The Secret Armour

by Lucilla Andrews

  George leant back slightly and looked down at me; he said nothing. In a little while the music stopped, and we went back to our table. We sat down, and he took out his cigarette-case again.

  I shook my head. ‘No, thanks.’

  He lit one for himself, then said, ‘Maggie, I do hope it all goes well.’

  ‘What do you mean, George?’

  ‘I mean,’ he said deliberately, ‘that I hope whoever it is you are in love with loves you as much as you do him. I expect he does,’ he added carefully.

  I was too surprised to prevaricate. ‘How do you know I’m in love? You don’t know me at all. This is the first time you’ve taken me out.’

  He said, ‘It isn’t the first time I’ve seen you, and I do know. Maybe I’m psychic and maybe I’m not. But I do know.’

  ‘But how?’ I was irritated, and, irrationally, I wanted to hit back. ‘Anyway, how do you know it isn’t you?’ His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline.

  ‘I’ve just danced with you,’ he smiled, ‘and you forgot I was there. You were pretending I was someone else ‒ weren’t you?’

  I said yes.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m the wrong chap, Maggie. But what made you shudder? The recollection of my unfortunate self?’

  ‘Of course not. It was that girl. Did you see her before she went down?’

  He said soberly, ‘My God, Maggie, I did. I did indeed.’

  ‘Were you in the theatre? What did they do to her? And is there any chance that she’ll ever have a face ‒ a proper face, again?’

  ‘I think there’s a faint hope. She came in pretty quickly, that always helps a lot. Alistair Corford said in the theatre that he would shove her over to the plastic boys just as soon as old Mere has fixed up her eye. Those chaps are pretty hot stuff. She won’t look the way she did before, but she may be fairly all right, with a touch of make-up to help.’

  ‘Well ‒ that’s something. But, George …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She’s only eighteen.’

  He said, ‘I know,’ and we both sat in a gloomy silence staring at each other. George broke the silence. ‘What you and I need, Maggie, is another drink. Where’s that man?’ We did not dance any more after that one time, and when we finished those drinks he took me home.

  Alice was putting a hot-water bottle in my bed when I reached my room. She wore a long, flame-coloured dressing-gown, her hair was pinned up in curlers, her face deep in layers of cold cream.

  ‘Thanks awfully, Alice,’ I said, ‘but I’m really not sure that I need one at this time of the year.’

  Alice looked me over. ‘You need one all right to-night, Maggie, you’re shivering.’

  I looked down at myself, surprised. ‘So I am.’

  Rose Barnaby drifted in through the open doorway.

  ‘Nurses! Nurses! Why are your lights on? Do I have to remind you it’s after lights-out?’

  Alice yawned. ‘One of the blessings of our old sixth floor,’ she announced, ‘is that Sister can’t face the stairs after ten, and even she isn’t allowed to use the lift after lights-out.’

  They asked if I had had a pleasant evening. I sat on my bed and took off my shoes.

  ‘It was fun. We ate and we danced.’

  ‘With whom? And where?’ Rose wanted to know.

  Alice was staring at me critically. ‘You seem very smooth and unruffled, Maggie. Not a hair out of its usual wild disorder. Didn’t George Hartigan make a pass?’

  ‘Somebody please tell me who George Hartigan is?’ said Rose plaintively.

  I said, ‘One of the latest bunch of housemen. He’s an h.s. in Catherine. The very fair, quiet one.’ I turned to Alice. ‘Can you see that man making a pass?’

  Alice said she had yet to see the medical student or housemen who would not make a pass, given the opportunity.

  ‘You must have had on your best “no-touch-technique” air, duckie. Really, I think it too bad of you. You weren’t dining-out in the theatre! What do you think the poor man asked you out for?’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ I said; ‘he didn’t ask me out for anything of the sort. In fact he didn’t ask me out at all. He only took me to oblige.’ I told them about Sister Tutor and my girlish lapse in the linen-room.

  Rose said she did not think it was at all fair.

  Alice asked, ‘What? Miss G.-G. giving Maggie the works? Or Maggie handing the frozen mitt to George Hartigan?’

  Rose said neither. ‘Whenever I weep in linen-rooms no one ever finds me but Sister. But Maggie has to fall into the arms of the best-looking houseman in the place.’

  ‘He’s NOT!’ Alice and I spoke together.

  ‘Well, I think he looks cute,’ said Rose. ‘I like fair men. Don’t you, Maggie?’

  ‘No,’ I spoke without thinking, ‘dark.’

  ‘Me, too,’ echoed Alice, but I could see from the way she was looking at me that she also was not thinking of what she was saying.

  Later, when Rose had gone to bed, Alice hung around. Then she said, ‘I hate to pry, Maggie, but I’m going to. I can see something’s wrong. Could it be that what’s wrong is a dark man? And is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Everybody’s psychic to-night,’ I said bitterly, ‘or am I that obvious?’

  I walked over to my window for something to do; the bottle-factory was working overtime, the factory yard floodlit. There were a good many stars in the sky, but the moon was only a shadow behind a lonely cloud.

  Alice behind me said, ‘Sometimes it helps to talk about things.’

  I said, ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

  I heard her get out of my armchair. ‘All right, duckie. I can take a hint. Particularly when I get handed one by a bulldozer.’

  ‘Alice!’ I turned away from the window. ‘I wasn’t just putting you off. I mean just what I say. Nothing has happened, so there is nothing to tell. No strings; no regrets.’

  ‘Aren’t there?’

  I dropped down on to my bed. ‘Of course there are. It’s what you guessed. I’ve been a prize mug. I’ve been having bright ideas about my own true love. And you’re right, he’s dark. What you haven’t guessed is that he was a patient in Willy B.’ I smiled, although I was not at all amused. ‘Can you imagine what Sister Willy B. would say if she heard me say that?’

  Alice ignored my last remark; she said, ‘I had a hunch. Now I’ll tell you my hunch. It was that femur, that small ward ‒ Mr Corford.’

  ‘Honey! Was I really that obvious? Do you suppose anyone else guessed?’

  She shook her head. ‘I doubt it. I was rather in on things, which was how I worked it out. Remember I was up in Willy B. the night you specialed in Judson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He talked about you most of that night. Then I took a good look at you ‒ and it was all pretty simple. You’re a nice-looking girl, Maggie, but you’re no Rose Barnaby. Well, for a few weeks lately, you’ve almost had Rose knocked flat.’

  It was a relief to talk and tell her everything, even though it hurt more than I would have thought possible.

  When I had finished she asked, ‘Did he know you were in love with him?’

  ‘How could he?’

  ‘Very easily,’ she said dryly, ‘particularly as he was fond of you himself.’

  I thought of George’s words to-night. ‘It’s been sticking out all over me?’ I asked.

  She nodded. ‘In a way, it has. Lately you’ve been ‒ oh, how can I describe it ‒ sort of temporarily touched with silver. Like one of those tinselled Christmas cards. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ I shrugged. ‘Synthetic silver. That about sums it up.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Maggie,’ she said shortly; ‘there’s nothing synthetic about your being in love. And I can understand how that happened. He was an attractive type.’

  ‘He was.’

  She asked again about his letters. ‘You’ve only had that one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And
“the rest is silence”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long ago now, Maggie?’

  ‘Six weeks. Four since his letter; I left Willy B. a fortnight before that.’

  She said hopefully, ‘Four weeks isn’t really very long. He may be ill again and not able to write, or he may not be the writing type, or something.’

  I said, ‘Yes, he may be. Or something.’

  Chapter Seven

  A PHONE-CALL FROM DAVID

  It would have been nice to have been able to cry, it would have been nice to have been able to do anything to stop the nagging ache inside me, the sense of failure, the loneliness of the days, the quiet emptiness of the nights when the telephone never rang for me.

  Every day and every night in the weeks that followed, I thought, That’s another gone; soon I shall just have to feel better.

  Catherine Ward was very busy, that helped. The weather grew warmer. June passed before I knew it had begun. July flamed suddenly, after a watery-grey start, to baking pavements and airless wards before it was a week old.

  The plane-trees in the hospital park were motionless, as if they were too hot to risk exhaustion by moving a leaf. The students rolled up their shirt-sleeves, and slung their jackets in their hands; the patients in bed lay still as the trees outside, covered only by a sheet or a solitary blanket, too hot even to wear their wireless-headphones for long. They propped these headphones on their pillows a few inches from their ears, and the wards were filled with faint chattering and music, as if the birds had come in out of the sun and were singing their dawn chorus at midday.

  The Ward Sisters alone appeared untouched by the heat, as they sat at their tables, filling in their endless forms and report-books, their starched collars and cuffs impeccable. But at the other end of the nursing ladder the junior probationers were the hottest people in the hospital, since their job has the least responsibility and the most manual labour of anyone on the staff. The junior pros’ caps stuck to their damp heads, and the starch in those caps wilted as visibly as did the pros themselves.

  Alice and I, as second-years, were faintly damp from the time we galloped up the three flights of stone stairs to Catherine at twenty-five past seven in the morning until we stumbled down them again for the last time, as we went off duty, at 9 p.m.

  One evening during the second week of the heat-wave Casualty rang Catherine to say they were sending the ward an emergency. Catherine was full at that moment. Sister Catherine frowned as I delivered the message. ‘Tell Sister Casualty we have no beds, Nurse Howard,’ she commanded.

  Sister Casualty was equally annoyed. ‘Will you please inform Sister Catherine, Nurse, that Mr Corford says she must take this woman. Even if it means putting up an extra bed.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  As I shot back to Sister Catherine I wondered how long it would take before I could hear the name of David’s brother with equanimity.

  Sister Catherine nodded, resignedly, and told the third-year to see to the extra bed. ‘Take one of the new probationers to help you, Nurse, and show her how to admit an emergency.’

  I was very grateful that I was no longer an ubiquitous junior, and so was free to return to my own list of washings. I was drawing the bed-curtains of my third patient when Sister’s head appeared through the gap.

  ‘How many more blanket-baths have you to do, Nurse Howard?’

  ‘Three, Sister.’

  She sighed. ‘I’m afraid you will have to fit them in later. We have another admission coming up, so we have to put up yet another bed. I’ll help you now, and then when Nurse Hurst (the pro) has finished helping Nurse Vance with her patient, she can join you.’

  She turned and smiled at the woman in the bed. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs Franks, but I know you will understand. Nurse will be back to wash you later.’

  Mrs Franks had already unwrapped her knitting. ‘That’s all right, Sister. It’ll make something nice to look forward to. Nurse Howard gives me ever such a lovely bath of an evening.’

  Sister smiled again without comment and vanished.

  I said, ‘That was nice of you, Mrs Franks. Thank you.’

  Mrs Franks was working out her pattern. She finished her counting, her spare knitting-needle clenched in her teeth. Then she looked up. ‘That’s all right, duck,’ she said kindly. ‘’S’truth, an’ all.’

  We fixed the bed at the far end of the ward and hid it behind screens; we had just finished when the two porters arrived pushing the stretcher-trolley with the emergency case. Busey, the senior porter, who had been twenty-nine years in the hospital, held the Casualty notes, which he now offered to me. Nurse Hurst took the notes to Sister, who was back again at her table, while I bent over the enormous bundle of old clothes on the stretcher. The bundle was human. It looked back at me and groaned loudly.

  I said, ‘Don’t worry, my dear, you’ll soon be in bed and far more comfortable.’ At which she groaned again, most hideously.

  I glanced round for the porters. ‘Can you both come this side, please? I think it’ll be the easiest way to lift her.’

  Busey shook his head stolidly. ‘You don’t want to do no lifting, Nurse. No bones broken, X-ray says.’

  I looked down the ward to Sister, who was reading the notes. She raised her head. ‘She can move herself, Nurse,’ she said, then went on with her reading.

  Busey pushed the stretcher alongside the bed and cleared his throat. ‘Come along now, Mother,’ he said cheerfully. ‘’Op off.’ With amazing alacrity she hopped off the stretcher and on to the bed. Busey drew back as the pro and I covered her with the blankets, then he beckoned to me. ‘Won’t keep you a moment. Nurse.’

  I followed him away from the screens. ‘What is it, Busey?’

  ‘You want to watch out with this one, Nurse ’Oward.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Bugs!’ he announced, with gloomy satisfaction. ‘Got ’em all over Casualty now we ’ave. Running around like the Derby. Sister Casualty is carrying on a fair caution, I can tell you. So you watch out what you picks up, Nurse.’

  The lady’s name was Mrs Pickett, and for the past few minutes she had forgotten to groan. She lay there, with the blankets held tightly under her chin, and watched us with suspicious eyes.

  I said, ‘I’ll just start making you more comfortable, my dear,’ and began removing her stockings, while Nurse Hurst vanished to the sluice to fetch a closed bucket of disinfectant water.

  I at once discovered that Busey was right! Old Casualty porters invariably are right. I went on with what I was doing, rather more warily, and Mrs Pickett poked her head over the blankets like a tortoise de-shelling itself. ‘Gawd! What you say you was doing, duck?’

  I explained that I was about to give her a blanket-bath, put on her a clean night-gown and bedsocks, and make her ‒ I hoped ‒ nice and comfortable.

  Her reply was heard and enjoyed by the whole ward. ‘What the ’ell do you want to do that for, duck? I always washes meself of a Tuesday. You don’t want to bother with them things. Cor!’

  Nurse Hurst had returned, together we assured her that we would not disturb her, and that it was no bother at all. We then went on with what we had to do, and as we did so I saw that Nurse Hurst was wearing the expression of civil stupidity on her face, which I knew was on mine. It’s an invaluable expression to assume when you have to do something to a patient about which that patient objects. It always arouses the reaction, ‘The poor Nurse ‒ she can’t help it ‒ I mean you can see she has to do what she’s told.’

  We cut twelve layers of underclothes off Mrs Pickett. We had to cut them, as she had sewn herself in for the summer. We found most of the layers were infested with livestock in various stages of life and preservation.

  Mrs Pickett was quite happy about our cutting her clothes. She said, ‘You did ought to see me in winter, duck! Proper terror I am then for muffling meself up!’

  We found she was covered with bruises; these, she explained loudly, had been caused by
the cruelty of her son-in-law, who had pushed her down her own area steps (the reason for her admission).

  ‘Talk about temper, duck! Talk about temper! ’E’s a terror. A proper terror. I tells my Nellie when she goes with ’im. “You don’t want to ’ave nothing to do with that Bert ’Acker, my girl!” But you know what them girls is?’

  Nurse Hurst and I assured her that we did.

  ‘So, off she goes, duck ‒ and there’s another one for the old Nan to look after. So I says, I says, “If you’re that set on ’im, Nell, you’d best marry ’im and make it reg’lar.” Ow!’ She screamed. ‘You take them cold ’ands off me!’ It was then we finally got through the last layer of under-vest.

  ‘Still,’ she continued as I began to wash her, ‘’e’s a good man at times. With the money an’ all.’

  After she was settled and we had tidied away the screens I asked Sister if Nurse Hurst and I might rush over to the Home to change. Sister sighed, ‘I suppose you had better; you are bound to have caught something. Take some disinfectant with you for your clothes, and your hair to-night. But be as quick as you can, Nurses; the routine is still very behind schedule.’

  ‘Saturday!’ gasped Nurse Hurst, as we tore downstairs.

  ‘What about it?’ I was as breathless as she.

  ‘It’s Saturday to-day. That means she hasn’t washed for four days ‒ and in this weather!’

  I said, ‘We had better thank Heaven that it isn’t midwinter. Can you imagine what we would have had to cut through then?’

  Nurse Hurst shuddered. ‘Could it possibly be worse? And do you think she can wear any more?’

  I leant weakly against the lift-gates in the Home, which we had now reached, and pressed the bell. ‘One thing I’ve learnt in my Benedict’s career,’ I said, ‘and that is, where patients are concerned anything is possible. I’ll bet she has twenty-four layers in December.’

  The evening was as hot indoors as it had been outside in the park at midday, allowing for the fact that a hospital evening starts at five, and with summertime the sun was still high over London. As I raced back to Catherine again I thought about it being Saturday evening. And then I thought, I would as soon spend it this way as any other that was open to me, and pushed open the swing doors that led to the ward.