by Jane Grant
That evening there was a long letter from Phyllis.
‘Dear old Fishfaces,’ it read, ‘I’m having a terrible time, simply terrible. The food’s putrid, Matron’s a stinker, and I hate babies, they do nothing but howl. I arrived here in a biting wind, on my bed was my uniform. I didn’t want to put it on, all I wanted was to have a hot meal and go to bed. However, duty called, and I struggled into it. Struggled was right! Any relation to the measurements I sent was purely accidental. The former owner must have been at least six feet high with a forty-inch waist. Having fought and conquered my strong desire to pack my bags and go home, I found my way to the classroom to meet my companions in misery and the old besom herself. The classroom was a big room with a parquet floor and a blackboard. In an open cupboard were six bony female pelvises, and five foetal skulls. While Matron was addressing us on the fine and noble profession we had adopted, I suddenly caught sight of the most frightful apparition on a stand. It was the model of a very pregnant female abdomen made of grey felt, with a trap door in the front, standing on a pair of sawn-off legs. Resting on the level top was a model foetus with a long cord and placenta attached. Resisting the desire to scream, I returned my horrified gaze to Matron, and found that she was on the point of asking if we had any questions. I boldly stood up and said my uniform didn’t fit, which was rather like Oliver Twist asking for more. I thought she would send me to bed supperless.
‘How is my darling Michael, tell him he’s gorgeous for me will you? The man shortage here is acute, but I’ve just managed two parties. There’s an American base here and I gather all social life begins and ends there. Let you know when I’ve investigated the situation further. In the meantime if you have any stale biscuits that you don’t want may I bring to your notice the Save-Our-Starving-Pupil-Midwives’ Fund. Any contributions will be gratefully accepted, and I assure you will go to the best possible and most deserving cause. Lots of luv, Phyl.’
‘Typical,’ I said. ‘Absolutely typical.’
‘She’s a funny girl,’ said Mary reflectively. ‘She’s got such a nice nature and she’s so loyal. Yet she has this funny mixture of depth and seeming frivolity. But she’s a sweetie for all that,’ she added.
After a bit Mary added, ‘I wish it wasn’t Michael Hall though, because I know he’ll really feel it if they break up.’
Next day when I started work, I began to recognise the subtle change from total lack of knowledge to a slight awareness of what was going on. I actually knew where the zinc oxide strapping was kept when I was asked to get it by a rushed O’Connor.
In the afternoon I had my first contact with Mr Leslie, the dental surgeon. He was an Australian, and had that endearing trait of complete lack of red tape, combined with a disrespect for authority which most Australians have – endearing especially to new and clueless Staff Nurses.
‘Hullo,’ he said cheerfully when he walked in. ‘You look a bit lost.’
‘I am,’ I confessed. ‘I only arrived yesterday.’
‘Only yesterdie! Well, I won’t keep you long. Just a coupla gases to do.’
At this point Sourpuss walked in.
‘Hiya, Sister,’ said Leslie. ‘It was just telling Staff she won’t find me hard to deal with.’
She smiled her usual rather frosty smile and said, ‘I’m sure she won’t.’
‘No,’ he affirmed. ‘I’m a good boy really. Of course if I find one or two things missing from my trolley, I feel it my bounden duty to report it to Matron, and if it’s more than two, I just mention it to the Board of Governors.’
Sourpuss actually laughed outright. ‘Oh dear, Nurse! You’ll have to be careful.’
I looked at her, surprised to find she was able to joke with Leslie, and as I looked, I saw her face as it must have been before the terrible blow of her fiancé’s death. She saw my stare and said stiffly: ‘Can I have a word with you, Nurse?’
We went into the office.
‘How are you settling down?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I’m sure I’m going to like it.’
‘It’s early days to say that yet. I want to warn you that I like this theatre run my way, and I don’t want you or anyone else to try and change it. Also this coffee with the men in the morning will have to stop.’ She added this, as if defying me to protest, but I said nothing, so she gave me one of her hard stares and went out.
‘Never mind,’ I said to myself. ‘You haven’t got the power of upsetting me now whatever you say. You’re not really a Sourpuss at all!’
When Mary came off that evening, she was full of her day on Casualty. She removed her shoes and despite my protests lay down on my bed.
‘Gosh, I’m absolutely whacked! Wee Willie has been buzzing round like a blue-tailed fly and I didn’t sit down once.’
She eased herself more comfortably on to my bed.
‘Do you mind?’ I asked. ‘I have to sleep on that tonight.’
‘Never mind, ducks, it’s clean sheets tomorrow, and you’ll have to make it properly then.’
‘Look,’ I said ungraciously, ‘do you mind if I wash your stockings with mine in the interests of hygiene?’
Mary was not at all abashed, and removed them. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘we had a monkey in today.’
‘Ha ha. Was it Les or Eddy?’
‘No, honestly, a genuine monkey. Apparently these people who brought him in keep it as a pet. They brought it into Casualty. It was a rhesus monkey, and it had drunk too much sherry.’
‘Where? At the Lord Mayor’s banquet?’
‘No, listen, before I knock your head in. This morning, when I was standing by the desk in the entrance hall listening to Wee Willie flattening Van Burgh – he’s that big-headed South African – this couple came in with an enormous bundle of blankets. I was looking my usual helpful self, so they came up and said very apologetically, could I possibly help them? Naturally I gave them a little treatise on Flo Nightingale and they took courage and unwrapped the blankets. When I picked myself up off the floor, I ran hot-foot to Willie. She thought I was having her on. She marched up to these people head in air – honestly I trembled for them, and as she came up to them there was an enormous hiccough from the monkey.
‘What was the matter with it anyway?’
‘Well, apparently this monkey had gone to the drinks cabinet while they were out, and knocked off a whole bottle of sherry. Van Burgh laughed his silly head off when they explained – then it threw up all over him and he didn’t laugh after that.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Oh well, we gave him a gastric lavage, and he went to sleep. Mum and Dad were painfully grateful. It appeared that he always bit the vet, so wasn’t very popular there.’
After many witticisms on my part about her menagerie and RSPCA officials, we eventually went to bed.
Mr Potter’s clinic on Thursday, as O’Connor had prophesied, was complete chaos. Twelve plaster cases of various types walked or hobbled in, and the little theatre began to look as if there had been a particularly heavy snowstorm in it. The patients varied from an elderly spinster who had fallen downstairs because she thought she heard burglars, and broke her ankle, to a young Cockney who had fallen under his barrow and broken some bones in his foot.
‘’Ere, Doc, me muvver says I’m wearin’ aht the carpet wiv this fing’ – he waved his plaster boot in the air – ‘Do me a favour and make it smaller.’
‘You shouldn’t be walking on it that much.’
‘Well – I’ve got to get into the front room to see telly, ’aven’t I? I mean, you wouldn’t want me to miss that, would you?’
‘Do you good.’
‘Come awf it, Doc! All that boxing going for a burton, I should co-co!’
Dr Gilbert, Mr Potter’s houseman, finished the plaster with a triumphant slap. ‘There you are,’ he said to the boy. ‘Your mother shouldn’t object to that.’
‘You don’t know my muvver, Doc. She objects to me breeving.’
At the end of the se
ssion I was desperately trying to chip some plaster off the theatre table, when in walked the original Heaven’s gift to women. Tall, dark, and very, very handsome, he smiled and asked if I had seen Dr Gilbert.
I closed my mouth with an effort. ‘He’s just gone,’ I managed to mutter.
‘You’re new, aren’t you? Where’s Jackie?’
Jackie was O’Connor, and his familiarity should have warned me he was the roving kind, but he seemed so pleasant and natural I was off my guard.
‘She’s around,’ I replied.
At that moment O’Connor walked into the theatre and sat heavily on the table.
‘Phew!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, hullo, Phil. Crumbs, I’ve just had the most ghastly session with Sourpuss. I’m going to ENT next week – if I ever get there alive.’
‘What’s Sourpuss been up to?’ I enquired.
‘Oh, a mere nothing. Just a complete recapitulation of all my sins since the year dot, and then enlarging on their enormity.’
Phil nodded sympathetically. ‘These Sisters should be put quietly away,’ he said, and as he spoke I recognised the rather harsh twang of a South African accent.
‘Have you seen Henry Gilbert anywhere?’ he enquired.
‘No,’ said Jackie. ‘He was here all afternoon. What do you want him for?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just wondering if he’d like to come to a party tonight.’
‘I’ll ask the switchboard to get him if you like.’
‘No, it’s not all that important. There are going to be too many men anyway. Would you kids like to come?’
Jackie wrinkled her nose. ‘Where is it?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Oh, Derek’s flat. The usual, you know.’
‘If we go will you take us?’
‘Sure I’ll take you. What d’you think I asked you for?’
‘OK, I’ll come,’ said O’Connor nonchalantly. ‘What about you, Jane?’
‘I’d love to,’ I replied, hoping I too sounded reasonably nonchalant.
‘Good. I’ll pick you up at the gates about nine. Nothing too fancy to wear. You’ll only get beer spilt on it.’
So saying, he left, and when I heard the door close I sat down on the table by O’Connor.
‘Gee whiz,’ I gasped. ‘Where has he been all my life?’
O’Connor looked at me shrewdly. ‘Where has he been? Oh, nowhere, really. Just around and about with every single girl in the hospital. I wonder you’ve escaped him so far.’
I looked at her enquiringly. ‘Then who –’
‘That, my poor ignoramus, is Phil Van Burgh. Now don’t say you haven’t heard of him.’
‘Oh!’ I felt very deflated. ‘That’s him, is it?’
‘Yes. He’s the biggest heart-breaker outside Casanova I know of. He’d just as soon break your heart as light a cigarette.’
‘You sound bitter,’ I said, resuming my cleaning.
‘Yes, I am,’ said O’Connor. ‘He took me out a couple of times, but I dropped him because we were getting no place fast, and for a man who was inconsolable, he was pretty soon kicking around with someone else.’
‘Well, I won’t say I wasn’t warned.’
O’Connor shrugged. ‘Funny how everyone says that before but never after,’ she remarked.
When I got off duty that night I told Mary about our date for the party. She was horrified.
‘Jane! For crying out loud! Not Van Burgh. Honestly his reputation –’
‘Look, ducky,’ I replied, rather nettled. ‘I’m a big girl now. I can look after myself. He can’t be as bad as all that.’
‘No?’ said Mary. ‘I wouldn’t gamble on it.’
‘Well, anyway, I’m going,’ I said stubbornly. ‘I’ll let you know tomorrow how I get on.’
‘Well, if that’s the way you want it, OK.’
I dressed quickly and went out, leaving Mary sitting disapprovingly on my bed.
Chapter Seven
I went out of the front gates feeling terribly excited at the prospect of going out, let alone going out with the answer to a maiden’s prayer like Phil.
‘Funny,’ I thought, ‘two terrible flirts, Phil and Phyllis.’ I began to wonder how they would get on together.
‘A penny for them,’ said a voice behind me, and turning round, I saw Phil climbing out of a beautiful new car. He looked as handsome as ever and it seemed quite natural to wait while he came round and opened the door, making me feel as he did so that this was the first time he had ever opened a car door for anyone.
I thought, ‘Girls attract by seeming helpless, while men attract girls by knowing what to do, and the really clever ones make you feel you’re the first one they’ve ever felt so helpful about.’
So I had my second warning, but I felt reckless and disregarded it. We sat in the car waiting for Jackie to come, while I attempted what I hoped was light and gay conversation, but which sounded like ponderous small talk.
‘What sort of a party is this?’ I asked dubiously.
‘Oh, just the usual run of student stuff, beer and dancing,’ he replied. ‘They’re usually good fun though. I believe there is a skiffle group from Bart’s there tonight.’
At this moment Jackie walked up to the car. ‘Look, Phil, do you mind very much,’ she said through the window. ‘I really don’t feel like partying. Do you mind?’
‘Sure, Jackie, sure. That’s all right. Don’t give it another thought,’ said Phil charmingly. ‘Yes, sure – maybe next time, huh?’
Jackie nodded vaguely and then looked at me rather guiltily.
‘See you tomorrow, Jane,’ she said, and left.
Phil started the car and drove off easily. ‘There’s no point in going to a party if you don’t feel like it, is there?’
There had been a certain constraint in his manner before, but now he seemed relaxed and happy. We arrived at the flat of Derek, who turned out to be a rather small South African, very well dressed in quite impeccable taste.
‘Very glad you could come,’ he smiled, with perhaps just a hint of condescension in his manner.
‘Let’s go and dance,’ said Phil, his intuition telling him I was slightly allergic to Derek.
How that many people got into that room without dying of asphyxiation remains a mystery; it made the Black Hole of Calcutta seem like the wide open spaces. Above the hubbub of students’ voices, a poor gramophone strained to be heard, and to the odd notes of music that occasionally pierced the din, a few couples tried to dance.
It was a lovely room, with bay windows and beautiful furnishings; at least what could be seen of them looked beautiful, but the bodies of the party filled every available space.
Phil and I attempted to dance, but soon gave it up, and squeezed our way round the room from group to group. I soon discovered that Phil was known to nearly everyone, especially to the girls – while the few who did not appear to know him gazed admiringly at his handsome face and figure.
The party ran the usual gamut of student parties; talk and beer, with the talk growing louder and the beer flowing more rapidly as the evening progressed. The skiffle group, known as the Fallopian Four, was a great success, and some optimists even tried to jive to it.
‘What’s wrong, Phil? Not dancing tonight?’ enquired one of the girls.
‘Taking it easy tonight, Jill.’
‘You usually can’t keep him off the floor,’ she said to me.
Jill was a small energetic girl with her hair in a pony tail, a first year Student Nurse, I thought. Her one idea was to spin round till she was giddy, whether there was room on the floor or not. If Phil had been with her he would have been jiving too, and I thought how perfectly he fitted in with the mood of his escort. With me he chatted about medicine, told me tales of Casualty, and gave me information about South African hospitals and how they differed from English ones. By the end of the evening we were both hoarse from shouting, but he had entertained and interested me a good deal.
‘It beats me,’ I said, as we were driving
back to the hospital, ‘how medical students ever become sober citizens of the world. Can you imagine that boy who drank a bottle of beer standing on his head ever giving testimony in court.’
Phil laughed. ‘I know, it’s incredible. When I came over here, you know, I used to think housemen would be models of propriety. Now I am one, I don’t seem any different from the rest.’
‘I’m sure you’re a model of propriety.’
‘You bet.’
We laughed, and he said: ‘I don’t quite like that laugh. Seems like you kind of doubt it.’
Shortly afterwards we arrived at St Bernard’s. I thanked him for the evening, and he gravely thanked me.
‘Well, that’s that,’ I said to myself, as I walked into the entrance hall. ‘It’s nice to have been taken out once by the original Apollo.’
Mary was still awake when I got in, and very anxious to hear about my outing.
‘What’s happened?’ she demanded. ‘What was it like?’
‘Oh, fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. The usual sort of evening.’
‘Except that he is absolute heaven and quite the most wonderful creature you’ve ever met!’
‘Well, he’s no eyesore, let’s face it.’
Mary thought about this. ‘I think he’s got rather a silly face actually,’ she said.
‘Well, you needn’t bother to abuse him, because he made no attempt to arrange to see me again.’
‘He still may.’
‘Oh no, I don’t think he will. I’m not his type really.’
‘Don’t you be too sure.’
With Mary’s warning bell ringing in my ears, I went to bed.
Chapter Eight
The next day brought no news of my attentive escort, and the only event was that Mary came to see me in a terrible state.
‘Guess what,’ she exploded. ‘Wee Willie has put me on night duty for a fortnight! Oh, I am fed up. I haven’t been in the place a week, and bang, smack on night duty!’
‘But why?’ I enquired.
