The Print Petticoat

by Lucilla Andrews

  Professor Maynard in his youth had been a Reader in Medicine in a mid-European university. During a similar medical examination one of the students had been asked a question he had been unable to answer. The student had promptly decided that this was a plot to keep him from qualifying, and, drawing his revolver, he had taken a series of shots at the examining board. Fortunately he was a bad shot. But he left his mark on Professor Maynard. His fellow-students naturally organized a riot and marched in protest to the nearest British Embassy. Professor Maynard had returned to England long before the Second World War, and since that time had held for a period the position of Professor of Medicine at Gregory’s. In his honour the notice-board in the medical student’s hall at Gregory’s always carried the notice:

  All students will kindly leave their personal fire-arms with the Hall Porter before proceeding to their places in the Examination Hall.

  A few days before Christmas the present Professor of Medicine arrived on the balcony one morning for his weekly visit, followed by John Fernie, his Medical Registrar, Tom Cadell, and Marcus, dressed up as a house physician wearing an extremely short white coat.

  The Professor was very pleased with me.

  ‘Well now, Miss Anthony? All right? Good.’

  All high-powered physicians say, ‘All right? Good,’ in exactly the same way. They have a polish about them that no surgeon I have ever seen (and I’ve seen ’em knighted as well as plain Mr) can ever emulate.

  The professor then said I would probably be moved down into the country early in the New Year.

  ‘Midhurst, Professor?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘You are doing so well, Miss Anthony, that I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I think Stevenswood ‒ don’t you, Fernie?’ John Fernie nodded. ‘Then we can keep an eye on you down there.’

  Marcus beamed over their heads.

  I smiled back, although I was not yet sure I had anything to smile about. Stevenswood. Well, well. I had wasted a lot of time getting away from that place. All apparently to no purpose.

  The weather was terrible. Every day it grew degrees colder, and the nurses added another blanket to the mountain already on my bed. I now had four hot-water bottles, which were refilled roughly every three hours. The cold cut down my visitors. The balcony was an ice-chest. The nurses were very kind and always provided rugs and hot-water bottles for my visitors.

  Inside the ward the Christmas spirit was in the air. Every time I was pushed in for a wash there were new decorations hanging around, and generally at least two students pinning up paper-chains and lanterns from the top of ladders.

  Christmas Day itself I found even more exhausting as a patient than as a member of the staff. I would never have believed this was possible, having worked through five successive Christmases as a nurse, but it is a fact. Maybe the difference was that nurses keep going on a mixture of gin and bonhomie all Christmas Day, but that year, with my illness, alcohol was out.

  My bed was wheeled into the ward for the whole day. In the morning the nurses sang carols, then later there was a service taken by Sister Catherine, and most of the women wept. They all said afterwards that it was ever such a lovely service. We had our Christmas Dinner at midday. Afterwards, as we lay comatose and pink in the face, the Matron did a round of the ward and wished us each, individually, a Happy Christmas. She stood a moment at the foot of my bed.

  ‘Poor Nurse Anthony! So unfortunate! But never mind. I hear glowing reports from the Professor and Sister!’

  As Matron left the ward I saw her whisper to the staff-nurse who was taking her round. Nurse Gray was taller than the Matron. She inclined her head politely then nodded and blushed scarlet.

  When she had closed the lift doors behind Matron she hurried back into the ward and collapsed on my locker-seat.

  ‘My God, Anthony! That was quite the worst quarter-hour of my career.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked curiously. ‘She seemed quite happy.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said, ‘it’s those wretched house-men. The kitchen is full of them. They had just filled me up with gin when the pro came and said Matron had arrived. I walked round breathing carefully over her head. I thought I had got away with it until just now. Then when we got to the door she said, “When I was a staff-nurse, Nurse Gray, I always carried a handful of peppermints in my pocket on Christmas Day. One is so apt to get indigestion after all that ‒ that rich food”.’

  I laughed, and after a moment she laughed as well. On Christmas Day alone, liquor is allowed in hospital, and on that day it really flows.

  The kitchen door opened, and Marcus put his head out and peered into the ward.

  ‘All clear, Nurse Gray?’ He waved at me, ‘Wotcher, Joa? Come and have another, Margaret?’

  She stood up and shook her head.

  ‘Can’t. I must do the medicine round.’

  There was a bunch of mistletoe hanging over the ward door. Marcus caught Nurse Gray by the waist as she moved over to the medicine cupboard. He lifted her under the mistletoe and kissed her firmly. The ward was enchanted. Ever such a lovely young gentleman that tall young doctor, just like Gregory Peck only fair-like, see. Nurse Gray ‒ now she was a lovely girl and all.

  I lay back suddenly tired and depressed. I closed my eyes and told myself not to be childish. What did it matter to me who Marcus kissed under the mistletoe? The ward was very quiet. I opened my eyes to find Marcus standing over me, a finger to his lips, while the ward watched with delight.

  I saw the mistletoe above my head. I said quietly, ‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Marcus. You don’t want to catch tubercle because you are drunk.’

  As he bent over me his eyes were as serious as my voice.

  ‘I’m not at all drunk, Joanna,’ he said, and kissed my mouth.

  An orgy of kissing went on all round the ward. Several other housemen appeared, each with his own personal sprig of mistletoe. The ward resounded with high-pitched giggles and ‘Well, reely, doctor ‒ I don’t know, I’m sure,’ or ‘Give over, ducks. What’ll me old man say?’

  The place was getting out of hand when Sister Catherine came in, swept the young men en masse from the ward, removed Marcus from my locker, and closed the ward doors so that we could have peace for our after-lunch snooze.

  I woke with a start an hour later to hear what sounded like a hunting-horn. As I was used to hospital Christmases I was certain that it was a hunting-horn.

  My next-door neighbour was in for the first time.

  ‘Whatever’s that dear?’ she called.

  I told her. From the look she gave me it was obvious that she thought I was mad.

  The R.S.O., dressed in a pink coat and breeches, came into the ward blowing his horn. Behind him on an upturned ward table, which was placed in its turn on an empty mattressless bed, stood a dozen housemen all carrying beer mugs and singing at the tops of their voices. The contraption was pushed and pulled by a bevy of other housemen. They pushed the lot half-way down the ward, then the Resident Surgical Officer called for order and silence, and they sang us The Foggy, Foggy Dew. After that they sang Green Grow the Rushes O! The latter song was a great favourite of Gregory’s men. They sang it on every conceivable occasion. They also always added on at least twenty verses. They sang the lot now. Their voices blended pleasantly even if the words were a bit obscure. That was probably a good thing as Catherine was a women’s ward.

  Allan stood with one foot on the table, one on the bed. He waved his beer bottle at me, ‘Hallo Joanna!’

  ‘Hallo, Joanna!’ yelled the others and they waved as well. The combined movement was too much for the bed. The two back legs collapsed, the table slid down to the floor, spilling men and beer all around the ward. The R.S.O. blew a call on his horn, then shouted ‘Women and children first,’ and began disentangling the full beer bottles from the mass of white coats, arms, and legs.

  The concert was over. By the time the women had stopped laughing at all those clever young gentlemen behaving like school kids i
t was necessary to clear the ward for the afternoon visitors. With only five minutes left to visiting time, the housemen swept away the broken glass, removed the bed and table, mopped up the spilt beer.

  Sister Catherine came over to me.

  ‘My dear ‒ I feel that I’m running a pub! The smell is dreadful! Whatever will Matron say?’

  ‘Probably suggest we all eat peppermints.’ I told her what Matron had said to Nurse Gray.

  It was good to be back on the balcony that night, to be on my own and not have to overflow with the milk of human kindness and spirit of Christmas. I decided I was not depressed but very tired. My decision did not impress myself much. There was still some snow lying about on the road, although it was not as thick as it had been earlier in the week. The night sky was very black. The clouds moved slowly as though they were too cold to push themselves along. The snow was piled high on the pavements. Every now and then the moon broke through, large and pale in the dimness. The snow had stiffened and frosted on the heaps by the gutters, turning them into giant iced sponge-cakes. The street was empty and strangely quiet for Christmas night. There was nothing down there to hold my attention, to take my mind off my own little problems.

  I took my torch from under my pillow and re-read Richard’s latest letter. There was not much to read, a couple of pages of shop, a bit at the end where he said he was sorry not to be able to get up to town for Christmas, but of course I knew he couldn’t leave the hospital.

  He said I was to go on improving, not running a temperature, and to go on being so brave and cheerful.

  I smiled as I read his letter again. I was smiling at myself, not Richard. Did he really think I swallowed rubbish like that? He knew ‒ and I knew ‒ that the only way to get over an illness is to make friends with disease. Not to fight mentally and lose in the inevitable depression that comes with any severe illness.

  Could Richard really think I was in this with my eyes shut?

  Did he know anything at all about me? Even after the years we had known each other?

  I knew the answer. No. He never wondered what I thought. What did it matter what the little woman thought. I was in love with him ‒ wasn’t I?

  This is the hell of a way to spend Christmas night, I thought ‒ but I went on thinking.

  Richard had closed his mental shutters on me. I was even less of an advantage to a rising young surgeon now I had T.B. Even when I threw it off ‒ and it looked as if I would ‒ I would have to be careful and not overdo things for a few years. I think Richard was genuinely sorry for himself because he had let me go. He was quite sorry for me on the side. There is precious little amusement in visiting sick beds if the sick are your daily job. Richard and Allan had both discovered this fact.

  The Junior Night Nurse broke into my highly uncongenial thoughts with a cup of milk.

  ‘Had a good day?’ I asked. It was her first Christmas in hospital. Night nurses suffer more from Christmas than any other members of the staff. They seldom go to bed at all on Christmas Day, and by Boxing Day have been up thirty-six hours and worked hard for twenty-four.

  ‘It was a wonderful day, Miss Anthony. I never knew Sister could be so human.’

  I felt very old, listening to her. It was a good many years since I had discovered Sisters were normal people.

  Marcus came out as I was drinking my milk. He had brought out a red blanket; he wrapped himself up like a cocoon and sat on the end of my bed.

  ‘God ‒ what a day ‒ Joa! Murder! And patients! So help me, the hospital has been admitting all day.’

  ‘Casualty very busy?’

  ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘bursting at the seams. I’ve just come from there. Been examining such a lovely creature. The perfect hermaphrodite, Joa. Keeps a real classy dog-beautification establishment in Mayfair, he does, Doctor. I asked him why he had chosen to break down on Christmas Day.’

  ‘Marcus,’ I interrupted. ‘Wait a minute. What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Complete nervous exhaustion. I diagnosed early schizophrenia ‒ but all old John Fernie would say was that we might as well take him in ‒ he looks as if he can do with a rest.’

  I laughed. I could hear John Fernie’s voice, his calm unshaken even by nerves on Christmas Day.

  ‘But he really was a beautiful pansy, Joa,’ Marcus went on. ‘I’ve never seen such a beauty.’

  ‘Why did it suddenly blow up tonight?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to know. He told me he suddenly felt his staff problems were too much for him and he’d do something desperate ‒ beg pardon ‒ ever so desperate if he wasn’t careful. So up he came to Gregory’s. I asked what was wrong with his staff.

  ‘It’s my girls, Doctor,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you an example of what I’m up against. Yesterday ‒ Christmas Eve ‒ there’s one ‒ Janice ‒ a good girl, but she talks too much. I ask you, Doctor! I heard her mentioning Brixton to a client. On Christmas Eve! I had her in. I said, “Janice,” I said, “Brixton is Brixton and Mayfair is Mayfair and you can’t mix the two. Even on Christmas Eve.” But really, Doctor. The strain.’

  I laughed. ‘What has John Fernie done with him?’

  ‘Admitted him to Robert Jordan. Observation and sedation. But the bastard took me from my dinner. Sister Casualty decided he might do himself in if we let him go.’

  ‘She’s probably right,’ I said. ‘She always is.’

  ‘Beth been up today?’ he asked.

  ‘She came up this afternoon,’ I said. ‘She’s out on a party with Allan tonight.’

  Nurse Gray had been going to the same party with Tom Cadell, the Medical Registrar, and it was she who told me about it that morning. Beth had been upset when she came up. ‘Sure you don’t mind, Joa?’

  ‘Don’t be a mug,’ I said, ‘you know quite well I don’t.’

  Marcus was being tactful now. He grunted non-committally.

  ‘It’s all right, Marcus,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to be that tactful. I may like to wear my scalps but at least I know when to discard them.’

  ‘Has Allan really recovered from his all-devouring passion?’

  We both laughed rather unkindly, and I suddenly felt a lot more cheerful. Marcus lit himself a cigarette.

  ‘Do you mind about Allan, Joa?’ He spoke slowly.

  ‘My pride’s hurt,’ I said. ‘I can’t seriously say that I mind. It was just good for my morale.’

  He chuckled. ‘So help me, darling! Don’t I know that? That’s one of the reasons why I go in for numerous girl friends. Makes me feel one hell of a lad.’

  ‘Marcus ‒ don’t disillusion me! Remember my delicate health. Don’t tell me that under that gay exterior you are a simple, rugged soul wrapt in the throes of unrequited love.’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly say wrapped’ ‒ there was a smile in his voice ‒ ‘say just gently attached to my unrequited love.’ He shifted on the end of my bed, the springs creaked, he stood up, walked over to the stone railing and leant over. ‘Don’t you remember me reciting poetry to you, my darling, one night in your flat? Or did John Fernie give you amnesia with his shots of poppy?’ He spoke the words lightly.

  ‘I remember all right,’ I said, ‘although maybe, being a sensible young woman, I should have forgotten.’

  He threw his cigarette down on to the terrace and turned round. ‘Why would that be sensible?’

  ‘Dear Marcus,’ I said, ‘don’t tell me you meant me to take them seriously? Are you going to forswear your ladies and remain faithful to my memory? Because I’m going to upset your plans if you are. I ain’t dying this time. And you would find it hellish boring swearing eternal fidelity to a young woman in bed.’

  ‘Would I, Joa darling? Not bloody likely.’

  ‘Don’t be a mug,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Better men than I have fallen by the wayside? And you don’t think I’ve got the staying power of Allan Kinnoch or Richard Everley?’

  ‘That’s about it,’ I said, and my voice
was more bitter than I could have wished.

  ‘Well,’ he said shortly, ‘they could hardly have had less.’ There was silence for a few moments. Then he proceeded to unwind himself from the red blanket and tuck it over my feet.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘But I don’t need it. I’m quite warm.’ He went on tucking me up.

  ‘It’ll be cold later.’ He kissed my forehead. ‘You do what the doctor tells you. Now go to sleep like a good girl.’

  ‘Are you really so keen to catch my bugs?’ I put up a hand to push him away. He caught it and held it as he stood beside me.

  ‘I won’t catch any bugs out here.’ He squeezed my hand, then gently put it back, like a parcel, under the bedclothes. ‘Now I must go back to the boys and get very drunk. I feel that’s what I need. ’Night, Joanna.’

  ‘Goodnight, Marcus,’ I said. I turned on my side to look at the road and fell asleep before I remembered to feel gloomy about Richard and Allan.

  The Professor came out a couple of mornings later and asked if I would mind being a guinea pig that afternoon.

  ‘I would like my students to see you, Miss Anthony. Your progress has been positively phenomenal. It is, after all, only just over four months since you were admitted in a bad way.’ He went on to say he only wanted to talk about me, show them my notes and X-rays. There would be no question of the boys lining up to listen to my chest.

  In St Gregory’s and its off-shoots, no member of the staff who is ill is ever used as a teaching case. We were treated as private patients, although sometimes nursed in the general ward if all the small wards were full. This had happened in my case. After I had been six weeks in Catherine Ward the Assistant Matron came up one day and asked me if I would like to move to the Private Block, which now had an empty room. I was quite happy where I was, and said I would like to stay put on my balcony, which I did.

  I told the Professor I would be delighted to be an exhibit. I was just as pleased as he was about the state of my chest and I did not care who knew it.