I softened. After all, Chick was trying to make me feel better, and even though she and I were no longer in the harmony we might be, still, we had been friends for a long time. So I relaxed, and said, “Where’s Joanna?”
Chick looked bothered. “I wish to hell I knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and made myself some coffee around four o’clock. And as I came out of my room Jo came out of hers. Carrying a suitcase.”
“Oh no!” I was alarmed. “You don’t mean she’s cut and run?”
Chick grimaced into her tea cup. “I did my damnedest to stop her, but for once she seemed to know exactly what she meant to do. I mean - Jo was never the sort to stick at things much, was she? I always thought she was a bit like one of those eiderdowns - you know - warm and soft, and whichever position you put it in, it stays there. If you told Jo black was white, then she’d smile and say that you were probably right.”
I nodded. That was one of the nicest things about Joanna. She had none of Jane Mellows’ sharpness, or Chick’s stubborn “I-know-what’s-what-and-you’d-better-listen-to-me” attitude, or Barbara’s silliness. She was just nice to have around. Which was one of the reasons, I suddenly realized, everyone was so angry with me on her behalf - she was so defenceless, somehow. I couldn’t imagine Joanna doing anything quite so determined as running away - even her attempt to cheat had misfired.
I frowned worriedly. “What did she say when she went?”
“That she wasn’t going to stay just to be sacked,” Chick said, dropping her voice even more. “I told her not to jump to conclusions, but she was really stubborn. She was going and that was that. Perhaps I should have called Home Sister or someone, but Jo got into such a state when I mentioned her, I hadn’t the heart. Poor Jo - “
“Did she have any money?” I asked abruptly. Joanna was never very flush, I knew - she would never come to a film or a theatre with the crowd, and I had always suspected the reasons for her refusals were financial more than social. I knew now, of course, that it was probably because she spent all her meagre pay on her brother.
Chick looked embarrassed. “I persuaded her to let me lend her some,” she said. “I wish she hadn’t gone, damn it. I should have stopped her somehow - “
“It’s no use worrying about that now,” I said.
“I tried everything I knew,” Chick said. “I even told her that the others had sent you to Coventry because of her, and that her running away would make it worse for you - “
“Chick!” I was furious. “That was wicked of you! I’ve caused her enough trouble, Heaven knows, without you crying the blues on my behalf! If I hadn’t said I’d borrowed that wretched apron, she’d never have needed to run away at all.” I put my hand on Chick’s for a moment. “I suppose I could have alibied my way out of it, somehow, without shopping her. I could have said I’d made some notes to study from, and forgotten they were there, or something - “
Chick smiled at me. “That’s more like my Avril.”
“But I still don’t agree I’m in the wrong because I did say I borrowed it,” I went on firmly. “So don’t go thinking you’ve made me change my mind.”
“Stubborn idiot,” Chick said, but her voice was friendlier than it had been.
It was still wondering about Joanna’s whereabouts as we left the dining room on our way to the wards. Matron was standing in the corridor talking to Night Sister in a low voice. As I passed them, she put out her hand to stop me.
“Nurse Warner will go to male Surgical tonight, Nurse. I want to speak to you in my office.”
I stood there as the rest of the night nurses hurried on, apprehensively watching them as they clattered down the stairs, Matron’s presence silencing their clatter for once. Then I followed Matron’s elegant figure down to her office.
She settled herself at her desk, and looked at me gravely.
“Sit down, Nurse Gardner,” she said.
I perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair in front of the big mahogany desk. The clock on it ticked loudly, and her gas fire hissed and plopped softly. Outside the heavily curtained windows I could hear the muffled roar of the traffic and beyond the office door I could hear the familiar evening sounds of the hospital. And inside the office, Matron and I sat cocooned in our own silence.
When at last she spoke, her question was unexpected.
“Did you sleep well, Nurse?”
“Not very well, Matron.”
“I never did on night duty, either.” She smiled at me, the rare smile that lifted her face out of its customary firm lines. “One doesn’t think very clearly on night duty, either, does one?”
I shook my head. Confusedly I thought of Peter, of Dickon, of Joanna, of Mr Jeffries who had so nearly died. No, one didn’t think very clearly on nights.
“I want to talk to you about what happened this morning, Nurse.” I was surprised by the gentleness in her voice. “Are you very distressed about it?”
And then, to my own amazement and shame, I started to cry. I was more distressed than I had been willing to admit, even to myself. That was why I had been so stubborn when Chick and Dickon spoke to me about it. Why I had been so pathetically grateful to Peter for his championship. For a brief moment I wondered whether he was right in championing me - perhaps I was in the wrong. I had nearly admitted as much to Chick over breakfast. But then I remembered his lips on mine, and his voice murmuring my name, and pushed my doubts away.
Matron watched me gravely as I blew my nose and wiped my eyes.
“As a matron I must say that what Nurse Jennings tried to do was reprehensible. As a woman I must sympathize with her, especially as I am not entirely free from blame in this.”
I stared at her in amazement. “You, Matron? I don’t understand - “
“If I had not told her that she must pass this examination if she wanted to undertake the State finals this time, she would not, perhaps, have attempted anything so foolish. But - “ her level tones dropped a little, and she frowned. “I misjudged her. I thought she needed a spur, rather than sympathy. I was wrong. So, I am culpable.”
I was as deeply embarrassed as I would have been had she suddenly taken her clothes off, or used a swear word. That Matron, of all people, should say such a thing to a junior nurse! To say that she had been wrong about something - it was utterly outside my experience. She always seemed so aloof, so apart from the emotions that beset ordinary people.
“You seem surprised that I should say that?” Matron’s voice cut across my amazement. “It has taken me a long time to learn how to see my own wrong, Nurse. And longer still to learn how to admit it. I could not, in all conscience, try to guide young people like yourself along the right lines, if I could not see my own faults clearly. Could I?”
“I - I suppose not,” I mumbled. “I never really thought about it.”
“I know, Nurse. That is why you are here now.”
I looked at her interrogatively.
“Because you have never thought,” she said gently. “If you had thought at all about other people, and their needs, then you would not have been able to tell me this morning that you had borrowed the apron. You would have been able to remain silent, even though you would have lost something yourself by doing so. You see, Nurse Gardner, there is such a thing as loyalty - and compassion.”
I bit my lip. That word kept coming up. Day Sister last night, Chick, and now Matron.
Matron was speaking again. “The first way girls learn how to be good nurses, and how to care about their patients as people with emotional needs, is in their dealings with, and their relationships with, their colleagues. You have been unkind to a colleague, just as you have, in the past, been unkind to patients. I don’t mean that you have ever illtreated any patient. But you have been unkind in showing a lack of interest in them as individuals. This is a comment that has appeared many times in your ward reports, Nurse, I am afraid.”
“But I don’t understand,�
�� I cried. “I try awfully hard to keep up to date with everything. I study a lot - I try not to make mistakes about treatment - “
“Of course that is very important, Nurse. I am not for one moment suggesting that it is not. But you must understand that there is more to nursing than just theory. You must learn how to make the extra emotional effort - to do things not merely because they are right, but because people have needs beyond their physical ones. Nurse Jennings needed you to support her this morning, in a way that was admittedly - illegal, shall we say? - but you did not support her. You let her down. And now she has left the hospital, and I have no idea where she is,” and Matron looked desperately worried for a moment.
“I’m sorry, Matron,” I said lamely.
“I hope you are, Nurse,” she said soberly.
Then she leaned across her desk and looked at me, her hazel eyes kind.
“I want you, Nurse, to think very carefully about yourself, and about your attitude to your work. We train complete nurses here at the Royal, and I would be failing in my duty if I did not send you away from here with a real understanding of what a good nurse is - that is, someone who is kind and thoughtful in all her dealings with both her patients and her colleagues. You need an opportunity to make this - re-appraisal. So, I am taking you off night duty, and sending you to theatres. The pace is fast there, but there are many routine jobs that keep your hands busy and still leave your mind free. There I hope, you will come to understand what I have tried to tell you this evening.”
“Yes Matron,” I said submissively.
“You will report to the theatres tomorrow morning, Nurse. You are off duty now, and I suggest that you go to a cinema, or a theatre, perhaps. You need to relax and forget today’s events for a while, or you won’t sleep tonight either.”
She looked at me shrewdly. “I realize that you may find it difficult to persuade one of the other nurses to accompany you - you are rather unpopular at the moment, are you not? But perhaps Dr Bartlett is off duty tonight.”
I dropped my eyes, wondering how she managed to know so much of what was going on in the hospital, from the fastness of her office, even to details like an individual nurse’s popularity or lack of it, and which doctor was going about with which nurse.
“Off you go, then,” Matron smiled at me, and I smiled back, a little shakily. “I shall want to see you again, to discuss this matter of your attitudes to your work, after you have been working in the theatres for a while. And I am sure that you will not let me down. Somewhere in you there is a gentle and kind person, buried beneath your ambition, perhaps, but there all the same. It is up to you to find that gentleness.”
I stood up. “Thank you Matron. I - I will try. I think I’m beginning to understand - “
“Good.” She was her brisk self again, with no sign of the real woman I had glimpsed a little while ago.
“Please, Matron,” I said hesitantly. “If - when you find out where Nurse Jennings has gone, will you tell me? I’d like to know.”
“You shall know as soon as I do, Nurse. I appreciate your concern about her. Now, good night,” and she bent her head to her work among the piles of papers on her desk.
After I left her office, I stood outside the door, irresolute. It was still early - not nine, yet. And I had an idea. I wanted to do something about Joanna. Quite what, I didn’t know, but I had to do something.
I thought for a while. Then, wrapping my cape firmly round me, I went along the darkened corridors to the theatres. I could hear the clatter of bowls from the big sterilizing room, as I stood outside the double doors, and the hiss of steam from the water boilers. But I could also hear Chick’s voice raised in a tuneless rendition of “The Red River Valley”, the tune she always sang when she was homesick for the little town in Ontario where she had been born. So there was no case in progress. I pushed open the doors, and went through to the anaesthetic room.
Chick was sitting perched on a high stool, a trolley-load of instruments in front of her, and a polishing duster in her hand. When she saw me, she scrambled down.
“Avril! What’s happened? Why aren’t you on the ward?”
I told her, as briefly as I could, about what had happened in Matron’s office. Chick listened without comment.
“Look, Chick,” I said. “I’m off duty now. And there’s something I want to do. I need your help, though.”
She looked alarmed. “Nothing silly, Avril? Because you’re in enough soup for the time being - “
“I want to find Joanna,” I said baldly.
“For Pete’s sake! How do you suppose you can do that? This is one hell of a big city. Where do you start?”
“If you lit out, where would you go, Chick? You have no home in this country. What would you do?”
She thought for a second. Then she said, “Well, I guess the first thing would be to find a bed. Then a job.”
“That’s what I thought. Now, how much money has she got?”
“I made her take two quid - and she had ten bob of her own. Not much, is it?”
“So she won’t be able to afford much more than a bed and breakfast hotel. Now, I don’t suppose she’d risk staying around here, in case someone from the hospital spotted her. My guess is she’d look for one near a station, because I bet she’ll want to go and see her brother as soon as she can. I mean, she must realize the hospital will have to notify him, young as he is - he’s nearly twelve now, isn’t he?”
Chick nodded. “Twelve in March. That’s when he can go to that school she wants for him.”
“Well, she’ll be sure to want to reassure him, won’t she? He’s her next of kin, so he’ll have to be told she’s disappeared. And he’s in an orphanage down on the coast, isn’t he? I saw some photographs in her room, and it looked like a coast place to me.”
“Mmm,” Chick was getting excited now. “Kent - near Dover. She goes there from Victoria.”
“Right then!” I said triumphantly. “I look for her in the Victoria area. It’s simple to work these things out when you try - “
“Madam Sherlock Holmes, as I live and breathe!” scoffed Chick. “You can’t hope to locate her just like that, not if you search all night!”
“I’ll do it if I have to take the next week about it,” I said. “But it’d be a lot easier if you’d lend me your scooter, Chick. Walking would take hours, round all those hotels, but with your scooter - “ I looked at her pleadingly.
Chick looked doubtful, but she nodded after a moment. “All right, you idiot. The padlock’s in my top drawer - and she’s got plenty of gas - I filled her yesterday. And remember to open my window. You might be late and have to climb in.”
“I don’t intend to come back without her, Chick,” I said. “And when we do, I’ll ring the gate bell and come in properly. I don’t think the Old Girl’ll be too mad. And if she is, it’s just too bad.”
Chick hugged me for a moment. “I think you’re a grade A nut, but I’m glad of it. You’re not nearly as hard as you’d have people believe.”
I was embarrassed. “This could be simple enlightened self-interest, you know,” I said lightly. “Matron told me to be more compassionate, so I am. Must please the Old Girl, mustn’t I?”
Chick shoved me towards the door. “Sure, sure. You’re Borgia’s grandmother - I know. Now get, if you’re going, or you’ll never find her. And all the best.”
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time I had changed, and got Chick’s scooter out of the cycle shed. As I put my head down, and weaved in and out of the heavy traffic towards the River and Victoria, I wondered if I was indeed crazy. Would I ever find Joanna in that mass of little hotels that clustered round the railway station? But although it was a slender chance, I told myself firmly, it was worth taking. I had to find Joanna.
For a moment, as I waited at the corner of Camden Road and Hampstead Road, watching the traffic lights glow red, I thought about Peter, about the over-powering attraction he had for me, and the brief and glorious seconds among
the brooms and mops that morning. As the lights turned green, and the wheels of the scooter hissed again over the dark road, I recited the childhood rhyme to myself, “He loves me, He loves me not”, using passing cars as counters. But that offered no answer. What was one kiss, after all?
By eleven-thirty, I had visited seventeen hotels. Clean ones, dingy ones. Some smelling of food, some of disinfectant, some smelling vaguely dirty. Some with friendly clerks at the reception desk, some with suspicious ones. I was getting pretty dispirited. This was a wild goose chase. How could I even be sure I had picked the right district?
I pushed the scooter wearily along a badly lit little side street, too tired even to climb on to it. I was beaten. I would have to go back, to face an irate Matron in the morning, because stubbornly, I hadn’t left Chick’s window open. And hers was the only one within climbing distance of the outside fire escape. I would have to use the gate, and be entered in the porter’s book as “Late”.
And then, right at the end of the road, just before it came out into the main road that led to the station, I saw yet another hotel. The Royal. It looked drab and furtive, dirty stucco peeling off its walls, the windows screened with filthy net curtains. But the name had a friendly ring. The Royal.
With suddenly renewed hope, I parked the scooter against the kerb, and climbed the five steps to the dimly lit entrance. A clerk was lounging by the desk, half asleep, and he looked at me with a leer as I marched up to him, trying to look self-assured.
“Want a room love? On your own? Pity!”
With all the dignity I could muster, I asked the same question for the eighteenth time.
“Has a Miss Jennings checked in here this evening? She’s a friend of mine, and I’ve forgotten the name of the hotel she said she’d be staying at.”
“Have you now?” He obviously didn’t believe me, looking me up and down with a bold eye that sickened me. “Why should I tell you if she has or not?”
I thrust my hand into my pocket and pulled out my last ten shilling note. It was all I had till pay day, but I had a feeling Joanna was here. It was worth ten bob to find out.
Final Year Page 7
