‘Oh, no!’ I muttered aloud, then hurried to the door and beckoned Bernard from the clinical room.
‘Note, Nurse? No. I didn’t put it there. Why?’
‘Not important.’ I retreated to the desk, half amused, half annoyed. That note had probably slipped from my apron-bib when I pulled off the stethoscope with which I had taken Sanders’ blood-pressure during my pulse round. Johnny must have picked it up, would have had to read it in case it had slipped out of one of the patients’ bed-tickets, and had then fixed it in the report-book. It could only be him, as no one else had been in since Richard left, which was a pity for Richard’s sake, particularly as he had forgotten Ferguson’s X-ray. My own angle did not bother me. As Johnny had always suspected the worst where I was concerned, he might as well have some grounds for his suspicions. And since, as I had just remarked to Bernard, it was extremely unlikely we would work together again ‒ as he was a permanent at the annexe and by tradition we always finished off our training years in London ‒ any additional dark thoughts he might now be harbouring could not hurt me.
The storm that had been threatening all day arrived after midnight. It woke all our patients, but did not clear the air. When Richard telephoned me at the Home after breakfast he said he had already reached melting-point. ‘To crown the lot, we’ve a full list starting at nine-fifteen. On a Sunday morning!’
‘My poor Richard! What’s on the list? Not more road accidents?’
‘They’ll not get rolling in until midday, sweetie. Does not the Great British Public lie in on the Sabbath morn? Apart from us mugs in hospital. No. We are doing, my love, what are euphemistically described as cold cases. Three appendices and one hernia.’
‘Typical Sunday list.’
‘You’re so right, sweetie. It’s maddening, as I hoped we might be able to have a coffee in the canteen this morning. I can’t get out this evening.’
‘Never mind. Lots more time. By the way ‒’ and I explained seeing him yesterday afternoon.
‘Did you, now? Wish I’d known, I’d have waved to you. No more than that, alas! as I only managed to wangle time off to collect the car from the garage. Sonia Whatsit was crossing the bridge, so I gave her a lift over.’
‘I guessed that.’ I felt very smug at being proved right. ‘Have you heard she’s ill?’
‘No. What with? Sun? Now I come to think of it,’ he added slowly, ‘she said something about a cracking headache when I drove her back. She was meant to be meeting her precious whatshisname ‒ Guthrie ‒ somewhere. I suppose he drove her straight home. Look, Kirsty, I’ll have to leave it. I’ve just seen the time. I’m due in the theatre in three minutes. See you, darling.’
The senior change-list was pinned to our notice-board in the dining-room that night. I was down to leave Lister the following weekend, have three nights off, then go on days in Alberta Ward. Alberta was a women’s acute medical ward and one of my favourite wards in the hospital. I was very pleased about the change, much as I had enjoyed Lister.
‘It’ll be heaven to go to bed every night like a normal person again,’ I told my table.
The girls agreed. ‘Do you realize something? This’ll be our last spell of nights ever, unless we turn into Night Sisters,’ remarked Ann Farwood.
I said, ‘That, I can’t take in yet. I always find it hard to accept the fact that I’ve come to the end of any specific era.’
For no good reason there was an odd little silence. Then everyone began speaking at once about our future wards and plans.
Night Sister was very late. Ann was just suggesting the old girl had made history by oversleeping when she arrived and walked straight to the board. She removed the change-list, clapped her hands for silence. ‘I am afraid you senior nurses must disregard this list, as it has to be changed. And I must now ask Nurse Farwood and Nurse Francis to go along to see Matron directly supper is over.’ She looked at Ann and myself, smiled. ‘It’s all right, Nurses. Matron will herself explain why she wishes to see you, but I can tell you now that the prospect need not alarm you.’
‘It’s all very well for her to say that,’ murmured Ann out of the corner of her mouth, ‘but who can eat after that? What have we done, Kirsty?’
I shrugged. ‘Wish I knew.’
Supper dragged on. At last we were free to go and get it over. Matron saw Ann first.
She waited for me outside the office. ‘Why did I have to open my big mouth so wide about coming off nights?’ she wailed. ‘Lister’s a nice ward ‒ but another four flaming weeks on! It’s too bad! And you, you lucky thing, come off at midnight. When do you leave for the annexe?’
‘In the morning. I’m due on in Mark at five.’ I was wailing too. ‘Think of swapping Sister Lister for that old war-horse in Mark. And leaving London ‒ Richard ‒ all you girls! Talk about the end. Why did that idiot Sonia Dinsford have to sit out in the sun on Saturday? Why couldn’t she have worn a hat? And why did Matron have to pick on me?’
‘Obvious choice. Lister and Mark being twins, Matron having no spare staff nurses, and you being due to leave Lister, in any case. Senior fourth years always get shoved around whenever there’s a crisis. And have you forgotten’ ‒ she looked more cheerful ‒ ‘Mark really will be a home from home. You’ll even be working with your dear pal Johnny Druro again!’
‘Oh, no. I’d forgotten him.’ I leant against the wall. ‘Ann, this really is too much.’
‘Johnny’s not so bad when you learn how to handle him. You’ve never had him working with you for long, now, have you? Being in Mark’ll give you a splendid opportunity to get to know him properly.’
‘And getting inside a tiger’s cage would be a splendid opportunity for getting to know a tiger. Between the two, my dear, I’d settle for the tiger.’
Chapter Four
TRANSFER TO THE ANNEXE
Ann went on duty with me, took over Lister at midnight. Richard did not come into the ward before I left. Bill Yates, our other houseman, back from his weekend off for the Sunday night round, told me the theatre was busy. ‘The S.S.O. went straight there from his car, the usual homeward-bound traffic having provided us with the usual Sunday-night theatre list.’
I was disappointed not to have seen Richard, very saddened to leave my nice Lister men.
Ann promised to look after them like a mum. ‘They’ll still have Bernard, so stop fretting. I’ll somehow let Richard know he must contact you in the morning. Go and have a good sleep, you lucky so-and-so. What wouldn’t I give to get into my little bed right now!’
Bernard had recovered from last night’s gloom, was quite revoltingly cheerful about my move.
‘It’s not as if you’re leaving town for good, Nurse. A few weeks in the country’ll make a smashing break.’
‘If I wanted a break. I like it here. One consolation, as Mark’s hectic apparently, time’ll go fast.’
Richard’s telephone-call got me out of bed early next morning. ‘Sorry if I woke you. It’s now or never. What’s all this about your moving out of town?’
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and explained.
‘Why you?’ he demanded, as I had done.
I handed on Ann’s words.
He said he supposed it made sense, but he still thought Matron should have considered how much he was going to miss me.
The world was suddenly a fine place again. ‘There is one advantage. As acting staff nurse, I’ll have alternate free weekends instead of days off in the week. If I have any choice ‒ unlikely, knowing Sister Mark, but one can but hope ‒ I’ll fix mine to suit yours.’
‘Do that if you can, sweetie, but watch your step. Not worth upsetting the old dragon for a few weeks.’
‘That’s true.’ I had another idea. ‘If I can’t make it, why don’t you come down to the annexe for your next weekend? There’s generally a spare bed in the Doctors’ House.’
‘Sound scheme. We’ll go into it later. Now I’ve to see a man about a scalpel. Take care of yourself, my love. I’ll be in t
ouch.’
He had been very sweet. What he said was perfectly sensible, so really I had no reason for dejection; yet that was how I felt when I went back to my room. I found it crowded with night seniors off duty, determined to help me pack, and to load me with good advice about dealing with the formidable Sister Mark.
‘She must have liked you as a junior, or she would not be having you back now,’ said Ann encouragingly.
‘If she liked me she had an odd way of showing it. She gave me hell.’
Nurses off duty in the morning after working all night can reach the all-time high record for heartiness with no trouble at all. My friends beat the record that morning. They gave me such a rowdy send-off that at the station my taxi-driver inquired if I had left to get married.
‘Just going down to the country.’
‘On your holidays, eh? And the best of British luck to you, Nurse!’
I had not the heart to disappoint him further, so let it go. ‘Thank you very much.’ Then I thought about Johnny and Sister Mark. I could use that British luck.
The official name of our annexe was St Simeon’s-in-the-country. It was in the country all right. It had grown from an isolated Army camp built during the last world war in a clearing two-thirds up one of the three high ridges of hill in a county fifty miles from London. The nearest town was ten miles away; the nearest village six over the last hill. The hospital hill was the highest. The crest was above tree-level, and what remained of the pinewood lower down was still thick and luxuriant.
The annexe looked nothing like an Army camp that Monday afternoon, and, apart from the beds on the ramp, it was more like an Alpine holiday resort than a modern general hospital.
Albert, the elderly porter in charge of the glass-fronted lodge at the main gate, came out to meet me as I paid the station taxi-man. ‘No one didn’t tell me you was coming back to us, Nurse Francis.’
‘No one told me until last night.’ He was an old patient as well as old friend. ‘But here I am. How are you, Albert? How’s the chest? Enjoying the country life?’
He said he reckoned he mustn’t grumble as he hadn’t had no more of his old trouble, and the country life was all right for them as liked it. ‘Me’ ‒ he sniffed disapprovingly ‒ ‘can’t say I’ll be sorry when they lets me back. Like as I said to that Mr Druro last night, you can’t beat the old Smoke.’
I wished he had not had to remind me of Johnny so soon. ‘I don’t suppose he agreed with you. He likes this place.’
‘That Mr Druro, Nurse? Not him! Real glum he looked when he come in last night. He’ll not be sorry, neither, when they tells him to pack his bags and get back to the Hospital Proper. Now, then’ ‒ he considered my suitcases ‒ ‘you’ll be wanting a hand with them bags. Hang on, Nurse. I’ll find that young Charlie to watch me lodge and give you a hand over.’
‘Thanks, Albert.’ I sat on the low brick wall edging the drive, and wondered idly what had made Johnny change his mind about the annexe. He had been so definite about wanting to get back here the other night. I would not have thought him the kind of man to chop and change. Something must have happened over the weekend, I decided drowsily, basking in the brilliant afternoon sunshine that had apparently been unaffected by the storms round London.
The sun reminded me of Sonia. From Sonia my mind drifted back to that evening in the residents’ sitting-room. Johnny had given her a lift to town. Fifty miles. Some lift. Then he had shaken us all by walking off with her; the housemen had suggested warning darling Guthrie; Richard had said something about Johnny being able to take care of himself.
It had not occurred to me to give the matter two thoughts previously, but I was suddenly rather intrigued. Having two brothers, I was well aware young men talked among themselves quite as much as, if not more than, girls talked with girls. If Johnny had designs on Sonia every resident in both branches of the hospital would know about it. And as Johnny was a Simeon’s man and Guthrie an architect, they would all be right behind Johnny. That might be hard on Guthrie, but Simeon’s men stuck closer than brothers when it suited them. It always suited them when an outsider was concerned in an affair like this.
What had begun as a casual notion grew into a conviction while I waited for Albert, and, not being a man, Simeon’s or otherwise, I was very sorry for the unfortunate Guthrie. Johnny as a man left me cold, but I could see his obvious physical attraction. He did not compare with Richard, but he was certainly what my mother would describe as a fine, upstanding young man. As for Sonia, she was so very good-looking that his angle was only too understandable. The only thing I could not at first understand was, since they had been working together for so long, why had he let her get engaged to another man?
Then I remembered that paragraph in the gossip column. There had been something about Guthrie’s father and Sonia’s father being co-directors on a whole series of boards. Guthrie presumably had money. Sonia was used to a lot of money. Johnny, as far as I knew, had what he earned. No registrar’s or even junior consultant’s salary would provide the kind of housekeeping money Sonia, quite naturally, would regard as a bare necessity; nor, to be fair, could I see Johnny living on his wife’s cash. Money might stop them marrying. It need not affect their having an affair. I was sure it had not.
Albert returned momentarily. ‘That young Charlie’ll be along from the stores in a tick, Nurse.’ He nodded at the hospital with reluctant appreciation. ‘Have to say it don’t look too bad this afternoon.’
The sky was very blue. The thinned wood made a dark-green fringe against the skyline. The long one-storey wards were painted white, broken by the vividly coloured curtains on the French windows, and ornamented with rows of flourishing window-boxes, tubs of scarlet geraniums, and tiny lawns between the wards. The new brick buildings housing Casualty, the administration offices, dispensary, X-ray department, and the theatre were the same height as the wards and whitewashed to match. There were roses with tight pink faces scrambling all over the dispensary wall. Another darker variety, just as belatedly profuse, clung round the main entrance to Casualty.
The wards and departments were connected by a long, covered, concrete ramp. The beds outside were fixed at odd angles to prevent their rolling off down the hill and to let other hospital traffic go by.
The zigzag arrangements, the bed-patients’ bright blue ramp jackets and scarlet outdoor blankets hiding their white quilts, made brilliant splashes of colour against the omnipresent white and green. After the cloudy heat and solid grey stone of London it looked incongruously gay and a little unreal. It was not the annexe’s fault I was not feeling at all gay and was too preoccupied by my latest hunch to enjoy the view.
Young Charlie arrived at last, beaming apologetically. Albert tucked a case under each arm. ‘Let me fetch these over for you now, Nurse.’
The Staff Nurses’ Home was a long, weather-boarded hut with a sloping roof at the far end of the ramp from the wards, and creeping right into the shelter of the wood. If the annexe was Alpine, that hut in that setting was pure Disney. I would not have been surprised if Snow White and a flock of attendant dwarfs had appeared at the door. Instead, Phil Morrow’s red head was at a window.
‘Kirsty! Hallo! I’ve just got over.’ She pushed up the window and jumped out. ‘Home Sister left me your keys. In Nurse Dinsford’s room, please, Albert.’
‘How did you know I was coming?’ I asked when Albert had deposited my cases and removed himself to his lodge. ‘I meant to ring, but there was no time.’
‘Ann Farwood nipped out of bed, avoided Home Sister, and contacted me at first lunch. The girls knew how bucked I’d be to have a fellow-exile. So I asked Sister Theatre to let me off for an hour to come over. Now!’ She kicked off her shoes and swung her long legs over the arm of my armchair. ‘Tell me all!’ Philippa Morrow had been my greatest friend since we started in the P.T.S. together. She knew all about Richard from my letters, so I was delighted to talk about him. But Phil was a great talker. Practically every time his name c
ame up she remembered something she just had to tell me, and the conversation switched. I did not mind. Her theatre gossip was fascinating. There was plenty of time for talking Richard.
She was amused by Sonia’s sunstroke. ‘Too bad the poor girl should have this sudden allergy to the sun.’
‘Phil, you’re looking innocent! What are you getting at?’
‘Not one thing, of course! Mind you, our beauteous Sonia has been soaking the sun up down here all summer without getting so much as a teeny-weeny headache. Maybe that London sun is stronger. Likewise the attractions of the big city.’
This did not tally with my new ideas about Sonia and Johnny. ‘You seriously believe she’s putting it on? What about her high temp?’
She said what puzzled her were a few minor points Sonia seemed to have overlooked. ‘Simeon’s is a hospital. We have fine wards for sick staff, doctors, nurses, the lot. A touch of the sun is a mighty convenient ailment, unless there’s someone around who knows how to take a pulse and read a thermometer. And even if there is, wouldn’t you say parents are easier to persuade than perhaps Sister Nightingale and the S.M.O.? Particularly parents who always have let you have your own way? Bluntly, my dear, sweet, trusting Kirsty, no one down here is at all surprised Sonia should have sprung an excuse for being no longer among us, or that Matron should have replaced her so very, very swiftly. Didn’t that last strike you girls in town as odd?’
I shook my head. ‘On nights you get so used to shocks you take ’em for granted. It does strike me as odd now. My God! You don’t think I’ll stay on indefinitely?’
‘That’ll depend on how you make out with Sister Mark. And the Mark house staff. Still out for Johnny Druro’s blood?’ I nodded. ‘Then you’ll at least get off to a good start. Sister Mark’ll be so relieved to have a staff nurse who doesn’t give dear Johnny the old green light directly he steps inside a ward. Sex, my dear, has been raising its quaint little head in Mark of late. Sister Mark’s been talking of going to Matron.’
Flowers from the Doctor Page 5