Nurse Jess

by Joyce Dingwell

Ba said with banter, “She’d sooner a nice fat pig.”

  “And now the fable,” Margaret urged.

  With clasped hands and grave eyes Jessamine told the legend.

  “Lopi is the goddess of this volcano. It’s said that long ago she was explosive and bad-tempered and hurled cinders, dust and hot rocks high into the air.

  “She did this, the natives say, many miles away where she lived with three other craters. One day she was involved in a quarrel with them, and was buffeted so strongly that she rolled across the sea until she reached this rim of coast. There, between rumbles of resentment and tears of lava, she found time to look around her. She liked what she saw—but most of all she loved the lovers. She loved them so much she stopped rumbling out her resentment and she never shed another lava tear. And to keep on appeasing her the natives threw in branches of red berries.”

  Ba put in again, “Don’t forget the fat tender pig.”

  “But mainly,” ignored Jessamine, “the lovers always saw to it that they loved truly, for it’s said of Lopi that she can look right into the heart.

  “And if, when she looks there, she ever finds that love has been passed over, has been altered or changed to suit a mood or whim, it is then, the natives say, that Lopi will once again rumble out her anger and weep her lava tears.”

  Jessamine unclasped her hands and said, “And that is the legend.”

  They all looked down on the crater again. They lingered a while on the summit. Margaret took some photos from different angles. Vanda complained incessantly till at last they agreed to descend.

  Benjamin had backed the wagon and was ready to go down the track again.

  “Benjy is frightened of Lopi,” explained Jessa to Margaret. “Quite a few of the natives are.”

  “Yes,” grinned Ba, “the ones who beat their wives. That’s passing over love, to say the least.”

  They found a pretty spot under the big fern trees. Jessa unpacked the lunch and Ba helped her.

  “Anything strike you particularly up at Lopi?” he asked She looked at him questioningly and he explained, “Lopi never even hiccoughed; she must have been smiling on a pair of lovers.”

  “Could be Vanda and Roger,” discouraged Jessamine. Would you mind opening that tin?”

  The days went quickly for the two girls, warm, langorous, delightful days spent on the white beach or on the big verandah that was to be arched with jessamine instead of roofed with iron and renamed the patio or the terrace.

  Vanda demonstrated to them the floral leis she meant to introduce. One evening they all went down to the lagoon to launch lanterns and make a wish, another of her hostess plans.

  The lanterns got wet and went out promptly and Vanda was very discouraged. Roger suggested providing them with little upright floats.

  This would take a lot of the spontaneity out of her plan, complained Vanda, and she looked a little deflated., However, she perked up on the day of the girls’ departure. As Margaret and Jessa climbed into Matthew Flinders 3 for their return trip to Sydney and Belinda—Tommy Swinson also returning to school, but wearing a history book this time instead of a comic, though still wearing the lugubrious look—she noticed something and gave a triumphant squeal.

  “You’ll be coming back, Margaret, you looked over your shoulder.”

  “Shall I?” called Margaret, equally excited.

  She looked over her shoulder again to make quite sure of that.

  “Perhaps if I gaze long enough,” she said a little wistfully to Jessa, “I could stop at Crescent Island for ever.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  MARGARET travelled all the way home in the cockpit beside Barry.

  Jessa brewed the tea again and took it out to them, poured pop for Tom and a cuppa for herself. As there were no other passengers she sat beside Tom and looked at his history book. When she got tired of that she looked out on the wing.

  She was a little perturbed at what Margaret had said.

  “—Perhaps if I gaze long enough I could stop at Crescent Island for ever.”

  It was not in keeping with Margaret, and it was certainly not in keeping with what she had planned for Margaret. Though perhaps dear dedicated Margaret had been thinking in her usual dedicated way of Crescent Island in the terms of infant welfare among the natives.

  Yet how could she? She hadn’t seen the picaninnies or even asked to see them. How could she be thinking like that?

  Jessa frowned. Something in her scheme seemed to be going wrong.

  The engines sang in her ears and she felt drowsy. There was nothing to worry about, she assured herself, nothing at all. She could still go ahead with her special purpose for the betterment of a cause. Margaret had simply succumbed temporarily to what all visitors seemed to succumb. Island magic, that was what it was. It did things to people. It had done things to Meg.

  Some hours later they circled Sydney. Jessa picked out Woolloomooloo and above it Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair.

  “You’ve just been reading Governor Macquarie,” she instructed Tom. “That’s where his wife used to sit and dream of home.”

  “Mmm,” said Tom. “Can I have some more pop?”

  They put down a few moments later and left Ba to bed the Lockheed and to hand across the Crescent Island mail. Tom, as usual, was met by one of the school staff.

  “See you next trip,” called Jessa to their pilot.

  “Probably won’t be one,” gloomed Barry as ever. “That’s probably Matthew’s last run.”

  The girls called a taxi, taking care, from experience now, not to give their designation until they had got in.

  “Poor Ba,” sympathized Margaret.

  Jessa did not answer. Her mind was running ahead, not back. Or perhaps it was that she had not looked over her shoulder, she thought. She was not remembering the island at all, she was anticipating Belinda—and Professor Gink. But she was only anticipating him as regarded Margaret, of course...

  The first thing the girls did on arrival was consult the roster.

  Jessa took a quick side glance at the notice-board. She did not know whether she had expected anything pinned to it in her name, but if she had it wasn’t there. But she hadn’t expected anything, had she? She listened to Margaret and grimaced, “Six a.m. start.”

  Margaret had a later start, so Jessa breakfasted alone at the table by the window the following morning. Dew gemmed the lawns again, hung shining jewels on the spider-threads.

  There was no time to linger, though, particularly after she had already lingered in bed till five-forty. Crunching her toast and gulping her coffee, Jessa hurried upstairs.

  There was no opportunity for a preliminary visit to the Perfesser. The bottle-filling squad was already at work, and with a breathless “Good morning” Jessa joined them.

  There were several new names on the formula list.

  “Jacqueline Peters,” read Jessa aloud.

  “Alias Deb. Number One, 1977,” informed Nurse Anthea cheerfully. “That’s true, my dear. Young Miss Peters has stepped right into our Femme Fatale’s shoes.”

  “You mean bootees,” corrected Jessa, “and don’t tell me Madelein’s departed.”

  “The day after she reached five pounds and had water baths. With her went another of Sister Helen’s bonnets. Her head was even smaller than the Bruiser’s and her own bonnet completely covered her up, not just fell over her ears.”

  “Who else has gone and arrived?”

  “Bing, the Ace, then young Russell goes tomorrow. Besides Deb. Number One, we have newcomers Brains Trust and Calypso Pete.”

  After the bottles were finished and stacked, Jessa went round the new chums. She found them aptly named as usual. Deb. Number One should be a riot in another eighteen years, and Brains Trust surely possessed advanced grey matter already, and Calypso Pete had a rhythmical way of moving his tiny hands.

  “So different from Southpaw,” commented Jessa. “He moved that left of his for one purpose only.” She was as impressed as ever by the early
individuality of these tiny bundles of humanity.

  “Southpaw is particularly thriving,” Nurse Anthea informed her. “We don’t expect to have him here long.”

  “The Country Girl?”

  “You mean that Rh-factor babe from out west? We christened her Milkmaid. She’s looking positively corn-fed, Nurse Jess.”

  Jessa remembered a baby who had not thrived, little Tar Baby. She asked now about his tiny mate.

  “Brer Rabbit—” Nurse Anthea sighed.

  “He didn’t make it, poor dear,” she said.

  Jessa started the feeding. She thought of those two babies, born on the same day of the same month, both three months prem. She recalled their cribs side by side in the smaller nursery, how the tiny inmates had always been coupled together till Tar Baby had gone.

  And now Brer Rabbit, little pale wan Brer Rabbit had followed after. Together again, she thought.

  The new arrivals, apart from a gentle oiling, were not being handled at all. Jessa checked on the temperature of their cots, then got on with the usual baths of the older inmates.

  They were all still oil and lanolin washers, with the exception of Russell, who was up to water.

  “To think you weren’t even the stir of a breeze once, young man,” smiled Jessa, preparing his bath.

  She caught up with Margaret again at morning break. “Finding it hard to settle?” grimaced Margaret.

  Jessa gave a start. She had completely forgotten all about anywhere else but here.

  The fact that Margaret had thought, however, gave her the same dubious feeling as she had had on the plane. Island magic, she dismissed determinedly; it lasts as long as a chocolate éclair.

  After lunch she found time to seek out the Perfesser. He didn’t appear to have advanced very much, and yet he had not gone back. Perhaps it was that he still retained that same little lost look.

  She took his thin hand and wondered if he had had any, visitors during her absence—and what the Professor had said to him when, and if, he had come. She heard steps approaching from the corridor and straightened up from the crib. It would be him, she thought, coming to see his foundling. She wondered if he would make any reference to the second pair of spectacles she had left unclaimed. She was annoyed with herself that her heart was thumping so madly. Foolish of her, but then of course it was only the worry that he might be piqued about the glasses just at the time when she desired between them only a perfect equanimity. Everything must go smoothly, she thought, when one is working for a cause.

  She calmed herself by breathing deeply three times. She put on a polite smile. She even summoned sufficient composure to be ready with a smooth, “Good afternoon, sir”—but she had no need to say it.

  Matron Martha came in, instead.

  “You, Nurse Jess! Aren’t you rostered for Ward Three?”

  “Yes, Matron Martha.”

  “Then what are you doing in Six?”

  “I—that is—well, I’m visiting, the Perfesser.”

  “Who?”

  “Master X, I mean. I really mean the foundling baby.”

  “Oh, and who gave you permission?”

  “No one, Matron Martha.”

  “Have you no work in your own ward?”

  “Oh, yes, Matron Martha.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I—I just wanted to see how he was getting on, Matron Martha.”

  Matron looked coldly at her. “Well, now you have looked, you had better get back, Nurse Jess.”

  “Yes,” said Jessa, thankful that a cold look was apparently to be the extent of this current “chid.”

  She hurried to the door, hoping she would be able to negotiate the noiseless going to the satisfaction of Matron. As she went to turn the handle Matron Martha called her again.

  “Nurse Jess—”

  “Yes, Matron Martha?”

  “You have spent your break wisely, I trust, studying for your exam?”

  “Exam?” Amazement robbed Jessa of the courtesy of adding Matron Martha’s name to her ejaculation. Examinations had been an expected thing at Great Southern, but surely there were not exams here?

  But—“Certainly an examination,” snapped Matron Martha. “What do you think you are at Belinda for, Nurse Jess? Simply to while away time?”

  Jessa thought of the struggle to get out of her bed at five-forty this morning, other mornings, how she had not stopped working since breakfast, how she never stopped at all. While away time, she echoed to herself.

  “You have done a period of your training,” went on Matron Martha severely. “I should have thought you naturally would have anticipated a test.”

  “I—well—” Jessa could think of nothing to say, so said it.

  “I advise you to start conning your notes,” said Matron Martha. She looked at Jessa sharply. “You have taken notes, of course—?”

  “Yes,” said Jessa. She had, too, but they hadn’t proceeded past the first page. Oh, well, Margaret must lend her hers.

  She said, “Thank you, Matron Martha, I’ll go back to my ward now, Matron Martha,” and once more put her hand on the door.

  Typical of Matron, at the last minute she relented a little.

  “This young man,” she said, “is doing fine, Nurse Jess.”

  At tea Jessa and Margaret came together again.

  “Margaret, something catastrophic—we have to undergo an exam.”

  Margaret nodded calmly. “I expected that... Oh, Jessa, I’ve got back those snaps I took.”

  “But, Margaret, listen. You can’t have expected one.”

  “Look, Jessa, this shot is up on Lopi. Didn’t Ba come out well?”

  “But we’re graduated. We’re really if not actually sisters. We can’t be examined like raw little trainees.”

  “This is the jetty. It’s taken from the beach. There’s Ba again.”

  “Margaret!”

  Margaret looked up. “Darling, when you consider it calmly an exam is only reasonable. Why are you worrying? I have heard it’s not a formal examination, and even if it is you know your work.”

  “Matron Martha has instructed me to con my notes,” said Jessa miserably, “and I haven’t taken any—or really very few.”

  “This is Benjamin at the wheel of the wagon, Ba beside him,” said Margaret. “This is the picnic party under the umbrella tree, Ba drinking out of the pop bottle.” She regarded the scene happily. Then she appeased Jessa, though a little disinterestedly, with, “You can borrow my notes, of course.”

  That evening Jessa saw Professor Gink again. It was the first time for a fortnight. She saw his shadow before she saw him, but she knew at once whose shadow it was. No one else had those long, long legs.

  And then she noticed there was another shadow with his. Much shorter, though taller than her own would have ... about up to his top button Jessa’s came only to his third.

  She wondered if he had been to visit the Perfesser. Young. Master X’s nursery was along this corridor.

  She would have retreated her own steps in sheer nervousness, but the two shadows had half turned as though they had heard her approach, and it would have made retreat seem foolish, so she went on.

  When she rounded the corner she saw that the second shadow was Margaret’s. She was talking animatedly to the Professor. She held in her hand the Crescent Island snaps.

  This really was excellent. This was just what she had planned so long. Possibly Margaret was discussing native infant welfare with him. Two such dedicated people like they were would have a lot of pertinent things to discuss.

  It was the beginning of the betterment of that good cause, and Jessa knew she should feel very satisfied about it. And she was, too, only... well, only... Oh, it was simply the impending surprise examination that made her feel oddly down in spirits like this.

  When your spirits are down your head should go up, she remembered her father once telling her. Her red head came up now. Proudly.

  “Good evening, Nurse Margaret,”
she said politely. “Good evening—sir.”

  And Professor Gink said, “Good evening.” Not even Nurse. Certainly not Nurse Jess.

  Still with her red head up Jessa went past them down the long corridor.

  That night, and whenever she could snatch a moment the next few days and nights, Jessa borrowed Margaret’s notes and conned.

  Matron Martha had not said when they would be examined, but knowing Matron Martha, Jessa knew it would be quite in keeping with her to spring it on them without warning.

  And Matron Martha did.

  Jessa was feeding Brains Trust one morning when Matron Martha appeared by her side, no handle-turning, no steps, no approach, but suddenly, quietly there.

  Brains Trust took some feeding. Already he was displaying all the privileged whims of the genius scholar. Food simply did not exist for him. He ignored it blandly. Or he would have if Jessa had not gritted her teeth and forced her will on this small sample of future high I.Q.

  Calypso Pete had dined already. No trouble with Calypso; he would never ignore food.

  Deb. Number One was still to come. She was pernickety, but not supremely above common appetite as Brains Trust was.

  Matron Martha watched her a moment, then said, “As soon as you’ve finished there you will proceed to the office.”

  “I’ve Deb. Number One—I mean the Peters baby to do.”

  “Nurse Elaine can attend the Peters baby—and Nurse Jess, I am not asking what is your next task, I am telling you what to do.”

  “Yes, Matron Martha.”

  “You will proceed to the office to undergo your progress examination.”

  “My pro—Yes, yes, thank you, Matron Martha.”

  Matron lingered a while, inspecting here, probing there. At last she went out of the nursery or rather she withdrew. Jessa heaved a sigh.