The First Year

by Lucilla Andrews

  Erith and the patient smiled at me sympathetically as I apologized to Bennings. When she returned to her temperature-taking the man said, ‘We all got to make mistakes, Nurse ‒ that’s what I say.’

  ‘But the trouble with you, Standing,’ said Erith softly, as we moved on to the next bed, ‘is that you never stop. Makes one wonder what you’ll do next.’

  For once I did not have to wonder. I simply looked at Erith and knew the answer to her question and one it had never occurred to me to ask myself. And then I thought: I can’t do that. I’m going to be working here for the next four years and, anyway, he’s much too old.

  ‘Standing!’ Poor Erith was really annoyed. ‘You’ve tucked the quilt in as if it’s a sheet. Pull it out quick ‒ or it’ll get creased. And mind that tooth-mug ‒ oh!’ But she was too late. My elbow had caught the edge of the tooth-mug on the locker and jerked the mug and its contents into the air. The pink disinfectant fell clear of the bed, luckily; the set of false teeth shot up over my head. My hand went up of its own accord, and I caught the teeth, which by some miracle were clamped together. The toothless owner beamed at me. ‘Nice bit of fielding that, Nurse,’ he remarked appreciatively; ‘you ought to have been a lad, seemly. Might have done something good in the cricket field.’

  I gave him his teeth, many apologies, and the promise to refill his tooth-mug for him directly I had finished making beds. I should have liked to talk cricket with him; having only brothers, I had grown fond of cricket in self-defence, but Erith’s expression decided me against small talk. We finished the rest of the beds in a heavy silence. I was quite glad to be silent. I wanted to think out the extraordinary notion that had come into my head.

  What in the world had made me suddenly decide that the next thing I was to do was to fall in love with Jake Waring? It was absolute rubbish. I hardly knew the man ‒ and I had not liked what I had seen of him. So why? I broke two flower-vases and one clinical jar, but I still could not find an answer to that. Nor could I blame Bennings at all for what she said to me when I told her of my accidents. She was perfectly right. I had not been thinking what I was doing; it was extremely careless of me; I ought to be ashamed of myself ‒ and I certainly would be when I got time to think about it. Just now I had to think about the S.S.O.; I had to work out why he had suddenly become so important to me. It was not as if he was the first thrill of my life. I had been mildly in and out of love with my brothers’ friends half a dozen times; I had not taken them seriously, because none of them ever took me seriously. This was different, very different. It was strange and exciting and sad at the same time. I knocked over the dispensary basket as I came to that mixed conclusion; fortunately, the bottles were waiting to be refilled, and no one saw me; so I picked it up and replaced all the bottles quickly.

  I was off duty that morning at ten, which was a good thing, as by the time I went back at one o’clock I hoped I should have my brain and my limbs under some sort of control. I strolled along to Matron’s Office for the post, giving myself a sharp lecture every foot of the way. I found three letters for Josephine, two for myself. I recognized my mother’s handwriting on one of them; the other was in unknown writing and unstamped. I turned it over, incuriously, slit the envelope with my scissors, and read it as I wandered back into the main corridor on my way to the Home.

  It was from Bill Martin.

  ‘The chaps and I,’ he wrote,

  think it’s time we broke with the glorious past and moved forward to a newer and fuller life. Why, we demand, should we not ask a first-year pro. to our dance? So how about it, Nurse Standing? Or can I be matey and call you Rose? Will you do me the honour of accompanying me to the Rugger Ball? Might be fun, and I should like it very much if you would. So will you come dance with me, and if you’re good, who knows, you may even get asked to dance by old Jake himself! Only that’ll have to be in a Paul Jones, seeing as he’s what you might call a conservative character. I hope you decide to come.

  Yours,

  BILL MARTIN

  I stopped in the middle of the corridor and read the letter twice. It was nice of him to ask me ‒ but I was not going to accept. No point in deliberately flouting convention, unless you really cared about the convention; this one did not bother me at all. And the prospect of snatching a couple of minutes in a Paul Jones with Jake Waring did not attract me. That was not how I wanted to dance with him. Also, I was perfectly certain that if Jake Waring and I did come face to face in a Paul Jones he would suppress an obvious shudder, and step smartly to one side to avoid the degradation of having to dance with a junior pro.

  As if to underline this thought, at that moment I looked up and saw a line of white coats walking towards me down the corridor. The S.S.O. walked in the centre; all the men walked with their heads bent, their shoulders hunched, and their hands in their trouser-pockets. They did not look up from the floor as they came towards me, and, although they may not have seen my face, they must certainly have seen my feet. Not one of them altered his pace or the direction in which he walked, and if I did not want to be mown down by the oncoming surgical firm I should have to make a quick leap to one side. I leapt accordingly. As they went by, still oblivious of my presence, I looked after them. My eyes rested on the S.S.O.’s silver-fair head. How in the world could I imagine myself so suddenly attracted to him? I might as well fall passionately in love with one of the many stone busts of long-dead physicians and surgeons who lined that corridor; they could scarcely be less responsive or more above my present lowly status than Jake Waring. And then I could not avoid thinking what heaven it would be if by some miracle I was suddenly transformed into a staff nurse, and the note in my hand had come from the S.S.O. and not Bill Martin. Then I recollected something my eldest brother, Hector, once said:

  ‘Never any good beating about the bush, Rose. It’s always the wrong girl who’s free when you want to make a date. And you’ll find it’s always the wrong chap who wants to date you. A dead bore ‒ but yet another fact of life.’

  I walked back across the park to our Home and wished that Hector had not got his horrible habit of being right.

  Chapter Five

  AN INVITATION REFUSED

  I went straight to Josephine’s room. The room was empty, the bed made, the dressing-table tidy, and Josephine obviously out. I was surprised; I knew she loved staying in bed until midday on her days off. I went next door to see Angela, who was also off for the day. ‘Angie, where’s Josephine?’

  She was enjoying a late breakfast in bed. ‘Hi, Rose! Come and have some tea, you poor, hard-working creature. Josephine? She’s gone out on a date. Sit down’ ‒ she moved her feet to one side of her bed ‒ ‘and take the weight off your two feet.’

  I sat down and took off my shoes. ‘Josephine out on a date? At this hour of the morning? Who ever with? And why didn’t she even stop to collect her post? I’ve just brought it over with me.’

  She grinned. ‘Dearie, if you could have seen the speed at which our graceful Josephine threw herself into her clothes half an hour ago you wouldn’t wonder. She was gone with the wind ‒ aided and abetted by a natty line in Yank cars. I watched it all from my window.’

  I was so intrigued that I forgot my own affairs. ‘A Yank car? Angie, what are you talking about?’

  She hopped out of bed, rinsed her tooth-glass, filled it with tea, handed it to me, and said, Well might I ask. ‘I was sleeping peacefully about an hour ago, when Josephine suddenly bursts into my room and says can I lend her my wedding hat? Naturally I ask who’s getting married, and she says no one, but she wants to lay on the glamour because some wonderful man with a peculiar name like Gus has rung her to ask if she could fix to have to-day as a day off. All this at the crack of dawn, mark you, Rose! So ‒’ she took a much-needed deep breath ‒ ‘I did not ask any more questions, just chucked her my hat, and she vanished in a cloud of dust towards the Old Kent Road ‒ plus Gus.’

  I rubbed my ankles. ‘Josephine? Our Josephine? Miss Nightingale Forbes he
rself? Angie, I can’t believe it. She’s just not the type.’

  ‘Not the type for what?’

  ‘Gallivanting with the boys. Even if the boy is a wonderful man called Gus. She’s so terribly serious about work ‒ etiquette, doing the discreet thing at the discreet time ‒ everything. It’s just not like her.’

  Angela said reasonably, ‘She’s got the day off, Rose. She’s not a pro. to-day. She’s Josephine Forbes, twenty-one and single. So why shouldn’t she gallivant?’

  ‘No reason at all when you put it like that.’ I drank some tea that tasted of tooth-paste. ‘It’s only that I never thought of her as interested in anything but nursing.’

  She looked at me as she lit a cigarette. ‘Rose, you are green. You really must not go round taking people at their face value. It’s a fatal mistake. Do you honestly believe that Josephine is only interested in nursing? You who are about her closest friend here? Don’t you know why she came to Martin’s?’

  ‘Because she wanted to be a nurse?’

  ‘Because she had broken off her engagement to some man ‒ might be this Gus ‒ and thought to bury herself in a hospital was the best solution. She’s not the first girl to have taken up nursing ‒ and made quite a success of it ‒ for that reason. But Josephine’s loaded with sex appeal; you’ve only got to look at her figure ‒ and to look at the boys looking at her figure ‒ to see that. Think how she walks ‒ and that sway is natural. Also,’ she added firmly, ‘think of her face. She’s a pretty girl. Pretty girls with glorious figures are seldom unaware of the fact, and seldom have one-track minds about careers. Why should they have when every time they look in a mirror they see a very pleasing obstacle to their turning into career girls staring back at them from the glass?’

  ‘I never thought about Josephine’s looks. I know she’s got a smashing figure, but it didn’t strike me that she knew it. And I never knew about her engagement. Poor Josephine! She never mentioned it to me. I wonder why not?’

  She said that if I would forgive her she didn’t. ‘You’re a nice kid, Rose; but you’re still an absolute infant. You haven’t yet discovered what time it is or that two and two make four. She probably never mentioned it to you because she realized it would be clean over your head. You’ve clearly got a natural talent for exams, Rose, and I shouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got a natural talent for nursing; but, apart from that, you’re quite crazy, and we like having you that way. You are our light relief, dearie; you cheer us when we get too serious and are always good for a laugh and a party if it’s only illicit cocoa in tooth-mugs after lights out. Straight out of the Upper-Fourth-dormitory life!’

  She smiled not unkindly. ‘You keep us young, Rose ‒ but don’t be hurt if we don’t run to you with tales of our broken hearts, because broken hearts are not up your street. You haven’t yet learnt that hearts can do anything but go lub-dupp and beat at a normal seventy-two per minute. And as for your being able to run a Lonely Hearts’ Club and advise us on our love-life’ ‒ she lay back and laughed ‒ ‘my dear Rose, have you heard of love away from the movies? I’ll bet you haven’t! And I’ll bet that the day you fall in love, Rose, will be the day! That I must see! Because, what with your normal absent-mindedness, that day Martin’s really will rock!’

  I concentrated on my ruined apron. ‘I expect so.’ I held up my apron. ‘Think this is going to stain?’

  She told me to take it off and soak it in hot water at once.

  ‘That should shift it ‒ I think. How’s the ward, incidentally? Been having any more hunches?’

  ‘Hunches! Huh! You can take that smile off your face, Angie!’ And I told her why.

  She stared at me. ‘It’s not true!’

  ‘It is,’ I replied soberly. ‘It certainly is. He was back in the theatre at three-thirty this morning.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘As well as can be expected. But Sir Henry was in to see him twice before I came off this morning ‒ and, although I did not see him, Erith told me the S.S.O. was in and out non-stop.’

  She grimaced. ‘The night nurses must have had a picnic. And heaven help poor Waring. He’s had a run of dawn ops. this week. I know that, because Toms, our staff nurse in Martha, is engaged to Waring’s senior H.S. Man called Smith. Gervase Smith. Know him?’

  ‘Short and fair, or tallish and reddish? I know one is Smith and the other Heller, but haven’t yet sorted out which is which.’

  ‘Gervase Smith’s got red hair, and he always assists the S.S.O., which is how I’m so up to date on the surgical side.’

  I soaked my apron in her hand-basin. ‘You aren’t telling me your staff nurse chats with pros.?’

  ‘No. But she’s a nice soul, for all that. I got it from our senior pro. Which reminds me, Rose, have you heard the latest from the grapevine?’ And she went on to tell me about the S.S.O. buying tickets for the Rugger Ball.

  I said I not only heard it ‒ I was in on it. ‘A student called Bill Martin was having coffee with Josephine and me, when the S.S.O. came up and bought them.’ I broke off suddenly as inspiration dawned. ‘Josephine! of course! That explains it!’

  Angela demanded to know what explained what. ‘You’re not suggesting the S.S.O. is asking her? Come, come, Rose. She may walk with a wiggle, but even Helen of Troy could walk unnoticed in a first-year uniform. Unnoticed by the senior residents, that is. They’ ‒ she waved her hands expressively ‒ ‘do not see us.’

  ‘You,’ I said meaningly, ‘are telling me. I’ve just escaped being trampled into the corridor by the surgical firm this very moment. If I hadn’t got my back to the wall smartly I’d have been ground into the floor-boards. But I wasn’t talking about the S.S.O.; I was talking about Bill ‒ that student. I’ve been wondering why he suddenly bulldozed his way to our table ‒ and now I come to think of it ‒ I did sort of notice Josephine getting matey. Now I get it.’ Then I recollected the note I had just had. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t get it at all. Why doesn’t he ask her?’

  ‘Rose,’ she wailed, ‘will you please take a deep breath and start at the beginning again! What is all this about a student asking Josephine something? And since when have she and you been on coffee-drinking terms with bulldozing students?’

  I sat down on her bed again. ‘Listen.’ I explained all that had happened. ‘And now I get this note.’ I gave it to her. ‘It’s very civil, but obviously I can’t go. Only, now I’ve seen the light I can’t follow why he bothered to ask me. Why doesn’t he just ask her?’

  She read the note, then looked up. ‘There is the thought that maybe he doesn’t want to ask her. He wants you.’

  At least I did not have to pretend to be obsessed with my apron over Bill Martin. I smiled at her. ‘Angie, remember me? Rose? As you’ve just so rightly said, I’m not that sort of girl. I’ve had dates ‒ yes, scores of them, with my brothers’ friends, who all wanted me to be a sister to them. I’m the kind of girl that gets taken to rugger matches or to swing the boom on a boat. That suits me. I like being a sister to my brothers and I like doing the sort of thing they like doing. I do far better on the back of a horse or in a small boat than when trying to behave like a little lady at home. My mother long ago said she had given up treating me as a daughter, and just lumped me in with the boys. So, even if I’m a bit adolescent about mending broken hearts and such, I do know quite a lot about young men like this Bill Martin.’

  I waved her down when I saw she was about to interrupt. ‘Hang on, Angie ‒ I’ll explain some more. It’s this way. Ninety-nine per cent of the boys’ friends behave and talk exactly as Bill Martin does. I recognize his type at first sight. I’ve known dozens of Bill Martins, And, as far as any girl can know how any man’s mind works ‒ All right! Laugh your head off, but I do roughly know how his mind works ‒ or, at least, how it doesn’t work! So just let me tell you, Angie, that he hasn’t asked me to this dance because I’m me, but because he’s got some other motive up his sleeve. I couldn’t work out what that was when I first read his
invitation; I only reacted instantly to the fact that it wasn’t genuine. Oh, yes, the invitation’s genuine enough ‒ it’s just that he doesn’t want me to go with him because of my lovely blonde hair. It’s no good trying to save your face now, Angie,’ I ended sternly. ‘I know dead well I’m under-sexed. Can you imagine anyone asking Josephine to be their sister?’

  She stopped laughing with difficulty. ‘Am I being hoist with my own petard! And there was I saying you took everyone at their face value! Really, Rose, you shake me as much as Josephine has shaken you. This seems to be a shaking kind of morning. But tell me something else. What happened with the one per cent, who weren’t like Bill Martin?’

  ‘I used to fall in love with them ‒ every time. But it was never any good; they patted me on the head ‒ until I grew too tall ‒ and told me to run away and play trains or dolls or something.’ I helped myself to one of her cigarettes. ‘Then they went off and got themselves engaged to my various girlfriends. The plump ones.’ I stood up and looked at my shape in her mirror. ‘You know, Angie ‒ I think women are daft to bother to slim. You noticed something? Ever seen a chubby girl who wasn’t engaged? And, as for fat women ‒ they’re always married. Hector says that’s because men like to feel the difference when they feel a woman.’

  Angie said if I told her much more I’d shock her. ‘Rose, I had no conception that you even knew the facts of life.’

  I hooted with laughter. ‘With three brothers?’

  She picked up Bill’s note again. ‘I suppose they do make a difference. But if you hadn’t told me all this I’d never have believed it. It’s your wide-eyed stare and lack of war-paint that foxed me. All the same, I still don’t see why you should think this is a line! What’s he got to have a line about? From what you’ve just said I’d say this was exactly the sort of maniacal suggestion he would make.’