Children's Ward

by Claire Rayner

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ she said crisply, and went purposefully from the room to return a few seconds later with a toothglass in her hand.

  ‘Here you are, lovey. Whisky,’ she said. ‘I keep it for Stephen, but he can spare this one.’

  Harriet took it, and coughed a little as the raw spirit pulled at her throat, then relaxed slowly as the warmth of it began to spread through her chilled body.

  Sally sat down on the bed, and looked at Harriet where she slumped in the dressing table chair.

  ‘Now, lovey. Tell me what’s upset you.’ Then, as Harriet began to shake her head, she said, a little roughly, ‘You’d be much better if you did – I’m not just prying, Harriet, believe me, but talking about whatever it is’ll help. Come on, now.’

  Harriet stubbed out the cigarette and stood up, going to stand at the window, to stare out at the winter darkness, the deep shadows under the trees of the Nurses’ Home garden, breathing deeply of the rich wet smell of rotting leaves that came up through the slightly opened window.

  ‘It’s all such a mess, Sally,’ she said at length, her voice heavy with reaction. ‘Such a mess.’

  ‘Gregory? Or Paul?’ Sally asked from behind her.

  ‘Both, I suppose.’ Almost in surprise, Harriet realised that her storm of tears owed as much to her distress at the scene with Paul that morning as to her feeling about Gregory. ‘He – Paul – we had an argument, if you can call it that, this morning. But he knows now. I won’t be going out with him any more – and he won’t ask me to again either.’

  She turned to look at Sally then, came to sit beside her.

  ‘I want it that way, believe me, Sal. But – well, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? And even if I don’t love him now, I did once – a little. It hurts when things die, even if you want them to. And I hate making Paul so miserable. He’s a – a bit like a child, in some ways. I feel as though I’ve abandoned him. Or does that sound arrogant? I don’t know –’

  ‘No, you aren’t being arrogant, Harriet. He does need you, I think. And he is a bit – immature, I suppose. He needs people all the time – needs their admiration to bolster himself in his own estimation,’ Sally said. ‘But that immaturity’ll be his salvation, in a way. He’ll – what’s the word? – he’ll rationalise his way out of this. Does he know about Gregory?’

  Harriet nodded.

  ‘It’s just as well,’ Sally went on. ‘I mean, he’ll be less hurt, in a way. It would have been much worse for him if you’d rejected him just because you found you didn’t care for him. This way, he’ll see himself as a sort of – honourable loser. Do you know what I mean?’

  Harriet managed a smile, and put her hand out to touch Sally’s. ‘Bless you, Sal. You make me mad sometimes, but you know how to say the sort of things that’ll help me when I need help. I think you’re probably right. Paul will get over this. I’m not the end of his world, and I needn’t persuade myself that I am. It’s a comfort.’

  ‘But it wasn’t only Paul you were crying about, was it?’ Sally said shrewdly. ‘What else, Harriet?’

  And Harriet, lost as she was in the conflicting state of her feelings about Gregory, told her. About his need for time, his request for patience on her part, the letter, the gift of the porcelain girl and her lapful of flowers.

  ‘What can I do, Sally?’ she asked piteously. ‘What can I do? I love him – it’s as though I never felt anything in my life before I felt this. He’s everything to me – if he didn’t exist, I think I wouldn’t – not properly. I’d just be a shell without this feeling. I’m lost, Sal – lost,’ and for a moment, tears rose in her again, threatening to swamp her in a luxury of bitter weeping.

  Sally put a strong warm hand on Harriet’s cold one, and said with brisk practicality. ‘Then you’ll have to learn to live with it, Harriet. I can’t pretend to understand properly – I guess I’m just not made for the grand passion. But you – you’re different. All you can do is hold on to things as they are. If he loves you – and you think he does –’

  For a moment Harriet stopped to think, and then relaxed. She didn’t need to think.

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘He loves me. I know that, if I know nothing else. He hasn’t said so in so many words, but he loves me. It’s odd, really. I know it as surely as I know I love him –’

  ‘Well, then, it’s all right, isn’t it? People like me and Stephen – well, if things don’t pan out for us, it’s because we’re not made as people like you and Gregory are. But they’ll come right for you, Harriet. They’ll have to, won’t they? God knows how, but it’ll have to come right. If he’s anything like you are – and I suppose he must be, or you wouldn’t love him as you do – then it’s inevitable. Whatever happens in between, somehow it’ll come right.’ Sally grinned a little shyly. ‘I’m not explaining this well, Harriet, I suppose. It’s just something I feel. Like algebra.’

  Diverted for a moment, Harriet stared at her.

  ‘You know – you can’t understand exactly, you struggle with all those ghastly figures and a’s and b’s and x’s and y’s, and you think none of it can possibly make sense – but all the time you know it does, really. That there’s an answer there somewhere, a logical obvious answer if only you can find it.’ Sally groped a little. ‘That’s how it is with you. You’re lost in a mess of numbers and letters, and you can’t see the way out. But it’s there – somehow, it is there –’

  And suddenly, Harriet knew she was right. No matter what misery she felt now, no matter what happened, somehow it would one day be right. She and Gregory. Together, one day, they would find the obvious logical perfect answer to everything they had ever needed.

  Chapter Four

  Harriet was more than usually grateful for Christmas this year. As she sat at breakfast the next morning, a little abstracted over her coffee and toast, the voices of the other Sisters, discussing with varying degrees of anticipation the preparations they would be making for the holiday in their own wards, she pulled her thoughts away from her private problems, and forced herself to think about what would be happening on the children’s ward. Sally grinned at her approvingly as Harriet turned to the Sister from the Maternity block and asked her whether she could share her Crib fittings this year. The Sister from the Maternity block immediately assured Harriet that she hadn’t as much as an Ox or an Ass to spare, so many pieces of her Crib had been broken the year before, and Sally laughed at Harriet’s chagrined face as the other Sister swept huffily from the dining room.

  ‘Attagirl!’ she said softly. ‘Much better for you to get peeved with old Misery-Chops than think about Gregory or Paul. I must say – I’m damned grateful I’m on Theatres come Christmas. We may have a hell of a life all the year round, but at least we don’t have to spend hours filling stockings and decorating wards –’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Harriet said, ignoring the reference to her problems with the men in her life. ‘It wouldn’t be Christmas for me if I didn’t have a ward full of children to think about – I enjoy the rush – and the stockings are fun. And since you aren’t busy yourself, you can come and help me with them. I’ll have thirty to fill, and that means hours of shopping. I’ll see how much money the office have for me to spend this year, and let you know when we’re going to get the stuff – and you aren’t getting out of helping, I promise you –’

  ‘Why can’t I keep my big mouth shut?’ Sally groaned. ‘I swear I’ll be too busy –’

  ‘Nuts!’ said Harriet, firmly. ‘You can come shopping with me – and if you’re good, I might even let you wrap the sweets for the stockings. You’ll love that – you can eat yourself sick on jelly babies –’

  The next three weeks went by in a rush of normal ward work complicated by Christmas preparations. Each afternoon, the children who were well enough collected around the big table in the middle of the ward, dressing gown sleeves rolled up, piles of coloured strips of paper in front of them, a glue pot apiece and a brush clutched in each small hand, to manufac
ture strings of rather grubby and wobbly paper chains. Harriet loved these afternoons. The children were so happy, so absorbed in their paper work, and she would look at the small concentrating faces shining under the big lights, pink tongues held between teeth, happy to see them so involved. It’s a wonderful thing to be so young, she would think sometimes, so utterly wrapped up in the present. When you are five, tomorrow has little meaning – only today – this very minute – counts, and Harriet watched the children, and learned to be like them, thinking only of the moment and its work, thinking nothing about tomorrow and its problems.

  The day before Christmas Eve, she and her nurses set to work to decorate the ward. The children were full of excitement, squealing joyfully as the nurses dragged the big boxes of prepared paper chains and tree trimmings into the ward, jumping excitedly on their beds and cots as Harriet began to blow up balloons. For the children Christmas had already begun, and Harriet laughed a little ruefully as she listened to the noise they made, the shrieks of joy whenever a balloon, blown too enthusiastically, burst loudly into shreds of coloured rubber.

  ‘They’ll all need tranquillisers tonight,’ she told her staff nurse above the hubbub. ‘At this rate, they’ll all be dead from excitement before tomorrow –’

  But she caught their excitement, too, as several of the doctors arrived in the ward to join in the fun of decorating. However busy the rest of the hospital was, most of the staff tried to come to the children’s ward for a while to help – it was the warmest and happiest place in the building at Christmas. In the other wards, patients tended to be depressed and miserable, sad to be spending Christmas in hospital instead of at home, but here, the children were just plain happy, even the homesick ones joining in the laughter and the oohs and ahs of delight as each string of coloured paper snaked across the ward.

  By six o’clock, the decorating was finished. Bright loops of paper chains covering the ceiling, crisscrossing round the lights in a fretwork of red and blue and yellow and green, balloons hung in fat bunches over each bed, and the huge Christmas Tree in the middle of the ward shimmered with tinsel and the fairy lights, strings of fluffy white popcorn gleaming gently against the deep green of the branches, translucent baubles swaying and turning in every breath of a draught that moved across the big room. Harriet turned the main lights off when the tree was finished, and stood at the end of the ward looking at the children perched on their beds as they stared at the tree with flushed faces, eyes sparkling in the reflection of light from the strings of winking fairy bulbs, gazing up at the big twinkling star that Harriet had fixed firmly to the topmost branch.

  The ward slid into a breathless silence as the children stared, open-mouthed and absorbed, and the adults stood in the shadows and looked sympathetically at them. Harriet’s heart twisted sharply with pity as she looked at them, sad that their very youth was so transient. Soon, very soon, she thought sombrely, they’ll grow up and the world won’t be a sparkling place any more, a place of gay Christmas trees and tinsel and balloons. And then she shook herself impatiently and began to tuck the children in for the night, quietly shooing out the doctors and nurses from other wards, so that the children could be soothed into a restful state of mind, ready for sleep.

  The following day was full of activity, as Harriet and her nurses tried to fit the business of stocking filling into the day’s routine. The children were all excited, as parents brought mysterious parcels to stack on each bedside locker, as more parcels piled up under the Tree, ready to be distributed next day by Santa Claus. There was an hilarious half hour for the nurses in the kitchen when Dr Bennett, the senior consultant, came to be fitted for the Santa Claus suit, and stood awkward and self conscious as Harriet draped the red suit round his lean frame, and showed him how to hook the fluffy white beard over his ears.

  It was long past six when the stockings were ready to be distributed, lying in piles on the floor of Harriet’s office, and then Harriet and the nurses set about the solemn ritual of hanging empty stockings on each bed and cot. Harriet was nothing if not thorough, and she had collected thirty empty stockings, huge white operating ones, to be hung on each bed, as well as preparing thirty full of toys and sweets and fruit.

  She went from bed to bed, cot to cot, tucking each small body under the covers, carefully helping each child hook his white stocking on the end of his bed, promising them all that Santa Claus would come. One small boy, a five year old wearing a big bandage over the head injury he had got in a traffic accident asked her anxiously how Santa Claus would know where he was?

  ‘Last year, I was at home,’ he explained worriedly. ‘An’ he knows where I live. I haven’t told him I’m here now – how will he know?’

  ‘I ’phoned him,’ Harriet assured him gravely. ‘This morning. I ’phoned him specially, to tell him who was here this year, and he said that would be all right –’

  ‘Oh –’ the little boy thought for a minute, ‘Well, that’s all right then. Mummy said he’s bringing a puppy this year, you see, so it’s important. It’d be awful if he took the puppy and put him in the wrong stocking, wouldn’t it?’ and he snuggled happily down under the covers, peering trustfully up at Harriet.

  ‘Ah – well, now, the puppy,’ Harriet said, thinking fast. ‘He did mention that – and asked me to give you a message. He said would you mind if he sent the puppy to your house? He’s got some other things to bring for your stocking here, but he thought it would be better if he took the puppy to your house – he’s a shy puppy, you see, and Santa Claus thought he might be a bit upset with all these people around –’

  The little boy bit his lip, and tears brimmed in his eyes for a moment, and hurriedly, Harriet said. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll ’phone your Mummy and Daddy, and ask them to bring the puppy to see you tomorrow – will that be all right? Then you’ll know he’s arrived safely.’

  The little boy sighed, and then nodded. ‘I s’pose so. Poor old puppy – do you think he’ll mind my bandage when he sees it?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ Harriet assured him, tucking the bedclothes round the slender neck. ‘You’ll see –’

  And as soon as she had finished her round of all the children, she spent ten minutes on the ’phone explaining to the little boy’s parents what she had promised their son, and they assured her gratefully that the puppy had indeed been bought, and would be brought to the hospital the next afternoon.

  She went off duty at eight, weary, but happy, too involved with the preparations for the next day to think much of anything at all. Indeed, she was so absorbed, that when a hand fell on her shoulder as she hurried along the lower corridor towards the nurses’ home, where the staff were collecting to set off on their carol singing tour of the wards, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Harriet.’

  It was Gregory, and she whirled to look up at him, to feel the familiar lurch of pleasure at the sight of his thin face and tired eyes, the drumming of her pulses in her ears at the nearness of him.

  ‘Merry – merry Christmas, Gregory,’ she said, smiling up at him.

  ‘I’ve bought a present for you. I was going to put it under the tree in the ward, but – well, I’d like to give it to you now,’ and he pushed a small parcel into her hand, and stood smiling a little diffidently at her.

  She looked up at him in the dimly lit corridor, and said breathlessly, ‘You – you shouldn’t – really –’

  ‘Why not? I want to. I – I haven’t many people to give presents to. Let me have the pleasure of giving one to you –’

  And Harriet laughed a little shyly. ‘You – you’ll find a parcel under the tree in the doctors’ common room,’ she said softly. ‘I hope you’ll like it –’

  Three of the other Sisters came bustling along the corridor towards them. ‘Come on, Brett!’ One of them called, pulling at her arm as they went by. ‘You’ll be late for the carols –’ And Harriet let herself be hurried away, smiling back to Gregory over her shoulder as she went, clutching her l
ittle parcel under her cape.

  All through the carol singing, as the little procession of nurses wound its way through the hospital’s wards and corridors, their capes turned inside out to show the bright red linings, she could feel the weight of the parcel in her pocket bumping softly against her leg as she walked. The wards were dimly lit, only the tree in the middle of each one sparkling with its fairy lights, as the nurses padded softly past each bed, their voices high and clear as they sang the familiar melodies. And, as every year, Harriet felt sympathetic tears pricking her own eyes as she saw women lying against the white pillows wipe tears from their cheeks as they listened, saw men sniff loudly and bury their chins in their pyjama jackets so that the nurses wouldn’t see the bright gleam of tears in their eyes. Only on the maternity ward, where they sang the traditional ‘Unto us a son is born’ did the sense of sadness, of the loneliness of people forced to be ill in hospital instead of happily at home, leave her. They stood in the middle of the maternity ward, singing lustily, smiling a little when one or two of the babies, lying in cots next to their mothers’ beds, joined in with thin wails, crumpled fists waving furiously as they cried.

  And later, when the carolling was finished, and Harriet returned to her own ward, to creep softly from bed to bed, replacing the limp empty stockings with bulging ones, she felt again the sense of certainty that somehow, no matter what, all would come out well for her in the end. She felt, obscurely, that whatever happened with Gregory and Paul, however sad she may be in the future because of Gregory, some things would always be the same, some sources of happiness and contentment would always remain to her. There would always be work, always be Christmas, and in these things, there was a sort of happiness to be found. ‘Even if I never do find a life with Gregory,’ she told herself as she walked across the courtyard towards the nurses’ home, and the traditional sherry party in the Sisters’ sitting room, There will always be something to enjoy.’