It Won't Hurt a Bit

by Jane Yeadon

  ‘Start off with the drinks.’ She hurried me into the corridor as if I could be a major distraction.

  I cantered off, eager to please, and met Isobel in the common kitchen. I told her that my nurse let patients fall out of bed and made eyes at the doctors.

  ‘My nurse’s really nice – she smokes,’ Isobel said as if that was the ultimate decoration.

  ‘Mine too – but not fags.’

  My caring angel flew in. ‘Nurse!’ she said, presumably to identify me from countless other of her minions. ‘Mrs Brown wants a bedpan – and now!’ She dashed off, her cap flapping behind her.

  I trailed off to the ward and attended to the patient with my wet soapy hands.

  ‘That’s a cold bedpan,’ she whined, ‘The last nurse always heated them to a turn.’

  ‘Hot bedpans are awfully bad for you.’

  ‘The last nurse –’ she began.

  ‘Excuse me, I’ve got to dash. I’ve left on a pan of milk.’

  ‘You’ll have to throw it out if it’s singed, of course. The last nurse …’ perched high on her bedpan, my patient was low in expectation.

  ‘Back in a minute.’ I hurried past the house doctor giving him a bright smile, just to remind myself that I could, and to my surprise he followed; the smell of burning milk should have put him off.

  Isobel had been doing a rescue job whilst trying not to spoil her nails. He leant against the sink and watched as if there was nothing else in the world he had to do and the ward wasn’t full of needing patients.

  ‘The last nurse –’ he began, taking in the view, Isobel in particular.

  ‘If you think we’re going to follow that saint’s footsteps, you’re very much mistaken.’ I, too, was going to try out a little of what I had learnt. On the medical social ladder, ward residents weren’t even on the first rung and I was no longer impressed by any old white coat. Had Maisie not taken one round the ward to see a patient only to discover he was a painter? Resisting this white coat’s dazzling teeth and the way his smile made his eyes dance and the cute shock of black hair, I eyed him beadily across the drinks trolley.

  ‘I only wanted a cup of coffee,’ he said in an injured fashion.

  ‘Help yourself then,’ said Isobel, drying her hands, ‘we’re busy.’

  When I’d finished my list of duties, with the floral art bit an especial challenge without vases and the male ward’s urinals declared out of bounds, Green and I worked round the ward to settle the patients and hear how much they would miss the last junior nurse. Pillows were fluffed, under-sheets straightened, sleeping tablets and medicines given out, lights were dimmed, talk was hushed.

  ‘I feel like a nanny,’ I said.

  Green’s laugh, though mirthless, was progress.

  It all took time and it was nearly midnight before we sat down at the desk in the middle of the ward lit by a shaded light. Funny to be sitting down at all: if that happened on day duty, we’d have been sent to clean a clean cupboard.

  Nurse Green got down to hard facts.

  ‘It’ll be a terrible rush in the morning, you’ll be doing all the bedpans, giving out wash basins, washing faces of those who can’t do it for themselves, getting and testing samples of urine. Doctor says he’ll give us note of them just as soon as he can. Oh look! Here he comes,’ she patted her hair and checked that eyebrow, ‘you stay where you are.’

  She came back with a list, which she handed over. She released a smile, proving the power of seniority. ‘Doctor says that as I’m so good at delegating, this is for you.’

  It looked so long I might have challenged it, but he had gone, a tall figure swinging his stethoscope in a jaunty manner suggesting victory.

  Mrs Graham crashed out of bed yet again. ‘Go and help her will you, I’m sick of picking her up and I’m due lunch.’ My senior unlocked herself from the keys and handed them over with a reluctance suggesting a responsibility too far. ‘With a bit of luck you’ll get Night Sister. I just hope you remember all the names and diagnoses.’ She left me to Mrs Graham, who was already climbing back into bed with lithe ease.

  ‘Now that you’re in bed, I’ll tell you a story,’ I said. ‘Do you know the one about the naughty little girl who kept running away? She was a right wee pain.’

  ‘Not like you I suppose. No – you’re a good wee girl.’ My patient snuggled down. ‘I’ll mebbe stay the night here after all. It’s quite comfy and I think I’ve missed the last bus home anyway.’

  ‘Quite right.’ I tucked her in. She looked so comfortable I nearly joined her, but to keep her in and me out, I searched around for cot sides and was lucky to find a set just like the Ian Charles ones ultimately fitted to kennel Mrs Davidson. They were fiddly to fit and so engrossing to assemble I never heard Night Sister arrive.

  She appeared not to notice the equipment scattered round Mrs Graham’s bed. ‘Come and tell me about your patients, Nurse Macpherson.’

  At least she had my name. Maybe it was easier for her to remember one when, no matter how new we were to the ward, we were expected to recite at each bed that patient’s name and diagnosis.

  We made our way round the ward. I wasn’t going to remember everybody and had developed an imaginative strategy.

  ‘There’s no patient there.’ Sister peered at an empty bed I’d just named and diagnosed.

  ‘She’ll be in the toilet.’ The lie was frighteningly easy but Sister had wandered off and was now shining her torch on the chart above another bed.

  ‘Ah! From Banchory! The Capital of the North and my ancestral home.’ She ran the beam over the patient’s face, who woke with a start, surprised to see a stranger peering at her.

  ‘It’s alright, dear,’ was the soothing remark, ‘just you go back to sleep now.’

  She turned with a disappointed air and said, ‘I thought I might have known her. Now she’s awake you’d better make her a hot drink and tell her she’s had a nightmare.’

  ‘Too right, Sister!’

  Green must have been lurking in the corridor, for as soon as Sister left, she returned.

  ‘I’ve looked out cot sides. We can take them down before Day Sister comes on duty,’ I suggested, ‘they’re dead easy to fit.’

  ‘Well ok – but you can do them.’ Green settled at the desk and took out her knitting.

  ‘I’m off for my break now and there’s bolts and nuts just under Mrs Graham’s bed. If she gets out of bed she could hurt herself,’ my tone was firm, ‘and I suppose that would be your responsibility, wouldn’t it?’

  Isobel was waiting to chum me to the dining room.

  ‘How’s that awful senior of yours?’

  ‘She’s going to have a right job putting up cot sides without these.’ I showed her the nuts and bolts secreted into my pocket.

  Isobel’s peal of laughter was like a ray of sunshine and an encouragement to get through the night without a war, and so, on my return, I ignored my senior’s complaints about nipped fingers, instead admiring the way she had used crepe bandages as a securing alternative.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t find the nuts and bolts. Look! There they are.’ I pointed to the essential bits quietly relocated and far enough under the bed for Green to crawl to get them just to prove her athleticism.

  ‘That’s very strange.’ For the first time, doubt crept into that strident voice.

  Dawn broke with its shortening of time but lengthening of footsteps. Our relationship was never going to be based on trust but my senior wasn’t going to mind any short cuts getting through the morning chores.

  ‘What’s that smell of burning?’ she asked, tanking past with an armload of syringes.

  ‘That’s my poultice.’ I left my patient and rushed to the kitchen, putting out the flames before the alarm went off.

  ‘I hope you don’t intend putting that on me,’ the patient exclaimed when I approached her with the charred remains, ‘and you’ve got the wrong arm as well.’

  ‘That woman can be right difficult.’ My grumble
s came between basins and bedpans.

  ‘You’ve put soap in my eyes,’ yelled a patient as I wearily slopped a face cloth in her general direction.

  ‘Just rise above it,’ Green recommended, surveying her charges with a jaundiced eye.

  ‘Nurse, I must have a bedpan now!’

  ‘Yes, yes, coming.’ Could life return to leaden feet, air into collapsed lungs?

  Night Sister arrived to do a last-minute check, looking sweet, slept and like everybody’s favourite auntie. Harassed and tired, we stopped arguing with the women until she left the ward in a waft of Banchory Lavender.

  ‘Didn’t you want a pan when it was offered to you a minute ago?’ The tacked-on smile ached.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re too late, Nursie. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s no trouble,’ I soothed, trying for sainthood and hating the tears coursing down an old face.

  And then at last, it was morning proper and staff were arriving. They sounded bright and cheerful but my concern was Sister, whose gaze was fixed on the beds. With a courage I thought remarkable, Green popped some chewing gum into her mouth before slouching towards her whilst Mrs Graham asked to get her gates back – they’d been handy for leaning on.

  Somehow I had managed to get all wheels straight and, this essential duty accomplished, got a barely perceptible nod of approval that allowed me to creep off duty, exhausted but feeling triumphant that not only had I stayed awake all night but that I now had all day to sleep.

  Actually, and at last, this was something I could do! So could Rosie and Maisie, but the others had problems and as our nights on duty progressed, so did their air of exhaustion and look of pallor. Isobel’s fragility seemed on the verge of serious and she began to sound depressed.

  ‘I’m beginning to think Morag had the right idea,’ she sighed, yawning as we began another shift. ‘I’m starting to feel so like a zombie, I’m frightened I make mistakes with the insulin injections in the morning, then I lie awake all day worrying in case I have.’

  I tried to cheer her up. ‘At least your senior allows you to do them. She must think you’re safe enough.’

  ‘Mine takes sleeping pills from the drug cupboard and that seems to help her. She asked me if I’d like some. There doesn’t seem to be any check on the numbers,’ Jo said wearily.

  ‘I think they should. Some of them are bloomin’ dangerous and you don’t know what they might be doing to you. I certainly wouldn’t take any of that stuff.’ Rosie nodded at some nearby nurses with shadowed eyes and sluggish walks. ‘You could be taking anything. I heard of someone who took yon appetite suppressant, Dexidrin, by mistake and she never stopped running all night. None of the patients could sleep for the sound of racing footsteps up and down the corridor.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice, Rosie – you’ve just missed your name.’ Hazel stood up to let a flustered Rosie dash off. ‘And if I was really desperate, I think I’d be popping a few myself, though at least I don’t have a problem staying awake.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Andy Cargill.’

  ‘Ah!’ We all laughed, knowing the male nurse’s reputation.

  Then one morning, despite the fact that we couldn’t all share the perilous joys of the linen cupboard with Andy, my feet skipped and I began to sing. The lungs felt good too as I flew round the ward with ease and efficiency. My brain answered the morning challenge in such a way that the poultices, toast and boiled eggs were a joy to deliver, as were the on-time bedpans, done to a turn. Even the urine specimen jars had all been collected and stood in as neat a row awaiting the resident’s attention as did the bed wheels.

  ‘You’re very happy this morning,’ a patient observed.

  ‘Well, I am,’ I admitted, handing over a cooked-to-perfection hot water bottle. ‘I’ve got nights off and am going to see if I can get my pal from the male side to hit the town and see if we can have some fun.’

  I could have said I needed to be off before the resident tested that extra specimen jar filled with Lucozade and labelled Mrs Sweetpea, but thought she might not see the joke.

  28

  HOME FROM HOME

  Mrs Ronce was putting nails into her sitting room wall. The frying pan made an unusual hammer. ‘Great tool this. You get a bull’s eye every time.’ She laid it on the sofa and stepped over a couple of framed photographs lying on the floor. ‘Now where’s my graduate lodgers? Ah!’ She picked them up, then slung them on as if hanging coats on a peg.

  ‘What do you think, Janey?’

  ‘They look happy,’ I said looking sideways to see them properly.

  As well as hanging on Mrs Ronce’s wall, Sally was in Glasgow and Beth in London. With exams behind them now, they were free to explore the world of actual work.

  ‘And that’s when education starts,’ Mrs Ronce observed, her toothy smile giving her the look of a benign rodent.

  ‘Would you take on Maisie and me?’ I asked, loving this house with its fascinating clutter, cats, heaps of newspaper and landlady. It was a world away from the Nurses’ Home whose charms on night duty were beginning to wear thin with sleep deprivation.

  Suddenly, my acquired skill was becoming as elusive as dreams. Despite sentinel Rosie’s best efforts, small sounds escaped, amplified in the long darkened corridors and waking me with curiosity about them. Somewhere we could forget work, get to sleep and escape from the impersonality of a huge, terribly clean and highly polished establishment was appealing, despite Sister Cameron doing her best with cheerful briskness and a care she tried hard to conceal.

  Mrs Ronce weighed the hammer thoughtfully. ‘I don’t really need lodgers you know. I just like young company and I could get that in the pub.’

  I was crushed. I thought she’d have jumped at the privilege. It was a job scouting about for selling points but then one of the cats came in and wound himself round my leg. I picked him up. ‘My friend Maisie comes from Peterhead,’ I stroked his head, ‘and she could bring you fish from the market.’

  Mrs Ronce laughed. ‘Ok Janey, let’s give it a go. I hope she’s good at crosswords.’

  ‘She should be, she knows her Bible.’

  Delighted, I went back to the home to tell Maisie.

  We’d been having fun. Beatlemania had hit town with the Hard Day’s Night record giving a more exciting meaning to the darkness hours. We went to a dance where Isobel met a new boyfriend who made her laugh. Maisie meanwhile set about loosening more than the corsetry of Aberdeen’s social scene. Maybe that accounted for her red eyes.

  ‘It’s these contact lenses – I’m sure they’ll be fine in a year.’ Maisie blinked hard into her bedroom mirror. ‘I’m going to dye my eyelashes next. How did you get on with Mrs Ronce?’

  ‘We can move in anytime but have you a fish-proof suitcase?’

  ‘How soon can we move?’ Maisie was already rifling through her wardrobe. ‘Let’s go and ask Sister Cameron.’

  She was in her office.

  ‘Your compulsory year’s up at the end of next week,’ she said after a diary was consulted. ‘You can leave when you like after that.’ She put our names down against a date with an exclamation mark making it official. ‘Next year when I retire, I’ll have my own but and ben.’ She looked out of the window with a dreamy expression, as if already glimpsing hills and glens.

  Even though we had the time to sort our possessions, the flit was a series of full suitcases and bags trudged down the stairs and crammed into a taxi.

  ‘You could have used the lift,’ said that mischievous home sister in her Highland way, putting her hands behind her back to oversee better, ‘but you’ve managed fine, by Jove yes!’ Strains of a Gaelic farewell came from behind the door she had closed on us.

  Another milestone.

  ‘My lassie wants to be a nurse but I’ve told her it’s hard, hard work,’ said the driver, squeezing in. His tone inferred that he’d rather she took to the tidiness of the Aberdeen streets.

  We did not look back, probably becaus
e we couldn’t.

  Mrs Ronce had been looking for us. As soon as the taxi drew up, she was out and, with an imperious gesture, stopped an oncoming bus. ‘Come in, come in.’ Her welcome was warm. ‘My, but you’ve plenty stuff! Look, Pussies, there must be something here for you too.’

  The cats pulled up their chairs to watch as, in front of an irate bus driver, we disembarked. Under pressure from his steady horn blast, the taxi driver became so agitated he started helping.

  ‘Speak about making an entrance.’ Maisie grabbed an armload of stuff and aimed for the door. ‘I’ll die of affront if anybody in that bus recognises us. Mind out, cats.’ She staggered into the house, dropping something small and frilly as she went.

  ‘If it was all that size,’ the taxi driver grumped, ‘I wouldn’t be holding up the traffic.’

  But at last we were unloaded. Mrs Ronce waved on the bus whilst the driver made a gesture making her slam shut the door.

  ‘Common!’ she snorted.

  ‘Starters.’ Maisie handed over a brown packet from her handbag before negotiating stairs so narrow, and with a load so cumbersome, she went as if blind.

  ‘Fish!’ Pleased, our landlady clasped her hands round it, then, heavily escorted, disappeared into the kitchen.

  She’d lit a big fire in the sitting room a floor above hers. In many ways it was a miracle. I’d envied Beth and Sally this snug little room with its faded, creaking, saggy yet comfortable furniture. And now it was ours, along with bedrooms each overlooking the garden, a tangled green world of long grass, overgrown shrubs and trees hung with ivy. Beside an abandoned garden rake was a brush, which Mrs Ronce said was handy for sweeping back small boys who, during the apple season, would climb over the walls to get them.

  ‘Silly little blighters. These apples are so sour, I’ve a good mind to make them eat at least one and then they’d really know about belly ache.’ The thought seemed to please her and suggest care best confined to a hospital far from here.