Final Year

by Claire Rayner

  Dickon’s voice made me jump. “Dreaming of your ambitions, Avril?” he said softly.

  “Dickon! I thought you’d gone! Don’t creep about so - “ I was angry that he had read my thoughts so accurately.

  Dickon raised his untidy eyebrows. “My dear Nurse! Would you have me gallumphing about, while your patients try to sleep? Actually, I came to help. You only have one junior, and I thought you might like me to special the perf. Still, if you want me to go, I’ll tell Night Sister you refused the offer she accepted on your behalf.” But he made no move to go, standing there swinging his stethoscope gently against his white coat, and smiling the lopsided smile I knew so well.

  “Ass!” I laughed softly. “You know I’m grateful for any help. I wondered why Ma hadn’t been up yet. I should have guessed she’d be sending someone to special.”

  Dickon leaned across the desk to pick up the blood pressure chart. I could smell the mixture of pipe tobacco and ether and soap that was so very much a part of him, and for a moment I wanted to hug him. He was so comfortable to have around, like the old teddy bear I had loved so dearly as a child.

  Dickon straightened up. “It’s nice to feel wanted after all, even if I do creep about. Apart from anything else, Ma likes to smooth the path of young love. She likes to throw us together. She thinks you ought to marry me - “

  “Dickon!” I was scandalized. “You haven’t discussed me - us - with her?”

  “I’m sorry, Pet.” Dickon looked contrite. “I couldn’t help it. When you - put me in my place and gave me my marching orders I - “ He looked like a naughty little boy for a moment. “Well, I got tight. Drunk as a lord. Ma found me up-chucking in the Casualty loo, and in between holding my head and clucking over me, she found out why I was tight. I gather I finished up crying all over her well-starched bosom. So there it is.” He smiled again, but I could see, briefly, some of the hurt behind his lightness, and for a second I felt a little sick myself.

  “My dear,” I said gently. “I didn’t give you your marching orders. I just said I wasn’t ready to think of marriage for a while - not till I’ve qualified, anyway. But I want us still to be friends.”

  “Friends?” He dropped the chart on the table and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. The lightness went out of his voice, and he sounded angry suddenly. “Friends? Do you know what you’re asking? I pour my little all at your feet. I even grovel to the extent of telling you I got drunk because you didn’t want it, and you offer me friendship! Damn you, Avril! I’ve got to sit around like an idiot until you and your ambition decide to find time for me. And you know I’ll do just that, because I love you. You’ve got me on a pin, like some squirming moth, and now and again you bestow a cool smile on me - oh, hell, I’m going. Get someone else to special the perf!” And he turned on his heel, and disappeared through the door.

  I sat down on the swivel chair so abruptly that it swung half round. I had known Dickon for a long time, but this was the first time I had ever seen him in anything even remotely resembling a temper. He was known all through the hospital as the unflappable, and even his proposal had been flippant, offered under a tree in the Nurses’ garden.

  We had been to a hospital dance, and suddenly, as we crossed the garden towards the Home, he had stopped me, and gone down on one knee.

  “Nurse Gardner - or may I call you Nurse? Will you honour me with your heart and hand, and all the rest of your delectable anatomy? Could you bear to grace the bed and board of an ‘umble G.P. like what I’m a’goin’ to be - “

  He had broken off, and said softly, “I mean it, Avril, my sweet. I am proposing.”

  I had stared down at his uplifted face as he knelt there in the light from the Sisters’ sitting room. I wanted to say all sorts of things, and conflicting thoughts jostled each other in my mind for precedence. It would be so comfortable just to say “Yes”, to relax and forget about a career of my own. But at the same time, I thought about the medal I had longed and planned for for so long. He face looked so anxious, and his hair had fallen over his eyes like a child’s.

  I bit my lip, and then pushed his hair back and laughed softly. “Do get up, Dickon. You look so silly down there. I’ve got a career to think about, remember? Some other time, perhaps - “

  His face closed up, and he had got to his feet, brushing the leaf mould from his trousers.

  “Yes, of course.” I couldn’t see his face now. “I’d forgotten about your vaulting ambition - don’t let it o’er leap itself, Avril. It might.”

  And then he had laughed, and his face was the same laughing quizzical face it always was. He had linked his arm in mine, and taken me to the door of the Home. He had kissed me good night in his usual bearhug fashion, and I had gone to bed thinking how sweet he was, and hoping he had realized I had laughed kindly, because I was embarrassed, and not because I was genuinely amused by his proposal. I had wondered then if perhaps, one day I might indeed marry Dickon.

  But now this! I could still see the angry glitter in his eyes as he had said, “Damn you, Avril - “ Did I matter quite so much to Dickon, dear, steady, funny Dickon, who treated everything so lightly?

  Behind my surprise, and the vague sense of shame I felt, I warmed happily. It was good to know that I mattered.

  But then the man in Bed One groaned a little, and I hurried over to him, pushing all thoughts of my private life into the back of my mind, where they belonged while I was on duty.

  The drip was running smoothly, but it was ready to be renewed, so I got the fresh bottle of blood from the fridge, and put it up, inverting the bottle sharply as I did so, to prevent any spill. I took his blood pressure and pulse, and charted them. I aspirated the Ryle’s tube, noting the absence of any blood in the fluid I removed, with satisfaction. He was holding his own well, I thought. The face on the pillow was young, and looked as though it might be an attractive one, but now the skin was stretched tightly across his cheekbones, and deep violet shadows smudged his eyes. I smoothed the pillow under his head, and he stirred a little, and smiled fleetingly without opening his eyes. Yes, he’d do.

  I went out to the side ward, and opened the door softly. A girl of about nineteen was half lying in the uncomfortable armchair, her head thrown back against the dull brown leather, fast asleep. She looked exhausted, her face as white as that of the man in the bed in the ward. I said softly, “Mrs Bright!” but she only moved a little, and didn’t wake.

  “I’ll talk to her later,” I thought, as I gently put a rug from the bed across her legs, and turned the gas fire up a little. “She’s doing well - no need to wake her.”

  Barlow came out of the ward door as I came out into the corridor.

  “Night Sister came up with a message, Nurse,” she told me softly. “She says to tell you she’ll be sending the junior up from theatre to special the perf. It’s half past twelve, nurse. May I go to my meal?”

  I nodded, and she took her cape from the little cloakroom, and rustled off to the dining room, while I made a round of the sleeping patients. The dim light of my torch slid over the humped backs, and crumpled pillows, and I wondered for a moment about these men. What sort of people were they? Were they happy? But there is no answer to these questions, any more than there was an answer to my question about myself. “What sort of person am I?” I thought, as I went back to Bed One, to watch the patient until the special arrived. “Am I happy?” Then I shook myself a little, and slipped my hands into the bib of my apron, as I stood and looked at the sleeping man, watching the blood drip regularly in its little glass tube, as it went into his veins. It was so quiet, I could hear my watch ticking above the sound of his shallow breathing.

  A soft step behind me made me jump, and I whirled round sharply. A pair of strong hands gripped my arms, and a deep whisper said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Chester - surgical registrar.”

  He was tall, so tall I had to tip my head back to look at his face. The shaded light polished his head to a smooth golden sheen, an
d reflected on a few gleaming hairs on his high cheekbones. His narrow mouth smiled down at me in a way I found oddly disturbing, above a strong chin with a hint of a cleft in it.

  “I - I’m sorry,” I gasped, my heart pumping madly. “I wasn’t expecting you. I don’t usually startle easily.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.” He let go of my arms, and turned to look at Mr Bright. “How’s this lad doing?”

  “Quite well, I think,” I said, as crisply as I could, as my pulse settled down again. I was surprised at the way I had been frightened by his sudden appearance, and for a moment I wondered if my confusion was entirely due to the suddenness. “His blood pressure seems satisfactory, and his pulse is steady. Aspirations are clear.” I handed him the charts, and stood quietly with my hands clasped in front of me, waiting for his comments.

  “Nice charting,” he said after a moment, handing the charts back to me. “So many nurses seem incapable of keeping these sorts of records properly.”

  I blushed. “Thank you, Mr Chester. I suppose it’s because I think good charting teaches you how to write good exam papers.”

  He opened the screens, and stood back to let me go out before him, and then followed me to the desk in the middle of the ward.

  He sat down on the edge of it, and looked at me shrewdly as he swung one leg gently.

  “Do you know, you’re the first nurse I’ve met who ever realized that? I found out early in my clinical years how important good charting was, and how much it helped in exams. I swear I passed my finals on what I learned from them.”

  I looked up at him eagerly. “Oh, yes! But it’s difficult for a nurse, you know. When I ask some of the doctors to answer questions about charts and things, they just laugh, and tell me to look it up in the text books.”

  “I won’t do that,” he promised. “Try me.”

  I reached for a pile of charts. “I’ll take you up on that,” I said. “Look - “

  Barlow came into the ward, followed by the junior nurse from theatre. I sent Barlow to lay up the dressing and prep trolleys for the morning, and settled the junior by Bed One, telling her exactly what to do, and to call me if she was at all worried. Then I came back to the desk.

  Peter Chester was still sitting there, his bright head bent over the pile of charts beside him. He looked up as I came to his side, and smiled again, his eyes crinkling attractively.

  “Are you sure you can spare the time?” I asked hesitantly.

  “For someone as interested as you are? Of course I can. And it’s always pleasant to be in the company of a pretty girl. Ask away.”

  I blushed absurdly, and reached for the charts again, to cover my confusion. I was acutely aware of his eyes on me, and I blushed even more. But he seemed not to notice, and took the charts from my hand.

  We sat there for almost an hour, cocooned in the pool of light by the desk. I asked question after question, and he answered quickly and lucidly. It was marvellous. He had a gift of making the most abstruse of medical matters as clear as daylight, and I felt that I learned more in that hour than I had in the whole of my training before.

  Then, gradually, we started to talk of other things. Almost before I realized it, I had told him about my ambitions and how much I wanted the gold medal. For a moment I was afraid he would think me too ambitious, but he merely nodded understandingly.

  “I’m ambitious, too. It’s the only thing that really matters, isn’t it? I mean, if you don’t use the talents you have, you have no right to them. And I loathe false modesty - it’s only a cloak for arrogance,” he said.

  And then he started to tell me about himself. He had done very well in his career, and he knew it. He had worked hard, and wasn’t afraid to say he had done well. No false modesty at all, I thought. But somehow, I couldn’t feel that this man was conceited - his charm disarmed me so completely.

  Sitting there at the desk with him, surrounded by softly breathing patients, and the occasional squeak of Barlow’s shoes as she made a round of the ward, I felt that for the first time I had met someone who really understood how I felt about things, who had the same outlook on life. I remembered Barbara’s high voice saying, “He’s gorgeous!” and smiled a little. And, almost against my will, I remembered Dickon’s hurt baffled face earlier that night, and pushed the memory away.

  Peter stretched his arms above his head, and yawned, looking at me with a smile on his face. “You’re quite a girl. I never stayed out of my bed till past one in the morning just to - talk to someone before tonight.” His eyes crinkled at me disturbingly. “I must go to bed. Latimer Ward has an early list in the morning, and I’m assisting him. I’ll be in the ward tomorrow night - and we’ll talk some more, shall we? Get some questions ready.”

  I nodded wordlessly.

  “Good night - I mean, good morning! And sleep well when you go to bed,” and he was gone, his white coat flicking round the ward door like a wraith.

  I’d missed my evening meal, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t hungry. Night Sister’s round came and went, and I hardly noticed her shrewd glance at my face, forgetting Dickon’s confession to her until after she had left the ward.

  All through the rest of the night, and the morning’s rush of injections and dressings and preps, bedmaking and breakfast serving and report writing, I hugged the memory of the time I had spent with Peter Chester, poring over charts and talking in whispers.

  My own meal time came almost as a shock. I still wasn’t hungry, and I pushed my meat pie around my plate so abstractedly that Chick asked me if I felt ill.

  I parried her concerned questions with a laugh, and escaped to my room with relief, leaving Chick at the door of the sitting room, staring after me with a puzzled look on her plump, pretty face. All I wanted was to go to bed, to think about Peter Chester and his disturbing smile and narrow mouth. And to try to forget Dickon’s unexpected display of temper.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I woke with a sense of lifting excitement that puzzled me for a moment. Then, I remembered Peter Chester, and his promise to be on the ward that night.

  “This is stupid,” I told myself as I dressed, pinning my apron firmly round my waist. “You aren’t the type to get silly about a new registrar. And there’s Dickon - “

  I was in such a state of bemused anticipation I nearly forgot my books and lecture notes, which would have been more than a catastrophe, because we had the first of the hospital exams the next morning, the results of which were considered when the medal awards were made.

  I hurried over to the night nurses’ breakfast, sobered by my lapse of memory. For nearly three years the final hospital exams that would give me the gold medal I wanted so much had been the most important thing in my life. And now, the thought of a sleek golden head and a narrow mouth had made me forget the last-minute swotting that was so important.

  Dickon would have been amused by that, I thought, but Peter wouldn’t. I knew that even after only one meeting with him. He would have been shocked that anyone who professed to be as ambitious as he was himself could possibly forget.

  Chick had kept a place for me beside her, and she waved to me as I hurried into the dining room. I slid into my seat, and poured out a cup of tea.

  “What’s the matter with you, honey?” she asked softly, below the clatter of cups and the noisy chatter of the others. “You aren’t your usual self. Are you fretting about the exam tomorrow? You needn’t,” and she smiled wryly at me. “I’m the one who should worry. I haven’t opened a book for weeks.”

  I shook my head. I wanted to tell her about Peter, and how exciting he was, but how could I? There was so little to tell, and anyway, there was Dickon. Chick, like everyone else, always thought of Dickon and me in one breath, as it were. How could I tell her about Dickon’s anger the night before? Especially as I had a suspicion she would be on his side. Chick knew about my ambition, and understood, but that didn’t mean she agreed with me. I knew she thought I was wrong to care so much about it, and if she thought I’d hurt
Dickon’s feelings because of ambition, she would give me a taste of the rough side of her tongue.

  So I grinned at her, and said I hadn’t slept very well - which was almost true. Night nurses never sleep very well.

  Chick laughed. “Me too neither. Roll on next change. No more nights after that, praise be. Where do you suppose we’ll be on days?”

  This was a signal for everyone to join in and speculate about the Change List that would end our night duty. I kept quiet, but I hoped that I’d get a surgical ward. It would be dreadful to be put on the medical side where I wouldn’t see Peter - or Dickon, I reminded myself as an afterthought.

  The ward was quiet when Barlow and I arrived on duty. Day Sister was sitting at the ward desk, her cuffs already on - a sure sign she had had a good day. She gave us the report briskly. The man in Bed One had been transferred to the G.U. ward for special surgery. He had been found to have a perforated bladder, and the G.U. surgeon had a fixed aversion to having his patients anywhere except in his own ward. Bed One was now occupied by one of the patients from Mr Latimer Ward’s list, a straightforward appendix. Apart from him, there had been two hernias, and a varicose vein tie.

  “Mr Latimer Ward is going on holiday, Nurse,” Sister said. “He didn’t want to leave any major work for his registrar while he was away, so you should have a quiet night.”

  She turned to young Barlow, who was smiling across at the young convalescent patient in Bed Seven. “Perhaps that will give you time, Nurse Barlow, to do some of the cleaning you have been neglecting lately. It is no use cleaning just the top two bowls in the pile, I assure you, I look at them all. If I find a single dressing bowl with a mark on it, I shall be compelled to keep you on duty in the morning until you have done your cleaning to my satisfaction. You can’t look after patients properly if your equipment is not looked after properly. And how often must I tell you that I will not tolerate the formation of personal friendships between my staff and the patients? The young man in Bed Seven is going home tomorrow, which is just as well, I suspect.”