by Jane Yeadon
‘She’s a long way to go yet. But why don’t we see what Matron has to say.’
Face aflame, she headed for the door until Sister Miller said, ‘That’s a good idea, and I’ll take this shall I?’ She held up the fluid intake chart. ‘I see your signature here.’
Sister Gorightly stopped and went white.
‘But will Mr Watt be alright?’ I persisted, sensing further combat and anxious to escape.
‘Yes, and so will you because I shall personally supervise you and now I think Sister Gorightly has other wards she can attend to,’ some papers were shuffled by way of dismissal, ‘and please close the door. I have a ward to run.’
Dealing with the next emergency of the day, she went to switch on the kettle whilst I flew out in the tail wind of Sister Gorightly’s exit.
‘I can see you’re feeling better,’ Isobel observed as we walked off duty and I recounted my tale. ‘It’s amazing what a difference a day can make, and guess what, good news for me too.’ She squeezed my shoulder. ‘I’ve been allowed out of the sluice. I think James must have had a word with Sister.’
I tossed my letter in a bin, feeling happy and hearing birdsong. ‘What it is to have friends in high places, though my swotty, literary-minded sister would say that’s a cliché.’
‘Even if she spends a lot of time keeping you right,’ Isobel bent an amused glance in my direction, ‘you’re lucky to have one – being an only is hard work. Somebody else to annoy the parents would be great.’
She should have been there when I went to visit Beth, thinking she might like to know my career was still on course, but it was clear she wasn’t in the mood for drama and suggested I go and tell Mrs Ronce. ‘She likes your stories. I reckon it’s the blood.’
She was getting as monosyllabic as Mrs Cockburn.
I went and looked hard at my sister’s side.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘I was merely looking for a sympathetic ear.’
‘There’s one downstairs,’ Beth said, and with a righteous sniff picked up one of her innumerable textbooks.
At least she was right there for Mrs Ronce really did seem to like hospital tales and the more gore the better.
‘Well! That’s some story and you certainly see life,’ she said at length, menacing the fire with a poker. ‘So how’s the patient now?’
‘One week on and he’s like a new man. He’s even helping with the drinks trolley, says he’s served his apprenticeship.’ It was hard to equate the joking helpful person with that previous shadow connected to livelier looking tubes.
‘And Sister Gorightly?’
‘Gone to Glory I hope.’
Mrs Ronce giggled. ‘And what about the blue knight?’
‘Went home last week.’
‘My word, Jane, despite your best efforts, they all seem to be getting better,’ Mrs Ronce hugged her knees, ‘and how are you managing without your bête noir?’
‘Actually, I think she did me a favour because I’m now being shown how to do things properly and I even get on the occasional doctors’ ward round. Sister Miller may look scatty and smoke like a chimney, but she knows her stuff and is a good teacher.’
I was going to be sorry to leave a place where there was so much action and drama, where people went home feeling better and where, having been released from the sluice, I’d learnt to do more exciting things.
‘Well, here’s to your next triumph. What’s next?’
‘In another week, Jo, a classmate, and I are going to Ward Four, Woodend. It’s geriatric, a different world from surgical and more like somewhere in Grantown I know, so I suppose I should manage it alright.’
‘I think the mannies in Ward Eight’ll miss you, but hearing your stories makes me want to keep well. I’m reaching a dangerous age. Let’s have another medicinal sherry.’
I went to Sister’s office to say this was my last day. She gave a vague smile.
‘Your time here’s not been without incident.’ She rubbed her brow. ‘I must remember to fill in your ward report.’ With the clink of her teacup, she returned to the more pressing chore of ward surgeon hospitality, emptied her ashtray and closed the door.
She didn’t even say goodbye and I had to settle for returning the enthusiastic waves of a ward full of suddenly ambulant patients advanced upon by Mrs Cockburn, now walking well and reunited with her big bowl.
That report would be important. I hoped it wasn’t too inclusive.
23
GOLDFISH AND GERIATRICS
Apart from its low-slung, modern-looking Nurses’ Home, Woodend Hospital looked like the Ian Charles but with bigger henhouses and a jumble of prefab buildings clustered round it. Nearby were fields full of cattle and the sound of tractors replaced that of cars. There was a long stately drive to the main entrance where oak double doors with polished brass handles led into the main building, but a stone’s throw away from the Home was the back entrance, which was handier for Jo and me to get to our ward.
‘How d’you like your new bedroom?’ She squinted back. ‘It’s really rustic round here, isn’t it? It must be more your scene than Foresterhill.’
I said I supposed so but I was just getting to enjoy work in Ward Eight when I had to shift not only work, but my room as well.
Jo rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me! Remember, I’d to do it at the end of P.T.S. and even if a van actually shifts our stuff, we’ve to pack it all away in the first place.’ She sighed. ‘And I suppose when this ward stint comes to an end, we’ll be off somewhere else. Makes you realise that settling anywhere’s daft and travelling light makes sense. I’m going to leave most of my stuff at home.’
‘Easier for you than me but I suppose change is supposed to be healthy and we need different experiences. Still, going anywhere new makes me nervous.’
‘Me too,’ Jo had such a capable air she surprised me, ‘but Rosie says the ward’s fine. She even managed to get over her foot phobia; everybody’s so moribund, the only bit of action is their toenail growth, so we’ve just to close our eyes and let the nailbrush do the rest.’
‘I like living dangerously. Anything else?’
‘The ward sister’s lovely but loopy, more interested in racing results than hospital corners but that’s maybe because the patients aren’t moving. She’s very caring; apparently even the goldfish is on oxygen.’
‘And what about the work?’ I recalled Rosie screwing her nose.
‘We’ve to remember the colonic lavage lecture.’
We reached the geriatric floor. It was a world away from surgery, wore a close atmosphere of quiet decay and was small enough for staff to cover both wards. No glittering surgical contraptions invaded and there was no purposeful bustle. Sister Gordon would have had a fit if she had seen the dust on the zimmers parked on the corridor down which the frail pipe of a patient’s demands and the querulous snap of one tiring of another’s company floated ghostlike in the air.
‘Bit gloomy isn’t it?’ Jo whispered. Her knock at the office door seemed very bold.
‘Ah! Lovely!’ Sister looked up from feeding her goldfish. ‘Our new girls, Fishie,’ she beamed and patted the bowl. ‘I’ll be back in a minute after I’ve shown them around. Weren’t we just saying the other day how much our patients love a change of face?’ Pausing for a moment to adjust the oxygen supply, she led the way.
She was small and had the look of a kindly, aged dumpling, but so fit we had to move fast to keep up with a whistle stop tour finishing at the male ward where a ward maid was processing the betting slips of a couple of patients unusual in their alertness. The rest seemed lost, hopefully just in slumber.
‘Meet Shona, our most important member of staff.’
Shona’s quiet smile brought life to the place. ‘Sister’s aye at me tae interest the wifies in ha’en a flutter but ah canna persuade them.’ There was a placid kindness in her tone, a solid measure to her tread.
Sister gave a fat wheeze. ‘Too much excitement maybe.’
She consulted her watch. ‘Gracious! You’ll need to go and place these right now. That race is on soon. Did you get mine?’
‘Aye. Just a sec. I’ll jist water these afore ah go.’ Sticking the slips under one arm, Shona took a glass of water from a patient’s locker and poured it over a pot of plastic flowers. Untroubled, the bed occupant dozed on whilst the ward maid padded off, taking all feeling of action with her until two old men came shuffling out from the toilet shepherded by an auxiliary. We were introduced.
‘Hello, I’m taking Jock and Willie to the Dayroom,’ she explained, steadying their zimmers. ‘They like it fine once they get there.’
The old men passed, muttering maledictions.
‘Are the patients ever taken out, or,’ Jo took in the sombre silent surroundings, ‘are they not well enough?’
Sister patted a patient’s sleeping form and looked surprised, then thoughtful. ‘Now that’s a good point. Certainly some of them could go – it’s just a question of persuasion. Maybe you could coax those two, but as you can see, most of these patients don’t even know they’re here,’ she whispered as we tiptoed out. ‘Mind you, they may well look as if they’re far away but they could easily be hearing us, so please treat them with the respect they’re due.’ She sucked her lip, adding in a pensive way, ‘Of course, it’s as easy to say as it is to forget, especially when you’re busy. Now it must be time for Fishie’s coffee break – yours too.’
She sped back to her office and when we passed, we overheard her confide, ‘Nice girls, Fishie, but I bet they don’t get the boys to go out. Let’s open a book on it.’
We’d to go back to the Home for the break, the walk in fresh air marking the contrast to Ward Four’s supposed ambience. Rosie joined us in the dining room.
‘Well?’
Jo bit into her floured roll and put three large spoonfuls of sugar in her cup.
‘We’ll certainly need energy to get that lot out of bed.’ Over the cup rim her eyes had the sparkle of sun shining on a brown pool.
Rosie rubbed her hands, apparently better pleased with her new ward. ‘It’s all a bit dead isn’t it, especially when you consider that the two girny old mannies are the liveliest there. How’re you finding it, Jane?’
‘I think it’d be easy to get ground down with all that helplessness, and the basic nursing stuff is hard work, but at the very least we’d like to get more up and about and some of the women into the Dayroom.
‘You’ll be lucky. That’s the preserve of Jock and Willie.’
‘Oh, we’ll be taking them outside,’ Jo said in a determined way.
‘I bet they won’t go,’ Rosie got up.
‘That’s funny. That’s what Sister said.’ Wiping her mouth free of flour, Jo stood up. ‘We bet they do.’
We headed back to the ward. ‘I suppose we shouldn’t go in all guns blazing?’
‘No. We’ll give them a day or two.’ Jo was confident.
But it was a fortnight before we were back on duty together and by that time had learnt that whilst the work could be back-breaking and the patients apparently comatose, they could still put up a healthy resistance when it came to change. By comparison, the Ian Charles pace was dynamic.
‘But, Annie, you could be sitting in a comfy chair watching TV in the Dayroom,’ I cajoled an arthritic patient, her joints so stiff, they creaked, her swollen hands lying balloon-like on her lap. My own back ached with the labour of helping patients to move, and since she couldn’t, I thought her pain and frustration must be unbearable.
‘It’s Mrs McGillivray to you, and even if I did get up and go through there, those two old miseries make the place smell like a lum.’
‘Ah!’ Jo put an arm round her. ‘But we’re going to take them out for a nice bit of fresh air.’
Annie shook her off. ‘You’ll have to drag them. Anyway, I bet they won’t go.’
‘Has Shona asked you about putting on a bet by any chance?’ I was suspicious.
‘Yes!’ Annie said, showing the first sign of spirit and interest outside the pill round and bowel chart.
The ward overlooked a scene of green. In front of the hospital there was even a rose garden with some sloping winding walks. They led through a gate to somewhere unknown. If you looked out from any window, the great outdoors beckoned. How could anyone resist it?
As well as making sure bets, we reckoned we should make a nice spectacle of loving care to grateful patients and maybe even acquire a small suntan without the doubtful aid of Fantanstic, yet cynical Annie kept asking us when we were going to admit defeat.
‘Not today,’ I said. ‘Just you watch us.’
She chuckled – a rare and lovely sound.
Acting on an agreed plan, Jo and I marched into the Dayroom.
‘It’s a bonny day out there, wouldn’t you just love to be out in it?’ Jo knelt beside Jock and looked up at him in a winsome way.
His contented expression behind a smoke haze changed to one of horror. He put down his pipe in spluttering disbelief.
A copy of a Landseer painting of a stag, kippered after years of hanging in this male bastion where the only female welcome was Shona with a lackadaisical duster, might have suggested there was a great and wild life outside, but Jock wasn’t having any of it.
‘Naw – jist leave us in peace.’
Meanwhile, Willie was showing a previously unknown aptitude for speed and would have escaped had I not been quicker.
‘Honestly, it’s wonderful out there. Goodness me, it’s stifling in here.’ I caught him by the outstretched arms of his overcoat and before they had time to reach the alarm bell, both men were dressed, bundled into prepared wheelchairs, smothered in blankets and out before anybody could hear their pleading shouts and call the police.
‘They’ll be fine once we get outside,’ Jo shouted above the complaining din while opening the outside door.
Now, we were bowling along in good style. Our plan of surprise attack had worked and we were finding it liberating being outside as opposed to being stuck inside. Certainly the men’s grizzling took away some of the ambience but this didn’t feel like work. The roses were coming into bloom, the sky was blue, the grass was green, somewhere far away we heard the shout of seagulls, the raucous sound softened and carried on a balmy wind. It really was a perfect day.
‘Ah’m needin’ hame,’ Willie piped, his bonnet down about his nose and emanating fury. ‘This is a disgrace! Wait till I tell Shona.’
‘Aye. Hame – noo!’ Jock was no less forthright, slicing the air with a stick he had grabbed as a defence mechanism.
‘Nonsense! We’ve just arrived. Look at the bonny roses – and what a view we get from here. Now, where do you think that road leads?’ We had travelled most of the paths and still didn’t want to return. The sun continued to shine, the air was clear, why on earth would we go back to that stifling hospital air? I pointed the wheels towards the gate. Jo followed, uttering calming words to patients now bordering on the apoplectic.
Through the gate we went, finding a long winding sloping road edged on either side with bramble-entwined bushes. We paused to savour the view. This was the life!
‘Stop!’ cried Willie, filling his lungs with nice fresh air; but it was too late, his pleas had momentarily distracted us, lessening our grip as the chairs, lined up at the top of the hill as if at a starting point, took off on their own. The Grand National had nothing on this. The once heavy chairs, gathering speed, seemed now to be flying, and as they headed for the first hurdle, their riders’ screams grew fainter by the second.
‘Oh my God!’ Jo proved she could run as well as shout, but not unfortunately as fast as our charges disappearing round the first bend. We’d been told nurses shouldn’t run unless it was an emergency. This qualified.
It was easy racing down that slope. Miss Jones had once told us that the autonomic nervous system took over at times when the brain was disconnected and had asked us to think of an example.
‘Your hair stands up t
o break the wind,’ Rosie had volunteered.
She was referring to arms made goose pimpled to entrap warmth and, once we had all finished laughing, was proved smugly right by Miss Jones. Jo and I could now vouch for fear of doing the same to the head. Still, the hairgrips worked, tethering on our caps, leaving us just dishevelled and anxious but not half as much as our patients, whose bleating sounds came from under some bushes. The passing minutes were recorded by the wheels downside up, still turning and making a startled bird scold in alarm.
‘How long for manslaughter?’ Jo whispered and bent her head like a supplicant.
I followed. Once more, the future looked bleak. I hadn’t thought of prison as a career break, and there and then I made a pact with my maker never to be experimental again, if only our patients would be in one bit.
And there, miraculously, were Willie and Jock, uninjured apart from a few battle scratches gained through unfriendly bramble fire.
‘Thank you, God,’ I whispered, already beginning to regret the deal.
‘We’ll take you home and will never do this again,’ Jo soothed, but our patients had been struck dumb, a prospect more ominous than all their previous complaints. Somehow we managed to wheedle them back into their chairs and soberly returned them to the ward, where they were helped into beds with promises of endless tobacco, no physiotherapy and certainly no fresh air for a very long time.
‘I suppose we better go and tell Sister.’
‘You go first.’ Jo pushed me towards the office door.
I gave a tentative tap.
Sister, looking up from Fishie maintenance, smiled in her benign way. ‘Come in.’ She knocked on the bowl. ‘And here’s the girls, Fishie. We’ve got to congratulate them for getting those two old rascals outside. We never thought they’d do it. What a good thing we backed them, but I’m afraid the rest’ve lost their bet and what about the boys?’
Jo prodded me and considered the floor.
‘It didn’t go very smoothly,’ I said, then threw myself into a career-saving story where we became heroines snatching patients from the jaws of death.
