by Betty Neels
She spooned steamed pudding before she answered. ‘Well, Mr Wright comes from Paul’s and I worked for him there.’
‘The Professor didn’t actually choose you, then? I mean, Mr Wright wanted you, I suppose?’
‘I suppose so.’ Emily bolted the rest of her pudding and got up. ‘I’d better get back, he was supposed to be here before one o’clock, but he hasn’t turned up yet…’
‘Don’t blame him,’ declared Carol. ‘I wouldn’t turn up either.’ She got up too. ‘I’ll come back with you, Emily, you never know, the Professor might be there.’ She whipped out a compact and peered into it. ‘Do I look all right?’
‘You always look all right. I daresay when he sees you he’ll ask us to do a swap,’ said Emily.
But she was wrong. The Professor was waiting in his patient’s room, sitting on the side of the carefully made bed, rucking up the quilt in a careless fashion. He got up as Emily, with Carol hard on her heels, went in, and beyond a coldly polite ‘Good morning,’ showed no signs of being bowled over by Carol’s looks, let alone suggesting that she might do instead of Emily. Indeed, he waited silently and rather pointedly until Carol had gone before addressing himself to Emily.
‘You’re quite ready, Nurse Seymour? Mr Wright will be here within the hour. You will be good enough to let me know when he arrives. I shall probably be in theatre. I should like him to undress and get to bed as soon as possible; there are a number of tests to be done and I shall wish to examine him.’
He strolled to the door. ‘You enjoyed your nights off?’ he asked her surprisingly.
‘Me? Oh—yes, thank you.’
‘Good. I hope Mr Spencer made it plain to you that your off duty is likely to be irregular and curtailed for the next few days. I hope to operate tomorrow—in the morning; you will probably be on duty until late in the evening.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘If I am not quite satisfied with Mr Wright’s condition, you may have to stay on call.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He glanced at her curiously. ‘You can make arrangements for this?’
She just stopped herself from saying ‘Yes, sir,’ yet again, and changed it to: ‘Certainly I can.’
He nodded unsmilingly, said, ‘H’m,’ and went away, leaving her to fly to Sister’s office and telephone Louisa, who wasn’t at all pleased at the idea of being left with the twins, even for one night.
‘Well,’ observed Emily, ‘you’ll be all right, love, and probably I’ll be home, and it’s not until tomorrow night, you know—I’ll be back tonight. Only I thought I’d better give you plenty of warning.’
‘I was going to that disco with Roy’—Roy was the rather vapid youth who lived next door. ‘I suppose I’ll have to stay home, now.’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Emily felt a little surge of impatience. Louisa was her sister and a dear girl, even if a bit spoilt, but she was making an awful fuss about nothing, especially as Emily was the one who was earning their bread and butter. She squashed the thought, cautioned Louisa about several small chores which would need to be done, and hung up.
Mr Wright arrived presently, the shadow of his former chubby self but remarkably cheerful. ‘Best surgeon in Europe,’ he told her in a frighteningly hoarse voice, ‘and best nurse, too—can’t help but get better, can I?’
He had brought his wife with him, a pretty little woman with grey hair, exquisitely cut, and elegant clothes. She was as determinedly cheerful as he was and nice to Emily. ‘I’ll go away for a bit, shall I?’ she suggested. ‘If you’ll tell me when I can come back?’
‘Ten minutes,’ said Emily promptly. ‘Mr Wright has to undress and get into bed while I get Professor Jurres-Romeijn. I expect he’ll want to talk to you—there’s a waiting room…’
‘I’ll find it, Staff Nurse—no, I shall call you Emily, if I may. Ten minutes, then.’
Mr Wright was in bed and Emily was drawing the covers over him when the Professor walked in. He greeted his patient affably, said briefly: ‘Don’t go,’ to Emily, and sat down on the bed. ‘You’ve brought Maud with you?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’ll have a look at you now; and then I’ll have a chat with her, shall I?’
The look, a very thorough one, took half an hour and Emily was kept on her toes, handing this and that and the other, filling in forms and unscrewing specimen bottles. She was surprised when the Professor thanked her for her service, albeit laconically, and asked her to go and tell Mrs Wright that he would be along to see her in a few minutes, a request which she took to mean that he wanted her out of the way for a bit while he and his patient talked. She found Mrs Wright in the waiting room, leafing through an old copy of Woman and not attempting to read it, gave her message and then sat down and made conversation until the Professor came through the door.
She was about to slip away when he said: ‘I shall want to talk to you presently, Nurse Seymour,’ before turning his attention to Mrs Wright.
It was fifteen minutes or more before he returned to Mr Wright’s room where Emily was making a neat list of the flower givers so that Mrs Wright could send thank-you letters. She wrote the last name without undue haste and looked up at the Professor, towering over her. He looked cross, but then he often did; perhaps he had a gastric ulcer…
‘You’re looking at me as though I were the patient,’ he said blandly.
She said hastily that she really hadn’t been looking at him, ‘Only into the background,’ she added, just as blandly, and saw his eyebrows go up. ‘And that will give you something to think about,’ she told him silently.
The Professor turned away to speak to his patient for a moment, then invited her to follow him out of the room. ‘Sister’s office,’ he suggested, and opened its door for her.
‘This is going to be rather touch and go,’ he began without preamble. ‘Mr Wright isn’t over-optimistic and quite realises that his chances are on the small side. All the more reason for us to make a success of it.’ He smiled suddenly at her, so that she caught her breath. He looked quite different; it was like someone opening a door…‘I shall ask a great deal of you, Emily; you’ll have your work cut out. Will you stay until this evening—until the night nurse comes on duty? and I’ll want you here by seven o’clock tomorrow morning—you’ll be here all day and I’ll want you on call for the night. Probably the next couple of days as well.’
She eyed him calmly. ‘Very well, sir. May I know what you’re going to do?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll have to do a laryngectomy as well as remove the tumour of the pharynx and do a block resection of the glands as well…’ He elaborated at some length and she listened carefully, stopping him now and again so that he might make something she hadn’t understood clear. Presently he got up from the table where he had been sitting. ‘That’s the lot, I think,’ and just for a moment she thought that he was going to say something else, but he didn’t, only opened the door for her, remarking that he would be along to see his patient later on in the day, bringing the anaesthetist with him.
The rest of her day was spent in preparing Mr Wright for the morning, explaining just where everything would be when he came round from the anaesthetic; that she would be with him all the time, and that on no account was he to get fussed about anything. ‘There’ll be a pad and pencil under your hand,’ she reminded him, ‘as well as a bell within reach and me.’
He laughed at her, a funny cracked sound. ‘Never mind the pad and bell,’ he whispered, ‘you’ll do on your own, Emily. I’ve great faith in you, my dear., I’ve never seen you put out by anything yet and I’ve never seen you look defeated, either.’
‘Who’s talking about defeat?’ asked Emily strongly.
The Professor came about nine o’clock, spent five minutes with his patient, and then leaving the anaesthetist with him, went off to brief the night nurse, an elderly staff nurse, recently widowed and returned to nursing, a solid, sensible woman who liked Emily and could be relied upon to do all she could for her patient. He was away for
half an hour; it was ten o’clock by the time Emily got on to her bike for the ride home, and midnight before she got to bed. Louisa had been tearful at the prospect of looking after the house and the twins, and resentful too. You’d think, decided Emily, getting ready for bed, that I was going on holiday or something! She got into bed, curled up into a tight ball round her hot water bottle, and went to sleep at once.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS DARK, cold and wet when Emily left the house at half past five the next morning. The twins and Louisa were still sleeping and she hadn’t bothered with breakfast, only a quick, strong cup of tea. She tied her overnight bag on to her bike and pedalled briskly through the almost deserted streets. Bar the odd milkman and a police car idling along, giving her a nice sense of security, there were few people about. The rather ugly modern town looked bleak and unfriendly and before many minutes the rain was dripping steadily down the back of her neck. She hadn’t had time to do much to her face and her hair was going to be sopping by the time she arrived. She changed in the cold little room, scraped her fine brown hair back into some sort of a bun, pinned her cap on top of it and went through to the hospital. The early morning rush was on; almost no noise, only the steady hurried tread of the nurses trying to get done before the day staff arrived. Emily gained ENT without seeing anyone at all, checked with the night staff nurse, telephoned Night Super that she was on duty and went along to Mr Wright’s room.
He’d had a bad night, that was obvious, but his cheerfulness was unabated, so Emily was cheerful too, telling him silly little tales of her training at Paul’s and not mentioning the day’s dire work while she readied him.
She was relieved for breakfast after an hour, a meal she swallowed in no time at all, and when she got back she found Mrs Wright had just arrived.
‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ the little lady hadn’t slept either—‘and I’m going again at once, dear.’ She smiled at Emily. ‘I know you’ll do your very best.’
‘I will, Mrs Wright, and don’t worry, Mr Wright is going to be all right. Professor Jurres-Romeijn is tops, you know, he’s done this op before a good many times and he’s successful…’
‘A generous statement, Nurse Seymour.’ The Professor’s voice held mockery and she swung round to see him standing in the doorway, immaculate as usual even at that early hour and the only one of them who looked as though he had had a good sleep. She didn’t speak; she couldn’t think of anything to say and there was no point in it. She stared at his faintly sneering mouth, and disliked him very much.
He didn’t speak to her again but addressed himself to his patient and Mrs Wright, only as he went away he reminded her that Mr Wright would be going to theatre in exactly half an hour and as from now was to receive no more visitors, nor talk, or rather, try to talk. He paused at the door to allow Mrs Wright to say goodbye to her husband, then swept her away with him, not looking at Emily at all.
Mr Wright broke the Professor’s rules the moment the door was closed. He said in his strained voice: ‘I wonder if Renier knows what a treasure he’s got working for him? I must remember to point it out to him—in writing, of course.’ He grinned at her and closed his eyes.
‘Now you be a good boy,’ begged Emily in a motherly voice, ‘or I’ll turn into an old battleaxe!’
The operation lasted a very long time. The Professor worked quickly but meticulously too, muttering to himself from time to time, requesting some instrument or other in an almost placid voice, asking details from the anaesthetist from time to time regarding his patient’s blood pressure and condition. Emily, standing at the anaesthetist’s elbow, had to admire his skill, and he must be getting a frightful backache, she thought inconsequently, bending like that. They were all three very close together with Mr Spencer on the other side of the Professor and an assistant across the table ready to hold things and tie off and cut gut when required. Theatre Sister was scrubbed, of course, and so was the senior staff nurse, and there were other nurses there too. A splendid turn-out, thought Emily, counting heads without taking her mind off her work.
The atmosphere was nicely relaxed; she had worked for surgeons who had everyone biting their nails with nerves because they were so ill-tempered. She could remember one occasion when a surgeon had flung an instrument on to the ground and then had to wait while it was picked up, scrubbed, sterilised and handed back to him; a bad-tempered man he had been, and give the Professor his due, with the exception of herself, he appeared to have everyone there eating out of his hand.
The morning wore on until finally the Professor straightened his great back and stood back from the table. His thanks were pleasantly uttered before he turned on his heel and went along to the changing room. Not that he’d be there long, Emily decided, he’d be in and out of ITU for the next hour or so, getting in her way…
She knew her job well and set about connecting tubes to sealed bottles, setting up a drip again, checking the cardiac arrest trolley, the tracheotomy trolley, the oxygen, the ventilator… She had a student nurse to help her, to fetch and carry, but she was responsible for her patient to the Professor and any mistakes, whether she made them or not, would be her fault.
Just as she had thought, the Professor was in and out of the room for the rest of the day and a good deal of the night as well, and when he had come to examine his patient in the early evening he had requested her politely to remain on duty for a few more hours. Doctor Wright was conscious but fretful and worried because he couldn’t speak. Emily, reassuring him gently, found it pathetic that he had assured so many of his own patients in like case and still needed that reassurance himself, and her opinion of the Professor was considerably heightened by the kindly understanding he showed towards his patient. ‘We’ll keep him doped,’ he told her. ‘I’ve written him up again for another jab at ten o’clock and I’ll be in just after to see how he is. He’ll need more blood—is there plenty available?’
Emily said, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And I’ll take a blood gas estimation.’
She produced the tray without a word, waited while he withdrew the blood, signed to her assistant to take it to the Path. Lab. at once, and applied a swab to the puncture, standing patiently for five minutes while the Professor leaned over the foot of the bed, watching the patient and, from time to time, her.
‘I should be obliged if you could be on duty as early as possible in the morning,’ he observed quietly.
Emily had her eyes on her watch. ‘Would half past seven suit, sir?’
‘Very well. I’m afraid you’re in for a rough time for the next few days.’
‘Not half as rough as Mr Wright,’ she told him matter-of-factly.
But the next few days were rough. Mr Wright was a good patient but naturally enough irritable, for Emily was constantly busy with something or other, turning him, with the other nurse, from side to side, sucking him out, charting her observations, feeding him through his intranasal naso-gastric tube, tending his tracheotomy. He vented his spleen on to his writing pad, scrawling the invective he would have liked to utter so that on occasion she was forced to admit that she had no idea of what he meant. ‘You see,’ she told him apologetically, ‘there’s no man about the house to swear, so I’m a bit out of touch.’
‘Then it’s high time there was,’ Doctor Wright scribbled furiously. ‘Does Professor Jurres-Romeijn know? about the twins—and your sister?’
Her ‘No!’ was so fierce that he had added hastily: ‘All right, keep your brown hair on; I shan’t tell.’ He put his pencil down and then picked it up again. ‘You don’t like him.’
Emily’s hazel eyes flashed. ‘Never mind that, Doctor Wright. He’s a splendid surgeon.’
‘He’s a man as well,’ wrote her patient slowly, ‘a bit crusty sometimes, but I’d like him on my side in a fight. Nice with children too.’
‘I have no doubt of it,’ said Emily tartly, ‘and now lie still while I see to your feed…’
She was a first class nurse—besides,
she had made up her mind that Doctor Wright was going to recover. True, life wouldn’t be quite the same for him ever again, but he had a loving wife and children and in time he might do a little consulting work; there was nothing wrong with his needle-sharp brain and he had been a top man at his job. Emily told him this, over and over again; each time she saw the worried lines deepen on his face, she trotted out her arguments with such sincerity that after a time he began to believe her, and when his wife, primed by Emily, joined in on Emily’s side it was obvious that he had made up his mind to have a future after all. Perhaps not such a lengthy one as most people, but still a future. When the Professor called that evening, he stayed twice as long as usual, listening to Mrs Wright, and reading his friend’s scribbled conversation. And he added his certainty as to the patient’s ability to work again in a calm unhurried manner which carried conviction.
Emily was tired by the end of a week. She had been sleeping at the hospital, working long hours—busy ones too, and over and above that she wasn’t happy about leaving Louisa alone for so long a time. She had managed to get home on several afternoons, just for an hour, but Louisa had sulked and the babies didn’t seem happy. If only the longed-for letter from Mary would come! thought Emily, racing back to duty again. She would miss the twins, but the life they were leading now wasn’t good enough. They should have someone’s undivided attention. Luckily she would have a good deal of off duty and days off to come to her by the time Doctor Wright left, she would make it up to them then, and Louisa too. No wonder she had sulked, tied to the house and the shopping and washing and only the twins for company. Emily, carefully schooling her pleasant features into a look of relaxed ease, presented herself at her patient’s door, declaring cheerfully that in such weather it was better to be in than out.
She had just completed all the many chores attached to her care of Doctor Wright, ensconced his wife beside him and declared her intention of going to supper herself when the Professor joined them. His ‘Don’t go, Nurse Seymour’ left her standing, rather crossly, by the door while he sat himself down on the end of the bed for what she could see was to be a leisurely chat. If he wasn’t quick about it, her supper time would be over and done with and she without her meal—and she had agreed to stay on duty until ten o’clock that evening so that Mrs Crewe, the night nurse, could go to the cinema. The canteen would be closed by then; if she wanted to of course she could wait until the night nurses’ evening meal at midnight, but she knew she’d never stay awake.