More From A Nurse's Life: More drama, love and laughter from a 1950s nurse (Nurse Jane Grant Book 2)
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More From A Nurse’s Life
More love and laughter from a 1950s nurse
Jane Grant
Copyright © The Estate of Jane Grant 2014
This edition first published 2014 by Corazon Books
(Wyndham Media Ltd)
27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX
First published as Come Again, Nurse in 1960
Publisher’s note: As Jane’s story was written, and takes place, many decades ago, occasionally terms of the times are used that would not be used today.
www.greatstorieswithheart.com
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Other titles available in this series
A Nurse’s Life
A Sister’s Life
A Country Life
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Preview chapters: A Sister’s Life
Preview: A Country Practice
Preview: The Country Doctor
Preview: Home from Home
Preview: City Hospital Book 1: New Blood
Chapter One
Mary and I looked gloomily out of my room window on to the blackened buildings of St Bernard’s. We both felt very depressed. Our love lives had gone astray, and we were soon to leave the rambling old hospital that had been our home for four of the most formative years of our lives.
‘I suppose we’ll have to do midder,’ I said uncertainly.
‘Of course,’ said Mary with a sigh. ‘You know what the old sausage said. “No nurse’s training is complete without midwifery”, etc., etc.’
‘But what I feel is – I have no urge to do it – I mean little black bags and storks don’t ring any bell with me.’
Mary nodded in sympathy. We then fortified ourselves with a cup of rather stale tea out of a very dilapidated teapot that had survived four years of hard wear, not to speak of all its miles of travelling on the tops of bucket bags from room to room and floor to floor of the Nurses’ Home, as our status had changed from First to Second Year Student, and from Third Year to State Registered. During the whole of its career the poor thing had been rinsed out but never dried up, as somehow we never acquired a tea towel.
‘I wish we could get staff jobs and stay here,’ I said hopefully.
‘What an optimist!’ said Mary.
We were silent, ruminating over the shortage of staff jobs for deserving applicants, and the vexed problem of leaving.
We were interrupted by Phyllis, a small girl who somehow gave the impression of being equal to any situation.
‘Guess what,’ she cried, bursting into my room full of good humour, ‘you remember Michael Hall? He’s a real smasher – just got the kids’ house job?’
We nodded wearily.
‘He’s asked me to a gorgeous dinner and dance! His old man’s a stockbroker or something, and it’s one of those City dos. I’ll have to get a new dress.’
‘What’s wrong with the pink creation?’ asked Mary. ‘You’ve only worn it once.’
‘Oh, that great ox Leslie trod on it about four times at the Rugger Ball. Look – can one of you lend me some wherewithal?’
‘You ought to confine yourself to undersized jockeys,’ I said severely. ‘Someone your size simply should not go dancing with the Hospital Hooker.’
‘I’ve seen a gorgeous fluffy thing in Madame Lucille’s for fifteen quid,’ went on Phyllis unabashed.
‘When is this do?’ I asked, resigning myself. My eyes fell on my handbag apprehensively.
‘Next weekend.’
I sighed. ‘I can let you have four I suppose.’
‘Me too,’ said Mary. She added regretfully, ‘We haven’t anybody to do ourselves up for.’
‘But wait a minute – isn’t next weekend your weekend on?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Phyllis gaily, ‘but I think I can wheedle round Thompson – I think –’ she added uncertainly.
‘Thompson never lets anyone have anything,’ I said, firmly putting the notes back in my bag.
‘I'd better find out. I’ll go and beard the lion now.’ Phyllis marched resolutely towards the door.
‘She’ll get it,’ sighed Mary. ‘She always gets it. She’s just made that way, that’s all.’
‘I hope,’ I said reflectively, ‘I do hope this isn’t going to lead to anything. More than just a dance, I mean. Remember the trouble we had consoling Les? And then there was that myopic angry young man who kept waylaying you and asking where she was.’
Phyllis was one of the hospital’s most inveterate flirts. There was scarcely an eligible bachelor in the place who had not succumbed to her charms at some time or another. The trouble was that when these flirtations were ended – and they ended at an alarming rate – the boyfriends would come to us for comfort and try to get us to put in a good word for them with Phyllis.
We were just regaling ourselves with some of the choicer incidents of Phyllis’s love life when she burst in again.
‘It was all too easy, my dear.’ She laughed, ‘I told Tommers he was the only man in my life blah blah blah and she fell for it. Even offered to lend me some dough for the dress!’
‘Phyllis, you are quite, quite shameless! With you leaving in a month you have the sauce to say he’s the only man in your life! You! You of all people!’
‘I know, ducky. But thanks for the assistance, and I’ll bring back some scoff for you.’
‘No,’ said Mary firmly. ‘If you do we’ll only have to shell out for a new evening bag.’
The last time Phyllis had gone to a cocktail party she had kind-heartedly brought us back some shrimps in aspic. Unfortunately she hadn’t wrapped them up properly and a very nice evening bag had to be discarded because it made her smell like a fishwife. This she said was all right while she was going out with a Cornishman, but wasn’t any good for the neurological registrar with an acute sense of smell.
The next morning I was giving out some drugs in the Female Medical Ward I was working on, when one of the Assistant Matrons came in to do a ward round.
Miss Marsh was a tall austere wom
an who looked like one of the types who have been groomed for matronship since birth. She was, however, surprisingly human, and had a keen sense of humour.
She looked quickly round the ward, and as no outstanding criticism presented itself, she applied herself to me.
‘Nurse Grant!’
I felt like standing to attention.
‘Nurse Grant – I believe you’ll be leaving us soon? Is that correct?’
‘Yes, Miss Marsh,’ I replied in a subdued voice. ‘I am leaving at the end of next month.’ I sighed as if heartbroken, but a quick glance showed me that I was rather over-doing the pathos.
‘What are you going to do?’ she enquired.
‘Well, Nurse Ross and I thought of doing midwifery, Sister. But, well – we – er – cancelled our places at Leeds when we thought we were going to get married.’
She looked at me shrewdly.
‘So, in fact, you’ve been waiting around hoping for something to turn up. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I said meekly, feeling I was not managing this interview rightly. Oh, for a little of Phyllis’s diplomatic charm!
And I suppose you’re hoping that Matron will ask you to stay on and do a year’s staff nursing, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted, feeling even smaller.
‘You know, I suppose, that we already have too many Staff Nurses?’
‘Oh yes.’ My voice sounded very dashed.
‘Still – we can’t just throw you out with no bread and butter, can we? There is a post in Casualty and one in Minor Ops Theatre coming up. I’ll see what I can do.’
Before I could do more than stammer thanks, she turned abruptly and marched out.
The very moment Sister went to lunch, I rang up Mary to ask if she had been approached by Matron at all, but she was terse to the point of rudeness.
‘Look – I’ve had a terrible morning! One old boy dropped a match in his plaster cast and says he’s roasting alive – one of the new Juniors has dropped a tray of thermometers, and Wilson’s biting everyone’s head off if they’re crazy enough to go near her.’
She banged down the receiver. I waited anxiously the rest of the day, but no summons to the awe-inspiring Matron’s office came, and it seemed as though the next day would go by too without anything happening. However, at four o’clock in the afternoon, I had a telephone call, asking me to present myself the next morning at nine o’clock.
As soon as I saw Mary, I heard that she too had the same summons. That evening was spent preparing clean caps and darning stockings. It was one of the rare occasions when Phyllis hadn’t been asked out, and she came to assist. We assigned her to the menial task of shoe cleaning, while we prepared hard-luck stories for Matron, and synchronised them.
‘What are you going to tell her if she asks why we haven’t re-applied?’ asked Mary. ‘You broke with Keith months ago.’
‘She’s not to know that, is she? Can’t I say I cherished the hope of a reconciliation?’
‘Not if she’s heard how he threatened to bump you off,’ said Phyllis brutally. She referred to one of the unhappiest incidents of that rather wild affair.
‘He was tight when he said that, and would you mind not spitting on my shoes.’
‘My brother used to do it in the army. Said it brought them up a treat for the sergeant-major.’
‘I don’t care what your brother did,’ I replied stiffly. ‘It seems like it’s disrespectful to Matron.’
Our interviews next day were short and to the point. We saw Miss Marsh, who told us not to say we had been waiting on in the hope of an offer of a job, as this would infuriate Matron, but to accept the job as a favour – not, she hastened to add, as too much of a favour.
Matron offered Mary a Staff Nurse’s job in Casualty, and me one in the Minor Ops Theatre in Out-Patients; both appointments to last a year.
‘Goody goody gum drops!’ said Mary happily. ‘No midder for a year anyway, and if’ – she did a plausible imitation of Matron looking stern over her spectacles – ‘if we find your work satisfactory, we shall have you in mind for promotion blah blah.’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve always wanted to be a Matron,’ I said sarcastically.
The night of Phyllis’s dance drew near, and our evenings were spent fitting her up in her dress and shoes, and deciding which colour lipstick would go with which nail polish. Such vexed questions as to whether she should varnish her toenails or put gold lacquer on her hair were thrashed out with great deliberation, and if she could dress in two hours, or should she ask Thompson for a further concession of off duty.
At last the time arrived, and we were in almost as bad a state as Phyllis. Mary was frantically pressing out creases in her skirt, while I struggled to sew on a rather tired piece of broderie anglaise to her third slip. Eventually, however, she set off looking like a Vogue model, while we approved our handiwork from the top of the stairs.
As an adoring escort swept Phyllis out of the Nurses’ Home, Mary and I looked at each other.
‘Suppose we go and have some champagne and pâté de foie gras?’ suggested Mary.
We went to my room, where we feasted off tea and some stale cream crackers.
I was in the middle of a deep sleep some hours later, when the light was switched on, and Phyllis’s image appeared before my bemused gaze. It was 2 am, and I was very, very tired, but a cigarette was placed in my protesting mouth, and a piece of smoked salmon waved under my nose.
‘Oh Jane!’ she began, ‘it was absolutely marvellous!’
She whirled round my room, stopping abruptly as she bumped into the wardrobe.
‘He is simply divine! I can’t think how I lived before! He’s so kind and considerate! We danced every single dance and had a heavenly meal. I got you some strawberries. At least, I would have got you some,’ she added guiltily, seeing the first gleam of interest in my rheumy eyes. ‘But transport was a bit difficult, you know how it is.’ She waved her arms in a dismissing gesture. ‘By the way, he’s asked me to marry him.’
This was the outside of enough. ‘Phyllis, be a good girl and we’ll discuss it in the morning. My Advisory Section wants a good sleep. So good night.’
But this had no effect whatever on the starry-eyed Phyllis. She plumped down on my bed.
‘He’s so nice! Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him.’
‘Except Les and Eddie and Paul and just about twenty others,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’
‘Your necklace was a great success,’ said Phyllis dreamily.
‘How about going to see Mary?’ I suggested hopefully.
‘Do you think I ought?’
‘She’d love some smoked salmon,’ I said treacherously.
‘Yes, perhaps she would. See you in the morning.’ Phyllis drifted out, humming to herself and leaving the light on.
‘This is the last time,’ I muttered furiously to myself getting out of bed to turn it off. ‘This is the very last time I have anything whatever to do with Phyllis’s love life.’
Having turned off the light, I stubbed my toe getting into bed, and got into it determined to sleep the rest of the night.
I might just as well have given up. She was back in ten minutes, trying to make me debate the pros and cons of marrying Mike.
‘All right,’ I snarled at last. ‘I give up.’ I sat up and heard all the details for twenty minutes. By this time I was wide awake, and declaring my opinion. In the middle of what I felt was some exceptionally good advice, Phyllis yawned.
‘I think I’ll sleep on it,’ she said, and taking off her dress, she clambered into my bed.
‘What,’ I enquired acidly, ‘is wrong with your room?’
‘It’s such miles away,’ said Phyllis sweetly, and was asleep.
Chapter Two
Now that no threat of leaving hung over our heads, our personal lives began to take on some sort of form. Mary went out a couple of times with an earnest young houseman who turned out to be a
Jehovah’s Witness. Their third date ended in disaster as Mary told him she was an Anglo-Catholic.
‘I’ve nothing against his opinions,’ she explained later. ‘It’s just that he would bang the table to emphasise each point, and the coffee kept spilling over.’
I was not much luckier. My escort believed in euthanasia, and we had such a heated argument about bumping off everyone over eighty that I felt it was time I stopped going out with him.
The ward began to get very busy. One day when I was in charge, a very pleasant-looking woman came in. The woman was about forty, with a sweet intelligent face that at the moment had worry and fear written all over it. I learnt from the particulars I took down that she was coming in for medical treatment for her thyroid gland.
While one of the Juniors helped her get into bed, I had a word with her husband.
‘She’s only been ill a very little while,’ he said, looking anxious. ‘She’s never been ill before. It seems to take her so queerly. She keeps bursting into tears, and getting into states about nothing. Doctor says it’s usual with this type of disease, but it’s so unlike her.’
I nodded sympathetically. It sounded like the usual story, but there was obviously something more that he was worried about. He looked at me as if deciding whether I was worthy of his confidence.
Knowing the classic fear of three-quarters of the patients who come into hospital wards, I asked him: ‘Are you afraid of cancer?’
The husband nodded miserably. ‘It seemed to come up so quickly, Nurse.’
‘What does your doctor say?’
He said he didn’t know. If she didn’t respond to treatment she would have to be transferred to a surgical ward and have it out.’
‘Well, there’s no need to worry yet.’
The pleasant open face of the husband seemed to shrink suddenly, and his eyes looked terrified. He obviously thought I was trying to soothe him with bromides. He almost stuttered as his fears came pouring out. She was everything to him – he couldn’t face such an idea – he knew it was in her mind too though he had tried to keep her thoughts off it – a woman in their road had her thyroid out and she was dead in a couple of months.