The First Year

by Lucilla Andrews

  But, although I lived privately in a dream, I knew that dream could have no reality. Night after night, as I sat at the table, I played my game; but when I looked down the darkened ward towards the door no tall, fair man in a long white coat came in. No man came in at all. Jones would not have left me at the table if any of the men’s rounds were still to be done. The doorway and the ward remained empty; yet my imagination, stimulated by fatigue, was so strong that there were occasions when I stood up quickly, thinking I must be seeing things ‒ that couldn’t really be Jake waiting by the sterilizers. I was right. It was not. And I would sit down again, feeling absurd and childish and utterly lonely. I loved him so much, and, because of all these damned conventions and restrictions, we were never even going to get on a first-name basis.

  There were other complications, too. The night pros. were all firmly convinced that Jake was only waiting to leave the hospital to announce his engagement to Sister Casualty. They said he had to wait to do that as it was an accepted tradition that sisters did not become engaged to be married to members of the resident staff. ‘They have to see so much of the men that an official engagement would give rise to too much talk, and sisters aren’t supposed to cause talk. In the past one or other party has resigned and then got married, stat. Sister Verity left to marry Dr Mackenzie-Brown last year ‒ no one even suspected they were friends; and Sister Theatre resigned and then got engaged and married in a couple of weeks to Mr Old. And even Dr Spence waited until he stopped being a registrar here to propose to Sister Agatha ‒ she’s Mrs S.M.O. now ‒ six years ago.’

  I said I had not appreciated this fact.

  My informant, Ellis from Henry, said I should have. ‘Take your Jones. She didn’t get officially engaged to her Robert until he stopped being surgical registrar here. They announced it when he got that job at Martha’s. Matron prefers it that way. Of course, people don’t always wait, but those sort of people are generally junior men, like housemen. The senior residents, being more responsible, take their responsibilities more seriously. It can’t really matter to them. They just get engaged under the counter and work until the wedding day is fixed, then resign.’

  ‘You think that’s what the S.S.O.’ll do?’

  She nodded. ‘Certain of it. We all are. It’s too simple for him, as he’s leaving soon in any case.’

  I smiled brightly and agreed it was very simple. To change the subject, I asked after Dingle. ‘How’s her romance progressing?’

  Ellis said, as far as she could tell, not too badly. ‘Her Bill’s been behaving himself lately. He took her out to dinner on her last nights off and she’s been so happy since that she’s even appeased Sister Henry. Long may it last! I only hope she goes on being happy until I come off nights at the end of the week.’

  I had not seen Bill since that night in the plaster-room. He figured so little in my thoughts that I seldom recollected his existence and frequently forgot that he was the cause of Jake’s being so annoyed with me that night. I wondered if that episode had bothered Bill at all. I doubted that it had, and felt very sorry for Dingle. She had a sweet face.

  Mrs Simmonds and Mrs Yates both died during the first week of the New Year. They died in the daytime within a day of each other. On the night following Mrs Yates’s death Margaret was subdued and sad; it was always a quiet ward, but that night a silence which was truly the silence of death hung over the ward. We had expected poor young Mrs Simmonds to die, and, although Jones and I were genuinely saddened by her premature death, we were not shocked as we were when we arrived on duty and found Mrs Yates’s bed empty. The old lady had had another coronary thrombosis while lunches were being served and died in a matter of seconds. Mrs Simmonds’s bed was already filled by a new patient, but as I did the drinks that night I found myself avoiding looking at the one empty bed and the neat sterile locker that still smelt of carbolic from its recent scrubbing. While I cleared the used cups I heard the phone go; a couple of minutes later Jones came in and told me to put hot-water bottles in the clean bed. ‘Another pneumonia, Standing. Usual setting. Get going.’

  I stared at her blankly for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, Nurse,’ took my tray to the kitchen, and went to the linen-room for hot-water bottles.

  Jones followed me back into the kitchen. ‘Give me one ‒ I’ll fill it for you.’ As she unscrewed the top of the bottle she asked, ‘What’s the matter, Standing? Don’t you think we ought to use that bed?’

  I hesitated. ‘Well ‒ it was only this afternoon ‒ and ‒’

  She said slowly, ‘And a woman died in it? That it?’ I nodded. ‘Now, you listen to me,’ she went on steadily, ‘I know all that, and so do all the patients. But that bed has had its iron frame and springs carbolized; it’s got a new mattress, new pillows, new bedding. The locker’s been scrubbed too, and the curtains are clean. That’s all done automatically after every death. We can’t just leave a bed empty for sentimental reasons, and if we left it empty it would be for no other reason. It’s all new. And, as for someone dying in it’ ‒ she gave a slight shake of the head ‒ ‘my good girl, I doubt if there’s a bed in the hospital, and certainly there isn’t a bed in Margaret, in which someone hasn’t died. People do die in hospital. But you mustn’t let your mind think about that; you’ve got to think of the patient coming in. She may be dying, and may live because poor Mrs Yates dropped dead this afternoon and so we’ve got room to take her in at once. Hospital beds,’ she reminded me, ‘are scarce ‒ even nowadays. And one thing we don’t do in hospital is mourn; regret ‒ yes; mourn ‒ no. There’s no time for that, because there’s always someone else coming in. Here, put this in the bed quickly, then get the rest of the things while I go and get some history sheets for her.’

  The next night the new patient had become an old patient. Margaret was full but comparatively quiet, and I took longer than usual with my first drink-round, because the women, being more cheerful, were feeling talkative. Jean, in particular, had a lot to tell me, and I stayed by her for several minutes, listening to her personal problems. When I eventually returned to the kitchen Jones was cutting the breakfast bread for me. We always cut that bread early in the night and left it on top of the refrigerator, covered with a clean damp tea-cloth, until it was needed in the morning.

  I thanked her for starting the bread and apologized for being so slow. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been chatting too much.’

  She said she had noticed the long heart-to-hearts I had been having with the women. ‘I’m glad they are feeling up to chatting again. It’s a bad sign when a woman’s too ill to have a chat over a cuppa. There’s nothing I must do just now, so I thought I’d get on with this bread in case something crops up later.’ She stacked the bread she had cut into a neat pile and started on a fresh loaf. ‘How’s Jean? I thought she was looking rather down in the mouth when I went round. I saw her having a long talk to you. Did she tell you what’s on her mind?’

  ‘Yes, Nurse. I was just going to ask you about it.’ Then, remembering how irate Bennings had been when I chatted with the patients, I thought it best to add, ‘I hope you don’t mind my staying so long with her? It wasn’t easy to get away.’

  ‘I’d mind far more if you hadn’t stayed put. It’s as much part of our job at night to listen to the patients’ talk as to rush round making beds and doing washings. It helps the patients enormously if they can get things off their chests, particularly in a women’s ward. Women,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘generally have a lot on their minds at night. They lie and fret about little things far more than men; but isn’t life made up of little things? It may seem stupid to work yourself into a panic about what the old man had for his tea or if the nippers really did have a hot meal after school without Mum being there to make sure of it. It may seem stupid,’ she repeated, ‘but, personally, I don’t think it is. And I consider any nurse who copes with that sort of problem by saying briskly, “Well, my dear, you can’t do anything about it ‒ so stop worrying and go to sleep,” is a lousy nurse and ent
irely lacking in imagination.’ She made another stack of bread, then cut on methodically as she added, ‘I think the best plan is to let them chat it out, and then, if I can, to offer a constructive suggestion.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘You can’t conceive how many women I’ve put to sleep with fish-and-chips.’

  ‘Fish-and-chips?’ I echoed, wondering if I had heard right.

  ‘Yes. It solves so many problems. It’s a good, hot, high-protein meal, and there’s hardly a street in this part of London without a fried-fish shop. When one of our women gets in a state about her family eating cold meals out of tins I tell her to tell her husband to drop in at the fish bar on his way back from work. Everyone likes fish-and-chips; most kids adore it. So all Dad has to do is shove the lot in the oven while the kettle boils ‒ and it probably cuts out washing-up, too, as, ten to one, Dad’ll dish up out of the grease-paper. Very hygienic and far cleaner than a half-washed plate. So Mum, on thinking this over, reckons it’s a good plan, turns on her side, and goes to sleep. Problem and insomnia solved. Now, what’s worrying Jean? Her young man?’

  I nodded. ‘She tell you too, Nurse?’

  ‘No. You’re her great pal, not me. You made friends on Christmas night, didn’t you? I thought you would ‒ and I thought the poor girl looked in need of a friend, which was why I told you to stay where you were.’

  I said I had guessed that. ‘It was very bright of you, Nurse.’

  ‘Not bright at all. When you reach your fourth year, Standing, you’ll recognize sheer, blind panic when you see it. It’s not difficult; you get to see a lot of it here.’

  ‘How did you know Jean was worrying about her young man if she didn’t tell you? Is that something else you pick up with experience?’

  ‘More or less. People tend to worry about the same things at the same age. Jean’s not married; she’s young ‒ fairly pretty. If she has something on her mind, almost inevitably it’s a man. If she was a man in the same circumstances it might be her job. What’s up? Doesn’t he visit her?’

  ‘No. He’s on shift work and his free time doesn’t coincide with any visiting hours.’

  ‘How about Sundays?’

  ‘He works Sunday afternoons for the overtime. They are saving to get married. Jean had a letter from him to-day telling her all this. He apparently said he didn’t want her to think he hadn’t come because he didn’t want to come.’

  ‘And, having had that idea all the time, his letter has merely underlined it? She thinking he’s just using shift work as an excuse to break off with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She covered the bread with a clean cloth and rinsed the bread-board. ‘I’ll have a word with Sister in the morning. Can you find out his name and where he works? We won’t have it, as a fiancé is not a next-of-kin. Do it tactfully, so that she doesn’t catch on, in case he really doesn’t want to come. But I expect he’s telling the truth: hospitals scare the daylights out of lots of people; they seem to think we go behind the Iron Curtain in non-visiting hours. Sister Margaret is very good about things like this. She’ll probably contact him at work and see if something can be arranged. Sister knows patients can’t sleep unless they’ve got quiet minds.’ She smiled at me. ‘Sister Margaret does not allow her patients to have unquiet minds. She’ll fix something.’

  Jean’s young man was called Sid Thomas. Sid arrived to see Jean before lunch next morning; when we went on duty that night, Jean was still glowing with pleasure.

  ‘I never was so surprised in my life, Nurse Standing! I looked up and who should I see walking up the ward but my Sid! And he brought me a lovely bunch of roses. Hot-house ones. Yellow and red. Ever so pretty they are! They got taken out for the night, but you take a look at them outside, dear. But talk about surprise! Know what I said, Nurse? “Sid,” I said, “you can’t come in here now ‒ it’s not hours!” And what do you think he said, dear?’

  ‘Tell me, Jean.’

  ‘ “I’ve got the Sister’s special permission to come, I have,” he says, “and I’d like to see anyone try to stop me seeing my girl again after all this time.” ’ She smiled ecstatically. ‘And to think there have I been thinking maybe he didn’t want to come and he was just making excuses! I can tell you, I feel ever so much better to-night, dear. I’d like to tuck down and get to sleep real early, if it’s okay with you, Nurse?’

  When the ward was settled to sleep I went out to the clinical room to have a look at Jean’s roses. I knew she would ask in the morning what I thought of them, and I wanted to be honest in my admiration. The clinical room in which were kept the microscope and specimen glasses housed the flowers at night. The vases were labelled as in Francis Adams, and I found Jean’s number immediately. The roses were very lovely. I smelt them, then counted the flowers ‒ twenty-four. Good for Sid! And good for Sister Margaret too! I smiled at the flowers. Obviously Sister Margaret did not allow a romance to break in her ward. That thought inevitably reminded me of my personal affairs, and I stopped smiling. I did not want to waste time in foolish depression, but I could not stop loving him even if that love was folly, and at quiet moments like this, particularly when surrounded by flowers, it was difficult not to lapse into my favourite what-might-have-been-if-only-I-had-been-four-years-older day-dream.

  But I had my routine to do, and that routine I knew very well was the specific antidote for depression. I was on my way out of the clinical room when I noticed that someone had deposited a fresh bunch of flowers on top of one of the empty dispensary baskets on the floor under the china shelf. I took up the bunch incuriously; the flowers must go into a vase or they would wither in the night. I looked over the outside of the tissue-paper wrapping to find a label or pinned-on envelope. Someone was due for a pleasant surprise when I delivered her flowers in the morning with her early tea. The flowers were carnations, and they had a glorious scent. I stopped my search for a label momentarily, and put my face down among the blooms. As I was smelling them the outer ward door leading into the main upstairs corridor opened.

  Dr Spence appeared in the doorway, noticed me in the clinical room that was just inside that outer door, and bounced in to join me among the flowers.

  ‘Evening, Nurse. Busy in the ward to-night?’

  I lowered the carnations. ‘Good evening, Dr Spence. No, we are very quiet. Shall I fetch Nurse Jones for you?’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ he replied amicably; ‘I won’t do my round yet if you aren’t busy. I’ll be back later. I merely thought I’d look in as I was going past.’ He glanced over his shoulder, as if he had someone waiting for him in the corridor outside. ‘I’m on my way to Francis to look at a chap there with the S.S.O. Just let Nurse Jones know that I’ll be back at about eleven unless she needs me earlier, will you, Nurse? Much obliged.’ He had been gazing fondly at the flowers I held as he talked. Now he added impulsively, ‘I say, those are nice. Have they just arrived?’

  ‘One of the visitors must have left them. I’ve just found them.’

  ‘Someone’s saying it with flowers very late,’ he remarked with a friendly smile. ‘Let’s have them a second.’ The S.M.O. never stood on ceremony; he was too intelligent and too well respected to need to do that; also he was known to be very happily married, which last fact enabled him to behave far more normally than he could ever have done in his bachelor days. He took the flowers to the outer door and pulled it open. ‘Jake, step inside and have a look at these. You remember I told you my wife was good at growing these chaps? Well, these are the exact type she grows. Good, aren’t they?’

  Jake stepped inside obediently, acknowledged my cap with a mumbled, ‘Evening,’ ignored my face, and admired the carnations. ‘They are good ‒ and, yes, I do remember your sporting buttonholes of these last year.’ He touched the blooms. ‘I like the petal formation very much ‒ or, sorry’ ‒ he apologized, as he inadvertently dislodged the white envelope I had been unable to find. It dropped to the floor by Dr Spence’s feet. The S.M.O. stooped, picked it up, glanced at it casually, the
n gave it a second look.

  ‘I’ve got a problem here. Nurse,’ he said, still looking at the envelope. ‘I thought I knew all your ladies, but this foxes me. Who’s Miss R. Standing? Can’t be Jean ‒ she’s what? Maston?’

  ‘Mason, doctor.’ Like an idiot, I blushed. ‘As a matter of fact, doctor ‒’

  He was too curious to leave well alone. ‘Perhaps they belong in Martha or Agatha? We’re going that way; we’ll deliver them for you. Or how about you, Jake?’ He looked up at his taller colleague. ‘You got a woman called Miss R. Standing?’

  Jake put his hands in his pockets. ‘No. I should say they belong to Nurse, here.’

  ‘You Miss R. Standing, Nurse?’ demanded Dr Spence. I nodded weakly, and he thrust the flowers at me, beaming like a middle-aged Puck. ‘I do beg your pardon, Nurse. And there was I trying to wrest them from you! There.’ He stood back and tilted his head to one side. ‘They become you very well, Nurse. I like to see a young woman holding flowers. I expect you’re glad the S.S.O. discovered that note for you before I had taken them round the hospital, eh? Very well, Nurse. My compliments to Nurse Jones, and I’ll see her later. Better push off to Francis now.’

  Jake had been watching me all this time. From his expression it was not apparent that he admired the prospect before him. He reached for the door without looking away from me, opened it, murmured drily, ‘It might be an idea to push off,’ nodded at me, but went off without bothering to say good-night.

  As Dr Spence hopped out after him he said something that made them both laugh. I heard their laughter fading down the corridor, then closed the door they had left open, leant against it, and considered the carnations which I still held.

  I was not surprised to recognize Bill’s writing on the envelope, nor was I interested in his motive for sending them. I was only sorry that the wretched Dingle should have to be upset again; Bill sending flowers must mean Bill straying. I cursed Bill. Why did he have to keep upsetting people? Why could he not leave well alone?