I wrote a note asking Margaret to meet me in the canteen at lunch-time, then stopped a Cas porter in the yard to ask him to deliver it for me and, if he could, to get an answer. He returned beaming. ‘The Sister says one-thirty.’
She had not arrived when I reached the canteen. Charlie Peters was there, sitting with a crowd of students. We had not seen each other since I moved into the Unit. He waved me over, and when I shook my head and found myself an empty table he climbed over a couple of friends to join me, uninvited. ‘Meeting someone, Jo?’
‘My aunt. Will you mind pushing off when she comes?’
‘Sure,’ he replied amiably. ‘What’s the old lady doing up here? Checking little niecie’s being a good girl?’
‘Not exactly. She’s working here, temporarily.’
‘You never told me!’
‘Forgot,’ I lied. ‘How are The Bones?’
‘Not so hot. We can’t get our sound right.’
I laughed. ‘You are so right! It’s ear-splitting!’
‘Stuff that! It’s dead trendy to be loud. Who cares about the tune? It’s the beat that counts. You’re way out, Jo. Strictly for olde-tyme, that’s you, in music as well as men. How’s Old Red?’
Suddenly I had either to scream or snap. ‘Charlie, do me a favour! Lay off the coy quips!’
‘And who’s being coy now? Didn’t you tell me yourself you’d Old Red like eating out of your hand, man? As all ruddy Benedict’s knows by now!’
‘It does?’ My voice cracked. I was remembering the night General Francis called in Cas. ‘Charlie! You didn’t make with the talk?’ His expression told me the worst. ‘Honest to God! It figures.’
He vowed he had only told The Bones in strict confidence. The Bones had six members, and as they were nice boys it was just possible each had told no more than five others in strict confidence. They were junior students, but most had friends amongst the more senior, and most of those friends amongst the housemen. It had to be all round the Doctors’ House. I was surprised I had not had this back from Gwenellen, until I recollected her talent for keeping her mouth shut. Gwenellen, I reflected grimly, could teach me a lot.
Charlie looked about to burst into tears. I was making soothing noises when he suddenly leapt up. ‘Did you want Nurse Dungarvan?’
Margaret was wearing her linen suit and black straw hat. She looked even more attractive than on that afternoon in the car-park. Charlie rocked visibly when I introduced them, then retreated to his friends and sat and stared at her as if she were the promised land.
I said, ‘The lad’s growing up. You’ve just hit him between the eyes!’
‘Nonsense, darling! I’m old enough to be his mother. Sweet boy.’ She glanced round, smiling, and across the canteen Charlie blushed. ‘He’s the wrong colouring, but very like Richard when I first knew him. He was all arms and legs in those days. Now, why did you want to see me, Jo? Sorry to keep you waiting while I changed, but I’m off to see Dickie at two. He’s allowed out tonight and all day tomorrow. Richard’s driving me down to collect him and then taking us both on to the cottage.’
‘So that’s why you look so chic. I hope you all have a wonderful week-end.’ The amount of enthusiasm I had to pack into my voice made me feel like Judas Iscariot.
‘I hope so, darling. Richard’s staying with the Remington-Harts. Well? What’s the problem?’
I showed her the solicitor’s letter, and asked if I could borrow the cottage on my next day off, Wednesday. ‘Then I can see this man in Downshurst.’
‘You can have the cottage with pleasure, but won’t you be rather lonely? It’s very isolated. Why not go down to Downshurst for the day?’
As I could not possibly explain that nothing could make me feel more lonely than I did in the crowded canteen at that very moment, I made some trite excuse about wanting country air. She was in too much of a rush to argue, and promised to leave her key in my post pigeon-hole on Tuesday evening, and warn Mr Sims not to worry if he saw lights in her cottage on Wednesday night. ‘Forgive me leaving you, Jo, but this rain is going to slow us down. Have a good week-end.’
‘Sure. And you. And give my love to Dickie.’
It was still pelting when I went on duty at three. I wore my cloak for the first time in weeks, and though the subway was now officially open, preferred to cross the road under an umbrella.
The rain and the sudden drop in the temperature gave the Unit its quietest week-end in weeks. By Sunday evening Mr Waring had caught up with his arrears of paperwork, every instrument in the Unit had been repolished, every gown mended, every rubber glove repaired, every stock emulsion bottle had a new linen collar, and every old Unit hand was jittery.
Linda Oxford and our dressers took another view. Linda Oxford said it just proved what an unnecessary song and dance the Unit staff normally made about their constant pressure of work. Monica Miles said she wished no-one any harm, but, as she was with us to work, she would much rather work.
‘If you are really interested in work,’ retorted Linda patronizingly, ‘you should be a nurse ‒ if not Unit nurse. Now, ward nursing is nothing but hard work! It’s non-stop, but so worthwhile! One gets such satisfaction from it. One grows so close to one’s patients. One forgets oneself completely. But then, obviously, one has to have a vocation.’
‘Obviously,’ echoed Monica Miles politely. I winked at her. She looked faintly startled, then winked back. Later she inquired, ‘Has one no vocation, Dungarvan?’
‘God knows. I just enjoy nursing.’ I sniffed the air. ‘I’m not enjoying this week-end.’
‘Naturally.’ Linda had rejoined us, smiling thinly. ‘The S.S.O.’s off.’
I was missing him so much I could have been missing an arm or leg. I grinned as if she had made a huge joke.
‘Sure, now, and isn’t my poor heart aching and breaking for himself!’
Linda’s reaction astonished me. ‘My God! Is there nothing you take seriously?’
The light over the theatre door was flashing for the first time in an hour, so I did not have to answer her.
Our patient was an eighteen-months-old boy who had fallen head first out of his cot. He was fat and cheerful despite two black eyes and a swollen nose. He had no fractures and very much enjoyed the fuss we enjoyed making of him.
His mother was very young, pale, and harassed. Mr Waring glanced at her thoughtfully after attending to her baby. ‘Let’s see that cut on your wrist, madam. It’s new. How did it happen?’
‘It’s just a scratch from the teapot spout, Doctor. I dropped it, washing up. Always dropping things, I am.’ She sighed. ‘It’s wearing them rubber gloves.’
Mr Waring; examined her hands. ‘You wear gloves because of this rash?’
‘Yes. I thought they might help. They don’t. Not really.’
The cut on her wrist was clean and minute. Mr Waring attended to it himself and very slowly. Whilst he did so he let her talk.
She shared one room in her in-laws’ house with her husband and two babies. The baby she had left at home was three months old. She admitted to headaches. ‘But it’s this rash that’s the worst. Comes up every time I do the washing, and with the two children and Frank working up the garage there don’t seem no end.’
Before she was allowed to take her baby son home Mr Waring fixed her up with appointments to see the Eye Specialist, Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist, Skin Specialist, and Out Patients’ Lady Almoner. She left looking very much happier with a sheaf of prescription forms and Monica Miles as escort to show her to the dispensary. ‘Those three pundits are going to be out for my blood,’ said Mr Waring, ‘as I’m sure they’ll find nothing more amiss with her than I did. But I’m not infallible, and she needs a little fuss to be made of her.’
Nurse de Wint asked, ‘Those headaches weren’t her eyes?’
‘Not as far as I could see. Headaches very seldom are caused by eye trouble. Either they’re caused by sinus trouble, or, far more commonly, emotional stress. Like that skin all
ergy. Laying off the washing won’t clear it. The stuff she’s getting now will help a bit, but until she gets out of that one room and into a home of her own it’ll blow up again and again. What really ails her, my lads,’ he explained to the dressers, ‘is a chronic attack of in-law-itis. You’ll see a lot of that, and don’t underestimate the physical damage it can do. And that seems to be’ ‒ Nurse de Wint had caught his eye ‒ ‘no ‒ as you were. One thing more I must explain about that girl. You’ve just seen me do the kind of job more usually done by Dr Jones in the Hall. Not true accident work, you may be thinking, and up to a point correctly. Only up to a point. If any patient comes in here with an injury and I observe he or she needs special attention for some other condition, then obviously I’m allowed to do something about it, and would be one hell of a lousy medic if I did not. As you all saw, I treated that girl first, because she had cut herself on a teapot. That’s in the log, Nurse de Wint?’
‘Yes, Mr Waring. I entered it myself.’
Mr Waring grinned. ‘That’ll keep the boys who keep the books in the backroom happy. Never forget to see everything’s written down, signed, and dated with the time of admission as well as the date, lads. Then if anyone tries to query anything you do you point to the given line and say ‒ take a look ‒ that’s why! I did what I did because, in my opinion, that was the right thing to do.’ He raised a finger. ‘Don’t forget that “in my opinion”. Stick on that, and you’ll have the whole bloody medical profession lining up behind you. And providing you keep to union rules and keep your books straight, you’ll find no man in this world has a tougher or more solid trade union behind him.’ He turned to de Wint. ‘I hope you don’t object to my bringing a soapbox into your department, Staff Nurse?’
‘Not at all, Mr Waring,’ she replied gravely, and we all laughed.
I enjoyed seeing those two together. They were such professional professionals, and never allowed their pleasure in each other’s company to affect the high quality of their work. Their discretion was brilliant as well as admirable. Daisy was still the only person in the hospital from whom I had heard one word about their being in love. That amazed me until I recollected they were very senior, Mr Waring had nearly as little off-duty as Richard, and, being very popular with his Unit men, could rely on their complete discretion in their turn ‒ if they were in the secret, and it was quite possible they were not. As he and de Wint worked only in the Unit, the rest of the hospital forgot their existence. When they met off-duty it was obviously far from Benedict’s, and they were probably careful to return independently. Such discretion might seem unnecessary to an outsider, but not to anyone working in a large hospital. Let the news break, and then one small error be made in the Unit, and the consequent wagging of tongues could seriously damage both their Benedict’s careers.
Knowing Sister Cas to be so shrewd, for a little it puzzled me that she should never have had any suspicions.
Then I remembered that the one thing that mattered above all else to Sister was the welfare of her beloved Casualty. To admit to suspicions could entail breaking up a first-class team. As long as the team remained first-class I suspected Sister would remain willing to look the other way. In her place I certainly would.
The manner in which their affair had managed to evade the grape-vine explained something else that had been puzzling me. No-one, apart from myself, seemed aware Richard and Margaret were meeting off duty, and only my set appeared to know they had trained together and were old friends. So much for my ill-made schemes to fix the limelight on myself. A boomerang, no less, I reflected, and an unnecessary boomerang at that. They hadn’t needed my help. Theirs was no boy-meets-girl romance. They were mature adults who knew all the rules of the game, and hospital life inside out. As I should have appreciated had I not been so blinded by the mental beauty of myself as Cupid.
The quiet lasted another thirty minutes. At nine, when an unconscious attempted-suicide arrived, only Table 1 was empty, and that only because the schoolboy who had fractured both ankles jumping from a high wall for a dare had been moved to a ward.
‘It’s in a terrible mess he’s in, Mr Waring, sir,’ announced Paddy laconically, ‘and in a terrible mess he’ll be until you’ve stitched his poor foolish head back on his neck.’
‘Had a real go, has he?’ Mr Waring raised the sterile towel Sister Cas had added to the ambulance men’s first-aid dressing. ‘Good God Almighty! The things they get up to! But his clotting time’s good.’
Nurse de Wint watched from Table 4. ‘Can you manage, Mr Waring?’ She meant without a nurse.
‘Pro tem. He’ll start off again soon as I start mucking those clamped-down vessels about.’
Nurse de Wint was helping the second Registrar with a small girl who had fallen from a third-floor window on to a concrete path. Her head had escaped, but she had multiple fractures and was being examined under anaesthetic. Her parents were too shocked to explain, if they knew, how she got out of the window. They were having supper when they heard the thud outside. Linda came back just then from taking them tea in the office.
Mr Cook, a dresser, and myself were at Table 3. Our patient was an old man who had been knocked down by a bus. He had three fractured ribs, one of which had pierced his lung, and a fractured pelvis. Shock had collapsed his veins. Mr Cook had been unable to insert a blood-transfusion needle and was having to cut down to put in a cannula.
Monica Miles and another dresser were working with a houseman at Table 2. Their patient was a man who had been stabbed in the chest by the shaft of his steering-wheel. He had skidded his car into a post-box.
Our other houseman was at supper. Mr Waring asked Paddy to call him back. ‘You might also give my compliments to Mr Tomlin and say I’d be obliged if he would step in here. I’d like him to see this chap.’
‘Then I’ll be after ringing the general theatre, sir, seeing as himself’ll just have got started on the strangulated hernia we’d in not an hour back, and in a bad way he was, the poor man.’
‘Right. Let it go, Paddy. I’ll shout later if I have to. Just get me my houseman. I need more hands.’
Linda was hovering officiously. ‘Shall I help Mr Waring, Nurse de Wint?’
De Wint surveyed the room anxiously. She looked at me and then at Mr Cook. Then she looked at Table 2. ‘All right, Nurse Oxford. Miss Miles,’ she called quietly, ‘will you also go and help Mr Waring?’
‘That’s it,’ grunted Mr Cook. ‘Speed it up to start with, Nurse Dungarvan.’
I was still adjusting the screw of the drip-connection set in the transfusion apparatus that regulated the flow of blood when the crash came. Linda Oxford had fainted. She would have knocked over Mr Waring’s dressing-trolley had he not switched it speedily aside with a flick of one foot. ‘You’ll have to leave her on the floor, Miss Miles,’ he muttered as Monica had turned to bend down, ‘as I need you. Pass me those snaps ‒’ He glanced up. ‘Christ! Not you as well? Beat it, stat!’
Nurse de Wint looked round again, without moving her hands. ‘Mr Cook, can you manage with just a dresser? Thanks. Dungarvan.’ She jerked her head at Mr Waring. ‘Gloves.’
That told me not to wait and wash my hands, but to put on one of the many emergency pairs of sterile gloves and help Mr Waring. Linda came round as I had on the first glove. Her colour was dreadful, and her eyes were appalled. Richard came in as she sat herself up. He helped her to her feet and out of the room, without exchanging a word with anyone. He wore a dark suit and was without his white coat. He reappeared almost immediately. ‘Sister’s taking care of her.’ He came and stood by Mr Waring. ‘I hear you wanted Mr Tomlin, Michael. For this chap?’
‘Yep. Didn’t know you were back.’
‘I’ve just driven up from Downshurst. Paddy told me.’ He watched what we were doing. ‘How much do you think he’s lost?’
‘Four, five pints.’ Mr Waring clipped off another gaping blood-vessel. The wound itself was like a second nightmarish mouth grinning garishly in the unconscious
young man’s neck. ‘A right messy job the poor bastard’s done of it, but as he’s missed the jugular and the common carotid, he’s still with us.’ His hand shot my way, as it had been doing since I joined him. I placed another pair of Spencer Wells in his open palm. ‘That’s the lot.’ He looked up as the pathologist on duty returned. ‘Not a rare group, I hope, Henry?’
‘Moderately. But we’ve enough to top him up with all he’ll need.’ The pathologist held out a card on which was written the patient’s sex, approximate age, time of admission and date, and blood group, in large block capitals. I copied these quickly into our log-book, then fixed the card with the special clips provided to the clean accident gown the man wore over his own blood-soaked clothes. These would be removed after he had been transfused.
Mr Simons, our absent houseman, had arrived. Mr Waring nodded at the waiting transfusion trolley. ‘In his left ankle, and try not to hack him about too much. He’s been hacked enough for one day.’
The houseman tried to get in the needle. The young man’s veins were as collapsed as those of the elderly man on Table 3. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to cut down, sir.’
‘Shall I try?’ Richard had removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, donned a mask and apron, and scrubbed up. ‘Yes. Very tricky. However’ ‒ he got in the needle at his first attempt ‒ ‘I’ve been dealing with the tricky ones rather longer than you have, Simons.’ He set the rate of drops himself, watching Mr Waring’s stitching. ‘That’s a neat job, Michael.’
‘H’m. Think he’ll thank me for it?’
‘Possible, if not probable. What do we know about him?’
‘Damn all! He had locked himself in some public lavatory. The attendant saw the blood under the door and broke it down. There was a nick opposite, so the cops whisked him straight here in a car. Nothing on him to identify him. He obviously meant to do the job properly, and if our head-shrinkers can’t find out why, next time that’s what he’ll do.’
Hospital Circles Page 17