by Jane Grant
The Junior went quite white. An awful memory came to me that when I had told her about the Colonel’s injunction to do eye irrigation, she had said, ‘Oh, I haven’t done that yet. I shall have to get it for Schedule.’
I said hoarsely, in a voice quite unrecognisable as my own: ‘Well, actually, Nurse hasn’t done it herself yet, Sister. She’s been watching me. She was going to try it by herself this morning.’
I frowned at the Junior, and began to rub my eye from within outwards, a gesture which I hastily changed to scratching my forehead when Sister looked my way.
Grannie Denham looked at the trolley with amazement and suspicion, as we appeared in force round the screen.
‘Now, Gran,’ I said with a forced laugh, ‘just going to do your eyes, same as we always do.’
‘But I ain’t ‒’
‘Now Gran, you just relax.’
‘But ‒’
‘Now, Nurse, dish up your set,’ I said loudly.
Gran was looking plain bewildered, and Sister seemed to be slightly puzzled. I motioned to the Junior to start, and she began washing an eye very inexpertly.
After a while the Colonel remarked, ‘Well, Nurse, you’ve got a lot to learn before you can be trusted to do that by yourself, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, Sister,’ stuttered the wretched girl.
The Colonel went outside the screens and I followed her. ‘She couldn’t have paid much attention when she watched you, Nurse,’ she said cuttingly.
‘Well, I daresay she was rather nervous,’ I tried to explain.
The Colonel grunted and began to walk away. Suddenly behind the screens came the shrill and audible voice of Gran.
‘I don’t know what yer talkin’ about, I’m sure. I ain’t never had that before. And I don’t never want to have it again neither!’
Chapter Twenty-seven
One of the Registrars on this ward was Mr. Walter Cheshire, who had operated on my finger, a man for whom I still had a great weakness. He never showed the slightest sign of recognition; whenever I saw him he always seemed to be addressing some spot behind my head, and he always spoke in the same brusque and offhand manner.
One night an old lady of eighty-two was admitted as a casualty, at three o’clock in the morning. Her appendix had ruptured and she had peritonitis. At about half past three Mr. Walter Cheshire appeared in the ward, scowling as heavily as ever, and followed by Turner and a band of sleepy students. After a consultation at the patient’s bedside, Turner said to me: ‘I’ll write her up for morphia and atropine, Nurse. She’ll be going to theatres, and perhaps she could have it right away.’
I asked him to check it, and he came to the drug cupboard with me. I got out the syringes, and nervous to be doing it under his eye, I measured the morphia, then drew some atropine up from the phial. I found I had drawn more than I needed, so holding the syringe up, I pushed the piston to the required level, letting a thin stream of atropine into the air.
‘Well, we’ll leave that till old Wally boy gives the okay,’ said Turner carelessly. We went down to the end of the ward again.
Mr. Cheshire was holding a teaching round on the old lady who was sitting up in bed, perfectly at ease, with her bright eyes flickering from one to another, observing the young faces of the students and the forbidding countenance of the surgeon.
‘Now why d’you think this is an appendix, Cooke?’ Mr. Cheshire snapped suddenly.
There was a lull. Cooke, who had been staring sleepily out of the window, coughed and moved unhappily from foot to foot. ‘Well ‒ er ‒’ He coughed again. ‘Pain on her right side, sir.’
‘Could be anything!’
‘Well ‒ er.’ Poor Cooke came to a sudden stop. He plunged and added, ‘You can’t really tell till you’ve opened her up, sir.’
‘Brilliant diagnosis, Cooke! The morning air sharpens your wit!’
I was watching the curl of Mr. Cheshire’s mouth, and at that moment I became aware that I could not see him very well. I felt as if I had got something in my eye. Then I noticed Turner was also rubbing his.
The patient, bright as a button, and cheerful as a sparrow, now opened her mouth and announced:
‘You boys look worn out. If I were you,’ she added in her small shrill voice, ‘I’d pack meself off to bed!’
There was a startled silence. It was the first time I had ever seen Mr. Cheshire caught off balance, for the moment he appeared to be completely at a loss for words. It was not long, however, before he recovered himself, and said in an extremely gruff voice, ‘Afraid we’ve got one or two things to talk about first.’ He scowled at the patient, who beamed cheerfully back, then looked swiftly round the students, one of whom had unfortunately chuckled.
‘Well, if you ain’t going to bed, I am!’ said the old lady. Cheerful and cocky, she snuggled down in the hospital bed as if she were going to bed in her own home in the best of health.
Mr. Cheshire’s image was now becoming definitely blurred. I heard him ask Turner, ‘Have you got her notes there?’
‘Yes, I’ve got them here,’ said Turner uncertainly.
‘At least I think these are her notes.’ He peered myopically at some papers he held in his hand.
‘What’s wrong now? Got sleep dust in your eyes?’
‘I don’t seem able to see very well, sir,’ said Turner meekly.
Mr. Cheshire drew near the houseman and looked into his eyes. ‘Pipe smoke probably,’ he grumbled. Then suddenly: ‘My God! Your pupils!’
He turned to me and began, ‘Nurse, have you got any ‒’ then suddenly broke off. ‘What have you done?’ he snapped, peering at my eyes, while I blushed furiously. ‘Looks as if you’ve both had a
dose of atropine.’
Tuner looked at me; with a faint smile of comprehension he said, " I think we have, sir.’
‘What d’you say?’
‘The pre-med, sir.’
Mr. Cheshire let out a short laugh. ‘Just what goes on in the drug cupboard?’ he exclaimed. A snicker went round the students, while I turned even more scarlet.
The situation was now completely out of hand. Even Mr. Cheshire was smiling broadly, and the students were all laughing. Turner grinned rather ruefully, while I was too embarrassed to face any of them.
Soon Mr. Cheshire called us to order. ‘Well, Lana,’ he said with new-found good humour, ‘we needn’t operate tonight. Just as well in the circumstances,’ he added, permitting himself another smile. ‘I should go off to bed ‒ unless you’ve got any more measuring up to do!’
On the ward there were four beds which belonged to one of the junior consultants, whose operations always seemed to be going wrong. One of the recent ones was a thyroidectomy.
The Junior had just brought out tea. This was always a signal for patients to wake up and ask for bedpans, headache tablets and rather pointedly, drinks.
Mrs. Gunn, the thyroidectomy, sat up and started coughing vigorously.
‘Oh hell,’ I said. ‘I’d better take her a cup of tea.’
When I reached her bed she was wheezing. ‘My throat feels all tight, Nurse. I keep wanting to cough.’
I looked at her neck, it was swollen and tense. I sat her up in bed, said a few soothing words, then rushed off for the Staff Nurse.
Staff Nurse looked at the patient, spoke briskly and cheerfully to her, and walked away. ‘Crumbs!’ she said to me, ‘we’d better call the houseman. Who is he?’
‘Mr. Betterton.’
‘Oh ‒ him. All right. Take her pulse regularly and set an aspiration trolley. She’s got a massive haematoma there, hasn’t she?’
Charles Betterton arrived; how he had ever qualified no one seemed to understand. The patients, especially the female ones, adored him, but it was agreed by most people that he was not really terribly good.
He now placed a paternal arm round my shoulder.
‘What’s the trouble, old mongoose?’ he inquired.
I explained.
‘God, I haven’
t a bloody glimmer!’ he complained. ‘What d’you do?’
‘Well, how about aspirating it.’
‘H’m, could do, I suppose. Let’s have a butcher’s at it first.’
We went to the patient. Charles felt round the lump. ‘Yes, well, m’dear,’ he said, beaming at the
frightened woman. ‘Just going to stick a pin in here ‒ get some of that muck off!’
She immediately smiled at him, reassured.
He snapped his fingers. ‘All in the day’s work, you know. Don’t know why you have to get it at this hour, though.’ He laughed, and followed me outside the screens.
‘What in the hell am I laughing for?’ he asked himself. ‘Well, old parakeet, have you got everything ready?’
‘Of course,’ I replied.
‘I was rather hoping you hadn’t. Oh, what the hell, boys! I’ll get scrubbed up.’
I wheeled the trolley to the bedside and dished up. A few minutes later Charles reappeared. He cleaned the skin and, pushing a huge needle into the incision, tried to aspirate with the syringe. Nothing appeared. He withdrew the needle. Balanced on the tip was a bit of catgut.
He sat down on the bed and laughed heartily. ‘Now I could have sworn I tied off a vein with that bit!’
I looked at him horrified, but he did not seem in the least perturbed. ‘Well, I think we’ll leave it at that, old dear,’ he said to the patient. ‘You just try and catch a bit of shut-eye, and I’ll come up and see you later on.’
I pushed the trolley out and followed him to the table. He drank a mug of tea and ate a sandwich before he said anything. Then he remarked casually: ‘You know one day ‒ in the quite near future, I feel ‒ the Dean’s going to realize what a Norrible Menace housemen are!’
Chapter Twenty-eight
I came on duty one evening and was immediately greeted by Day Sister with: ‘We have a case who’s just come in, due for theatres in twenty minutes. She’s had her pre-med, can you get your Junior to shave her and get her ready?’
I sent Anne off to the case, which was an appendicitis, and when I had had report from Sister, I went to check up and see how the nervous Anne was getting on. Apparently she had hardly started; in her usual frightened and laborious way, she was engaged in cleaning the woman’s toenails.
I asked sharply if the woman was shaved yet. Anne, looking frightened, said she was afraid not. I felt exasperation rising up within me and said rather cuttingly: ‘I suppose you know she’s due in theatres in ten minutes?’
‘Oh, is she? I’m sorry, Nurse. I didn’t realize.’
‘Well, get the things for the trolley and I’ll start shaving her.’
We were just making up the bed when the trolley came in. Two students arrived with it. One of them asked if the patient was ready, and I said she wasn’t quite, and would they help us. So we all collected round the bed. I put on one sock and a student put on another; the other student removed the patient’s false teeth, while Anne searched frantically for hair clips.
The poor old woman was looking completely bewildered, and I realized with compunction that I had not spoken to her since I had arrived.
‘Won’t be long now,’ I said with false cheerfulness and a false smile.
‘Oh, yes it will,’ said one of the students. ‘She hasn’t signed the anaesthetic book.’
I dispatched the Junior to fetch the book, while we lifted the patient on to the trolley. When we thrust the book under her nose, we found she hadn’t got a pen, and we all simultaneously discovered we had mislaid ours.
‘Oh, sign at the desk on the way out,’ said one of the students.
We reached the desk, I picked up the pen, dipped it in the inkwell and found the inkwell was empty. Hurrying to the stationery cupboard I took out a bottle of ink, and thinking to save time, I dipped the pen into the bottle, then withdrew it to find it was minus its nib. I began to giggle, Anne brayed nervously and the uninhibited students roared.
‘I’ve got a pen, Nurse,’ piped up one of the patients. A student went to get it, and returning, he was saying gaily, ‘Come on, Gran, sign away your freedom,’ when I saw Michael Turner come into the ward. He marched up to me with a face of thunder.
‘This case,’ he said slowly and bitingly, ‘was an emergency. There’s no need to hurry now, I expect she’s perforated.’
I looked hurriedly at the patient, but she showed no reaction, having evidently no idea of the sinister implication of his words.
To Michael I said shortly, ‘I’m sorry. She’s just coming.’
‘I hate to interrupt your music hall,’ he said. ‘But can I take her now?’
‘She hasn’t signed her anaesthetic form.’
‘I daresay we can manage that in theatres,’ he said with exquisitely biting politeness. ‘We have all the necessary equipment, I believe.’
He went to the end of the trolley and wheeled it up the ward, followed by two cowed students.
I turned to my work, furiously angry with him. The rest of the evening I spent thinking of acid retorts I could have made had I thought of them at the time. When he did his round that night he scarcely spoke at all, and the little I said was in the coldest and most distant voice I could assume.
The following night, when I was thinking up some more stinging retorts to make to his criticisms, he came in with a broad grin on his face. It was most unusual for Michael to smile, even when he was in the best of humours.
‘Well, what have you got for me tonight?’ he said jovially.
I looked at him in amazement. I longed to say, ‘You’re feeling better tonight I take it?’ but I knew that if I alluded to the day before I should send him right back into his shell. So emboldened by his display of good humour, I smiled and replied, ‘A cup of coffee, perhaps?’
He looked taken aback. ‘Well, actually,’ he said, ‘that would be very acceptable. And I could do with something to eat.’
‘We’ve got masses of stuff in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘What do you fancy?’
An expression of longing came over his face. ‘You haven’t got any ‒ bacon?’
‘A whole dishful.’
‘Have you? Well, could I have a little of that?’
‘You can have the tinful if you want it.’
We went into the kitchen. He picked out twelve of the largest size rashers and dumped them into the frying pan. ‘I like bacon,’ he said unnecessarily.
‘How about an egg to go with it?’ I suggested, looking at the unbalanced meal.
‘Have you got an egg?’ he asked in an awed voice.
‘You can have two if you like.’
‘Two!’
The eggs joined the bacon in the frying pan. ‘You know what I fancy?’ he said, turning the bacon. ‘A bit of fried bread. Only a little bit.’
I cut a slice. ‘Half of that will do,’ he said. He cooked it.
‘You know,’ he remarked thoughtfully, ‘it looks so good I think I’ll have the other half.’
He then dipped a third slice into the fat, and added that to his over-loaded plate.
‘What are you going to have to wash that lot down with?’ I asked.
‘I’d like some milk,’ he said modestly.
I took a bottle out of the fridge.
‘Is there any more bread?’ he asked, adding in an explanatory manner, ‘to eat with it, you know.’
After a moment he inquired wistfully, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got anything like tomato sauce, have you?’
I dug round in the food cupboard and produced an odd looking bottle with some congealed red stuff in the bottom of it. This had matured with age, and apparently it added the final piquant flavour.
Chapter Twenty-nine
After that evening I found I was thinking a good deal about Michael Turner. Through the gossip of the hospital I had heard that he was married, and it was surmised, unhappily so. There was something about him that attracted me; I knew that behind the screen of unpleasantness he put up, there was someone unusually sensitive and
kind. I longed sometimes to ask him why he should bother to pretend to be so tough.
When I talked about him to my friends, they suggested I was falling in love with him.
‘And he’s getting rather keen on you, Jane,’ said Mary, who had been doing relief on the ward. ‘I can tell from the way he looks at you, and then looks away again.’
That seemed to me a crazy idea. He did not seek me out, never ingratiated himself with me or behaved as I thought men in love behaved ‒ besides he was married. I was already occupied with worrying over my feelings for Keith, I did not at all want another emotional complication in my life.
It was true that Michael occupied a large space in my thoughts. But my feelings for him, I knew (judging by previous ones), were not the falling in love type at all. I liked him, and was painfully sorry for him.
One night, when the ward had been very quiet, I sat writing at the table. I was writing a letter to Keith on ward notepaper, so I jumped when I realized someone was standing in front of me. It was Michael.
‘Busy?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ I answered. ‘Actually, I was writing a letter.’
He sat down at the table. Looking at him I saw that well-known angry expression come over his face, yet a moment before he had looked quite amiable. I turned over in my mind the thought of saying to him: ‘Why do you upset everyone ‒ and yourself ‒ by your moods?’ But I knew I could never bring myself to say anything like that.
Suddenly and out of the blue, he remarked: ‘Sometimes one finds one has written a letter too many, you know.’
‘Er?’ I said, startled.
‘Better be careful.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, completely at sea.
‘Never mind, Plain Jane,’ said Michael, and he got up to go. Offended and hurt, I walked to the door with him. He opened it, then turned to me and smiled: ‘When I say plain,’ he said, ‘I mean clear, simple, strong.’
‘I thought you meant my looks,’ I said meekly.
‘I thought you did,’ he replied, and went out.
After that I was so completely in a maze about Michael that when he asked me to go out to dinner on one of my nights off, I accepted, though I had long before made up my mind not to go out with married men.
