The Hive

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Look, Sister—all of you,’ Elizabeth said gently. ‘I told you before we began—if these discussions are to have any value at all, we must be honest. As chairwoman of this session, it’s my job to see that we develop an idea to its conclusion. Now, you just said something that means something important to somebody. I don’t know you all very well yet, but I can tell that something has come out of this discussion that has some kind of direct meaning. I can feel it in the—atmosphere, your comment has created. Now, please, what did you say?’

  ‘I think you heard, Matron. She said, “Poor old Jo. Got you in one,”’ Dolly said loudly.

  There was a silence, and then Josephine moved sharply. ‘It’s not fair!’ Her voice was high and thin, with tears only just under control. ‘You’re getting at me—me—just because I try hard and I care about what I do, and don’t want a ward like a pigsty, like you’ve got, Arthur, you and your catty talk——’

  ‘Whoops, that’s me got in one!’ Ruth said easily, seeming to show a sense of relief at Josephine’s attack. ‘Not that I mind! I daresay I’m as obsessed or whatever as you are, Jo, so not to worry. We’ll be happy nuts together——’

  Josephine ignored her, but her voice rose higher as she went on, ‘You think I’m a sort of case, that I’m neurotic or something—well, I’m not, and if I am, there’s others just as much as I am—and they show it more——’ She looked round almost wildly. ‘I’m not like—like McLeod there. What about her, eh? What about her? She’s always going off sick, always moaning about her head, or her legs, or her back, or a cold or something. She’s neurotic if you like! She hasn’t enough to do to need any routine like I need on my ward because it’s a heavy one, so you can’t say she’s got one because she’s neurotic, you just pick on me——’

  ‘Me! Neurotic! Well, I like that! I run myself off my feet to keep this Home nice for you, and you think I’ve got nothing to do, and then you say I’m neurotic—I never heard such a thing in all my life! Don’t you go trying to make me the one who’s bad, madam! Neurotic! If anyone is, it’s you! The way you flap about, the way you’re always eating. She’s right, Matron’s right. Like a great baby, that’s what you are, a great baby. Don’t tell me! I know who’s been stealing the biscuits from the kitchen, why I never have enough to see through the week! You must think me a great fool if you think I don’t know what you are! I’ve seen the great meals you cook up there, the stuff you keep in that cupboard of yours—you make me sick, you and your——’

  Elizabeth stood up, and moved swiftly across the room to put a hand firmly on Cramm’s shoulder, and at the same time, Mary leaned across and put a hand on McLeod’s arm.

  ‘Now, just a moment.’ Elizabeth’s voice was very soft. ‘We seem to be uncovering a great deal tonight that we might not have expected. If we’re to get any benefit from these discussions of ours, we really must learn not to—explode. Clearly, we’ve touched on something that distresses Sister Cramm a good deal. I’m sorry—truly sorry, Sister Cramm, to have been the instrument of your distress. I meant no attack on you, believe me. I want these discussions to help us all, but we don’t seem to be helping you very much to cope with your distress——’

  ‘And what about Sister McLeod?’ Dolly said. ‘If you’re so concerned about everyone’s feelings, doesn’t Sister McLeod have any to be considered?’

  ‘Of course she does. I’m sorry, Sister, that it so happened that you were—well, within range of Sister Cramm’s distress. But try to see it for what it is. I’m quite sure she meant nothing personal in what she said——’

  ‘It sounded pretty personal to me,’ Ruth said, now cheerful again. ‘You can’t deny she’s right, mind you, McLeod. You do go sick a lot——’

  ‘I can’t help it if I’m not as strong as I should be!’ McLeod cried. ‘I get no sympathy, no understanding, just because I’m only Home Sister—and if you all think I’m just a neurotic, then I’d better find another hospital——’

  ‘This is stupid!’ Elizabeth said sharply. ‘For heaven’s sake, let’s behave like grown women, not a crowd of bickering children. Of course there are things about each one of us that other people dislike. Of course there are times when we feel unappreciated—justly, in all probability. But it’s juvenile in the extreme to behave as though this were abnormal! Only children expect the whole world to take them at their own self-valuation. Adults are people who have accepted their own limitations, and make genuine attempts to overcome them——’

  ‘Well, McLeod, that ought to make you feel better!’ Dolly said. ‘It’s not just you Miss Manton thinks is neurotic. It’s not even just you, Cramm. It’s all of us. We’re all neurotic children, is that it, Miss Manton?’ And she looked up at Elizabeth with a triumphant lift of her jaw.

  Elizabeth went back to her chair, leaving Josephine sitting very straight, rigid now with control.

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort. As I said when we began, this discussion isn’t something designed as a pulpit for me. It’s designed for all of us to look inside ourselves, and to find out, with each other’s help, what we are, and why we are——’

  ‘Well, then, I’ll take a look inside you, shall I?’ Dolly said, her head held well back, her mouth a hair line. ‘If it wouldn’t be childish of me, that is——’

  ‘If it has to do with the subject under discussion, by all means,’ Elizabeth said equably.

  ‘Oh, it does. I think that for all your promises not to interfere with us and the way we run our work, you’re just like any other matron. You’re top dog, and you’re going to show it. You don’t like our routines, and you want to change them. But you don’t do what any other matron would do. You don’t just say, I’m in charge, this is how I’m going to have things done. You want to make us feel that we don’t know what’s good for us, you want to make us feel we’re the underdogs and never be able to forget it. So you start a group discussion, and you needle us, and when someone gets pushed too far, like Cramm, then you’ve proved us incapable and childish——’

  ‘It’s a thought. You may be right. I don’t think you are—but I’m hardly in a position to comment. Does anyone else think this might be the case?’

  ‘I—oh, dear—well, I do think, Dolly, you’re going too far, really I do.’ Mary was flustered, and on the edge of tears herself, as she looked at Dolly, carefully avoiding any glance at McLeod or Cramm. ‘I’m sure Matron wants to do this for the reasons she said—to help us get on well together——’

  ‘Oh, marvellous!’ Dolly said. ‘A marvellous way to do it. Cramm all stirred up till she hardly knows what she’s saying, McLeod here attacked so that she says things no one ought ever to say to someone else, no matter what, and you think this is a way to get on well with each other——’

  ‘It could be you know, East,’ Swinton said calmly. ‘Getting on well with people isn’t just a matter of putting up with them. It’s a matter of liking them even though you know their faults. And even when you know they know yours. This thing about Jo and the way she eats. You’ve said yourself often enough that you think she’s greedy, you know you have. The only thing that’s happened here tonight is that someone has said it to Jo’s face instead of behind her back. And as I see it, now it’s been said, maybe Jo can find some value in it.’

  ‘Value!’ Josephine almost shouted the word. ‘Value! If you think——’

  ‘Listen, Jo. You’re not nearly as silly as some of these people seem to think,’ Swinton said gently. ‘You’re hurt—of course you are—but some of the things said to you tonight are true, and you realise this as well as anyone. But I tell you something—if you relax, and think about it, you’ve got something out of all this that will help you. You’ve told me about the way you worry, how you wish you could be more relaxed, haven’t you? If you think about it, you’ll see that some of the things you do are just signs of the worry you have. And once you can admit they exist, as signs, well, aren’t you in a better position to sort out why you worry? What’s behind it all?’


  ‘I knew we’d get round to it,’ Daphne said. ‘What happened in the woodshed when you were three, Cramm? That’s what you’ll have to find out——’

  ‘I hope we will get down to such things in due course, Sister Cooper,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Not necessarily specific happenings in the woodshed, but discussion of and understanding of some of our past experiences and relationships. They all have a bearing on how we behave today.’

  ‘You don’t think there can be free will?’ Swinton sounded genuinely curious.

  ‘Free will?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you think people can behave in any particular way unless there have been experiences in their past to make them behave so?’

  ‘I see what you mean. Let’s put it this way. I think we can act with true free will once we’ve investigated our past experiences. We need to be able to distinguish between a piece of behaviour that’s really free, and one that’s a conditioned response.’

  ‘It’s an interesting idea——’

  ‘Very interesting. Look. I’m going to break one of my private rules, just to show you all what this group discussion can do. I don’t like to produce—facile judgements on the basis of inadequate observation, but I think it may help tonight. With your permission, Sister Cramm.’

  ‘Mine?’

  Elizabeth smiled at her with considerable sympathy. ‘Yes. I want to see if I can tell you something about your past—your childhood—on the basis of your attitude to your work, and your response to tonight’s discussion.’

  ‘I—if you like,’ Josephine said dully. She sat slumped in her chair now, seeming to have lost interest in what was going on.

  ‘Well, then. I think you were very unhappy as a child. I would suspect that your home was broken in some way. Perhaps you lost one or both your parents at an early age. Perhaps you were chivvied from pillar to post during your formative years——’

  Josephine looked up, and stared across at Elizabeth with her face creasing into its familiar anxious lines.

  ‘You’ve been talking to people about me——’

  Elizabeth shook her head. ‘No. Who could I talk to about you? Your colleagues? And if I did such an underhand thing, what could or would they tell me?’

  Josephine shook her head.

  ‘I don’t talk about myself that much——’

  ‘Well, do it now. We’re interested—aren’t we?’ Only Mary nodded in response to Elizabeth’s appeal. The others were looking at Josephine.

  ‘I don’t believe in moaning about things,’ Josephine said.

  ‘It’s—well, I like to keep myself to myself. That’s why I’m——’ she shook her head, and stopped.

  ‘It isn’t always a good thing to do, though, is it?’

  Josephine looked at Elizabeth for a long time, at the calm, gentle expression on her face, and then she licked her lips, and rubbed one hand across them clumsily.

  ‘All right then. Yes, you’re right. I was a Barnardo’s. They knew at my training school, but I never told anyone here. I didn’t want a lot of—pity or anything, so I never talked about it—but you—— Are you sure you didn’t hear it from somewhere? No. You couldn’t have——’ She looked at Elizabeth again, and then suddenly, she got up and went across the room to McLeod.

  ‘Gladys. I’m sorry about what I said. I truly am. I was just—well you know how it is.’

  McLeod would not look up, keeping her head down and her hands primly folded on her lap. After a pause, Josephine said awkwardly, ‘Well, if you don’t mind, all of you, I’m tired. I’m going to bed. If you’ll excuse me, Matron.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Elizabeth waited until she had reached the door.

  ‘Sister Cramm. I hope—you will come to the next discussion, two weeks from tonight, won’t you? We wouldn’t want to lose your contributions.’

  Josephine looked at her, and then said flatly, ‘Oh, yes. I’ll come. It looks as though I rather need yours and everyone else’s, doesn’t it? Goodnight.’

  NINE

  ‘Sister Cramm wonders if you could see her this morning before your round, Matron.’ Miss Baker collected the pile of letters and notes to which Elizabeth had dictated answers and stood up. ‘I told her you were very busy, and offered her a time this afternoon, but she says it’s personal and important, and she’d like to see you as soon as possible.’

  An immediate surge of guilt made Elizabeth irritable for a moment; but with a conscious effort, she suppressed it, and smiled with her customary charm.

  ‘Yes, of course. Ask her if she can come now, then, will you? I can probably keep the domestic supervisor waiting for a few minutes without causing a strike among the maids! And Miss Baker——’ The girl turned back from the door. ‘I’ll have my coffee early. Bring two cups.’

  She’s going to give in her notice, Elizabeth thought, allowing her irritation the upper hand. Cut and run. She’s the type. I was too precipitate for a first session, I suppose—— I should have been more patient, but these women are so damned smug they make me want to put a bomb under them. Hell. The consultants like her because she’s so rigid, and the ward looks so smooth, and they’ll feel I’m too much the new broom by half if I start by losing one of the sisters they like. But I mustn’t use persuasion to keep her, or I’ll get nowhere with any of them. Bloody woman——

  When Josephine came in, Elizabeth was standing by the window, looking down at the steady rush of traffic in the main road below, and she turned and greeted her with a friendly smile, friendly but not unduly ingratiating.

  ‘Good morning, Sister Cramm. Isn’t it pleasant to see some sun again? Spring seems well on its way, but I must say, I wish it didn’t show the shabbiness of the paint everywhere so cruelly! We’ll have to see if the finance committee can be persuaded to release some money for repainting some of the wards. I imagine you’d like your ward redecorated, wouldn’t you? We must see what we can do. Now, do sit down, and we’ll have some coffee while we talk. Miss Baker tells me you have a personal matter to discuss——’

  Miss Baker brought the coffee tray, and there was a small and agreeable fuss as the cups were filled. Watching Josephine covertly, Elizabeth could see she was grateful for the delay, and her spirits lifted. Perhaps she isn’t going to resign after all. She hasn’t got that belligerent look I’d expect if she were——

  ‘See we aren’t interrupted, Miss Baker, will you? And tell the domestic supervisor I’m sorry to keep her waiting and that I’ll send for her as soon as I’m free. She needn’t wait about here.’

  There was a short silence when Miss Baker had gone, and then Elizabeth said gently, ‘Well, Sister Cramm? How can I help you?’

  Josephine set down her cup very carefully, and looked over Elizabeth’s head, began to speak, producing her words as though she had rehearsed them.

  ‘I have been thinking most carefully about last night’s discussion, Matron. Most carefully. And—and——’ She stopped, and her eyes slid towards Elizabeth’s and moved away again.

  ‘Sister, please, before you go on, may I say something? I am truly sorry that you became a butt for—personal—attack last night. While I don’t in any way apologise for the fact that there was such a discussion—I still feel that they can be of inestimable value—I would like to apologise for the way some of your colleagues behaved towards you. I had, perhaps, over-estimated the degree of—understanding that exists among the sisters here. I had hoped we would be able to discuss these problems we have in a dispassionate way, but clearly, it will be some time before the function of open discussion is fully appreciated by everybody. And I’m sorry to have been the unwitting cause of——’

  ‘Oh, Matron, please!’ Josephine’s words came with a rush. ‘Please, you mustn’t think I hold any grudge—I mean, you weren’t to know, were you, about the way I am, about the—I mean, that I’m obsessive and everything. How could you? I can’t say I wasn’t upset, I was, as much because of the way I hit out at poor McLeod. I mean, she’s got her problems,
too, hasn’t she? I should have thought, but I was just childish—you know, you hit me, and I’ll hit you back, and all that, and I shouldn’t have, and I want to tell you how sorry I am. I behaved so badly——’

  She looked at Elizabeth piteously, and then her face crumpled, her mouth pulling downwards into a wide grimace, and she was crying unattractively, her eyes reddening and her nose running so that she sniffed thickly and gulped before groping behind her apron bib for a handkerchief with which to cover her face.

  Elizabeth sat quietly watching until the paroxysm of noisy weeping had settled down and Josephine raised her blotched and swollen face again.

  ‘Oh, Matron, I swore to myself I wouldn’t cry, but I couldn’t help it—I’m not usually so silly—do forgive me—it’s awful to sit here crying like a great baby——’ She tried to laugh, and produced only a high yelp. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? I’m just like a child really, just like a child——’ Tears threatened to overwhelm her again.

  ‘Not at all like a child,’ Elizabeth said with brisk kindness. ‘I do understand, and I’m sorry you feel so upset. But a good cry can be therapeutic, can’t it? Now, let’s have some more coffee, and we can talk more calmly. You’ll feel better now.’

  Josephine did feel better. She scrubbed at her red nose again, and smiled at Elizabeth with watery pathos, before drinking the fresh coffee she poured for her.

  ‘I just wanted to tell you, Matron, how grateful I am to you, really grateful. I’ve never been one to cry about my troubles, or anything, but you know, I’ve had a hard life, really. It’s not that I’ve actually suffered hardship or anything, but there’s never been anyone who understood me, or how I felt or anything. And last night, after I’d gone to bed, I started thinking, and I could see, you know, I really could see you were right. And—and I hope you won’t think I’m being—well, conceited or anything, but when I was thinking, it seemed to me that you understood me, but still liked me——’ She looked directly at Elizabeth for a moment and then reddened, and looked away. ‘I mean, I didn’t feel that you despised me or anything, even though you knew how silly I was, and that I had all this routine and everything to make up for having no parents or anything.’