A Sister's Life: The ups and downs of life as a 1950s Theatre Sister (Nurse Jane Grant Book 3)

by Jane Grant

  Every word was like a knell. To think you were on the home stretch and to be put back to the beginning ‒ to face another, more serious operation ‒ to have to break the news to Angus ‒ to go into the main ward with the really bad cases. When Mr Penhallow left he gave her another supposed to be reassuring smile, but this only made her feel more alarmed. They were all being much too nice.

  When Sister returned Mrs McKie was struggling with tears.

  ‘What’s that for?’ asked Sister, with unusual kindness. ‘Come along, Nurse, I’ll give you a hand with the bed now. We’re going to move you, Mrs McKie.’

  She gave a hasty farewell to the minor cases in the ward, who were all sitting round open-mouthed, and was pushed down the corridor and into the door of the main ward.

  Her bed was positioned with its head against the wall between the ward and the corridor, instead of sideways, so she could no longer look out of the window to the lawn and the roses. The opposite windows, though only thirty feet or so from her former outlook, now showed nothing but buildings, with a little tatty grass and broken bushes in between. In the background was the tall chimney of the furnace, in the foreground the wall and windows of the nurses’ dining-room.

  ‘You’d better get up now,’ said Sister. ‘You’re not very good on crutches yet, are you? Nurse will push you down to the Day Room.’

  Nurse Fleming appeared and handed her her dressing-gown, then wheeled up a chair with a hole in it, obviously intended for sanitary purposes. ‘The chairs are all down at the gym,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to make do with this.’

  She helped Mrs McKie on to it and trundled her along to the Day Room. The journey was exquisitely uncomfortable.

  This was Mrs McKie’s first experience of the Day Room. It was at the very top of the ward, and shared its width with a side ward for very sick patients. It faced the corridor and so had a view of the lawns and the rosebeds, but there was something gloomy about its heavy dark leatherette chairs, or perhaps the gloom was in its occupants, who were all very old ladies, unfit for gym. One of them, who had an intellectual face and glasses, and spoke in a cultured voice, was under the impression that she was at her London Club, and wanted a taxi to get to the bank before closing time.

  ‘The service here is getting very bad,’ she said.

  No one replied to this comment, and she added, ‘Yet I think I’m one of the oldest members. Yes. I joined in 1900, just after the row about the Committee. You wouldn’t remember,’ she said, addressing Mrs McKie.

  Mrs McKie smiled and said, no, she did not remember.

  ‘But I really do wish they would hurry with that taxi,’ said the old lady. ‘Taxis are another thing that have got difficult. Perhaps,’ she added kindly, ‘perhaps we could share one? I must go to the bank and then ‒’ She frowned, as if it had suddenly come over her that she did not know where she was going after the bank.

  Presently several patients were wheeled in from the gym, and Mrs McKie renewed her acquaintance with Grannie Weedon and Mrs Rowbotham. They were both very pleased to see her, and she was sorry that neither of them had beds in the ward anywhere near hers.

  Everyone ate lunch on trays on their knees, and afterwards sat round reading magazines or doing their knitting. Mrs McKie wondered if they all longed for bed as much as she did. Presently the gym patients were taken off for another spell by porters who put them in chairs and wrapped red rugs round them. There was a preponderance of old ladies, but even the middle-aged and the young had a dreadful look of old discards.

  Mrs McKie’s mind had become morbid with pain and dread. The operation hung over her like a black cloud. In bed she tried to read, to do her embroidery, to write a letter to Theo. But fear, rebellion and self-pity disordered her thoughts. Almost worse than anything, was the thought of seeing Angus and breaking the news to him.

  After a while she roused herself and looked around at her neighbours. The beds were more widely spaced in the main ward, and it was not so easy to hold conversations. On her left was a stout Mum with a Pott’s fracture; to her right was a spinal case, a young woman who had already been in the ward for six months. Immediately opposite was an attractive birdlike creature with a leg in traction. The rest was a blur, mostly of old ladies sitting up, with plastered arms or cages over injured legs.

  Visiting time came, and Angus walked towards her unsuspecting and smiling. Holding his hand, she told him the news, and he turned quite white. Presently he left her to go and speak to Sister. When he came back he tried his best to seem cheerful. ‘Only about a month,’ he said. ‘What’s a month? You can do a month on your head.’

  The night was wretched; shock still possessed her, she shuddered and restlessly moving, rumpled the bed till she lay on creases. The tablets Night Nurse gave her had no effect, and she wondered if the night would ever pass.

  When Nurse Brunton slapped down the basins next morning, she exchanged a few words with her neighbours.

  ‘We heard about you yesterday,’ said the stout Mum. 'You been in the End Ward since last April, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I was just hoping to go home.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten what home’s like,’ said the woman with the spine.

  The cheerful little creature opposite was rubbing foundation cream on. ‘I expect you’ll get good news on Monday,’ she said. ‘Gosh ‒ what a beautiful day.’

  The conversation continued around her; ‘My daughter will be up tonight … Did you get any more of that red wool? Nurse Brunton’s going on days … I like that new little Chinese nurse.’ Laughter came from the end of the ward.

  ‘Grannie – you’re not to throw your handkerchief, your flannel and your toothbrush on the floor!’

  ‘I never put ’em there. Them things must have got ’emselves legs and walked down there.’

  During the morning a different doctor came to see her; he was dark-skinned with bright dark eyes and was in his early thirties. He looked at her hip and asked her to move it.

  ‘Good, good,’ he said with the usual plastic reassurance. He added, turning away, ‘We’ll do something about it tomorrow.’

  Operation Day came after another bad night. Zero hour, she learned, was three o’clock. Staff Nurse Copley took over, as it was Sister’s day off, and conducted the awful preliminaries. The first operation had been carried out as an emergency, and its necessity was patent to everyone including the victim. This time there was a cold-bloodedness about the proceedings that made them more appalling.

  Worst of all was the waiting. To get up, to don dressing-gown and slippers, to be wheeled to the day room, and to sit there in gloom while the hours would not pass. To watch the others eat their lunch and to think, Oh hurry, hurry on time.

  She could not reconcile herself. To every situation that is intolerable acceptance must be given, but she could not accept this situation. Her body fought against the idea as well as her mind. As she obediently carried out the instructions of Staff, soaking in a bath, donning an operation gown, and lying on the bed on a special sheet, with a pillowslip on her leg and a label round her wrist, she was still fighting. But the pre-med came at last, and she actually dropped into a light doze.

  The porters in white came with their poles, slipped them into the side hems of the special sheet, and lifted her on to the trolley. The little Chinese nurse went with her, and this time there was no larking about. The anaesthetic room seemed crowded with people, she was moved from one curtained alcove to another. A new anaesthetist, a very tall, large African, came and took her hand.

  ‘They’re not quite ready,’ he said. He began to slap her wrist gently. ‘Wish they’d get a move on,’ he said to the bright-faced little nurse who was leaning over her. ‘I shall miss the connection to town. I’m off. Grundy’s taking over.’

  Surgeons and assistants, their masks hanging by strings, moved in and out of the swing doors. ‘Is this the hip?’ asked one of them, coming to stand by the trolley.

  He must be the anaesthetist, she thought, and as she
thought it she lost consciousness. She had been looking, as they intended, in the wrong direction, and never even felt the prick.

  In theatre the surgeon started the operation. He made a twelve-inch incision round the curve of the hip, and with an electric saw cut off the useless head of the femur. The head and attached pin, of special metal, matched to the size of the cavity, was chosen from several which had been boiled up in flannelette bags, and was handled gingerly, it being important not to scratch or dent it. The pin was knocked down the marrow of the bone with a special mallet, with little short taps. The operation took three hours.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was off duty the afternoon of Mrs McKie’s second operation. I came in from an afternoon’s shopping in the town and went into the Sisters’ sitting-room, where I hung around with the idea of seeing Maitland when she came down for her supper.

  Most of the Sisters off duty were watching a television quiz programme. My mind was full of Don. I pictured him sitting worried and restless with his father and Rhona, wondering if they were gleaning any possible comfort from the fact that Don’s mother had had her operation and was ‘comfortable’ ‒ in other words extremely uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh dear!’ called little Sister Hawkins, who was Sister of the Geriatric Ward. ‘I’d have taken the money. Oh gosh ‒ he’s going to choose wrong. I know he is!’

  ‘Come and watch this, Grant, it’s terrific,’ said the Sister of Men’s Medical, a square woman with a mole.

  ‘I know he’ll end up with the onion, I know he will,’ said Hawkins.

  I looked at the half dozen of them, leaning forwards in their chairs, all concentrating on the screen, and realized that they were completely absorbed in the game. It was a matter of real urgency to them that the handsome, rather stupid, bus driver from Hackney should make the right choice.

  I couldn’t stand it any more, and broke in to ask Hawkins if she had seen Maitland.

  ‘Just a minute, dear,’ she replied. ‘I mustn’t miss this.’

  The door opened and I looked up eagerly, but it wasn’t Maitland, it was Sadd. She came in with a rush; her kind face aglow with sympathy, and burst out; ‘Oh, dear, I’ve just been up to see poor Tyson.’

  ‘Sh ‒ sh!’ came from several of the television watchers.

  ‘Come over here,’ said Sadd to me, lowering her voice.

  I asked how Tyson was, and Sadd said she was improving. ‘But she’s so scared, poor thing.’

  ‘She always was, wasn’t she?’

  ‘But she’s improved in that way. She talked quite a lot to me. Only she’s so scared she’s going to lose her job. If only they’d put her in charge of Nurses’ Sick Bay. Peterson is just about due to retire. She could manage a job like that.’

  ‘Isn’t that where they put all broken-down Sisters out to grass?’

  ‘I do wish someone could drop a hint in Wood’s ear. She might suggest it to Matron.’

  Sorry as I was for Tyson, and much as I admired Sadd, I had my own troubles. ‘Have you seen Maitland?’ I asked.

  ‘No, love, no.’ Sadd suddenly saw the point. ‘Of course, Don’s mother was having her operation this afternoon, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, I wanted to get some news from Maitland.’

  ‘I saw Bill Grundy, he came down to the ward this afternoon.’ Bill was the Senior Anaesthetist. ‘He said Maitland had been on the warpath in theatre all afternoon. She always gets upset with Hunt’s cases.’

  ‘What an extraordinary woman she is!’

  ‘But of course you know her mother’s just come in to C Ward?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. I haven’t seen Mary today. And Maitland never said anything to me. Is her mother seriously ill?’

  ‘I fancy she’s a bit worried. They’re doing some tests tomorrow.’

  The information softened me towards Maitland, especially when she came in looking terrible. I went up to her quickly; ‘What’s the news?’

  She looked at me, her face a blank wall. ‘What news? What are you talking about?’

  ‘How did the operation on Don’s mother go?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Maitland turning away from me. ‘How did it go? How should it go?’

  I followed her, determined to get an answer. ‘You mean it was all quite straightforward?’

  ‘Of course it was.’ She brushed past me towards Sadd. ‘Have you seen Sister Ross? My mother had a very bad night. I want Ross to see Wright about a change in sleeping tablets. I told Ross before that Seconal doesn’t agree with her.’

  She could not have shown more plainly an intention to brush me off. She knew Mary was my friend, but she had not asked me if I had seen her, but had asked Sadd. I had meant to inquire after Mrs Maitland, but I kept silent, feeling I should only get another snub.

  There was a loud burst of laughter from the television watchers, under cover of which I went out fuming.

  I decided to go to the Ward to inquire, and on my way across from the Nurses’ Home I caught up with Sister Dixon, the Night Superintendent. She was a tall haggard woman with the remains of beauty in her face and dark eyes, who carried about her an air of sorrow. Her fiancé had been killed on D-Day, just after they had become engaged, and after he had gone through the war without a scratch. I mentioned Mrs McKie to her.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I know her. I remember her in the End Ward when she had a pinning. If you like I’ll make a point of going to have a look at her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I added rather awkwardly, ‘I know her family rather well you see. I wanted to tell them how she was.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll mention it to Night Nurse, and leave you a message in the morning.’

  She was always kind and sympathetic, if a trifle remote, but one felt the vibrations of her unhappiness were so powerful that she would haunt the corridors in times to come.

  I went on to Ward B2; Angela was in the office doing the report.

  ‘Hullo,’ I said with an attempt at casualness. ‘Had a good day?’

  She just glanced up from the desk and then down again. ‘Foul,’ she replied curtly.

  ‘How’s Mrs McKie?’

  ‘Oh, got the upchucks.’ She added with a touch of sarcasm, ‘I daresay Matron will be coming round to hold her head.’

  ‘She’s all right then, is she?’

  ‘Well, darling, how’d you be after a major operation? Not exactly ready for the Hunt Ball. But she’ll do.’

  ‘D’you know if Don’s rung up ?’

  Angela’s voice took on a note of exasperation; she looked up from the page, her pen poised.

  ‘Look ‒ I’ve been doing nothing but answering that stinking telephone all evening and I am as you see trying to get this report ready, as I do happen to have rather a scrummy evening lined up ahead of me. If only ‒’ she continued giving her head a shake ‒ ‘if only I can get rid of stupid relatives who ask stupid questions, and get this flaming report written. So the condition of everyone in this ward is “satisfactory”, and I am positively not going to lose any sleep over any of them.’

  She returned to her work. Undeterred by her outburst, I pursued doggedly; ‘So he hasn’t rung up?’

  ‘Oh, I daresay the dear boy rang six times before she got back from theatre, only I was unfortunate enough not to take the call. Now why don’t you run away and ring him up yourself?’

  I started to walk off, and she called after me; ‘Give him my love.’

  I now felt that ringing up Don was an impossibility. All the reasons why I should not ring him up struck me with new force. He was worried, and sitting in the middle of a worried family. I had positively nothing to tell him about his mother, and anyway, I felt he might have rung me after the shambles of an evening the dance had been.

  But be did not ring. A day or two later I went to look at the list in Theatre and found Bill Grundy there.

  ‘Hunt’s doing another Moore’s Prothesis,’ he said. ‘Are you taking it?’

  ‘As
far as I know. Maitland’s off, unless she decides to switch.’

  ‘Well, dear, have you got all the heads laid on this time?’

  ‘What d’you mean, this time?’

  ‘Oh, of course it wasn’t you last time, was it? Blimey, we practically had to call out the fire brigade. The Duchess seemed to think everyone was to blame except herself.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Search me. I don’t know what all the panic was about. Halfway through the operation she seemed to think she hadn’t got the proper heads. She had everyone running round in circles for about ten minutes. There were two in tears that I saw. Then they lost the X-rays. The patient was a bit dicey, her b.p. dropped and I asked Hunt how much longer he’d be, which didn’t help. He said “Why are things always going wrong up here?” and then we nearly had her in floods.’

  ‘That was Don’s mother, you know.’

  ‘Oh yes? I remember you said it was your boyfriend’s mother. Well, didn’t you hear about the trauma?’

  ‘Not a word. I should have thought I’d have heard from someone.’

  ‘The kids can’t run to you about another Sister, can they?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s the thing. Sisters are so cut off. We don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Well, between ourselves, Jane,’ Bill went on. ‘It’s nothing new, is it? My lady’s always in a tiz about something. Didn’t you hear the classic occasion when she called me at six o’clock to ask me what the list was? I thought she’d blown her top then.’

  ‘I thought the one thing about her was that she was the height of efficiency.’

  ‘Well, you thought wrong.’

  That day I called on Mary and found Maitland there having a cup of tea. She looked very ill and tired, and said she had a bad headache. After she had gone Mary said; ‘I thought she was going to have the screaming abdabs just before you came in.’

  ‘Why, what happened?’

  ‘Well, I said she ought to relax a bit and she flew at me. Said how could she? She had so much to do. She had no support in the theatre. No one seemed to understand how difficult her job was.’