by Nina Raine
JOHN.…I’m in clinic.
His bleep goes off – a different pitch to the normal one.
Just my bleep.
We hear a crackly voice saying ‘adult cardiac arrest Brontë ward, adult cardiac arrest Brontë ward’.
No. They’ve forgotten to cancel my on-call.
He silences it.
Cardiac arrest.
I don’t care. Let the shit hit the fan. Highlight the cracks in the system.
No. Actually I was ringing about –
(Nodding.) Yeah.
Sort of… (Feels his neck.) gooseberry size.
Beat.
I know, I know, so you’re saying, sooner the better.
Beat.
Okay, okay. Point taken. Thanks.
Beat.
No, I mean I feel fine at the moment.
The bleep goes off again. He looks at it, silences it.
‘ – Be on the safe side.’ Yeah.
(Ironically.) Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m shitting myself.
He makes to have a bite of his chicken sandwich. The phone on his desk rings.
Sorry, Brian, can you hold on a minute?
He picks up the other phone.
Hello.
Chest pains?
Beat.
Ahh, you know what to do.
Beat.
Ah give her air. Give her…
Give her a pack of cigarettes.
He laughs.
Okay. Call me if you need to.
He puts the phone down, picks up the mobile again.
Sorry about that.
A NURSE comes in. Puts a pile of patients’ notes on his desk. JOHN is about to take a bite of his chicken sandwich.
NURSE. Patient’s waiting. Shall I send him in?
Beat.
JOHN. This has to be the longest time it’s ever – taken anyone – to eat a chicken sandwich.
The NURSE waits, neutrally. JOHN puts down sandwich, starts wearily leafing through notes.
Why not. Why not.
The NURSE goes out.
The Doctors’ Mess
Noise. Pop music. The doctors’ mess is like a students’ common room. A kitchen area with chairs and tables and a lounging area with sofas, and a huge television showing MTV. There are vending machines for Coke, chocolate, sandwiches. A microwave. A strange mix of recent expense and dilapidation.
Some doctors sing rowdily along with the song on the telly – Beyoncé. REBECCA, a good-looking girl, much in evidence, dancing on a coffee table. Dissolving into laughter, they break it up. REBECCA goes over to MARK, who is playing darts on his own.
REBECCA. You know why it is, Mark. Because you keep going behind her back.
MARK. Vashti is an asexual surgical bitch who shits on her juniors and brown-noses the consultants. There’s nothing behind the eyes. She’s a ‘Dead Doc’.
REBECCA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t like being bossed around by a girl. Well, when Vashti finds out what you’ve done on the ward you’re fucking dead.
MARK. What have I done on the ward?
REBECCA. Oh, come on, Mark. I just heard from one of the nurses that you used an introducer on that patient when Vashti specifically told you not to.
Beat.
MARK. So sue me.
REBECCA. They could, you know.
MARK. He needed to be catheterised.
REBECCA. You’re gonna fucking get it, man. (Makes slitting-her-throat gesture.)
MARK. But I did it fine!
REBECCA. But that’s not the point! The point is, you’re sticking a posh knitting needle up the man’s cock! It could end up anywhere! It’s a very delicate tube. It’s a penis. I mean, I’ve heard the penis is a delicate tube. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps you could tell me. Jesus, Mark, I couldn’t believe it when I’d heard you’d done it on your own.
MARK. Why is everyone so paralysed by this place? Fuck it, we have to make decisions on our own, without consultants, every minute of the day. You have to do what you think best.
REBECCA. Mm, Apocalypse Now. Bullshit, Mark. There are hospital guidelines and if you go against them and are sued, you’re liable.
MARK. And if you lived completely within the limits then you’d never do anything, would you?
REBECCA (shrugging). Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
MARK angrily throws another dart. The conversation is over. REBECCA moves to the eating area. MTV continues to play in the background. A group of doctors – as many of the actors as possible – are sitting in the eating area, a rowdy conversation in mid-flow. They are eating toast, drinking coffee. People milling about. There is a slightly hysterical air of licence. This is where the doctors let their hair down. JOHN has wandered in and sets about making himself a coffee, silently, in the background. BRIAN drifts by with MARK, also talking. Two separate conversations mid-flow.
JAMES.…So, he rings him up, and he says – (Small dramatic beat.) ‘Doctor, your patient’s dead.’ And he goes, ‘Listen – (Small dramatic beat.) I may be good: but I’m not that good.’
They all burst out laughing.
REBECCA. Hey, gorgeous.
She pinches his bottom.
BRIAN (to MARK, mid-story).…We started off trying to crush it, right, this enormous kidney stone –
MARK. And how big was it?
BRIAN (rifles through). It’s here, in his notes. Scary. You want to see it? (Hands him a plastic sachet with a surprisingly large stone – the size of a cherry stone.)
MARK (snorting with incredulous laughter). I reckon you picked that up at the seaside.
BRIAN. Yup. The stone was actually growing faster than we were crushing it…
They laugh together. A bleep goes off, loudly. Everyone instinctively checks theirs, then relaxes. Back to the other table.
JAMES.…She weighed a hundred and fifty-six kilos, this tsunami of flesh, she had a haemoglobin of four to five which was pretty spectacular I thought, and I had to do her cos no one else wanted to, when we put her on the table we literally had to strap her to it – (Makes circular motion with hands.)
REBECCA. – It was not pretty, there was a hell of a lot of tissue rolling towards us –
JAMES. – It was like Laurel and Hardy. I blew up the bags…
The bleep goes off again.
MARK. Who’s lost their bleep? (Gets up. It bleeps again, louder.)
REBECCA. Where’s it coming from?
JAMES (facetiously). Try looking in the microwave.
MARK opens the microwave with a flourish. Empty. The bleep gives its final, loudest bleep.
MARK. Aha. (It is between two packets of cereal, on the side. He inspects the number bleeping.)
REBECCA. Whose bleep? And who’s bleeping?
MARK. Why don’t you answer it, find out. ‘Little Bo Peep has lost her bleep – ’
REBECCA. He who finds the bleep, answers it.
MARK. Fuck’s sake. (Moves to the phone.) If I end up taking a GP referral…
JAMES. It’ll be like, ‘This is doctor –chk!’ (Mimes slamming down the phone.)
BRIAN turns to JAMES.
BRIAN (gesturing after MARK). You know what he needs? A girlfriend.
MARK (over his shoulder). Yeah, yeah…
JAMES. Yes, and this place is like an enormous hotel…
REBECCA. What do you mean?
JAMES. All those nurses, all those on-call rooms…
MARK (from the phone, where he is busy standing and dialling). Nurses aren’t sexy any more, they’re all… Filipinos now. No, I’ll tell you who the new nurses are –
JAMES/MARK (in unison). Physios are the new nurses.
REBECCA. A few years ago we would’ve been the nurses and you would be after us.
JAMES (flirtatiously sing-song). Rebecca’s jealous!
REBECCA. Reminding you of the facts.
JAMES raises his hands in supplication, leaves the mess.
There’s this old guy on our ward, I’ve told him a zillion times, he still calls me nurse.<
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BRIAN. He thinks I’m security.
REBECCA. He also gets a hard-on when I try to catheterise him, but that’s by the by. My point is, he’ll call some male nurse, I mean some queen like Matthew, ‘Doctor’. –I like to address Matthew as ‘Sister’. Push his buttons a bit.
BRIAN. You know that old male nurse, the one off Holby, is here?
REBECCA. What, ‘Bernard’?
Not ‘Bernie’?
BRIAN. Yeah.
REBECCA. No way!
BRIAN. Know how much he gets paid? Hundred grand a year. I asked him.
NURSE (passing). Get paid more to act it than do it.
REBECCA. Fucking hell! What ward? What’s he in with? ‘Bernie’! I love him! I’ve got to go and see Bernie. Tell him I’m in love with him. (Looking through some notes.) What shall I prescribe this kid? I’m antibiotic-dyslexic today.
BRIAN. Smarties.
MARK (plumping himself back down, throwing the bleep on the table). Belongs to the new surgical totty. Lost her bleep.
BRIAN. New totty! What’s her ‘history’?
MARK. You know. ‘Emily.’ In Vashti’s op this morning.
BRIAN. Oh yes, very nice.
MARK (shaking his head). Stay clear. She’s a ball-breaker.
BRIAN. Break yours, did she?
MARK. Kicked the radiographer’s arse in A&E for ballsing up an X-ray.
REBECCA. Oh, Florence Nightingale, I met her.
MARK. Actually, she was right. He’d only done the top half of the pelvis. Turned out she had a massive pelvic fracture, just out of the frame. Bleeding internally.
BRIAN (raising his eyebrows). Good call. So Emily’s got a good nose. Aahh… (Sips his coffee.) This is the life.
There is a brief moment, as all the doctors silently enjoy their coffee. Then BRIAN’s bleep goes off. He groans, inspects it, gets up, goes over to the phone and dials.
REBECCA (rousing herself, leafs through her magazine and finds the horoscopes). Mark. I know that you act from the more primitive centres of the brain – you’re not a frontal-lobe kind of guy – but am I correct in thinking you’re a Virgo?
(Gleefully reading the magazine.) Well, ‘You must learn to curb your judgemental nature, and, once in a while, listen to those around you. You – ’
MARK (grabbing magazine). Fuck you. (Reads, briefly.) Fuck’s sake. (Gets up. Appeals to JOHN.) Mate. You’re a reg, aren’t you? Tell her it’s bollocks.
JOHN. More things in heaven and earth. There’s this friend of mine who sees a clairvoyant, swears by her. She even got me to go.
Beat.
MARK (derisively). You’re a doctor, sweetie, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. It’s not the fucking Middle Ages. – Wait, wait… No, I can feel it… A hawthorn tree is calling me… And the water spirits are angry.
JOHN. No, I just thought, you know, I’d go as the sceptic and expose her.
REBECCA. What did she say?
MARK’s bleep goes off. He looks at it.
MARK. She said, ‘Time to head up to the ward.’
JOHN. Actually, just boring stuff, to begin with. There’s a man in your life, he’s still a virgin, he’s called Mark, he needs help…
MARK. Fuck off…
JOHN. He will tell you to fuck off… No, it was all money, work, blah blah. Boring stuff.
Then suddenly she goes, who’s this man with teeth in his hand going ‘I’m a monster, I’m a monster’?
And the thing is, my granddad, who’d died years ago, always used to get his false teeth out when I was little and go – (Makes snapping motion with hand.) ‘I’m a monster, I’m a monster.’
Beat.
REBECCA. Wow.
MARK (forcefully). It’s all bullshit.
REBECCA. How can that be bullshit?
MARK. It’s just about asking the right questions.
REBECCA (gets up, grabs magazine back off MARK. To JOHN). What star sign are you?
JOHN. Virgo.
VASHTI comes in.
REBECCA. I knew it!Both uptight Virgos! Okay… (Prepares to read the horoscope aloud.)
VASHTI. Mark. I need a word.
MARK. What?
VASHTI. In private, please.
MARK reluctantly gets up, moves a little distance away to talk to VASHTI. This is not lost on the other doctors. There is a slight pause, while everyone surreptitiously listens to see what this is about.
REBECCA (throwing an expressive look in MARK’s direction. Reading aloud). ‘Virgos. This won’t be the easiest week of your life.’
VASHTI. Mark. You used an introducer on Mr Regan.
MARK. I know I did.
VASHTI. For God’s sake, Mark! I specifically told you not to.
MARK. You tell Lucy off for not catheterising Mr Doon. You tell me off for doing the opposite –
VASHTI. I’m ‘telling you off’ for disobeying me, Mark! I’m fed up with this. I’m fed up with your attitude, I’m fed up with you cheeking me all the time –
MARK. Just because you screwed up an operation this morning, Vashti, is no reason to take it out on me.
Beat. Everyone hears this.
VASHTI. This is your last warning, Mark. You’re leaving me with no option but to report you to the consultants. To Mr Foster.
She walks out. Beat. Everyone is looking at MARK. He angrily walks out too. As he goes:
REBECCA. ‘…However, you may find surprising avenues open for you, romantically.’
Someone whistles.
Fucking hell.
Is he in trouble?
BRIAN. No comment.
He leaves in the direction VASHTI left. A beat. No one knows what to say. EMILY walks into the mess.
EMILY. Oh, hooray. Is this my bleep? (Picks up the bleep.) Yes, this is my bleep.
REBECCA. I’ve got to head. Read Bernie his horoscope. – Anyone know what floor he’s on?
JOHN. Eleven. Room three.
REBECCA. Oh. His own room?
There’s a moment of understanding.
JOHN. Yeah… Not going to be with us for long.
REBECCA. Oh…
A general exodus begins.
EMILY (catching JOHN, just picking up his bag to leave as well). Oh – excuse me – are you the cardiology reg?
JOHN. Yes.
EMILY and JOHN are now the only people left in the mess.
EMILY. Oh, fantastic. Hi, I’m Emily. I’ve got a sixty-year-old lady, presenting complaint palpitations and a burning sensation on drinking hot fluids, and I don’t know whether to discharge her or not. She’s just a bit vague about her symptoms.
JOHN. How long’s it been going on for?
EMILY. She’s not sure. I mean, I could be making a meal of it, I’m just going on a hunch…
But the thing is, I spoke to Dr West –
JOHN. Dr West?!
EMILY. I know, maybe I should have bleeped you first but the thing is he was in A&E anyway and someone mentioned he was the cardiology consultant… so, I went up to him and I said, this woman’s getting a burning sensation and so on, and –
Well, when I’d finished he looked at me like I’d just shat on the floor.
JOHN laughs and EMILY does too.
…He just said – (Shortly.) ‘Acid reflux or oesephagal candidiasis. Give her some anti-fungals and discharge her.’
JOHN laughs again.
JOHN. He can be quite short.
EMILY. But the thing is as far as I’m concerned it’s cardiac until proven otherwise.
Beat.
She’s got sudden shortness of breath… It could be something… I just don’t want to discharge her and then for her to die on me, you know?
JOHN. You’re new, aren’t you?
EMILY. Yes, why?
JOHN. Just that… you’re still worrying about people dying.
– No, I know. Every time you send one home you know what could happen.
Beat.
But the thing is, it will happen. Eventually.
EM
ILY. It hasn’t happened to me yet.
JOHN. But it will.
EMILY. But it hasn’t yet.
JOHN. But the sooner you get used to that idea, the better.
Beat.
You can’t save everyone.
The Consultants’ Office
A tiny office. BRIAN and VASHTI, alone.
BRIAN. How much is it that you just don’t like him?
VASHTI. Brian, you’ve seen him. He answers me back, argues with me, at the drop of a hat. It’s unacceptable. Once you break down the hierarchy it allows for debate. And I’m not having that. Not with him.
BRIAN. Vashti.
VASHTI. If I don’t get him first, he’ll get me. I’m going to have a word with the other consultants about him.
BRIAN. Vashti, you mismanage him. You –
VASHTI. Hang on just a minute.
Hang on.
I ‘mismanage’ him?
How about him mismanaging me?
BRIAN. You’re his senior. It’s very easy to make his life hell. It’s your responsibility not to.
VASHTI. I’m a doctor. That’s my job. Mark’s there to help me do my job. If I say ‘Please will you do this for me,’ ‘PLEASE will you check the bloods,’ rather than ‘Why haven’t you checked the bloods, Mark, I asked you to three hours ago,’ does it make me a better doctor?
BRIAN. Yes.
VASHTI. No.
BRIAN looks at her properly for a moment.
BRIAN. Jesus, you’re really into shut-down, you know that? Is this all because you want that consultancy? What’s happening to you? No boyfriend, no sex, no children, no – when was the last time you had a good cry?
VASHTI. None of your business. Wanting to fuck me doesn’t give you any rights, you know.
BRIAN. So I wanted to. Still do.
VASHTI. And I didn’t. End of story.
I’ve been asked straight out. ‘So what’s he like in bed, then?’
BRIAN. So what? People talk. Deal with it. I do.
VASHTI. There’s a difference, Brian.
BRIAN. What’s the difference?
VASHTI. There’s no way that you could be sleeping your way into your job. And that’s probably why you’ve got the job.
BRIAN. I worked bloody hard. And you didn’t apply.
VASHTI. Because I knew you would get it.
Fine. I can deal with it. And this time round, I’m applying. It just means I don’t have a sex life any more. It’s safer.
Just one more thing crossed off the list.