The Print Petticoat

by Lucilla Andrews

  This was perfectly true. Sister Casualty at Gregory’s was a tradition, not a woman. She had held the job for thirty years. Most of the Gregory’s men and all the Gregory’s nurses were terrified of her. The patients adored her. ‘That old Sister,’ they would say, ‘carries on a fair caution, she does. The things she says!’

  The only possible way to her heart was to flirt openly with her. Allan was right, Marcus would be a great success as a C.O. Sister Casualty had several awe-inspiring mannerisms. She called all men, from the most senior member of the Staff to the most junior pre-clinical medical student, ‘Doctor’. She packed an amazing contempt into that respectable title. The patients she addressed correctly but always, to their surprise, by their sex.

  ‘Man! What do you want?’

  ‘Girl! What’s wrong with your leg?’

  Beth complained that even after her bath her feet still hurt. ‘I thought I would never get off them at all ‒ I didn’t get to lunch till ten to two. The place was swamped with mangled hands from the saw-mill. Why do these men always cut themselves in bunches? I did nothing between twelve and one but push fainting men into wheel-chairs and bloody hands in H2O2. When I should have been having lunch I was ladling out gallons of Ammon. Aromat. (Sal volatile) to revive the bodies after the boys had stitched them. God save us. Who’d be a nurse!’

  I had a rush of longing to get back to hospital life as I listened. Messy, chaotic, busy Casualty, where no two minutes of the day are alike, and yesterday’s case forgotten as last year’s dreams.

  ‘I saw you being a ministering angel, Beth,’ said Marcus. ‘To a couple of boys who looked bright green. When I was on my way to the P.M. Room after lunch.’

  ‘After lunch?’ Beth rubbed her forehead.

  ‘My lunch. I don’t expect you had gone if you didn’t get off till late.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I remember. That wasn’t the hands. It was a face. Bad burns.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘Oxy-acetylene. Hideous, poor devil. He was admitted at once. But the boys saw him when he first came in ‒ that did it.’

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Marcus. ‘I’ve never seen a bad oxy-acetylene burn. I’d like to have a look at the chap tomorrow.’

  ‘Then you had better look in the P.M. Room,’ said Allan shortly. ‘He was in Robert Jordan. He died in the theatre.’ We were sitting up now. Quite sober.

  ‘Not on the table?’ I asked.

  ‘No ‒ outside in the corridor. Not that it makes much difference. Have to be an inquest in any case.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Marcus.

  ‘Not in twenty-four hours,’ Beth, Allan, and I answered together. It’s odd how little of the actual workings of a hospital even senior students know. Marcus was within a few months of qualifying, yet his knowledge of Gregory’s was almost completely academic. It’s interesting watching the softening-up process that takes place after qualification. Casualty Officers and nurses are on the same side. Medical students, no matter how individually nice, are antagonistic to the nursing staff. It’s understandable. Until they become doctors they don’t need nurses.

  ‘Joa,’ said Beth suddenly. ‘I quite forgot. It’s the end of the month. Did you give notice?’

  They all looked at me, and I was jerked from the safety of Gregory’s gossip to the uncertainty of my own affairs.

  I said I had.

  ‘We may as well have some more whisky on that,’ said Marcus. He refilled our glasses.

  Chapter Ten

  Marcus Cooks the Supper

  One of my patients in The Havenne was called Miss Bray. She was suffering from mitral stenosis. She had come in for an annual checking and was not particularly ill with the disease. During my last few weeks in the place she heard I was leaving.

  She suggested I went home with her for a while as her private nurse. She offered to pay me five guineas a week and keep. This was two guineas less than the recognized fee for private nurses.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Nurse Anthony,’ she said simply. ‘I’m afraid I just can’t afford any more after being in here.’ I rather liked Miss Bray ‒ she was a good patient ‒ so I thought it over for a few days. I was still considering her offer when the Secretary came up to the Floor one morning. She and I had become friends, so I asked her what she thought about it. She roared with laughter.

  ‘Miss Bray? That old devil! Don’t let her take you in! Don’t touch it! She’s one of the dozen or so richest women in England. She could pay you fifty pounds a week and not notice it! As it is you’ll probably end up with a bad debt. You let her be, Anthony!’

  That evening, as I gave Miss Bray her blanket-bath after tea, I told her I had heard she had the Midas touch. I wondered what she would say. She was quite delighted, and the suite rattled with her silvery laughter.

  ‘My dear ‒ it’s so awful! People always tell me I don’t live up to my position, and of course they are quite right. But, dear Nurse Anthony! How does one spend money in England these days?’

  The morning she was due to leave the nursing-home she said she had something to show me.

  ‘Shut the door first, nurse dear.’

  I don’t know anything about jewels, so I don’t know if the pearls were worth what she had paid for them or not. I do know that never had I seen anything more exquisite. The necklace was the normal length, with only a single string of not over-large beads. It was their colour that was superb. They glowed, round, smooth, pink.

  ‘I had them sent up by my jeweller, nurse,’ she said. ‘I just had to have something to cheer me up! Of course, they’re not new!’

  They had cost her £950. One string of pearls.

  ‘Have I been terribly naughty and extravagant, do you think, dear?’

  It would take my whole salary for three years to pay for those beads.

  I looked at her thin neck, her ageing chin, her tight fingers on the top sheet. Well, well, I thought. Well, well.

  I said, ‘Not at all!’ Like my colleagues, I now said that all the time.

  ‘I’m so glad you agree with me, dear Nurse Anthony. You’re such a nice, sensible girl. I was afraid you would want to spank me!’

  Sensible. Me. At that moment I was a perfect little Madame Defarge. I could hardly wait to get out my knitting and watch the tumbrils roll.

  When we said goodbye, Miss Bray said she hated leaving me and she did want to give me something as I had been so sweet.

  ‘Do take any of my flowers you want, nurse! Except of course the carnations ‒ I’ll take them with me as they are new.’

  That evening Allan came to fetch me, and on the way home he proposed again. Very much to my own surprise I still said no. We did not do any park strolling that evening, for some reason I was tired. We did not talk at all in the bus. He proposed while we waited at Hyde Park Corner. Beth was out when we got in. We ate our somewhat atmospheric supper in the living-room. It was one of those cold grey evenings that you get in an English summer. It made little difference to our gaiety. It was a night when spectres were feasting in Water Street, and a few more bones rattling dismally around went unnoticed in our combined gloom.

  Allan switched on the electric fire with his foot, pushed the sofa towards it, dropped heavily into the opposite corner from where I sat, and pulled out his pipe. He glanced up at the window, then uttered the classic phrase beloved of all English (and Scotsmen) about to make love.

  ‘I think it’s rather nice in the gloaming, don’t you, Joanna?’ He put down his unlit pipe, moved beside me, slid his arm under my shoulder, then gave up any further pretence, and pulled me both competently and comfortably on to his knee.

  ‘How’s that?’ he asked, his face in my hair.

  ‘All right,’ I said rather helplessly. I did not in the least feel like necking, but Allan was in one of his bull-dozing moods. However, as I have said, it was both comfortable and warm in his arms, and I could hardly get away without really upsetting him. Apart from his constant proposals, Allan was a friend of min
e, I liked him and would have wanted to keep him that way, only I realized there was no serious chance of my being able to do that. Any day now the end would have to come between us. I was feeling so very tired that night that I had no energy left for any sort of a scene.

  While he was kissing me I wondered about this tiredness. Perhaps it was due to lack of fresh air. It certainly was not hard work. I drifted round The Havenne, and the more I drifted the more wilted I was becoming.

  Allan was talking into my neck.

  ‘Why do you have to be so darned adamant, Joanna? Can’t you think it over?’

  I shook my head. Not an easy thing to do in that position.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to marry you. I don’t think I really want to marry anyone. Not even Richard. I’m too bloody tired.’

  ‘Know what I want?’ he said.

  It was young love’s night out. My line was girlish innocence.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  Allan kissed me hard. A good many times.

  ‘This,’ he said, on an intake of breath. He kissed very well. So well that I gave up my own private thoughts for a few minutes.

  Then I realized there were more ways than one of breaking up a friendly party.

  ‘Allan,’ I pulled back my head, caught his face in my hands. ‘Allan. This really isn’t doing either of us any good.’

  He grinned. ‘I don’t know about you, Joanna ‒ I’m doing all right.’

  I laughed too and disentangled myself.

  ‘Well, it isn’t,’ I said firmly. ‘Fond as I am of you, Allan, I’m going to throw you out. It’s time you were away ‒ and I was in bed.’

  He got up and turned on the light. He looked round for his pipe.

  ‘You know what, Joanna’ ‒ his voice was very Scots that night ‒ ‘You know what ‒ it’s an awful pity you’re a nice girl ‒ and I’m in love with you.’

  ‘Allan,’ I said, ‘if you of all men are going to make an improper proposal I’ll never believe in human nature again.’ I smiled up at him. ‘Go home at once! You must have been seeing too much of Marcus.’

  ‘What’s so special about Marcus?’ He was really indignant now.

  ‘Nothing. Only marriage is clearly the last thing he thinks of in relation to women, and it’s equally clearly the first thing you think of.’

  ‘To hell with Marcus!’ he said glumly. ‘Good-night, Joanna.’

  After he had gone I did a most unusual thing. I sat down alone on the sofa and cried. When Beth got back I was still weeping.

  ‘Good God!’ she said. ‘Joa ‒ what’s the matter?’

  I took the lighted cigarette she offered me.

  ‘God knows. I don’t; I feel like crying. I expect it’s all because I’m so damned tired. Or else it’s Allan. He will propose,’ I wailed tactlessly.

  Beth roared with laughter, then grew more serious and asked if I had a pain anywhere.

  ‘All the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you shed a tear. Not even over dear Richard. What is the matter, honey?’ she asked again.

  ‘Maybe it’s The Havenne. Life in a private nursing-home is enough to make Miss Nightingale herself weep.’

  I thought about it in bed. I was not usually the type to go all primitive and womanly over a necking session ‒ or anything else for that matter. As I thought, I rubbed my shoulder. Beth had asked me if I had a pain. You can hardly call rheumatism a pain. My left shoulder had been hurting pretty consistently lately. I decided it was the result of living so close to the river. When I woke up the next morning I felt just about the same. I thought about the advertisements in which weary ladies explain their ailments to doctors with haggard handsome faces. I too would go to see a doctor, when I could find one who looked sufficiently distinguished.

  That evening there was a letter from Richard waiting for me at the flat. Richard had a good deal to say to me. Amongst other things he said he grasped that I was trying to make a clean break, but since he missed me damnably and was free at the weekend, he was coming round to the flat on Friday evening and would sit on the doorstep until we let him in. ‘I must see you, my darling ‒ so be there.’

  The letter was written yesterday, which was Thursday. I looked at the time, then rushed to change. I unhooked my collar and belt and lectured myself on the false building up of hopes. Richard meant only what he said. That he missed me and wanted to see me. That was all. He knew quite well all he had to say to see me as often as he wanted. Which meant there was no point in getting excited over his letter or the thought of seeing him again. In fact, the converse ‒ shut the door, hide under the bedclothes! I brushed my hair more slowly. I knew I was going to be a fool, but I knew I lacked the will-power to prevent myself being hurt. I was still doing my hair when the door-bell rang. Allan had mended it for us, and it now worked beautifully. My reflexes were working pretty well too. I was at the front door, the door was open, and not till I saw Marcus, not Richard, standing there, did I realize I had a mouthful of hair-pins. I dropped the lot.

  Marcus picked them up. When he stood up again his face was very red. ‘Yours, I believe, Joanna. Can I come in?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. Hallo. Go into the sitting-room, would you, Marcus, while I fix my hair.’

  ‘Leave it the way it is,’ he said. ‘I like it floating round. If you weren’t so dark you’d be very Burne-Jonesy.’

  He followed me into the sitting-room. It was another cold night. I switched on the fire.

  ‘Do I look that anaemic?’

  He smiled down at me, pleasantly. ‘No, dear. Just rather transparent. I don’t think they feed you properly at The Havenne.’

  ‘The food’s all right,’ I said. ‘Actually, it’s rather good.’ I hesitated. ‘Look, Marcus ‒ I think I’m going out. I must go and change and fix my hair. Sit down, have a paper. Beth’ll be back soon.’ For the first time since I had known him, Marcus seemed embarrassed about something.

  ‘Don’t go yet, Joa!’

  I stopped in the doorway. ‘Why not?’

  ‘To start with. Beth won’t be back soon. She’s got a date with one of the lads. I saw her as I came through Casualty just now and she asked me to tell you.’

  ‘Who?’ I was curious and rather pleased.

  ‘Hector Johnson.’

  ‘Another Scot!’ I spoke without thinking. Marcus grinned. He put his hand in his pocket.

  ‘I’ve got something for you, Joa.’ He brought out a bottle of gin. ‘Have you got any lemons? I thought we might have a party.’

  ‘Marcus,’ I laughed. ‘Marcus, do you always carry neat liquor?’

  He nodded. ‘The Lemmy Caution of the Medical Schools ‒ that’s Ormorod. Now run along, darling, and get some glasses. I want a drink.’

  ‘We’ve got some maternity orange-juice somewhere in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘A relic from Elmhall. Be a honey and help yourself ‒ and me if you mean it. But I must make myself respectable.’

  Marcus hesitated. Then, ‘Look, Joa ‒ don’t go. That’s what I came to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ I said. I knew quite well and my stomach turned to ice.

  ‘Beth gave me another message for you,’ he said slowly. ‘She ‒ she wanted to ring you but couldn’t leave her Clinic. It’s from Everley,’ he added more quickly.

  ‘Yes?’ My voice at least was normal and polite.

  ‘I gather he had a date here tonight. Well, it seems he met Jardine-Anderson at lunch in the canteen and J.A. asked him to go over to Martha’s to look at a case there this evening. I think he and Everley were at Cambridge together or something? Anyway, Everley asked Beth to tell you how terribly sorry he was but he wouldn’t be able to make it. Beth said he wanted to ring you, but you wouldn’t be back in time.’

  ‘I see.’ I sat down. ‘Thank you, Marcus. So you came round with a bottle of gin. There was no need.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a dirty crack, Joa,’ was all he said. He went into the kitchen, came back with the orange-juice an
d some glasses. He mixed the drinks and handed me one.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Marcus. ‘Drink up.’

  The drink only made me more angry. Being a nurse, I knew exactly how long it takes to look at a case. How many telephone boxes there are in every hospital; how many outside lines there were to The Havenne. Above all I knew Richard. I knew he had thought better of his letter, and this was his way out. Here was Marcus with the gin bottle telling me I had been stood up.

  ‘Why did you come round, Marcus?’ I asked curiously. ‘Presumably as you are here, you aren’t looking at a case ‒ so why didn’t you ring me?’

  His heavy fair-brown hair fell forward in the same affected way it had done at Elmhall. It irritated me as much now as on that first morning.

  ‘Am I then forbidden your company, dear Joanna, because you are still in love with that anatomy text-book?’

  I leant back in my chair and thought how I would love to throw my glass at him ‒ only, being a bad thrower, I should probably miss him. Also, beyond doubt Marcus would throw his back at me: the wrong instincts were written all over him. Nor was there any likelihood of his missing.

  ‘What if dear Joanna doesn’t feel like your company?’ I said. ‘And why can’t I indulge in unrequited love if I want to? Damn you, man.’ I was getting worked up now. ‘It’s the very breath of life. I thrive on it.’

  He was watching me with an odd expression on his face. ‘Do you?’ he said carefully. ‘I can’t say I agree with you. I think it’s hell.’

  ‘What?’ I forgot to be angry as I was really interested. ‘Marcus, what do you know about it?’

  He grimaced. ‘Nothing at all, my dear,’ he said airily. ‘We were discussing you.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, why are you here? You know how I feel about Richard?’

  He laughed. ‘Darling. Think how much more interesting this makes it. Surely you know nothing is more exciting than the pursuit of the unattainable.’