by Jane Grant
Mary was sent round one day collecting the necessary number of assistants; there were only three students on the ward, so she went outside the door, where she saw Ginger Barnes. Screwing up her courage, she went up to him and asked meekly if he could possibly help to lift a patient.
‘I suppose so,’ he grunted unwillingly.
To Mary this was the height of courtesy. She followed after him twittering. ‘It’s Bed Fifteen. If you don’t mind ‒’
He walked to the bed growling, ‘Now, what d’you want here?’
‘Oh, Mr. Barnes,’ said the staff nurse, ‘I wonder if you would mind holding Mr. Adam’s leg. Now are you ready, Nurse, with the sheet?’ This to Mary.
One student was supporting the weights at the top, another at the bottom. The third student, with Staff Nurse, was lifting the patient, while Sister, appearing, stood at the end to see that the leg was not out of line. Ginger grasped the leg firmly; Staff Nurse said ‘Now’, and everybody lifted. Mary pushed the draw sheet, and then rushed madly round the bed to pull it through. Her attention on Ginger, she gave a too-vigorous tug, causing the bed to slip off the blocks at the end. The Balkan Beam holding the weights collapsed, hitting Ginger on the head; one set of weights dropped on to a student’s toe, and the patient’s leg, released from weights, shot up in the air.
Ginger let out a loud, colourful oath. The student whose toes had been crushed followed with a slightly less lurid one. Staff Nurse and the student gently lowered the patient, who further complicated matters by shaking with laughter. Sister quietly replaced the weights, and the leg was brought back to its normal position.
‘Will you be so good as to replace the blocks, Nurse?’ Sister said to Mary, who was scarlet in the face and trembling with embarrassment. ‘Mr. Barnes and I will lift the end of the bed.’
Mary dashed to the end of the bed, and in her eagerness to replace the blocks trod on Ginger’s toe, and he in an effort to stand back trod on her fingers. Her romance did not seem to be progressing on normal lines.
Later in the day, Sister heard roars of laughter coming from the ward. She went in to discover the cause of the noise, and found Mr. Adams demonstrating to those patients who had not been fortunate enough to see the show, how his leg had shot into the air, by dexterously flicking the weights off with his walking-stick.
About this time in the hospital there was a great vogue for all nurses to dye a quiff of hair in the front a contrasting colour. When this craze had passed, the great thing for anybody who was anybody, was to wear drain-pipe slacks with huge ear-rings. Pat decided to go one better than anybody else. She made herself a pair of very tight black drain-pipes, complete with a black blouse that buttoned up to her neck, with which she wore enormous hanging jet ear-rings. This get-up contrasted strangely with her blonde hair and pale complexion, and she stood bravely up to the comments of ‘Where’s your tail?’, ‘Why aren’t your hooves cloven?’ and various other witticisms fired off by the students.
Arrayed in this outfit, Pat went one day to the Secretary’s office to see about her income-tax return. Standing in the queue, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Home Sister, frowning darkly.
‘Nurse, you must go to the Assistant Matron at once. I will not tolerate this absurdity any longer.’
Saying, ‘Follow me,’ she proceeded to Assistant Matron’s office. Pat, holding her head high, followed.
The office was full of gaping nurses, all immaculate in clean aprons, waiting to see Assistant Matron. Home Sister pushed her way to the head of the queue, knocked on the door and entered. A nurse was hastily ejected, and Pat was beckoned in.
The Assistant Matron surveyed her coldly.
‘Now, Nurse, you realize that we have no authority over you during your off-duty hours, but I would ask you as a special concession to me that you will not wear this outfit again in hospital premises. You draw a lot of attention to yourself. Honoraries have come to me and asked me who you were.’
(‘Dirty old men,’ thought Pat.)
‘Please understand, Nurse, that I am not telling you you cannot wear these clothes. But I think on the whole it would be better if you did not.’
Pat made a not-too-humble apology, and marched out, leaving Home Sister and Assistant Matron in hurried consultation.
When she told us this later, Sarah commented, ‘Well, it did look rather as if you’d been over your skin with boot polish, old girl.’
‘I’m going to get some tartan ones,’ said Pat defiantly ‒ ‘Royal Stewart ones.’
She was, however, cured of the craze when, coming back from her day off, her Royal Stewart drain-pipes fell out of the top of her bag. When she went to look for them, she found them stuck on a signpost which had two arms, one directing to the Medical School and one to the Pathology Department. One leg was on each arm. They were tied firmly to the signpost, and on the leg that pointed to the Medical School someone had stuck a notice saying, ‘This way, please.’ As she struggled to release them, a group of interested spectators gathered round, and when at last she got them down there was a loud cheer.
Chapter Seven
I spent the days before the meeting with Gavin in planning what I would wear. I drew money from the savings bank to buy a new coat; I borrowed Phyllis’s bag and Mary’s gloves. That he should have asked me out seemed wonderful; yet at the back of my joy was a deadly feeling, a kind of lump of doubt. He had always been friendly to me, but then, he was friendly to a lot of other people. I knew he liked me, but I knew too he did not look at me in the way he looked at Joyce.
Joyce Wallace was everything I was not and wished to be. She was very soignée and sophisticated, a hair never out of place. She was subtle and witty; always having a reply ready for any man; and she would look at them casually and carelessly, and immediately they would light up, and say, Who was she? Where did she work? Would the person they were speaking to introduce them?
It wasn’t particularly Joyce’s fault. She liked the society of men, but after they had once started to chase her, she did not encourage them and soon lost interest in them. She had seemed quite fond of Gavin; but now I supposed she had given him the air as she gave it to all her boyfriends.
In former days I might have tried to imitate Joyce; but by now I wasn’t quite as inexperienced as that. I knew that if Gavin was to like me, he would have to like me as I was. But I knew that because he meant so much to me, I should not even be able to be amusing or attractive on my own level, which, heaven knows, I thought was low enough.
I met him as arranged at a pub in the Strand. He was standing outside, not seeming to be looking for me, though I was carefully five minutes late. He was watching the traffic rather gloomily, and not seeming to see it. I went up and touched his arm.
‘Hullo, Jane. ’ He gave me a brief smile, and opened the door for me.
We went in and had a drink. Even the unaccustomed drink, which I had had on purpose to brace myself, had no effect on me whatever. I saw he was feeling low, and I felt at once a heavy weight on my spirits too.
After looking forward so tremendously to this evening, during most of it I could not think of anything to talk about. The music of Beethoven seemed a solemn background to my thoughts; if I had pleasure in it, it was only because I knew he appreciated it and we were hearing it together.
Afterwards we stood on the terrace by the river. He was very quiet. I felt he was unhappy, and that made me think less of my own feelings and more of his. I said at last: ‘What’s the matter, Gavin? ’
‘Nothing,’ he said, obviously meaning ‘A lot.’ After a pause he added, ‘Isn’t it extraordinary that when you’ve wanted to get somewhere all your life, and you arrive, it’s not what you thought it was and you feel let down?’
‘Do you feel like that?’ I asked, astonished and saddened because he, who seemed to me to have everything, should feel unsatisfied.
‘My father had an awful struggle to send me to Bernard’s,’ he went on. ‘He said it had to be Bernard’s because it was
such a good training school. Now I wonder if it was worth all the sacrifice. Bernard’s is all right, but it has the same flaws as every other medical school.’
‘But you are a doctor,’ I said. ‘You are what you wanted to be.’
‘So I’m a doctor!’ he said. ‘And when you’re a doctor, where are you?’
‘But you’re a good doctor,’ I said eagerly. ‘You’ll be in Harley Street one day!’
‘Want to bet? No, Jane, you need either lots of money and influence, or to be absolutely first-class in your own line, or both ‒ to get anywhere in this profession.’
We were silent. I must have looked very downcast, because he laughed and said, ‘Don’t take me too seriously, Jane. Really, you know, I enjoy it, and for any money I wouldn’t do anything else.’
I looked at him and noticed how pale and drawn his face was. ‘I expect you haven’t been getting much sleep lately.’
‘And how,’ he said. ‘About six hours in three nights. It’s been our take-in week.’
‘Of course you feel dreggy,’ I said. ‘I feel bad enough because two of our nurses are off and we’ve been frantically busy on the ward.’
Having settled the cause of his depression, we cheered up, and started to talk shop as we walked back to the hospital. I told him about Paul, a little boy of three I had nursed through meningitis.
‘He got pneumonia and kept tearing down his oxygen tent. One night when I was specialling him his temperature was 105.’
‘Oh, yes, I heard about him. He was Potts’s case. Didn’t they fly an antibiotic from the States for him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they give it intravenously?’
‘No, intrathecally. Next day he was asking for fish and chips. That was less than a month ago, and today he’s going to a convalescent home. When I get back on the ward he won’t be there. I used to look forward to seeing him, and I think he liked to see me.’
‘Cheer up,’ said Gavin. ‘He’s alive, and you helped to pull him through.’
‘Of course, it was great to see him get better,’ I said. ‘But I got so horribly fond of the little beast!’
He laughed, and seemed a lot more cheerful by the time we parted. But though I laughed too, I felt more like crying when I said good night. This evening I had so looked forward to was over, and had left nothing behind. When I thanked him he said the evening had been fun, but he said nothing about another meeting.
Chapter Eight
Holidays for each set of nurses are fixed between certain dates, and one has to book one’s holiday well ahead. When Sarah had given in her notice and fixed her wedding, we suddenly found, having arranged our holidays, that if we were to be bridesmaids we should have to alter them.
We went to Matron’s office en masse, to try to change the dates from October to November. It was unfortunate that we chose the day that several other people had come on the same errand; also that the Assistant Matron in charge of holiday bookings had a shocking cold.
We were at the end of a long queue, but our turn came at last, and we sent Pat in first.
She began nervously, ‘Please, Sister, I wonder if I could change my holiday.’
‘Why?’ was the short answer.
‘Well, you see, a friend of ours is getting married, and we want to be bridesmaids.’
‘When do you want to change it from?’
Then, with a pricking sensation of the scalp, Pat realized she could not remember the date.
‘Well ‒ I booked it ‒’ she began, and paused. ‘In October.’
The Sister turned her diary over. ‘Which date, Nurse?’
Pat looked upwards and said a short prayer. ‘The fifteenth, Sister.’
Sister flicked over the pages of the diary impatiently.
‘Your name isn’t here, Nurse.’
‘Well, then, perhaps, Sister ‒ it was the twenty-first.’
‘Do you mean to tell me that you come to this office wasting my time and yours, and you don’t even know the date of your holiday?’
There was a stage whisper from the door, which was ajar, ‘Eighteenth.’
‘What did you say, Nurse?’
‘The eighteenth, Sister,’ said Pat brightly.
There was a certain amount of haggling, after which Pat got the date changed, and retired.
Then I went in to face the wrath. The Assistant Matron greeted me with three sneezes in quick succession. I nearly said ‘Bless you,’ but restrained myself.
‘Nurse Grant!’
‘Sister.’
‘What do you want?’
It came out in a rush. ‘Could I please change my holiday from the eighteenth of October to the twenty-first of November. Please, Sister.’
Worn down, she consented with very little fuss. But the old spirit had returned by the time Mary went in with the same request.
‘Really, Nurse,’ she said sniffing. ‘You have caused be a lod of unnecessary work which I cad ill afford to spare tibe for. When you first cub here you think you cad rud this hospital. Bud I can assure you it takes a lod of work ‒ a lod bor work thad you think.’ She slammed her book shut and gave a colossal sneeze.
Soon after this Sarah left, and in her place on the ward there came a junior, fresh from the training school. One day when I was making beds with her, she asked me in a very humble and confidential voice: ‘I say, Nurse, I wonder if it might be possible to ask Sister if I could have an evening off next Saturday, because I would like to go out if possible.’
‘Oh,’ I said airily, ‘you can ask if you like, but I wouldn’t if I were you. She’s an awful old bitch and doesn’t take kindly to the idea of you altering your off-duty.’
There was an awed gasp. This encouraged me to impress her further. ‘I remember,’ I went on, assuming the expression of one who is trying to recall the dim past ‒ ‘I remember when I first came I had to work eleven days before I got a day off. I was much too frightened to ask, as some girl had nearly got the sack for making a fuss about her off-duty.’
She said humbly, ‘Perhaps I’d better leave it.’
‘Oh, no,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Ask by all means. If you don’t mind getting into a row.’
I went on grandly to tell her the story of how a man had had an epileptic fit on me on my first night-duty.
I omitted to mention the fact that I was so frightened I couldn’t move for ten minutes afterwards.
‘Yes, you know,’ I said, ‘when you are left in charge of the ward, when your head nurse is at Meal, anything can happen. One man had an asthmatic attack on me and nearly passed out. I had to give him his adrenalin stat. Hypodermic injection, you know.’
She looked at me with great awe. The next moment, however, my ego was suddenly deflated.
‘Grant,’ said Staff Nurse hurrying up, ‘you do the Potty Round while I show Nurse how to prepare the kitchen for lunches. You Juniors must be quicker in the mornings. All the beds should be done by now.’
Chapter Nine
Our holiday time came round at last. The last few weeks seemed to drag, and I had heard or seen nothing of Gavin.
Mary and I came off duty at two o’clock on Thursday afternoon. Pat, who lived in the north, had taken her day off the day before, and had already gone home; she was to join us the following night. Despite the fact that Mary and I had sat up till one o’clock the night before, there still seemed a lot of packing to do. We tried to snatch some rest in the afternoon, as we were to catch the midnight train and travel all night; but we neither of us slept much, and getting up long before it was necessary, in our excitement we began rushing in and out of each other’s rooms, inspecting the new dresses and accessories we had bought, and making each other up ‒ though what good that would be on the night train we did not quite know.
At last we were ready to set out. We got to the bottom of the stairs and Mary said she could not remember packing her long evening-gloves. We rushed into the cloakroom and unpacked her case.
‘Crumbs,’ said Mary. �
�Suppose Daisy does a round in the Nurses’ Home and catches us!’
‘What extraordinary things you take with you for a three days’ stay!’ I said, taking out a calendar, several paper bags and three knitting patterns.
‘Oh, well,’ said Mary, ‘I was thinking of buying some wool in the north.’
After we had turned out everything, I found the gloves in the pocket of the suitcase. We had to repack everything very carefully so as not to crush Mary’s dress.
We simultaneously looked at our watches, and both turning pale with fright at the thought that we should be late and miss the train, we rushed out of the Home and ran all the way to the bus.
Arrived at Euston, there was a momentary panic when we thought we’d lost our tickets, and a second momentary panic when we couldn’t find the train. The third and supreme momentary panic was when we got into the train and three minutes before it was due to go became convinced that it was the wrong one.
By the time we were reassured, it had started.
We dozed most of the way, and arrived at Poolbridge at 8 a.m. It was bitterly cold, and Mary’s pride had not allowed her to wear her winter coat, which was not so smart as her summer one. Sarah met us with Keith, who was to be one of the groomsmen. He was a tall, fair-haired boy, looking very much as if he was suffering from a hangover. Perfunctory introductions passed, and we drove off to Sarah’s home.
Sarah had lived at Poolbridge all her life, her father being quite a wealthy ship-owner, and she knew most of the people in the town. A colossal breakfast was prepared for us, which we ate eagerly, while a steady stream of well-wishers and present-givers poured in and out of the Harben establishment.
Keith woke up from his reverie after some three cups of black coffee, and offered to show us the district in his small two-seater coupé. As there was no room for Sarah she stayed ‒ rather thankfully I think ‒ at home. Mary and I squeezed into the car; some embarrassment was caused by Keith explaining, with his face rather pink, that the gear was stiff and there was often some difficulty about changing it. As I sat next to Keith, I edged as close as I could to Mary. Whenever his hand touched my calf he apologized, and it got to the point where he would give warning coughs and say, ‘I’m so sorry but I’ve got to change gear,’ by which time the engine had almost stalled. The gear seemed to get stiffer as our journey progressed, and he got pinker, and I kept saying it was quite all right.