The Quiet Wards

by Lucilla Andrews

  I said, ‘That’s what’s so awful. Nothing was any good. And she ‒ that poor mother ‒ she was so grateful. But ‒’

  He looked up, ‘Yes?’

  ‘When they went off just now, I was thinking of them getting home ‒ without him. His room, his things’ ‒ I shook my head helplessly ‒ ‘it’s Saturday afternoon ‒ and he won’t be there.’

  His jaw set. ‘No, he won’t be there. And this time next week some other boy won’t be there, and the week after, and the week after that.’ He stood up. ‘What could they expect ‒ those pathetic parents? They didn’t even see that he was wearing a helmet. They didn’t think it mattered. They couldn’t see that all this was inevitable.’

  ‘Inevitable?’

  ‘As night follows day.’ He was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, ‘Nurse Snow, I don’t think a weekend passes in the whole year without my having to tell some parent what I’ve had to tell those two this morning. And it’s always the same story; “He wanted one so badly, Doctor ‒ we promised him one if he passed his exam ‒ finished his National Service ‒ anything.” And the follow-up is identical. They crash.’ He raised his hands from his sides, then dropped them helplessly. ‘They don’t wear helmets ‒ they don’t bother about brakes ‒ they ride on white lines for fun ‒ they try to beat the sound barrier’ ‒ there was no humour in his voice, only anger and frustration ‒ ‘and they kill themselves,’ he added more softly, ‘and they kill themselves. And break their parents’ hearts.’

  I had never seen him so moved. I said without thinking, ‘And we don’t know how to fit the pieces together.’

  ‘No.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’ve often wondered how any man who’s done more than ten minutes’ medicine manages to have the God Almighty complex that some of them do have. They’ve all worked in a Casualty department at some period of their medical lives, and how you can work in Casualty and still consider yourself omnipotent beats me.’

  I was thinking of Richard Downs. I said, ‘Why did he have to die?’

  He looked at me. ‘You must have wondered that previously.’

  ‘I have.’

  He said heavily, ‘Then you’d better stop. That’s one question that you can’t ask in a place like this. Not that I blame you for wondering ‒ you can’t walk into any ward without wondering.’

  I said, ‘How do I stop?’

  He sat down on a corner of the desk, and our faces were level. He looked at me reflectively, as if he was considering whether to go on or turn back. We were very close to each other, and our proximity was not only physical; this was the first time I had felt this particular sensation with him, but I had known it previously with other men with whom I had had to stand by a bed and watch a person die.

  He made up his mind. ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I find the only answer is acceptance. I have to remind myself that I can only see a fragment of the general picture; if I saw the whole I might have the answer.’ He hitched his gown over his knee, ‘There’s another word for that ‒ a better one, although it’s the fashion to use a lot of high-powered scientific jargon to disprove it.’ He was silent again, and then he said, ‘Faith.’

  ‘But in what? Life? God?’

  ‘Same thing. And don’t say you have to understand a thing to believe in it. Do you know how a wireless works?’ he added quickly.

  ‘No.’ I grasped his meaning

  ‘And I expect you’re a shade hazy about a telephone.’

  ‘More than that.’

  He stood up. ‘Well ‒ if you can accept things like that ‒ why stop there? You don’t know those answers, but you’re quite happy to believe in their existence and their efficiency.’

  I said, ‘I see.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he nodded. ‘You do. It’s odd,’ he went on, ‘and people do not as a rule think of things this way ‒ but you need just as much faith when you’re trying to patch up somebody as does the person who needs the patching.’ He asked when I was off duty.

  ‘This evening.’

  ‘Then you’d better have some brandy,’ he said laconically, ‘You look as if you could do with it, if you aren’t free to go off.’

  I said I felt all right, thanks. ‘Would you like something, Mr Dexter?’

  ‘Not I, thanks.’ He pushed back his hair and I recollected what Tom had said last night. ‘Not I.’ He said he had better get back to the theatre. ‘Fortunately Jamison was on to take over for me’ ‒ Jamison was one of the surgical registrars ‒ ‘but I had better get back there if only to change. I’m sorry you’re not off this afternoon; you look shot up.’ He stopped with one hand on the door. ‘Nurse Snow,’ he said gravely, ‘don’t let yourself be too upset over this ‒ over what you couldn’t do. You did all you were supposed to do. So don’t feel guilty because Mrs Downs was so grateful to you. You held her son’s hand while he died, and you were kind to him and distressed for him. Most mothers would feel as she does.’ He went out and shut the door behind him. I heard him tell Blakelock I was still in the office. I could not catch her reply, but I knew she would leave me alone. I sat down at the desk where he had sat. I did nothing. I sat and stared at the blank wall in front of me, too sad for thought or tears.

  Chapter Eight

  SUNDAY IN THE THEATRE

  Lisa came into the Children’s Room at five minutes to six that evening. I was tidying the crepe-bandage drawer.

  ‘Dear Peter is searching the department, Gill. I don’t doubt you are the missing object. Shall I tell him you’re here, or are you incog.?’

  I shut the drawer wearily. ‘I’ll tell him myself, thanks. He probably won’t want me at all, but has come to borrow something.’ I had no interest in what Peter might want ‒ I had lost interest in everything since this morning ‒ but I did not want to talk even to Lisa about it, so the simplest line was to do as she intended I should, and find Peter.

  He was in the fracture-room. The room was spotless and impersonal as ever; the trolley setting replaced; a new mattress and bed clothes were on the bed; only the electric blanket and the hot-water bottles were the same, but even they had different covers.

  ‘Looking for something, Peter?’

  ‘Hi ‒’ he smiled; ‘you darling. When are you off?’

  I looked at my watch. ‘A couple of minutes.’

  ‘Doing anything special on this gay Saturday night?’

  Was it still Saturday? The day seemed to have gone on for ever. ‘I’m going to bed. I’m whacked.’

  He said surely I could postpone my collapse for an hour or so and have dinner with him. ‘I can get off for two hours after seven.’

  I looked at the empty bed. ‘Don’t let’s talk in here ‒ let’s go outside.’

  ‘Darling ‒ what ails you? This is a perfect place for an assignation. Nobody uses this room on Saturdays.’

  ‘It was used this morning.’ I walked out to the corridor.

  ‘Anything to humour the girl,’ he murmured, ‘but I wish I knew what was so wrong with the fractures. Old Rufford taken to haunting it?’

  I said, ‘We had a smash in there this morning.’

  ‘That chap Bill Henderson was talking about at lunch?’

  ‘I expect so. Motor-cycle crash.’

  He said, ‘Darling, you mustn’t let these things give you the heebee-jeebies. You haven’t a hope once you start doing that!’

  I did not answer, so he said it just showed how badly I needed a little relaxation among the bright lights. ‘It can only be a snack, I’m afraid, as I have to be back by nine. Come on, love, wakey, wakey! Or are you playing hard to get?’

  ‘I suppose I must eat somewhere. Look,’ I apologised, ‘I’m sorry to be so up the pole ‒ I just feel out.’

  He smiled. ‘I wish you’d stop shilly-shallying and come. I want to talk to you, Gillian. I do really.’

  After that there was no question of my refusing. His smile had its usual effect on me; I said I would be ready when he was.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at seven, love.’<
br />
  I was fairly sure that he meant it this time, but as I had been sure previously and spent the evening alone, I filled a hot-water bottle and put it in my bed. I could always go to bed early as I had originally intended.

  He came for me punctually. The food was good; he was in one of his best moods, and when he kissed me on the way home I felt that life should be perfect. It was not, because somehow I was unable to join in the fun and games. I tried to, I tried very hard, but it was no good. I spent the evening mentally sitting on my shoulder and watching Peter and me. I was too emotionally exhausted to know whether I liked what I saw.

  Peter said, ‘I’m really very cross with you, Gillian. I can’t tell you how put out I was when I saw you disappearing into the darkened room with Tom Thanet last night.’

  I smiled weakly, ‘Didn’t anyone not see me disappearing into that room with Tom?’ I told him about John and Sister O.P.s. ‘She needn’t have been so disparaging. Tom and I really only went in there to rest our two feet.’

  He laughed. ‘Poor old Tom. What a come-down for a natural born rake.’

  ‘Tom’s no rake! He wouldn’t know where to start.’

  He said I could be right at that. ‘I should have known better than to panic. I might have guessed you’d give him the no-touch technique.’

  I said, ‘Did you panic?’

  ‘Darling,’ he rubbed his face against mine. ‘I have a fine new crop of white hairs. I’m thinking of running for S.S.O. What’s old Garth got that I can’t emulate ‒ saving the affections of a certain blonde?’

  I rested my head against his shoulder, but for once his shoulder did not seem comfortable, so I sat up.

  ‘Do you think he’s serious about her?’

  He pulled me back against him. ‘Sit still, love. Yes, taking that affair purely at its face value, I do. Old Garth isn’t the type to take a girl out just because he needs womanly companionship.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake! What other reason is there for taking a girl out?’ He shouted with laughter. ‘Don’t be a goon, Peter. Tell me about them.’

  He said, ‘I see it this way. I’ve known him for six years and this is the first time I’ve seen him so much as look up from his scalpel. He’s not sub-human, he’s a-human. So the mere fact that he’s asked the girl out seems to me fraught with significance.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Hey. Whence this concern about the chap? Should I be worrying about him and not Tom?’

  ‘You don’t have to grow a single grey hair. I’m just fascinated ‒ we all are. He’s never looked at a Joe’s girl and now he’s lost his head over a product of the rival firm. We’re furious.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Peter; ‘he doesn’t know what he’s missing. Joe’s girls are all right.’ He kissed me again. ‘But to get back to the idle gossip, I wouldn’t say old Garth had exactly lost his head ‒ much though I’d give to see it. I saw quite a bit of them last night and I didn’t get the impression that he was more than mildly interested ‒ and yet I may be wrong at that; Frances Mack is an extraordinarily attractive young woman.’

  I agreed that she was, and wondered why his saying that should make me feel so gloomy. I knew she was lovely; we all knew she was lovely; just as we had all reached the novel conclusion that Beauty Was Not Enough. To prove to myself that, whatever else might be wrong, I was not jealous. I asked how he had enjoyed the dance.

  ‘It was all right,’ he said non-committally, ‘but it could have been so much better if you had allowed me a couple of dances.’

  ‘Allowed, my foot! You never asked me!’

  ‘Did you expect me to?’

  ‘Of course. I thought we would join up.’

  He said, ‘I rather thought the same.’

  ‘Then why didn’t we?’

  He hesitated, ‘We-ell, I sort of got the impression that the idea wouldn’t be greeted by cries of joy from one and all.’

  We were sitting on a bench in the park. It might even have been the same bench on which I sat with John. The nearest park bench is the only place in which you can find respectable privacy if you live and work in an institution. Few of us had homes in London, or the money with which to buy privacy. That particular park was regarded as Joe’s back garden; there were other parks in London and other hospitals, and on most evenings a census of the occupants of the various park benches would probably show that ninety per cent were members of the nearest medical and nursing training school.

  I bent forward and pretended to fiddle with my shoe while I thought over Peter’s words. I did not believe him. I knew I could believe Carol.

  ‘Who gave you that impression?’

  He locked his hands behind his head and flapped his elbows. ‘My love, when I was a boy my old man took me on one side and said, “Son, never lend money to strangers; always drink black coffee after dinner even if it poisons you; and never discuss with one lady what the lady you took out last night said to you.” So let’s talk of something else shall us? When are we going to have another war? Where do the patients go on Sundays?’

  I did not ask any more questions. I knew he would not answer them if I did, as I also knew and had always pretended I did not, that he would swear black was white if it suited him. Now I was too tired to care much if he was lying; it did not seem to matter. Since this morning all our trivial affairs had faded into insignificance. I kept remembering that house in North London, and the childish yellow head that had pressed against me. I wondered how they could face going to bed tonight, and the silence of tomorrow morning. I was sure he had spent Sunday morning playing with the engine of that damned machine.

  Peter said, ‘Why the disapproving silence?’

  ‘Not disapproving ‒ plain coma.’

  He stood up. ‘Time I took you back. I shouldn’t have dragged you out.’

  That reminded me of something. ‘Why did you?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I mean ‒ what did you want to talk to me about?’

  ‘That what I said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He laughed. ‘I had to say something, Gillian. I was feeling sociable, and I couldn’t face the prospect of spending two unnecessary hours in Joe’s. Pretty smooth line, I thought.’

  I said very smooth.

  ‘That’s my girl!’ We walked back hand in hand. When we reached our Home he said, ‘You go straight to bed, love. You’re getting all introspective and gloomy. Big mistake. Not your line at all. You want to snap out of it.’

  I promised I would, thanked him for the supper, and went inside. It was still early, but I did not feel like chatting to the girls in the sitting-room or watching television; I checked in at Home Sister’s office and went up to my room. I would have liked to have talked to Carol and I wished she was not on nights. She had said nothing last night about being free tonight, and had obviously only had that one night free for the dance. Night Sister was very good about these things, and if Carol had been free she would certainly have told me, as we always did things together on our days or nights off. Apart from the occasion when she revisited her old school, we had combined for all our free times since her parents died.

  I wondered if it was worth looking for Lisa; but Lisa was always surrounded by a tea-drinking assortment of our year at this hour of the night, and I was sick of my fellow-nurses. I discovered I was sick of doctors, too. I wondered if Tom was right, and there was any comfort in apples. I had some in my room and I ate one. I did not feel any better; I felt very lonely.

  Next morning Lisa ran down the steps of the Nurses’ Home at twenty-five minutes past seven and clapped my back, ‘Think we’ll make it, dear girl?’

  We had five minutes in which to reach the dining-room, have breakfast, and be on duty. I waved a hand to save breath, and we galloped across the park in companionable silence and reached the dining-room just as Night Sister was reading the roll-call.

  ‘Made it,’ I said, swallowing my scalding tea. Lisa nodded, she was eating too fast for speech. Night Sister stood up to say Grace, and
still chewing we stood with bent heads. ‘Pleasant evening with Peter?’ murmured Lisa out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Very pleasant.’ I beamed to show that life was a song again. I wanted to reassure Lisa about Tom; if she felt I was happy with Peter she would stop worrying about me in that other connection. There was really no need for her to be upset, as there was no need for me to be upset over Carol and Peter at that dance; but young women in love do not need concrete reasons for having the vapours.

  Out-Patients was officially closed on Sundays, and the O.P. nurses were sent jobbing. ‘Jobbing’ meant working in any ward for a brief period; for example, the morning in one ward, the afternoon in another.

  Night Sister told Lisa to go to Ellen. She said she did not know what to do with me. ‘Matron did not mention you, Nurse Snow. I’m afraid I don’t like to send you to one of the wards without her permission, so you had better go back to your department and make stock until Matron comes on duty at nine. I will tell her you are there.’

  I liked being alone in the department; it was strangely peaceful, and not sad as an empty ward is sad. I went round all the rooms, opening windows, dusting benches, checking settings, and refilling the hot-water bottles in the accident bed. I hurried, not because there was any hurry, but from force of habit. After four years in a hospital, to move slowly is a physical impossibility. It is a good habit, if hard on the legs, because you never, in any hospital, know from one moment of the day to another exactly how much work you will have to do before the day ends, and you can never be certain of what is going to happen next. The only certain thing is that something will happen. Boredom is not an occupational hazard in a nursing career.

  When I had finished the routine tidying I collected cotton wool, gauze, large scissors, a clean towel, and an empty dressing tin, and settled down at the corridor table to make stock (dressings). I had filled three tins when the telephone rang.