The New Sister Theatre

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Very satisfactory.’ I crossed out ‘aneurysms’.

  ‘How about sarcomas? As they are usually secondaries, I suppose you don’t see many of them?’

  ‘No. But we get a great many tumours of the perithecal tissues.’ She went on to tell me at length of the surgical and nursing treatment of the various growths that came under that heading. One specific condition had me more than interested. ‘Only a few years ago, no one would have dared touch it, and the prognosis, depending on age obviously, was from two to five years. It remains that in inoperable cases. It isn’t common ‒ thank God. We had a man … oh, in the Private Wing long before your time ‒’

  ‘A Dr Potter?’

  She was surprised. ‘You knew him?’

  I explained how. ‘Please go on, Sister?’

  ‘Basil Buckwell made the breakthrough ‒ I believe about five years ago. It was then he found a way of doing it ‒ in two stages.’

  I looked at the calendar. ‘How long between?’

  ‘Months. He won’t touch any back until a patient has been flat in bed at least one month, sometimes more. After the first stage, he gets them up very quickly, and if possible right out and away somewhere. He likes plenty of sunshine and warmth.’ I nodded to myself. ‘Then he has the second go.’ She gave me the surgical details. ‘Takes hours.’

  ‘With what result?’

  ‘Say fifty-fifty chance of a total cure. But as there’s no real alternative, most patients are only too willing to chance it.’ She waited for me to write this down, then suggested my asking Senior Sister Tutor to arrange for the loan of various textbooks from the Medical School Library. ‘You must like teaching to go into this so thoroughly, Lindsay. Wish I did. I’d always rather do than teach how it should be done.’

  That left me feeling a fraud. A very worried fraud. I could do nothing about the worry, but eased my conscience by cutting short my off-duty that day to give my girls the class I had originally invented as an excuse. Next day, the nurses who had been off duty asked me to repeat it, then for more similar classes. Senior Sister Tutor provided me with a small library of textbooks and an approving smile. In a very short time I was surprised to discover that my daily classes had become a feature of the G.S.U. Theatre life and I had become a mine of information on diseases of, and injuries to, the spinal column, and its association with the central nervous system.

  That information gave me no comfort, but at least in seeking for it and then handing it on to the girls, I kept my mind occupied off duty. The more I read, the more convinced I was that my old hunch had been right. There was a great deal I still did not understand about the behaviour of Joe, and his friends, before and since his leaving, but I had finally learned that leading questions would not get me any answers. The men had closed round Joe. Why they had thought it necessary to do that might remain beyond me, but the fact that they had was something I had at last accepted. I knew enough about doctors to know that when the medical profession decides to close its ranks no direct approach would ever break through successfully.

  That’s why I had to go about things indirectly. After New Year’s morning, I was determined to find out the truth, though what good it was going to do me if and when I did was something I had not yet got round to working out. I was like a person reading in bed at night when the reading-light bulb fails. I had to grope around in the dark for more light, even if I was only going to put it out again.

  Sandra had taken three weeks of her annual holiday to go winter-sporting. With a week-end tagged on at either end, that made her away nearly four weeks. The theatre was so much more pleasant without her that I often found myself mentally weighing her efficiency against her disrupting temperament, and wondering whether or not to ask Matron to transfer her. There was no doubt that would earn the wholehearted approval of my theatre girls and the Unit men. She annoyed Bill, George, and the housemen quite as much as she did Mark. Yet, in bad moments for the patients ‒ and they were the moments that counted ‒ she was an excellent theatre nurse. A formal request ‒ and it had to be that ‒ to have her moved would inevitably affect her future career. I did not want to do that, yet had to think of the good of the theatre. The fact that I found her so tiresome did nothing to help me come to a decision, as I knew my judgement was prejudiced. In desperation I talked things over with Wendy. She advised me to get rid of her. ‘It’s no use trying to be fair to everyone, Maggie. One just can’t be. Anyway, life isn’t fair. And you must think of the theatre. What’s best for you will be best for your department. No, I mean that. It may sound selfish, but it’s sound common sense. The sister makes or breaks a department. You know that as well as I do.’

  I did. Yet lack of moral courage kept me dithering. Then Matron sent for me one evening in the last week of Sandra’s holiday. ‘Sister, I am extremely sorry, but I am going to have to ask you to delay your holiday another week. Poor Staff Nurse Brown has broken an ankle skiing. I am going to transfer Nurse Watt to you from the Orthopaedic Theatre. She has had some general experience, is well up in the administrative side, as she has so often taken over for Sister Orthopaedic Theatre. I feel sure that if she works with you for a couple of weeks she will be well able to carry on while you are away, particularly as I want your theatre to be spring-cleaned in the second week of your holiday.’

  I met Sir Robert on my way back to the theatre. He had been delivering a late lecture. We discussed this, then my holiday. He was full of ideas for me. ‘Does one good to get right away, m’dear. Do ye have a passport? Current, eh? Capital. What about Malta? Majorca? Las Palmas? All very close by air, and if ye fly by night not too expensive. Not booked yet? Dilatory, Sister, dilatory! Never mind. Any good travel agent’ll fix ye up ‒ but if ye have any difficulty, have a word with me. M’secretary is an excellent young woman! No equal at getting hold of plane reservations and hotel bookings.’

  Mark was talking to Rose Garret in the empty theatre when I got back. She asked if she should go to supper. ‘No calls or news while you were away, Sister.’

  ‘I’ve got some rather sad news about Nurse Brown.’

  Rose Garret was a nice girl. ‘Oh, poor Nurse Brown: what rotten luck! Still, she’ll be insured and not really surprised, as she said she knew she’d break something on the slopes sooner or later, as everyone always does. When does Nurse Watt join us, Sister? To-morrow?’

  Mark waited until we were alone. ‘Now here’s a turn up for the book, Maggie. That girl’ ‒ he gave a long relieved sigh ‒ ‘did she get in my hair! But what’s all this about your going off? Why haven’t I been told?’

  I reminded him the men’s off-duty rota had been altered since New Year’s Day and his free time now hardly ever coincided with mine. ‘Can you imagine old Robbie’s reaction if I announced it in the middle of a case? Besides, it’s not important. I don’t even want it.’

  ‘I believe you.’ He followed me into the duty-room, sat on the desk. ‘I don’t like the thought of you going off on your own. What are you going to do?’

  I shrugged. ‘There are some old friends of my father’s I’ve been promising to visit for years. They live on Exmoor. I may spend some of it with them.’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘Not sure.’ I told him Robbie’s ideas. ‘He’s sweet, but I don’t feel like foreign parts. I like the West Country. I think I’ll amble off to some hotel, where I can do nothing, get waited on, and not have a telephone near my room at night!’

  ‘I’m with you there! But ‒’ His manner changed and was suddenly urgent. ‘Maggie, the time has come for you and I to talk. What time do you finish to-night?’

  The telephone rang before I could answer. It was Casualty, to warn the Unit a query acute appendicitis had just been admitted.

  ‘Why,’ grumbled Mark, ‘do I have to open my big mouth so wide? Oh, my God!’ It was the telephone again. ‘Not a second acute abdomen!’

  I shook my head, listening to Bill Swan’s voice. ‘Yes, Mr Swan. Yes. Half an hour. Yes. He’s here.’ I ha
nded Mark the receiver and went into the theatre proper to turn up the heat. Mark joined me a few minutes later.

  ‘You and I must dine together before you make for the West, my love. I’ve been looking at your off-duty rota. I don’t match up yet, but I’ll fix it somehow. No backing out, now. This is important.’

  I could tell that from his manner. I found that very disturbing, and nothing more. ‘We’ll have that dinner, Mark.’ I looked beyond him as Bachelor and Cotton returned from their supper.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Case coming up, Nurses. Appendix. You can take it, Nurse Cotton. Nurse Bachelor, will you “dirty”, please? It’s all right, Nurse Cotton,’ I added as the poor girl stood staring aghast, ‘you are now quite capable of taking an appendix, and Mr Swan is very easy to work for. I know it’s your first, but we all have to have a first.’

  ‘Sister ‒ you will be around? Please!’

  I had felt like a theatre sister before. It was then I knew I really was one. ‘I’ll be in here all the time, Nurse Cotton. Go and change quickly, then we’ll do your instruments together.’

  Mark lingered after the girls had vanished. ‘You’ve come a long way, Sister Theatre.’

  ‘In some ways. In others I’ve just gone round in circles.’

  He looked about to challenge that, then apparently changed his mind. ‘I’d best have me a look at this man’s chest before I gas him.’

  Ellen Watt fitted smoothly into the General Surgical Unit. She was not, and probably never would be, as quick as Sandra, but she was very competent, and as an instrument nurse she was calm, good-humoured, and faintly maternal. We belonged to the same set, but it was the first time we had worked together in a theatre, and I was rather amused by her manner of handling the men as if they were so many small boys, warning them to change their T-shirts and not sit round drinking tea while still damp, or that they really must not miss this meal or that coffee-break.

  She mothered my girls in much the same way. ‘Come along, now, chicks, time you were off! Off!’

  ‘Why,’ I heard Dolly Bachelor ask Rose Garret, ‘do nurses get odd when they get senior? First we had old bitchy Brown! And here we have Old Mother Watt! We’d better watch it, Rose, or God knows what we’ll turn into.’

  ‘I don’t see we have to,’ retorted Rose. They were in the tiny room next door to my office. ‘Look at Sister. She’s a norm.’

  ‘I always thought she was,’ allowed Dolly, ‘but lately she seems to be getting slightly sort of a-human. She just lives, eats, sleeps, breathes, this theatre. I don’t wonder poor old M.D. spends so much time over at Martha’s.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘God, yes! Whenever he’s free, so Sylvia says. He’s always hanging round their path lab. You know what I told you about Frances, well …’ and the tin-room door closed.

  I grimaced to myself. A-human? Maybe. That was rather how I felt these days.

  I had two more days to work before my holiday. Mark had managed to wangle himself a free evening on my last evening and had booked a table and theatre tickets. When I asked if he had come into money he told me sternly it was to be a special occasion and would I kindly belt up.

  I thought about it on my way down to supper on the penultimate night before my holiday, and wished there was some way of getting out of that date without hurting his feelings. It was obvious we were working up for some sort of crisis in our relationship. We had been marking time too long. He had been incredibly patient. As patient as a man could be if he was very much in love ‒ or just plain disinterested.

  ‘Ah! There ye are, Sister! The very person I hoped to see!’ Sir Robert came swiftly towards me along the ground-floor corridor. ‘Can you spare me a few minutes to discuss a matter of the utmost urgency? We can borrow the Dean’s Office.’ He opened a door. ‘My good friend Dr St John will make no objection.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Sir Robert. May I just let the switchboard know where to find me?’

  His reply astonished me. ‘Matron’s Office will attend to that. Matron kindly telephoned your theatre for me before I left her. Staff Nurse said you were on your way to dinner. I told Matron we would trespass on the Dean for our talk.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, without doing anything of the kind. ‘Is there something I can do for you, Sir Robert?’

  ‘Won’t ye sit down, Sister?’ He held a chair for me, then drew one up beside mine. ‘It all depends. It all depends. Tell me first about this holiday of yours. Matron tells me it starts the day after to-morrow. Did ye take my advice? Going abroad? All cut and dried, eh?’

  ‘Not really, Sir Robert.’ I told him about my father’s friends and vague private plans. ‘I haven’t bothered to book. There’ll be no rush on English hotels at this early stage in the year.’

  ‘So ye’re in no hurry, eh? And free from to-morrow evening? Hm. Just so. Well, Sister, would you have any objection to my suggesting ye alter y’ plans somewhat? Start your holiday from to-night, shall we say? With Matron’s approval, naturally.’

  I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t object, Sir Robert.’ I was very curious. ‘May I ask why you suggest it?’

  He smiled rather charmingly. ‘Frankly, Sister, I want to borrow you. If ye’ve no objection?’

  Chapter Eight

  SIR ROBERT REQUESTS A LOAN

  ‘Borrow, Sir Robert? Professionally? Outside this hospital? But surely that’s not allowed?’

  He said I was so right and in no circumstances could I accept employment in my professional capacity elsewhere while under contract to St Barnabas’ Hospital. ‘It would be highly unethical for me to ask ye to assist me with one of my private patients, and subsequently pay ye the recognized fee. But, as I have just been at pains to explain to Matron,’ he went on deliberately; ‘may I add, to her satisfaction ‒ no one could take exception to my asking if you would give me your help in your own free time on a purely personal matter. I appreciate I am asking a great deal of you.’ He was now too grave to remember his affected ‘ye’s’ and ‘m’s’.

  ‘The patient isn’t even a patient of mine. She’s a relative. I believe she needs me ‒ and I need you. If you’ll be kind enough to give me your help we shall be breaking no rules. What do you say?’

  ‘If it’s all right with Matron I’ll be delighted to help you.’ That was true. I liked the old man, enjoyed work, and was in anything but a holiday mood. ‘What’s the case?’

  ‘A young woman of twenty-seven expecting a second child in three weeks’ time. Her right kidney is behaving very badly. It may have to come out without delay. So I face a probable nephrectomy and possible caesarean section. In a private house. So you’ll understand why I need a highly skilled theatre nurse with me.’

  ‘Yes.’ Yet I wondered why he had picked me and not one of the private nurses he must employ on his outside cases. Some of them must have had theatre experience. ‘You want us to go to her?’

  ‘Just so, Sister. Much as I dislike operating in private houses, the circumstances being what they are, there’s no question of the gel being moved. We’ll have to do a little travelling. Naturally, your expenses will be met as I am asking you to accompany me as my guest. Yes, yes. I have Matron’s approval on that score, so no objections, if you please!’ He looked at his watch. ‘As we are pressed for time, I shall give you the full details later. I want to be off to-night. My secretary has already provisionally booked me two seats on a plane due to leave London Airport in five hours’ time.’

  ‘Five hours?’ I echoed weakly.

  ‘We would be ill advised to delay, Sister. The report I had a short while ago was most disturbing, most disturbing. The gel’s blood-pressure is rising most alarmingly. If we delay she may go into coma. My poor sister is very distressed. Young Geraldine’s a silly little creature, but one’s fond of the gel. And it’d be a shocking thing for that youngster Robin to lose his mother at nine years of age.’

  ‘Geraldine?’ I stood up. ‘Your niece? The mother of the boy with cellulitis?’

&nbs
p; ‘Just so. The boy’s home with his grandmother. As well. All this would be most upsetting for a child.’

  ‘But ‒ but ‒ doesn’t your niece live in Spain?’

  ‘She does, Sister. But, as I informed you previously, it’s only a few hours off by air. Remember my sending young de Winter out?’ I nodded dumbly. ‘On this occasion I must go myself, so I’m going to take a few days’ holiday. I’m due. Overdue! We’ll do as he did. Fly to Gibraltar, and on by car. You told me, did you not, that you hold a current passport? Capital. Capital.’ He patted my arm. ‘No objection to taking this little trip with me, have you? Good girl. I’m much obliged. Let us make our way to Matron and have another little talk with her. My secretary is along there. She’s been in touch with the Spanish Embassy ‒ just let her have your passport stat, if you would be so good. I’ll return it to you later.’

  Wendy came along to my room the moment she was off duty. ‘Is what I hear true? Oh, you lucky, lucky girl!’

  ‘I suppose I am. I feel somewhat shattered.’

  She flung off her cuffs, rolled up her sleeves. ‘What’s to do? How long’ll you be away?’

  ‘He says not more than four days, possibly much less. He’s got to be back for a kidney-graft on Tuesday.’ I rolled two sweaters, put them in my suitcase. ‘I’m not to take any uniform. He says we must observe the rules, m’dear! He’s providing gowns from his own private equipment.’

  She laughed. ‘Trust that crafty old man to know every trick in the book. Have you flown before?’

  ‘Yes. And it makes me sick. You wouldn’t have any travel pills?’

  She said she had none, but was sure Robbie would be loaded with the necessary. ‘He’s always one step ahead ‒ but you should know that from the theatre, Maggie.’

  ‘That’s true. I just didn’t realize he was the same in his private life.’ I sat on my bed. ‘I’ve a grim feeling I’m not going to be high-powered enough for him.’

  ‘If you weren’t, my dear,’ she said briskly, ‘he wouldn’t be taking you. Now, then ‒ have a cigarette and leave things to me.’