by Mark Neilson
‘Can I help too?’ Aggie; scared, tired, and pale. But willing.
‘Squeeze in with Mary. We can always use another pair of hands.’
The small car rocked, groaning on its springs.
‘Let’s go,’ said Jonathon.
Campbell lay, whey-faced, on the operating table.
‘Can you handle the mask and chloroform?’ Jonathan asked.
Already masked, Mary nodded. The patient’s abdomen had been sterilized: she had checked the surgical instruments which Jonathon had gathered from the sterilizer; collected three bottles of saline solution and extra swabs which they might have to use to wash out the peritoneum, if the appendix had ruptured and contaminated the abdominal wall.
Campbell’s entire stomach was rigid as a board: there were none of the usual intestinal gurgles and grumbles. Everything pointed at peritonitis. A major crisis in any hospital – let alone one that was closing down.
‘Ready?’ she asked.
‘Angus,’ Jonathon said gently. ‘We’re going to put a cotton mask over your face, to anaesthetize you. You won’t feel a thing until you waken up.’
Campbell’s agonized face twitched. ‘This bit I remember well,’ he said tightly. ‘Do I count to ten?’
Jonathon patted his shoulder, then nodded to Mary.
She blanked her mind: focussed down. With her left hand, she gently positioned the mask over Campbell’s face. Anaesthetizing by inhalation was a black art: there were no rules about how much chloroform should be given; simply enough to put the patient deeply asleep. And that varied from patient to patient, even when they seemed identical.
She carefully dribbled a few drops of chloroform onto the cotton mask: its odour filled the theatre. She watched it evaporate, dribbled a couple of drops more. Counted two minutes, giving time for the patient to inhale, go down deep. Instinctively, she dribbled another drop onto the mask.
Campbell’s breathing steadied, slowed: his body relaxed. She reached forward, flicked open his eyelids.
No reaction.
‘He’s ready,’ she said quietly.
Jonathon studied the sterilized abdomen: did his old student trick of measuring three fingers wide beneath the navel.
‘Scalpel,’ he said, and the instrument was instantly placed into his gloved hand. ‘I’m making a bigger incision than usual. If the appendix is ruptured, we don’t want to be constricted in cleaning out the peritoneum … maybe a five-inch incision. What do you think, Mary?’
She thought back: operating theatres in wet tents, mud everywhere; standing on duckboards even in the theatre; the whine and crash of shells landing only fields away. No second chances for dying men.
‘Six inches,’ she said. ‘We’ve both got big hands.’
Mary coped with the surgery as she had coped with the journey north: like an automaton. It was hours later, in Chrissie’s house, when everything suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. She got up and left Aggie sprawled across the floor playing with Tommy. Pulling her jacket tight, she walked aimlessly through the streets. In any fishing village, all roads lead ultimately to the harbour, and she found herself hurrying mindlessly down the final slope.
Perhaps it was the slope: more likely her state of mind. Her hurrying footsteps broke into a trot. Then a run. Mary found herself racing along under the sea wall of the harbour, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She stopped at the end of the quay, her breath coming in shuddering gasps. The wind from the sea gusted round her: rough and impersonal yet an essential element of home. Mary pulled back her hood, let her hair stream out behind. As she breathed in the keen, cold air, her tears slowly stopped.
She felt utterly bereft, abandoned. Turning slowly, she saw the pile of old nets were still there, waiting for mending: where she had first seen Neil, huddled and lost to his demons, as she was now lost to hers.
How could he have done this – coldly and calmly removing the one thing she wanted in life: himself. Rejecting the only thing she was sure about: their love for each other. She felt as if her heart would break – an almost physical sense of pain.
She’d thought she knew the way ahead. Not any more.
In her mind, she recognized that one small part of what he’d said was true: she had a gift for medicine. But he’d set the target higher than she would ever have dared set it for herself. She could be a nurse: take all the classes, read the books, to formalize her qualification.
But a doctor? Worse, a woman doctor? Only college girls did that.
Chapter 9
‘He keeps it neat, this place.’
‘What? Sorry?’ Aggie turned, startled.
‘The hospital,’ Campbell said patiently. ‘Your doctor keeps it neat.’
‘Jonathon? Neat? He doesn’t know one end of a duster from the other – but, yes, this hospital is the apple of his eye.’ She came over to Campbell’s bed. ‘Is everything fine? Will I get the nurse for you?’
‘I thought you were the nurse,’ he smiled.
‘Me? No, I’m only helping. Mary’s our nurse. She worked in front line hospitals, right through the war. Over in Belgium and France.’
‘So why’s she here, with qualifications like that?’
‘Buckie’s her home. She was a gutter, like me, before the war. After she finished working in an English convalescent hospital, she came back.’
‘Weren’t you both walking with these fisherwomen?’ Angus Campbell was still trying to sort out the half-remembered fragments of that night.
‘That’s right. We’d all travelled up overnight from Yarmouth.’
‘Yet she came straight here?’
‘Jonathon needed her.’
‘Hmm.’ Campbell frowned. ‘Isn’t there a full-time nurse?’
‘With the hospital closing, he’d to pay her off. But she’s not as good as Mary. It’s Mary he always turns to when he needs real nursing help.’
Aggie tried to stifle the familiar ache of jealousy. Failed.
Campbell’s fingers played restlessly with the bed sheet.
‘How long has your doctor been looking after this town?’
‘Ever since he qualified. When he joined the practice, straight from medical school, our old doctor was almost seventy. It was meant to be a long apprenticeship. But Dr Fredericks took poorly and became one of Jonathon’s first patients. Jonathon was thrown into the deep end. Dr Fredericks watched, and judged, then handed over the practice to him, just before he died.’
‘So he’s good, this Jonathon?’
‘The very best there is.’
The vehemence of her reply made Campbell smile. ‘Even if he doesn’t know one end of a duster from the other?’
Aggie laughed. ‘Pay no attention to me. I grew up with Jonathon – I’m the last person in the world to take him seriously …’
Campbell nodded. ‘I’ve a sister back in Canada, who treats me just the same. She’s got a clutch of kids around her now, but she still reckons that she could out-run, outgun, and out-climb me.’
‘Good for her,’ said Aggie.
Campbell’s smile faded. ‘He has to be good, or I wouldn’t be here. Out where I come from, a burst appendix is usually a killer. Unless we can get people to a big hospital. This Jonathon of yours is one heck of a doctor …’
‘He’s one heck of a man,’ said Aggie. Then blushed, and began to chase non-existent dust.
This went deeper than sibling rivalry, Campbell thought wryly.
‘Yet his hospital is closed, apart from me,’ he said. ‘What’s the problem? Why are you shutting down, when you have people of the calibre of your doctor and your nurse?’
‘Bad luck,’ said Aggie. ‘A local man gifted this building to the town, then forgot to change his will. Now his relatives want the money.’
‘It happens. But why not raise the cash yourselves? Give them the money, and keep your hospital?’
‘Believe me, we tried. All we can raise is goodwill – there’s no money in the town. Not after years of war and
poor fishings.’
Campbell nodded. ‘That’s what my grandfather says. But he was talking of Portgordon.’
‘They’ll have suffered just the same as us, and places like Findochty and Portknockie too. We’ve all got fewer boats chasing fewer herrings and are struggling to keep going. But it will get worse still – when this place closes down, that will hurt these fishertowns who have been using us. We’ll be back to where we were before our cottage hospital, with people dying before they can get to Elgin or Banff. People forget – but I remember just how bad it was back then.’ Aggie straightened Campbell’s sheets and plumped up the pillows. ‘Want a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘That’s about all I’m trained to do.’
‘Could you make real coffee?’ Campbell asked, with longing.
‘What’s coffee?’ Aggie replied.
‘That’s what my grandma said,’ sighed Campbell. ‘Tea will do.’
‘Is the Wee Man sleeping?’ asked Chrissie, looking up from her knitting.
‘He’s out like a light.’ Aggie flopped wearily into her seat.
Chrissie’s needles clicked. ‘You’re doing far too much,’ she scolded.
‘Tommy’s a full-time job – and you’re more used to that than me.’
Chrissie’s needles clicked steadily. ‘Well, now that the fishing’s over until April, you’ll soon get back into the way of things.’
Aggie frowned at the fire. ‘I hate being away,’ she said. ‘I’m missing his childhood. Every time I come home, he’s inches taller. A proper boy now – I can’t believe he’ll be at school next year.’
Her daughter was in danger of missing more than her son’s childhood, Chrissie thought. She was missing her own best years. Chrissie sighed: if only she could find a loon who could see past the boy, to the woman.
‘That’s the third time you’ve made a noise like a burst balloon,’ Aggie accused her. ‘What’s up?’
Chrissie changed tack. ‘What’s got into Mary?’ she asked, pulling wool from the ball. ‘I’ve never known her so quiet … so listless. What’s been happening, down at Yarmouth?’
Aggie shrugged. ‘She’s had a falling-out with Neil,’ she said.
‘Over what?’
Aggie hesitated. ‘He wants her to aim high, to become a doctor.’
‘A woman doctor? I’ve never heard the like!’
‘Why not?’ Aggie shot back. ‘There’s women doctors in most big cities nowadays. It’s high time that women’s problems were dealt with by a woman, and not a man.’
Chrissie reached the end of her row. ‘Why should what Neil said have left her depressed? Is she sweet on him?’ No reply. She stared over her specs at her daughter. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Is she?’
‘Is she what?’ asked Aggie innocently.
‘I thought she was going to be Jonathon’s nurse,’ said Chrissie.
‘With no hospital, is he going to need a nurse?’
Chrissie’s hands paused. ‘I suppose not.’
She waited, but her daughter had retreated into silence. Chrissie frowned, simultaneously pleased that her daughter could guard a confidence, and irritated that she wouldn’t tell it to her mother.
So Mary was sweet on Neil. And Neil was telling her to aim high, and be a doctor. Higher than what? A wife to himself? Chrissie’s needles clicked busily. If Mary’s heart lay elsewhere, then it wasn’t tied to Jonathon. Who had spent half his childhood in this very house: with Aggie spending the other half of their childhood in his.
So frustrating: without stirring from her chair, she could find a perfect wife for Jonathon – and a perfect man for her daughter. They were made for each other, for the long haul of life’s ups and downs. There was only one thing missing. Where there should be a spark of electricity, of romance, there was only what there had always been – easy-going affection. Pity about that.
Chrissie sighed.
‘You’re making that noise again!’ snapped Aggie.
Eric rose from the fish crate where he’d been sitting. The ship he’d been watching out for over two long days was finally steaming in from the east.
He’d recognize her anywhere: the Endeavour. Knocking out his pipe against his heel, he studied her keenly. Riding high and fast, as she should be doing, with no fish in her hold. No sign of damage. Then, as she turned into the harbour, he saw the patch of fresh paint along her waterline.
They’d known their trade, and made a good job of it, he thought.
Unhurriedly, he walked into the inner harbour, catching the warps that Johnnie threw up. Dropping each of them in turn over a rusty bollard, he fought down the urge to refill his pipe. Why should he be nervous?
Grasping the hoop at the edge of the pier, he swung his foot over onto the first rung of the vertical ladder. ‘You’ve taken your time,’ he called down to Johnnie. ‘I was nearly sending out a polisman, to look for you.’
‘Archie McCulloch, on that bike of his?’ grinned Johnnie.
‘Why not? With your steering, she’s more likely to be piled up on dry land than out at sea.’
Eric’s gruff banter made the deckhand’s smile broader.
‘Well, it was you that taught me, Skip.’
‘Then you couldn’t have been listening.’ Eric gripped the hand that was offered. ‘I’ve never been so glad to see a crew of wasters in my life.’
‘It was touch and go,’ Johnnie said soberly. ‘Neil pulled us through.’
‘Aye. Neil and the rest of you. He said on the telephone that he was proud of you. No panic. You just did what you had to do, like men.’
Johnnie shrugged. ‘Neil and Andy are in the deck-house, Eric.’
Eric grinned. ‘Scared to come out?’
Johnnie laughed. ‘We’ve all felt the rough edge of your tongue.’
‘Not this time.’ Eric climbed the steps and opened the door to the deckhouse. Andy was wearing a turban of bandages, hair curling out from underneath. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, meet his father’s eye. ‘Well, well,’ said Eric. ‘The wanderers return.’
‘I’m sorry, Da,’ blurted Andy. Eyes on the floor.
‘What for? What did you do wrong? Hitting timber out at sea on a dirty night – that’s every skipper’s nightmare. Your luck was out, that’s all.’
Andy shook his head, winced. ‘It was Neil that saved us,’ he said.
‘Neil only did what you would have done – if you hadn’t had your senses scattered. Is it a new winch we’re needing, after that?’
Andy’s face came up, with a wan grin.
Eric walked to him. Gripped him by the arms. ‘Don’t you ever apologize to me again,’ he said fiercely. ‘For it was me that taught you, and I taught you to be the best there is. Get that head of yours mended – and the ribs. Then get out there and do what you’ve been taught to do. Bring back the top catches of herring to the port.’
‘Right, Da,’ said Andy. ‘I’ll do that.’
The words were important, badly needed. For themselves, and for their more crucial implicit message. His da still had faith in him. For Andy, that sound old man’s faith was priceless. Clumsily, he clapped his father’s shoulder, then slipped out through the deckhouse door.
‘He did nothing wrong,’ said Neil. ‘The boat’s as good as new.’
‘I know he did nothing wrong,’ Eric said. ‘But I’ll tell you this – I’m glad I sent you out, to watch over him. Or I would be one son less, and the town would be in mourning for eight lost Buckie loons.’
‘We made it, anyway,’ Neil grunted.
He glanced up at the quay. Looking once, then twice, then once again for the figure he didn’t want to see. But there was only Buckie harbour: a mess of boats and fishermen and busy colliers. Not a quine in sight.
‘I’ll get my gear,’ he said, leaving the deckhouse.
Eric lingered, where he had stood for many days and nights before, staring through the salt-stained windows. Eyes that could see the silver gleam of herrings in the water half a mile away, had seen something else.
The brief look of utter desolation on his son’s face.
Only a woman, missing, could put that there.
‘We need to talk,’ said Jonathon, sitting down on Campbell’s bed.
‘We do indeed,’ the Scots-Canadian replied.
‘You’re healing nicely – no more tenderness than can be expected, blood pressure and temperature sound. You’re fit enough to be transferred to Banff. I can drive you there this afternoon. They have a bed for you, and are happy to handle your convalescence. I’d rather keep you here – now that the girls are back, there’s no problem with nursing – but …’
Campbell nodded. ‘But you have to clear out your patients, then the beds, the theatre equipment, and whatever stores are left. In short, you need to empty the building, so that it can be put up for sale.’
‘That’s it, in a nutshell,’ Jonathon smiled.
Campbell’s face grew stern. ‘Well, you disappoint me.’
Jonathon straightened. ‘Why? Is something wrong?’
‘Yes. Badly wrong. Why are you selling the place?’
‘Because we have no choice.’
‘Why can’t you buy the building, leave it as it is? The local hospital?’
Jonathon fought down irritation. ‘Because we have no money.’
‘Then raise it. From the people who will use the hospital.’
‘We tried. We’ve barely raised enough to buy a new front door key.’
A slight smile twitched on Campbell’s face. ‘Perhaps you’ve been asking the wrong people?’
‘We asked everyone – far and near,’ Jonathon said simply.
‘No. You didn’t ask me. And I’m offended.’
The words were spoken quietly. So quietly, Jonathon wondered if he had misheard.
He studied Campbell, weighing what he knew of the man. Was this in jest? If so, it was in the poorest of taste. Somehow, that didn’t fit the picture he was building of the recovering patient.
They could hear Aggie’s voice, singing in the other ward. The cleaning regime went on, until the place ceased to be a hospital: that’s what both women had decreed.