Silent Song

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Sorry. I’m a nurse not a writer. Goodbye.’

  Mr Delahay came closer to the counter as I hung up. ‘You surely are having a tough time, Staff Nurse Dorland.’

  ‘You’re not having it too easy yourself, Mr Delahay. Would you like some more tea?’

  ‘I thank you, no.’ He had a slow, sad, voice and gentle accent. ‘I have not yet taken the pot young Staff Nurse Carter so kindly had sent up for me a half-hour back, but I appreciated the gesture so much. I have now to return briefly to my hotel to communicate with our New York office. May I first ask, as the superior staff nurse in this organization, how do you really rate Mr Renner as of now?’

  I looked at the monitor for a few moments. ‘To be honest, Mr Delahay, though he’s beginning to pick up a little, is genuinely comfortable as he’s heavily sedated, and genuinely as well as can be expected in view of his condition on admission, there’s little more at this moment I can say. That’s not because I‘m trying to be evasive, or not allowed to, in your case. It’s a hospital rule here that next-of-kins be told the truth as we see it. The problem is, with Mr Renner in this early stage, the picture’s blurred and likely to remain so for several days. Didn’t Dr Lincoln Browne explain?’

  He nodded grimly. ‘One thing I will say ‒ Mr Renner is putting up the most tremendous fight.’

  A faint smile touched his eyes. ‘That last would surprise no member of Mr Renner’s organization. Thank you so much.’

  ‘I’m sorry to give you so little to go on.’

  ‘If you will forgive the correction, I do not agree.’ He stepped aside as Dr Jones came out of C.1. ‘Integrity is always a great contribution. I shall return, later. Call me back at the hotel, any time.’

  Dr Jones flopped on to a stool as Mr Delahay went out. ‘Raising false hopes, Mrs D.?’

  ‘Not one of my hobbies, Doctor.’ I checked in C.1 and as Shirley and Nurse Richardson had everything under control told them I’d take back the desk to write the report. ‘If not, ’ I added to Dr Jones, ‘the next shift’ll be here before I’ve written the date.’

  That evoked one of his hard-done-by sighs. ‘One wonders what it must feel like to have regular off-duty ‒ and meals. Alas, one will never know the answer being a mere medic and not a member of the profession the public unites in regarding as instantly heroic.’

  He wasn’t the only junior hospital doctor to dislike nurses, but most had the sense to hide that on-duty, since it made life so much easier for themselves. I wondered why a man with his I.Q. couldn’t see that, looked again at Mr Renner’s monitor, and remembered Mrs Mackenzie’s comments on nous on New Year’s Eve. A little more nous and C.1 could still be empty. One of the reasons why it had not now emptied again was Dr Jones.

  I glanced at his sulky and very tired profile. ‘Get any tea?’

  ‘No. Nor finish lunch before I was hauled out by next door and if I don’t get these something notes done before our something tycoon springs another, I won’t get any something supper as I still have to do my something evening round.’

  A fairly recent new rule, that had probably done more damage to inter-staff relations than any other, forbade our offering the residents ward tea, coffee and milk. The academic planners who drew that one up undoubtedly had the taxpayers’ pockets at heart, but had either never worked in a hospital or long forgotten the experience. Apparently it had not occurred to them to wonder how much they themselves would enjoy being treated, or operated upon, by weary young men and women working anything up to an eighteen-hour day, and low on blood-sugar.

  ‘If you can take a couple of minutes off, Doctor, there’s an untouched pot of lukewarm tea and probably biscuits going in our empty rest-room. Help yourself.’

  His head jerked up. ‘Why this unexpected and unheard-of generosity with therapeutic tea?’

  I didn’t explain it was only unheard of by him since nurses seldom chose to bend rules for those they disliked.

  ‘The Dangerous Drug cupboard’s a little low on cyanide.’ From his expression he wasn’t quite sure I was joking.

  He shot off for the tea and on his return his blood-sugar had risen sufficiently for him to make Coronary Care history by thanking me.

  Jilly Smythe looked in need of therapeutic tea when we met on our block stairs that night. ‘God knows I’m used to pundits’ idiosyncrasies, Anne, but L.B. is too much! When he’s not popping in to see Richard, he’s popping in to see Mr Farler. “Pray ignore me, Sister!” How can one ignore our Senior Physician? This evening was the last straw! There I was in the middle of my full handing-over report when he swept in and was in S.W.2 before I could reach him. With every inch covered in newspapers!’ She flicked an invisible hair from her face. ‘I did tell you my Mr Farler asked if I’d mind his painting in his room in the evenings?’

  ‘You did, Jilly. L.B. fall about laughing?’

  ‘Seemed to amuse him.’ She sniffed. ‘How’s his Yank V.I.P? I’ve just heard on the news that you’ve got him.’

  ‘Could be worse, if not much.’

  ‘H’m. Well, I hope he does all right, though you know my views on foreign visitors taking up our valuable beds.’

  ‘I know ’em. What I don’t know is what else you think L.B. should’ve done. Leave this one to die in his hotel, though we had an empty cubicle?’

  ‘There are private nursing homes ‒’

  ‘With our-type equipment?’

  ‘Perhaps not. I still object to spongers on our N.H.S. ‒’

  ‘The man’s not sponging. He’s a private patient in need of intensive care, so under Martha’s rules, I.C. he’s getting ‒ and an outsize bill he or his estate will collect for it. Soon as he’s fit we’ll shift him to the Private Wing. He’d be there now, if they had our equipment.’

  She was unimpressed. ‘It isn’t as if we haven’t enough of our own to look after, or empty beds stay empty long. Personally, I think we’re far too open-handed to foreigners and it isn’t as if this country can any longer afford to be so generous. Frankly, I don’t see why we have to be.’

  George was on my mind ‒ and conscience. ‘Try reading the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jilly,’ I said peevishly and went on up.

  Chapter Five

  Next morning Mrs Oliver, the head teacher of a comprehensive school in our area, collapsed in assembly.

  ‘Good thing Mrs Fairlie’s moving from C.4 today.’ said Joe. ‘We’ll have a bed waiting for our third.’

  Dr Jones smiled superciliously. ‘You don’t seriously subscribe to that old wives’ tale?’

  ‘I do, lad, and so’ll you with more experience. God alone knows why emergencies run in threes. I just know that’s how they run. Those Mrs Oliver’s notes, Anne?’

  ‘Yes.’ I handed them over. ‘Her husband’s waiting to see you in the rest-room.’

  ‘I’ll be in. Doesn’t he teach in another school ‒ yes ‒ you’ve got him here.’ Joe frowned over the file. ‘Poor lass is our youngest since our pop lad. If this age group drops much lower we’ll be admitting teenage coronary occlusions.’

  Dr Jones looked erudite. ‘I’ve read the Yanks are getting them in their twenties in Vietnam.’

  ‘Then you two sweet young things had better watch it! Thank God, I’m in me thirties.’ Joe gave me back the notes and went into the rest-room.

  ‘He’ll get one, of course,’ said Dr Jones. ‘All specialists die of the disease in which they specialize.’

  ‘Including male gynaecologists and obstetricians?’

  Instead of taking umbrage as I expected, he smiled slightly. ‘One had overlooked the accoucheurs.’

  Both men were at the desk after lunch when we had the call about Mr Taylor. Dr Jones went pink with indignation. ‘Just a coincidence.’

  ‘And I’ll bet’, said Joe equably, ‘that’s what they said to the old biddies who cured the dropsy with foxgloves ‒ if they didn’t burn ’em as witches.’

  Mr Taylor owned a small newsagent-cum-sweets and tobacconist shop a few streets from t
he hospital. He had just finished lunch and was reading a paper in his armchair before opening for the afternoon when he had a heart attack.

  ‘One second he was tut-tutting over his paper ‒ the next ‒ I tell you, I thought he’d gone. The turn it gave me.’

  Mrs Taylor drank the tea, thirstily. She was a plump woman with a sensible face and fading blonde hair. ‘Don’s never had a day’s illness since we married. Twenty-three years and always on the go. If it wasn’t the shop it was fixing things at the house or polishing the car and after our two girls married, not a Sunday he wasn’t helping one or other with the decorating or the bit of garden. He’d laugh when I said he should take it more easy. ‘Do that when I draw my pension,’ he says, ‘and it’s over the ten years to that.’ She looked fearfully from me to Joe. ‘Doctor ‒ he is going to be all right?’

  Joe’s plain face was compassionate. ‘I sincerely hope so, Mrs Taylor, but I’m afraid I can’t answer that yet. In a few days, perhaps.’

  She lowered her head as her face suddenly crumpled. Joe caught my eye, silently left us and I heard him talking quietly to Mr Delahay in the corridor as Mrs Taylor wept on my shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nurse ‒ ever so sorry ‒ shouldn’t give way like this.’

  I didn’t say it would do her good, though that was true, as her distress was too deep for comforting placebos, true or not. The only time I had ever heard Dr Lincoln Browne angry was after he’d overheard one of the staff telling another distraught wife that she really must try not to worry about her husband. ‘How could you be so insensitive, unimaginative, if not plain stupid? How can a woman who loves her husband or vice versa not worry in these circumstances?’

  Mrs Taylor powdered her face, combed her hair, drank some more tea, talked about her daughters. Both had baby girls. ‘Lovely kiddies.’ She noticed my wedding ring. ‘Any family yet, dear?’ I shook my head. ‘You’re young. Plenty of time. Hubby one of the young doctors here?’

  She had enough to carry. ‘Not in this hospital. How about another cup?’

  ‘I’ve had enough, thanks. Not that I didn’t need it. Such a thirst I had. Would that be the shock?’

  ‘Yes. You’re sure you feel well enough to go?’

  ‘I must just get back to see if the girl’s managing all right in the shop.’ She pushed herself out of her chair. ‘It would worry Don if he thought I wasn’t keeping an eye on the business. Then I’ll get home for my night things like the Sister said and I’ll be back to stay after I’ve rung our girls. I’d rather do that from home. I know they’ll want to come straight round. Think the world of their dad, they do ‒ and they should. He’s ‒’ her voice shook ‒ ‘a good man, dear.’

  ‘I’m sure. You’d like another look at him whilst Nurse Anstey rings for a hospital car to run you back?’

  ‘Please.’ She clung to my hand. ‘You’ve been so kind ‒ and that stout young doctor. Lovely doctor, he seems. What was the name, dear? Matthews?’

  ‘Mathers.’ I spelt it, then briefly explained the staff hierarchy in Coronary Care. ‘Can be so confusing when you’re not used to hospitals,’ I added, opening the door.

  She surveyed the flickering monitors, Janet at the electronic desk, Joe’s deputy Dr Norris standing with folded arms and stethoscope dangling round his neck talking to Mr Delahay outside the unscreened closed door of C.1, with the expression of a sleepwalker in a nightmare. ‘I’ve seen places like this on television,’ she whispered. ‘I never thought to see it real. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before.’

  It was my early evening off. Janet was on the three to midnight shift, but as we were busy again, it was nearer six than five before we managed to combine at the desk for the report. Joe, Dr Norris, Dr Haliday, the registrar next in line, Dr Jones and our two house-physicians appeared from and disappeared into the cubicles whilst we talked, with the regularity of characters in a theatrical bedroom farce. There was nothing farcical about their expressions. When the report finished for a few minutes Joe and Dr Norris propped their backs against the front of the desk and as we all watched the row of live screens, our four heads swung in unison like a Wimbledon crowd.

  ‘Always on the go,’ mused Joe. ‘Or how to make bloody sure of your coronary. Not that I’d blame any guy for collecting his over a newspaper. News these days is enough to give the entire U.K. coronaries.’

  Dr Norris asked if any of us had seen today’s papers. ‘Sorry, girls. No nurses in Coronary Care. Just us gallant doctors fighting night and day to save Clive B.’

  Had that come from Dr Jones, Janet and I would’ve taken great umbrage. As we liked Andy Norris, it amused us.

  Not Joe. ‘If I were a woman for that I’d burn me bra in Fleet Street.’ The outside phone bleeped. ‘If that’s another reporter, Janet, give him to me.’

  Janet covered the mouthpiece. ‘Mrs Brig. She says if there’s still no change do you think it’s worth her coming up this evening?’

  Joe was a humane and worried man. ‘Christ,’ he muttered without taking his gaze from the monitors, ‘what’s the old battleaxe think I am? A bloody S.C.R., or a bloody marriage guidance counsellor? Has she been up today?’

  I said, ‘This morning whilst you were with Mrs Oliver.’

  ‘For her usual all of ten minutes?’

  ‘Just about.’

  The Brigadier’s door was unscreened. He was listening with half-closed eyes and a peaceful expression to some programme on his radio headphones. His improvement had continued and a bed was booked for him in the general ward on Monday.

  Dr Norris said, ‘The old boy’s enjoying himself. She’ll probably upset him. They always upset each other.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joe, ‘but she’s his wife and they’ve been married a long time.’ He held out a hand behind him. ‘Let’s have her.’ A minute later he handed the phone back without looking round. ‘She thinks she’ll leave it till morning as it’s so chilly and sends her love.’

  I got off my high stool. ‘Shall I tell him on my way out, Janet?’

  ‘Thanks. Have a good week-end.’

  ‘And you all.’ I looked around. ‘I hate to leave you to this little lot.’

  Joe said they would think of me and I must think of them. ‘Think! God, I’d forgotten the message Richard’s parents asked me to give you when I ran into them in the hall this morning. He’s going home tomorrow not Sunday as Mr Blake’s got a week off from tonight and wants to say goodbye to you. Go up now and with luck you’ll catch ’em.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Thanks.’

  All the glass doors were unscreened. Mrs Oliver and Messrs Renner and Taylor were under sedation and the staff moved round their beds with the slow, almost mechanical precision of all well-trained teams used to working together. Mr Hill in C.5 was reading a paperback, Mr Dixon in C.6 an evening paper.

  The Brigadier smiled and pushed up his headphones as I opened his door. ‘Off for your forty-eight, Mrs Dorland?’

  ‘Just about.’ I gave him the message.

  ‘Very wise. Monica never has liked driving in the dark. Chilly outside, eh? Wouldn’t know it in this luxurious warmth. Best place for a chap!’

  ‘I’m glad you’re so comfortable. Good programme?’

  He sighed contentedly. ‘Exquisite. Rubinstein playing Chopin. One of the great joys I’ve discovered in hospital is the opportunity it provides for listening undisturbed to good music.’

  ‘And I’m disturbing you. I’m so sorry ‒’

  ‘My dear Mrs Dorland! What more charming way of being disturbed?’

  Though invariably polite and recently much more cheerful, I had never known him in such good form. I smiled. ‘Thank you, Brigadier, for making my evening! Have a nice musical week-end. See you on Monday.’

  ‘I shall look forward to that. Enjoy your forty-eight. Cheers!’

  He had hitched down the headphones, closed his eyes and smiled to himself as I closed his door. He often looked peaceful. Tonight he was happy. As Andy said, neither the Brig nor
his wife looked happy when they were together. They didn’t appear to communicate at all now and I wondered if they ever had on anything but sex when they first married, and then what it must be like to spend a lifetime with a totally incompatible human being once that tidal wave swept on out of sight. I was so pre-occupied on the problem of why they had stayed married, that for once I forgot George until I reached William and Mary. Again his door was closed and, from the voices, he had visitors.

  Richard opened his door to my knock. ‘See my new going-home sweater Mummy’s made me? Blue with yellow lions and Frank’s got one too and Frank says it’s jolly super!’

  I picked him up. ‘Aren’t you smart! And haven’t you got a clever Mummy to knit lions into sweaters. Hey, what’s this tum? You’re getting fat as Frank. If I press you, will you growl?’

  He giggled wildly and wriggled free to show me Frank’s sweater. Mr Blake gave me his chair. ‘We couldn’t leave without seeing you, Staff. Now, you remember what the wife’s said ‒ Blackheath’s just round the corner and anytime you’re free, you’ll be more than welcome.’

  ‘May I come in?’ Dr Lincoln Browne’s spruce white head came round the door. ‘Don’t disturb yourselves, please.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and drew Richard closer to admire the yellow lions. ‘So you’re off tomorrow, lad? And what’re you going to do when you get home?’

  Richard’s face lit up. ‘I’m going to go to school ‒ just like the other boys. And I’m going to have proper uniform just like the others and Daddy’s got me a new football at home and I’m going to play football ‒ just like the other boys.’

  ‘Just like the other boys. That’s right.’ Dr Lincoln Browne looked at the parents. ‘Earlier you’ve been kind enough to say you had no words with which to express your gratitude to St Martha’s. I assure you, no words could improve on your son’s.’ He patted Richard’s head, tweaked Frank’s ear. ‘You’ve been good patients and I shall enjoy meeting you both again when Mummy brings you to see me in a little while, just to let me have another listen with my listening-thing. Don’t break too many windows with that football.’ He stood up. ‘Well, I must be off.’