As Joe looked at her in shock, she gave him a smile. A rare event in itself and one certainly never witnessed before by Joe, who had been a patient on the ward for almost two months.
‘Thank you, Sister,’ he said, grinning back, before he left to join the others in the day room.
*
Fionnuala and Helen were still at Jack’s bedside.
‘Open the window to let his spirit out,’ Fionnuala whispered to Helen.
Helen did not regard herself as religious, but it was a routine followed by every single nurse in the hospital after the death of a patient. There were enough ghost stories flying around the hospital as it was, and there were certain wards which every student nurse dreaded being sent on to for a night shift.
‘Isn’t he just gorgeous?’ Helen turned back from the window and stroked the young boy’s hair away from his face and his cheek with her finger. ‘He’s like a young James Dean.’
Fionnuala was busy washing the dirt of the building site from Jack’s body, dirt which the night nurses had had no time to deal with.
‘The poor, poor love,’ Helen said. ‘He’s the same age as my little brother. God only knows what it would be like at our house, if this happened to our Steven. I don’t think my mother would ever get out of bed again. I can’t imagine any of us would.’
Fionnuala dried Jack’s limbs with the towel and pulled the sheet up and over his many broken bones.
‘Will you close his eyes?’ she asked Helen.
‘Aye,’ Helen replied, as she gently coaxed Jack’s eyelids, with the long dark eyelashes, down and, for the last time, closed his film star brown eyes.
Fionnuala and Helen stood still for a moment, at his side. Fionnuala wanted to pray, but she felt this might make Helen uncomfortable.
Helen looked up at Fionnuala, ‘God rest his soul,’ she said, as a tear slipped down her cheek.
Fionnuala took her handkerchief out of her own pocket. ‘God rest his soul,’ she responded and with a sob between them, they slipped out from behind the curtains to head to the office for further instructions. As Helen passed the window, and despite the cold, she pushed it even further, opening it onto the widest setting.
When they reached the office, the doctors were still there. One was filling out the death certificate and the ward register, while the other was talking to Sister Joyce.
‘Would you like me to talk to the relatives?’
‘Well, I would, if I knew where they were,’ she replied. ‘I tried to phone, as soon as he arrested. The number we have from the work mates who brought him in, is for a shop near to where they live. They have just called back, to say his parents left the house last night and are on their way to Liverpool.’
‘What shall we do with the lad then? If his parents aren’t here to see him, we should send him straight to the morgue.’
‘Let’s give them an hour,’ Sister Joyce replied. ‘They won’t be allowed into the morgue and it seems a bit harsh, if they travel all this way and then don’t even get to say goodbye to their son.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said the doctor. ‘It’s a shame it’s Christmas morning.’
Fionnuala had noticed that doctors in the hospital varied in their attitude towards the nurses. Some were friendly and spoke to them as equals. These were mostly the very junior doctors, however; the vast majority treated the nurses as handmaidens, barking out their orders with an air of superiority and importance. One such doctor had made Fionnuala cry on her very first day, something she was determined would never happen again. The consultants were regarded as mini gods and only Sister Joyce was allowed to speak to them, unless they asked a nurse a direct question.
Sister Joyce took in the girls’ tear-streaked faces at a glance.
‘It’s Christmas morning, nurses,’ she said, ‘and it hasn’t been the best start to the day. Have a coffee, courtesy of Joe, and let’s work out how we are going to manage the rest of the day. There is one thing we know: it can only get better.’
Fionnuala wasn’t happy drinking coffee in the office, with the doctors present. It made her feel uncomfortable. However, the staff canteen was closed, because it was Christmas and she now discovered it was quite usual for the nurses to eat with the patients on the ward on Christmas Day, just as though they were a family.
‘I have managed to purchase plenty of treats for the ward, with the donations we have had over the year,’ Sister Joyce said. ‘Let’s start with this one, shall we?’
Out of the cardboard box on her desk, which appeared to be full of chocolates, she extracted a bottle of Scotch whisky and, without further ado, poured a small measure into each coffee cup.
Fionnuala dared not speak. She had never even tasted whisky, but she did want to look as though she had. Then, to her surprise, she noticed something quite unexpected. Helen and the junior Doctor Brookes were smiling at each other over their coffee cups, and Helen was blushing. Fionnuala wasn’t surprised. Helen was the prettiest and most glamorous nurse in the hospital, with a personality to match.
‘We have the consultants arriving, with their wives and families, at twelve,’ said Sister Joyce. ‘They will take a sherry with us all, including the patients, in the day room. We will then take the sherry in to those who cannot leave their beds. The consultants and their wives will visit the patients at their bedsides, to wish them Merry Christmas. When they have left, we will serve lunch on the table in the centre of the ward for us all. It should be an easy day from here on in, nurses.’
Sister Joyce had probably never got anything quite so wrong in her thirty years as a ward sister.
*
The hospital choir had returned to the wards, to sing to the patients, while they ate their lunch. They sang two carols on each ward, which meant they could cover most of the adult wards in an hour and a half. The nurses in the hospital choir were those on duty. Making Christmas Day a better one, for patients who needed to remain in hospital, was their calling and they had all been slipped on to their ward rota as extras, to ensure the tradition survived.
Fionnuala and Helen had finished serving lunch to the patients, with Joe’s help, and had just sat down to tuck into their own, when the choir singers began to arrive through the ward door. It was only two thirty in the afternoon, but it was already becoming dark outside. The sky was heavy with yet more snow-filled clouds and the wind lifting up from the river was fierce.
The end of the ward looked out onto the front of the hospital through large glass windows, and they all noticed as an ambulance, with blue lights flashing, hurtled up the drive.
‘Let’s hope it’s not one for us,’ said Sister Joyce. ‘Let’s say grace, shall we, before the carol singers begin. Doctor Brookes, if you would be so kind.’
They all bowed their heads and closed their eyes, as the sonorous voice of Doctor Brookes boomed out the grace. Fionnuala opened her eyes to look around her. Everyone was sitting around the table, with hands clasped before them and eyes tightly shut. The Christmas turkey was steaming on the table, along with hospital kitchen aluminium tubs, filled with roast potatoes, vegetables and as many trimmings as could fit onto the regulation white and bottle-green trimmed plates.
Fionnuala noticed she wasn’t the only person with her eyes open. Helen was staring dreamily at Dr Brookes and what was more, as he spoke the grace, he was looking equally dreamily at Helen. Helen caught Fionnuala’s eye and they both grinned. Well, well, well, thought Fionnuala, and I spotted it first.
As the choir singers began, the pager in Dr Brookes’ pocket beeped. He jumped up from the table and ran to the office to pick up the telephone.
‘I’m needed in casualty,’ he said, and ran out of the ward doors without a backward glance.
‘Poor man,’ said Sister Joyce, ‘he hasn’t slept in over forty-eight hours. Bon appetite everyone.’ She picked up her knife and fork, the signal for everyone else to do the same.
As the choir sang, Fionnuala looked out of the window. The snow was beginning to fall on
ce again. Helen lived in the nurses’ home and wouldn’t be travelling home until she was officially off duty in two days’ time. Fionnuala prayed that the buses would keep running, so that she could return home tonight.
She had no way of letting Callum know he had the same idea as her da, to meet her at the bus stop, and wished now she had asked him to come to the hospital gates, so that he could catch the bus home with her. She knew that as soon as Callum saw Fred Kennedy, he would realize what was happening and would slip back home. Fionnuala felt both sad and angry. She had truly wanted to see Callum on their first Christmas Day. Watching Helen and Doctor Brookes had made her feel melancholy and lonely.
Helen came and sat next to her. ‘What’s up? It’s Christmas and you look really miserable.’
‘What’s up with me?’ said Fionnuala, smiling. ‘Well, I was just thinking now that, if I didn’t have my Callum, how useful it would be to take a few lessons in flirting from you. As you seem to be such an expert.’
‘He is a bit special, isn’t he?’ Helen whispered.
‘He is, I’m sure. He’s certainly nicer than most of the others, but I’ll tell you what, it has made me absolutely certain that come hell or high water, I am telling my mam and dad about Callum. When we were laying out Jack this morning, I thought, God only knows what’s around the corner. Life is too short, isn’t it?’
There was a murmur in the room. Matron had arrived to pay her Christmas visit.
‘Nurse Windsor,’ she said to Helen, ‘could you run along and help in casualty, please, they are rather busy and could do with extra hands.’
Even though Sister Joyce had been in charge of her own ward for over ten years, she jumped to attention when Matron walked into the ward and everyone else followed suit.
‘Please, sit down,’ said Matron. ‘I have just come to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Nurse Kennedy, are you taking the bus home tonight?’
‘I am, Matron,’ Fionnuala replied.
‘Well, once the rumpus in casualty has died down and Nurse Windsor returns, maybe Sister Joyce will allow you to make your way home. I have heard from the porter that the snow is due to get much worse as the day goes on.’
Fionnuala felt like running over and kissing her. Maybe she could ask little Paddy, who lived on Nelson Street and was friendly with the O’Prey boys, if he could run a message to Callum and they could meet, after all.
‘Thank you very much, Matron,’ she replied, casting a glance at Sister Joyce.
‘We have an extra two girls on ward one, Sister Joyce,’ Matron said. ‘You could let her go now, if you were so inclined.’
‘Well, I don’t see why not,’ said Sister Joyce. ‘They have had a tough morning. Go on, Nurse Kennedy, run and catch your bus before it gets any worse.’
Fionnuala could not believe her luck. She almost fell over the chair, as she pushed it back from the table.
‘Thank you, Matron, thank you, Sister Joyce, bye, everyone!’
She waved to the patients around the table and was out of the ward doors, before Matron could change her mind and call her back. She met the kitchen staff on their way into the ward to collect the dishes, as she walked out through the swing doors, but as she opened the changing room door, she thought of Helen.
‘Drat, I need to see Helen and say goodbye.’ She spoke out loud, just as she let the changing room door shut again and turned to go down the long arterial main hospital corridor to the casualty ward.
As she approached, she saw a middle-aged couple, standing in the middle of the corridor, looking up at the overhead sign, obviously trying to find their bearings.
Fionnuala thought they looked troubled. ‘Can I help?’ she enquired. ‘Are you lost?’
It was the man who spoke.
‘We are looking for our boy, Nurse. His name is Jack. He was brought in last night, after an accident on the building site he was working on. We are trying to find out which ward he is on.’
Fionnuala was speechless. Her mind raced, while she tried to work out what to do. If she returned to the ward, she would most likely be stuck there for at least a couple more hours and not get to see her Callum after all. She didn’t deliberate for long, she knew what she had to do.
‘He was on ward two. I will take you down there, to Sister Joyce,’ she said.
‘Was? Why would we be going there, then? Can we go to the ward he is on now?’
It was Jack’s mother speaking. Fionnuala realized that they had no idea their son had died on Christmas morning and that, in his last moments, he had cried out pitifully for his mammy.
While Fionnuala was struggling to think what to say, she saw Helen erupt through the casualty doors. When she saw Fionnuala, her face instantly flooded with relief.
‘Oh, my God, Fionnuala, you have to come now, right now. It’s your Callum, he is in casualty.’
‘In casualty, why? Has he come to collect me?’ Fionnuala knew, even as she spoke the words, that it was not the reason why Helen had come to find her.
She could hear the carol singers at the top of the stairs at the entrance to the children’s wards, now singing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. The door to the end of the corridor blew open and she watched as the snow sent flurries down the corridor towards her, carried on an icy breeze which forced her to pull her cape tighter across her body. She felt as though she was a million miles away, yet she knew that she was also right there, waiting, and that whatever Helen was about to impart was bad news and she needed to prepare herself.
‘He’s not that good. He has been in a car crash, the police are with him and they are questioning him now. They have just told me that, when he is well enough, they will be taking him straight to a police cell and back to jail. He stole the car, Fionnuala.’
Fionnuala blinked. It was all she could do. Speech was beyond her. She tried, she opened her mouth and formed a word, but she had no idea what it was and, unuttered, it stuck in her throat.
‘I have to go, it’s chaos in there; a tram has left the tracks. That’s what made Callum skid. He helped to see to the people on the tram. He could have run, I suppose, but that’s how the bizzies got him, anyway. I’ll be shot if I stay here one second longer. Hurry, Fionnuala, he’s in big trouble, you need to run to him.’ And with that, Helen disappeared back through the swing doors into casualty.
Helen’s words had hit Fionnuala with a force that left her face stinging.
He could have run… slap. He’s going back to jail… slap. Stunned, she stood and watched Helen’s back. The noise from casualty flooded the corridor for a few seconds, as the door opened and then sliced clean away, as they shut again and silence once more filled the corridor.
‘Excuse me, Nurse.’ It was Jack’s mother, once again. With a shock, Fionnuala realized they were still there.
‘We don’t mean to be a bother, sure we don’t, but could ye take us to our son.’
Fionnuala took a deep breath. It was not her place to tell Jack’s parents that their son was lying in the morgue, having died five hours earlier. That was for Sister Joyce.
Her job was to make the tea, hold out the handkerchiefs and to watch and learn from Sister Joyce, because one day she wanted to be a ward sister, too.
She thought someone else was speaking, when she heard herself say, ‘Please, come with me, I will take you to Sister Joyce.’
Like a robot, she walked down the corridor, slowing her pace, so that Jack’s parents could keep up with her, suppressing her overwhelming desire to run to Callum, as fast as the wind that broke in through the main hospital doors and into casualty. There was only one place she wanted to be and that was by Callum’s side, whatever he had done. Callum would need her. He was scared of the police and not very good at explaining himself.
As they reached the ward doors, Fionnuala turned to Jack’s parents. During the walk along the corridor, she had made small talk, to a background accompaniment of a loud and persistent buzzing in her brain. How was your journey? Is the weather bad in Dubl
in? Have you children at home?
‘If you can just sit here a moment, I will fetch Sister Joyce for you,’ she said, as they reached the wooden benches used by visitors waiting at the end of the ward.
‘Oh, thank you so much, Nurse. I’m desperate to see my boy, we just can’t wait another minute, can we, Pat? I’ve been beside myself since yesterday.’
Fionnuala looked at Jack’s father for a long moment. Both he and his wife looked exhausted. Fionnuala forgot her own troubles, as she thought about the catastrophe they were both about to face. She and Sister Joyce would be there to catch them when they heard the news. They would hold them, through those first moments, when the facts refused to be heard and hovered stubbornly and cruelly, taunting them from the sidelines of consciousness and then hitting them with a force which could take them both down at once.
Jack’s father gave Fionnuala a weak and shaky half smile. He knows, she almost said out loud. He may not realize it yet, but he knows.
‘Please, just wait a moment here, while I put my basket down.’
Fionnuala opened the changing room door and almost threw her basket in, before opening the ward door and facing the scene she had left only minutes before. She walked towards the centre of the ward, where Sister Joyce was instructing Joe how to place the vases of flowers, being moved back onto the long table, now that the detritus of lunch had been cleared away.
‘Nurse Kennedy, what on earth is wrong? Why are you not on that bus already?’
‘Sister, it’s Jack’s parents. They have arrived.’
The two women exchanged a look. Of all the student nurses on duty in the entire hospital today, if Sister Joyce could have picked one out of all of them, to help her through the next half an hour, she would have picked Nurse Kennedy, and she silently thanked God for bringing her back onto the ward.
‘Let’s move into the office, shall we?’ Sister Joyce gently, but firmly, took the elbow of Jack’s mother. ‘Come along, Mr Donnelly.’ Sister Joyce’s voice was calm and firm, not yet betraying any hint of sympathy. A professional to the core of her being.
Run to Him Page 4