voice said, ‘Jane?’ When she answered in the affirmative she heard a loud rendition of 'Happy Birthday to You', then a giggle and the questions, ‘Guess who? And how's the birthday girl?’

  ‘Hi, Ann,’ said Jane cheerfully. ‘I'm doing fine. Even after a year, who could forget that singing voice?’ Ann Deeds was an old friend, a nurse she'd trained with who'd left the hospital for promotion down south just over a year before. ‘How are things with you?’

  ‘I guess I'm much the same as ever. Getting older, like we all are.’ Jane thought she caught a touch of desolation in her friend's voice. Ann went on, ‘I was just thinking of last year's party, of you doing your impression of Marlene Dietrich, and I had to phone. Going to do that impression tonight?’

  ‘I think I'm getting a bit old for making a fool of myself like that.’

  ‘Nonsense! Last year you sang "Falling in Love Again" and kissed that American doctor who was sitting at the bar. He fell off his stool.’

  ‘I remember! He'd had too much to drink and thought I meant, it. Then he spent the next six weeks chasing me round the wards.’

  Ann giggled again. ‘If you go to the club tonight, I'll bet they persuade you. I'm sorry I won't be there.’

  ‘So am I. We …’ Something suddenly struck Jane. ‘Just a minute! You're at Lady Mary Hospital. We're getting an anaesthetist from you. David … Earnshaw?’

  ‘David Kershaw,’ Ann said, too quickly. ‘Yes, I believe you are.’

  Jane detected the inflection Ann was trying to hide. ‘So you know him. What's he like?’

  ‘He's a very good doctor. You'll have no trouble from him — professionally. He's keen, conscientious, interested. The surgeons here are very sorry to lose him.’

  Jane thought for a moment, then went on, ‘The way you said that means you're not telling me something. Come on, Ann, let's hear the worst.’

  ‘He's stunning,’ said Ann, ‘absolutely gorgeous. He looks like a Greek god, he really does. I think he's the most beautiful man I've ever met in my life.’