Children's Ward

by Claire Rayner

  He came in to stand beside the desk, where she immediately busied herself over a chart, trying to present a calm façLade.

  ‘Hello, Harriet,’ he said, putting a hand on her shoulder to pull her round so that she had to look at him.

  ‘Hello, Paul,’ she said with a brightness that rang false even in her own ears.

  ‘Have you come to see that child with the Still’s disease? He’s doing very well on steroids –’

  ‘No I haven’t,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ve come to see you.’

  ‘Paul, really, I can’t stop now just for social visits. I’ve far too much to do – the ward’s pretty busy –’

  ‘You’re always too busy to see me. And you’ve broken more dates than I care to count. The way you go on, you’d think no one else worked on this ward. You can’t be kept late on duty every night – and you know damned well you’re avoiding me. What is it, Harriet? What have I done?’

  She rubbed her face wearily. ‘I’m sorry, Paul – truly I am. But – I have been busy, really I have.’

  ‘You didn’t used to be,’ he said softly. ‘Not at first. Remember?’

  ‘That was a long time ago, Paul. Things change –’ she looked at him miserably. ‘Please, Paul, don’t force me to say hurtful things. I’ve tried to show you – but you keep persisting –’

  ‘What else can I do?’ he said roughly. ‘I need you, Harriet – and all you do is slip away all the time – I can’t get at you. You hide behind Stephen and Sally whenever we’re together – you never give us a chance to be on our own – what’s the matter, for Christ’s sake? I thought – I thought you cared for me once.’

  ‘I thought so too, Paul,’ Harriet said unhappily.

  ‘But I – I was wrong, I suppose. Can’t we just – just be friends? Please, Paul – try to understand.’

  He looked at her, his face full of misery. ‘Friends? Is that the best you can do, Harriet? I love you – you know that, don’t you? I want – I want to marry you, Harriet –’

  ‘Don’t – please, Paul, don’t!’ She couldn’t bear the misery on his face, the look of a slapped child that filled his eyes.

  ‘It’s no use bleating “Don’t” at me,’ he said, anger suddenly flaring at him. ‘It’s a bit late for that now. At the beginning you weren’t like this. If you hadn’t been so affectionate then, do you suppose I’d have got myself into this state over you? What do you think I am, for God’s sake? A bloody idiot? You can’t just act as though you love me one minute and drop me like a piece of garbage the next! Is that all you are – one of those women who like to get a man into a state and then stand back and watch him squirm while you giggle?’

  She closed her eyes in sick distress for a moment.

  ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ she said at length. ‘But it isn’t true, Paul. I don’t deny I thought I cared for you at first – but I was wrong. And that’s that. I’ve been trying to avoid this – this sort of scene. I thought if I avoided you you’d understand and we could end an episode with – with dignity and still be friends. I was wrong. I should have told you outright.’

  He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his white coat and turned to stare down the ward.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,’ he said at last. ‘I should have known better than to think I could salvage anything out of this by being – unpleasant. I’ve been trying to persuade myself it wasn’t true, I suppose. About you and Weston.’

  ‘Weston?’ she said awkwardly.

  ‘This is a hospital, remember? You don’t suppose you can go around with someone here without everyone knowing about it, do you?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m sorry, Paul. But at least you know now.’

  ‘I can’t think what you see in him,’ Paul turned from the window to look at her. ‘Look, Harriet – this isn’t just me being a – a bad loser. But he’s an odd bloke – secretive. No one knows anything about him. At his age – well, he’s a bit of an oddity. Most men at his stage are married. For all you know he is – had you thought of that?’

  She stared at him, her chin lifting. ‘I’m not going to discuss him with you, Paul. It’s none of your concern.’

  ‘No – I suppose not. The fact that I love you and I’m stupid enough to go on loving you even when you don’t want me to gives me no right to be interested in what happens to you,’ he said bitterly. I’m sorry to be a nuisance.’

  ‘Please, Paul – don’t be so angry,’ she said impulsively. ‘It’s – it’s very kind of you to be concerned. But this is my affair. And whatever Gregory is or isn’t, I – care for him. Please, try to accept that, will you?’

  ‘I’ve no choice, have I?’ He went to the door, and pushed it open. ‘Forget tonight’s date, then, Harriet. Let me break this one for once, hmm? It’ll make a change,’ and he pushed his way out of the ward, ignoring the children who looked up at him in surprise, missing the sweets he usually carried in his pockets for them.

  She stood and stared after him, sick with misery, yet at the same time oddly relieved that the whole thing had happened. At least he knew now, at least he would stop following her around, forcing her to think up ever more excuses for not going out with him. But –

  A nurse put her head round the office door.

  ‘The lunch trolley is up, Sister,’ she said. ‘Are you ready to serve them?’

  ‘Mmm? Oh, yes. I’m just coming –’

  She served the children’s meals abstractedly, filling plates with minced beef and vegetables, making sure that all the toddlers were fed, checking the special diets automatically. And all the time, Paul’s voice rang over and over in her mind.

  ‘Most men at his stage are married. For all you know he is – had you thought of that?’

  And it was this that surprised her. Because she hadn’t. In all the long hours she had spent thinking about Gregory, about his need for time, his promise that after eighteen months they could ‘talk about the future’ it had never occurred to her that he might be married, that it might be this that stood between them.

  She sent the nurses to their own lunch, and settled the children in their cots for their afternoon naps, pulling blinds so that the thin winter sunshine was blotted out, walking round the ward softly, promising the unhappy ones that their mothers would soon be coming to visit them, wiping lunch-smeared faces clean, giving chocolate to those who could have it. And all the time, her thoughts whirled with a sick persistence. Why? Was he married? Wasn’t he?

  For the rest of that long afternoon, as she went through the usual routine that was the day’s work she thought about it. And at half past six, when she went off duty for the evening, she had at last come to a decision. She would ask him. He had asked for patience, but she would ask him for this one explanation. She had to know.

  Chapter Three

  There was a bitter wind blowing, whipping her apron high, tugging at her cap, as she hurried across the courtyard through the early darkness of the winter evening. But cold as it was, she paused for a moment at the gate that opened on to the Nurses Home path, and looked back across the wide courtyard at the hospital.

  The main ward block loomed blackly into the wintry sky, pierced at regular intervals with the oblong yellow patches that were the ward windows. She could see the shapes of nurses flitting past each window as they hurried round the wards, preparing the patients for supper, see high on the fifth floor the dimmer red oblongs that were the windows of her own ward, where the children were already asleep. There was a faint white patch out on the balcony, and automatically she thought – Nurse Jenkins – she’s forgotten to bring those bits of washing in again. It’s no wonder we lose linen. Those nightgowns’ll blow away any minute. I’ll give her a rocket in the morning –

  It’s odd, she thought. This place is full of misery for so many people. Everything about it is alarming.

  The huge impersonal mass of it, the faint smell of antiseptic and anaesthetics that could be recognised even o
ut here, in the windy courtyard. Visitors, patients – they can’t get away from the place quickly enough. But for me, this is home, this is security. For a brief moment, she let her mind run off into fantasy, imagining herself working here for the rest of her life, giving all of herself to the illnesses of other people, gaining peace of mind and security while she did it. Wouldn’t that be better – infinitely better – than this aching yearning inside her, this longing for one person’s presence, this need for one man’s touch? She felt as though she were poised on the edge of a huge pool of water. She could choose – still choose, choose whether to turn back from the edge to the safety of dry land that stood behind, or whether to take a big breath and leap into the water in front of her, the water that symbolised in her fantasy the relationship she was trying to build with Gregory, the relationship that she was trying to end with Paul.

  And then, her intellect took over, and with a wry grin in the darkness she remembered her psychology lectures. Water, in dreams and fantasies – water was the recognised symbol of sex. The psychologists are right, she told herself. Why else would I see myself as standing on the edge of a pool, why else do I see my situation as that of a swimmer battling against huge waves, being buffeted by the sheer weight of blue water? I wish I were less of a woman, that I didn’t have this need for Gregory. But there was no escaping it. She had already jumped into her pool, was already committed to building her future with Gregory, and no matter how much she wanted to turn back, avoid the uncertainty that the future seemed to hold, she could not. She loved him. There was nothing else to be done but go on loving him.

  Shivering a little, she turned and hurried on. I’ll phone him, she thought, see if he’s off duty tonight, and suggest we go out for a drink somewhere. And then I’ll ask him. I must. If he is married, I must know. Quite what she would do if he admitted he was, she didn’t allow herself to consider. That hazard must be dealt with as it arose. No amount of thought now could guide her. As she got to the Home, and stood in the brightly lit hall, blinking a little as she shook the creases out of her apron, the receptionist who sat all day in the little cubby hole that held the small Home switchboard put her head out of the door, and called, ‘Sister Brett!’

  ‘Letter for me?’ Harriet asked. There should be a letter from Sybil, her sister. She hadn’t written for a week or more, though Harriet had learned to accept her sister’s spasmodic letters as normal; a busy Vicar’s wife, with three small children of her own, a couple of foster children, as well as all the parish work to do and a huge rambling house to look after, had little time for the luxury of letter writing.

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ The receptionist smirked at her with elephantine roguishness. ‘A special one – internal mail, you could call it. Brought it himself, he did. It’s here –’ She fumbled beneath the cluttered shelf in front of the switchboard, and brought out a small parcel, wrapped in white tissue paper, with a square white envelope stuck to it with a piece of transparent sticky tape.

  Surprised, Harriet took it. The envelope had ‘Sister Brett’ written on it in a strong slanting handwriting, and for a moment she stared at it in mystification.

  The receptionist giggled, and said again, ‘Brought it in himself he did. Isn’t that nice?’

  ‘Who brought it?’ Harriet asked stupidly.

  ‘Why, that nice looking doctor did – I don’t know his name, mind you – I don’t get to see the doctors very often. Know their voices on the ’phone, like, but not their faces. Very distinguished he looks, doesn’t he? I like a man as looks like a man myself. And that grey in his hair – very distinguished looking, isn’t it, Sister?’

  ‘Yes –’ Harriet said absently, ‘Very distinguished. Thank you, Miss Chester –’

  She took the parcel and the letter up to her room to open them; much to the disappointment of Miss Chester, who liked to share in as much of the nursing staff’s life as she could. Even watching someone open a letter gave her a vicarious thrill, a sense of sharing in a busy life, for her own was notable only for its lack of incident.

  Harriet sat on the edge of her bed, her cape in a heap on the floor at her feet, and put the little white parcel down beside her. Slowly, she pulled her cap off, and ran her fingers through her hair, staring at the writing on the envelope like a woman in a trance.

  Why on earth should he write to me? Has he had second thoughts? Is he regretting saying what he did – the promise of ‘talk about the future’ in eighteen months time? I won’t open it – panic rose in her – I won’t.

  But she shook her head in impatience at her own stupidity, and pulling her scissors from her belt, slit the thick white envelope.

  ‘My dear Harriet’ – the strong slanting writing began – ‘you will no doubt think me quite absurd to be writing to you in this way when I am so near to you, when I could come to the ward to talk to you, could arrange for us to go out somewhere where we could talk face to face. But I find it a great deal easier to talk to you like this, with a pen and paper. I’ve lost the habit – if I ever had it, which I begin to doubt – of being able to say all I would like to say in the usual way. So, a letter.

  I want to thank you, Harriet, for your promise of patience, your calm acceptance of what must seem to you an unpleasant secretiveness on my part. I have learned to care a great deal for your opinion of me – long before that scalded child gave me an opportunity to take you out of the hospital somewhere, to have your company away from a ward full of children and nurses, I wanted to do just that. And I was right in what I had first seen in you. You have a serenity, an adult maturity of understanding that I would not have expected in someone as young as you are. I’m thirty-eight, you know – and you’re just twenty-five. But even though I have thirteen years on you, you make me feel that in some ways you are infinitely older than I am with that maturity that is so wonderful a part of you.

  It is that maturity in you that makes me so happy now. I know I need not fear what I would certainly have to fear in any other woman – a probing, a nagging if you like, an inability to accept without questions. Because I could not bear to be questioned. Believe me, if I could explain to you now why I cannot say to you all that I would like to say, why I cannot yet give you all I would like to give you, I would. But with you, I need not be afraid, need I? Thank you for that, Harriet.

  But even if I cannot yet give what I want to give, I can offer you one concrete object as a small token of my appreciation and esteem. Please accept it.

  And please, don’t let us talk of this letter when we meet to go to the theatre next Friday. I’m so very bad at talking. Gregory.’

  She let the letter drop onto her lap, and stared out of her window at the few stars that shone steadily in the dark panes, at her reflection, a little twisted by the distortion in the glass, and felt again that odd mixture of joy and frustration that she was coming to recognise as an inevitable part of her feeling for Gregory.

  So that’s that. I can’t ask him now. How could I? Not now. For a moment she hated Paul, Paul whose hurt anger had made him suggest that Gregory was a married man, that he was too secretive to be otherwise. Until Paul had said so, it had never occurred to her that this might be the case. But then her anger subsided, for she realised quite well that the same thought would have come to her eventually, even if Paul had never said anything.

  Her hand slid off her lap, and with a start, she looked down at the little parcel that it had touched. Slowly, she picked it up, and began to peel off the layers of tissue paper.

  It was a tiny piece of French porcelain, a model of a girl sitting on a bench, her lap full of flowers. It was barely three inches high, yet every detail of the tiny face was perfect, each petal of every flower breathtakingly beautiful in its minute detail. The colour was exquisite, the girl’s dress falling to her delicate feet in folds of cerulean blue, the flowers in tints of pale lemon and pink, with shimmering green leaves. And the girl herself had hair that was the colour of sherry, a soft amber tinted brown, each carefully modelled strand o
f hair curling with a reality that made it look as though it could be curled round a finger, if there were a finger small enough to do it. Her eyes, eyes that looked into the distance with a melancholy that seemed to transmit itself to the beholder, were the same colour, with minute flecks of lighter amber in them.

  Harriet stared at the lovely thing, and then, without stopping to think, took it across the room to her dressing table. She switched on the light in front of the mirror, and bent to look into the glass, holding the little figure against her face. The hair was exactly the same colour as her own, the eyes that looked so remotely into the mirror seemed to sparkle a little, seemed to recognise the same amber flecks in the depths of Harriet’s own eyes.

  She put it down in front of the light, and sank slowly into the chair in front of the dressing table. The little figure threw its shadow in front of itself, the girl’s face seeming to droop sadly in the flood of light above it, the tiny mouth looking as though it would tremble into life at any moment.

  And then, Harriet wept, drooping her head into her hands and giving herself up to an agony of sobbing that seemed as though it would shake her to pieces.

  So lost was she in her weeping, so isolated in her distress, she didn’t hear the door open behind her, didn’t realise that she wasn’t alone until she felt Sally’s hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Harriet – Harriet, honey, what is it? What’s the matter? Is something wrong at home? What is it, love?’ Sally dropped to her knees beside Harriet, and pulled her round till she was weeping against her friend’s shoulder, patting the heaving back in an effort to stop the tearing gulping sobs.

  Gradually, Harriet regained control of herself, managed to sit up again, groping for a handkerchief to mop at her red eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally – I didn’t mean – I’m sorry –’ she said huskily, scrubbing at her face, blowing her nose, trying to control the painful breathing that still tugged unevenly at her chest.

  Sally, practical as always, thrust her hand into her pocket, and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Gently, she put one between Harriet’s shaking lips, and lit it.