Snowflakes in the Wind

by Rita Bradshaw

  She sat up in bed, oblivious to the icy chill of the room. She hadn’t seen who or what it was behind her, but she didn’t have to. Joe McHaffie had followed her here . . .

  Chapter Fourteen

  Abby woke up in the morning to someone shaking her shoulder. For a moment she didn’t have a clue where she was, and then she stared up into Kitty’s round bright face, her red hair drawn back in two long plaits which hung over her shoulders and made her plump face look even plumper. ‘Wakey wakey, rise and shine. It’s six o’clock and breakfast’s at six-thirty. No one is ever late. Old Duffy makes sure of that. Flo’s laid out your uniform for you so nip to the bathroom first.’

  Abby nipped, returning to wrestle with the uniform and in particular the dreaded cap. After three attempts to master it which had resulted in the cap first slipping over one eye, then sliding straight down the back of her neck, and finally unfolding itself gracefully as she turned her head, Flo folded it and fixed it on Abby’s thick hair with long grips. Once Flo pronounced her ready to face Sister Duffy, Abby looked at herself in the wardrobe-door mirror. A smart unruffled nurse stared back at her which wasn’t at all how she felt inside.

  She felt even less like it by the time breakfast was over. Now she was in uniform she was expected to take Kitty’s place as the table skivvy, and as no one – apart from her three room-mates – made any allowances for her newness, she was soon as red-faced as Kitty and more flustered than she had ever been in her life. If she wasn’t sawing off wedges of bread or pouring out mugs of tea, she was rushing backwards and forwards to the kitchen hatch for more supplies. By the time breakfast was over she had managed to gulp down a sausage and a fried egg and one slice of bread and marmalade on the go, swallowing the occasional sip of tea in the brief moments she returned to her seat.

  The sisters’ and the staff nurses’ tables were the only ones served exclusively by the kitchen maids, and the calm order of these emphasized just how exalted these seniors were. Matron Blackett ate in her own private sitting room, apparently, which was considered the Holy of Holies by every member of staff. Abby had been told she was due to present herself outside the matron’s office at seven o’clock once breakfast was over and before she was taken to her ward, and she was already filled with trepidation.

  At five to seven the dreaded Sister Duffy materialized at her elbow. ‘Nurse Kirby?’ A pair of gimlet eyes in a face that could have been set in stone surveyed her with withering contempt from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. ‘You don’t seriously think you are going to insult Matron’s sensibilities by appearing in front of her like that? Tidy yourself.’

  Abby smoothed her apron and straightened her cap, wondering how on earth the sister expected her to remain pristine when she had been rushing around like a cat with its tail on fire.

  ‘Come with me.’ In a rustle of starch the sister marched off without bothering to see if she was being followed, and Abby scurried along behind her. When they arrived at an imposing-looking door at the end of one of the many corridors, the sister stopped, turning to look at Abby again. ‘Listen carefully to what I am about to say. You do not speak until you are spoken to and only then to answer any questions Matron might ask you. You do not proffer opinions’ – here the sister’s eyes narrowed to black slits as she contemplated such a heinous crime – ‘and you stand straight with your hands behind your back. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘You do not fidget, you do not look Matron in the eye but keep your gaze respectfully lowered unless you are answering something Matron has asked you. Then, and only then, you may raise your eyes to hers.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Sister Duffy wasn’t convinced, if her glare was anything to go by, but nevertheless she turned and knocked on the door before opening it a crack and putting her head in as she announced, ‘The new nurse is here, Matron.’

  Abby sidled past the sister who shut the door after her. Alone with the matron, Abby felt her heart thumping as she tried to remember everything Sister Duffy had hissed at her, but it was the welcome warmth of the room that struck her most. Overall the hospital was a chilly place and there had been ice on the inside of their bedroom window that morning, but here in Matron’s office the fire burning in the fireplace lent the room a homely, cheerful air.

  Not so the matron when, after what seemed an age, she spoke, enabling Abby to raise her head. ‘I hope you are aware that academic ability does not necessarily qualify you to become a good nurse?’ she said coldly.

  Not knowing if a reply was expected, Abby stared into the thin, beak-nosed face for a moment before managing, ‘Yes, Matron.’

  ‘Strict obedience, hard work and dedication are what are required, and I will accept nothing less than perfection from my nurses.’ The matron waited a moment for her words to sink in. ‘You obey orders from a superior without question and adhere to the rules of the hospital at all times, whether you are in its confines or not. By that I mean I expect the highest standards from my nurses even when they are off duty – you carry the reputation of Hemingway’s with you. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Matron.’

  ‘Punctuality, respect and unwavering devotion to duty need to run through your core like a stick of Blackpool rock.’ Abby’s eyes widened; was the matron making a joke? She looked into the steely-blue eyes. Apparently not. ‘And integrity, attention to detail and compliance are a must. I will tolerate no excuses, Nurse Kirby.’

  Now the steely gaze was piercing, and for a terrible moment Abby felt that the matron was looking into her mind and seeing the activities of Pam and the others the night before and blaming her for them.

  ‘Nursing never has been, and never will be, a soft option for a woman. It requires physical endurance and stamina that many men would find difficult, and a mental acceptance of the unacceptable at times.’ Now the matron leaned forward slightly, and although her face did not soften there was a difference to it when she added, ‘But in my opinion, one day as a nurse is more worthwhile than a lifetime in a different occupation. Nursing is a vocation, Nurse Kirby. Do you have what is necessary?’

  Here Abby could answer from the heart, her voice full of emotion when she said, ‘Yes, Matron. I do.’

  The matron surveyed her for a few moments before nodding. ‘We’ll see.’ Reaching to the side of her, she pulled on a cord that was presumably connected to a bell somewhere. ‘I don’t want to see you here for any misdemeanours, Nurse Kirby,’ she said grimly, adding, ‘I understand you are sharing a room with Nurse Lyndon?’

  Abby stared at the matron blankly.

  ‘Nurse Pamela Lyndon?’

  The penny dropped. She hadn’t known Pam’s surname. ‘Yes, Matron.’

  ‘Then I repeat, I do not wish to see you in here for any misconduct.’ The eagle eyes left Abby in no doubt that the matron was aware of every transgression that went on under her roof. Abby could almost smell the smoke from Pam’s cigarettes.

  A quiet knock at the door sounded in answer to the matron’s summons for which Abby was extremely thankful; she had gone red to the roots of her hair.

  ‘My secretary will take you to the ward where you will be working until the next changeover day. On that morning a change list will be on the noticeboard informing you where you will go. I’m sure the other girls will explain the procedure fully to you. Work hard, Nurse Kirby. Work brings its own reward.’ The matron looked down at the papers on her desk.

  Assuming the interview was over, Abby murmured, ‘Yes, Matron. Thank you, Matron,’ and escaped into the corridor outside, where the matron’s secretary – only a little less formidable than the lady herself – was waiting to escort her. Her head reeling, Abby followed the secretary down yet more corridors, wondering if by mistake she had joined the army rather than enrolled as a nurse.

  By dinnertime that evening, Abby was asking herself how she could ever have thought life on the farm was hard, and also at what point in her nursing career she woul
d actually get to nurse any patients. On her arrival at the ward, the secretary had left her with the staff nurse, the sister being busy with more important matters than talking to a junior nurse. The staff nurse had the face of an angel and the voice of a sergeant major which she used to good effect most of the day.

  ‘I expected you before this,’ was her greeting, to which Abby wisely made no response. Thanks to Flo and the others she was learning that with any person more senior than herself – which was everyone – it was best to say nothing and observe much. Explanations were always looked on as impertinent excuses.

  ‘Well, you’re here now,’ the staff nurse continued irritably. ‘I hope you’re not one of those who turn green at the sight of blood and faeces. Come with me.’

  Abby followed the imperious figure down the ward which had beds either side of it and a nurses’ station in the middle, and out into the sluice. The smell nearly knocked her backwards but the staff nurse seemed oblivious as she instructed another junior nurse who was already working there to show Abby the ropes.

  Once the staff nurse had swept out again, the junior grinned at Abby. ‘Welcome to Florence Nightingale land,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Except it’s not. I’ve been here two months and it’s all scrubbing and polishing, not to mention sluices, bedpans and lavatories. They seem to think they’ve got to immerse us in muck and vomit and blood and the rest of it before we’re safe to be let loose on the patients. Still, at least I’m not the most junior nurse on the ward any more.’

  Abby smiled weakly. She didn’t need reminding.

  There followed a detailed list of her duties. ‘I’ll collect the bedpans and bring them here to you,’ the nurse said importantly, obviously full of the fact that at last she was senior to someone. ‘Then you empty them, wash them well and warm them up under the tap ready for me to take out. And make sure they’re clean else Sister will go barmy. Bits of nasty get stuck down the handles sometimes.’

  Abby gulped.

  ‘Then we clean the floor and wash down the walls before going on the ward, but we’re not allowed to speak to the patients. We sweep and polish the floor first, under the beds, everywhere. Not a speck can be left. Then we wash down the walls and windowsills and everything with disinfectant, before starting on the bed springs.’

  Abby stared at her. ‘Bed springs?’

  The nurse giggled. ‘They all have to be polished so there’s not a spot of dust on them for when Matron does her rounds. She sometimes picks up the edge of a mattress to inspect the springs and if she’s not satisfied there’s hell to pay. Then we do the frames of the beds and so on, then the nurses’ station, then . . .’ She stopped, noticing the glazed expression on Abby’s face. ‘I’ll show you as we go, all right? I’m Kath, by the way.’

  They had slaved all morning, then had lunch which had consisted of bread and cheese and pickles, before returning to the ward and the sluice room where dirty linen had to be counted and bagged for the laundry, more bedpans emptied and washed, and vomit bowls cleaned and scalded. Abby’s hands were red and sore, her back was aching and every muscle in her legs and feet was screaming, when Kath said brightly, ‘Right, the two bathrooms next. You can clean the lavatories.’

  From Kath’s tone, Abby suspected – rightly – that the lavatories had hitherto been Kath’s job as most junior nurse, and that she was thrilled to be passing the task on to someone else. She soon found out why. They were in the men’s ward for infectious diseases, and the state of the lavatories showed all too clearly that the patients weren’t too particular in their habits.

  Kath grimaced sympathetically as Abby stood surveying the condition of the first lavatory. ‘I know,’ she said, in answer to Abby’s unspoken thoughts that were nevertheless clearly visible in her horrified countenance. ‘Dirty beggars, aren’t they, but that’s men for you. Here’s the bleach and disinfectant, and you have to be careful to clean right round the U-bend as far as you can reach. Matron has a tour of inspection most days, and she always pays a visit in here.’

  Kath giggled as she realized what she’d said and Abby had to smile. The thought of the imperious matron seated on one of the men’s lavatories was unthinkable.

  ‘Not in that way, of course,’ Kath said between giggles. ‘If all the rumours are true, our beloved Matron has never and will never indulge in bodily functions like the rest of us mere mortals.’

  They worked hard for the rest of the day, and by the time the staff nurse instructed Abby to go and get her dinner she felt light-headed with a mixture of hunger and exhaustion. She had quite forgotten she was the drudge for the table until she entered the noisy dining room. Wearily she took her place and began the endless chore of slicing wedges of bread to go with the two spoonfuls of wet, overcooked cabbage, stringy mutton and round hard objects that professed to be boiled potatoes. Gazing at her plate, Abby wondered how on earth the hospital cooks could ruin good wholesome food so spectacularly well. Even the gravy in the tin gravyboat was more like dishwater.

  ‘Absolutely disgusting, isn’t it,’ said Kitty, who was sitting opposite her. ‘I can’t believe they expect us to eat this stuff.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Do you want all your potatoes?’ she added hopefully, beaming her thanks when Abby silently passed her plate over the table.

  The meal over, it was back to the wards until ten o’clock, by which time Abby staggered off duty wanting nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep for ever. When she reached the bedroom, it was to find Flo standing looking at their beds. The four of them had been stripped to the springs, the mattresses lying higgledy-piggledy on top of each other.

  ‘Sister Duffy.’ Flo sounded as weary as Abby felt. ‘Everything Pam says about that woman is true. I could strangle her right at this moment. Help me get the mattresses back on the beds, would you?’

  Between them they lugged the mattresses on the four beds and then threw Pam and Kitty’s sheets, blankets and pillows on top of their beds. ‘They can make them up when they come back,’ Flo panted. ‘We’re not doing theirs as well.’

  Abby heartily agreed. It was all she could do to pull her bedclothes roughly into place and climb between them, still in her uniform minus her cap.

  Flo came and stood by Abby’s bed for a moment on her way to the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. ‘I was like that for the first couple of weeks,’ she said sympathetically, ‘but you will get used to it although you don’t think so now. I’ll tell Pam and Kitty to be quiet when they come back.’

  The other two girls had gone to the nurses’ sitting room to listen to a wireless programme they were interested in and have a smoke. The sitting room was the only place where officialdom allowed the nurses to have cigarettes; consequently the air was always thick and hazy with smoke, and on the rare occasion it began to clear, the fire in the small fireplace at the far end of the long narrow room sent more smoke billowing back over the girls than it ever managed to expel up the chimney. Old sofas and chairs lined two of the other three walls, and a coffee table was piled high with blankets that parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles had donated to keep the nurses warm in the winter months. The tiny fireplace was woefully inadequate and the two windows let in such a draught that the curtains constantly fluttered in the breeze. But at least it was a meeting place, a room to air grievances imagined and otherwise, to laugh, chatter and occasionally cry in each other’s company, and without exception to rail against sisters and staff nurses who could – and usually did – make all their lives a misery.

  The third wall consisted of shelves from floor to ceiling holding a number of books and magazines, all of which were carefully vetted by the matron before being allowed on the hospital premises. Anything slightly racy or in any way suspect never made it to the sitting room. Flo had told Abby that there had been a huge rumpus just before Christmas when a copy of D. H. Lawrence’s scandalous book Lady Chatterley’s Lover was found in the sitting room, obviously having been smuggled in. When Abby had confessed she had never heard of it, Flo had told he
r the book dealt with a love affair between a woman whose husband was impotent from war disablement, and the gamekeeper on their estate. There were passages of unprecedented frankness, Flo had whispered, using swear words and everything.

  Abby had gazed at Flo wide-eyed. ‘Did you read it then?’ she’d whispered back.

  Flo had giggled. ‘Of course, and I shouldn’t say this, because she would never admit to it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Pam who brought it in. She’s quite a free spirit, is our Pam.’

  As Flo disappeared off to the bathroom, Abby shut her eyes. She would just have a little nap until the bathroom was clear – there was always a queue when everyone came off duty – and then she would go along and have a wash and brush her teeth and change into her nightdress.

  It was her last conscious thought before the faithful Kitty woke her at six o’clock the next morning.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Over the next weeks Abby began to slot into the hospital life at Hemingway’s. She discovered the half-day a week and day off a month that every nurse was supposed to have as off-duty time depended very much on the sister in charge of the ward where she was working. Some bitterly resented their probationers having any free time at all, and always seemed to say that the ward was far too busy and they couldn’t be spared. Others allowed the nurses their small amount of freedom, but always with a disappointed air that their dedication to duty was not what it should be.

  It was the same with mealtimes. It seemed there were no laws against the nurses missing meals, which happened on some wards more than others, but plenty against said nurses asking if they could be excused to eat. As Flo had warned Abby, it would be more than her life was worth to remind Sister it was lunch- or dinnertime. Some nurses got round this problem by surreptitiously eating what was left of the patients’ food before it was collected by one of the kitchen maids, but it was a procedure fraught with danger. The penalty for being caught eating on the wards was a visit to Matron’s office and was universally dreaded. Nevertheless, hunger is a powerful motive, and with one nurse standing guard another would often gobble down cold boiled cod or the remains of a pork chop followed by congealed baked jam roll. Abby had been horrified when Flo had first told her of the practice, but within a little while her fastidiousness was a thing of the past; neither did the ever hopeful Kitty receive more offerings. Abby ate every single thing on her plate in the dining room.