‘Nurse Spottiswood!’
Yet again, Nell was to close her eyes in exasperation as Sister Pike accosted her for the umpteenth time that day. ‘You are supposed to be taking Mr Marshall for his x-ray!’
Nell gritted her teeth, then set forth a deferential response. ‘I was just asking Nurse Kilmaster to help me lift him into the wheelchair, Sister, he’s such a large chap. I can’t lift him on my own.’
Her superior tutted. ‘Nurse Kilmaster has her own duties! A big lump like you ought to be able to do it in your stride – were you never taught how to lift? Come along, I’ll show you!’ And, without waiting, she set off.
Rolling her eyes at Beata, Nell followed, but did so resentfully, seething over the insults to her physique and her competence.
‘Now look! You stand at the foot of the bed, and get him underneath, like this!’ Sister began to manhandle the very large fellow, but was interrupted by Nell.
‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ she sounded firm, and not sorry at all, ‘but I refuse to treat human beings like sacks of coal. It requires two of us.’
For a moment, it appeared that Sister was about to pack her insubordinate nurse off to Matron. But then emerged a gasp of contempt. ‘Oh very well, if you’re so useless I’ll have to help you! I don’t know what nurses are coming to these days!’ And between them they managed to shift the hundredweight of Mr Marshall’s flesh into the wheelchair. Then, whilst Sister Pike dusted her hands and went away to harry another, Nell wheeled the unfortunate man off to the x-ray department, apologising to him for the rough treatment meted out.
‘I can’t take much more of this,’ she was later to object to Beata. ‘Things had better change, or I’ll apply to go on permanent nights.’
Condemned to limp about in cheap footwear, insult heaped upon insult, with only the patients and fellow drudges to heed her woes, Nell was much relieved finally to return to night duty, even though the weather was still making it terribly difficult to get to and fro. Weeks turned into months, and still there was to be no let-up – not in Pike’s discipline, nor in the sporadic power cuts that were meant to save the nation’s coal amidst the most extensive chaos since the General Strike, nor in the weather. By March the situation had become very grave indeed. Nell had never thought to hear the word avalanche associated with the English landscape, but fear of this there was, with thirty-foot drifts on the higher ground. Far from being hard done by, she began to regard herself as lucky to live in this austere little room, for with rail and road impassable to the hillside villages, there were many who were completely isolated. At least she had no need to call on the RAF mountain rescue squad to deliver her food.
Even so, it was taxing enough. Around York, snow ploughs were a daily necessity, creating large ramparts to either side of the highways, white turned to black by exhaust fumes, and then to white again as another cascade was piled on top. Yet still those interminable blizzards continued to lay siege, tier upon tier being frozen to ice, daily life as hazardous as in wartime, and food being more difficult to acquire than ever before.
But worse was to come. For when the tons of snow that had transformed the landscape for the past three months finally began to thaw, it was under an assault of heavy rain. Packed hard by weeks of frost, the ground was unable to cope with the ensuing torrent, which teemed from every conceivable aspect to overfill rivers and becks, every watercourse bursting its banks to envelop the city, and sending a dirty brown flume complete with rainbow oil slicks pouring into cellars and living rooms, and sewage back up the drains.
‘As if we don’t see enough shite in here,’ proclaimed Beata, with her usual droll observation, ‘without having to wade home through it an’ all.’ For although their wards, and thankfully their houses, were on sufficiently high ground to escape the morass, to travel back and forth was a feat in itself.
In fact, even to wade became impossible at points, the roads in parts too deeply submerged under that effluent tide that swirled and eddied into shop and public house and church alike. Not for the first time was York transformed into Venice – though deeper by far was the resultant level, the expanse of water quickly become so vast that it was nigh impossible to recognise the waterways’ previous course – and in place of gondolas were doughty little rowing boats, into which Nell and others must clamber and be ferried from one stretch of duckboard to another, in order to reach work.
Where streets turned to rivers, the rivers themselves were unnavigable, their swollen levels creeping up and up to record heights, until almost obscuring the archways of the bridges that spanned them. Not to be subjugated, Nell and her friends took a trip to the cinema, thinking it awful jolly still to be able to watch a film, with the organ elevated to its full extent by automatic lift, and light from the screen illuminating the floodwater in roped-off stalls.
But really it was no joking matter, for along with the tangled branches, dead dogs and other flotsam, the perilous current was to sweep away livelihoods, to cause death and destruction across the country, and to leave millions of farm animals to rot, before eventually trickling backwards down the drains.
The floods might have receded, but in their horrible sludge-ridden wake came grave financial crisis for a nation still destitute from war. Nell might joke that she herself was in perpetual financial crisis, and were she to pull in her belt any tighter she would have a waist like a wasp. But truly it was hard to retain one’s optimism with such disaster stacked upon disaster, and if she was grown thin, there were many grown fat via the boom in pregnancy that had come with the soldiers’ return. How were these poor things to manage, faced with such a state of bankruptcy? thought the tender-hearted Nell. Her worries were not solely confined to the abstract, for she knew Joe Kilmaster’s wife to be expecting too, and while Beata was delighted to anticipate the arrival of a half-German nephew or niece at the end of the year, she too had voiced worry over its welfare.
Inevitably, whenever she laid down her head, Nell’s thoughts went to her own son, also vulnerable in this parlous national dilemma. William would be six years and three months old by now. As with countless times before, she tried to picture him – with dark hair, certainly, for both his parents were so. But did he have Bill’s blue eyes, or her brown ones? Was he tall for his age? Was he a serious little chap, like most of those in her care; or was he blessed with his father’s happy-go-lucky smile? Hopefully the latter, for, armed with such charming ammunition, no one could ever bring themselves to hurt him. Somehow, over the years, the wound of loss had turned from being raw to that of an amputated limb. In the same way that amputees survived their ghost pain, Nell had learned to cope with hers too. Before drifting off, in customary mode she offered a short prayer that her child would not suffer in these grave, dark days …
She was not to know if her personal prayers had been answered, though perhaps they were. For as Nell and her fellow nurses began to wonder just how much more hardship could be thrown at them, the crises of that summer began to abate, day by day, the tension continuing to unwind, this terrible year drawing to a close with a royal wedding.
Perhaps that was the signal of better times ahead, for as the year turned, changes came thick and fast: a different name for the hospital; an even bigger change in the way things were run, no longer a two-tier system for those who could pay and those who could not, and everyone receiving an equally excellent service. But to those who had hoped otherwise, these improvements were solely due to the inauguration of the National Health Service, and nothing whatsoever to do with Sister Pike, who remained as inflexible as ever.
‘What are we going to do?’ bewailed Nell as she and her friend performed the twice-weekly gutting of beds. ‘I can’t face another year like the last.’
‘I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get meself some new teeth,’ announced Beata.
‘To savage her with?’ volleyed Nell.
‘Well, it’s all free,’ grinned Beata, depositing another bundle of laundry in the bin. ‘Why shouldn’t we
take advantage of it, after what we have to put up with?’
‘I’m going to get myself some specs,’ butted in the elderly man on the walking frame who had been supervising their work.
‘You don’t need them, Mr Simpson!’ Nell laughingly pointed out to this regular curmudgeon.
‘I’m entitled, same as everybody else! They’re free. And I want them – you haven’t tucked that corner in, Nurse.’
‘As I said, you don’t need them.’ Nell gave a helpless laugh at Beata as she hurriedly tucked in the sheet. ‘I haven’t finished it yet, thank you for pointing it out! You’re as bad as Sister Pike.’
‘You have a complaint, Nurse Spottiswood?’ Yet again Pike was there, making the nurses jump.
‘No, Sister.’ A dutiful Nell increased her already efficient speed in stripping the beds.
‘Well, I have,’ snapped her constant detractor. ‘Mr Simpson is meant to be taking exercise, and you are meant to be working, not fooling around with patients. Any further warning and you shall find yourself in Matron’s office again.’ And she led Mr Simpson away.
‘I’ll be going to Matron’s office off my own bat!’ stated Nell, who had come to the sudden decision that the only way she could bring change to her own life was to enact her earlier threat. ‘And applying for permanent nights.’
Primarily, Matron was to show reluctance to grant this request, saying that it would be no good at all for the nurse’s health nor her spirits. But when Nell insisted on this arrangement, otherwise she would have to leave, consent was finally granted.
Going to work and coming home in darkness might indeed be an unnatural existence, but with sufficient time off between shifts in which to recover, Nell found her life to be a lot more contented than it had been for some time. How wonderful was the peace of the night ward, without that carping voice in one’s ear. There were downsides, of course, such as the fact that she saw little of her friend now, unless Beata happened to be working nights too, and even then they would be in different areas. It could be a lonely existence, if one let it. But with Pike off her back, Nell was grateful to make do with the snippets of news that came her way, and could still share her friend’s delight over the baby niece who arrived later than expected on New Year’s Day.
12
With her nocturnal role continuing over the next four years, Nell was to treasure any news of this child, Nina, for even though they had never met, she had seen many photographs, and Beata had described her character so well that Nell felt she knew her inside out, and especially welcomed hearing all the comical things she said. Joe and Grette were expecting a second child to be born any day. They wanted a son this time, Beata had said, though the little girl wanted a sister, and had vowed she would take it back to the shop if the wrong variety arrived.
Nell was pondering these fond thoughts as she enjoyed the last few hours of quietude before her rounds started on that wintry morn, and thinking of her own son, who had been born at such an early hour.
But her reveries were shortly to be interrupted by a student nurse, who had been put on nights to gain experience. How Sister Pike would hate it, thought Nell with a smile, to see this girl defer to me.
‘I’m not sure what to do,’ posed the student, as she presented a shrivelled object on a wad of lint. ‘Mr Kettlewell’s penis has just dropped off.’
Nell gave a murmur of recognition. Rampaged by cancer, the poor man was not long for this world. She gave kindly instruction. ‘Just make him as comfortable as you can.’
‘But what shall I do with this?’ The youngster held up the detached part.
Nell gave an impish instruction. ‘Put it on Sister Pike’s desk for morning. I’m sure it’ll make her day.’
It’ll certainly make mine, thought Nell. And later, when the day staff arrived, she was to hover outside the sister’s office, waiting for her to come upon the ‘gift’, and to listen out for her utterance of disgust.
Later still, in the afternoon, after catching up on sleep, she was to use this humorous episode to entertain some of her old colleagues at the Infirmary. It made good listening, too, for Connie Wood, the one to whom she still made regular visits and bestowed small gifts. Connie’s face lit up at Nell’s arrival, and so did other familiar faces too, Cissie Flowerdew rushing to tell her excitedly all about her coming wedding, to the father of her latest child. Yet, pleasant as this meeting was to one with such a poor social life, Nell felt glad she had decided to leave there, for despite being renamed the Grange, it was still the old workhouse building with those same drab wards.
After spending an hour or so amongst old friends, she went on her way, to the hospital that was further along the same road. Tonight she was to be on the isolation wards. A look at her watch told she was far too early, but this would give her legitimate time to chat to the patients. Nell felt so sorry for them, not being allowed visitors – especially the little ones – but most of all those in the iron lungs. There was only one in at the moment, thank God. She was fourteen, at least able to understand what was being done to her, but that made it no less frightening. Nell was frightened too. She had nursed Annette on the first day she had entered hospital, and watched the paralysis set in. Would she still be there tonight?
To Nell’s relief, she was. And though she could not move a muscle, not even her head, which was the only thing sticking out of that metal crate that acted as lungs, she appeared to recognise Nell behind her barrier gown, and to be pleased to see her.
‘I’m early, so I’ve plenty of time to gossip.’ Nell leaned over to sponge the patient’s face with cool water, her eyes smiling into Annette’s. ‘Sister can’t tell me off if it’s my own time! Nurse Potts was just coming to see to you but I said I’d sort you out whilst we’re gabbing.’
Acting casually, so as not to create great ceremony out of it, she began to chat at the same time as sticking her hands through the rubber cuffs of the portholes, attending the toilet requirements of the naked body inside, and trying to minimise the embarrassment. ‘I went to town on Saturday, tried on all these lovely coats in Marks and Spencer’s – of course I can’t afford them, I was just having fun – but there was also this cerise jumper – that’s my favourite colour. I hope they’re not all sold before I can save up for one. Maybe I should have tucked it under my coat and run out of the shop!’ She rambled on about clothes and make-up and other fripperies, of what she would buy if she did have the cash, her arms still gripped by the rubber cuffs of the iron lung, her hands working inside the box, until she thought perhaps she had gone on too long. At which juncture she suddenly apologised for this one-sided conversation. ‘I’m sorry, I’m very boring, aren’t I?’ But Annette, who found it difficult to talk, conveyed with her eyes that she enjoyed listening to anything Nell had to tell her.
So Nell went on. ‘Oh, I don’t know if you’ve seen Nurse Kilmaster lately? I expect she’s told you about her niece. I haven’t met her, but by all accounts she’s a canny little thing. Killie comes in and tells me all the funny things she’s said. Anyway, they’re having another any day soon. Hoping for a boy this time.’ As usual when discussing children, her mind went to William, and her face was animated as she spoke of Baby Kilmaster.
This good mood was to last throughout her twelve-hour shift, enhanced by the fact that her patients had all come safely through the night. With a fond farewell to each, saying she would see them that evening, she took off her barrier gown, scrubbed up, then went to the main dining block. Only there was her weariness to hit her, due to a sombre announcement on the wireless. The King was dead.
After oozing tears with her night-time colleagues, Nell was making to leave for home when she came across Beata in the corridor, her friend being abnormally glum. ‘Oh, Killie, you look like I feel. You’ve obviously heard the news … isn’t it sad?’
Beata agreed. ‘But it’s not just the King. Grette died in labour, the baby too. A little boy …’
Nell jumped in shock, and gave only mute attendance as her
friend explained that it had been due to, ‘Eclampsia. The ambulance came straight away, but it was too late to save either of them. Our Joe’s inconsolable.’
‘I’ll bet he is …’ Nell’s fingers played with her lips, such memories being dredged up for her, creating nausea in her stomach and a trembling of her limbs. But then she was to rebuke herself. This was not her grief but someone else’s. ‘That poor, poor man, and his little girl.’
‘Funeral’s on Thursday,’ murmured Beata, beginning to move away. ‘I’ll have to ask Pike for time off. What a pleasure that’ll be.’
Nell caught her sleeve. ‘Well, I’ll be off work too then. Is there anything I can do to help?’
Beata nodded appreciation. ‘Could you sit with our Nina? Joe doesn’t want her standing round an open grave, we had enough of that when we were kids. Our Gussie said she’d have her, but if you could do it instead it would leave her free to come to the funeral. I know she’d like to go. Though, you’d have the other kids to keep an eye on as well as Nina, and it might be a long do, us being Catholics …’
Nell was in the process of saying, ‘Think nothing of it,’ that she would do this, of course, when someone interrupted.
‘Do you two do nothing but gossip?’ demanded Sister Pike, coming suddenly upon the pair. ‘Please show some respect for His Majesty. Nurse Kilmaster, get about your business.’ Beata went. ‘Nurse Spottiswood, if you’re going home then go!’
Nell sought to explain quietly before Pike did any more damage, ‘Nurse Kilmaster’s sister-in-law’s just died –’
‘Is that any reason for you to get involved too?’
Nell would gladly have strangled her. ‘I just thought you should know, Sister.’
‘And now I do – clear off!’
Clear off yourself, you old bat, seethed Nell, but quickly walked away.
An Unsuitable Mother Page 30