A Ward Door Opens: A touching 1950s hospital romance (The Anniversary Collection Book 7)

by Lucilla Andrews

  I thought of my own home and realised how much I had, and how much until this moment, I had always taken for granted. ‘You’ll get that garden, and your home, Fiona. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure of things, Nurse. I’m only sure of Uncle Jock. But I mustn’t cling to him, now I’ve grown-up. He has done so much for me ‒ given up so much. He should have got married ages ago. He didn’t, because of me. He needs a home, too, and to have someone waiting for him there ‒ someone who isn’t just a niece.’

  ‘He wouldn’t part with you because he got married. He’d take you with him.’

  She looked at me with adult eyes. ‘His wife might have other views. I know he’d insist, but I’m not having that. As soon as I have two good feet, I’m going to stand on them. I’ve spoilt quite enough of his life. I’m not spoiling any more.’

  I couldn’t pretend not to understand her feelings. ‘The first thing to do is to get you those two good feet. What about relatives? Old friends? Have you any of either you could go to while you’re convalescing?’

  ‘Our friends are mostly the other side of the world, and we haven’t any relations. I don’t honestly know how he’ll fix me up when I leave here. I suppose he’ll find some convalescent home quite near. He knows all about such things.’

  An idea had been slowly taking shape in my mind as she talked. She looked so forlorn that I could not keep it to myself any longer. ‘Would you like to go and stay with my family for a while? Mother would love to have you. She welcomes female companionship in our all-male household. Daddy could keep an eye on your leg as he’s a G.P.; and the boys will be no end bucked!’

  Fiona’s face lit up. It seemed as if an electric light had been switched on behind her eyes. ‘Nurse! But I couldn’t land myself on them ‒ or could I?’

  ‘Why not, if your uncle approves? I know without asking what the parents will say. They’ve always kept open house for all our friends. I’m afraid it may seem a bit rowdy. There’ll be mud all over every carpet bar the surgery. Charles and Benedict get home every weekend. Michael will be back for the school holidays in about three weeks. And Dave lives at home, as he is a student on our neighbour’s farm. He has to get up at the most hideously early hour, but he tries to be quiet. He’s a dear but generally covered in mud. He just loves cows, and he’ll bore you stiff about ’em!’

  ‘I’d love to talk about cows!’ She sighed ecstatically. ‘Oh, I do hope your Mother won’t mind. I’m sure Uncle Jock will be only too thankful to say yes.’

  I suddenly realised exactly what I had done. There was no question of my wanting to go back: but there was no disregarding the fact that going forward would put me in a very tricky spot. Jo would be furious, the S.M.O. might think me presumptuous, and as for Standing … Standing! What would she not say to me for daring to intrude on her precious S.M.O.’s private affairs!

  Fiona was gazing at me so appealingly that I had to clamp down on my distracting thoughts. ‘Then you talk to your uncle about it, and I’ll contact Mother. You had better tell your uncle where we live in Hampshire ‒ and tell him too that Daddy is a Jude’s man. He’s P. D. Blakney; it will all be in the Jude’s register, if your uncle wants to check up.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t. Nurse, thank you so much. You don’t know what a thrill you’ve given me!’

  ‘Nurse Blakney,’ Standing had come in without either of us noticing her. ‘Forgive my interrupting, but I’d like a word with you.’ She looked keenly at Fiona. ‘Quite comfortable for the night, Miss Mason?’

  Fiona was too delighted to respond in her usual manner with Standing. She beamed. ‘Wonderfully comfortable, thanks, Nurse Standing. I’m going to sleep like a top.’

  ‘Good.’ Standing turned on the night-light and waited by the door, still watching Fiona carefully.

  As soon as we were in the corridor, she jerked her head at the duty-room.

  ‘Come along in here, Nurse. There is something I want to talk to you about.’ My heart sank. I dreaded those words. I followed her meekly. ‘Before I deal with my reason for coming to find you, Nurse Blakney, there is something I’d like to know. I don’t wish to seem over-curious, but what have you been discussing that has made that child look so happy?’

  I would have preferred to pave the way tactfully. She left me no alternative but to tell her the blunt truth. She received my suggestion without a visible flicker of emotion. ‘Won’t your mother object to your filling her house with strange young women?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Nurse. She is so accustomed to my brothers and their dozens of girl friends.’

  ‘How many brothers have you?’ Standing asked.

  ‘Five,’ I told her.

  ‘No wonder you feel your mother will take this in her stride. Do they all live at home?’

  I had been long enough in hospital to expect the unexpected, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself giving Standing a history of the Blakney family.

  She sat on the edge of the desk. ‘I should say it would be an ideal solution to a problem that I know has been troubling Dr. Cameron. He was mentioning it only last night. It must have been troubling Fiona, too.’

  ‘It has, Nurse. She so terribly wants roots.’

  ‘That’s not unreasonable. I will admit I did not consider her capable of any depths of feeling. I must have been mistaken.’ She met my eyes. ‘She looked a different person when I went in just now. If you are sure this can be arranged, could you ask your parents as soon as possible?’

  ‘Yes, Nurse.’ I was amazed by her attitude. And that she should actually admit a mistake to me, her junior!

  ‘I expect she’ll talk to Dr. Cameron in the morning. If she doesn’t, I’ll almost certainly be seeing him at eleven. I’ll mention it to him. The sooner this is fixed up the better for that girl’s health.’

  ‘Health, Nurse?’

  Standing nodded briskly. ‘She has not been picking up as well as she should have done. She has been so listless lately. It will give her something to look forward to. There’s nothing better for a sick person. Good.’ She moved away from the desk. ‘Now we’ve got that sorted out, there is something I want to ask you.’ She looked me over in the critical fashion that had once unnerved me. I found I did not object at all now. I accepted it as merely one of her mannerisms. ‘Did you change the lotion in the spare needles tray on your last night on, as I told you to do?’

  ‘Yes, Nurse.’

  ‘What lotion did you use?’

  I looked at her, curiously. ‘The official formula, Nurse.’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  I listed the names and proportions of the three constituents always used in the Wing sterilising lotion.

  ‘You’re sure you got it right?’

  ‘Yes, Nurse.’

  ‘Were you interrupted while preparing it?’

  I shook my head, wonderingly. ‘No, Nurse.’

  ‘Come and have a look at them.’

  The spare needles tray was kept in one of the glass-fronted cupboards in the sterilising-room. She lifted out the tray. ‘They are rusting,’ she said.

  I peered at the needles lying in the carefully graded curved lines that took me so long to arrange every Monday night. The lotion covering them was colourless, and the touches of rust on the brand-new needles showed clearly.

  ‘Well, Nurse, can you account for the rust? The needles are your responsibility. The day staff won’t have touched them, and I particularly told Nurse Ealey to leave them alone, as you had done them on Monday.’

  My instinctive reaction made me feel cold. ‘I’m very sorry, Nurse. I can’t understand this at all. I only did what I always do. Do you suppose there is something wrong with the needles?’

  ‘Yes. They’re rusty.’ She considered me ironically. I braced myself for the inevitable storm. It did not break. She only asked me to pass her a sterile test-tube, and then, in silence, she tilted the needle tray, poured a couple of inches of fluid into the tube, sealed and labelled it. ‘T
he path lab will give us the answer.’

  ‘You’re going to have it analysed, Nurse?’

  ‘Naturally. We can’t have a whole batch of new needles turning rusty without cause. There has to be a cause; and we have to find out what it is, in order to prevent this occurring again. And we have to find out why these needles waited forty-eight hours before showing any signs of rust ‒ if you made an error in your measuring. They were quite bright last night. I know, because I checked them just before ten. Luckily, they are only our spares. The main tray is quite all right, so we should not have a needle crisis before morning.’ She set the tray on the bowl-forceps shelf. ‘Leave it there. I want to show it to Night Sister. She’ll know if there have been any similar complaints from the other wards.’

  It had never occurred to me that she would have such a sensible and open-minded view. I should have remembered her passion for detail, and her habit of sparing herself as little as she spared her juniors. She would never lower her standards, she checked up on every thing I did every night whether we were busy or slack. That was why she had won her gold medal. She was in a class of her own when it came to being meticulous. I was convinced that any other night senior would have automatically assumed that I had made a careless error on Monday night, and simply reported it to Night Sister and Sister Wing. Since she kept such a close eye on my work, Standing was prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt. I felt ashamed of my immediate suspicions. Almost certainly this had nothing to do with Jo Ealey. Her being in the Wing last night was only a coincidence. Yet I could not help hoping there would not be any more coincidences, because coincidence had to stop somewhere.

  Chapter Five

  I was late for our midnight meal. Kirsty, the Theatre junior, told me Avis and Jo had eaten and gone. ‘I say, Maggie, have you heard the latest about George Thanet?’ she asked chattily.

  She was a nice girl but I was in no mood to chat about Avis. ‘I have … Pass the salt, please.’

  She looked disappointed. ‘Don’t you think it a trifle outrageous. Even for George Thanet?’

  ‘No,’ I said flatly.

  ‘You are feeling prim tonight! Well, I must get back to work.’

  I went on with my solitary meal and then left for the wing. Nurse Illingworth arrived to relieve Standing for her meal. I set the kitchen quickly, then settled down on the bread-bin and had a restful twenty minutes in which to repair the damage in Miss Ashbrook’s knitting. Illingworth did not disturb me at all. I had drifted into a glorious day-dream in which the S.M.O., Fiona, my family and I were all jumbled together, when I heard Standing return. I slipped the knitting-bag behind the oatmeal tin, took a final look round the kitchen to see it was all in order, then went along to fold the soiled linen in the clinical-room.

  Standing seemed to have a lot to say to Illingworth. They generally changed over in a couple of minutes but nearly ten went by before Illingworth passed the clinical-room on her way to the stairs. She said good night but she did not smile. She looked concerned, even sad. I wondered what Standing had been saying to her.

  The duty-room telephone bell pierced my thoughts. Standing called softly, ‘I’ll take it.’

  When she returned she came swiftly down the corridor. ‘I’ll deal with that linen for you, Nurse,’ she said. ‘Night Sister wants you down in the Theatre, stat.’ (Stat means at once.)

  ‘The Theatre, Nurse?’

  ‘The Theatre junior has fainted. The S.M.O. has sent her off for the rest of the night. An emergency case is just about to begin. As you’ve done your Theatre training, and we aren’t busy, Night Sister wants you to fill the gap.’

  I washed my hands in the clinical-room sink and hurried out of the Wing with very mixed feelings. I wondered what on earth had made Kirsty faint. She had looked fine at our meal; she had been nearly three months in the Theatre and was not the fainting type.

  I pushed open the great double doors that divided the Theatre corridor from the main corridor, and at once a nasty little apprehensive shiver ran down my spine. Dr. Cameron was standing outside the Surgeons’ room, talking to Night Sister. He was wearing Theatre clothes and only his eyes were visible. He glanced at me quickly but said nothing.

  Night Sister told me to hurry and get changed. ‘The surgeons have just begun to scrub up. I will explain the case when you are dressed. You should be able to manage, as you did your Theatre training quite recently.’

  It was very hot. The surgeons’ masks clung to their faces; their foreheads reddened with the heat from the powerful overhead lamps. Mr. Yates flexed his shoulders as if they ached. ‘How much more time can you give me, Jock?’ he asked, without looking up.

  Dr. Cameron’s eyes were glued to the battery of recording gauges on the complicated anaesthetic machine at his elbow. ‘Say twenty minutes. I don’t think I can make it more. This poor lad has a good heart, but it has taken, and is taking, a tremendous beating. Shock isn’t helping his toleration.’ He glanced up. ‘Are you going to be able to save both, Tom?’

  Mr. Yates drew a long breath. ‘I’ll need more time. We’ve finished the right leg ‒ but with the amount of damage to the left, we can’t do a quick repair, or risk leaving it. That’s too dangerous. If you consider his heart can’t stand much more …’

  Dr. Cameron said quietly, ‘He’s only nineteen, Tom.’

  ‘I know,’ Mr. Yates muttered grimly as his gloved hands worked deftly. ‘When I first saw him in Casualty, I doubted we’d be able to save either leg. I must have more time, Jock,’ he said again. ‘You’re the physician. If you say it’s not safe, there’s nothing else I can do if I want to see this lad has his twentieth birthday.’

  ‘Just how long will you need?’

  Mr. Yates told him to the minute.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Dr. Cameron said, ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  Five minutes later Mr. Yates said curtly, ‘Nurse Gill, I’ll have to have another pair of hands. Can I borrow your nurse?’

  Nurse Gill caught my eye. ‘Nurse Blakney, please scrub and dress.’

  I scrubbed my hands and arms to the elbows, slipped a sterile gown over my own and fitted on sterile gloves. Like an echo from a forgotten song, something Sister Theatre once said floated through my mind. I train you Theatre nurses to act mechanically, in order that no matter how tired, anxious, or busy you may be, you will automatically do as you have been taught.

  Mr. Yates told me to stand at his left side. ‘Hold this, so ‒’ He fixed an instrument in my hand, setting my fingers in the correct grip. ‘Hardy, let Nurse have your retractor. Put your fingers over Mr. Hardy’s, Nurse. When he moves away, you hold on. That’s right. Now, all you have to do is keep both hands absolutely steady.’

  Time stood still. The heat was overpowering. The three surgeons breathed carefully; their hands moved with trained swiftness and seemed to belong to one man and not to be controlled by three separate brains. My turban gripped my forehead and felt as if weighted with lead, my fingers grew numb with cramp. Twice Dr. Cameron had to call a halt. Each time it seemed as if the whole Theatre staff were holding their breath, and the three pairs of hands I was watching remained poised and still as bronze carvings.

  The third time the S.M.O. did not just say, ‘Wait, please.’ He said curtly, ‘That’s enough. No more in any circumstances.’

  Mr. Yates put down the last instrument. ‘Right. We’ve finished.’ He stripped off his gloves, dropped them in a sink and tugged at the strings of his gown. ‘That was a long job.’ He mopped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving behind a white streak of glove powder. ‘It takes a boy only a few minutes to play the fool with a bit of machinery. It takes us a lot longer than that to mend the damage.’

  Dr. Cameron removed his gown. ‘You’ve done a good job tonight, Tom.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t kept him going for me. I don’t know of any other man who could have done what you did. That’s why I asked you to come in.’ He nodded wearily. ‘Thanks.’

  He han
ded me his gown. ‘And thanks for your help, Nurse Blakney. Good thing you’ve got such steady hands.’

  The two men walked slowly out of the Theatre; their expressions showed they had been too dangerously close to defeat to feel any triumph in victory.

  Gill asked me to get on with the cleaning on my own for a little while. ‘I must ring Night Sister, and those men must have some tea. I’ll see to that, if you carry on in here.’ She pushed her turban a little back on her head and dropped her gown on the laundry pile. ‘Those poor men have had a terrible night and won’t get to bed before that boy comes round. It will be Dr. Cameron’s second all-night session. Night Sister told me he barely left Christian Ward last night, from one a.m. onwards. I can’t think how he keeps on his feet. I couldn’t, and I’m ten years younger.’

  I knew she was twenty-six. I was surprised to hear Dr. Cameron’s real age; I had thought him older. Responsibility must be the cause ‒ and that was not at all surprising. Since physicians always take precedence over surgeons, technically he had to carry the responsibility for the whole hospital. In a last resort, as tonight, the Senior Surgical Officer could turn to the Senior Medical Officer; there was no one to whom the S.M.O. could turn. The consultants were non-resident, and although they would always give advice, they did not expect to be called in to do so by the S.M.O. He was appointed for that very reason.