‘But that workman,’ I demanded urgently, ‘is he really safe? He couldn’t take much more ‒ both legs.’
‘Now, don’t worry yourself any more, my dear.’ It was a man’s voice that time. ‘He really is doing very well, and so are you.’
My muddled brain grew more muddled. I knew that voice. It belonged to our Professor of Medicine. But what was he doing near me? If there had to be a man around it should be George Halliday.
My eyelids were heavy. It took a tremendous effort to keep them open long enough to recognize it was Professor Winters and Night Sister. Her sleeves were rolled up above the elbows.
The Professor took my pulse, checked my blood-pressure, then slipped off his stethoscope and smiled affably. ‘Good. Comfortable? Then you go back to sleep, my dear.’
I was too drowsy to answer. I was just able to wonder who was ill enough in Nightingale to allow Night Sister to ignore etiquette and chaperon the Professor with her cuffs off before falling asleep again.
I floated backwards and forwards between a dazed waking and drugged sleep for hours. Each time I woke I forgot I had already asked and been answered, and asked again about the man Brunton.
There were shadows round my bed. Shadows with different faces and in different colours. Every now and then I recognized them. Matron in dark blue; Night Sister, dark blue and white; the special night nurse in stripes; the Professor in a dark suit; Dr Riggs, the S.M.O., George Halliday, and Johnny in white.
I could not think what they all thought they were doing. Wasn’t the hospital supposed to be busy? Why weren’t they working?
‘What time is it, Nurse?’ I asked the special sitting by me once after Matron and Night Sister had drifted away.
‘Half-past three in the morning.’ She turned my one pillow. ‘Head bad, dear?’
‘No, thanks. Nothing hurts.’ I looked at the blood-transfusion attached to my left arm. ‘Why am I having that?’
‘Just routine, dear.’ She smiled and sat down again.
I shifted my back, left leg, right arm, experimentally. They worked all right. I touched my head. There was a bump at the back, no bandage or strapping. I could smell the sickly-sweet scent of wet plaster. There was none on any of my movable limbs or my left arm, so it had to be on my right leg.
‘What have I done to my right leg, Nurse? Busted the tib and fib?’
‘No. Just chipped your right os calcis a bit. Nothing serious.’
‘Who put on the plaster? Mr Halliday?’
‘Mr Druro.’ She gave me a drink. ‘You really shouldn’t talk any more just yet, Nurse Francis. Try and get back to sleep.’
Poor old Johnny, I thought dreamily, poor old Johnny! As if he had not got enough work to do without having to slap a plaster on me. All the same, I squinted one-eyed at the transfusion; this did not really add up. Johnny did not give his patients routine whole blood every time he put on a plaster, and nor did the Professor, Matron, and the S.M.O. of Simeon’s proper expect to be pulled out of bed in the small hours to brood over a healthy young woman with a minor orthopaedic injury.
I took my own pulse at the temple, and had such a shock I wished I had not done it. Then Night Sister was back with another injection for me, the shadows became more nebulous than ever, and adding up problems was something for other people to worry about, not me. The only thing that did add up was the number of times the night nurses changed my vacolitres of whole blood. I thought I counted four pints going in, but was then too muzzy to be sure of anything beyond the fact that someone around Nightingale was being pumped full with an awful lot of whole blood.
My small ward was full of grey light when I woke properly some time later. My special nurse was writing on the chart lying on the bed-table against the wall. Johnny was standing by me, his arms folded, watching the blood dropping through the glass drip-connection. Neither of them at first noticed I had woken.
His face was the colour of the dawn. His expression suddenly reminded me of that night long ago in Lister when we had thought Sanders was going to die. It must be that workman ‒ what was his name? ‒ I could not remember it. ‘Johnny’ ‒ I reached out and touched his coat ‒ ‘how is he?’
He was very startled. He recovered himself, caught my hand. ‘Hallo. Better?’
‘Yes ‒ sure ‒ but you must tell me ‒ how is he?’
‘Who do you mean, Kirsty?’
‘You must know ‒ oh, blast ‒ I can’t think of his name ‒’
‘Richard?’ he suggested gently.
I blinked. ‘Richard? Yes. That was his first name.’
‘He’s just fine.’ He put my hand carefully down on the top sheet. ‘He can come and see you in the morning.’
I was beginning to feel most peculiar. Far too peculiar for politeness. ‘Johnny, don’t be so bloody silly! That kind of rubbish doesn’t soothe me. How can he come and see me? He had busted two legs and an arm before that last fall!’
Suddenly he was smiling. ‘You mean that workman Brunton?’
‘Of course. Richard ‒ no, it was Dick Brunton. How is he?’
‘On the D.I.L., almost inevitably, but he shouldn’t be on it long. He’s in the Private Wing. He should do. Will you believe me?’
I sighed deeply. ‘Yes.’ Then, as I was feeling more peculiar than ever, his mistake struck me as exquisitely funny. ‘Imagine you thinking I was worrying about my Richard! I haven’t worried about him for ages ‒ and ages ‒ and ages‒’ My voice sounded no more like mine than I felt like me. ‘Sonia can have him with all my love, and the best of British luck to her ‒ all the best ‒’ My teeth were chattering and I had started shivering.
‘Oh, Johnny, hasn’t it got cold?’
‘Much colder,’ he agreed evenly, and I felt his hand on my pulse.
I floated off again then, and had to hang on to his hand to keep myself anchored to the bed. The foot of my bed was raised; I seemed to be standing on my head. Somewhere at the back of my mind my trained self realized I was showing all the symptoms of acute delayed-action shock. I was sorry for all the people moving round me. I knew this must be very worrying for them. It did not worry me at all. Johnny was there.
Aline Sands was my first social visitor five days later. Like Phil, the girls in my set, David, Sister Mark, Sister Casualty, Mrs O’Leary, Paddy Joe’s mother, and Mrs Brunton, she had already sent me flowers.
She arrived after supper looking primmer than ever in her new sister’s uniform.
‘My dear, this room looks like an actress’s dressing-room on a first night!’
‘Isn’t it a splendid display? I’m glad you have seen it before the girls come to take them out for the night. Come and sit down! And how splendid you look in that chic clobber!’
‘I haven’t yet got used to the bow under my chin.’ She flicked up the corners of her apron, sat down, folded her hands demurely. ‘And when I catch sight of me in a mirror I’m still much inclined to jump up and say, “Yes, Sister?” ’ She smiled at me. ‘Sorry I couldn’t come and see you before. Sister Nightingale wouldn’t let any of us through.’
‘I know. I’ve only seen the parents, and my hordes of doctors. I’ve got so many I feel like royalty.’
‘You were on the D.I.L. for twenty-four hours, dear. I’m happy to say no one seeing you now would believe that. I suppose you now know you left a few pints of your blood down in the basement?’
‘No one told me until I asked Sister Nightingale point blank why I had that window in my ankle plaster and why those stitches. Then Matron told me about George Halliday’s leap down while the heavens were still falling, digging us out with his hands before the others got to us, and then using his tie on my leg as a tourniquet. One thing about a hospital ‒ no half-measures when we produce a drama. Incidentally, how are those cuts on his hands? He’s tried to kid me they are only scratches, but I notice he not only still can’t operate, but is still walking-sick.’
‘They are a bit more than scratches. He had fourteen stitches between the two hands. He’s heali
ng nicely. He should be back on the job reasonably soon. And the S.S.O. himself hopes to be fit to take over in two or three days.’
I had to pretend that was splendid news. It was not, for me. Johnny, as acting-acting-S.S.O., visited me officially twice daily, sometimes three times. Once the real S.S.O. was in charge I would become his patient. ‘All the ’flu over?’
‘Not quite, but dying down. So, of course, the hospital is much slacker.’ She smiled. ‘Did you know you made the front page of every daily newspaper in London, and the television news? They even got a photo of you out of Matron’s Office.’
‘Sister Nightingale showed me them yesterday, my mum the day before. I’m a bit hazy about the time itself.’
She said that did not surprise her at all. ‘As for that Monday night, I never want to go through anything like it again. We were in the middle of a gastric repair when we heard the roof cave in that second time. We knew you must still be down in the basement, as the switchboard had arranged to buzz a special signal on the transmitter directly you were both brought out. Sonia was wearing one of the men’s walkie-talkies ‒ she was dirtying for me ‒ and there had been no buzz. So we knew you were both underneath the new fall, and had to keep on with that wretched P.G.U. (perforated gastric ulcer) as if nothing had happened.’ She paused. ‘I have to say the surgeons were superb. They did not say one word or so much as stop for breath. But ‒ it was pure nightmare.’
I was very touched. ‘Poor Aline!’
‘Not just poor Aline.’ She smoothed her cuffs thoughtfully. ‘Poor all of us, particularly Johnny Druro.’ She looked up at me. ‘It was bad enough for him having to walk out of Cas and leaving it all to George Halliday because someone had to get on with the routine and George was in charge. But then when we did not even know what had happened to him, and Johnny had to go on stitching up that peritoneum, he just turned old in front of me.’
I was watching her expression as I had never watched it before. It gave nothing away.
‘He’s not the type to enjoy standing by in a crisis ‒ if you can call stitching up an ulcer site that.’
‘It was, under the circumstances.’ She got up, drifted round the room, looking at my flowers. ‘Sonia wept.’
‘WHAT? Why?’
She turned. ‘She didn’t tell me. She wants to see you. You want to see her?’
That had me more curious than ever. ‘May as well.’
She said she would pass that one on, and read the various cards propped against my many vases. ‘Old Sister Mark ‒ bless her ‒ Mrs O’Leary ‒ that boy with the head’s mother? Who’s this? Oh ‒ something Druro. Our Mr D.?’
‘Aline! Can you see our Mr D. sending flowers to a patient? Those are from Dave Druro.’
‘As you’re under the Professor, I keep forgetting the surgeons are also keeping an eye on you. Would be a trifle unethical for one of them to send you flowers.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I must go, dear, or I’ll be late for our supper.’
Once I was allowed visitors Sister Nightingale was very good about letting members of the staff in at all hours. ‘I think we can stretch a point just this once for a few minutes, Nurse,’ she said at least a dozen times a day.
A stream of my set called in next day. Dave Druro came in while I was having tea, with another bunch of flowers. ‘Do you realize you nearly gave me a coronary?’ he demanded sternly, depositing my flowers in the hand-basin. ‘I am a wreck of my former self. I saw you disappear into the depths.’
‘You did? I didn’t see you, Dave.’
He said he was the one with dust on his face. ‘I didn’t even know you were back in town, and suddenly there you were being dangled on the end of a bit of string by Stuart Ellis and a cop. Fair turned me up. Later’ ‒ he sat on my locker ‒ ‘I thought Fate had won the last round.’ He took my hand, held it lightly. ‘You are an astonishingly hard girl to date, my love. But the boy isn’t beaten yet.’
It seemed to me this was the time and place for asking the question I had wanted to ask for some time. ‘Don’t get me wrong, but just why do you want to date me?’
He leered hideously. ‘If you could see yourself in that snappy line in nightie gowns you wouldn’t ask such foolish questions.’
‘Don’t give me that, my boy. You can’t kid me you are really interested in making a pass at me.’
‘If you can kid yourself I’m not ‒ then that bang on the nut must have been harder than you guessed. Mind you’ ‒ he gave me back my hand ‒ ‘there are passes and passes.’
‘And some are just reflex actions?’ I suggested.
He laughed. ‘That’s a kind of dirty crack, but so right. And so is the bit about your not being my type. I’ve almost wished you were. I think you’d be so nice to make love to, Kirsty. But it wouldn’t do at all.’
‘Jill wouldn’t like it?’
‘Jill? Who the devil ‒ oh ‒ Jill. My physio. She’s engaged to Bob Simmons now. My new one’s called Rose. You’ll adore her. I’m just crazy about her.’
‘And faithful to her, I’m happy to see.’
He said honestly it was not Rose he had been thinking about, but Johnny. ‘You being his property and so on.’
‘His patient, you mean?’
‘Natch. In point of fact,’ he said more seriously, ‘I do have an ulterior motive for wanting to date you. I need some advice ‒ feminine-type advice ‒ badly. You are one girl I can talk to.’
‘Can’t you talk to Rose? Or is it about Rose?’
He shook his head at me, sadly. ‘Are you sure you haven’t a skull fracture? Not even a hair-line crack? Then how can you possibly suggest that I talk to Rose? She’s a peach of a doll ‒ I love her passionately ‒ but I don’t take her out to talk.’
I apologized. ‘Why can’t we talk now?’
‘Johnny wouldn’t approve. Wrong bedside technique. Visitors to the sick should bring sweetness and light, and so on. Also, Sister Nightingale said only a few minutes, and that old girl scares me far more than Sister Mark.’ He walked to the door. ‘Soon as you’re fit we’ll fix that date, but not now, as Fate may be listening.’ He blew me a kiss. ‘Get well, my most charming little ostrich.’
‘What was that you called me?’ I demanded.
He repeated himself. ‘We seem to breed ’em around Simeon’s. Must be the air from the river. Yet they dig the annexe air just as well. Can’t think why.’ And he let himself out.
A Nightingale junior came in to remove my tea-tray and tidy me for the evening rounds directly after; no sooner were they over than it was washing-time; then suppertime; then Sister Nightingale came in for her evening chat. I had just settled down, to think over my conversation with Dave when my door opened again.
‘Feel up to another visitor, Nurse dear? Nurse Dinsford has just come up to see you. Only a very few minutes, mind.’
Sonia sailed in. ‘And how’s the little heroine, darling?’ she drawled as Sister closed the door.
‘Heroic as ever. Nice of you to come up. Won’t you sit down?’ She ignored that, and like all my other female visitors took herself on a tour of my flowers. ‘How do you feel, darling?’
‘Fine, thanks.’
She drifted back to the end of my bed, leant on the foot-rail. ‘Do you know something, darling? I never thought you had any guts or brains. It would seem,’ she added with a sweet smile, ‘that I have been pretty bloody stupid about you.’
I had never heard her use that expression before. And never before had it occurred to me that the day might come when I would genuinely like Sonia.
I said, ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you. As the Professor is for ever saying: even Homer sometimes nods. Was that why you wanted to see me?’
She said there was a little more to it than that, so I again suggested she sat down.
‘Perhaps I should.’ She draped herself gracefully on my locker. ‘The trouble with being a nurse is that as soon as anyone takes to his or her bed with a genuine ailment, one starts seeing their point of view, and,
what’s even worse, feeling sorry for them. It really was most unfair of you to get on the D.I.L., darling. Made me feel a complete bitch. I didn’t give a damn for you when you were on your two feet.’ She looked round my room and sighed. ‘Then you went and got yourself buried alive ‒ then turned up on our table in the theatre looking exactly like a stiff ‒ and went and brought out the little Miss Nightingale in me. So I just had to come up and see you.’ Her lovely eyes were wary. ‘I guess you can guess why?’
‘Yes.’ And I told her how much I had guessed.
‘Then why haven’t you done something about it? Why didn’t you tell him? Really, darling! It’s your turning-the-other-cheek routine that has so often convinced me you were utterly gormless before. Yet, you’re not really gormless. So why act that way?’
‘I couldn’t see any point in acting any other way. It didn’t matter at all to him. You know that.’
She fingered her collar. ‘One of us has to be crazy. And it’s not me. I’ve always known within five seconds of first meeting when a man’s interested in me, and when not. I’ve never been wrong yet. I knew I had taken Richard from you’ ‒ she snapped her fingers ‒ ‘just like that. I’ve had most other men I wanted just as easily. That’s what’s irritated me about poor darling Johnny. I so detest admitting failure ‒ to you of all people,’ she added frankly. ‘But while the lamp still burneth bright I may as well tell you that with him I’ve never even got to first base. I don’t think I’d have bothered about him any more if I had. He’s no Richard.’ Her voice softened. ‘Richard I do go for. Yet you let him go without a murmur.’
‘Why not? Why make a fuss for something you don’t want?’ Then I realized what she had said about Johnny. ‘Before the lamp burns low, do you mind saying all that all over again?’
Chapter Twelve
FLOWERS FROM THE DOCTOR
When Sister Nightingale came in some time later she said I looked far too tired. ‘No more visitors for you tonight, my dear.’
Later still the senior night nurse came in with Johnny. ‘That ankle bothering you, Nurse Francis?’
Flowers from the Doctor Page 17
