The Lonely One

by Claire Rayner

  He got to his feet with a deep sigh. ‘You see?’ he said to Bridget. ‘One word from this luscious creature and we all run. I go, Madam, I go forthwith,’ and with another deep bow, he turned and shoved his way through the mob towards the bar.

  ‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’ Bobby’s voice sounded slightly sharp to Bridget, and she turned and looked at her in some surprise.

  ‘Josh? Mmm. Very nice.’

  ‘Well, listen, Bridie, my love. I saw him first, hmm? You know what I mean?’

  Bridget stared at Bobby, at the faint line on the smooth brow, and said awkwardly, ‘Saw him first? What do you mean, Bobby?’

  ‘Just this, my lovey.’ Bobby leaned forward. ‘I know you haven’t been around much, so you can’t be expected to know the rights and wrongs of – shall we say, social behaviour? I saw Josh first, just that. I met him in the courtyard, and if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here tonight. And I like Josh – he’s my type. So just hands off, hmm? I’d hate us to spoil a beautiful friendship just because you don’t know enough to leave another girl’s friends alone – and Josh is my friend first. OK?’

  Bridget stared at her, her mind whirling with gin and surprise. ‘I’m sorry, Bobby – please, don’t be cross! I wasn’t – wasn’t trying to – I mean, I’m not like that, really I’m not!’

  Bobby smiled cheerfully then, the faint displeasure on her face that had so chilled Bridget disappeared. That’s all right then, lovey!’ She hugged her briefly. ‘I should have known better, shouldn’t I? You’re a real friend – not the sort to pinch another girl’s men – sorry I mentioned it –’

  ‘Here you are, beautiful!’ Josh reappeared with a glass in his hand. ‘Long and cold and full of gin, just like the Chief of Staffs wife! Drink up!’ and Bobby took the glass from him, and drank up, smiling brilliantly at Josh over the rim.

  When she had finished it, she put the glass on the floor beside her, and stood up, holding her hands out to Josh.

  ‘Can you Madison, Josh?’ she asked gaily. ‘I’ve just learnt how, and I’m longing to show off-come and help me –’ and Josh, apparently nothing loth, followed her on to the dancing area to join her in the steps of the Madison, leaving Bridget with a warm smile over his shoulder.

  With a smooth ease that Bridget found herself admiring, Bobby collected Liz and Judith and the other three men at the end of the dance, and brought them back to Bridget’s corner, managing to arrange them all so that Bridget found herself sitting next to the now rather morose David. But as the evening wore on, he seemed to accept the fact that Bobby was not very interested in him, and turned his attentions to Bridget, who found herself dancing with him several times. She was a bit frightened of him at first, but he made no attempt to treat her as he had treated Bobby earlier in the evening, only holding her close while they danced. Bridget was grateful to him for seeming to realise that she didn’t really like being held too close, relaxing his grip on her as soon as she pulled back slightly from him.

  Liz and Judith both seemed very happy with their two partners. Liz with the one called Ken, a man as fair as she was dark, seeming particularly happy.

  It was past twelve before Bobby made any move to go, when she said with a regretful move in Josh’s direction. ‘We’d better be moving, Josh. We’ll have to climb into the PTS as it is –’

  With much hilarity, the four men escorted them across the courtyard towards the PTS building, and with many giggling shushes from Bobby, helped them creep up to the back door, and kept watch for them as they slipped into the dark and silent house. Liz and Bobby were the last two to come in, and Bridget couldn’t help noticing the look of smooth pleasure on Bobby’s face as she brushed her hand across her smudged lipstick.

  Why should I care? she asked herself reasonably, as the four of them silently undressed in their dark bedroom, and slid into their beds. If he wanted to kiss her goodnight, that’s their business – and Bobby saw him first’.

  But she couldn’t help caring a little. Josh had seemed to her to be so very nice, so much nicer than David with whom Bridget had spent the end of the evening. But there it was. If he was meant to be Bobby’s friend, he was, and that was all there was to it. Bridget fell asleep at last, her mind a confused mêl©e of thoughts about Bobby, about her friendship and how much it meant to Bridget, and thoughts about Josh, and how nice it could have been if it had been Bridget who ‘had seen him first’.

  Chapter 4

  The final exams of the PTS came on them suddenly, and for a week, Bobby and Liz and Judith spent every spare moment poring over books, feverishly repeating facts to themselves and groaning because they hadn’t worked harder from the beginning. With infinite patience, Bridget helped them, listening to their halting recitals of the various facts they should know – and didn’t know – correcting written answers for them, and generally nursing them through the actual week of examinations.

  To her own delight and embarrassment, Bridget was second in class when the results came out; only the sanctimonious Dorothy had beaten her to first place. Mary Byrne, a quiet and hard working Irish girl came closely after Bridget in third place, and the rest of the class marks strung out reasonably until the list showed Bobby’s, Liz’s, and Judith’s marks. They had scraped through by the skin of their teeth; indeed, had Judith had one mark less, she would have failed, and that would have been that. Sister Chessman made it quite clear that the Royal had no room for people who couldn’t pass their examinations.

  But the three of them escaped with nothing worse than a severe reprimand from Sister Chessman, and a strong recommendation to work harder in the future.

  Bobby said shrewdly, after they had been released from Sister Chessman’s office, ‘Not to worry, my beauties. That there old basket is the sort that likes gay people like us. She might tell us off for laziness because it’s the right thing to do, but inside, she likes us. I know that,’

  Bridget heard this, and felt her heart sink. She too, had realised that Sister Chessman, while scrupulously avoiding any hint of favouritism, preferred the gaiety and charm of her three friends to Bridget’s own quietness. She had noticed Sister Chessman looking at her with a sort of baffled irritation on her face when she sat with the class conducting free discussion sessions, sessions during which Bridget had never been able to say a word. Bridget felt, not without just cause, it cannot be denied, that she would have to watch her step where Sister Chessman was concerned.

  The very first morning they spent as real students at the Royal came at last, and Bridget sat with the rest of the class at the big round table behind the dining-room door – the one specially reserved for each new intake, and consequently called the Lambing Pen by the rest of the nurses – and shook inside. It had been so strange to wake that morning in a small room of her own, not to see Bobby’s crumpled bed across the room, not to hear Judith and Liz muttering as they crawled crossly out of their beds. And then, getting into uniform – that had been odd too. Instead of the white coat she had worn for the past three months, there was a striped dress, with complicated fastenings at the front, an apron that rustled with starch, a cap so stiff that it would hardly stay on her smooth hair, a collar so crisp that already it was reddening the soft skin of her neck. But she had managed to dress at last, and now there she sat in the dining-room, at her first breakfast, watching the big room fill, too nervous to touch the scrambled eggs and toast that were offered, settling for a cup of tea.

  It was like an aviary full of blue and white birds, she thought, watching wide-eyed. Some hundred nurses came fluttering into the dining-room, white aprons flapping as they moved, white caps bobbing like crests on black, brown, and red heads, slender, black-stockinged legs twinkling as they carried their breakfasts from the hot plate to the tables. There were some lordly staff nurses with black belts gleaming with silver buckles, caps embellished with lacy bows and strings, who sat in casual elegance while a maid brought their breakfasts to them, the only nurses in the room accorded this privilege.

  And
the noise – the rattling of dishes, the high, chattering voices, the hiss of steam from the big boiler that provided hot water for the big teapots, the noise battered against her ears. Somehow, despite her nervousness, her fears about where she would be working, her shrinking dread of the day on the wards ahead of her, Bridget felt suddenly safe, and warm, a sense of belonging in this aviary, for after all, wasn’t she as bird-like as the rest of them? And she smoothed her shaking hands across the smooth starch of her apron, under the table, and tried to relax.

  Liz grinned at her across the table, seeming to read her thoughts.

  ‘It’s a giggle, eh, Bridget?’ she said softly. ‘I mean, get us! All dolled up like nurses – anyone who didn’t know any better’d think we were nurses, just to look at us. And if anyone were to faint in front of me, or be sick, or anything, so help me I’d do exactly the same. Are you going to eat that egg? Because if you aren’t, hand it over – I’m building up my strength against the horrors that lie ahead,’ and she leaned over and scooped Bridget’s uneaten meal on to her own plate.

  The dining-room slid into silence suddenly, as a blue figure came bustling in and made her way towards a little dais at the end of the room.

  ‘Night Sister,’ breathed Bobby softly. ‘Come to call the roll and tell us where we’re to work.’ Night Sister looked sharply across at the junior table and said dryly, ‘We do not talk once I arrive to call the roll, Nurses. Remember that, please.’ And of course it was Bridget who blushed scarlet as Sister’s eye fell on her, while Bobby merely sat and looked the picture of innocence.

  The recital of names was quick, each nurse replying with a mumbled, ‘Yes, Sister,’ and at the end of it, Night Sister read out where various people were to work. To her horror, Bridget found herself allocated to Men’s Surgical – which caused the others to make envious faces in her direction – while Bobby was sent to Casualty – she brightened visibly at this – and the other two to women’s wards.

  In strict order of seniority, the nurses began to leave the dining-room, the lordly staff nurses first, the new class straight from PTS last of all. And Bridget scuttled unhappily in the lee of her classmates, and found all her old misery coming back. How could she face that ward full of men? All her other trips to the hospital from PTS had been to women’s wards, and children’s wards, apart from that one disastrous afternoon on the male surgical ward, and she wished with all her heart that she could change places with Liz or Judith, both of whom would willingly have changed places with her. But it couldn’t be helped, and she arrived at the door of her new ward just behind the last of the senior nurses, and stood in the lobby for a moment, clutching her cape in cold hands, looking around for someone to tell her what to do.

  A thin-faced girl in a rather grubby uniform came towards her at last, and said. ‘Preston? I’m Barnett – next after you, I was junior pro till this morning, but now you’re down among the dregs – and you can have it. Come on – I’m to show you around, and there’s one hell of a lot to do before Sister gets here to take the report from the night staff. Come on – shove your cape in the linen cupboard –’

  And Bridget followed her into the ward at a trot, her head down. The ward looked different this morning – not so tidy for one thing. Two of the night nurses were feverishly making beds, one eye on the clock, while the senior night nurse sat at the desk, her cap sideways on her untidy head, scribbling away in the report book for all she was worth. There were men lounging about, some of them very unshaven, others looking fresh and clean as they emerged from the bathroom at the end of the ward. A lackadaisical maid was collecting dirty breakfast dishes from the bed-tables, and a couple of the day nurses were rushing around with screens and trolleys, getting patients ready for the first operation list of the day.

  ‘Come on,’ Barnett said fretfully. Ten beds to make, and the ward to get cleaned in the next half-hour come on.’

  Bridget had no more time to think of how she felt, for she was rushed into a whirlwind of activity by the morose Barnett. They galloped from bed to bed, pulling on blankets, beating pillows into submission, while patients either mumbled or grumbled or tried to flirt with them, depending on their age, their illness, and the moods they were in.

  Bridget was a little puzzled at first at the difference between the technique of bed-making she had learned in the PTS and the rapid sketchiness of the bed-making Barnett seemed to expect of her, but she soon realised that there wasn’t any time for the leisurely perfectionism of the classroom, and she followed Barnett’s quick movements with gradually increasing speed of her own.

  And then, there were lockers to polish, bed-tables to wash, empty water-jugs to be collected, washed, and refilled, and Bridget scuttled after Barnett through these jobs like a giddy little squirrel. It seemed impossible to Bridget that the untidiness and general bustle would ever settle before Sister arrived on the ward at eight o’clock, half an hour after the rest of the staff, but somehow, every job seemed to get done at once. When Sister arrived, cool and crisp in her blue uniform, the patients were all in bed, the maid was busily pushing each bed back against the wall, having finished her sweeping, a senior nurse was checking the injections to be given to the patients waiting, red-blanketed, white-capped, and meek, on their trolleys to go to theatre for their operations, and Barnett and Bridget were bringing the last of the flowers in from the kitchen, where the staff nurse had been rearranging them.

  The other day nurses finished tidying the beds, made sure the last locker was in position, and all of them, day and night nurses, came to cluster round Sister at her desk to hear the day’s duties, and an account of the previous night’s activities. As she stood in line with the others, at the very end as behoved her lowly position as junior pro, Bridget carefully put her hands behind her, as the others had, painfully aware of the smudge of dirt on her apron, put there by a dirty ashtray she had removed all too hastily from a particularly cluttered locker, and feeling her cap wobbling insecurely on her head.

  Sister let her eye run along the line of nurses, stopping at Barnett and Bridget.

  ‘I realise that as juniors, you two have rather dirty jobs to do – but that doesn’t mean you can go about my ward looking like ragamuffins,’ she said severely. ‘If you can’t keep cleaner than that, you’d better wear plastic aprons when you do your cleaning. How do you suppose patients feel having to look at people as messy as you two?’ She looked at Bridget then. ‘Now – you’re fresh from PTS, so we mustn’t be too hard on you, must we? But remember, this is a clean ward, and my nurses must be clean –’ She peered closer at Bridget then. ‘Heaven help us, aren’t you the clumsy one who used hot milk to wash the floor when you came here?’

  Bridget blushed scarlet, and mumbled, ‘Yes, Sister. Sorry, Sister.’ And Sister threw her eyes up in mock horror and said to the other nurses, ‘Keep an eye on this one, Nurses – she’ll need training not to break and spill everything in sight.’ Which was hardly fair, Bridget thought miserably. Anyone can have one accident, for heaven’s sake’.

  The other nurses giggled obediently, clearly seeing that Sister expected them to, and one of the senior nurses winked companionably at Bridget, which made her feel better, while the morose Barnett sniffed at her side.

  Sister then plunged into her reading of the night report, and Bridget listened carefully, trying to make some sense out of what she heard. The man in bed one was well, he’d slept well, and his colostomy had worked well – what was a colostomy? wondered Bridget – and pushed the word to the back of her mind as Sister went on inexorably. Bed two, Herniorrhaphy for today’s list, slept well last night, ready prepped this morning. Bed three second on the list for a lumbar sympathectomy, needed sedatives in the night, very nervous man – and so it went on, tilt Bridget’s head reeled with patients’ names, with unfamiliar diseases, odd abbreviations – what was Mag. Tri. Co., for pity’s sake? – feeling hopelessly that she would never in a million years learn enough to understand what it was all about. The things she had lear
ned in PTS – about the structure and function of the heart, for example, and about the workings of a sewage farm – had no apparent relevance to any of the things she had heard this morning.

  But before she could think about this further, Sister was reading out the day’s off-duty rota. ‘Let me know what days off you want by tomorrow at the latest, please, Nurses, and I’ll do my best to oblige –’ She smiled up at Bridget then, her really rather pretty face smooth and young in the morning sunshine. ‘You’ll find me very good about off-duty, Nurse Preston –’ The others nodded in eager agreement. If you want any particular off-duty for a special date, or a party or whatever, let me know, and I’ll do my best to help – but I expect you to be willing and cheerful about changes if I have to make them in an emergency. Fair enough?’ And Bridget, confused and blushing again, nodded speechlessly.

  ‘For the rest,’ Sister went on, ‘all I ask of you on my ward is willingness to learn, constant thoughtfulness for the patients, and a modicum of commonsense. If there’s something you don’t understand, come and ask me – for God’s sake don’t take chances on doing things if you are in any doubt. Nurse Barnett there, now. Last week she gave a man a drink of water ten minutes before he was due in theatre – the whole list had to be rearranged. So remember, if you’re in any doubt, ask. And don’t mind even if I’m angry at the time. I may bark, but I’ve never been known to bite, right, Nurses?’

  ‘Right,’ the others chorused, even the sulky Barnett, and then scattered about the morning’s work, some to be off duty till lunch-time, others to finish getting the ward ready for the morning’s operation lists, and consultants’ and registrars’ rounds. Bridget was sent to tidy herself, change her apron, and drink her morning coffee, and to come back immediately after that. Her off-duty time was to be that afternoon.

  When she came back to the ward, half an hour later, it was quiet, the men reading papers or dozing in their white-counterpaned beds, the long, polished floor gleaming in patches as sunshine poured in through the tall windows and lit the long room to a bright butter-yellow. She stood for a moment, looking down the ward, and suddenly she liked what she saw, forgetting her nervousness. It was quiet, a nurse moving softly along the beds, distributing morning medicines, another at the far end taking 10 a.m. temperatures, while a clatter of dishes came from the kitchen where Kitty the wardmaid was washing up. It all looked and sounded so peaceful, so safe, like an oversized nursery full of oversized babies.