The New Sister Theatre

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Right. Have the path lab got his blood group?’

  ‘Yes. Five pints’ll be along stat.’

  ‘And what about his personal details, Mr Swan? Do Casualty know anything?’

  ‘No,’ he snapped, ‘and if I don’t stop talking and follow him up fast, he’ll probably bleed to death before anyone has time to find out.’ From the sound, he had slammed down the receiver.

  It was a major emergency; haemorrhage always was. That was why we always had an emergency setting ready for instant use on such cases. All I had to do was change into a sterile gown and gloves. If the man arrived from Casualty before I was scrubbed up it would be one of the rare occasions when we just pulled on sterile gloves. Occasionally we could not even delay for that. But rush or not, it was still my job to find out as much as possible about any patient operated on in my theatre.

  Ellen arrived to take over the theatre at six. The patient, in his outdoor clothes, was already on the table. I asked her to ferret round for his identity.

  ‘Then want me to take over, Sister? You are off,’ she murmured.

  I shook my head. The job had started, Bill was worried, working at the tremendous speed essential for what he had to do, and, for some reason that was most probably just tiredness, in an unusually bad temper. If he had to curse anyone it had better be me.

  He was doing a dangerous, difficult, and very messy job well. He gave his surgical assistants and myself hell in the process. When it was over he surveyed the theatre distastefully. ‘God, what a filthy mess! The whole place is awash with blood!’

  I said, ‘It’ll wash off, Mr Swan. Blood’s clean stuff.’

  ‘Doubt they’ll get this chap’s car cleaned up so easily, from what the cops said. He had a little kid sitting in the front with him. Boy of about four.’

  ‘Did they bring him in?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Yep. B.I.D. (Brought in dead). His brains were bashed out by the windscreen. When the cops discover who his mother is’ ‒ his voice was harsh ‒ ‘she’ll be up.’

  And he would have to face her. I was no longer surprised by the shortness of his temper.

  Frances rang me later as arranged. ‘So far, good. He’s round. Buckwell did graft. Joe’ll be in isol thirty days.’

  My theatre was busy during those days. That alone made them bearable. My nights off call were not. I lay and thought of every possible and impossible complication in the books, that I had seen, heard of, and a few I worked up for myself.

  The Delaneys entertained me on the rare occasions when the three of us were off together. Frances had a flat in a mews just round the corner from Martha’s. We never went into the hospital itself. They were excellent hosts, but I was glad when those evenings ended.

  Wendy Scutt was the person whose company I most enjoyed during those weeks. She listened to all my horror stories, then demolished them one by one.

  ‘Why a coronary at his age?’

  ‘You can have a coronary at any age.’

  ‘Certainly. But it’s an unlikely post-op complication for a young man ‒ and he’s now over the fourteenth day! You, my dear,’ she said severely, ‘are thinking like a first-year! Remember how one suffered from all one’s patients’ complaints? And after all medical lectures always had all the symptoms? I well remember having carcinoma of the stomach, leukaemia, tubercles ‒ oh, yes, and a head tumour because I had the odd headache ‒ in my first six months!’

  I had to smile. ‘I had chicken-pox. There was quite a lot going round at the end of my first year. But because my spots came out in a bunch on my hands and face and not in batches as it said in the book, I was convinced the S.M.O. didn’t know his job. Had to be smallpox.’

  On the subject of Joe’s future she was as firm as on his present. ‘Why all this nonsense about “only a miracle”? To start with, what’s so unusual about a miracle? Haven’t you seen a good many in your theatre? I have in Henry Carter. But even if his back is too weak for much standing ‒ Maggie, that man has got a specialist’s degrees already. He’s had years of general experience. He’ll just have to specialize in some fiddly line like hands. Didn’t you tell me that when you did that tendon-graft last week you had all your surgeons perched on stools all morning?’

  ‘Yes, but ‒’ The telephone in the corridor outside rang. She went to answer it.

  ‘Just what you need, my dear. A nice strangulated hernia is waiting for you. No, leave me those tea-cups.’

  I buttoned my cloak. ‘Wendy, I do realize, despite my gloom, that things are going along quite nicely. But it’s too early yet to know if that graft will take. He’s still in isolation.’

  ‘For the usual thirty days, didn’t you say?’ She shrugged. ‘No one can answer that one yet.’

  ‘Supposing it doesn’t take? Then what?’

  ‘It’ll still be up to him to make the next move.’

  ‘And I’ll have to go on doing nothing?’ I demanded urgently. ‘And let him die, alone?’

  She said, ‘Maggie, you’ve seen death. When is it not lonely? But whether it is any lonelier than life is something I have often wondered.’ She came out to the lift with me and opened the gate. ‘Have a good case.’

  One Tuesday afternoon some five weeks after that conversation ‒ five weeks that seemed more like fifty years ‒ Sir Robert had another long teaching-list. There were nine operations on that list; all but the last were unusually complicated even for old Robbie when teaching. The last case was a student with a broken ankle. He should not really have been done in our theatre at all, but as the Orthopaedic Theatre was having its hectic turn and the boy was one of our students, Robbie had decided to do the job himself.

  It was a clean break, needing only a simple reduction and plaster. It was the kind of operation I could have taken with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back. Sir Robert set the fracture. I moved from my instrument trolley to the one set for plaster that was waiting beside me, when some movement in the gallery above made me glance up more than a little wearily. It had been a heavy day. I guessed the students above had themselves had enough and were beginning to move off, which would certainly infuriate the old man.

  The gallery was moderately full and still. I looked all round, wondering if I had imagined the disturbance, and then my heart seemed quite simply to stop. Joe was sitting on the end of the second bench from the front.

  ‘Plaster slat, please, Sister,’ prompted Sir Robert impatiently. ‘We don’t want to be here all night!’

  ‘Sorry, Sir Robert. Just coming.’ My voice did not sound like mine. I did not feel like me. I had never fainted in the theatre even as a junior. Theatre sisters did not faint. But the green walls were doing the most extraordinary things; the plaster slat I was trying to prepare lurched on a rocking trolley, and the floor was pitching upward. I felt too odd to waste time signalling my ‘dirty’, as she was the new junior working on her own for the first time on the last case as it was so simple. Ellen was busy by the sterilizers and had her back to me. Bachelor, the anaesthetic nurse for the list, had come in with the student and was standing by Mark. I beckoned her. ‘Get some ammon. aromat. stat.’

  ‘For the junior, Sister?’ she whispered.

  I could not answer. I felt her grab me as I went down, and heard Sir Robert’s outraged, ‘God bless us! Sister’s down!’ Then the green walls crashed in on the upcoming floor.

  I came round to find Mark lowering me on to the examination couch in the anaesthetic-room. His mask was down, his green cap pushed back on his red hair. He was smiling broadly. Beside him, Dolly Bachelor’s round face was rounder than ever with astonishment.

  ‘Sister, Sister’ ‒ Mark reached for my pulse ‒ ‘this is a sad business. But you’ll live. Do you have some brandy there, Nurse Bachelor?’

  ‘Ammon. aromat., Dr Delaney. Sister asked for it.’

  He took the medicine glass from her, sniffed it. ‘Foul stuff. It’ll do. Here, Sister. Slowly now, or you’ll choke.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I sippe
d obediently. ‘I’m most terribly sorry. What about the case?’ I tried to sit up, but his hand on my shoulder held me down. ‘Nurse Bachelor, has Nurse Watt taken over?’

  ‘Yes, Sister. It’s all under control. But what about you?’

  The poor girl was still very shocked. ‘I never guessed you wanted that ammon. aromat. for you!’

  Mark said Sister was under control, so would she be a dear girl and go back to the theatre and take a look at his student man. ‘Call me if he turns blue. He should be fine. I switched off the lot.’ He waited until she disappeared. ‘Maggie, my precious, you will never ever live this down! Sister Theatre herself passing out cold over a simple reduction! Now what could have caused it, I wonder?’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Would you have a line on the diagnosis, Joe?’

  Joe came in slowly. He was stooping a little, but had no stick. He stood by the couch, his hands in his pockets. He did not hold on to anything, or lean against anything. His tan had faded, and so had the shadows under his eyes and a good many lines. He looked years younger than on his last appearance in my theatre. He did not say anything.

  Mark looked from him to me. ‘I’ve a notion that student man may be dark blue after all. You’ll forgive me if I leave you.’ He went out, closing the door.

  That made me sit up. ‘Joe, open that. Matron would have a coronary if she were to come in now.’

  ‘She’d have my sympathy.’ He did as I asked. ‘I nearly had one just now. I had hoped to surprise you. Not shock you like this. How do you feel?’

  ‘Not nearly as shocked as my staff.’ I swung my legs to the ground and sat on the edge of the couch. ‘I hate to think what Robbie’s going to say.’

  ‘And that worries you.’ He took one of my hands, peeled off the glove, then held my hand between his. ‘Sweetheart, I am sorry. It was another of my bright ideas that didn’t come off.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it did! Oh, Joe’ ‒ I sighed ‒ ‘any time was the right time. Tell me quick ‒ what’s the verdict? I know it must be good or you wouldn’t be here, but I want to hear the words.’

  Sir Robert stamped in before he could answer. ‘Well, Sister? This is an odd business! Never had a Sister Theatre faint before. But there it is. There it is. Better now? Capital! Capital!’ He turned on Joe. ‘So ye’ve come back, eh? And about time! Buckwell says he’s pleased with ye! Turn round, boy.’ He examined Joe’s back through his jacket the way he had that morning in Gibraltar. ‘That’s more like it. How about bending? Good. And standing still tiring?’

  Joe turned round. ‘Not nearly so much, sir.’

  ‘Well, don’t try to run before ye can walk, boy! And how’s the spare part settling in? No reaction, eh? I don’t know. What with all the grafting this and grafting that we’re doing these days, it’ll soon be a wise patient who knows his own body! But we must move with the times. And when are ye going to be able to do some work?’ Joe looked at me. ‘Buckwell says nothing for a year, and then taking it in easy stages for another. No standing for more than half an hour at a time.’

  ‘But ye don’t agree, eh? Hm. You youngsters are all the same. Always in a hurry. Ye’ve got to reach my age to realize the young are the only people who have plenty of time. There it is. Well? What’s ye own opinion?’

  ‘A year’s far too long. A few months ‒’

  ‘And then ye’ll be fit to stand all day? Nonsense, boy!’

  Joe said, ‘I know that, sir. Buckwell’s advised me to scrub any ideas of that, and I have. It means dropping general surgery, which is a nuisance as that’s the type I prefer, but so few general jobs can be done sitting down. They let me watch several cranial jobs across the river. Their Mr Anstey did most of the op sitting on a high stool.’

  Sir Robert allowed that to be sensible, since brain operations lasted so many hours. ‘Ye’ve not had much cranial experience, Joe. Ye’ll need a post-grad.’

  ‘I thought that would be a good way of using up the easy stages period. Do you think it would be an idea if I talked to Mr Sellars?’

  Joshua Sellars was our own cranial specialist. Sir Robert said he did not think talking would do any harm, and he supposed he had better have a word with Mr Joshua Sellars himself.

  ‘But there’s to be no showing y’face in this hospital even as a post-graduate inside of six months, boy! Wait that time, then come and see me. And be sure Buckwell knows what you are planning to do before ye ring m’door-bell. Then we’ll talk.’ He turned back to me. ‘Fainting, eh? Hm. That’s what comes of all this overworking and failing to take ye appointed off-duty. Time we had a proper break with none of that rushing in and out of aeroplanes on what you chose to call your last holiday. Well? I can’t waste any more time standing around gossiping like this. I’ve got work to do.’ He allowed himself to smile at last. ‘No more work for you to-night, Sister. Can’t have my theatre sisters fainting all over the place like this! The staff nurses are managing nicely. Get off duty and have some fresh air. And you, boy ‒ see she does!’ He stomped out again and, like Mark, closed the door behind him.

  Joe said very quietly, ‘We’ll have to risk Matron having that coronary. Robbie’ll take great umbrage if we open it. You wouldn’t want to upset him again after fainting all over the place.’ His eyes were alight with laughter, and more than laughter. ‘Would you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Life is hard for a simple surgeon.’

  ‘My God, darling’ ‒ he barely breathed the words ‒ ‘you’ve got something there, but you are using the wrong tense. Was. Not is.’ Suddenly he seemed to explode. I was in his arms, and he was kissing me as not even he had ever kissed me before.

  Dolly Bachelor’s horrified gasp: ‘Oh! Sorry ‒ Sister!’ and quick slamming of the door made him raise his head, but not let me go.

  ‘Joe!’ I held his face in my hands. ‘We can’t go on like this! I’m on duty.’

  ‘No, you aren’t.’ He caught one of my hands and kissed the palm. ‘I looked at your off-duty rota on my way up to the gallery. This evening you are down to be off at five-thirty. And you are not on call. It’s gone six now.’

  ‘But I am still Sister Theatre.’

  He let me go then, moved a little away. ‘Maggie, you know what Robbie said about taking a break? How long a break could you take?’

  ‘That would depend on my reason for taking the break.’

  ‘Would a honeymoon be the right sort of reason?’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Matron wouldn’t allow that. When she gave me this job she made it quite clear it would only be given to a single woman.’

  ‘I should have remembered that.’ He sat on the edge of the couch. ‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry. You’ve been so good to me, you’ve given me more than I would have dared to expect from any woman, even ‒ once ‒ you. I’ve done nothing but take, and I’m now doing that again. But I’m not taking your job from you until I’ve got something more concrete to offer you than a chat with Robbie in six months’ time. When I’ve worked things out, will you still marry me? And will you mind waiting?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind waiting. But we are not going to. Have you got any money? Enough to support us both somewhere cheap for the next six months? Because my last holiday just about cleaned me out.’

  He was on his feet. ‘Yes, but ‒’

  ‘But nothing! We’ve done enough waiting. I don’t know for sure what it did to you, but I have the impression much what it did to me. My nurses were beginning to think me a-human.’ I smiled. ‘I suspect Bachelor’ll change their minds on that. And you, my darling, had better change your mind about not marrying me until you’ve got a job of your own, because you are going to marry me just as soon as Matron can get hold of a new Sister Theatre. She’ll find one. She’ll have to.’

  ‘Maggie.’ He took my shoulders with his hands. ‘I am not going to let you do this for me. It’s not that I don’t want you. I want you so much …’ He raised his hands, held them out. They were shaking. Then he put them in his pockets. ‘I’m not letting you throw up the job yo
u’ve come to love yet.’

  ‘It’s not a question of your letting me, Joe. I’m telling you what I am going to do. Don’t forget we are still in my department. I may faint all over the place, get seen by one of my staff nurses when I’m being kissed by an ex-S.S.O., but I am still Sister Theatre. And what I say here goes!’

  He was smiling. ‘That cuts me down to size.’ His smile vanished. ‘This is what you want?’

  I kissed him, and he asked no more questions. Later he said, ‘I’d like us to go back to Spain.’

  ‘I’d love that.’

  ‘And I,’ said Joe, ‘love you. Without you I have felt only half alive. And yet, even without you, just thinking of you, gave me a kind of strength. When I left you here and went into Martha’s the first time I was dead scared about a lot of things, but never that you would stop loving me, any more than I would stop loving you. It was odd, that. I felt safe on that one thing. And at the toughest moments on the blackest nights I always felt that if I put out a hand you’d be there. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes.’ And I thought: no man could ever give his woman more.

  Also by Lucilla Andrews

  If you enjoyed The New Sister Theatre, you will also want to read these other stories by Lucilla Andrews.

  The Print Petticoat

  A moving story of heartache and hope in the Maternity Unit of a busy 1950s teaching hospital.

  Joanna Anthony is a dedicated Nursery staff nurse at St Gregory’s Hospital. The nurses and doctors share laughter and tears as they tend to the mothers and babies in their care.

  There is time for romance, too. After five years together, is ambitious Dr Richard Everley finally ready to settle down with Joanna? And what of the two other young doctors who have more than a professional interest in her?

  It takes a serious illness for Joanna to understand where, and with whom, her future really lies.

  Read The Print Petticoat from Amazon UK

  Read The Print Petticoat from Amazon.com

  Read The Print Petticoat from Amazon AUS