Matron sent for me next day to discuss holidays. ‘You are long overdue for a rest, Sister. You look tired. I want you to take two weeks when Staff Nurse Brown returns.’
The last thing I wanted was a holiday on my own around the time Joe and I had once fixed for our honeymoon. But Matron’s word was law. ‘Yes, Matron. Thank you.’
I had begun to see a great deal of Wendy Scutt off duty. I was grateful for her friendship. As I had suspected, my friendship with Ellen was now very strained, and we were both glad my job made it difficult for us to meet often. It also prevented my making great friends of my theatre girls, even though I liked Bachelor immensely. The former Sister Theatre was right. I was on one side of the fence, and there I had to stay. Luckily, so was Wendy. We drank tea or cocoa together after work most nights, got along very well, discussing everything but men as men. I felt she considered the subject interested neither of us. She was an amusing person as well as that far from uncommon figure in the trained ranks of the nursing profession, a young woman utterly dedicated to, and fascinated by, her work, and very content to channel into it all her energy and emotions. She loved her ward as women love their homes; her patients were her children; she humoured, coaxed, and when necessary bullied her residents, in place of a husband. She quite genuinely had no interest in men herself unless they wore patients’ pyjamas and nightshirts, or white coats. Consequently, when I told her about my interview with Matron, her reaction surprised me.
‘Matron has to stop you working yourself into a breakdown, but knocking off isn’t the answer for you at present. It would be far better to let you stay on working. Work’s the one thing that keeps your mind off Joe de Winter.’ She refolded the corners of her apron primly. ‘Of course, you are still in love with him.’
‘How on earth did you guess that?’
‘One does not have to suffer from a condition to recognize the symptoms, my dear. I’ve seen a lot of you lately. I know you enjoy the theatre, but it doesn’t satisfy you the way Henry Carter does me. I also know you are reputed to be getting attached to Mark Delaney. I think you just like him. Why not? He has great charm.’ She was briefly silent. ‘What went wrong? Or would you rather not discuss Joe?’
‘I’d love to. But no one ever will.’
I then told her all that had happened since the day the previous Sister General Theatre left. She listened as placidly as she would have done to an uneventful ward report.
‘What does this Frances Durant look like?’
‘I expect you saw her at that concert the other evening.’ I described Frances. ‘Right?’
She nodded. ‘And I’ve seen her around somewhere else.’ She frowned to herself. ‘I disremember exactly where. Not with Joe. Is he back from Spain?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t had another chance for a private talk with old Robbie. Mark didn’t even know Joe had been sent out to see that boy until I told him. Or so he said. Mark doesn’t tell me all he knows.’
‘That I can believe.’ She pressed her pale lips together, then said briskly, ‘This tea’s cold. I’ll put the kettle on again.’
We always hoped to be able to close the theatres unofficially on Christmas Day. No member of the nursing or resident staff expected, or would have taken, any off-duty that day, but whenever possible the theatre staffs looked forward to moving in a body into the wards to help serve the patients’ Christmas dinners and then with the huge tea-parties given in all our wards on Christmas afternoon. The only nurses from the G.S.U. Theatre who got into the wards that day were Alcott and Jones, the two most junior. The rest of us managed to get to church in relays and to deal with eleven emergency operations. Two of these lasted nearly three hours each. On Boxing Day we did fifteen operations, all emergencies.
On the day after that a very weary Bill Swan called in at the theatre on his way to breakfast to tell me about an addition to our morning list.
‘I’ve just seen my first morning paper for days. It warned me the holiday is now over and I really must roll up my sleeves and get down to the job. Going to be a real effort, Maggie ‒ in more ways than one.’
‘Poor Bill! You do look tired. You get any sleep last night?’
‘About three hours. Not too bad.’ He yawned. ‘Breakfast will revive me ‒ I hope. I’ll tell you this ‒ I knew an S.S.O. had what might be described as a full life. I never realized just how full. I can’t now conceive how Joe managed to carry on at all his last month.’
‘Because he was so tired? Or some other reason?’
He looked suddenly very annoyed with himself. ‘An S.S.O. needs no other reason,’ he retorted quickly. ‘Be a bloody miracle if I last half as long as he did. Well ‒ I need that breakfast.’ He removed himself at the double.
Bachelor appeared in the duty-room door while I was turning that ‘how Joe managed to carry on at all his last month’ over in my mind. ‘You look very serious, Sister. Has this morning’s list been stretched?’
‘Oh ‒ no. No. The status quo remains unaltered. Want the dispensary book?’
‘Stock-room keys, please.’
The rush slackened next day. By New Year’s Eve we were really quiet. That night every sister in the theatre block was on call. No one was called up.
I went on early on New Year’s Day. Garret and Bachelor arrived a few minutes later yawning their heads off.
‘From the look of you girls, you had a good Ball!’
‘Sister, it was a riot! But, oh, my poor little feet!’ groaned Garret. ‘Why are all young doctors so heavy? I’m convinced all my metatarsals are fractured! I don’t know how Nurse Bachelor survived her double act.’
‘Double?’ I queried.
Dolly Bachelor had had man trouble. ‘I made a mess over their invitations. Evan swore I had accepted his for our Ball ‒ then Dick arrived to take me over to his at Martha’s. I had them both glowering at each other in the front hall of our Home, so I said I’d spend the first half over the river with Dick, and the second here with Evan. Could any girl be more helpful?’
I smiled. ‘Obviously not, Nurse Bachelor. Did it work out?’
‘Sister, it did not! Now they’re both mad at me! But that doesn’t bother me, as while I was over the other side with Dick ‒ who sulked hideously ‒ I met an absolute dreamboat of a Martha’s houseman. He gatecrashed our Ball later. Evan,’ she added with simple pride, ‘threw a splendid tantrum. So I left him to it and went back to Martha’s with Simon ‒ my houseman. I wouldn’t admit this there, but actually it was more fun than our own because it was masked.’
Garret said, ‘That must have made it a real thrill for a theatre girl.’
Bachelor giggled. ‘That’s what I told my houseman. Of course, lots of the fun was lost on me as I didn’t know many people there to recognize. I spotted Dr Delaney and Mr de Winter at once. No one could miss Delaney’s hair and size, or, for that matter, Mr de Winter after seeing him so often behind a yashmak. He was sitting out with Sylvia ‒ she wasn’t dancing either, as junior’s due in seven weeks. I meant to go and say hallo, but Simon wasn’t keen and I had had enough masculine temperament for one night. It was too bad you had to miss it all, Sister.’
I said life was a rugged business. ‘Time to get down to work now, girls. Sir Robert starts at nine-fifteen.’
‘Why bring up old Joe, Dolly?’ Garret hissed as they ambled off to the changing-room.
‘She’s not interested in him now. M.D.’s her man. And as he spent most of the time I was there dancing with Frances I thought the old girl ought to know there was another spare man in Sylvia’s party …’ The changing-room door swung behind them.
I returned to my desk and tried to concentrate on work-lists. It was no use. I could not close my mind to Joe’s being back in London, obviously for Christmas, and yet not bothering to send me so much as a Christmas card.
‘Here’s a sweet sight! The one pair of clear eyes in the hospital this grisly morning.’ An unsmiling Mark filled the doorway. ‘A happy New Year, dear Sister The
atre. They tell me you had a quiet night last night. The good are lucky.’
I returned his greeting. ‘What brings you in so early, Doctor? They tell me you were living it up behind a mask over the water until the small hours.’
‘Indeed I was.’ He sat on the edge of the desk. ‘I just looked in to say that although last night had its points, it was no great shakes for one man, because you were back here keeping your lamp burning.’ He smiled drily. ‘So dear Dolly was there? I didn’t see her. What happened to her wild man from Wales?’
‘A long, complicated story.’ With difficulty I kept my tone easy. ‘Did you know Joe was back?’ He nodded. ‘He take Frances?’
‘It was a party. If anyone did the taking it was the O’Briens.’
‘I see.’ I was so black with misery I clutched at trivialities. ‘I hear Joe didn’t dance. Why not? He loved dancing.’
Mark said, ‘Are you telling me the darlin’ Dolly did not observe the strapping on Joe’s right ankle? I’ll admit it was hidden by his trouser-leg and sock, and she probably wasn’t around when he pulled a tendon coming off a plane at London Airport last week, but that should not have bothered herself of the all-seeing eye and all-talking tongue. No doubt,’ he added, ‘she did keep account of the number of times I danced with Frances, and was able to give you the exact price of the fine ring on the third finger of the ravishing doctor’s left hand!’
‘No. Not the ring. You know it was there? That why you didn’t tell me Joe was back?’
‘You could put it that way.’ He got off the desk. ‘And I could use some of that pure, pure oxygen along the corridor, and then one large cup of black coffee.’ He met my eyes. ‘Forgive me, Maggie?’
‘Sure.’ We were not talking about his hang-over. ‘Thanks for looking in.’
Alone, I stared at the wall ahead without seeing it. Joe had done the right thing. A clean break. Hell, but the only intelligent way to make a break. Ellen had been right, too. All my looking back, searching for motives, hunches about his health, had been nothing more than a defensive reaction to save myself having to face the plain fact that a man had stopped loving me.
The telephone on the desk rang and jolted me back to my job. I lifted the receiver mechanically. ‘Sister General Theatre.’ There was a small silence. Then the last voice I expected said, ‘Morning, Maggie. Happy New Year. Joe here. Joe de Winter. May I speak to Sir Robert, please? He is expecting this call.’
He spoke as if we had only parted five minutes back and nothing could be more normal than his voice on the line or request. I felt anything but normal. I had to blink to see the duty-room wall-clock clearly.
‘It’s not yet eight, Joe. Sir Robert won’t be here before nine. You say he asked you to call? Are you in Barny’s?’
‘No. In my hotel. Robbie’s secretary rang while I was out last night and asked me to ring him at the Unit theatre at five to eight this morning. She doesn’t usually make mistakes. Perhaps the night hall-porter got it wrong.’
‘Possibly. Can I give Robbie a message when he arrives? Or will you ring again?’
‘I can’t really leave any message as it’s he who wants to talk to me. I’m not dead clear why. I won’t be able to ring him at your theatre later, as by nine I should be sitting in a plane at London Airport. We’ve got to leave in a few minutes. I’ll try his home first; I expect he’ll still be there. In case he’s gone out early, would you just say I’ve rung and my compliments and so on? I’d have liked to come over to Barny’s, but there just hasn’t been time. You know how it is.’
That ‘we’ had jarred like the sudden touching of an exposed nerve of a tooth. I said I knew just how it was. ‘Off to the States at last? I heard about your job being postponed. From Mark.’
‘So I gather. Yes. I’ve been having a holiday lotus-eating in the Mediterranean sun, apart from one very short job for Robbie. But you know about that?’
‘Yes.’ Yet again we were behaving like civilized adults, and I found the strain worse than ever. ‘Enjoyed the sun?’
‘Very much, thanks. I’m fast developing an addiction for lotuses. Or should it be loti?’
‘Afraid I don’t know. They don’t grow in the G.S.U. Theatre.’
‘How is the old place?’ His voice was suddenly his old voice. ‘Mark said the pressure had been on.’
‘It has. It’s off now.’
‘Quiet last night?’
‘Not one call for the whole block.’ I glanced at the clock, remembering that other call he had to make, and what he had just said about leaving in a few minutes. It was such agony talking to him as if he had never been more than a casual old friend that I wished he would ring off and go ‒ and yet dreaded the moment when he would.
‘Not one call? When did that last happen on New Year’s Eve? Not in my time.’
‘Nor mine, until now.’ That reminded me to wish him the usual wishes. I did so, then asked if he had had a good evening. ‘Mark’s just looked in. He said it was fun.’
‘It was. Pity you had to stay in. It would have been nice to see you again, Maggie.’
Nice. I winced. ‘My girls tell me our Ball was quite something. They’re all limping round this morning.’
‘And not only them! I’m a wreck!’ He retorted heartily. I had never heard him sound hearty before. ‘The band was really good! If not the best, one of the three best I’ve ever danced to! You’d have loved it!’
‘Good as that?’ I was suddenly very curious. ‘And how was the floor?’
‘Splendid.’ He might have been a TV commercial.
‘So a good time was had by all’ ‒ why not add corn to corn? ‒ ‘as you danced all night?’
‘Excellent! After all that twisting my sacro-iliacs will be out of true for life! But I mustn’t keep you talking when I know how busy you are at this time even on a quiet morning. Sorry to have disturbed you ‒ my regards to Robbie if I miss him. Don’t work too hard. Good-bye.’ He rang off before I could get in another word, say anything about his engagement, or even, as I only remembered when I replaced the receiver, thank him for his radiogram and the records. And as he was now off to the States, it was unlikely I would get another opportunity again.
Then I realized I did not actually know where he was off to. He had not properly answered my question about the States; instead he had waffled on about the sun, made corny jokes about lotuses, been quite nauseatingly hearty about that Martha’s party. And why all that nonsense about twisting his sacro-iliacs out of true? And boosting the band and floor? Why ram that down my throat, particularly when I knew from Bachelor and Mark he had not danced all evening. Mark’s explanation had been perfectly reasonable.
I reminded myself I had a great deal of paperwork to get through and could not afford to waste more time on what was a very trivial matter. I glanced at the calendar. It was over three months since he had left Barny’s. He had waited a decent interval before giving a ring to another girl. He did not belong in my life now. Why should I care whether he had or had not danced last night?
I picked up my pen, then put it down again. Whether I cared or not, Joe had gone out of his way to have me believe he had danced. He obviously had not known about Dolly Bachelor, even though he was a guest of her cousins last night. Mark had. And Mark had promptly produced a satisfactory explanation for Joe’s sitting out. But Mark had a talent for explaining things away.
My mind shot back to the thoughts his telephone call had interrupted. I brooded on them for a few moments, then dialled the number of the Orthopaedic Theatre and asked to speak to Sister Orthopaedic.
She was doing her paperwork and announced herself delighted to be interrupted. ‘How I detest all these horrid forms! What do you want to know, Lindsay?’
I explained that as we had turned quiet I hoped to give my nurses a class that afternoon. ‘We do no spinal work in here, as you know, so I thought it would make a change to talk about it. I’m not all that up in it myself, so I wondered if you would be kind enough to help me with my
homework.’
‘Love to. Where do we start?’
I suggested the causes of spinal compression. ‘I’ve made a list’ ‒ I scribbled as I spoke ‒ ‘of the extrathecal lesions. Diseases of the bones first; Pott’s disease; tumours ‒’
‘Split that, my dear. Primary and secondary.’
‘Thanks. Next, I’ve got spondylitis, oseitis, trauma … what else?’
‘Let me think … Yes, our old friend, prolapse and herniation of the nucleus pulposus.’
‘Hold on …’ I wrote fast. ‘Thanks. I’d forgotten that. Have we covered the bone-diseases?’
She thought it over, decided we had, reminded me she was only a nurse. ‘But these I have seen. Now, the other types ‒ aneurysms of the aorta, parasitic cysts, tumours of the perithecal tissues ‒’
‘Again, benign and malignant?’
‘Right. Our even older friends, sarcomas and lipomas.’
‘Thanks a lot.’ I ringed ‘aneurysms,’ asked several questions on the first group, made notes from her answers, before inquiring if the removal of the aortic aneurysm from the base of the spine was not the speciality of Buckwell of Martha’s.
‘I’ve never seen any surgeon touch him on that. He came over with his team and removed one in my theatre about two years ago. He has an exceptionally delicate touch. Most interesting man ‒ and case.’
‘What was the history?’
‘As I remember, the man had been unwell for a few months with vague aches and pains he and his family took for rheumatism. Luckily he had a very good G.P. ‒ an old Barny’s man. He was convinced the trouble was more serious, and persuaded him to come in here for investigation. Mr Buckwell came over, agreed on an exploratory op, then found and excised the aneurysm, stitched in a nice little bit of nylon which should, he said, last a lifetime. We had great fun ‒ the automatic heart and everything. It all went most satisfactorily. The man was out of hospital in nineteen days. By now he should have been long back to his normal life and job.’
The New Sister Theatre Page 12
