Nurses: Claire and Jan

by Bette Paul

  “You’ve made a right muck-up of your tracksuit,” observed Karen when Jan ran in last. “And we beat you!” She was sitting on the terrace, taking off her shoes.

  “You did not,” said Jan. “I was to be last in case anyone. . .” He realized how tactless that was going to sound.

  “. . .got away,” Karen finished. “Not today, mate,” she grinned. “Shoes off, young Martin! You too,” she told Jan.

  Martin stood, one-legged, fumbling with his laces, rain and tears dripping off the end of his nose as he bent his head. Jan felt he should help in some way, but he couldn’t help a grown boy to undo his shoelaces, could he? He stood watching, helplessly trying to figure out what to do.

  Karen pushed between them. “Come on, lad, let’s be having you. Here, sit down.” She pushed him on to a bench, mopped Martin’s wet face with her handkerchief and bent to unfasten his shoes. “Right! Hot shower for both of us, I reckon, eh, Martin?”

  She put an arm around the boy’s shaking shoulders and led him indoors. Jan sat on the bench and removed his shoes, feeling helpless, useless and wishing he was any­where but in the Mental Health department of St Ag’s. After all, he told himself angrily, even in the blasted-out wreck of Czerny Infirmary he’d been useful. Here, even the patients knew more than he did.

  He pushed his way into the entrance, hoping to catch up with Karen, but she’d done her usual disappearing act. With Martin? Jan wondered.

  “He’s a bright lad,” Geoff said at coffee break. “But not as bright as his parents think he is.”

  “And that is his trouble?” asked Jan.

  Geoff shrugged. “Some of it,” he said.

  They were in Geoff’s sitting room, sharing coffee and doughnuts. Showered, wearing his usual jeans and sweatshirt, Jan felt healthier than he had done for a long time. Running, he decided, was definitely going to be his new hobby. He’d get to know the patients better, get himself fit, and never have another of his funny “turns”.

  “Now then, what’ve we got for you today?” Geoff pulled his clipboard closer.

  “Nurse Hawley asked me to put the new drugs list into the computer,” said Jan happily.

  “Did she?” Geoff looked hard at Jan. “Yes, well, you can do that this afternoon. This morning we’ve got group therapy.”

  Jan’s expression registered his dismay. “Group therapy,” he repeated.

  “You don’t have to take part – just sit in on it,” Geoff beamed. “You’ll need to get some idea of all the different treatments we use – for your file, at least.”

  “Ah, yes,” Jan nodded. “And the running, is that for my file also?”

  Geoff grinned. “Please yourself,” he said. “That’s my bit of voluntary work.”

  “It did not seem to help Martin,” Jan observed. “But Karen was full of – er –”

  “Beans,” supplied Geoff. “Yes, well, don’t be foxed by Karen. When she’s high she’s very, very high. When she’s low, she’s rock bottom.”

  Jan remembered how Karen had collapsed at the clinic the previous day. “This I have seen at home,” he told Geoff, surprising himself with the reference.

  “Aye,” Geoff nodded. “And a few like Martin, I’ll be bound.”

  Jan looked away, out through the window. Grey, no sun, no light, not even a breath of wind now, just the drip, drip of drizzle and the blank grey fog.

  “Depression,” he said. “That is what he suffers?”

  “He does that,” Geoff agreed. “Clinical depression. I expect you’d see a lot of that back home?”

  “No, not a lot,” said Jan. “It was funny, when you think how we were trying to live in that city; no water, no electricity, no food, no medical supplies and the bombardment going on, on, on. . .” He took a shaky breath. This was the first time he’d spoken to anyone about his experiences back home and he wasn’t quite sure why he was talking to Geoff. “But people were not depressed,” he went on. “Not like Martin. They weep, they cry, they are hungry, cold, frightened – but not depressed. I wonder why this is?”

  “Same in Northern Ireland,” said Geoff. “All those years of bombs and shootings, but the cases of breakdown and suicide actually went down.” He took a sip of coffee and looked at Jan shrewdly. “Won’t be the same in peace-time, I’ll bet you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s as if people put off having a breakdown. They’re too busy struggling to survive – no time for mental health problems. Then, when peace breaks out as it were, it all comes tumbling down.”

  “ ‘Tumbling down’,” Jan repeated thoughtfully. “So, you think when there is peace in my country there will also be stress?”

  Geoff nodded. “And a need for psychiatric nursing,” he said pointedly. He stood up. “So we’d better get on with your training, else you won’t be ready to go back.”

  Go back? Jan pondered this idea as he followed Geoff down the corridor to a seminar room. Back to what? No home, no parents that he knew of, no university to continue his studies. No, he would never go back there.

  “Here we are!” Geoff opened the door and ushered Jan into the room ahead of him.

  The first thing that struck him was the silence. It wasn’t the kind of hush that falls when someone enters and conversation dies. Jan had the distinct feeling that there had been no conversation, even before he came in.

  And no one looked towards the door. On half a dozen chairs, set well apart but in a perfect circle, sat four women, a middle-aged man, and the boy, Martin, who was slumped forward, examining the pattern on the carpet. One woman hugged herself close and rocked gently from side to side; an elderly woman with a halo of fine white hair sat rigidly upright, eyes tight shut, apparently fast asleep; the others stared at the wall in front of them.

  “Good morning, everybody.” Geoff spoke heartily. “Are we all here?”

  No one replied.

  “Now then, who’ve we got, today?” Geoff looked round the circle. “There’s Alan –” he indicated the older man – “and Margaret.” He nodded towards the rocker. “Susan, Anna and Frieda.” The last was the older lady, who nodded graciously but never opened an eye. “And, of course, Martin you’ve met. This is Jan, our student nurse. You know him already, don’t you, Martin?” Geoff said pointedly.

  Martin lifted his eyes for a second, nodding vaguely, then looked alarmed as the door opened once more.

  Jan turned to see Karen, in full leather gear.

  “Hello, hello, hello!” she said busily. “More chairs, Geoff – unless you’re going to stand inside the kissing circle?” She laughed too much at the joke. “Can I have first go?” she said.

  “Nah then, Karen!” Geoff spoke quietly. “Calm yourself and come on in. Jan will get us some more chairs.”

  “Oh, thanks very much, Jan.” Karen looked across at Jan and smiled sweetly. “Sure you can manage?”

  “I can manage,” Jan said, copying Geoff’s gentle tone. It seemed to work: as soon as the chairs were set – with mathematical precision – into the circle, everyone, including Karen, settled back and looked expectantly at Geoff.

  Jan felt in his pocket for his notebook, but Geoff frowned and motioned him to leave it where it was. Jan obeyed, though he was worried he would miss something if he had no notes.

  In fact, by the time they finished, he felt he’d missed everything. No matter how carefully he listened, how hard he concentrated, he didn’t hear anything that seemed at all important. Geoff started by inviting the patients to tell the group how they were feeling, how they were coping, what they’d been doing since the previous meeting and, in their various ways, they told him. Some hesitated, others twittered on at great length and little relevance. Martin merely nodded to any question Geoff put to him; Karen did a cabaret act, flirting outrageously with anyone who caught her eye, and suddenly gave up mid-sentence, slumping down in her chair and turning her back on the group.

  Geoff didn’t even react to this. He listened, prompted, asked the occasional question
, but otherwise remained silent, watchful. He could have been interviewing them for a job, not treating them for an illness, Jan reflected. Geoff took no notes, carried no files, and, of course, did not wear a white coat. Jan wondered whether the patients had got more out of the session than he had.

  After about an hour, Geoff sat back and stretched his arms above his head. “Anything more to say?” he asked. There was no response. “So everybody’s happy, are they? Everything’s hunky-dory, is it?”

  There was a stultifying silence. Jan was just deciding what he was going to have for lunch when Margaret suddenly stopped rocking and pointed at him.

  “What about that one?” she said accusingly. “He hasn’t had a go.”

  “Neither he has,” agreed Geoff. “What shall we ask him?”

  “Well, I mean, what’s he for?” she said.

  Jan’s eyes widened in dismay as Geoff said softly, “Well, Jan, what do you think you’re for?”

  Everyone sat up expectantly. Even Karen turned round. Unable to think of an answer, Jan looked desperately round for help; surely Karen would come out with some witty comment or other? But she only stared at him sullenly.

  “Jan?” Geoff prompted gently.

  “I . . . er . . . I do not understand the question,” Jan finally brought out.

  Geoff turned to the others. “You see, Jan here, he’s from a country that’s at war with itself. His English is better than mine, but he can’t always follow what we’re on about.”

  There was silence then as eight pairs of eyes regarded him with curiosity. Suddenly Alan spoke.

  “I think Margaret means what’s he here for?” he said.

  “Ah! Well, I am here to learn all about nursing,” Jan said, relieved to have an impossible question reduced to a simple one.

  “If your country’s at war, I should have thought you could have learned a lot more about nursing at home than over here,” Alan pointed out.

  “I did learn – was learning – but there we have no medicines, no drugs or dressings, no hospitals now. . .” Suddenly assailed by the memory of his final morning at Czerny Infirmary, Jan stopped. Alan was right, he thought. What on earth was he doing at St Ag’s, sitting in a circle chatting to “nutters”, when his own people were still under bombardment, his parents still missing? He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to shut out the memory.

  When he opened them, Frieda was looking straight at him, her own eyes startlingly blue and clear, seeming to see right through him.

  “But you’ll be a better nurse when you go back qualified,” she smiled.

  Jan stared at her as if he didn’t understand. “Go back” – there it was again, that assumption that he would return home to his country some day. But since the day he got out, Jan had never once considered going back, never given a conscious, waking thought to the past. Even Granya and his parents were kept tucked away as if they were only photographs in an album. Now he closed his eyes, shut out Frieda’s clear gaze, took a shaky breath and stood up.

  “Sorry, I must go. Sorry – Geoff?” He turned to ask permission, but couldn’t speak.

  Geoff looked shrewdly at him and nodded. “Best be off, lad,” he said in his easy way. “Dinnertime anyway.”

  * * *

  Jan sat alone in the office, breathing heavily, waiting for the panic to subside. Damn! He’d felt so well that morning, quite glad to be back in the MH centre and quite proud to have done the run – even at the back. He looked across to the radiator where he’d hung the tracksuit to dry. Suddenly he got up, pulled off his sweatshirt and jeans, scrambled into the still-damp suit, and quickly let himself out on to the terrace. There he changed his shoes and set off through the mist, along the running track, breathing steadily now, striding smoothly. Panic over.

  Chapter 7

  The following week Jan ran every day, sometimes with the patients, more often alone, pounding along the track without a thought in his head. It seemed to do the trick; as long as he stuck to the running and to work, he had no recurrence of the panic symptoms. That was the solution, then – work and run, run and work.

  “Physician, heal thyself,” he quoted triumphantly. And he was healing very well up to now.

  But weekends were different: no work to go to, all his friends around – he knew he’d find it difficult to keep to his solitary routine.

  On Saturday morning he returned to Kelham’s from his run, taking the stairs two at a time and landing in the kitchen without even breathing heavily.

  “Ah! The elusive Mr Buczowski!” Katie greeted him. “Just in time to help me open this.”

  She handed him a square cake tin. “I’ve already broken two nails trying to get the lid off that old tin,” she said. “I’ll never shift my dad into the Tupperware age.”

  Jan had no idea what Tupperware was, but he obligingly sat down and eased his strong fingers around the lid. Eventually it slid off, revealing a square of sticky brown cake. Jan sniffed the pungent, spicy aroma and felt quite sick.

  “Gingerbread!” he said. “Like we make at Christmas. . .” He choked and pushed the cake tin away from him.

  “It’s parkin,” Katie explained. “My mam used to make it for Bonfire Night. Dad’s taken over now.”

  Jan stared at her. This was the first time he’d heard her mention her mother, who, he suddenly remembered, had died just before Katie had arrived at St Ag’s. For a moment he was tempted to ask her how she’d felt at the time; perhaps she too had “funny turns”?

  “Dad’s a whizz at making parkin now,” Katie went on hurriedly, as if reading his thoughts. “You’re coming to the bonfire, aren’t you?”

  “What is this bon-fire?” he asked cautiously.

  “ ‘Please to remember the fifth of November, with gunpowder, treason and plot,’ ” Katie chanted. “You know – Guy Fawkes?”

  Jan shook his head.

  “Well, he and some other men tried to blow up Parliament.” Katie sat on the edge of the table and settled to her subject. “But somebody told the King’s men and Guy Fawkes’s gang were rounded up, tortured and executed – you understand?”

  Jan shuddered. He understood it; it was the kind of treason and plot that was going on right now in his country. “When did this happen?” he asked.

  “Sixteen hundred and something.”

  “But why did they plot?”

  Katie shrugged. “They were Roman Catholics and the King and parliament were Protestant – you know, Church of England ?”

  This time Jan nodded. After all, his country was – had been – Catholic.

  “And you eat gingerbread to celebrate these Catholics?” he asked.

  Katie laughed. “Well, I don’t know how the gingerbread – the parkin – got in there. But we have a bonfire and burn the guy – a model, you understand – and let off fireworks and eat treacle toffee, baked potatoes, hot-dogs. . .”

  “Hot-dogs are American,” Jan protested.

  “Yeah – well, I think they came in later.” Katie slid off the table. “Anyway, there’s going to be a bit of a ‘do’ tonight – rather belated, I know, but the weather was lousy last week. We’re building the bonfire right outside the children’s ward this afternoon. Why don’t you come and help?”

  Jan hesitated. The last thing he wanted to get involved with was bangs and burning; he’d seen quite enough of those. On the other hand, he realized he’d been avoiding the gang – and Claire – all week.

  “I’ll come to build the bong fire,” he said, leaving the rest of the invitation unanswered.

  Katie laughed at his pronunciation. “Bonfire. You know – something to do with bones, I think.” She shuddered. “Guy Fawkes wasn’t the only one to be burned on a fire.”

  Jan repeated the word automatically, blocking out the implication. “Bonfire,” he said. “I’ll go and write that down.”

  “And meet us all downstairs after lunch. Nick’s borrowed a truck to round up all the wood and stuff, Nikki’s making a wonderful guy, and I’m just off
to buy the fireworks. I’ll be after contributions later – a fiver a head, all right?” Katie breezed past without noticing the look of dismay on Jan’s face.

  It wasn’t all right. A fiver was about all Jan had in the world just then without dipping into his very small bank balance.

  “Right,” he said, apparently agreeing. “See you later!”

  They were all assembled when he returned from his session in the library and a lunch of beans on toast in the cafeteria. He could have had a snack with the gang in the Kelham’s kitchen, but he had no supplies and was increasingly embarrassed at eating theirs.

  “Ach – here you are finally,” Claire greeted him. She didn’t look directly at him, but chattered on nervously. “We’re just trying to sort out some old clothes for Nikki’s guy.”

  “Maybe you can sort out a few for me also,” joked Jan. But then he suddenly remembered the baggy blue tracksuit. “Wait,” he commanded. “I have something.”

  He darted upstairs and was soon back, carrying the terrible tracksuit.

  “Is this useful?” he asked Nikki.

  “Oh, it’s just right,” she said. “It’ll be easy to sew up the trouser ends and sleeves, then I’ll stuff it with straw. . .”

  “Stuff it well, stick a pumpkin on top and it’ll look like Derek Waterson,” suggested Barbara.

  Everyone laughed. Mr Waterson was the senior executive of Brassington Royal Hospital Trust Inc.

  “Oh, yes,” urged Katie. “You’ll get a pumpkin from the kitchen; there’s plenty left from Hallowe’en.”

  Nikki beamed; she didn’t often stay at Kelham’s at the weekends and was obviously enjoying herself. She looked unusually happy, Jan suddenly realized, in spite of the fact that she was on placement in the Hospice. Obviously coping better than he was!

  “Don’t forget the straw,” she ordered. “I’ll see you all later, when I’ve done some work on the guy.”

  The others piled into the janitor’s open truck, Barbara and Katie squashed up inside the cab with Nick, leaving Jan and Claire to ride outside.