Ring O' Roses

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘But you said you’d had a very slack weekend!’

  ‘Compared to the normal holocaust of a normal July weekend, we have.’ He saw her surreptitious check on the time. ‘Sorry. Should’ve remembered nothing’s so boring as other people’s shop.’

  ‘But I love hospital shop! I was only looking at the time as my agent said if she didn’t ring by eleven tomorrow’s job’s on for sure. Do go on, please!’ Roxanne turned to me. ‘I wish he would, Cathy.’

  ‘Go on, Pete. The girl needs a nice bedtime story seeing she’s got to be up at four-thirty.’

  ‘Four-thirty? You’re not serious?’

  Roxanne and I exchanged resigned glances. In the past we had both told Peter more times than we could remember that more often than not her job entailed getting up in the small hours as so many photographers preferred working by early morning light, or wanted a London setting when the streets were empty. I said, ‘She’s always creeping out between four and five. That’s why she likes having early nights.’

  ‘She doesn’t like ’em,’ corrected Roxanne, ‘she just has to have ’em. If the camera doesn’t lie, the swine accentuates. Unless I get enough sleep, the client’ll take one look at the rushes and bellow “Get me another girl! I want my goods advertised, not the fact that some stupid cow needs pep pills!” Oh, hell!’ Our telephone was ringing. It was in my bedroom, having been put there by a previous tenant. ‘I’ll bet that’s my agent! I’ll get it, Cathy.’

  ‘I hope it isn’t,’ I said when she had gone. ‘She’s dead keen on tomorrow’s job.’

  Peter lit a cigarette. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Why,’ I said, ‘why are men incapable of understanding that a girl can be dead keen on her job and just her job?’

  ‘Hell ‒ with her looks? There must be some man in her life.’

  ‘Sure, rows, but none mean a thing to her ‒ apart from her father. As he raised her alone after her mother died when she was ten, that’s hardly surprising.’

  ‘I’d forgotten him. Didn’t you say he was an actor, or something?’

  ‘Yes. He acted till his wife died, then started a drama school to stay put. Up north. He’s doing very well. He was playing Cyrano when she was born ‒ hence her name, and looks. I met him once. He’s still staggeringly good-looking, tall as you but about half your width.’ Roxanne was back, smiling. ‘Still on?’

  ‘Not my agent. For you. Mrs Desmond from darkest Kent. We had a nice chat about how glad we are you’re back.’

  ‘Mrs Desmond at this hour?’ I shot into the bedroom convinced disaster had struck either my own or the Desmond family. Mrs Desmond only wanted me to spend my next free weekend at the vicarage. She had just been talking to Joss. ‘He said this would be a good time to contact you. I wish he could come down too, but he says the residents are still only getting half-days. Such a worry for you all, this wretched ’flu. It’s in every house in the village, but we’ve missed it so far ‒ touch wood ‒ oh dear ‒ I know that’s pagan but I must. And poor Naomi! But what a relief it is nothing worse than glandular fever. Such a nice child ‒ very quiet ‒ but very sweet. Joss brought her home several times last winter ‒ I do enjoy it when the boys bring their girls down, though between ourselves, with Danny I do have difficulty keeping track of their names. I call them all “dearie” ‒ so much safer. Can we expect you next weekend, Cathy? I do hope so as we’d love to see you and there is a little health matter I’d like your advice on. Not a word to Joss ‒’ she added briskly, ‘just between you and me.’

  Knowing her age it was not hard to guess what that was. I said I would love to get down for the day if I was not free all weekend, but it was possible I might be. One of the junior orthopaedic sisters was due to take over as Sister Accidents when she got back from holiday on Thursday. I’ve a couple of days off owing,’ I added.

  ‘So darling Joss said.’

  Darling Joss had been a mine of information. She knew all about Stan Lawson’s progress, Miss Kenton, the orthopaedic sister’s name, and that Joss thought her a very nice and most efficient young woman ‒ which was more than I knew.

  ‘How nice,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it, dear? I’m so pleased you two children are working together. Ruth will be amused! Must ring off now. See you soon!’

  Roxanne went to bed a few minutes later. Peter left at midnight as that was one of the few rules on which our landlady had strong feelings. I was undressed and brushing my hair when Roxanne came in wearing her thickest winter housecoat and half a pound of cold cream on her face. ‘The lad’s changed a lot since I last saw him.’

  I was surprised. ‘I wouldn’t have said so.’

  ‘He has.’ She was adamant. ‘He’s turned into a man. Want some tea?’

  ‘Love some, but how about your rushes?’

  ‘Not sleepy and I’m sick of staring at the ceiling. I can’t take a sleeping pill this late or I’ll look even worse.’

  I swung round to face her. ‘How long’ve you been taking sleeping pills?’

  She had to think. ‘I had a miserable bout of insomnia just after Christmas. A tame medic I know gave me some. They’ve been a lot of help.’

  ‘Sure. That’s why you can’t now sleep without ’em.’

  ‘Cathy, I’m not hooked! I haven’t asked him for another lot. I don’t think they’re particularly strong.’ She went for the bottle. ‘Are they?’

  I shook out a couple. ‘Yes. How many did he give you? Sixty, from the size of this bottle?’ She nodded and I replaced the capsules. ‘He warn you not to mix these with alcohol?’

  ‘Yes. And that they’d make me a bit muzzy till they wore off. He said not to drive ‒ things like that. He was very sensible ‒ and so am I ‒ so stop looking at me like that! I know what I’m doing!’

  I lay back on my bed. ‘Sure, you do! You’re twenty-three. If you want to die at thirty, why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘One bottle of sleeping pills doesn’t make me a junkie!’

  ‘I didn’t say it did. Yet. But if you now don’t sleep so good unless you have these little knockouts, if I were you, I’d watch it. Did your tame medic give you anything to counteract the muzziness?’ Her expression answered me. ‘Do I know him?’

  ‘No. He’s not from a London hospital.’

  ‘Pity. I’d like him to drop in on our own friendly neighbourhood junkies at Martha’s. Two jolly wards and a clinic open twenty-four hours a day that never lacks for customers. And every one of the poor kids originally started convinced they’d never get hooked ‒ they could handle it. “Takes you into another world, see, Nurse. Releases like all the creative energies”.’ I paused, thinking back to my fourth year. ‘Takes ’em into another world, all right. Only how do you create when you’re dead?’

  ‘Do stop talking about death!’

  ‘You can’t, if you’re talking about drugs. Two go together. Like bacon-and-eggs.’

  ‘Only if you’re hooked on hard drugs.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘but it’s a proven fact that every addict, every single addict on the hard stuff, first started on the soft. And once you get on the hard drugs, lovey, you are going to die in about seven years. Maybe much less. Very occasionally, just a little longer.’ I paused again, but she was silent. ‘Those poor kids used to say “No worse than tobacco or alcohol.” Being an alcoholic doesn’t do anyone any good, but it’s a curable condition. Dying of carcinoma of the lung isn’t much fun, but I’ve seen a good many die of it who’ve never smoked in their lives ‒ though more who have. But I’ve never had to sit on the chest of a boy who’s chucked smoking, to prevent his bashing his brains out against his headrail as he wants another cigarette.’ I locked my hands behind my head. ‘Some of the girls were my age. Lots from good homes ‒ on paper. They didn’t look like girls. Dirty old women until we cleaned them up. Then just emaciated old women.’

  Her brown eyes stood out blackly against the white cream. She jiggled the capsules in their bottle. ‘Honestly, knockouts?’ I nodded.
‘I’d better show you my pep pills. I’ve only taken about three of them. They make me feel odd.’

  When I saw them, that did not surprise me. ‘Did your tame medic qualify in the U.K.?’

  ‘Yes. He’s English.’ She hesitated. ‘Shove both lots down the bog?’

  ‘And your tame medic with them.’

  We had first met when she had her appendix out in Catherine during my second year. A year later we met again by chance at a party. Roxanne had just found our present flat, and I wanted to live out but couldn’t get digs I could afford near enough to Martha’s. Our flat was a fifteen-minute walk away.

  We gave it three months on trial as we barely knew each other and our jobs were so different. We found we got along very well, possibly as we both insisted on going our separate ways, but also as our jobs turned out to have a surprising amount in common. Odd and often long hours; irregular days off; no automatic right to free weekends; and in both unpunctuality on the job was a major crime. In consequence, it suited us equally to keep the flat reasonably tidy and unavoidable chores up to date.

  We never borrowed each other’s clothes or men, if only, as we agreed, because Roxanne was six inches taller than me and we liked totally opposite types. When one of us was entertaining the other kept out of the living-room unless the guest was someone like Peter and part of the establishment. But if either had an unwelcome guest, we did one of the best sister acts in the business. That only once failed; I had rung Peter and he had rushed round as chucker-out. It had made his week, as the limpet had been an ex-steady of Roxanne’s who had once been very rude to him.

  The temperature shot up that night. Next day summer was back to normal and so was our Monday admission rate. By early afternoon the four new medic students were wilting visibly. They asked Mr Palmer if it was always like this?

  ‘No, no, dear boys!’ He pulled down his mask to mop his face. ‘They’re only coming in one at a time, today. We only call ourselves busy when they come in by the half dozen. Not today.’

  ‘Mr Palmer,’ I said, ‘please, please, don’t tempt providence!’

  ‘Not providence, Sister ‒’ he leered amiably as he scrubbed at the sink besides me ‒ ‘but how about you?’

  Joss was washing at my other side. ‘Not a chance, Dave. “Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow.” Goes with the job. Right, Sister?’

  ‘Handed out with the Sister’s belt, Mr Desmond. You going to get some lunch now we’ve actually stopped?’

  ‘Seems like a good idea ‒ oh Gawd!’ The red light flashing. ‘Open your big mouth like that again, Dave, and I’ll take you apart with the nearest scalpel and chuck the pieces to Miss Mackenzie for closer grinding.’ He dried his hands and read over my shoulder the memo sheet handed me by Nurse Smithers. ‘This poor old girl’s been lying on the floor since Saturday night, Nurse?’

  ‘That’s what the ambulance men told Mr Jarvis, Mr Desmond. In a very neglected condition, they said. The police broke in after the postman saw her lying in the hall when he was pushing a thick circular through her letter-box. She lives alone and the neighbours hadn’t noticed she hadn’t got her milk in.’

  I caught Dolly’s eye. ‘In C2, please.’ I glanced at Joss. ‘Sorry about your lunch.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Lost my appetite.’

  The old lady was a Mrs Jennings. She was seventy-nine, very overweight, with arthritis in both legs. She had caught ’flu last week and as she had not called any doctor, it had turned to pneumonia. Her fall down the stairs had fractured her left femur. She had sewn herself into three sets of underclothes and was so infested that even her eyebrows were affected.

  Miss Mackenzie paid one of her now habitual visits to the room as Dolly and Nurse Fisher in special gowns were sealing Mrs Jennings’s clothing in the large, sturdy brown paper bags provided for this purpose. Mrs Jennings had been moved to a side ward in Intensive Care, Joss had gone to his belated lunch, and I was carbolizing C2’s table.

  ‘Don’t let me disturb you, Sister.’ Miss Mackenzie stood at the foot of the table. She looked at the row of buttons and the rest of the high-powered equipment. ‘We pride ourselves on our progress, but Lord Lister would feel at home, just now, in more ways than one. I doubt he was confronted by a more distressingly neglected patient when he first used the carbolic spray in Glasgow Royal Infirmary over one hundred years ago. 1867 as I recall. 1971. Men can be placed on the moon, but in this great city old folk can be found in this condition. Progress? H’mmm.’ She waited till I had finished then came with me whilst I changed gowns and washed my hands. I was growing so accustomed to her at my elbow that I only dropped the soap once. ‘I was sorry to send a patient in that condition to this department,’ she said very quietly, ‘but as Dr Gray was forced to admit, officially we should not have accepted her. She should have been transferred to a geriatric hospital. Did Mr Desmond object?’

  ‘Only on her account, Sister.’ I did not repeat his private comments to me as they were unrepeatable. ‘Directly he examined her he insisted she go straight to Intensive Care.’

  ‘You warned Sister Intensive Care?’

  ‘That she was dirty? Yes, Sister.’

  ‘Good.’ Her stern face relaxed slightly. ‘It is most fortunate that our Senior Accident Officer is officially permitted to share the Senior Medical and Surgical Officers’ privilege of admitting patients on his own authority, but unlike the two senior residents has no overall responsibility for the total bedstate. I have observed Mr Desmond to be a humane as well as sound surgeon. I assured Dr Gray Mrs Jennings would be admitted without question. I’m much relieved.’

  I was torn between fascination and disgust by this insight into the works of bureaucracy. ‘Sister, otherwise, we couldn’t have taken her in?’

  ‘St Martha’s has only one geriatric ward and that is full, Sister.’

  ‘I see.’ I didn’t, but I had to say it. ‘In Mr Desmond’s opinion she should do quite well. Sister, what’ll happen when she goes out as she seems to have no living relatives?’

  ‘I have already contacted our senior social worker. That will be attended to, Sister. Very well.’ She nodded to herself. ‘Thank you.’

  Later, I handed this on to Joss. ‘Did you guess we were being used as a side door?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You didn’t say!’

  ‘Not my job to teach you yours. Anyway, she had to come in.’ He scratched his neck. ‘I ate most of my lunch under a shower, but I’m still itching.’

  ‘I feel I’m crawling.’

  His eyes danced for the first time since that Saturday night. ‘Togetherness, at last!’

  I could have kicked myself had my knees not suddenly felt so weak. ‘Can Mr Geddes take over the plaster room? Mr Kovac should’ve been off an hour ago. He’ll never go if I don’t push him out and he is looking awfully tired.’

  ‘I’ll tell Geddes. You don’t think Kovac’s getting the bug?’

  ‘His temp was normal when I took it this morning. I think it’s just middle age.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. I like our elegant Pole and the only man I’ve seen slap on a better plaster is Hoadley East.’

  I handed that one on. ‘Don’t let on that I have, Mr Kovac.’

  The plaster technician’s lined leathery face creased into one of his rare smiles. ‘I enjoy my work, Sister, but appreciation is always pleasant.’ He managed to bow elegantly in a flapping gown, long white plastic apron and white tennis shoes. ‘It will remain our secret ‒ but I am in no hurry to go. I finish that young man’s plaster.’

  ‘Mr Geddes is just coming and he’ll do it. You must go off, Mr Kovac, or you’ll be ill. And what will the A.U. do without you?’

  Mr Geddes was small, fair, willing, but nervous. So he bustled in, importantly. ‘Right! What’s to do?’

  Joss had arrived. ‘Wheel in that chap on the right, lad.’ He took off his white coat. ‘Mind if I keep my hand in, Mr Kovac? Once, long long ago, it was rumoured that I crossed the river to be an
orthopaedic registrar.’

  ‘Sister, sorry ‒’ Nurse Fisher cantered in. ‘Mrs Hicks is in a tiz. She’s suddenly discovered she must’ve left her handbag in the ambulance as she remembers them picking it up when they put her on the stretcher, but not bringing it in here. It hasn’t much money in it, but her brother’s telephone number at work is in her diary. She’s just remembered he asked her to collect his kids from school and they’ll be out in a few minutes.’

  Mrs Hicks had mild concussion and shock after being knocked down by a girl parking a scooter and was behind drawn curtains in Bed 4 in the Shock Room. The scooter-driver was resting in 5 after having her right clavicle replaced. Both women were later going home in hospital cars.

  The handbag had slipped down between Mrs Hicks’ mattress and headrail. I rang the head teacher first. He said I could rest assured he would attend to the matter forthwith, and with every respect, Sister, if anything frightened him more than a woman behind a steering-wheel, it was a woman on a mechanically operated two-wheeler. Mrs Hicks’ brother was glad his sister was not badly hurt, but he couldn’t say he was surprised as she never would wear her glasses. ‘That’s you ladies, all over! All you think of is looking pretty for us mere males and God bless you for it, say I, for one!’

  I wondered momentarily with whom Women’s Lib would have the tougher struggle and decided on Mrs Hicks’s brother as it takes imagination and maturity to feel and admit fear.

  The rush hour had begun when the Receiving Room red light next flashed. Joss, Peter and Mr Geddes came in together almost immediately, and bringing with them the faint and rather sickly smell of wet plaster. They had listened-in on the Smithers-Jarvis conversation on the plaster room red ’phone. Messrs Charlesworth and Palmer who arrived a minute later had caught it in the rest room.

  ‘Seven, eh?’ Mr Charlesworth gloomily studied the huge off-duty rota pinned to the green baize board against the wall above the standing desk. ‘Why do the morons have to try and overtake in the rush hour? There goes my early evening. Yours too, Sister?’