Sister came into the dressing-room as I cleared the trolley. ‘Done?’
‘Yes, Sister, I ‒ I’m sorry if you meant me to wait?’
‘If I had, I’d have said so. Get on with Mrs Torens’s pre-med.’
Mrs Torens was one of our two gynae patients on the morning list. She was an attractive youngish woman who had read English at the University of Edinburgh and taught in a girls’ private day school on the Scottish mainland, before returning to marry a farmer on one of the other islands. Her own family had lived on Thessa for seven recorded generations. ‘Goodness alone knows how many before, Nurse. Can you imagine what Edinburgh was like after growing up here? The crowds and the traffic! I was the original country bumpkin my first year. But I loved university.’
‘Do you miss much now you’re back?’
She had a sweet smile. ‘Oh, no! I enjoyed, but can do without it ‒ and a great deal more.’ She had a corner bed by one of the front windows and as the only building on the other side of the road was the Home about fifty yards to the left, at her request I had only drawn her inside and end curtains. ‘Look at that view of our Sound. Can any hospital ward in the world beat this beauty? I can’t remember when I didn’t know every inch by heart, but every time I look out, I get more pleasure.’ Her jaw set. ‘They’re trying to ruin it for us! Oh, I know what they say ‒ they’ll be very careful, respect this, conserve that ‒ but good intentions didn’t prevent a Torrey Canyon. What happens the day a giant tanker breaks up on those rocks in a Force 10? Or 12? When the wind blows at one hundred miles an hour or more, these things can happen.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Torens, but I can’t answer.’
‘Nor can they ‒ with hand on heart. I tell you, Nurse, the blackest day in the history of Shetland will be the day the oil starts flowing. What happens next?’
‘Your pre-medicating injection. As you’ve not had one before, don’t worry when it doesn’t knock you out as it’s not meant to. It’ll just make your mouth rather dry and you’ll feel sort of very nicely, thanks.’
Her smile reappeared. ‘That’ll stop me brooding over what I could do to oilmen. Still, as Magnus Moray said last night, that has stopped me brooding over my op.’
‘Will you object to my saying I agree with Mr Moray?’
‘If you’ll promise not to object to my language when coming round from my anaesthetic. The wretches will be in my subconscious, so expect a spate of four-letters.’
‘If you say so, Mrs Torens, but to be honest, in six years nursing despite all I’ve read and heard of unseemly language from patients under anaesthesia, all patients coming round have ever said in my hearing is ‒ “Can I have my teeth please, Nurse?” ’
She laughed outright as Sister’s head came round the curtain. ‘That injection’s a minute late, Staff! I’ve it here. Get on!’
The sinks were down the middle of the ward. Scrubbing, I glanced from Mrs Leisk to Mrs Torens’s curtains then out of the window, and heard the office ’phone ringing and one of the other nurses going along to answer.
‘You’d best do this, Staff,’ said Sister when the message was handed on. She removed Mrs Torens’s file of X-rays from her notes on the office table. ‘Mr Moray wants another look at these before we send her down. You’ve got to find your way round the hospital, so take ’em. Down to the ground floor, turn left and you can’t miss. If they’re still operating just leave the file on the desk in Sister Theatre’s office.’
The hospital was so minute it was only a couple of minutes before I pushed open the double doors marked imposingly, ‘Theatre Department’. I felt momentarily amused, superior, and then I remembered the scope of the surgery being performed in that theatre on just one routine morning. My superiority complex gave with such a crack I was glad there was no one around but myself to hear.
The theatre proper lay on the right of a small wide corridor lined with fire appliances, notice boards, spare oxygen and carbon dioxide cylinders, and three empty stretcher-trolleys. The ‘Operation in progress. No Admission’ notice over the closed theatre doors was switched on. Sister’s office was directly opposite, the door was open and it was empty as the corridor. I had a quick look through the portholes in the theatre doors as I went by, but did not stop and peer obviously through the glass as that was only permissible in Martha’s if one wanted attention from the theatre staff.
‘From Olaf, Staff Nurse?’
I turned from putting the file on the flat-topped desk. The red hair was hidden by a turban, but I recognized the translucent green eyes above the green mask. ‘Yes, Sister. Mrs Torens’s X-rays.’
Sister Pringle hitched down her mask with an ungloved hand. She was a little older than I had thought yesterday, probably thirty-one or two, and quite remarkably attractive even without her glorious hair. And very intelligent. She had a tough jaw beneath the slender curve and a full sexy mouth. Having had a better look at her, I understood more clearly the inside story I had had from my next door neighbour in the Home. An ardent woman’s libber with that mouth would have quite a few problems.
‘So I assumed when I saw you shoot by while watching my Staff Nurse take for Mr Moray. Aren’t you from St Martha’s, London, Miss Anthony?’
‘Yes, Sister.’
‘And is it customary in St Martha’s, London, for nurses to walk in and out of other departments without the courtesy of announcing their presence to the sister or nurse in charge?’
To explain would certainly antagonize one, and probably both sisters. Sisters are like that. ‘No, Sister.’
‘Then don’t do so again in my theatre!’
‘No, Sister. I’m sorry.’
I wrote a long letter to my parents that night. ‘In so many ways ‒ exactly like watching the centre court at Wimbledon.’
The house-surgeon’s name was Alan Donald. When I went down to late tea the following afternoon, he was alone in the communal senior staff rest-room. ‘Come and join me in a fly cup, Charlotte ‒ or is it Charlie?’
‘Not if I can help it, Alan. Thanks.’ I flopped into a chair. ‘I can use tea.’
‘Sister Olaf reduced you to a wee jeely?’
‘Grinding me to powder!’
He laughed. ‘Gurrrl! She’s treating you gently! You should’ve seen the beating up I’d from her when I first arrived at the end of January. I was fair trackled I’d lose my job! Don’t fret yourself! She means no harm. It’s but her warm English way of making newcomers feel at home.’
I laughed. ‘That’s what it is?’
‘That’s a fact!’ He looked me up and down. ‘My grandpaw was right about you English. He worked down south for years. He was a good joiner so he was always in work. He said the English like to put a wall round themselves, but once you get the other side of the wall you find they’re not at all bad. I didn’t believe him till I met my Liz and her English friends and I’ve found he’s often right.’
‘Liz your girlfriend? Wife?’
‘We’re getting married when she finishes her pre-registration year. She’s from Leeds.’
‘You qualified in Leeds?’
‘Ach, no! Glasgow. Ma hame toun! That’s where we met and she’s working. She’s coming up here after, as we want to work here as G.P.s if we can pull the right wee strings. There’s a grand future coming this way but fast, they’ll need more medics, but though that was my first reason for wanting to work up here, it’s not the only one now I’ve arrived. I’m hooked.’
‘Spell of the Isles?’
‘That’s more true than you know. There’s something fey about these islands. You may laugh ‒’
‘I’m not.’
I wasn’t sure he believed me, but he did go on. ‘They say it works even more strongly if you’ve Shetland blood. Seeing what they’ve done to me, I’m not at all surprised my respected temporary boss keeps returning ‒ if maybe for more than the one reason.’ He watched me over the rim of his cup. ‘Of course, the fact that we’ve one of the best and bonniest Sister Theatre’s in the
business can’t be all bad.’
‘I’d not have said so.’
‘So you’ve met our Jenny Pringle?’
‘Briefly.’
‘And by your third day heard all?’
‘Not what they had for breakfast this morning.’
He grinned. ‘Our Magnus had bacon and eggs in the monastic seclusion of his office. I’m working on the missing bittie. Shall I keep you informed?’
‘I wish you would.’ I was more curious over the impression he had just given me that Magnus Moray had Shetland blood. I wouldn’t have thought so from his height and colouring. For the first time in my life, amongst the adult Shetlanders, I didn’t feel small. All day, as it was a non-op both surgeons had been constantly in and out of Olaf and I had had ample opportunity to discover my eye level came three inches down from the knot in our senior surgeon’s tie, and the two men’s very different bedside manners. Alan bounded from bed to bed, chatting up patients, relatives and staff. Magnus Moray drifted around, listening rather than talking, wearing an expression of poetic melancholy that only deepened to despair when forced to address me. I had enjoyed the experience. It wasn’t every day a girl had a chance to work with a Byronic anachronism in an over-starched long white coat. ‘Isn’t Magnus Moray a Highlander?’
‘Aye, but with Thessa blood from his mother. Her paw was a Thessa man and the local doctor, and he married one Hielander and his daughter another. Isabel Moray reversed the process when she married Ian Fraser.’
‘So he’s from Thessa?’
‘Very much so, or he’d be making the big time in Aberdeen, Glasgow, or even ‒’ he added reluctantly, ‘Edinburgh. He’s a great chap! Nothing surgical he can’t turn his hand to ‒ but mind, Magnus is not that far behind seeing he’s ten years younger. And away to the top!’
‘How old is he?’
‘Thirty-five.’
‘And I’ve been told already a pundit for three years. Yes. He’s doing all right.’ I hesitated. ‘Only thing that puzzles me, Alan ‒ where did he find the energy to get all his higher degrees?’
He winked. ‘Don’t let that soft Hieland gentleman manner fool you! Beneath every one is a right tearaway. It’s all that wild Celtic blood ‒ and we’ve our own share of it in the Lowlands. If you ever want a demonstration, get yourself a good strong man on either side, and watch some good Scottish football. Try it at Hampden or Ibrox. Celtic v. Rangers. Final score, Celtic, one, Rangers, one, injured one hundred and twenty, arrested, eighty-two ‒ a fine quiet game ‒ ach, no!’ His walkie-talkie was bleeping. He took it out of his breast pocket and switched off and on. ‘Donald, here. Is that you on the switchboard, Aggie? And who wants to disturb a hard-working house-surgeon taking his first fly cup of the day? I’ve not heard the maroons. It must be an English plot!’
‘Not just now, Alan.’ The unemotional lilting voice was tinny but clear. ‘Lifeboat call. You’ll not have heard the maroons as they’ve yet to go off. Wally Ferguson had just run his wife up here to her work when they rang him. A French trawler sixteen miles out. Seaman injured by a cable. Mr Black’s here already to take over my evening, so I’ll away in the lifeboat. A word with you first. I’m at the switchboard.’
‘On my way, Mr Moray.’ He switched off, replaced the machine and stood up. ‘Wally Ferguson’s the coxswain. Met him yet?’ I shook my head. ‘You will.’ The first maroon sounded. ‘God bless wee Harriet Ryan and all who sail in her and be praised this time it’s not me! Wally’s crew’ll not have to scrub out the aft cabin tonight.’
I glanced out of the window. ‘Very calm.’
He stopped in the doorway. ‘Gurrl, I can spew in a dry dock! When I’m away in the lifeboat they fit three extra buckets. And if I’m not away fast there’ll be murder at the switchboard as any minute now you’ll hear the second maroon signifying Harriet Ryan’s ready to leave. Always the way of it on the boss’s free evenings ‒ but what a break for the fish!’
Alone, I helped myself to more tea, and as I drank it, I heard the second maroon.
Chapter Four
The helicopter flew in from the sea and disappeared on to the landing strip behind the hospital as the sun went down. I guessed it had brought in the French seaman but it had flown over at the wrong angle for me to see the occupants clearly from my boulder. It was another glorious evening and again, sunset instantly altered the colours. The arms of land softened from emerald to pale green, the sea from blue to bronze then grey. High clouds that a few seconds ago had been white, divided up, powder blue in the east, deep pink in the west, and grouped and re-grouped amongst themselves, as football teams filmed in slow motion before the start of a match. The great sky above the clouds was blue and untroubled to outer space. From that beach outer space seemed quite near and Ultima Thule, reality.
The sea was as smooth as the sandpapered rocks. The beach was all rock, all shades of grey from pinkish to deep charcoal, all sizes from massive, layered boulders, to tiny, flat slithers. A gannet dropped like a stone some yards off as I tried to avoid thinking of the violence necessary to achieve such uniform smoothness. The wrens in the rock-pool inches away, ignored me. We were alone on my boulder. The gulls, the puffins, the eider ducks and others I couldn’t yet identify, kept their distance and occasional eyes on me. The wrens were too busy enjoying life, baths and fights, to be bothered by human intruders. They pottered round my outstretched legs and had I remembered to bring out some crumbs, they looked capable of eating out of my hand.
Streaks of white appeared in the northern entrance and as they stretched to the middle of the Sound became a little group of open fishing boats. I watched until they disappeared behind the green finger that hid the harbour from my view and thought of their wives, mothers, girlfriends. And then I thought of all the women who had had to learn how to wait, and particularly of Mrs Leisk’s face. No bitterness, no self-pity, no fear.
Mrs Leisk was why I was on that boulder perched about ten feet over the water’s edge. Originally, when I came out for air I had intended taking a walk into the town. A path running round the Home at the back joined the path along the land-side of the seawall. The roughstone wall ambling round the coast, was there low enough to climb over without effort. I had sat on the wall hating the sea for quite a while. I still hated it, but as I had to live with it in sight and sound wherever I went for the next month, it had seemed time to take a closer look at more than the sea. For once I had both time and the kind of peace I had never previously imagined existed. There was very little traffic on the road, very few walkers along the seawall path. None came down on the beach and only very rarely did the sound of a human voice interrupt the chatter of the birds, the slither of the sea. But there was one alien note and coming from so far away that at first I mistook it for another bird call. Some form of Shetland woodpecker? Surely too slow, but regular as a woodpecker. A non-stop tick ‒ tick ‒ tick. Then I recognized it. It was the sound of a heavy mechanical digger.
The light began to fade, the land darkened to purple, the sea to navy blue, and the last flotilla of black guillemots swimming by in impeccable formation was almost invisible. The lights appeared in the distant grey shadows that were houses, and flashed on and off from the twin lighthouses. I didn’t notice.
Talk about luck, he’d said. Our last free weekend and they want us to crew. You’ll like Dick, Moira and young Bill Drummond.
I did. I hadn’t seen the three since, but we were friends for life.
‘Asleep? Oh ‒’ Magnus had climbed up beside me. ‘I’m so sorry. Is ‒ er ‒ no, obviously something’s wrong. I didn’t realize.’
‘That’s all tight.’ I dried my face. ‘I just felt like crying.’
‘Tears are often of therapeutic value.’ He leant against the boulder behind me and began talking about the French seaman. ‘Both legs in a wee mess and remarkably shocked. Being still light and within range, I got the chopper. Neither Mr Black nor I think he should be touched before morning. I thought it was you when we came over. Been
out since?’
‘Yes.’ I stood up and found I was cold. ‘I must go back.’
‘I’ll give you a hand. These rocks are far more slippery at dusk than they appear. That water’ll be very cold. This isn’t the English Channel.’
‘The Channel can be quite chilly.’
He was in a fishing jacket and thigh waders and his hand was as cold as mine. We did a rather drunken minuet over the rocks to the seawall. ‘Where are your rods?’
‘Down near your resting place.’ He hesitated. ‘You are all right?’
My mind invariably went into slow motion after emotional scenes, and even those in which. I played all parts by myself. It was only then I caught on. ‘Fine, thanks, Mr Moray. When I do contemplate suicide, I won’t do it in front of a hospital. Upsets the patients.’
‘Good. Goodnight.’
‘Thanks. Goodnight.’
I walked slowly back wondering when he would contact the nearest psychiatrist. From his expression when he said goodnight, before morning. Maybe I should talk to Mrs Brown? Or why not Sister Olaf? Oh aye, she’d say, right, Staff. Nutter, are you? So what else is new in the nursing profession?
An orange car was parked outside the Home, but as I never recognize car makes I did not recognize it as Rod Harding’s Ford until he hailed me. ‘I’ve been combing Thessa for you, Charlotte!’
I went over. ‘Hi! Why?’
He had called to see Tex Collis just after I went to tea, heard it was my free evening, taken a chance and booked a table for dinner and told some chums he would bring me to their party. ‘Or are you too tired, too peeved at my not checking all with you first, or booked for another heavy date?’
‘No, to the lot. Thanks.’
His smile was surprised. ‘All set? Just like that?’
I looked his good business suit over. ‘If you’ll give me time to change into something worthy of your gent’s natty suiting. Why not? I feel like a jolly outing, you’re the only man I know on Thessa outside the hospital. Why expect me to put on an act?’
‘ “Much has been said about the deceitfulness of woman ‒” how long’ll you be?’
In Storm and In Calm Page 6