The Private Wing

by Claire Rayner

  The other nurse, a rather sleepy looking redhead, moved forwards from the narrow wall against which she had been leaning at the far end.

  “Are you kidding? If I don’t get to bed soon, I’ll die. It was a hell of a night last night, and no way to prepare for a day with Cleland. Aren’t you coming, Bridie?”

  “There’s the linen to finish yet – ”

  “Ah, let little thingy here do it. You’re supposed to be off at five thirty, too.”

  “Well, I’ll hang around a bit. Just to show her the ropes. What’s your name, me love?”

  “Oxford,” Tricia said sulkily.

  “Well, Nurse Oxford, I’m Cavanaugh. Now let’s see how fast we can get through this little lot – you go on, you two. I’ll see you in the changing room, maybe – ”

  The other two went, leaving the door swinging wide behind them.

  “Are all the staff here like that?” Tricia asked, as the other girl handed her the ends of a sheet.

  “Like what?” Together they expertly flipped the sheet into a neat parcel, and started on the next.

  “Well – I don’t know – clock-watchers. So – so – offhand. I suppose I was a bit snappy to that one – who is it – Jensen – when I came in, but damn it, that Sister Cleland is enough to make anyone ratty. But apart from that, she doesn’t seem at all like the people I’m used to working with. I mean, going off and leaving something unfinished just because the time says off duty – that’s – ”

  Cavanaugh laughed, and began to separate pillow slips and dressing towels into neat heaps. “Ah, listen to the starry eyed little darlin’! Look, we’re all like that when we’re students. And that’s as it should be. All eager and interested – but not everyone stays that way, d’you see. Ingrid Jensen, now – she’s a midwife, you know? That’s her thing, and I’ve no doubt when she gets back to her mums and babes she’ll be as eager as the next one. But right now – well, she’s after earning some cash, you see. On account of she’s away to the States as soon as she’s raised enough money. She’s an agency nurse – she and Prue Gallon too.”

  “Agency nurse?”

  “Ah, it’s a whole new thing that’s crept in in the past few years. There are these agencies, d’you see, who find staff for hospitals that can’t get ’em. And they pay a girl a deal more than she’ll get in a staff job – so, the hospitals have to pay the agency to get the staff, and the girls can work as much – or as little – as they please. Take Gallon, now. She’s getting married in a few months, and her man’s away in Germany – Army, he is – so she’s working her fool head off to raise money for their weddin’. That’s why she’s so tired all the time.”

  They finished the pillow slips and dressing towels and started on the operation gowns and pyjamas.

  “How do you mean? She didn’t seem to me to be exactly working her fool head off just now,” Tricia said waspishly.

  Cavanaugh smiled. “Maybe she did not – but she’s doing nights with a dotty old lady over in Knightsbridge somewhere – and don’t you be tellin’ anyone that, or there’ll be all hell let loose.”

  Tricia stared. “Do you mean she’s doing days and nights?” she almost squeaked it. “She can’t be!”

  “Indeed she is – here, sort out these theatre socks, will you? – and making a small bomb out of it. Well, I don’t blame her. ’Tisn’t every day a girl has a weddin’ to save for – ”

  “Well, if that doesn’t prove it!” Tricia exploded. “I knew that was how it would be – just chambermaids, that’s all – ”

  Cavanaugh looked up from the laundry list she was checking “What are you talking about? Proves what? Who’s a chambermaid?”

  “Well, for God’s sake – just what is private nursing? Nothing, that’s what! If someone can do day and night duty she can’t be doing any real nursing, can she? I’ve just finished nights on a male surgical ward, and take it from me no one could work there and do a day job. Those were real patients. People worth looking after! Not like these so-called patients over here, just sitting around feeling sorry for themselves and not a blasted thing wrong with ’em! It may suit people like Jensen and Gallon to run after such spoiled stupid objects but it doesn’t suit me – ”

  “Well, thank you, me old darlin’,” Cavanaugh said softly. “Seeing as I’m working here too, I take it I’m cut out of the same piece of cloth?”

  “Oh – hell, I’m sorry. I mean, I didn’t mean to be rude to you. I suppose you’ve your reasons for being here, just as they have – but it’s the patients I’m objecting to – or non-patients’d be better. Damn it all, I’m in training! I’m supposed to be learning and a damned lot of learning I’m likely to do on this excuse for a – ”

  “Well, well, well! What a knowledgeable young lady, to be sure,” Tricia jumped and whirled and her face flooded a deep crimson as she met the steady gaze of the man leaning against the open door of the linen cupboard. About as tall as Tricia herself, but stocky and square so that he looked rather shorter, and with sleek fair hair, marked with lighter streaks, combed back from his forehead to finish fairly long on the back of his neck; heavy dark rimmed glasses behind which startlingly deep brown eyes gleamed, his hands thrust into the pockets of a crisp white coat.

  “Very knowledgeable indeed,” he said, and his voice had a cold mocking note that made Tricia’s face go redder still, if that were possible. “Do tell me what else you know about our patients. I have not the least doubt that it would be of inestimable value to me.”

  “Ah, don’t be like that, Dr Kidd,” Cavanaugh said cheerfully. “The girl didn’t mean any harm – ”

  “I’m sure she didn’t!” Dr Kidd said. “I could tell how sincere she was in her opinions from half way down the corridor. It’s my guess everyone within shouting distance did. I’m not complaining about her comments. Far from it! I’m just interested to know on what observations she bases her judgement of the private patients you and I and a few other people here spend – I’m so sorry – waste our time with. Do tell me!”

  “I – er – I – ” Tricia muttered, and then stopped, looking appealingly at Cavanaugh, who was clipping the completed laundry list to a board hanging from the far shelf.

  “She’s hardly had time to find out yet, and that’s the truth,” Cavanaugh said. “Poor girl’s just come off nights, d’you see, and – 2

  “Ah! I thought I hadn’t seen her around before,” Dr Kidd said smoothly. “Clearly, a remarkably percipient nurse, eh, Cavanaugh? To have so much knowledge so soon?”

  “Oh hello, Adam! – er Dr Kidd!”

  Behind him, Sister Cleland had appeared. “Were you looking for me? Sorry. I was with Mrs Kester. I’m a bit concerned about her drip – ”

  “Good afternoon, Sister,” Dr Kid turned. “I’ll have a look at her, then. I was about to do the round – but I’ll tell you what. I won’t bother you. I’ll take this young lady – Nurse – er – ” He turned back to Tricia, his eyebrows raised enquiringly.

  “Oxford,” Tricia muttered.

  “Nurse Oxford. Yes.” He smiled at Sister Cleland. “I have a feeling she could do with a little more information about the patients we have in at present. And I’m always delighted to take my share of teaching – ” he threw a swift glance at Tricia again, “ – since it is so important a part of what I’m here for.”

  Sister Cleland looked sharply from Tricia’s intensely embarrassed face to Dr Kidd, and her mouth thinned.

  “Well, of course, that is up to you, Dr Kidd – if you want to. Although if you don’t mind I’d like to give you some report results first. They’re in the office.” She turned sharply and walked away down the corridor, and Dr Kidd moved after her.

  “Don’t go away, Nurse Oxford. I’ll be ready to start my round very soon,” he said crisply, and went, leaving the two nurses standing silently in the linen cupboard.

  “Oh, boy, young Oxford, now you’ve been and gone and done it!” Cavanaugh said softly. “You young ijjut! Now you’ll really have her gunni
ng for you! She’s got more than a passing fancy for him, d’you know that? She’ll be fit to be tied! The only time I’ve ever seen her look half human is when she’s got her precious Adam to talk to!”

  “I couldn’t help it!” Tricia whispered back. “How was I to know there was anyone listening to me? And anyway, I’m entitled to an opinion, aren’t I? We’re taught to use our own ideas at the Royal.”

  “Oh, sure, me love! But you weren’t usin’ ideas, were you? You were just soundin’ off a lot of nonsense. And now you’ve copped it. Ah, well, she can’t eat you!” Cavanaugh grinned, and then patted Tricia’s shoulder. “At least, not all at once! I’ll be away to my off duty. This’ll be no place to be the next few hours. All the best! Let me know in the morning how things went.”

  And she went away leaving Tricia feeling a good deal more apprehensive than she would have thought possible. And when Dr Kidd came back, pushing a small trolley on which case notes were piled, and said curtly, “Well, come along, Nurse Oxford! Let’s go and look at these non-patients,” she followed him along the corridor towards the far end with her knees shaking with nervousness. And catching sight of Sister Cleland’s malevolent gaze as she passed her office didn’t help her to feel any better.

  Chapter Three

  “Oh, Ngaire, it was hell!” Tricia said piteously. “I never want to face another day like it. What am I going to do?”

  Ngaire sat curled up in the armchair by the window, her hands wrapped round a steaming mug of coffee, and she looked sympathetically across at Tricia, sitting woebegone and half dressed on her bed, and said as cheerfully as she could. “Finish getting changed, for a start. David’ll be down in Reception waiting for you in a bare ten minutes. And first things first – ”

  Obediently, Tricia finished smoothing her knee-high white socks over her calves, and began to climb into her yellow trouser suit.

  “ – and then dig out your sense of humour, Trish! So you put both your feet right in it! I’ve done that a million times, at least, but it’s always come out right in the end. Mind you, I’m expected to behave like a nut, so no one’s ever surprised. But you – hell, you’re the one who always gets me out of trouble! When my Ma writes from home she always asks after ‘that nice sensible friend of yours’. And now I’m the one who’s supposed to give you advice – it’s funny, hmm?”

  She drank some coffee and then said reflectively, “Anyway, what’s the flap? You’ve had trouble with Sisters before. Who hasn’t? Remember old Screwball on Children’s Med? Now, there was a miserable place to be! She ran you ragged – you and everyone else. And from all accounts, Cleland’s another of the type. You just sit it out – she’ll come round. Even Screwball did by the time you left her – ”

  Tricia, brushing her hair at her dressing table, dropped the brush and swung round to sit with her elbows on her knees. “Oh, I know! It’s not her so much – it’s this foul man Kidd. If you’d heard him! As snide and as sarcastic and – and – beastly as he could be. He made me feel three inches high and covered in something nasty, honestly he did. And he’s there most of the time, as far as I can tell. He’s the Registrar to the Wing and – ”

  “So, that’s why I’ve never come across him before!” Ngaire said, “And here’s me, supposed to know every interesting and eligible man in the place. But if he never comes over to the General side, I suppose – ”

  “Interesting! My God, Ny, not even you could see anything to fancy in that one. He’s the most disagreeable, ugly, nasty, foul piece of – ”

  Ngaire raised her eyebrows. “Hey, easy does it! The lady doth protest too much and all that. If it weren’t that you were supposed to be engaged to David, I’d say you found the Kidd more than a little fanciable yourself – ”

  “Me? I’d have to be pretty desperate to fancy anything as hateful as he is! There’s more to a man than – than just being a man, as I’ve told you more often than I can count.” Tricia returned to the mirror and began to brush savagely at her hair again. “And what do you mean – supposed to be engaged to David? I am! Well, almost. It’s just a matter of settling – things.”

  She stopped brushing for a moment and frowned at her reflection in the mirror. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. What I want to know is whether I can persuade Matron to shift me somewhere else. But what’s the use? If I go complaining to the old girl, she’ll want to know the whys and wherefores, and if it comes out I behaved so – well I can’t deny it, I was damned stupid – not that I was all that wrong, mind you.”

  Again she turned and looked at Ngaire. “Honestly, Ny, they are a pretty dismal bunch of patients, really they are. I was a bit over the top, I admit. There’s a Mrs Kester with secondary growths of her spine who’s as pitiful a woman as you’ll ever see. And only forty or so. Poor creature – she had a lump in her breast, apparently, and was too scared to see a doctor about it. Till it was too late. And a couple of appendix people, and a boy with asthma who seemed pretty ill – but some of them!”

  She warmed to her theme. “There’s a ghastly great fat man, something in the fashion business I gather, who’s sitting there being dieted. I ask you! All that’s wrong with him is sheer greed, and he has to come into a private room and be supervised like a baby to try to get some of the blubber off him – ”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ngaire murmured. “Obesity’s a pretty dangerous disease, you know that, and maybe he’s got a psychological problem or something – ”

  “Ah, not this one!” Tricia snorted with disgust. “He’s just a self indulgent slob! I had to take him his supper, after the round was finished, and he made me sick! Tried to make a pass at me for a start, and then tried to persuade me to ‘slip him some toast or something’. Just a slob, that’s him. And then there’s a girl who’s so sorry for herself she never stops ringing her bell and moaning – and do you know why she’s there? She had her nose altered! Her nose altered! These plastic surgery patients – do you expect me to take them seriously? And debby girls in for abortion – we’ve got one of those. There’s another right cracker – a woman who had her varicose veins stripped, and she should have gone home a week ago. And do you know why she’s still sitting there, all wrapped up in fancy bedjackets, and her room so full of flowers it looks like Kew Gardens? Because her housekeeper’s on holiday and she can’t possibly, my dear, go home with no one to look after her, and she doesn’t really want a private nurse she doesn’t know, because there’s nothing like staff that really knows one, is there, and anyway she has to wear pressure bandages for a long time, and my dear, they’re so hideous, she’d rather stay safely tucked up here where no one can see her than venture out – yuk! You should have heard her!”

  “Ooh, slow down! You’ll explode in a minute!” Ngaire said mildly. “What’s to get so agitated about? I daresay there’s more to it than you think, with these people. Come on, Trish, don’t be so po-faced! You get people like that on the general wards, too! They can’t all be at death’s door. I’m glad of it, myself. It’s pretty depressing when you get a wardful of really desperately ill types – the occasional nothing-much one makes a great change. I’d rather be where you are, whatever the patients are like, than where I am. I spent the afternoon sluicing swabs and scrubbing instruments. Honestly, I’ve worn out at least three layers of epidermis – ” she held out her hands pathetically “ – and according to the other people there, that’s about all I will be doing for a month. You know Baumfield? That second year girl with the big feet? She’s been on Theatres two months now, and if you’d heard the relish with which she told me that seniority on the theatres goes by how long people have been working there, and not how senior they are in training! So while I’m scrubbing she’s bustling about, all hoity-toity, running for the second theatre on an emergency ectopic. Believe me, Trish, you’d have hated it – ”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Nothing could be worse than – come in!”

  The face that appeared round the door belonged to a junior who looked as shy and tenta
tive as her knock on the door had sounded.

  “Please, Nurse Oxford, there’s a man asking for you, down in Reception – he says please to tell you he’s double-parked and can you hurry up – ”

  “Oh, lawks!” Ngaire scrambled to her feet. “Is there another chap down there – long hair, tall – looking fed up?”

  The little junior giggled and said breathlessly, “Ooh, Nurse Taylor, there’s ever such a funny looking boy – he’s got hair right down to his shoulders, and he’s wearing a sort of nightgown thing with every colour you can think of painted all over it, and his trousers are sort of leathery and only reach to his knees but with fringes right down to his feet, and he’s got no shoes on and his feet are ever so dirty, and he’s fast asleep and Home Sister says if no one’s claimed him and he isn’t gone out of there in fifteen minutes, she’d better call the police to get rid of him. She’s seen some funny specimens in her time she says but this one takes the biscuit – ”

  “I didn’t think he’d look quite as way out as that,” Ngaire said dubiously. “I knew he was an art student, when I said I’d go out with him, but he had ordinary enough pyjamas on – I suppose it’s my date?”

  “He’s hardly anyone else’s,” Tricia said, smiling for the first time since she’d gone on duty that afternoon. “Look, I’ll tell him you’re coming and soothe Home Sister – and I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  David was leaning against the Reception desk and staring with a look of profound distaste at the sprawling sleeper in the best armchair. She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, looking at him. Really, he is so incredibly right, she thought. His hair, not straight, but not too curly, a discreet and agreeable brown, neither so short as to look dreary nor so long as to seem way out – rather like horrible Kidd’s, came the inconsequential thought, which she pushed firmly away – a comfortable six feet, slim but not scrawny, well dressed but not too slick. Altogether, the sort of man any girl ought to be thrilled to bits to have. And I am. Of course I am.