‘You’ll direct it if I do it, Peter?’ Katy didn’t look at Letty.
‘We don’t know yet who’s doing what,’ Letty said shortly. ‘No promises. Might be me, might be Peter. Will you do the scene? It’s what we want. If you can’t, of course -’ And she left the implied threat hanging in the air and now Katy did glance at her and saw the watchfulness in her face and knew that Letty wouldn’t hesitate to give her her congé.
And she didn’t want to go. What had seemed when she first heard of it a bore, and only worth doing because it filled in some of the interminable dead time still left in her hated contract, was now a highly desirable activity. It offered not only a renewal of her first love of real theatre, but the renewal of an old acquaintanceship as well; an acquaintanceship that could, with a little judicious care, he ripened into something much more interesting. When she compared the man now sitting in front of her with the one she had known all those years ago, when she had been a brand new and very young actress, there was a marvellous challenge implied. The two had to be merged, made into a whole and more interesting today sort of man, and she, Katy, was the woman to do it. It would be fun -
And she smiled as bewitchingly as she knew how at Peter who, after that moment of delay that she now realized was characteristic of him, actually managed to lift the corners of his lips a little in response.
‘If you’ll excuse us now, Katy,’ Letty said, loud again. ‘We really must get on. Look, Peter, here’s the basic story-board Danny worked out for me - you’ll see that -’ And she continued to turn her back to Katy so that Peter was hidden from her sight and she could no longer hear their conversation.
She stood still for a moment, gnawing her lower lip and then lifted her chin. She would walk round the table, talk to Peter again, in spite of Letty; and then as she raised her eyes she caught the direct gaze of the woman standing on the far side of the little group who had just emerged from the shadows.
‘Oh!’ she said, startled. ‘What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a performer.’
‘I’m not,’ Lee said. ‘I’m representing the hospital. I’m on the Board of Governors. Looking after the brochure and so on. Letty suggested I should come this morning, to see what was going to happen, meet some of the people -’
‘How jolly for you,’ Katy said, letting her voice drawl, and she threw a glance at Lee’s neat suit and small dark hat that implied that they were exceedingly dull, though in fact they were chic in the extreme, and Lee flushed a little and looked away from her. Katy followed the line of her glance and saw she was looking at Peter and flicked her own eyes back again to see on Lee’s face an expression that startled her a little. She looked - what was it? Anxious and concerned, certainly, but there was something else there; a tenderness and an odd excitement, and then, as Lee looked back at Katy she saw the rest of it. The woman was as interested in Peter as she, Katy, was, saw in him the same possibilities, and suddenly Katy wanted to laugh aloud.
To try and coax Peter out of his state of misery and into the interesting here and now would be fun enough; to do so in competition with this pretty and well-dressed but undoubtedly dull woman would add to the delight enormously. She could think of nothing she’d enjoy more and she moved across to Lee, slid her arm across her shoulders, and said heartily, ‘Well, those two are clearly far too busy to chat right now! Come and have some tea and we’ll have a jolly cosy prose, just us girls together. You shall tell me all about how dear Harry is, and your children -’ And she beamed at her, wanting to laugh aloud at the way the prospect of working on this show was improving by the moment.
‘Er - thank you,’ Lee said and let her lead her off to Mrs Alf’s tea urn, chattering all the way, and Letty, well aware in spite of her apparent absorption in her conversation of what had been going on, watched them go and frowned.
‘I hope I haven’t made a mistake including Katy in this. She can be so malicious, damn it. She was always a rather selfish minx, but Hollywood ruined her - I swear she’s up to something. I didn’t have her living with me as long as I did without getting to know her in all her moods -’
Peter wasn’t interested. He was still looking down at the call sheets on which they were working, absorbed and interested. He seemed to have come alive once more and the hesitancy in his speech had vanished.
‘Oh, she’ll do well enough,’ he said. ‘I can deal with her - I always did, and I can again. Look, Letty, if we aren’t careful, we’re going to overload the musicians. I know we’re going to need them most of all, but all the same we can’t call them as often as this. Look, what I suggest is this -’ And he pulled a sheet of clean paper towards him and began to scribble a new pattern of rehearsals, and Letty sat there beside him and nodded, well able to dismiss Katy and her machinations from her mind while Peter was looking so much happier.
It’s going to be all right, she was telling herself. It’s going to be just fine.
12
She was sweating under her thin cotton theatre dress so much that there were trickles between her breasts and running down the centre of her back, and she turned her face to the nurse standing behind her so that she could reach out and mop her forehead for her, as though that would reduce her bodily discomfort too, and then returned her attention to the pair of retractors she was holding.
Her hands, smooth and glossy and amber-coloured in their sheaths of rubber gloves looked alien to her, though she could see her knuckles shining whitely through them above the glitter of the chrome instruments, matching their appearance to the strain she could feel in them, and she stared at them, thinking: that’s me, they’re my hands - but she didn’t really believe it.
On the far side of the pool of light in which those almost disembodied hands were so visible McIndoe’s own hands moved, swift and sure in their stubbiness, tying each minute bleeding point with stitches so fine she could hardly see the silk in his needle, and handling the instruments with such assurance it was as though they grew out of his fingers rather than being held in them.
‘Concentrate,’ McIndoe grunted. ‘Your hands are shaking and that’s a bloody nuisance. Concentrate, woman, and be still -’
Obediently she concentrated, consciously shifting the tension from the muscles in her hands to those in her wrists and forearms and her fingers, which had indeed begun to tremble with their efforts, steadied and held the retractors firm. The sheets of muscle she was keeping out of the way of McIndoe’s flashing needle remained just far apart enough for him to work easily and he grunted again, a sound she took to be approval this time, and moving in a gingerly fashion, she straightened her shoulders. They were beginning to ache too, now, and she blinked the sweat out of her eyes again and thought - I’d never have dreamed plastic surgery could be so damned effortful. It’s as bad as dealing with an above-the-knee amputation -
‘Right,’ McIndoe said. ‘I’ll have those retractors now. That’s it - ease the muscles back and we’ll see where the tucks have to be taken. Got it - shave it here - and here - and a little here - and yes - I’ll have some number three catgut, Sister, unchromicized for this, and we’ll be out of here. Nice, very nice - if that doesn’t give the man better movement of the jaw, nothing will. Lucas, stitch that muscle there - yes, you. Time you had a go -’ And he stepped back and his eyes glinted at her over the upper edge of his mask as Sister pushed a pair of needle holders into her hand, and she was at last released from holding those hateful retractors.
She looked down at the operative field in front of her, trying to see it as just a technical problem, a piece of tissue to be sewn, the way it was in other forms of surgery. When she operated on bellies and chests and limbs there was no obvious presence of a human being there on the table; just the vivid colours of a piece of familiar work; the dark green of the towels that edged the wound, the acid yellow of the skin painted with acriflavine, the rich scarlet of the blood that streaked the whole; but this was different. There in front of her lay a human face, the eyes cotton-wool padded beneath
the cap that was tied round the head and the gaping hole of the mouth filled with an endotracheal tube, but a recognizable face for all that. A face with its lower half flayed on one side, the skin folded back to reveal the torn muscles to which they were so painstakingly making their repairs, looking like so much meat on a butcher’s slab -
‘Well, get on, girl, get on!’ McIndoe barked. ‘I want my tea and I’ve a lot to do before the day’s over, if you haven’t -’ And she glanced up at him, stung, remembering how much she too would have to do before she could drag her exhausted body to bed tonight and he looked back at her, his eyes bright above his mask, and she relaxed. The Boss’s bark, they had told her, was much worse than his bite, and so she was discovering. His famous impatience in the theatre was aimed not at self-aggrandizement but at getting the best possible work done, and that was an aim they all shared, so she smiled at him, her eyes narrowing above her own sweat-damp mask and bent her head to the work.
Around her the theatre sounds, so familiar and comforting, accompanied the movements of her fingers; the soft susurration of the anaesthetic machine, measuring the steady rise and fall of the patient’s breathing as the oxygen bag on it filled, emptied and filled again; the trickle of running water and the hiss of steam from the sterilizers outside and the click of the instruments on the trolley as Sister checked them, all made a counterpoint to the rhythm of her work, and she set the stitches delicately, moving as precisely as though she were dancing, sliding the curved needle through the fibres easily and gently, tying each stitch with its own careful knot; and slowly the muscle took its normal form, the gaping hole that had split it down so far that the underlying teeth could be seen, narrowing and finally closing to leave it looking as it did in the illustrations in her textbooks, smooth and red and with her line of sutures snaking elegantly across it. Now, it was the masseter muscle, running from maxilla to mandible; she could remember learning about it, long ago, in her first year as a medical student, enjoying the euphony of its name, and now it lay there beneath her hands bearing the clear evidence of the repairs she had made to its living fibres. It was an odd thought, that. That she had done something so powerful, so creative, was remarkable, and she stared at her handiwork and was cautiously pleased with herself.
‘Very nice too,’ McIndoe said and prodded the muscle with a critical finger and it resisted his touch and regained its smoothness, as soon as he moved his hand away. ‘Very nice indeed. We’ll make a plastic surgeon of her yet, eh?’ And he jerked his head at the anaesthetist at the head of the table who laughed and said, ‘If she survives you, Archie, she can survive anybody. She’ll do fine -’
Standing there between the two men as Sister reached across to move the clips on the skin flap so that McIndoe could start replacing it across the naked muscle Charlie felt absurdly, childishly, pleased with herself. Praise from men like these was praise indeed; maybe this past few weeks of incredibly hard work and long hours had taught her something?
Certainly she would never have believed she could work as delicately as she just had when she had first come out here to East Grinstead, and she looked down again at the face on the table, now rapidly becoming ever more normal, as McIndoe, working with his usual incredible speed, restructured and shaped the skin flaps, and felt a great wave of affection for the patient to whom it belonged. She would watch him very carefully as he recovered, tend his scar, make him look as good as she could - it was a warming prospect and for the first time since she had arrived here she felt as she used to feel long ago; calm and content and happy.
It really had been a miserable time, those weeks, and she looked back over them as she stood there beside McIndoe, snipping the catgut for him as he completed each stitch, seeing herself as she had been.
She had left Brin at the convalescent home in a towering rage; he had shouted at her, demanding that she take him at once to East Grinstead so that he could see McIndoe for himself and then, when she had refused to entertain such a stupid idea, had started trying to plead with her and when she had shaken her head at him, embarrassed at his obviousness, and had told him that unless he stopped she would have to leave, he had glared at her furiously and then turned on his heel and gone stamping away, leaving her there in the wet garden alone. And because even though she sent messages up to his room he had refused to speak to her again, she had had to walk out of the place, turning her back on him, miserable at having to behave so, never before having abandoned a patient in her professional life but not seeing anything else she could do.
And then having to honour the arrangements she had made to leave Nellie’s and join the staff at East Grinstead, dealing with the farewells at the one and the newness of work at the other against a background of silence from him, had been dreadful. She had called the convalescent home the very next day after her visit only to be told by the Matron in a decidedly icy and yet somehow triumphant tone of voice that Mr Lackland had discharged himself the previous afternoon, and no, she had no idea where he had gone, and that had left her desolate. She had failed abysmally, both as a doctor and as a woman, and she hated herself for that.
How she had got through those exhausting first weeks at East Grinstead she would never know, but get through them she had, and now she stood in the main theatres, on this dark mid-December afternoon, feeling for the first time since she had arrived here that she was, after all, going to be able to cope. She may have failed with one patient, but she could still succeed with others.
‘Right,’ McIndoe said and pulled off his gloves and threw them on the floor as he went marching away from the table. ‘Penicillin umbrella for this one for the next week - those teeth could give us trouble if we don’t - and then get him back to his own hospital as fast as possible. I want that bed for a new pedicle graft for one of my air-crew boys. It’ll be his last try at getting his nose right. The last two efforts we got gangrene, God knows why, but we did. This time I’m going to get it right, so help me Hannah, so we need that bed. Try to get this fella out before Christmas, Lucas, and we’ll start those trims on Davy Smaul this evening as soon as you can get the theatre cleaned, Sister.’ And the big double doors swung closed behind him and he was gone.
‘I’ll be ready here in three quarters of an hour, Miss Lucas’ Sister said crisply. ‘Nurse Hudson, Nurse Angers, you two get straight here and then go to your suppers. Peters and Dallas can set up for the evening list and I’ll be back to take it. You can scrub too, Angers. Miss Lucas, if you please, the sooner we can get this man on his way the sooner we can all get on -’
The man was lifted to his trolley by the theatre porter who winked at Charlie behind Sister’s back and she took charge of the complex tubing of the blood transfusion that was dripping into his arm - for he had bled copiously at the start of the operation - as a nurse took the other end of the trolley to see the man out and on his way to the ward, glad to leave the bustle of the theatres behind her for a while. Ten minutes in the ward, checking all was well, then a snatched cup of coffee and a sandwich in the common room and she could be back here ready for another couple of hours hard surgery before the day ground to an end in exhausted sleep. And tomorrow there’d be the usual mounting panic of dressings and ward rounds and theatre lists and more ward rounds and - she sighed softly and pulled off her mask and dropped it into the hamper before padding away alongside the trolley to the ward.
Usually she hated appearing there in theatre garb, knowing she looked absurdly young in her regulation white cotton dress and ankle socks and white plimsolls and that it was that which made the men tease her, but she was getting used to it. Apart from their appalling injuries, they were vigorous and healthy young men in whom the sap ran high, and she shared with the nurses the sort of attentions such men always paid to young women. They called her Charlie, loudly, and whistled at her, and the more daring ones pinched her bottom as she leaned over their beds, and though at first she had hated that, now she felt as the nurses did about it. It showed a man had hope for his future in spite of his
appearance, that he hadn’t given up trying; a pinched bottom and a lascivious leer and outrageous suggestions whispered into your ear as you performed a tricky dressing became experiences to be cheered, not reprimanded, indications of successful care.
The ward was full of its usual busy early evening hum as she got there, following the man on his theatre trolley, and she handed over the blood set to the ward nurse and stood there waiting for the theatre staff to get him into bed and safely tucked in, looking round and smiling a little.
The patients’ taste in Christmas decorations was, to say the least, exotic. Paper chains and garlands hung from every available space and were looped dizzily round the metal girders that made up the ceiling, while a vast Christmas tree at the far end was so laden with parcels and baubles and homemade trimmings that it was almost impossible to see any of the green of its branches; but she could smell it, the sharp pungency of pine filling her nostrils and mixing uneasily with the usual Ward Three smells. There was a rather more evident reek of beer tonight, too, and she grinned as she saw the cluster of men in the far corner who, rather red of face over their bandages and sweaty of bodies, were busily putting together a special parcel amid great peals of noisy laughter. God help the poor nurse that was destined for, she thought, and then turned as the ward Sister came clacking across the wooden floor behind her.
‘Ah, Miss Lucas - I’ve a letter here for you. I’m sorry - it actually got here this morning but the post clerk is new and didn’t realize he should have taken it over to the mess for you. And I’ve only just seen it. Hope it isn’t something madly important - I’ve told the post clerk in future to see to it you get your letters delivered to the right place at the right time, but there, you can’t get any decent staff these days - now, you men, what are you up to there? I’ve told you before, I’ve had about as much of this mess as I can take -’ And she went plunging towards the noisy group in the corner, who immediately went into a scurry of activity, as they hid away whatever it was they were busy with, leaving Charlie staring down at the envelope Sister had thrust into her hand.
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