The First Year

by Lucilla Andrews

  I went into the kitchen, stuck the flowers in a jug of water, sat down on the bread-bin, and opened the envelope. Inside was a sheet of paper of the type used for Path. Lab. Requests. It was closely written on both sides. I thought dispassionately: he probably wrote this in Henry while poor Dingle thought he was writing notes, and grimaced at my own horrible pun. Then I thought, What now? Several possibilities flashed into my mind; none of them were right.

  Bill wrote:

  I owe you an apology, Rose. Two apologies, did you but know it. To get on with the first, I really am sorry about that affair in Cas. I know I didn’t ought to have done it, but a character can’t always do just what he ought. I gather my boss got tough with you. My humble apologies. If it’s any consolation he tore me into little pieces and threw me all over the H.S.’s sitting-room. From now on Uncle is going to behave himself ‒ and, my God, Rose, how boring that is going to be! Must be, as I daren’t put up a second black ‒ certainly not while Jake remains with us. Talking of which brings me quite easily to my second apology. I only throw this in as I know you’re a girl who enjoys a good laugh and feel in fairness I may as well give you the chance to laugh your head off.

  It’s this way: for some time now I’ve had a sort of hunch that a certain senior character had a soft spot for you. I’ve seen the way he looked at you, and so on. I even indulged in a little cloak-and-dagger stuff once and nipped you to Bert’s when I knew he was going to be there. I thought it might be amusing to watch his reactions while I whispered sweet nothings into your ear. Far from admirable but with comic possibilities. Only you wouldn’t play. How dumb are you, Rose? Not quite so dumb as you care to make out, I suspect. And how wise you were, seeing how things are working out. So please have your good laugh and accept this small floral token from a reformed character who is fast becoming exhausted by all this virtuous living, and who is also very shaken at having a hunch proved fallible for the first time in his life.

  Regards, love, BILL.

  There were two postscripts. The first read, ‘When are your next nights off? Doing anything that I can’t do with you, too?’

  The second read, ‘Have you heard that Sister Cas. is leaving too? How wrong can a character be?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  A PRO. TURNS PATIENT

  I sat very still on that bread-bin. I did not drop the letter and burst into tears, feel sick, want to faint. I did not feel anything at all. I thought quite calmly, the night girls were right ‒ she’s resigning to get married; that’s the accepted form. In my ice-cold, academic frame of mind I considered the possibility of Bill being mistaken; maybe she wasn’t leaving? I answered myself at once. She must be. Bill was not talking about hunches but facts. As a Casualty Officer he would be very well up in all the Cas. news, and Sister Cas. resigning was big news indeed. That position is rated very high in the nursing world. Young women of Miss Mercer’s age and experience did not throw up such a post lightly; only promotion to perhaps Night Sister or one of the Office Sisters would tempt her away if she was remaining in her profession; both those posts are stepping-stones to becoming a Matron. No. The only possible reason for her chucking up her job here at Martin’s must be marriage. Women will chuck up any job for marriage, I had always heard. Until I met Jake Waring I had not been able to understand that attitude. Now I understood it very well.

  Jake. I could no longer postpone thinking of him ‒ and I ceased to feel academic about Bill’s news. And the first sensation that broke through the numbness was anger. I was furious with myself for being such a fool, for believing in fairies, for wasting so many secret moments in wishful thinking. Why had I not had the sense to face from the start that the whole set-up was impossible? Why had I let matters get out of hand?

  Why? Because I had had no say in the matter. I had seen Jake, and, although not at first sight, it had not taken many brief meetings for me to recognize what he was ‒ the man for me. But first-year pros., I reminded myself drearily, are not meant to be young women. They are just timid or irresponsible ‒ what? First-years. Scruffy, always harassed, generally with caps flying and some sister or staff nurse glowering in the background. They were not young women who fell in love ‒ the hospital would laugh its head off, as Bill had said I might ‒ at the mere idea. It had never happened. There was not even an exception to prove the rule. And so I might as well accept this at last, step mentally back into the uniformed figure sitting on the bread-bin, and get on with my night’s routine.

  I stood up stiffly, took out a couple of long loaves, reached for the bread-board that was propped on the dresser, took the bread-knife from the drawer, sharpened it automatically on the rim of the sink, and began to slice the first loaf.

  But cutting bread is not an occupation to occupy the mind. So I made myself think about Bill and Dingle and the open invitation he had offered me in his first postscript. Bill Martin, I decided fiercely, was a two-timing bastard. The word gave me genuine satisfaction. I normally never used it, even in thought, but it was Hector’s second-favourite condemnation, and tonight I felt it was justified. Bill was just that; even if he was not officially engaged to Dingle he had no business to run two strings at once. And I was one string that he was certainly not going to run. Which, I now saw clearly, was precisely why he had bothered to send me those carnations and ask me out again. He simply could not conceive that I was not interested; I must be ‒ everyone else was; so I must have some deep reason for playing hard-to-get. Never in a hundred years would it dawn on a Bill Martin that he simply did not appeal to me. There was one great consolation; it had obviously never dawned on him also that Jake was important to me. So much for his hunches. And so much for his watching Jake looking at me, too. I had watched Jake constantly when he and I were in the same room or hall; I had longed to see some warmth in his expression when he glanced my way; I never saw any flicker of expression that could give me the slightest grounds to hope he even liked me. He simply looked and talked at and to the top of my cap.

  I finished slicing the first loaf and began on the second. I could not stand any more thoughts of Jake, so I thought instead about Cas. without Miss Mercer. Who would take over? Of course ‒ Davis. I knew that already. I should have taken heed of that warning. I wondered what kind of a sister Davis would make, and what Cas. would be like without Miss Mercer; she was so much a part of her department that it was hard to visualize it without her; but not as hard as it was to visualize Martin’s and my future life here without Jake in the physical background and mental foreground.

  I cut the loaf fiercely. Why did I have to come to Martin’s now? Why not a year later when I would have missed him, never known him ‒ and never known what I was missing? I closed my eyes involuntarily, thinking how much I was going to miss him and how long it would be before I could laugh at myself and the painful folly of loving a complete stranger. I had not closed my eyes like that for some time; a succession of sisters, beginning with Sister P.T.S. had come close to lecturing me out of the habit. It was a pity there was no watchful sister to disapprove of that habit in Margaret kitchen just then, because when I closed my eyes I was still slicing the second loaf with the sharp bread-knife. Instead of the loaf, I sliced the palm of my left hand.

  Jones, coming into the kitchen a few minutes later, found me holding my hand under the running cold tap. ‘You stupid child, why didn’t you call me? You can’t deal with this yourself ‒ it’s really deep. And sit down, Standing.’ She pushed me back on to the bread-bin (the only seat in our kitchen). ‘You’re pale green. Keep your hand up and your head down while I get some sal volatile.’ She vanished and returned instantly with a medicine glass. ‘Drink this.’ When I had drunk the liquid she examined my hand carefully. ‘This is more than a simple gash,’ she said soberly. ‘What were you doing to let the knife go so far in? Didn’t you feel it?’

  ‘No. It just ‒ happened. I wasn’t thinking, I’m afraid, and it was done before I realized it.’

  ‘Poor kid.’ She tightened the ban
dage round my wrist. ‘I expect you had a touch of night-nurses’ paralysis. I’ve had it a few times myself. Didn’t you sleep well to-day? Hey ‒ hold that hand right up, it’s still bleeding. Just a moment.’ She tied another bandage over the original one. ‘I’ll have to get this really tight, like a tourniquet. We won’t stop it otherwise. Sorry if I’m hurting, Standing,’ she grunted, pulling the two ends of the bandage as tightly as she could, ‘but I can’t let this bleeding go on. It’s not arterial, but you must have hacked your way through rows of capillaries. I don’t think you’ve done more than that. There.’ She straightened her back and held my hand up for me. ‘Now prop your elbow on the table while I phone Night Sister.’

  I sighed. ‘Oh, dear. Someone ill in the ward? I’m awfully sorry to have held you up like this, Nurse.’

  She said kindly, ‘The women are all right. I’m going to ring Night Sister about you. You’ll have to have something more done to that hand.’

  ‘Oh, Nurse, must you? I’m sure it will be all right. The bleeding’s bound to stop soon, and I always heal quickly. Honestly, it’s only a cut.’

  She shook her head slightly. ‘Sorry, Standing, but I have to report this. You’ll need some stitches, I’m certain. You can’t work on with a cut like that. Sit here; I’ll come back at once.’

  Night Sister arrived in Margaret kitchen ten minutes later. She was sympathetic about my hand, but impatient with my carelessness. ‘Surely, Nurse Standing, you are used to cutting bread by now! Could you not have noticed the knife was slipping?’ Jones undid the bandages, and Sister clucked over my exposed palm. ‘You will certainly have to have this stitched. No two ways about it. I will ring Mr Waring immediately. He is still on his rounds.’ She turned to Jones. ‘You must have a relief, Nurse. I will send Nurse White to you for the rest of the night, and Nurse Jamieson will have to manage alone in Martha as best she can.’

  Sister went into the duty-room to do her telephoning; Jones had to return to the ward; and I remained alone, sitting on the bread-bin and feeling even more miserable at the prospect of seeing Jake again than I had felt half an hour ago when I had been convinced he was lost to my sight for ever.

  Night Sister returned. ‘Nurse White is on her way and Mr Waring wishes me to take you to the minor surgical theatre at once.’ She looked at me, and her manner altered. ‘Poor child, you look thoroughly shocked.’ She slipped her arm through mine. ‘Do you feel too giddy to walk? Would you rather I fetched a chair? Perhaps that might be as well. Wait here while I fetch one.’

  ‘I can walk quite well, thank you, Sister,’ I replied quickly and uncomfortably. Her concern worried me more than her previous impatience; then I suddenly realized why her attitude had changed, and with the realization felt less embarrassed. I was now off duty and an official patient. Our sisters might be stern disciplinarians to the nurses, but they were uniformly kind to the patients. Night Sister was a different ‒ and very much nicer ‒ woman as she escorted me to the M.S. Theatre.

  Jake had changed too. ‘You have got a nasty gash here, Nurse Standing,’ he said gently. ‘I’m afraid it will need quite a few stitches. Will you mind stitches? Ever been stitched before?’ His expression was so sympathetic that I could not suppress a wild thought about cutting myself in pieces. Why hadn’t I done this before? ‘I’ll try not to hurt,’ he went on, ‘but you’re bound to feel it. What do you say?’

  ‘They won’t worry me ‒ I think, Mr Waring. I’ve often been stitched up before ‒ truly. I didn’t mind them at all.’

  He smiled at me as he took off his white coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeves. ‘Would you be in the habit of cutting yourself into shreds, Nurse Standing?’

  Night Sister defended me magnificently. ‘Nurse Standing has never injured herself on duty previously, Mr Waring.’

  He caught my eye. ‘Splendid.’ His tone was dry but not unkind. ‘So you had these previous stitches in your pre-hospital days?’

  ‘Yes. Some here.’ I showed them the white scar on the inside of my right forearm. ‘I had nine in there, three in my left knee, and ‒ I believe ‒ four in my head. Round the back.’ He traced the scar on my arm with one finger. ‘You clearly are in the habit of cutting yourself to shreds. This was another nasty gash. How did you do it?’

  ‘Climbing over a barbed-wire fence. I slipped.’

  He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. ‘And the others?’

  ‘My knee was the same fence. My head was when one of my brothers hit me with a cricket bat. Accidentally.’

  ‘I see.’ A muscle twitched in his left cheek. ‘Did you hit your brother back, Nurse?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t.’

  Night Sister, who was growing more maternal with every second, said that was highly forbearing of me. ‘It is not easy to control one’s temper even when accidentally provoked.’

  I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, Sister, he knocked me out. That’s why I couldn’t hit back.’

  Jake’s muscle twitched again. ‘From what we are gleaning of Nurse Standing’s childhood, Sister, I find it not at all surprising that she should take stitching in her stride.’

  Night Sister was placidly laying a stitching trolley. In our hospital sick staff were only treated by the most senior residents and sisters, which was why I had this exalted couple to deal with a very minor hospital emergency. Sister said, ‘I expect that to anyone who was still a child during the War barbed-wire fencing must have seemed only a tiresome obstacle to play. I remember we had a constant stream of such injuries to children when I was in Casualty. Will you use silk or nylon, Mr Waring?’

  ‘Nylon, please, Sister.’ He looked at her and then at me as he went to the sink to wash his hands. ‘Yes, you must have been a very small child in those days, Nurse.’ He glanced over his shoulder at Sister and added pleasantly, ‘How well I remember your days as a staff nurse in Casualty, Sister ‒ and how well you guided my first faltering steps as a C.O. Do you remember how often you saved me from incurring the wrath of old Sister Casualty?’ He smiled at her as he soaped his arms. ‘I do not remember any sister in my entire hospital career who could so quickly reduce the medical staff to abject small boys as old Sister Casualty.’

  Night Sister wagged her befrilled head reminiscently. ‘She could be a terror,’ she agreed with simple pride, ‘but I’ve never known a better sister. We sisters are not the same these days.’

  ‘Sister! You mustn’t say that! That is a sure sign that you and I now belong ‒ as, indeed, we do to Nurse here ‒ to the older generation. But I have to admit I find myself doing that myself. I have not infrequently heard my voice telling my housemen that housemen are not what they were in my young days. No doubt about it’ ‒ he shook the drips from his wet arms and hands into the sink and came towards us with his hands upraised as if in prayer ‒ ‘that attitude of mind is a bad sign, and unavoidable. It’s only a question of time, Sister, before you and I meet again and shake our greying heads sadly over the ways of modern night sisters and S.S.O.s. Not what we were, we’ll say.’

  She smiled at him as if they shared a private joke about this. ‘I shall look forward to welcoming you back, Mr Waring.’

  He said he looked forward to that moment too. ‘Possibly by then I shall have got used to not wearing a white coat.’ He picked up a sterile towel. ‘Just raise your arm from the table, please, Nurse. Thank you.’ As he spread the towel on which my arm was to rest he gave a small grimace. ‘What have I forgotten?’

  Sister looked concerned. ‘Have you forgotten something, Mr Waring?’ She considered her trolley setting. ‘I believe I have everything here ‒?’

  I had been wondering whether he was not wearing a mask intentionally. I had never known him do any stitching without a mask. As they both looked over the trolley I said quietly,’ Is it your mask, Mr Waring?’

  ‘It is, indeed. I’m obliged to you, Nurse.’

  Sister, clucking at her own absent-mindedness, tied one on for him as his hands were clean. ‘I cannot conceive of what I wa
s thinking.’

  He said, ‘I think we’ve both got rather a lot on our minds, Sister,’ and they exchanged another private smile.

  When he was half-way through his stitching the theatre telephone rang. It was Casualty needing Night Sister. We heard her say, ‘I will be with you directly, Nurse.’ She came back into the small white theatre and explained why she was needed. ‘I will be back as soon as I can, Mr Waring, but I must go and see this man. Will you be able to manage alone?’

  ‘Of course, Sister. Don’t disturb yourself, we are doing very well. Won’t be long now.’ He watched me. ‘How are you feeling, Nurse?’

  I managed to raise a smile. ‘Fine, thank you.’

  Sister gave me an approving nod. ‘You are doing quite nicely, Nurse.’ Which was high praise from her. ‘If Mr Waring has done with you before I return, will you sit quietly in here until either I or my Night Assistant come to take you to Nightingale.’

  ‘But, Sister ‒ can’t I go back on duty? I am sure I could do quite a lot with one hand.’

  Jake replied for her. ‘Under no circumstances,’ he said, and bent over my hand.

  He was silent when Sister left us. Occasionally he glanced up at my face to see how I was taking it, but he said nothing until he knotted the last stitch. ‘Move your fingers again, Nurse.’ I did so, and he touched each in turn. ‘You felt all that? Good. Now close your eyes and tell me which finger I touch as I touch it.’ He tested all my fingers, not in rotation. ‘Right. You can open your eyes again, Nurse Standing.’

  I could not open my eyes, because I had suddenly started to weep. I was not sure why; tiredness, shock, his going, the pain of that needle going through ‒ any of them or all of them. All I was sure was that I had never wept in front of any man in my life, and I was not going to start now ‒ and certainly not with him.

  He asked gently, ‘What’s up? Very tired? Did I hurt much? I tried not to, but I know I must have done.’