Sister Pokey glanced down at her shoes, raised her eyebrows and looked back up at Victoria with an expression that bordered on disdain. ‘Well, you had better make sure that’s the first and the last time that happens,’ she said. ‘We have no time on theatre for nurses with queasy stomachs. It can take a week to acclimatize, even for a qualified staff nurse, but if by the end of a full week of shifts you are still like this, then I shall have to ask Matron to transfer you back on to the wards. Is that clear?’
Victoria continued wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes wide in alarm. Beth, meanwhile, scrabbled around with a cloth, trying to clean Sister Pokey’s shoes. Neither could yet absorb what had just happened.
Oliver Gaskell walked into the room just as Beth got to her feet. ‘Next case is mine, Sister. A nice straightforward salpingo-oophorectomy. She’ll be in and out in less than an hour and I want to use clips, not sutures, so please make sure the gun is sterilized.’
‘Yes, Mr Gaskell, right away.’ Sister Pokey raised her hand to her hat to check it was on straight. Even Victoria, despite wanting the new composite floor to open up and swallow her, noticed the simpering tone of Sister Pokey’s voice and the pink flush that rose to her cheeks.
‘What on earth is going on?’ said Oliver Gaskell as he fixed his gaze on Beth and took in her own embarrassment, standing there with an offensive-smelling cloth in her hand. ‘Do you live in here, Nurse Harper?’
Both nurses saw the look that flashed across Sister Pokey’s eyes. It was almost unheard of for a consultant to know the name of a student nurse and if he did, he would never mention it in a clinical setting. But Oliver Gaskell did things differently, and he got special treatment, even more so than the other consultants. At thirty-five, he was the youngest consultant in the hospital, and his dark wavy hair – the fact that he was the only consultant who actually had any hair – and his permanently twinkling dark brown eyes put almost every nurse regardless of age or rank into a tizzy. It was known that he had halted his training to serve in a field hospital during the war, and he was the son of the revered Dr Gaskell. The young man’s authority, and the way he challenged the normal behaviour for a consultant, disarmed and distracted everyone, causing the ward sisters to trill, ‘Oh, he’s just a boy, he will mature and learn the ways.’
‘Of course she doesn’t live in here, Mr Gaskell,’ Sister Pokey replied. Although his question had been directed at Beth, there was no expectation that she would reply when Sister Pokey was present.
‘Well, it seems that way to me. I think it’s about time Nurse Harper got to do some real work, Sister Pokey. I cannot for the life of me see what a nurse can learn in here. It’s the other side of this door where the action takes place. Come on, Nurse Harper, scrub up, I want you to assist on this operation.’
Sister Pokey’s face flushed a deep shade of red. ‘But, Mr Gaskell, Staff Nurse is laying up already. She has your instruments…’
‘Of course she does, Sister Pokey, because she knows exactly what to do, but it is about time someone else had a go. And besides, Nurse Harper did an excellent job when we had that emergency post-partum haemorrhage on our first day in the new theatre. That lady came back into clinic today, by the way, bouncing her little chap up and down on her knee. I told her to come back in for a hysterectomy just as soon as she finishes breastfeeding. Made it clear that we might not be able to save her next time.’
The room went silent as they all thought about the poor young woman that none of them had believed would make it. Beth beamed. A life had been saved, in here, and she had been a part of that. She saw Oliver Gaskell grinning at her and she quickly looked down and studied her shoes. She was the second nurse in two minutes wishing the composite floor would claim her.
Victoria, as ill as she felt, glanced from one to the other, looking for the slightest indication from Beth that this interaction with Mr Gaskell, his wanting her to assist, had been planned.
After what appeared to be an interminably long silence, Sister Pokey spoke. ‘Well, this is most unusual and I am afraid you will lose a friend and a fan in Staff Nurse, who will have to change places with Nurse Harper, Mr Gaskell. But if you insist… Nurse Harper, scrub up, please.’
For a moment it looked as though Beth was rooted to the spot. Then, without raising her eyes from her feet, she said the words of obedience they all uttered a hundred times a day, ‘Yes, Sister,’ and, turning, began to untie her rubber apron.
‘Jolly good,’ said Oliver Gaskell. ‘See you in the scrub room, Nurse Harper.’ And in a flash he was gone.
‘Staff Nurse! Staff Nurse!’ Sister Pokey shouted, and without even addressing Beth or Victoria, she turned on her heel and went off to deliver the bad news.
‘Did you know he was going to do that?’ Victoria asked immediately she and Beth were on their own again. ‘For goodness’ sake, I feel like death and now I am going to have to work with that battleaxe of a disappointed matron-no-longer-in-the-making. She is the most unfriendly staff nurse I have ever come across, with a chip on her shoulder the size of a manor house. And they say the new ones are the worst – God alone knows what she was like when she was newly qualified because she’s a right bitch now. She’s built like the Tanners’ brick outhouse and she has as much charm to boot. She’s a bloody dragon, I swear.’
Beth didn’t have the chance to reply before a voice rang out. ‘Who is?’
They both turned around in horror to find Staff Nurse – eyes glaring through her tortoiseshell glasses, steel-grey hair scraped back into a bun, arms folded beneath her enormous breasts – standing behind them.
*
‘You all right, Dana love?’ asked Pammy in a soft voice as they entered the hospital grounds through the back gate and headed towards the wards. She gave Dana’s arm a gentle squeeze. She had been waiting outside the doctors’ residence while Anthony sneaked Dana in to visit Teddy.
Dana had been all smiles and chatter on the walk up. ‘I feel a bit like Little Red Riding Hood, with this basket of goodies from Mrs Duffy, bless her. She made all this yesterday evening so that it would be fresh for him today. She is such a diamond.’
‘I had to stop me mam from knitting him socks,’ said Pammy. ‘I said to her, “Mam, he’s fine. Socks aren’t going to make him better,” but she would have none of it. “Oh yes they do, Pammy. Shows how much you know. You need to keep the blood warm in the feet for the legs to heal.”’ Both girls laughed.
‘My mammy is the same. She only wanted to send food over from the farm. Would you get the cut of him? Every woman for miles fussing over him.’
Pammy became serious for a moment. ‘I think it’s because it’s a miracle he’s alive, Dana. It really is a miracle.’
Dana slipped her arm around her friend’s shoulders and hugged her for a moment. ‘A miracle performed by your Anthony and his resuscitation technique. And, don’t you know, they are learning it in every hospital in England now.’
‘I know,’ said Pammy. ‘We all have to go back into school for a day. Sister Haycock was telling me. Poor Anthony, he had to go up to London and explain how it works. Giving evidence, he called it.’ She looked up at the doctors’ residence. ‘Right, speak of an angel and hear the flutter of its wings, here’s Anthony now. He will sneak you up. Don’t be too long, Dana, we can’t be late.’
Since Dana had come back down from seeing Teddy and they’d resumed their walk into the hospital, Pammy had been barely able to get a word out of her. Her mood had totally transformed from what it had been ten minutes earlier.
Dana had breezed into Teddy’s room all cheerful, but her smiles had fallen away even before she’d closed the door. He was a vision of misery, and it made her heart collapse with worry. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him smile. He was sitting in the one armchair in his room, which had been placed close to the window, and he was staring out over the dark Mersey at the ships being unloaded down on the docks. Being high up in the building, he had one of the best views,
even if only half of the ships’ masts were visible, the remainder being shrouded in mist.
‘Morning, you,’ she trilled.
Teddy looked up and gave her a half smile before turning his gaze back to the window.
‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’ she asked, only half joking.
‘Of course I am,’ he replied, although he sounded any-thing but.
Dana rested the basket on the table next to him. ‘I have a bag full of goodies from Mrs Duffy, they will cheer you up. Are you in pain, Teddy?’
His response almost took her breath away. It was so sharp and sudden, as though he had been waiting for her to arrive so that he could snap. ‘Of course I’m not in pain. I want to get back to work. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I were in pain, would I? Flaming Mabbutt won’t have it, though. Wants me to be trapped here for weeks on end, looking at the four walls in between bouts of physio. I know that the best thing for me would be to get walking around those corridors. Nothing will build up my leg muscles better than that. The man is driving me to distraction.’
‘Well, he is the consultant, the one who fought very hard to put you back together again, and if it wasn’t for him, you might not have even been able to consider returning to work. You said yourself, when he showed you the X-ray, that he was a genius to have repaired your legs, given the extent of the injuries.’
Teddy turned his face clean away, back to study the unloading of the Cotapaxi.
‘At least you have interesting things to look at up here,’ said Dana. ‘You can see the ships. And you’ve all these books…’ Her voice trailed off. She knew that nothing she said would make any difference and nor would he agree with her. There was only one thing Teddy wanted anyone to say. ‘Anyway, I can’t stay, Pammy is waiting outside. But look, Mrs Duffy has baked you a fruit cake and there’s bacon sandwiches and they are still nice and warm. She has put in some fruit and a big steamed steak-and-kidney pudding, so you aren’t going to starve.’
Dana flicked back the tea towel from the top of the basket to show him. He turned to look, attracted by the smell of the warm bacon, and Dana bent down to kiss him. It pierced her heart when he turned away and her kiss landed on his cheek rather than his lips. Standing up straight, she forced back her tears as a niggling thought tapped at her brain. But instead of letting it in, she asked, ‘Are you sure you aren’t in any pain, my love?’
‘No. I have told you. No.’ It was almost as though Dana were no longer in the room.
As she tiptoed down the back stairs, avoiding the housekeeper, she wondered how long it would be before he noticed that she had left.
‘Dana, is something wrong?’ Pammy, never one to mind her own business, tried again.
Dana shook her head. ‘Oh, I’m fine, thanks. It is just a bit difficult seeing Teddy in such a miserable state. He is desperate to get back on to the wards. I’m going to be driven mad all day long worrying about him.’
‘Well, we are both on casualty today. Sister Haycock is alternating us with Beth and Victoria on theatre. She’s combining theatre and casualty as one long placement. So don’t do your worrying alone, just give me a nudge if you want to talk. It must be really awful for you and Teddy. At least I have me mam just down the road. She wants you to come to ours for a roast on Sunday, by the way, if you can’t get into the res to see Teddy.’
‘I love your mam,’ said Dana with a smile. Knowing she had support made her feel instantly less alone. ‘She’s my second mammy, don’t you know. Will you tell her that? Do you know, I think theatre would be the best place for me. I’ll be happy to be up there. I won’t have to answer one patient or nurse after another with an update on Teddy’s condition. Patients who are sleeping the whole time you’re with them will do me just fine for the next month.’
Both girls laughed. Pammy thought that this moment of shared secrets might be a good time to mention something that had been on her mind. ‘Dana, watch out for that Nurse Makebee on casualty, would you. She must have asked me a dozen times over the past few weeks how Teddy was. If her own boyfriend wasn’t a registrar, I’d be worried.’
‘Oh, I know. Don’t worry, I have my eye on that one. Makebee asked Mrs Duffy too. You know, Mrs Duffy doesn’t like her very much, says she keeps pushing at the rules and she’s sure she’s slipping out at night to meet her boyfriend. He’s working at the Northern now.’
Pammy let out a sigh of relief. She had been worried about mentioning Makebee to Dana, but there was something about that nurse that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. ‘Really? I never knew that. Good on Mrs Duffy for telling you. Poor Mrs Duffy. God, if Makebee is slipping out at night, that would worry her sick. She must have sent more food parcels for Teddy than she put together during the war.’ She smiled. ‘You know what? I have a feeling that soon Teddy will be back on the wards and all your problems will be over.’
‘I hope so,’ said Dana, ‘because if things don’t get back to normal soon, there is no way I am going to pass my exams.’
*
Beth pushed open the door of the scrub room and made to reach for a pack of theatre gowns for Oliver Gaskell from the shelf. Suddenly a hand slipped around her waist from behind, spun her round and removed her glasses.
‘That’s better,’ Oliver Gaskell said as he placed his lips on hers and began to kiss her in a way that made her feel weak. Pulling back slightly, he looked into her eyes.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Beth, her gaze fixed on the door. She was terrified that Sister Pokey would follow her in.
‘I’m doing what you have been wanting me to do,’ he said. ‘I could see it in your eyes. Do you mind if I do it again?’ After waiting for the briefest moment, he kissed her again.
Beth lost all sense of reason or fear of being caught in the arms of a consultant. She had thought of nothing else but this moment since he had stolen his last kiss at the back of the doctors’ residence, but this, here and now while she was on duty, was dangerous. If Sister Pokey or Staff Nurse were to find them, he would be instantly forgiven for his indiscretion whereas she would most likely be sent to Matron and then, without grace or forgiveness, given her marching orders. As she melted into his arms to the sound of voices just the other side of the door, one thought crossed her mind: she had forgotten to say no.
11
Maximillian Marcus swung round in his leather chair and looked out at Big Ben, which had just struck twelve. Bang on time, his secretary walked into his office carrying a box of correspondence, her notepad and pen.
‘Good morning, Miss Jackson. Pray tell me, what interesting letters have we received today?’
Miss Jackson had spent twenty-five years in the secretarial pool at the House of Commons, which was situated in the pit of the building, before being promoted by Mr Marcus. She was delighted with her position, even if she had no real understanding of his Liverpool docklands constituency, having herself never strayed far from the area between Earls Court and Westminster.
‘You have a very busy afternoon,’ she said as she sat and crossed her legs. Her stockings crackled as her sharkskin underslip slid across her knees. This morning she was wearing her dogtooth-patterned woollen skirt and a black twinset. Her tight curly hair was now more grey than the shining brunette it had been during the war years, and, like many women of her generation and younger, she had long since resigned herself to remaining a spinster. The removal of almost her entire male cohort to fight for King and country had put paid to her aspirations to become a wife and mother. These days it was the House of Commons that filled her time, and other people’s lives provided her with all the gossip material she needed.
‘But your correspondence is light today. It won’t keep you from your lunch with the secretary of state for health.’ Maximillian always lunched in the members’ dining room when he was in the House of Commons. ‘Now, what would you like me to do about that tiresome matron at St Angelus? She has written again to request your support for a new maternity unit. It seems that the
Liverpool District Hospitals Board has outright refused to agree to one, following the opening of the new theatres there. It says that there are enough maternity beds in Liverpool already.’
‘Really, is that so?’ Maximillian opened the box on his desk, extracted a cigarette and lit it.
Miss Jackson coughed politely. She hated his smoking when she was in the office and had tried every method possible to let him know, short of actually telling him. ‘Yes, and you know, the chairman of the board is really a very gracious man. He strikes me as the sort who would never take such a decision lightly.’ She failed to mention that she and the LDHB chairman’s secretary had struck up a close telephone friendship. Nor did she tell Mr Marcus that there had even been occasions when the charming chairman himself, the major, had telephoned her in person.
‘I’m afraid, Miss Jackson, that my mother doesn’t agree.’
‘Really?’ Miss Jackson sniffed and pushed her glasses further up her nose. As she had said at the lunch table yesterday to a whole group of Commons secretaries, some of whom had been there so long they looked as old as the building, ‘If there is anything worse than working for an MP with a wife who has an opinion, it’s one with a mother who interferes.’
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 24