Hospital Circles

by Lucilla Andrews

  Sister beckoned me. ‘Amon. aromat. and a wheelchair for that dresser over there. Get him outside.’

  The dresser with the brown beatle-cut was standing outside the Accident Unit. He looked dazed and pale-green. He slumped into the chair I pushed behind him and thankfully sipped the sal volatile.

  In the yard I asked, ‘What was it? The man with petrol burns?’

  ‘Yea.’ He screwed up his face as Dickie did when repulsed. Standing, he was about a foot taller than me. Seated, he looked not much older than Dickie. He was quite good-looking. He would be even more so when he was over the spotty stage.

  ‘Poor you. Burns your weak spot? They’re mine.’

  ‘Guess they must be. First I’ve seen.’

  ‘First ‒ down here? I know this is your first day, but you’ve been in the wards?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I gaped. ‘You’re not a pre-clinical?’

  ‘Just finished that. My lot came back from holiday yesterday. The chap who was to have been my ward partner hasn’t come back. Don’t know why not. So this morning the fat little chap in the long white coat who was sorting us out in the Dean’s Office said I’d better come along here for a few days until they got me organized with another partner. Don’t know why we have to have partners. Do you?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a Benedict’s rule that all students walking the wards must walk in pairs. That way you can chaperon each other.’

  ‘Why do we want to do that?’

  This was not the moment to lecture him on the facts of hospital life, so I said briefly, ‘Patients prefer two to one,’ and asked if he had explained his position to Sister.

  ‘No. What’s it got to do with her?’

  I smiled. ‘Chum, you’ll find out. Never mind. Tell anyone?’

  ‘That chap Dr Jones, who runs this joint.’

  ‘I see. He can’t have told Sister, or she’d never have pitched you straight into the A.R.R. Unit. Did you tell Mr Waring?’

  ‘He a big chap with red hair?’

  ‘No. That’s Mr Leland, the S.S.O. You told him?’

  Apparently he had talked to no-one in the A.R.R. Unit. A nurse taking him for a more experienced dresser had given him a gown and told him to go into the Burns Room. He said, ‘There was such a crowd round the chap on the table I couldn’t see him at first. Then someone moved. I just came out in a sweat.’ He was doing that now from the memory. ‘I didn’t know what to do, but this tall chap with red hair ‒ what did you say his name is?’

  ‘Leland.’

  ‘Leland. Well, he sort of noticed me and said: ‘Out, boy, fast.’ I outed fast. And you say he’s ‒ what is he?’

  ‘The Senior Surgical Officer. The fat little one who sorted you out this morning was the S.M.O. Get me? His name is Dr Curtis. The S.M.O. and S.S.O. are our two most senior residents. They really run this hospital, and they’ll be running your life for the next few years.’

  ‘Where does this Waring come in?’

  ‘He’s Senior Accident Officer.’

  ‘I say!’ He regarded me respectfully. ‘You do know the answers. You a staff nurse?’

  ‘No. Third-year student. Hence my dark-blue belt and blue dress. The second-years wear blue dresses and white belts. The first years, mauve. The girls in grey are staff nurses. And any female wearing a black belt with a silver buckle ranks as a sister. When in doubt call all women in uniform “Sister” and men in white “sir” and everyone’ll love you!’

  He leered. ‘That a promise, Sister?’

  I smiled. ‘You’re cured. I must go back in. Don’t hurry, but bring that chair in with you when you come.’

  ‘Don’t go yet. I like talking to you.’

  ‘Sorry about that, but Sister Cas doesn’t hold with her dressers chatting up her nurses.’

  ‘Stuff the old bag!’ he retorted cheerfully. ‘At least tell me who you are. I’m Charlie Peters.’

  ‘Jo Dungarvan.’ I stayed momentarily, as there was something I wanted to know. ‘How old are you, Charlie?’

  ‘Twenty next month. Isn’t it hell? A chap might as well be dead when he reaches twenty. You?’

  ‘Twenty-one. Dead.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Jo,’ he said kindly, ‘you don’t look it. And, anyway, I think older women are much more interesting.’

  I went back inside. Sister’s frown took the smile off my face. ‘Have you been taking a medical history, Nurse Dungarvan?’

  ‘In a way, Sister, yes.’ I explained myself.

  Sister was even more angry than I had anticipated. ‘Nineteen? Straight out of pre-clinical? And exposed unprepared to view a patient whose appearance caused me to warn a hardened policeman! Why was I not instantly informed of his true situation? Is Dr Curtis not aware that I refuse to have schoolboys or schoolgirls in my department! A major Casualty department is no place for children! Where is Dr Jones?’

  Dr Jones had gone to tea. Staff Nurse Robins was on with Sister in the Hall. ‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ she apologized uncomfortably. ‘Dr Jones asked me to tell you he was off to tea. I forgot.’

  Sister tapped her foot. ‘Were you aware the Senior Medical Officer had chosen to send us Mr Peters, temporarily?’

  ‘No, Sister.’

  Sister pressed her lips together. At that moment Red Leland came out of the A.R.R. Unit and towards us. ‘Sister, I had to send out a dresser. He all right?’

  ‘We have attended to him, Mr Leland,’ she replied icily. ‘He is now sitting in a chair on the deck and looks better. But whether an inexperienced schoolboy can be all right after the type of traumatic experience to which he has just been subjected I would not care to say. That is not my province. Running this department is my province!’ He looked thoughtfully from her to the dresser.

  ‘I don’t recognize the boy. New in Casualty today?’

  Sister told him how new. ‘I was not informed.’

  ‘Obviously not, Sister. I’m sorry about this.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mr Leland.’

  ‘Forgive my correcting you in your own department, Sister, but it is. Since that boy’s a dresser, he’s on the surgical side. When anything goes wrong on the surgical side the fault is automatically mine.’ He glanced round. ‘Is Dr Jones available?’

  On hearing Dr Jones was at tea he accepted Sister’s offer of a cup from our mobile canteen. She sent me to fetch two cups, and told me then to go to my own tea. She had disappeared with Old Red into her duty-room and closed the door before I left Casualty. On my way to the dining-room I passed Dr Jones returning. He assumed a pained expression and averted his eyes. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to think how much more pained he was going to be in a few moments.

  Gwenellen was at tea, and reading a letter she had had from Aline by the second post. Aline was now off nights, on holiday, and spending her first week with her grandparents in Cornwall before flying to join her parents in Majorca for the two following weeks. In her letter she asked Gwenellen to ask me if my aunt had at last decided to put poor Old Red out of his misery?

  ‘Honest to God! Hasn’t she changed discs yet?’

  ‘You know our Aline, love, once she gets a bee in her bonnet.’

  Unfortunately I knew Aline with her quick brain, and quicker tongue, very well. Margaret had now officially accepted General Francis as her next case. He was due in the Wing a few days after Dickie started in his new school, in just over three weeks’ time. Aline by then would be back and on days. A flat denial might silence Gwenellen and Tom Lofthouse. It would have no effect at all on Aline, who could add two and two faster and get the sum right better than any girl I knew. I could hear her laugh.

  ‘Pull the other one, Jo, it’s got bells on it! If Old Red’s not gone on your aunt, why’s he so decent to you?’

  A possible answer hit me. I blushed before I gave it to Gwenellen. I did not often blush, but generally did when about to lie. ‘Dear old Aline. It’s obviously never occurred to her she could be barking up the wrong tree.’

&nb
sp; Gwenellen put down her cup to look at me, wide-eyed. ‘Don’t tell me my Tom’s going to be right?’

  ‘Over what?’ I tried to sound casual. I didn’t succeed, which inevitably increased Gwenellen’s curiosity.

  ‘About you and Old Red. Tom says Robin Armstrong says Old Red’s always chatting you up in Cas. Robin says he even waylays you on your way on duty. Didn’t he this afternoon?’

  I began to appreciate what I had started. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t have to mean ‒’

  ‘That you are anything more than good friends? Say no more! I understand!’ She grinned. ‘I’ll ask no leading questions, as I remember how I loathed them when I first started seeing a lot of Tom. But don’t expect people won’t notice, love. Old Red being S.S.O., and you’re being only a third-year, of course they’ll notice! Particularly as normally he’d rather run that mile than chat up a nurse! And to think you’re in my set! I shall bask smugly in your reflected glory ‒ but don’t worry! I’ll put Aline straight and try and get Tom to belt up about it when amongst the boys. I don’t want anything to spoil this.’

  I was very touched and very guilty. ‘You approve? I thought you detested Old Red?’

  She was honest. ‘I didn’t until he hurt my pride by being impervious to my girlish charms. That riled me, just as it’s riled the other girls. If he wasn’t so attractive himself,’ she continued, echoing some old thoughts of my own on the subject, ‘who’d give a damn? But to be made to feel as if one’s made of wood by a man who obviously isn’t made of wood is too much for any girl’s stomach. But now he’s showing definite signs of not thinking you are made of wood I’m quite happy to stop taking violent umbrage and to start liking him. I’ll tell you this, I’ve always had to like him on the job. I like the way he doesn’t reach for his knife at the drop of a hat, and the way he doesn’t give a damn about his statistics. Remember our last S.S.O.? When I was in Stanley last year, even though I was only in my second year, I knew as well as all the other Stanley staff that if we had in a dodgy case the S.S.O. would fix things so that someone else operated on him. He was taking no chances on having too many deaths to muck up his statistics. Old Red doesn’t do that. Tom says he takes all the dodgy cases himself. Tom’s getting quite attached to him in a macabre sort of way, so why shouldn’t I? After all, I’ve got my Tom. I’ll be delighted to dance at your wedding.’

  I was scarlet. ‘Hey, Gwenellen! Take it easy!’

  She laughed not unkindly. ‘Joanna Dungarvan, don’t try and kid me that with your imagination you haven’t already picked your wedding dress? Or aren’t you interested? Now, that would make this really interesting!’

  I said, ‘I thought you weren’t going to ask leading questions?’

  ‘Hint taken, love. Hint taken.’

  It was a relief to get back to Casualty, and another to recollect Old Red’s coming holiday. I refused to face the prospect of his return yet, since I seemed to have faced quite enough for one afternoon. Worrying ahead had never been one of my habits, which was why I had mentally allowed Bill’s importance to get so out of hand. Thinking of him again made me so wretched that on my way back into the department I did not even notice the owner of the hand that held open the door for me, until I chanced to notice Dr Jones watching from outside his office. When our eyes met he gave me a frigid little smile. Thinking it must have been aimed at someone else, I glanced behind me. ‘Oh. Thanks, Mr Leland.’

  Old Red acknowledged that with a nod and walked on into the corridor. For the rest of that evening Dr Jones astonished the Casualty junior staff by being, for him, an angel of sweetness and light to us. His new civility did not last, but, as Daisy Yates remarked one day in the following week, it had been pleasant not to have such a right little God Almighty in Cas, if only for a short time.

  Though we worked in the same department, I saw little of Daisy, as we were always on different shifts. We met mainly at meals, which I enjoyed, not only because I liked her and could still indulge myself foolishly and talk with her about our special patient in Marcus, but also as Daisy, being so near the end of her training, had several friends amongst the staff nurses. Nurse de Wint, the staff nurse in permanent charge of the A.R.R. Unit, had been at school with Daisy and was one of her greatest friends. Mary de Wint ranked with Mrs Fields in seniority, though, as she never worked in the Hall, when Mrs Fields was off Staff Nurse Robins, the next in line, took her place. From Nurse de Wint, Daisy heard all the hottest bits of inside Cas gossip. Some of these she passed on to me.

  That was how I heard Old Red had been as angry as Sister over the Charlie Peters affair, and had said as much to Dr Jones. He had then persuaded Sister to bend her inflexible rule forbidding raw nurses or students in her department. Daisy said, ‘He told Sister he’d like our Charlie to stay in the Hall to give him the chance to get his nerve back in easy stages. Not that the lad now looks as if he’s got any nerves. He’s as happy as a sandboy.’

  ‘Until an ambulance unloads an accident. Then he turns pale-green again.’

  As Charlie was forbidden the A.R.R.U., he did not stay pale-green long. When Old Red returned from holiday Charlie, panting helpfully round the Hall like an overgrown puppy, was part of the Cas scene. He got on very well with the patients, and made them laugh without taking umbrage when they laughed at him. They all asked whether he played for the Beatles or the Stones, and were much amused to hear he had formed his own pop group with some of his fellow junior students. It was called The Benedict’s Bones. It was a terrible group. None of them could play or sing in tune, and Charlie, who fancied himself on skins, had no real idea of rhythm. When he discovered I could play the piano, whenever we were off together he dragged me down to one of the older lecture rooms in the Medical School basement that happened to possess a piano, to thump out the background beat. Those sessions nearly wrecked my hearing for life, but they made me laugh so much and took up so much of my off-duty that, as time went by, sometimes, just sometimes, I was able to laugh at my one-time passion for Bill.

  Eventually I felt strong enough to write the truth to Margaret. She replied by return.

  Darling, I am sorry for you, but at the same time I am sure that one day you will be very glad things have turned out the way they have. I know I never met Bill, but from all you said of him he reminded me much too much of a man I once knew and loved. He was not right for me. I never felt Bill Francis was right for you.

  That letter astonished me. I had never suspected she had ever loved any man but Simon Ellis, and I knew she could not have been referring to him since she had never spoken of him without affection and great kindness. One of the few occasions when she had been really cross with me had been when I suggested he might have been wiser to make some sort of provision for his wife and son. ‘Who thinks of death at twenty-eight, Jo? At that age one thinks one is going to live for ever!’

  I guessed now that she had met this other man during her widowhood. Was he the real reason for her still being a widow? It seemed probable. I wondered when they had known each other and why the parents had never mentioned the affair to me? Or had they not known about it? Recollecting the years my parents had spent abroad, it was very possible they had not. Poor Margaret, I thought, and then I thought, Poor Old Red. He’s not only up against the ghost of Simon Ellis, he’s paying this other man’s bill.

  Did he know that? If so, it could explain why he had waited so long for her, and why, now they had met again, he was handling their relationship so very carefully. Patiently, steadily, he was easing his way back into her life, seeing her regularly, but not too regularly, and taking pains to get to know Dickie and myself, which was sensible since we were both important to Margaret. His technique was beginning to pay off. Margaret had admitted Dickie liked him; I now thought of him as part of the family; Margaret herself had lowered her resistance enough to take his advice. Her last paragraph ran:

  I hope I’m right to come back to Benedict’s. As you know, Richard has done nothing but advise me that I must. He says I mu
st stop running away from the past. He is a sensible man, so I am going to take his advice. Very reluctantly. I realize that is an admission of cowardice, but one of the few consolations of approaching middle age is the fact that one no longer objects to having to admit a weakness.

  Chapter Eight

  A CALLER IN CASUALTY

  Mrs Fields went on holiday. Robins became senior staff nurse, the other staff nurses moved up one, and the senior student nurse in the A.R.R. Unit came back into the Hall as an acting staff nurse. The general post this caused amongst the A.R.R. Unit nurses left a vacancy. Though I had been in Casualty longer than the three weeks Sister had talked of on my first morning, and by Cas rules was temporarily senior to Daisy Yates, it was Daisy who was sent to join the Accident Nursing Team. Sister said, ‘Not too sure you’ve got your sea-legs yet, Dungarvan.’

  My reaction was mixed. Daisy, being a nice soul, was very upset for me. ‘I do hope you don’t mind, Jo? I expect Sinbad feels that as I’m in the last few months of my final year, she’d better pack me with as much experience as possible before I get whisked away to act staff nurse in some ward. That’s already happened to half my set.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ I said, ‘for the kind words, Daisy, but let us not kid ourselves. You’re a much better Cas nurse than I am.’

  ‘Scrub that! You’re doing fine in the Hall.’

  ‘Sister obviously doesn’t think so. I’ll bet she thinks that directly she lets me into the A.R.R.U. I’ll do a Charlie Peters! She may be right.’ I grimaced. ‘Every time I see those grey faces being trundled through Cas on accident trolleys heaped with grey blankets, and know that under the blankets are mangled, bloody, and road-filthy bodies, I start shaking. That’s why in one way I’m glad to have been passed over. Of course, in another way I’m not.’