The New Sister Theatre

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘I think not.’ His hands stopped on the keys. His face hardened. He did not now look or sound like himself. ‘It’s kind of you to be so heroic, my dear, but quite unnecessary.’

  ‘I am not being heroic!’ My voice cracked. ‘You must know that!’

  ‘I only know you are behaving most admirably, my dear.’ His drawl reminded me of Mark in his most affected mood.

  ‘Joe, stop acting! It doesn’t suit you.’

  A small light flared in his eyes. It was not anger. It puzzled me. ‘I’m not the one who is acting, Maggie.’

  That hit me hard. I stopped being puzzled. I had been nearly falling over backward in my efforts to behave like a civilized adult. My civilized veneer was wearing thin. ‘I am not acting!’ I snapped. ‘I mean what I say! You are not now going to have to live with me. I have to live with me. Consequently, I don’t propose living with the thought that it was to save my pride ‒ or some such rubbish ‒ that the great Joe de Winter, Master of Surgery, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, the pride of Barny’s surgical side, and the white-headed boy of the even greater Sir Robert Stanger, walked out on his own hospital!’ I paused for a long breath, then added more calmly, ‘Also, I’m not just thinking of me, I’m thinking of Barny’s. A hospital is only as good as its bright young men can make it. You are one of our brightest. You matter to this hospital. It taught you all you know. It has a right to expect you to use that knowledge here.’

  I saw that had gone home. But he only said, ‘Which is precisely why I want you to stay on.’

  ‘Our positions are not comparable. No,’ I insisted as he was about to interrupt, ‘and you know that as well as I do. I’m well trained, quite efficient, and should be able to cope with my new job. But I am not an inspired theatre sister. I’ll never be in the same class as our last Sister Theatre, just as George Ellis will never be in your class, no matter how many higher degrees he collects. My leaving would mean a minor inconvenience for Matron. It would not leave an unfillable gap. That’s what there will be if you walk out.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to differ on that. It’s all fixed.’

  ‘It is? Really?’

  He nodded in silence.

  I had to sit down. ‘Is Sir Robert furious?’

  ‘He didn’t give me that impression this evening.’ He sat on the sofa. ‘He seemed to think I was doing the right thing.’

  I felt as if not only my private world, but everything I thought I knew about the backstairs politics of the G.S. Unit, was crashing round my head. Sir Robert Stanger, our Senior Consultant General Surgeon, had never troubled to hide his opinion that one day Joe would be the man to succeed him. Joe had been one of his students, his houseman, registrar, and finally S.S.O. on Sir Robert’s glowing recommendation. That I had from the last Sister Theatre. I would have expected him to be my greatest ally. And I was wrong again.

  I said at last, ‘I don’t understand any of this. Where will you go?’

  ‘The States. The money’s better. A change of hospital will be useful experience.’

  ‘But where are you going to get it? The Mayo? Johns Hopkins? If it’s all fixed, presumably you must know? And won’t you have to take another set of exams?’

  ‘Possibly. I’ve looked into everything. I’m just not ready to talk about it.’

  I felt as if he had slapped my face. ‘I see. I’m sorry. Can I ask who’s taking over from you? Or is that another Top Secret?’

  ‘You can know. Keep it to yourself until the official announcement. Bill Swan.’

  That, at least, made sense. Bill Swan was Sir Robert’s present registrar. ‘When does all this happen?’

  ‘If Robbie can persuade the Board to let me out ahead of time ‒ and he says he can ‒ in a week or two. I hope no longer.’

  That finished me. I felt utterly defeated, with good reason. I had lost. Possibly, that was how I was able to ask, ‘Joe, would all this have anything to do with a Dr Frances Durant?’

  He did not answer at once. He stared at me, and a slow, dull flush crept up his face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to marry her?’

  ‘As I was engaged to you until twenty minutes ago that’s scarcely a question I can answer.’

  That should have silenced me. But I was in no mood to be warned off. I had nothing more to lose where he was concerned, and if he and Sir Robert were apparently united on his committing what could well be professional suicide, I still wanted to know the reason why.

  ‘Does Dr Durant understand what you are giving up? Does she want to work in the States? Is that the driving force?’

  He said coldly, ‘I’m sorry, Maggie. I can’t discuss Frances Durant with you. You must see that.’

  I remembered that telephone conversation. He could discuss me with her. And that, I realized, answered me.

  I stood up. ‘Time I went. I hope you’re doing the right thing. I don’t think you are. I’m probably wrong. And as you’ve made up your mind, I’ll most likely stay on here if Matron asks me. I don’t at the moment give a damn either way.’

  The sofa was lower and deeper than the armchairs. I noticed absently that he seemed to be having a little difficulty getting on his feet. I put that down to a combination of the habitual late-evening weariness of all our residents and the present tension. He certainly looked as emotionally exhausted as I felt, and the new shadows I had seen under his eyes last night had deepened. In view of his late night, that was not surprising either. And then the way he used his hands to get off the sofa, and a slight rather odd stiffening of his back, stirred some memory at the back of the trained part of my mind. I did not bother to investigate the memory then. I had other things to think about.

  The rules of established civilized behaviour made him offer to walk me back to the Home.

  ‘No, thank you. I would rather go alone.’

  He did not press the point. ‘Thanks for coming over,’ he said politely.

  It was the end. So I was equally polite. ‘Thanks for asking me. Good night, Joe.’

  ‘Good night, Maggie.’

  He opened the door for me. I did not look at him as I walked out. Everyone has his limit; I had reached mine. I walked along the red corridor carpet to the lift without glancing round. I did not hear him close the door.

  From that evening onward with every day that passed I thought, That’s another day ‒ another night ‒ gone; soon it will be better; it must be better.

  It wasn’t. I went on loving him, and I could not stop. And the more I thought things over the more puzzled I became about Sir Robert’s attitude. Joe was not the first man to chuck aside a golden future because he had lost his head over a woman, but why a shrewd man like Robbie Stanger should encourage him into folly was beyond me. Certainly he could make a lot of money in the States, and no doubt do very well. But he was a Barny’s man. To all Barny’s men (and nurses) there was only one hospital in the world ‒ St Barnabas’ Hospital, London.

  If I had still been a staff nurse I would have discussed this with Sister Theatre. I would have been grateful for some disinterested but informed advice. There was no question of my being able to mention it to Sandra. My two other staff nurses, Nurse Garret and the newly promoted Bachelor, were both considerably junior to me. They would have been horrified if their new Sister Theatre suddenly burdened them with the problems of her crashed love-life.

  I moved into a new room in the Sisters’ Home in the following week ‒ a very splendid room with two armchairs, a rosewood writing bureau, well-stocked crockery cupboard, a French window opening on to my own private balcony, and a tiny kitchen which I shared with my next-door neighbour, Sister Henry Carter Ward.

  Ellen Watt was away on holiday that week. She came up to see me the afternoon she got back. She was in mufti. The Sisters’ Home was out of bounds to all nurses in uniform unless specifically delivering messages.

  ‘Wow, Maggie!’ She whistled appreciatively. ‘Talk about giving you plenty of room at the top! This is dre
amy!’ She went out on the balcony. ‘You look right over to the men’s house. Isn’t that Joe’s sitting-room window? You and he wave to each other?’

  ‘No.’ I explained why not.

  She reacted much as I had done. ‘Is the man mad? His future’s all laid on here! Robbie Stanger must be absolutely furious!’

  ‘Joe says not.’ And I told her just what he had said in that context.

  She was a very fair, very tall girl, with large myopic blue eyes. She blinked at me through her slanting-rimmed spectacles, then went back and sat in one of my armchairs. ‘Tell me all that again, Maggie. Slowly.’

  I repeated myself. When I had finished she again blinked at me in silence for some seconds. Then she shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. Men! God save us! At times I’ve thought I understood ’em, but, by God, I do not! They call us illogical, but when the sex-bug bites ’em bad enough there’s nothing they won’t do, stoop to, or chuck up! And to think I’ve always thought Joe de Winter a sensible, well-balanced individual! I dunno. This Frances What’sit must have hit him so hard he’s lost the ability to think or see straight. Mind you,’ she added reluctantly, ‘I’ve known that happen. Remember Charlie Jones?’

  ‘That pathologist who took off with a lab technician a year or so back?’

  ‘That’s right. He’d been married eight years ‒ reasonably happily, one heard ‒ had four kids. He forgot the lot.’

  I shrugged. ‘These things happen all right.’

  ‘And what is the Frances woman? Seen her?’

  ‘No. I gather she’s a physician at Martha’s and was at school with Sandra Brown.’

  ‘You haven’t discussed her with Sandra?’

  I said, ‘I’m not the one that’s crazy, dear.’

  ‘That’s a relief. That girl’s got a wicked tongue. She can’t have guessed anything or the whole of our table would have had the story from her.’

  I said I doubted if Sandra or anyone else in the theatre could have guessed my engagement was off, as Joe was behaving exactly as he always had done. ‘On top. I can spot the difference.’

  She said if it was any comfort to me Sandra would never bother to notice Joe, or any other man, while Mark Delaney was around. ‘You do realize she’s utterly obsessed with that man? She can’t talk about anyone else these days, or blacken him sufficiently. A classic love-hate fixation, if I ever saw one.’ She smiled briefly. ‘I suppose you know you have been dangling him on a bit of string for years?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The femme fatale of the General Surgical Unit. That’s me.’

  We were silent for a little while, then I asked, ‘Ellen, why is Robbie letting Joe go?’

  ‘You’ve only got Joe’s word that the old man was so cooperative. Sorry, Maggie ‒ but isn’t that true?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve got so used to believing him.’

  ‘One does, dear,’ she replied drily, ‘particularly in our job. One gets so accustomed to hearing the truth and only the truth from patients, because as we all know nurses are the only people patients don’t bother to lie to. One gets to believing patients represent the normal human race. Of course, they do nothing of the sort. They just represent the human race when frightened. Fear strips off the layers. They come back on again as soon as the patients climb out of bed. But because we have so little time for having any contact with the outside world, we nurses trust people. A very dangerous habit.’

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  The theatre was extra busy during all that next week-end. If it had not been for my private affairs I would have enjoyed that enormously. It was Sandra’s free week-end. Rose Garret stood in for her well; all my nurses rose excellently to the occasion. I wished my predecessor could have seen the result of her training, and then realized uncomfortably how much the future theatre efficiency would depend on what I taught the juniors now.

  ‘To think we thought Sister had it easy!’ I told Ellen on another evening in my room. ‘When I’m not handing out instruments, filling in those wretched forms, soothing irate ward sisters because the times of their patients’ ops have had to be altered, or coping with consultants who always want to borrow the theatre at the same time, I’m holding snappy little classes for the girls. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.’

  ‘Wearing, but ideal therapy for you at this moment.’

  When I had walked out of Joe’s room that night I had thought I would never be able to stand the strain of working with him again. Training helped as much with him as in my dealings with Sandra. Our both being senior had another great advantage. The hospital grapevine never buzzed in the hearing of senior residents or sisters. Ellen heard all the buzzes, and told me that for once the grapevine was behind with a story.

  She said now she had begun to suspect the silence. ‘I think the Doctors’ House has clamped down on it. The boys must know Joe’s going, and who is taking his place and his stand-in’s place, yet not one word has got round.’

  This was an unexpected relief, and another puzzle. ‘Ellen, why?’

  ‘Could be just that the boys like Joe. He’s been a good S.S.O., has always seen his juniors get time off even if it meant his doing their jobs as well as his own. I think that’s probably it. The boys aren’t going to spread any gossip about him. And when doctors don’t want to talk they can make clams look like blabber-mouths.’

  ‘You haven’t even heard our engagement’s off?’

  ‘Only from you. The girls in general are just wondering how long you’ll have to go on postponing things. That includes Sandra. And you know this Frances Durant? Well, at lunch yesterday Sandra said something about being at school with someone by that name, and then grumbled on about old school friends who promised to keep in touch and never did. I don’t believe they are still friends. She was on one of her soap-boxes about it.’

  ‘She’s got a good supply of those. Luckily, now she’s my deputy we alternate off-duties, and though we are on together a lot, it is seldom in the quiet of the evening, when she does most of her tub-thumping.’

  Ellen smiled. ‘So there is some consolation for being at the top, Sister Theatre?’

  I might be at the top in the theatre. In the Sisters’ Home I was a very new, very junior girl. I often felt far more junior than I had in my first year. And I had no set of fellow-juniors amongst whom to take refuge.

  The only person outside the hospital who had to know of my altered future was my father, who was at present working in the New York branch of his business. I was an only child, unlike Joe, who had brothers and sisters strung out all round the world. My mother had died too long ago for me to remember her. My father had made a terrific success of being both parents. He had met and liked Joe very much.

  I had his reply by return air-mail. He wrote that he was extremely sorry, but, having heard from Joe also, thought we were doing the only sensible thing. My father and I were very close. He had not written one word against Joe. I was grateful for his insight.

  I was officially off duty at five on the day I had that letter. I was not able to leave the theatre until ten to eight that evening. At five next morning Night Sister called me. ‘Sorry to wake you, Sister. An emergency appendix. I shall now wake Nurse Bachelor.’

  The three staff nurses and myself shared the night calls. As Bachelor was the most junior, she was paired with me; Sandra with Rose Garret.

  Bachelor came into the theatre a few seconds after me, yawning her head off. ‘Why do people have to burst their appendixes in the small hours, Sister? There should be a law against it.’

  ‘This one hasn’t burst yet, Nurse.’ Joe had come in behind her. ‘It will if we wait. Morning, Sister. Sorry to get you both up.’ He disappeared into the surgeons’ room.

  Bachelor looked after him and spoke my thoughts. ‘He looks whacked. He been up all night, Sister?’

  ‘Possibly. Let’s get things ready’ ‒ I looked at the corridor clock ‒ ‘and if you have a spare moment could you make some tea ‒ good and strong ‒ and take it
along to the men.’

  She was a quick worker, and found that moment. Later, as she waited by one of the glass windows set in the double doors for the arrival of our patient, she asked, ‘Sister, why does Mr de Winter write notes leaning up against a wall when there’s a table handy? Is it a habit he’s got into from so much standing?’

  If it was it was a new habit. ‘In the surgeons’ room?’ She nodded. ‘Perhaps because he didn’t want to risk falling asleep. There’s less chance on your feet.’

  ‘I never thought of that. Here they come!’

  The appendicectomy was perfectly straightforward. Mark came into the theatre when it was all over.

  ‘Twenty to six on a frosty morning! I ask you! What a hideous hour for a decent man to be up! Why did I take up medicine?’ He stretched himself lazily. ‘And where’s the ubiquitous Dolly Bachelor got to?’

  ‘Shoving used gowns and towels down the linen chute. Why? And why is she ubiquitous?’

  ‘Because she pops up wherever I go.’ He produced an enamel powder-compact from his pocket. ‘I have this for her. I was at a party across the river last night. She was there with some wild man from Wales. And then it turned out our hostess was her cousin, and she asked me to return this, as the Welshman had removed the lady earlier.’ He helped himself to a high stool, rubbed his eyes hard. ‘I must be getting old. I can’t take this late-night-early-morning lark the way I used to.’

  ‘Poor old man.’ I finished scrubbing dishes, collected them on a tray, stacked them in a large bowl-sterilizer, then returned to deal with the instruments. ‘Good party?’

  ‘I’ve known worse. Not bad for a Martha’s show.’

  I stiffened inwardly, then told myself not to be an idiot. Martha’s had been standing across the river from Barny’s for the last four centuries. I had seen it daily for the last six years. It was a little late to let the very name of the place upset me, even if Frances Durant did work there. ‘I didn’t know Bachelor had a cousin at Martha’s.’

  ‘She has not. The cousin is married to a Martha’s man. A decent man from Dublin called Hugo O’Brien. Head of their Pathological Department, no less.’