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

by Jane Grant

  ‘Rhona’s missing.’

  ‘She’s with Camden,’ he said mildly. ‘At least I saw her getting into his car.’

  I repeated this information to Don, who merely said angrily; ‘Can I have a word with Banyard?’

  I handed over the telephone, and stood by, hot and flushed and getting angrier every minute.

  Teddy spoke cheerfully, ‘I expect they’ve just gone out for a meal, Don.’

  I heard an angry murmur, then Teddy went on; ‘Well, I honestly don’t know. I thought it was Rhona. I may have been mistaken. What was she wearing?’

  There were more furious explosions. Teddy handed me the receiver, and I began; ‘Look, Don, where are you?’

  ‘Porter’s Lodge.’

  ‘Wait till I get there. I’m sure she’s all right ‒’

  ‘She would have rung up. She always does.’

  ‘Well, she’s probably rung up home by now. Wait, and we’ll be along.’

  When we drove up to the hospital it was nearly ten o’clock. We saw Don at once, standing by his car. I got out and went over to him while Teddy parked.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ I asked.

  ‘Not a thing.’ Looking at Don in the rather weird light of the courtyard I saw he had a set, angry expression I had never seen on his face before. His anger immediately produced anger in me, though I had been simmering down and had arrived prepared to be conciliatory and consoling.

  ‘Don, aren’t you making rather too much of this? I mean, Peter’s quite a responsible sort of person.’

  ‘He’s an ordinary man, I suppose.’

  We were interrupted by Teddy corning across to us. ‘Hasn’t she turned up?’ he asked.

  I said ‘No.’ Don said nothing. Teddy immediately tried to be reassuring, in a way that made us both feel less reassured.

  ‘Of course she’s all right. I mean, you don’t imagine she’s eloped or something? Camden’s on tomorrow. And besides, Rhona’s not that sort of girl.’

  Don again did not speak. I said, ‘Oh, it will be all right, of course. You can’t blame Don for worrying.’

  ‘Well,’ said Teddy, ‘I expect you’ll hear soon. Let me know, won’t you?’ He stood for a moment uncertainly, then turned and wandered off.

  Don said, ‘She’s nuts about him. She’s changed completely since the dance. I wish we’d never gone to that damned dance.’

  ‘Oh, Don, aren’t you making a fuss about nothing? She won’t come to any harm.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked angrily. ‘But of course I may have different ideas of harm from you sophisticated people. I daresay Camden runs half a dozen women at once, and Teddy too for all I know.’

  ‘I daresay you think I have a lover concealed in the linen cupboard,’ I said with elaborate sarcasm.

  ‘All I know is, you seem to have changed,’ he said bitterly. I felt a pang of wretchedness, but his bitterness communicated itself to me, so that I couldn’t speak or deny what he had said. After a horrible silence he went on in the same angry yoke; ‘You don’t seem to care about Rhona, or my parents. She’s the apple of their eye, you know. The Old Man’s terribly worried, and daren’t tell Mother. You don’t understand how absolutely she’s changed ‒ she doesn’t take any interest in anything except his ringing up, and she won’t answer any questions. It all points to her being infatuated, and ‒ it’s so humiliating. I can’t bear to see her.’

  I didn’t say that I felt humiliated too, because all he thought about was Rhona; and because he blamed me for something I had nothing to do with. I said, ‘She’s got a right to live her own life as we all have.’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ he said. There was another pause, and then he added; ‘As I can see you don’t even agree with me ‒ I thought you might have sympathized but never mind ‒ as we aren’t in harmony over this or other things, it might be better for us not to see each other for a bit.’

  ‘That suits me,’ I said with bravado.

  I waited a few seconds, hoping he would say something more, or that I would think of something to say to put things right. But when one is in that state of resentment, all one can say is things that make matters worse. Bitterly hurt, but still angry, I turned away and ran up the steps without looking back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mr Hunt was a good-looking man of forty, looking in most lights ten years younger. He had a round face with large blue eyes, and a ready smile, and a habit of looking at his patients smiling with his head on one side. Mrs McKie had not met him before, his beds being all in the main ward.

  With the girls Mr Hunt was more brotherly than fatherly, telling Brenda, who had head and face injuries as well as two broken legs, that her black eyes suited her, and assuring the spinal case that she had only one more stile to cross and she would be home with her children ‘at long last.’ To the Grannies he spoke kindly and low, ‘How are you? Feel any pain there? Tell me if you feel any pain.’

  He gave Mrs McKie one of his most brilliant smiles.

  ‘How do you feel? Bad luck you’ve had. Oh well, you’ll be all right this time if you take care.’

  She was amazed to hear that as soon as the stitches were out she could start to walk on crutches.

  ‘You can put a little weight on the leg, but it is important not to put too much while the bone is soft.’

  ‘Then I can go home soon?’

  ‘If all goes well, in about ten days.’

  Next day Staff came and took the stitches out, and Mrs McKie lay peacefully, watching the fat Maria and the bustling little Rosa, as they went about their cleaning. The Spanish and Italians seemed to take such pleasure in everything; in the sunshine, the flowers, even in the working of the vacuum cleaner.

  As she followed it round, chasing old tissues, bits of fluff and grape pips, Maria, catching her eye, grinned and commented; ‘Very hongry. Eat everything.’

  Instead of the usual orderly, the two Spanish girls were followed that morning by a young Italian.

  ‘I am from theatre, on relief,’ he explained with a charming smile.

  He told her his name was Gino, and he came from Rome. His attitude as an orderly was different from the women’s; dusting was a bore to him and he hurried over it, but he looked with interest at the birthday cards of Mrs Berrymore, and arranged them rather more artistically on her locker.

  ‘Lovely roses, h’m?’

  Mrs McKie asked him about his work in the theatre, and he said it was ‘more interest’. She dropped a letter and he picked it up and handed it to her with an air of gallantry.

  ‘You are Mrs Mack-kie?’ he asked, reading her name on the envelope.

  She said she was. ‘I am there when you are wheel in. I am outside,’ he said with a brilliant smile. ‘But not Mr Camden. Mr Camden, I know him well.’

  She said he was such a nice man. ‘I am happy for you that you like him,’ said Gino, with a knowing look that she could not quite understand.

  ‘He’s not my surgeon now, you know.’

  ‘No, no, not your surgeon,’ he said, flicking the locker with his duster. ‘But he and your daughter go out, yes?’

  ‘What? You must be thinking of someone else, Gino.’

  ‘Oh no. I see them in the car, and Maria say she is the daughter of a lady of this ward.’

  She was about to deny the significance of this, to say that perhaps Camden had just given Rhona a lift, but a sudden light broke on her, and she realized that this must be the explanation of the reserve on Rhona’s part since the dance. And Angus had avoided her questions about Rhona, and had seemed to be concealing something!

  Gino was now, with the air of a courtier, taking his leave. ‘I go for my half-day now, madam. Then back to theatre.’

  ‘Oh, goodbye, Gino. I expect I shall be gone when you come next time.’

  ‘You not like it here, madam?’

  ‘Everyone wants to get home.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, looking sorry. ‘I am sorry for your fracture. But I hope you think we look a
fter you well? Mr Hunt is great surgeon.’ With a smile he added, ‘Mr Camden also.’ With a bow he departed.

  She had no time to think over this piece of news, for the ward seemed full of life this morning.

  Nurse Ling the tiny Chinese nurse came running, chased by Bill the junior porter. ‘You touch me and I scream!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘You’re such a titch, I could pick you up with one hand.’

  ‘I scream for help, I scream!’ warned Nurse Ling, retreating against the locker.

  Everyone laughed, and Bill said, ‘Look at her! Scared rigid. I think I’ll take her up the ward and put her to bed.’

  ‘Sister’s coming!’ said someone near the door, in a stage whisper. Bill passed onwards to pick up his patient for the gym, and Nurse Ling, a flush on her sallow cheeks, approached the Mum’s bed.

  ‘I give you bath now, Mrs Kane.’

  ‘What? Right in the open? Aren’t you going to put up no screens then?’

  ‘Oh no. I leave it open for the men to see.’

  ‘You pull them screens well round. If I see Bill come back I shall dive under them sheets, wet or no.’

  ‘I will call the men. Come, Man. Five pounds a peep.’

  There were loud screams from the Mum, and Nurse Ting added consolingly, ‘But they can’t do nothing. There is plaster.’

  ‘Oh, you aren’t ’alf cheeky this morning,’ commented Mrs Kane, and was told by Nurse, approaching with a very wet flannel, ‘I come now to drown you.’

  The Mum, restored to the company by the removal of the screens, called to one of the Grannies as Bill passed with her in the chair, ‘There’s a nice young man for you, Gran.’

  ‘Too young for me.’

  There was hearty laughter, and it was Bill’s turn to look embarrassed. ‘I reckon we’re lucky, having such nice young men to wheel us about,’ said the Mum.

  ‘I’ll be back for you next,’ said Bill.

  ‘Look at ’im, mopping his brow,’ went on the Mum. ‘If he does that with Gran, what’ll he do when he gets me in the chair?’

  After crutch practice in the gym, the crutch and stick patients were all wheeled into the corridor. It was a glorious afternoon of sunshine, and sitting there, looking out once more at the lawn and the roses, the noise and the heat did not seem to matter, and normality, even a kind of pleasantness, returned to the hospital. Lunch was not quite so revolting as it had been lately, and during the afternoon the tall dark third-year nurse from Barbados came along smiling and offered to make iced drinks. Mrs McKie thought she had never tasted anything so delicious as the glass of lime juice with floating ice covered with orange.

  The Grannies dozed and the chatterboxes chattered. Mrs Berrymore’s bed had been wheeled out, and Nurse Mooney was washing her hair over the side of the bed in the sun. Inside, the poor bed-bound patients could be seen, making faces to show they thought the getting-uppers were lucky toads.

  One worry remained with Mrs McKie, a tiny worry like a furry cloud on the horizon, pushed into the background by the shining sun. Was Rhona really going out with Camden? And if so, would he want to marry her ‒ Theo had said he was looking for a wife. Or was he just amusing himself. And if so, what about poor little Rhona?

  She asked Angus about it as soon as they had settled down on that evening’s visit, and she could see that whatever he said in the way of, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’ll come to nothing; Rhona’s got a head on her shoulders; Camden’s all right’ ‒ in spite of all this, she could sense he was worried about the affair. But she also knew she would not hear why. She lay and thought about it that night, and tried to make herself take the proper sensible view. But her imagination carried her forward to the engagement ‒ the marriage ‒ would he take Rhona away? A fashionable practice in London? A semi-society social life? How would Rhona like it?

  The next day after gym she returned to the main ward to find her bed had been moved to the end ward again. Her companions were Mrs Berrymore, who that day had got up for the first time and gone to the Pool to begin walking in water; also the Mum, and dear old Grannie Rowbotham.

  Now once again in her old place, Mrs McKie could see the trees, in the height of summer clothing, and the rough grass, getting faded, and the roses and the rooks. She was back where she had been, and she felt she had passed through some very rough weather to get there. Something she had learnt too about seamanship, and her shipmates had a reality and importance that none of the former ones had had.

  The day of the fête was approaching; eager beavers came round selling programmes with lucky numbers on them, and Matron had to be presented with the knitted and embroidered articles the long-term patients had been working on for the New Stall. Men arrived in a desultory manner and began to put up strings of bunting over the lawn, first erecting posts fastened with wire stanchions to pegs. The usual crises took place when strings broke; a hospital van turned up and began unloading wooden table tops which men with bright-coloured shirts began to erect on legs.

  ‘That’s obviously the Committee,’ said Angus. ‘See them standing, arms folded, hands on hips? They’re discussing where to put who, or what.’

  ‘Do you think that old boy in the dark suit is the Chairman?’

  ‘Whoever he is, he obviously isn’t going to do any work. He hasn’t even taken his coat off.’

  ‘You know what they’re saying now? They’re saying, “Twenty on the Committee, and it’s always the same two or three who turn up”.’

  Two elderly ladies strolled across to view the ground, going from table to table, clearly determined to get the very best stance for their stall. The Committee drifted over, and there was an obvious argument.

  ‘They’re telling her she always hogs the best place.’

  ‘And she’s saying she’s going to complain to the Chairman.’

  ‘I told you he wasn’t any good. He just stands there, doing a lot of arm-waving.’

  They agreed it was like watching a cinema film without hearing the dialogue. ‘But we know the dialogue anyway,’ said Angus.

  When Rhona and Don appeared and Angus went off to take Bip the sheepdog for a run in the grounds, Mrs McKie could not think of anything to say to either of them. It was because she had too much dammed up emotion floating around both of them, and too many questions she would like to ask and couldn’t. She wanted to ask Rhona ‒ ‘What’s he like? What do you feel about him?’ and to ask Don, ‘What has happened between you and Jane?’ But they were no longer gay young things with boy and girlfriends. They were both seriously involved, and she must wait for them to tell her what they felt and what they meant to do.

  Next day, luckily for the fête, was fine and hot. Sitting in the corridor after lunch, Mrs McKie found herself next to old Grannie Weedon and asked her how she was.

  ‘My George will be here soon,’ said the old lady firmly. ‘Coming to take me back with him.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘Yes. My George will take me ’ome. She doesn’t want it, but never mind what she wants.’

  Grannie was speaking in a fierce and loud voice, as if determined not only to convince her hearer, but also to convince herself. After a pause she added in a quite different tone, a quavering, sad voice; ‘I’ve had seven children but they’ve all gone away. When my girl died, that’s when it all went wrong.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. When did she die?’

  ‘Oh, no more than two or three years. Or perhaps it was ten, as much as ten.’ There was a long pause, and then she said, ‘I had a blackout after that.’

  Nurse Kerrigan came along and asked if she was comfortable. ‘Are ye missing a pillow, my dear?’

  Gran shook her head. ‘I’m a good girl today,’ she said. ‘Ate up all my dinner, greens and all.’

  ‘That’s right, Gran.’

  Conscious that she was thought of as a nuisance, the old lady tried to charm. ‘When I can walk I’ll come and ’elp you, dearie. I knows you got too much to do.’

  ‘That’s right, so I have,
Gran.’

  ‘Can’t do much liftin’, but I’ll run errands for you.’

  ‘There’s a good girl. Now I’ve got to be going, dear, or Staff’ll be on my back.’

  As Nurse Kerrigan passed she murmured; ‘Poor old dear, she’s going to St Mark’s next week.’

  The last minute preparations for the fête continued. The stalls were dressed and loaded with goods brought round in an ambulance. A band arrived, a rather junior band with full-sized instruments; they saw from their lucky programmes that the band were army cadets. The Lord Lieutenant was ushered to a centre table, surrounded by microphones.

  ‘I can’t hear a word!’ exclaimed Mrs Berrymore.

  ‘Never mind. We can make up his speech for ourselves.’

  A Press photographer took a shot of the bald red-faced speaker, with Matron beside him, then hurried away in the middle of the speech to arrange crowds round a stall or two. ‘Look as if you’re buying’ they could see him saying. Right in front of the ward, two small boys were vying with each other in turning somersaults on the grass.

  The speech over, the crowds surged in to do their duty, making the round of the stalls. Mrs McKie had supplied Rhona with some money and she could see her now, buying raffle tickets, toys and groceries in quick succession. Teddy went up to her, and when she dropped a jar of home-made pickles on the grass they could both be seen groping about, heads together.

  ‘Do look at Dr Banyard!’ exclaimed Mrs Berrymore. ‘He’s collecting pickled onions. What a hero!’

  ‘That’s Rhona with him,’ said Mrs McKie proudly.

  ‘Oh, your daughter. Of course it is. What a pretty girl; I like her dress.’

  Mrs McKie said that Rhona had made the dress herself. ‘She’s very clever at dressmaking,’ she added, her heart swelling with pride.

  She would have liked to continue the conversation about Rhona with Mrs Berrymore, but a diversion occurred when Grannie Weedon slipped down in her chair and had to be propped up by Nurse Kerrigan, summoned by half a dozen voices. When Mrs McKie looked again, Rhona and Teddy had both disappeared.

  She thought it was a pity that the scheme to get them together had miscarried; Theo’s bossiness had put them both off. And try as she would, she could not see a satisfactory relationship for Rhona with a man of thirty-eight, who needed sophistication and polish in a wife for his future as an eminent surgeon.