The Gentle Surgeon

by Hilda Pressley

  He shifted a little uneasily, then smiled slightly and gave her a quizzical, oblique glance.

  “You make me sound like a Don Juan.”

  “Isn’t that how you see yourself, Rob?” she asked quietly.

  “No. I told you, it’s just that I’m feeling unsettled. But I would like to see you sometimes, Chris. Surely we can do that. Or don’t you love me any more?” he added in a teasing voice.

  Christine cringed. “I really must go in now, Rob. I don’t want to talk any more at the moment, if you don’t mind. Maybe I will see you again some time. Anyway, you know where to find me.” She opened the door of the car. “Thanks for the lift, Rob. ’Bye.” She heard his rather surprised “goodbye” as she ran into the house.

  “That you, Christine?” her mother called from upstairs.

  “Yes, Mother, it’s me.”

  “Was that John with you?”

  Christine climbed wearily upstairs, not knowing whether she wanted to cry or not.

  “No, Mother, it was Robert.”

  “Robert? Good gracious! Have you made up, then?”

  “No, Mother. Not in the way you mean.”

  “Then in what way, for goodness’ sake? He wants to have his cake and eat it, I suppose?”

  “I expect so.”

  She went into her room and quietly closed the door. Had Rob ever really loved her, that he could talk and act in this way? This was worse, far worse, than any normal quarrel or misunderstanding. Didn’t he know how much he was hurting her? Didn’t he know that to be offered friendship for love was like a knife through one’s heart?

  She thought of John when he said that love wasn’t lost very easily, and all at once she longed for his kind and gentle philosophy, his strength that she was always aware of every moment she was with him.

  When she had composed herself a little she went downstairs. Her mother said nothing for a while, then she asked in a noticeably casual voice,

  “Darling, why don’t you ask John to dinner one evening? Your father and I would love to see him again. We could make it a special occasion—advance your father’s birthday.”

  Christine smiled fondly across the table. “I’d love to, Mother. But I’m not sure whether he’ll want to come. I haven’t seen him except on duty since the night we went to the theater. Rob says he’s been seen out with Nurse Larcham.”

  “We can ask him, anyway. You fix a date—if he says yes, he’ll come—and I’ll do the rest. There’s something about John that’s different. He seems so much in command of himself, yet so sensitive to the feelings of others.”

  Christine gazed out of the window to where a rosy sunset was streaking the sky with color.

  “I do so agree with you, Mother,” she said quietly.

  John was operating the following day. Nurse Larcham was off duty and Christine was detailed to anesthetics. She checked over the gas-oxygen machine as usual and made sure that everything was there. The first two cases on the list were hernias. Robert came in to give the spinals.

  “Good morning. How’s my favorite nurse this morning?” he said.

  Christine colored as through the still open door of the theater she saw Sister at the suture trolley. As Robert spoke, her head jerked around quickly.

  She said to Nurse Swenwick, in a voice that would be heard clearly to anyone in the scrubbing-up room or even in the surgeons’ change room, “Will you go and tell Staff Nurse that Dr. Marston is here to give the anesthetic and that it’s time the first patient was ready to be brought in.”

  Nurse Swenwick came obediently to the anesthetic room door. “All right,” muttered Robert before she could speak. “Message received and understood. Tell Sister I merely passed a remark.”

  Christine closed the communicating door. “Doctor, I’m in enough trouble in theater as it is. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  Robert certainly knew his job. With the minimum of fuss the injection was given and the patient ready for the operation. Robert was a good doctor. Christine knew that. It was one of the things she had admired in him. She still admired his skill, and she loved him. But lately he had changed. He was showing a frivolous, irresponsible streak. Or was this just a cover-up for some deep and real need? Some need that she herself had failed to meet in him? Obviously Sandra was not quite living up to expectations. Or had she herself been mistaken all along about Sandra and Robert?

  She helped to lift the patient onto the table. John stood a few feet away and his eyes flicked from Robert to herself in a surprised glance. Had he heard Robert’s silly opening gambit and Sister’s sarcastic remark?

  Whether he had or not Christine couldn’t say, but it seemed that everything was conspiring against her whenever John was anywhere about.

  Sister Kelly was off duty in the afternoon, leaving Christine in charge of theater and acting as instrument nurse. The first patient for operation required a general anesthetic that was going to be administered by Dr. Wallis, the consultant anesthetist. Nurse Swenwick was detailed to take anesthetic room duties, and at the very moment when the consultant arrived there was a hue and cry for the universal spanner.

  “Nurse, it must be there,” Christine told her. “It was there this morning when I was doing anesthetics.”

  “It might not have been. It wasn’t needed this morning,” Nurse Swenwick answered,

  “I always check that it’s there, Nurse, whether I think it’s going to be needed or not. You know that perfectly well. Find it as quickly as you can.”

  The consultant, a reasonable but busy man, took her apology in silence and disappeared into the surgeons’ change room for a few minutes, expecting without doubt that the spanner would be found by the time he came back. Christine wished she were not scrubbed up so that she could join in the search. It had been in its usual place this morning. She could see it clearly in her mind’s eye. Who on earth could have removed it? Frantically she thought of all the possible places where it might be.

  She told the two nurses who were acting as runners to go and help Nurse Swenwick look for it.

  “It might have slipped on the floor, but in any case there should be a spare in the drawer of the trolley.”

  But they returned with blank looks on their faces. “Even the spare is missing, Nurse Townsend.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!”

  John and the consultant came into theater together then. “Spanner not found yet, Nurse Townsend?” John asked in a serious tone.

  Christine had never felt so agonized, so embarrassed and uncomfortable in all her nursing life. The eyes of the two men, John and the consultant, were fixed on her, the one disappointedly, the other disapprovingly. And in the background, as if waiting for her to perform a miracle, were the two runners, their eyes wide. Nurse Swenwick appeared in the doorway of the anesthetic room and a swift glance showed a look of triumph on the nurse’s face. Could the girl have hidden them somewhere purposely? And why had she not reported the missing spanners earlier?

  Then suddenly Christine had an inspiration. She remembered how once a bunch of ward keys was missing for days and turned up in the most unexpected place.

  She apologized to John and the consultant, then spoke to Nurse Adcock.

  “Nurse, I want you to go and take a good look in both the instrument sterilizers. Quickly.”

  “That’s a very odd place to keep cylinder spanners,” remarked the anesthetist.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just a hunch.”

  Her hunch proved correct. But Christine knew without an atom of doubt that she herself had not put them there.

  “Well, they’ll be sterile, anyhow,” the anesthetist remarked a trifle coldly. “Perhaps we can proceed now.”

  Christine felt her cheeks grow warm, and without another word John turned and walked away. A second later Christine heard him scrubbing up.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Christine prayed that nothing else would go wrong. She had prepared varying sizes of ligatures and sutures, threaded a selection of needle
s ready for use. She had checked the instruments carefully, extras as well as the general set, and had remembered the suction apparatus and diathermy.

  Now, as she waited for John and his assistant to come to the operating table, she ran her eye over the instruments again. All seemed to be in order.

  The assistant surgeon was first at the table as usual. John followed a few minutes later.

  “Ready, Nurse?” he asked.

  “Yes, Dr. Taylor.”

  He glanced swiftly around. “Diathermy?”

  “Yes, Dr. Taylor.”

  She picked up a knife and held it out to him. He took it from her, and the operation began. Christine forgot all else then as she followed the operation step by step, anticipating which instrument or suture he would need next, having it ready to put into his hand before he asked for it, her brain keenly alert. His hands fascinated her, as the hands of no other surgeon had ever done, handling the viscera with incredible delicacy.

  “Gentleness is the first essential in the performance of any surgical procedure,” he said to his assistant. “Always remember that.”

  Christine reflected fleetingly that he dealt with human nature, with people, in much the same way. His strength lay in his character, in his judgment.

  When the anastomosis was completed John asked for fresh sterile gloves, and Christine put out clean towels and mackintoshes and gave instructions for some of the instruments to be washed and re-sterilized. She was preparing more sutures when the telephone rang. Nurse Swenwick went to answer it.

  “Well, Nurse?” asked Christine when the girl returned. “Who was it?”

  John glanced up swiftly. A call while an operation was in progress was usually for the surgeon or his assistant.

  “It was Dr. Marston, Nurse. A private call for you. He didn’t leave any message,” Nurse Swenwick said, with no attempt to lower her voice, as any other nurse might have done in the circumstances.

  Christine felt her cheeks coloring. She glanced at John and caught the look in his eyes before he directed them once more on the site of the operation.

  She couldn’t think what had made Rob do this. He must know that an operation was in progress. He had never called her before under such circumstances even when they were engaged. Why should he now? She was really angry with him. She was being made to look more and more incompetent, more and more frivolous, slack, and altogether a pretty poor sort of person in John’s eyes, one way or another.

  An apology for the interruption hovered on her lips, but already John was proceeding with the next step of the operation as if nothing had happened. When it was over she made tea for him and the anesthetist, but did not stop to have one with them. She felt too embarrassed, too let down, to conscious of the opinion both men must have of her—John in particular.

  She felt she couldn’t possibly ask him home to dinner now. She was convinced he wouldn’t really want to come. Before she went off duty for the evening she tried to get in touch with Robert to find out why he had rung her, but he had gone out. When she reached home her mother and father had gone to the theater, so she spent a lonely evening at home, hoping Robert would call her and feeling miserable and unsettled. Nothing, it seemed, was going right at the moment.

  At the scrubbing-up bowl the next day John glanced up as Christine went through, and spoke her name.

  “Yes, Dr. Taylor?”

  He said in a low voice as he scrubbed, “I ran into your mother this morning when I was in town, and she invited me to have dinner with you.”

  “Did you accept? I really couldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

  “Oh, why?”

  Christine didn’t answer. She scarcely knew what to say. John glanced at her face.

  “I told your mother I’d like to—if you really want me to. It’s entirely up to you. I wouldn’t like to upset any other arrangements you might have.”

  She heard Sister, who was scrubbed up and laying out the instruments, asking where she was.

  “I must go, Dr. Taylor. I—I’d like you to come, if you are sure you want to.”

  “I do. So we’ll call it settled, then.”

  Later on in the day Sister Kelly called Christine into the office.

  “Staff Nurse,” she began without ceremony, “I’m told that both the cylinder spanners were missing yesterday. That has never happened in my theater before. And it must never happen again. I simply don’t know how on earth you could let such a thing come about. Have you any explanation to offer?”

  Christine wondered who could have told Sister. John? One of the nurses?

  “I just don’t know what happened, Sister. I was on anesthetics in the morning, and the spanner was on the bottom shelf on the trolley then. I know it was.”

  “And the spare?”

  “I didn’t check up on the spare, Sister, seeing the other in its usual place.”

  “Always check up on both, Staff Nurse,” Sister said uncompromisingly. “It’s quite likely you dropped the one from the trolley into the sterilizer along with the anesthetic syringe, though even that seems incredible. But that’s not all. I’m by no means satisfied with the way you’re conducting yourself in theater. There’s far too much standing around chatting to the surgeons and so on. And will you kindly tell Dr. Marston not to use the theater telephone for his own private use, I will not have it, Staff Nurse. I told you before.”

  “I don’t know why he should have phoned me, Sister, really I don’t. It was embarrassing to me, too. As to the spanners, I assure you I did not move either of them from the trolley.”

  “Well, they didn’t get into the sterilizer of their own accord, that’s certain. All right, Staff Nurse. But let me hear no more of this sort of thing about you.”

  This brought Christine to something she had been wanting to ask.

  “Sister, who told you what happened yesterday afternoon?”

  Sister looked at her. “I don’t have to tell you that. And I won’t. I heard what Dr. Marston said to you in the anesthetic room myself. I also heard you and Dr. Taylor having a conversation together this morning. It won’t do, Staff Nurse. It won’t do at all. You’d be well advised to be careful in future if you want to remain in theater.”

  Christine was beginning to wish she had never set foot inside theater. What had happened to the textbook that Sunday afternoon still remained a mystery. As to the spanners, it almost seemed as though someone had deliberately put them in the sterilizer. As Sister had said, they hadn’t walked there. And whoever had done it knew perfectly well that Christine would be blamed. Of the nurses who were on duty at the time, only Nurse Swenwick was mean enough to do such a thing. But why? Just because of a ticking-off she might easily have received from any staff nurse?

  But in all fairness, Christine had to admit that Nurse Swenwick had nothing at all to do with the way Robert had spoken to her or his call in the middle of the operation. Nor was it her fault that John had engaged her in conversation and that Sister Kelly objected to that sort of thing.

  Christine was determined that at the very first opportunity she would complain to Robert about the phone call and ask him what he had wanted. He had been accustomed to calling her whenever he wanted to speak to her, of course, when she had been working on the wards, though he had usually been tactful about it and chosen a time when he knew she was in charge or not madly busy. But theater was different. He knew that.

  But it was not until several days later that she saw him at all, which was odd, considering he had apparently tried to contact her on the phone. He was striding along the main corridor, his white coat flying open, his hands thrust into his pockets.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” he said breezily as he drew up to her. “Long time no see. How goes it?”

  Christine cringed. No one could call him a disappointed lover. “Rob, I’ve been wanting to see you,” she began.

  His eyes opened wide. “Have you, now? Well, darling, as a matter of fact—” he came closer to her and bent his head, “I’d rather like to
see you too. I’m off this evening. How about it? You off too? If so, I’ll pick you up on your way home. All right?”

  She moved away a little. The corridor wasn’t by any means deserted and she didn’t want Sister or Matron or one of the administrative staff to see her.

  “Yes, all right, Rob. We can’t talk here. See you about ten past five.”

  A tall figure passed close to them, and Christine bit her lip as she saw it was John. It didn’t matter, of course, she told herself, except that she valued his opinion of her, and the main corridor was no place to hold what probably looked like an intimate conversation.

  To Christine’s surprise Robert was waiting for her at the wheel of a smart new car.

  “Hello, Chris. How do you like her, eh? Isn’t she a beauty?” He opened the door for her, and with a sense of acute depression she got in beside him. Was this another reason why he didn’t want to marry? Because he didn’t want to save? She wondered whether she had really known Rob at all.

  He sent the car roaring down the drive and out of the gates toward Christine’s home.

  “You don’t have to go straight home, do you, Chris? How about coming for a drive?”

  Christine fought to keep the tears at bay. Their break became more and more permanent with every passing day. Why did she go on hoping when obviously he no longer cared for her? A bitter anger chased her tears away.

  “I should have thought you’d be taking Sandra. What has happened? Is she too expensive or something?”

  The smile vanished from Robert’s face. “That’s a very odd thing to say, Chris. Why must you be so—acid? You didn’t used to be.”

  “It seems we’ve both changed—or we never really knew each other at all.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Maybe we’re getting to know each other better, seeing a different side of each other.”

  “And turning against one another in consequence?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, either.”