Ring O' Roses

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Hold it, Staff, hold it!’ Mr Palmer swept in beaming with the eagerness of the bearer of bad news. ‘My dears ‒ my very dears ‒ lamentable tidings! Our Stanley has right lobar pneumonia. The physicians are in a positive tiz-woz! They’ve got him in a tent ‒ giving him the whole works!’

  ‘Oh no!’ Henty and I exchanged ‘that’s why’ glances as we spoke together. ‘How utterly miserable!’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear this, Dave.’ Joss had come in, unnoticed. ‘Where’ve they got him?’

  ‘Stephen Small Ward One. The S.M.O.’s just said he won’t be back inside of a month. And guess what else our own dear Cassandra said ‒’

  I left them to it and went along to Sister. She was still writing at her desk, but with her head propped on her left hand as if the weight was too much for her neck. She took both my items of news with a weary sigh. ‘This seems a particularly virulent virus.’

  ‘It caused a lot of bad chests in Canada.’

  ‘Did you get it, Staff? Not that that’ll prevent your getting it again. Pity about Mr Lawson, but with antibiotic therapy he should soon clear up. I only hope Mr Desmond keeps healthy for us.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked so ghastly that I added, ‘Sister, forgive me, but are you feeling all right? You look rather tired.’

  She smiled at me for the first time. ‘I’m always this colour without make-up. My grandmother used to say I should eat more carrots. She pinned her faith in the human race on carrots. Fed me so many, I now can’t look at ’em.’

  I had never known her so human. I was almost sorry. If I was going to start liking her, my life in the A.U. was going to become even more complicated than it was already. Peter underlined this when he drove me home that night, being off-call. He nearly hit a bus when I suggested Butler might be human underneath.

  ‘Scrub that! The woman’s impossible! God alone knows why Joss Desmond fancies her.’

  ‘He’s fancied highly strung neuros since he was in hot pants at prep school.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  I pretended I had forgotten to tell him. ‘Didn’t Dolly Jones tell you I was at school with Ruth Desmond?’

  He shook his head, gloomily. ‘She’s not on speaking terms with me now as I’m a chum of old George. He and Dolly’ve had another of their out-fallings.’

  ‘Dolly and George Charlesworth? A pair? Since when?’

  ‘Last few months. Haven’t you noticed they’ve been at each other’s throats all week?’

  ‘No.’ I was surprised and intrigued. ‘Are they serious?’

  ‘Don’t know that she is. Poor old George has got it badly. He’s dead glum now. He says Dolly fancies Joss Desmond. Seems every woman in Martha’s fancies the guy. Do you?’

  ‘I have this anti-thing to crowds.’

  He laughed and drew up outside my landlady’s house. ‘I didn’t think you would. For starters, you couldn’t push him around. You’ve never gone for guys you can’t push around ‒ or with dark hair.’ He smoothed his blond hair smugly. ‘It’s the Nordic charm that sends you. Going to ask me up for coffee?’

  ‘If you want some and you make it.’

  He got out of the car. ‘Know what sends me about you? The gracious warmth of your invitations.’

  I smiled peevishly. ‘Come off it, Pete! You know I make lousy coffee and Roxanne’s still away making a telly commercial somewhere in the Italian Alps.’

  My landlady was in the hall. She had always liked Peter and greeted him as if he were back from Canada. Over the coffee he made very well I asked why he had not contacted Roxanne whilst I was away.

  ‘With my overdraft?’

  ‘I’ll bet Roxanne’s is bigger. She earns a lot when she’s working, but she isn’t always in work.’

  ‘She seems to do all right without.’ He got off the sofa for a closer look at the full length photo on the bookshelf of Roxanne modelling a lace trouser suit. In common with most of the men who were my friends he had never been able to believe Roxanne’s highly decorative exterior hid an ardent and very hard-working career girl. ‘Why hasn’t she yet managed to land one of the well-heeled legion she runs around with?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to. She likes working.’

  ‘I suppose being a champagne girlie is working ‒ of a sort.’

  ‘Peter,’ I said, ‘don’t be bitchy.’

  He turned, smiling. ‘I just hate the idle rich. Any more coffee in that pot?’

  I investigated. ‘Sorry, no. Be an angel and make some more.’

  He picked up the pot, then stood looking down at me, reflectively. ‘Why do I let you push me around?’

  ‘Because you and I, lovey, have a beautiful relationship.’

  There was a new and very serious expression on his face. ‘I can think of worse,’ he said shortly, and went out to make the coffee on the cooker on the landing. I wondered absently what was on his mind, then remembered what he had said about Joss. I was in a very bad temper when he got back, but as he had relapsed into one of his ‘the gods have it in for me’ moods, our mutual gloom was downright companionable.

  Normally, my gloom wore off overnight. Not that night. When I joined the other living-out day staff nurses waiting at the dais end of the dining-room for Night Super to read the day register in the morning, I decided leaving Canada had been the greatest mistake of my life.

  Dolly Jones squeezed in beside me a minute before one of the Night Sisters arrived instead of the Super. ‘Think the old girl’s got the bug?’ she murmured without moving her lips.

  I shrugged in answer as the Night Sister was looking directly at us. ‘Good morning, Nurses. As the Night Superintendent has been unavoidably detained, I’ll start for her. Nurse A. L. Adams …’

  The ward changes came after the register. The Night Sister closed the book and produced a list. ‘Several changes today, Nurses. Departments first. Emergencies and Accidents. Nurse J. Smithers from Emergencies to the Accident Unit as extra fourth-year nurse. Nurse Donkin from Mark Ward to the Accident Unit as extra third-year nurse.’ She looked up and at me. ‘Staff Nurse Maitland, the Night Superintendent will ring you directly she is free. In the meantime will you carry on as usual with the early routine. You will find the Accident Unit already open. Now ‒ Ear, Nose and Throat Department, Nurse M. Francis …’

  Dolly’s eyes were closed. ‘Please God, please God not another school bus. I can take most things,’ she muttered, ‘but not mangled kids.’

  My stomach heaved. ‘Too early.’

  She breathed out. ‘So it is. Forgot.’

  Henty joined us as we left the dining-room. ‘There was nothing about a train crash on the seven o’clock news.’

  ‘Whatever it is,’ gasped Dolly as we shot towards the A.U. ‘it has to be big. Another eighteen down with the bug this morning, but we’ve got two extras. I’ll bet we find every cubicle occupied.’

  Neither Henty nor I took her up. If we had, Dolly would have lost. Our Receiving Room was empty, though looking as if someone had let off a bomb in it. The Emergencies night staff were grey with fatigue and the empty vaco-litres of blood waiting to be returned to the Path Lab needed a stretcher-trolley instead of the usual basket.

  ‘Sorry abut the mess, Maitland.’ The senior night staff nurse swallowed a yawn as she gave me our log, dangerous drug and medicine cupboard keys. ‘Been one of those nights.’

  ‘Won’t take long to clear. Non-stop admissions?’

  ‘No one in between three and five, which was a break as we were still clearing up the seven involved in a three-car pile-up around midnight. Four men to Albert, two girls to Catherine, one to I.C. (Intensive Care) and all still with us, pro tem. But the balloon really went up at ten past five. Twenty-two workmen.’ She yawned hugely. ‘The coach taking the early shift to some all-night building job tangled with a jack-knifing lorry loaded with steel girders.’ She nodded at my expression. ‘Yes. Messy.’

  ‘Where’ve they gone?’

  ‘Ten home after treatment. Six t
o Albert, three to Arthur, three to I.C. The last lad was only fit to shift a few minutes ago. We had to get all your men, apart from the S.A.O., out of their beds again. He was still up in his office doing the notes of the three-car job. He’s still there working on the new lot, but the rest have gone back to their rooms. I was about to raise the poor man some tea. Can I leave that?’

  ‘Sure. Sorry you’ve had it so rough. Sleep well.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘I won’t sleep when I get to bed. I’ll just bloody die of tiredness. Thanks.’

  In the Receiving Room the girls had the floor and walls clean. After my explanation, Dolly demanded, ‘If we’ve no patients, why extra staff?’

  ‘God knows.’ I pulled off my cuffs and unbuttoned my sleeves. ‘As we don’t know how long we’ve got, I’ll do the work-list verbally. Nurses Jones and Henty, cubicles for immediate admissions, please ‒ don’t wait. Nurse Smithers, follow Nurse Jones. Nurse Fisher, show Nurse Donkin how to set the Shock Room. Nurses Fraser, Hedges and Black, re-stocking and testing all round, starting in here. I’ll do laundry, desks, dispensary and outhouses.’

  Donkin whispered to Fisher, ‘How many immediate admissions are we expecting?’

  ‘We aren’t,’ retorted Fisher, ‘but we could have ’em any time. Watch the red bulbs over the doors. When they flash, we’re in business.’

  It was fifteen minutes before we had the room ready and I was free to check the outhouses ‒ i.e. the offices, stock, linen, and other equipment rooms off our corridor. Sister’s office was tidy. Peter’s looked as though hit by a hurricane rather than a bomb as there were no blood stains. I put on a kettle while I straightened it up, made tea, knocked on Joss’s closed door and went into his office without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Tea.’

  He looked up from his writing with bloodshot eyes and the deliberation of old age. Even the condition of his uncharacteristically untidy hair had aged. It was dulled, lifeless. The front of his crumpled white coat was speckled with blood and there were ink stains on the right cuff. The mask round his throat was a limp paper frill. ‘Thanks. I’m just finishing these notes. Then I hope to God the customers will let me get a bath, shave and some breakfast.’ He fingered his blue chin very slowly. ‘If not, I’ll probably drop off over the next one in.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ I found a space for the tray and poured his tea. Seeing him like this had shaken me even more, if in another way, than Monday morning. He not only looked so much older and exhausted, he looked so vulnerable. ‘I know you don’t take sugar, but couldn’t you use some?’

  He smiled faintly, ‘If you say so, Nursie ‒ and don’t mind my promptly throwing up on this carpet.’

  I smiled and put down the tongs. ‘Maybe you’re right. You never did fancy sweeties.’ I put the cup by his right hand. ‘Sorry you had such a ghastly night, though I gather it’s been pretty successful.’

  He stiffened. ‘We got ’em out of this Unit alive, but whether two of the chaps now in I.C. or their relatives’ll thank us for saving them is an open question. One had two inches of driving mirror sticking out of his frontal lobe and the rest inside. The other poor bastard had his skull sliced open like a boiled egg. If I.C. do another great job on them,’ he added bitterly, ‘two nice human vegetables from here to eternity.’

  I held on to the edge of the desk. ‘Joss. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  ‘Nor will the backroom boys if I don’t finish these something notes for them. Shove me the log some time and I’ll put ’em in.’ The green light flashed. He reached the green receiver before me. ‘Accident Unit, Desmond ‒ oh? Yes, Sister, she’s here.’ He nodded to me to wait but did not hand over. ‘Sorry, Sister, what was that? Oh!’ His voice altered and his face clouded with anxiety. ‘She is? I’m very sorry. Very.’ He listened, frowning. ‘Yes, I’ve thought so, too. Yes. Of course. We all will. Yes, right now.’ He passed me the receiver. ‘The Night Superintendent.’

  ‘Bad news?’ I mouthed, taking it.

  ‘Bloody awful.’ He picked up his pen and went back to his notes.

  Miss Butler was warded in the Sisters’ Home with query glandular fever. ‘In Dr Gray’s opinion,’ said Night Super, ‘no question of influenza, but this is only his provisional diagnosis.’ She talked for quite a time. She did not mention leukaemia, but from what she said it was as omnipresent in Dr Gray’s, Miss Evans’s, and her own mind as in mine. I watched Joss as I listened. Not only mine. I thought of Butler’s colour, perpetual tiredness, thinness and snappy temper. All four did not have to be the forerunners of serious illness, but few were the serious illnesses without those early symptoms.

  ‘Now, to deal with the Accident Unit, Nurse Maitland. I have just come from Miss Evans and have been asked to tell you she wishes you to take over temporarily as acting Sister Accidents. Do you feel you can manage?’

  I felt paralytic with guilt and fear. ‘Er ‒ yes, Sister. That is, I hope so.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do nicely. Miss Mackenzie and the Office will, of course, give you every assistance. Mr Desmond has just promised every help from the residents ‒ but our residents never let us down! Miss Evans will ring you when she is free to see you during the morning to discuss administrative details. All right?’

  There was only one answer. ‘Yes, thank you, Sister.’

  ‘Thank you ‒ Sister.’

  I put down the receiver slowly. ‘How old is she, Joss?’

  He went on writing. ‘Twenty-six.’

  ‘I thought she looked much too tired. Has she always?’

  ‘Not as much as recently.’ He glanced up, briefly. ‘So we’re running the shop now?’

  ‘Yes.’ I was too shaken to be warned-off. ‘Joss, I really am very sorry she’s ill.’

  He sighed, blotted the page, sat back and looked at me wearily. ‘Stuff the placebos, Cathy, as I’m too bloody tired to swap ’em.’

  ‘It wasn’t a placebo, but if that’s how you want to take it ‒’

  ‘Christ, woman! I don’t want to take anything or anyone ‒ I just want to sleep for a week! As I can’t, do me a favour ‒ and don’t say do I mean “get lost” or I’ll probably hit you.’

  I believed him. ‘What?’

  ‘Do something about the atmosphere in this something Unit, or we’ll all be queuing for beds in Florence and Stephen. I’m not a psychiatrist, so don’t ask me why happy departments stay healthy. I just know they do. Get happiness-spreading. Get this dive an oasis of brotherly bloody love, before some patient gets bumped off because the team’s too short-handed and bloody-minded to do the job properly. And as this has to start at the top, you and I’ll have to love each other. Get me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ He took up his pen. ‘With the news under your belt your happiness-spreading should be off to a head start.’

  I turned at the door. ‘I thought we had to love each other?’

  He raised his triangular eyebrows. ‘Passionately,’ he said flatly, ‘but even a decadent Englishman has his limits. Never before breakfast.’

  I looked from his haggard face to his stained coat and the notes piled on his desk. ‘That tea’ll be stone cold if you don’t drink it soon.’ I went out and closed the door quietly.

  Chapter Five

  ‘I’m glad this repulsive weather is doing someone good.’ Roxanne hitched her chair nearer the electric fire in our living room. ‘When the camera crew and I got out of the ’plane yesterday and saw snow, we blamed the gin.’

  Peter draped an arm along the sofa behind my shoulders and watched the hail hitting the window. ‘One of the few patients we had in today swore blind his grandad had seen the Derby run in a snowstorm. Personally, I go along with Joss. Straight case of the Lord tempering the wind to the shorn lambs.’

  ‘Lamb,’ I said, ‘singular.’

  Roxanne glanced at me as she flicked back her long dark hair with both hands. We had talked most of last night, but Joss’s name had only come up since
Peter brought me home tonight. ‘What’s the latest on the sick Sister?’

  Peter answered. ‘Almost certainly glandular fever, though her blood count still isn’t adding up as Charlie Gray’d like it. Time’ll tell.’

  I groaned. ‘Leave the corn to the S.M.O., please!’

  He flushed. ‘You mean your middle name isn’t Cassandra too, Cath?’

  We had had a tremendous row over Butler. And as few things can beat a guilt complex for putting people in bad tempers, initially, every member of the A.U. home staff had blamed everyone else for missing the diagnosis. This had consequently relaxed tension all round without any help from me, and given Joss an overwhelming psychological advance. In one of our note-writing sessions he said he didn’t know whether he was more amused or sickened to find himself currently top of of the A.U. pops.

  Miss Butler was now in Florence Small Ward. Joss visited her for a few minutes at least twice a day and made a particular point of telling us so. When we sent her flowers from the A.U., he had passed on her grateful thanks to the whole staff. The same evening doing the notes he told me that had he been Naomi, we’d have had our flowers back, stat, with a note telling us what we could do with them. ‘Naomi was quite touched, but, of course, she had a temp of 104 when they arrived.’

  ‘Her temp’s still swinging?’

  ‘Yep. Was that chap Colin Arthur Morris driving the sports job or the estate car?’

  ‘Sports. Thomas John Chester drove the estate.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He added the word then glanced across the desk I still thought of as ‘Sister’s’.

  ‘Stan Lawson’s doing all right. He hopes to be discharged in the next week, and have three weeks sick leave. He sent you his regards.’

  ‘Good. Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘As my old man and St Paul would say, faith, hope and charity ‒ and the greatest of these is charity.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Strain killing you?’

  ‘Not nearly so much,’ I lied, ‘as having Miss Mackenzie constantly on my neck.’

  I thought over those note sessions whilst Peter explained to Roxanne why the cold snap had sent road accidents down and home accidents up. ‘Long cold hours of daylight, so the weekend motorists stay home, get down to do-it-yourselves, fall off faulty step-ladders, dig chunks out of themselves with rusty chisels, or slice off their fingers with saws.’