Nurses: Claire and Jan

by Bette Paul

  “So you two can keep each other warm,” teased Katie.

  But they didn’t. They sat on the floor of the truck, side by side but not really together. Jan knew Claire was waiting for him to make the first move, knew he owed it to her at least to hold her hand, put an arm around her shoulders. But he couldn’t. It was as though a glass barrier was keeping them apart. The truck rattled and shook up the drive and round the back of the main hospital to the workshops. Jan sat back, closed his eyes and let his head bang loosely on the side of the truck. Suddenly he felt so weary. . .

  “What is it?” He suddenly shook himself awake. “Lie down, Tanya,” he ordered Claire roughly.

  “What?” She looked at him, aghast.

  Jan gulped. “Sorry,” he said. “I must have fallen asleep. . .”

  “And you wanted me to sleep with you?” asked Claire, with irony in her voice.

  Jan shook his head, bewildered. “What?” he asked.

  “You told me to lie down,” she reminded him.

  “Ah, no – I was thinking it was dangerous; the truck ride was like the journeys we took through Czerny after a raid. . .”

  “And Tanya?”

  “Tanya.” He repeated the name thoughtfully. “Sister Radski . . . was a nurse at the hospital. Once,” he added.

  It was Claire who took his hand then, firmly.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s build a fire that will blaze to the skies.”

  All afternoon they worked, collecting broken-down furniture, branches trimmed from the trees all round the grounds, huge piles of boxes and packaging, mountains of paper. Eventually they had it all piled up on rough grass at the back of the children’s wing.

  “Sister Thomas says we’ll have to start early,” Katie told them. “Or there’ll be temperatures and tantrums before the fireworks.”

  “Yeah,” Nick agreed. “Then we can get off to the pub afterwards.”

  Barbara looked up at the lowering grey sky. “Hope the rain keeps off,” she said. “Or the fire will never light.”

  “That’s why we left it until this afternoon,” Katie explained. “The forecast isn’t too bad – showers later – so if we get the fire going and the fireworks over by eight. . .”

  “Right,” said Nick. “Let’s go and see how the guy’s coming along.”

  * * *

  Guy – “Derek Waterson” – Fawkes was in fine fettle. Nikki had chalked pinstripes down Jan’s blue tracksuit and tucked a striped tea-towel in the open front, like a shirt. The pumpkin head was crowned with an old mop, quite remarkably like Mr Waterson’s stringy grey hair. She’d even unearthed a battered briefcase for him to carry.

  “From my car boot,” she said, without explaining how it came to be in there, cracked and mouldering.

  “He’s marvellous!” said Barbara. “The lipstick suits him!”

  “A pity we haven’t got a St Ag’s tie and pair of glasses,” said Katie. “Very symbolic – burning the old St Ag’s, peering through the smoke into the future. . .”

  “I have one,” said Jan.

  “What? A future?” teased Katie.

  “A hospital tie.”

  “What on earth for?” asked Nick.

  “Issued with my clothing when I was sent here,” Jan explained. “It must have been on the list.”

  For a moment the others were silent. A hospital tie was on their lists too, but each of them, for varied reasons, had ignored the suggestion. Yet Jan had no choice; he hadn’t even bought his own gear. “Issued,” he’d said. And the Kelhamites suddenly felt sad for him.

  “Well, thanks, Jan. That’s wonderful,” said Nikki warmly. “It will be just the right finish­ing touch – though I doubt the children will notice the symbolism,” she added to Katie.

  “And I’ve got a spare pair of glasses,” Nick offered.

  “You?” asked Katie. “But you don’t wear glasses.”

  “Not now lenses are so good,” he grinned. “Hang on.” He ran lightly up the stairs, followed by Jan.

  “Let’s all go up and have a cup of tea,” suggested Barbara. “I’m parched and filthy after all that dust.”

  Over tea they decided that the guy was so brilliant he should make an entrance – on the janitor’s truck.

  “Nick can take us round the main drive.” Katie was ready to produce the show, as usual. “The rest of us will sit in the back with sparklers. You can hold Derek on your knee, Jan.”

  Jan opened his mouth to protest. He had no intention of wasting his last fiver on a bonfire party which he was sure he’d hate. But looking round at the eager faces of his friends, he knew he couldn’t refuse, even if it meant beans on toast every day next week.

  So at seven o’clock the strange procession set off. Nick had rigged up a lantern at the back of the cab, where Jan sat with “Derek” on his knee, now complete with glasses and tie and looking, in the dim light, almost too good to be true.

  “I’ll bet there’s plenty of people who’d be glad if it really was Mr Derek-Management-Waterson,” commented Barbara, brandishing her sparkler like a weapon.

  Everyone laughed – except Jan, who shuddered at the idea of anyone being caught on a burning heap.

  As they approached the back of the children’s wing a great cheer went up. Those patients who were mobile were out on the balconies; bed-patients were ranged along the big windows at the end of the ward. The lights blazed out behind them and they each waved a sparkler in greeting.

  Nick pulled up and got out of the cab.

  “Come on, let’s be having him,” he said to Jan, who passed the guy to him and picked up the folding ladder they had in the back of the truck.

  Once they’d propped the ladder safely up the bonfire, Jan stood aside, assuming that Nick would take the guy up. But Nick held back.

  “Up you go!” he said to Jan. “I’ll pass the body up to you when you’re halfway there; you can just drag it after that.” He turned to fuss about with the guy’s clothing.

  Jan was surprised. Could it be that Nick Bone – mature, sensible, strong, healthy – was nervous of climbing a ladder? Coming from the mountains, where he’d walked and climbed all summer and skied all winter, Jan had no fear of heights. He scaled the ladder with ease, leant down to grab the guy from Nick, who was only a few rungs up, and moved on to the top, dragging the body after him. He set the guy up in the broken chair they’d saved for him, then slid down, fireman-style, the children’s cheers ringing out all round him.

  “Very impressive,” said Nick tersely. “Now let’s get this fire going.”

  This was the moment Jan had been dreading, but he’d reckoned without the damp English climate. Soon he was so intent on lifting bits of reluctantly smouldering wood from one part of the fire to the other in an attempt to get it to burn regularly that he totally forgot about the blazing fires of the war at home. Forgot, too, to be awkward with Claire, who was also working on getting the blaze going.

  With hands and faces filthy, clothes stinking, they stood watching the first flames begin to curl upwards through the pile, urged on by another cheer from the children.

  “At last,” said Claire, coughing through the smoke. “Though I don’t know why you and I should be helping to celebrate the death of a Catholic.”

  “It is strange,” Jan agreed. “The English – they have no carnival, no saints’ days, and yet they have this funny festival called . . . what is it called?”

  “Bonfire Night,” Claire told him.

  “There you are, you see,” said Jan.

  “Where am I?” asked Claire. And Jan knew she meant more than her words.

  “It just proves that the English are odd,” he went on, not choosing to take her up on any deep meaning. “They have only one bonfire in the whole year so it does not need a special name.”

  Claire moved up close and they stood together in the glow of the fire.

  “You have this celebration in Ireland?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not in the South. We�
��re not British, you know.”

  “A foreigner,” said Jan softly. It was one of the things they had in common; he’d often called her his little foreigner. Now he looked down into her smoke-smudged face and for a moment he wanted to hold her close, tell her about his fears, explain why he was keeping so much apart. . .

  They moved together, clung to each other and, silhouetted against the red glow, they kissed and the watching children cheered.

  He would do it, he decided, tonight. He would explain to her about needing to keep running, to keep quiet, to keep working. She’d understand. Claire was a warm, intelligent girl. He turned to her again.

  Suddenly there was a zipping, swooshing sound, as if the air was being sucked upwards into the sky. Then a loud bang, followed by lots of small cracks like rifle shots. From the windows, children shouted and screamed in mock fright.

  And Jan Buczowski crumpled to the ground.

  Chapter 8

  His first thought was to scramble up in the hope that nobody had seen him. But even as he moved his head the nausea hit him. And as for getting to his feet – well, the earth was heaving and shifting beneath them. He groaned and turned his face into the grass, the pops and bangs of the fireworks, the roar and the cracks of the bonfire filling his ears, his brain, his head. Grabbing tufts of grass in both hands, he clung on to the earth.

  “Jan, are you all right?” Claire was bending over him, anxious as ever.

  Jan took a deep, shuddering breath. “I must have slipped,” he said, laughing shakily.

  “But we weren’t even moving.”

  He opened his mouth to reply and suddenly felt too exhausted. It really didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  “Will I help you to get up?” asked Claire.

  He didn’t reply.

  “Jan, you can’t just lie there all night! Come on, let me help you.”

  He felt her gently shift his shoulders, knew she was turning him over easily, expertly. Claire was a good nurse, he reflected, and even in the firelight she’d notice. . .

  “Jan, your face is all wet. You’re crying!” she exclaimed, her voice breaking. “Oh, Jan, are you hurt?”

  He began to breathe quickly now, trying to batten down the panic. Hurt? Yes, that was the way. If only he’d hurt his ankle as he fell. . .

  “My foot,” he said, pointing downwards. Claire’s hands moved around his ankle firmly, professionally. Jan groaned as if in pain, though it was the prospect of humiliation that worried him.

  “That’s not swollen,” said Claire. Tentatively she pushed his foot to the left, then the right. Jan was too tired even to protest and he certainly didn’t know how to act a broken ankle. “There’s full rotation,” she went on. “Maybe you just bruised it as you fell.”

  He could tell from her voice she didn’t believe for a moment in the sprained ankle.

  “Come on, Jan – you really must move,” she urged with just the slightest touch of impatience in her voice. “It’s dangerous so close to the fire and all. Here – up we go!”

  Taken by surprise, he allowed himself to be pulled into a sitting position. Silently, Claire handed him a handkerchief and he mopped his wet, muddy face. With shaking hands, he noted with clinical interest; and he was very, very cold.

  “Could you stand up now?” Claire asked.

  Not trusting himself to speak, Jan shook his head. He could feel her sizing him up, working out the best way to get him to his feet. Thankfully, he remembered how small and light she was. No matter how skilfully she supported him, she’d never get him upright.

  “I’ll get Nick,” she said. “You’ll be all right for a moment. Just sit still.”

  And before he could protest, she was gone. And he didn’t really mind, was quite relieved to be left alone in the glow of the fire. His head began to nod, his shoulders sagged, he felt so sleepy. . .

  A spray of rockets whooshed up in the sky and fountains of sparks fell with a whistling, whining noise. As if galvanized by the sound, Jan scrambled to his feet, swaying slightly, but upright and walking – away from the fire, the fireworks, Claire. . .

  He was on the running track, feet pounding, working hard, keeping moving, but the panic stayed with him. He forced his leaden legs forwards – one, two, one, two, faster, faster, up the hill towards the spinney.

  It was as if he were running home, he thought, evening lectures ended, supper calling – across the river and into the trees, up the hill to the house where he’d lived all his life until the war came.

  And here are the stone steps leading up to the terrace. Not enough steps, though; the house is high above the river and flights of steps rise up through the garden. Where had they all gone to? He paused for a moment and looked back through the darkness, catching a glimpse of mist rising over the grounds and the glow of the children’s bonfire over the hill. The glow of burning, he thought, over the river; had the tanks arrived?

  He pushed on upwards, walking now, not running, up the steps, through the darkness, wondering why there were no lights. His grandmother, Granya, always left the terrace light on for him; perhaps there was no electricity again? He pushed past the wet bushes and stepped on to the terrace.

  Suddenly orange light flooded the whole building and Jan’s steps faltered. He stood blinking, trying to understand. Was it an explosion? Had they bombed the house? Where were his parents? He ran forwards and pushed at the glass door. It didn’t move. Frantically he snatched at the handle, shaking the glass.

  And now his ears were filled with the shattering sound of screaming sirens. Jan crouched low, holding on to his head as if it would burst. Sirens! Another attack on Czerny! He must get back over the river to the hospital, to the patients. He stood now, reeling back from the lights and the noise, and fell once more, this time on to concrete.

  “Well, well, well! I never expected to see you in here of a Sunday, lad. Certainly not in bed!”

  Jan opened his eyes and saw Geoff, towering over him for once.

  “Aye, that’s it – wake up. Had a good night, did you?”

  Jan frowned. Night – that was what he remembered. Night and fire and bangs. . .

  “Is it over?” he asked.

  Geoff nodded. “Bonfire night’s over, if that’s what upset you,” he said. “Breaking and entering’s over, if that’s what you were doing.” Then, gently, “But I don’t think your nightmare’s over yet, not by a long chalk.”

  Jan didn’t even try to work out the meaning of that. He sighed, leaned back on his pillow, and closed his eyes. “I’ll send you some tea,” said Geoff.

  He woke up to find Karen sitting beside the bed, reading a magazine and sipping from Geoff’s mug.

  “Panda,” said Jan.

  “No, it’s just the way I do my eyes,” grinned Karen. “Now sit yourself up and drink this.” She didn’t ask him whether he wanted the tea, merely shoved the mug into his shaking hand and pushed a pillow up behind his head.

  She didn’t ask how he was feeling either. She just went on sipping and reading. So Jan sipped too, relishing the feel of the warm, sweet tea as it sluiced the metallic taste away from his mouth.

  “Have I been drinking?” he wondered aloud.

  Karen looked up. “In here?” she asked. “Chance’d be a fine thing!” She put her magazine down. “Mind you, I thought you had been, last night.”

  “Last night?” Jan’s mind edged away from thoughts of last night.

  “Yeah – when the alarm went. Found you all of a heap on the terrace. Thought you’d been out on the binge. Bit early, mind, but I know you medics have your own supplies.”

  “Binge?”

  She nodded. “Yeah – you know, some sort of celebration. A few beers, a few vodkas, out with the lads. . .”

  Jan shook his head. “With the children,” he said. “It was the children’s bongfire. . .”

  “Yeah, apparently. That’s where you were last seen. Caused no end of a rumpus searching the grounds for you.”

  “I was lost?” he a
sked, interested.

  “Missing,” she corrected. “You went missing. Until you set our alarm off. Hey, it was great – security guards, dogs . . . better than Saturday night telly, I can tell you. Geoff had to be fetched; it was him who had you brought in here. They were all for sending you to casualty once I’d identified you. Good job I knew you, eh?”

  “Good job,” agreed Jan. “I’m sorry for all the – er – rum-pus.”

  Karen laughed as she took his empty mug. “Nah! It was good entertainment. I was going to go out for an hour but you saved me the money.” She leaned behind and pushed his pillow down. “Sleepy-byes,” she said. “I’m going to take Martin for his run – woof, woof!”

  Jan drifted off once more, smiling this time.

  The day went by in a blur of sleep and dreams and awakenings which passed like dreams. The Kelhamites drifted through, though he couldn’t remember who’d been when, and it didn’t seem to matter anyway. Nick brought his things over – all in one small suitcase – and the girls came with gifts: fruit and magazines and Grandma Robinson’s home-made cookies. So he knew they’d been to see him, had a vague recollection of snatches of conversation, and a vague sense of unease whenever he thought of Claire.

  It was as if they were ghosts from some previous existence, he thought. Geoff was more real to him than his friends from Kelham’s. So was Karen – and Martin, who sat in silent vigil by his bedside late into the night. Martin rarely spoke, never smiled, only occasionally glanced in the direction of the bed, yet whenever he woke, Jan found comfort in the boy’s presence.

  Most of the time he slept, and in his dreams he was back home. Not in the shattered hospital in Czerny, but home as it used to be, on the hill above the river, with Granya waiting at the top of the steps. His parents were nowhere to be seen, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered. . .

  He awoke with a jump next morning and lay listening to the thud-thud of trainers and the single bang on each door as someone came down the corridor. The steps hesitated outside his door, the knocking was subdued.