‘Bully for the hospital,’ I said drily.
She went pink with impatience. ‘Even if you obviously don’t love him you can’t be fool enough to turn down all that money. Think what an insurance it’ll be for your old age.’
‘Sickness benefit, too. Can’t lose, can I?’
‘Your type always come out on top!’
I recognized she was genuinely trying to comfort me, and it was not her fault she was incapable of giving an encouraging pat on the head without using her knuckles.
‘I hope you’re right. Thanks for the tea.’
‘If you hadn’t drunk it I’d only have chucked it away.’
I went back to my room and stood at the window looking out at the loch and the blue-and-white houses directly below the hospital. The sun was still behind Ben Gairlie, and the shadow of the mountain lay across the calm water. On the far shore Achnagairl House was small and grey. I watched it unseeingly, my mind back in the theatre on the night Joe asked me to take a trip to Glasgow. Just a normal Thursday night. No warning bells had sounded. Not even one uneasy instinct.
Smith could be mistaken.
The night staff nurse? When every night she was on, in Sister or Craig’s day report she was given the inside story on every patient’s prognosis ‒ as we had both known.
I took out the various letters I had had from Martha’s. I sorted them carefully. Matron’s; Sister Orthopaedic’s; my nursing friends’. They contained a great deal of concern for my health, good advice on how to be a model patient, masses of Martha’s gossip. There was not one ‘looking forward to having you back in the theatre’.
I should have noticed that earlier ‒ had I been looking. I had to have official confirmation. I waited until Sister’s first round. I said, ‘It’s just occurred to me ‒’
Sister said bluntly, ‘You can relax, lass. Staff Nurse Smith has already shopped herself. So she let it out? Well, you’re a sensible lass, so you’ll realize she’s only jumped the gun by a day or two. We’d have had to tell you before we let you out, as you’d got to prepare yourself. Best do that now.’
After she had finished I was really grateful to Smith. The verdict wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting. It still entailed leaving Martha’s.
Sister said, ‘Anyone can get pleurisy once. After second go only a fool’ll take chances on a third. No fool gets to be Matron of a large city hospital. You’ll have to watch that chest of yours for the next couple of years, and your own Matron’ll know that. The killing pace, the dirt in city air, is not for you. After a decent sick leave you’ll have to fix yourself up with a quiet job in a small country hospital. That’ll not be hard. Whole country’s short of trained nurses. You’ve enough theatre experience to run a theatre like the one here. With but thirty-two surgical beds our Sister Theatre seldom has more than a morning or an afternoon list. She has the odd rush, perhaps once a month, perhaps less. Happens she doesn’t fancy the easy life and wants to get back to a city. She’s asked Matron to find her replacement. So that’s one job for you going here for a start. You might brood on it. Unless you’ve other plans?’
My mood had altered from last night. Instead of being frightened by life, I was flaming mad with the bloody thing. ‘No.’
‘Oh, aye?’ She eyed me shrewdly. ‘Then you’d best do right brood, hadn’t you, lass? Take your time, and you’ll not take wrong road.’
‘Yes. Thanks, Sister.’
‘You don’t have to thank me for doing m’job. That’s what I’m paid for.’ She produced a large card from the file under her arm. ‘As Nurse Craig’s off, I’m on “ups” menu. What do you want for your lunch? Baked cod, boiled beef, or Irish stew?’
‘Oh ‒ fish, please.’
‘Roast or mashed?’
‘Roast, please.’
‘Cream rice, sago, or apple tart?’
The thought of food made me want to throw up, but I chose apple tart. Sister moved on to Mrs Spearn. Sister would not have altered her morning routine one iota even if convinced the world was due to end that afternoon. ‘Routine’s got to be done,’ she’d say, ‘and no patient of mine’s facing Almighty on an empty stomach.’
As a junior student nurse I had regarded ward routine as an unnecessary evil forced on reluctant patients and nurses by unimaginative and tradition-ridden authority. I had often been as infuriated by some ward sister as she with me for spending too long with an ill patient and being late with some mundane chore like the menu, screen sheet, or mouthwash round. I had listened, dumbly mutinous, to endless ‘You have a duty to the living as well as the dying, Nurse Wade! A ward has to be run as a whole, and to do that successfully requires strict attention to ward routine. That routine is the framework into which the ward day and night must fit, and the very regularity of the routine is a comfort to all. Next time I tell you to take round the menu at 10 a.m. I want it done at 10 a.m. That is the time my patients expect the menu round, and I will not have their peace of mind disturbed by your unpunctuality! Is that quite clear?’
It was now. Though the thought of the menu choked me, the very normality of its regular morning appearance was a comfort. In ten minutes the first medical round would start with Mrs Spearn. In half an hour the mid-morning drinks trolley would trundle down the corridor. On this particular morning it would be followed almost immediately by the library trolley. Then Matron’s round; lunch; afternoon rest hour; tea; visitors; baths and bed-making; evening medicines; temperatures; supper; more drinks; sedatives. No need to watch the clock in any ward. One look at what the ward staff were up to told one the exact hour of the day. Deadly dull, perhaps. Deadly soothing, certainly.
The two elderly ladies who presided over the library trolley had just moved on when the nursing orderly came in. ‘A visitor with Dr MacAlistair’s permission as it’s early.’ She held open the door. ‘You may come in, laddie.’
My book slipped off my bed and on to the floor. ‘Robin! How very nice to see you!’
He picked up the book, which gave him an excuse for being scarlet in the face. He was much more tanned, his fair hair was more bleached, and he looked even more like Joe. ‘I came to say goodbye. I’ve just been across to say it to George MacAlistair. He asked his dad for me.’
‘How kind of you both! Er ‒ which MacAlistair boy is George?’
‘Middle. He’s fourteen, like me. We met at the climbing school. He’s good value.’
I said that was nice of them both, asked him to sit down, and congratulated him on his medal.
He perched on the arm of the chair looking hideously uncomfortable in every sense. He stared at the floor. ‘George had to chuck climbing. He gets giddy. Mr Urquhart said that was nothing to be ashamed of. George is a right nut.’
‘Oh?’
‘Ummm. He was ‒ well ‒ sort of ashamed. But he doesn’t have to be, as he’s bloody brave and he’s got a medal to prove it.’
‘That’s impressive. What did he do?’
‘Dived into the loch last year,’ he mumbled to the floor, ‘and pulled out an English visitor who’d fallen in and couldn’t swim. It was bloody rough, and the loch currents are bloody strong. Uncle Dougal said the man would’ve been swept out towards the estuary.’ He looked up then. ‘Did you know the loch currents are strong?’ I shook my head. ‘You know our Aunt Catriona, who’s dead. Did you know Mrs Valentine once saved her like that?’
‘No.’ I was curious. ‘When?’
‘Ages ago, when they were kids. Aunt Catriona got cramp. Uncle Dougal says she’d have drowned for sure if Mrs Valentine hadn’t got her out, but Mrs Valentine didn’t get a medal as they didn’t tell anyone till long after, as it was rough that day and they weren’t supposed to have gone swimming. Aunt Catriona wrote it to Uncle Dougal. He was away at school then. He told us the night you got ill.’ He was scarlet again. ‘He told us why you were down on the shelf. I thought he’d go spare about my leaving you. He was dead decent.’ He grimaced. ‘I felt awful. But I didn’t mean you to get ill. I just didn’t
think.’
I hoped I said the right things. Since he showed me his medal a few minutes later, it was just possible that I had. He did not stay much longer, and his whole visit was clearly hell for the poor child, but as clearly, from his sudden cheerfulness on leaving, a necessary hell. In parting I was honest. ‘I’m very glad and grateful to you for coming, Robin. See you around, I hope.’
His stay in the Highlands had left its mark. ‘My pleasure.’ He copied Dougal’s bow as well as words.
Sister swept in. ‘You’d think this was Piccadilly Circus this morning! Off you go, lad, to make room for two more. Special consent from Matron and Dr MacAlistair, as they’re under age.’
The twins came in slowly, then flung themselves at me, talking simultaneously, directly Sister vanished. When Dougal came in to collect them both were sitting on my bed. Judy was on her third apple from my fruit-bowl. Johnnie was keeping up his strength with shortbread.
Dougal wore a dark suit and an avuncular expression. He bundled the twins out to wait with Robin and leant both hands on my footrail.
‘Matron’s just told me you can leave on Saturday. You been told?’
‘No.’
‘The patient’s always the last person to hear. Don’t worry. I’ll either ring or call in on your Matron at Martha’s between trains, and there’s plenty of time to fix up your return arrangements when I get back.’
‘I can do that ‒’
‘Of course. If you had to. But as you came up here on my behalf, getting you back to London is my responsibility.’ He smiled. ‘Indulge my power-complex, if only for the last time.’
What with one thing and another I was too punch-drunk for strong feelings. ‘Right. Thanks. Let us now hope, third time lucky.’
‘Let us, indeed.’ He came round to the side of my bed. ‘I’ve just heard about Miss Donald. You’re probably up to the back teeth with being told it was the kindest thing that could happen to her.’
His insight was a relief. ‘Just about.’
‘I can imagine. Not that that makes it any less true, or less painful for you, and not only as you were so involved in her death. Are you still thinking ‒ there but for the Grace of God ‒’
I smiled bleakly. ‘You should be in psychiatry, not trop med, Dougal.’
He sat on my locker-seat. ‘It requires no special knowledge to appreciate that. Are you?’
‘Not this morning.’
‘Last night? I wish,’ he said, ‘I’d known.’
‘Hardly small-talk for a teenage rave-up.’
‘I realized that when Matron told me. She also told me,’ he added slowly, ‘Sister Kilsyth has spoken to you about your nursing future. I’d been hoping that one could wait until I returned and you were that much stronger.’
‘I’m quite glad to have it over. How long’ve you known? The start?’
He looked straight at me with troubled eyes. ‘Yes. I’m more sorry than I can express, and particularly so that you should have had to face it today, after yesterday. Is there anything I can do for you in London that might help?’
I was not sure if by that he meant chat-up Archie on my behalf, or bulldoze Martha’s into finding me a cosy sinecure. ‘Like what? Pull a string? You got strings?’
‘A few. The medical world’s pretty small, and I’ve old friends or colleagues fairly well scattered.’
‘Well, thanks.’ Carefully, I smoothed the unwrinkled turn-down of my top sheet, and thought of the job going here. ‘I rather think I may have the answer already, but I want to think on it more before I decide. It’s very nice of you to offer.’
‘Nice!’ he echoed abruptly. ‘Elizabeth, you must surely appreciate how responsible I feel ‒ and am ‒ for this turn of events ‒’
‘Responsible?’ I cut him short. ‘Dougal, you’re not seriously suggesting you’re responsible for the fact that I’m prone to pleurisy?’
‘Possibly not for that specific fact. There are others involved for which I’m incontrovertibly responsible!’
I looked at his set face. Had it done any good I’d have shaken him, physically. It wouldn’t. He would merely pat my hand, say ‘There, there, little woman,’ or something similar, and continue to wear my pleural weakness as a hair shirt for the rest of his life. I couldn’t have that, and not only because one man around with one guilt-complex was more than enough for any girl. I owed Dougal too much, and, as I now realized, I liked him too much to let this hurt him unnecessarily and unfairly.
I said, ‘On second thoughts, you were right to settle for trop med.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘So?’
‘Yes. No trained psychiatrist would base his argument on such purely superficial facts. He’d dig up the lot. “To rock bottom, nurses,” as the tame head-shrinker who lectured us at Martha’s always says.’
‘Indeed?’ His expression was no more forthcoming, but I had too much to bother me to bother with that.
‘Indeed. So if we’re going to dig ‒ let’s! Sure I came up to bring you the kids, but you didn’t ask me. Joe did. But it wasn’t his fault his boss decided to do a demonstration list that Saturday, which lets Joe out. One can hardly blame his boss, as Saturday’s the only possible free morning for such a list, so he’s in the clear. But not me. I said yes. I could’ve said no.’
‘If I might refresh your memory on a remark you made to me in a rather similar context ‒’
‘Not just yet, Dougal. I’m still digging. Where was I? Oh, yes, those two lost English lads who prevented your getting to Glasgow ‒’ He was about to interrupt again, so I waved him down. ‘Relax! I’m not going to hang my pleural cavity round their necks. I’m far too well trained by old S.I.’
‘Old whom?’
‘Our tame head psychiatrist. He’s known throughout Martha’s as Dr Sexual Implications.’
He smiled a small reluctant smile. ‘Gets some analysts that way.’ He stood up, glancing at his watch. ‘Nevertheless ‒’
‘Dougal, I know you’re in a hurry, so be a dear and just this once let the little woman have her say. As we were ‒ I can hear old S.I., “Why did they seek to climb a mountain, nurses? Obviously to fulfil some basic need. And what is the fundamental need and driving force of the human race, nurses?” ’ I spread my hands. ‘See, Dougal? You weren’t at first base! You’re not responsible. I’m not responsible. But I’ve been ailing sick, you’ve had to brood over me like a Dutch Uncle, Craig had to bust-off with a boy-friend two back because he took umbrage at her standing him up to stay on and special me, and the rest of the staff here have worn out a fortune in shoe-leather pounding up and down that corridor outside ‒ because a couple of stray lads happen to have unsatisfactory sex lives. But old S.I. wouldn’t let them carry the can. Not him! He’d get busy on their parents’ sex lives, and if he couldn’t pin an Oedipus on one lad, or both, he’d regard himself as a sad disgrace to the Freudian school. Then he’d work on the parents’ parents.’ I smiled up at him. ‘Stick to your tropical bugs, Professor. You can’t win against Freud.’
He didn’t answer that with words. He dropped a hand on my head and lightly ruffled my hair, as if I were one of the twins. As I was not, his gesture had a singular, but not unpleasant, effect on me.
He said then, ‘I have to leave now. Keep well while I’m away.’
‘I will. Have a good trip both ways.’
About an hour later I was still wondering if Smith might not be right about my one-track mind, when Gordon practically exploded into my room with the portable. ‘A personal call to you from Mr MacDonald, and he’s waiting on the line now. He’s calling from London Airport.’ He plugged in, feverishly. ‘No doubt he’s on his way back here.’ He picked up the receiver. ‘Will you be putting Mr MacDonald through now, Mr Cameron? Here’s Miss Wade.’
After my eagerness last night my immediate reaction now astonished me. I could only hope the enthusiasm in my voice did not sound as false to Archie as it did to me. ‘Hallo, Archie! So you’re coming back to Gairlie? How splendid!�
��
There was a faint and deafening silence, during which Gordon vanished. Then Archie said uneasily, ‘I’m sorry, honey, but that’s not why I’m calling you. I have to be back Stateside. We take off in a half-hour. I should’ve called you last night, but I was talking half the night, and it seems I now have to talk to Washington. Maybe I’ll be back in three, four weeks, but who knows when you have to deal with Washington.’ He hesitated. ‘Sore, Elizabeth?’
It was a time for truth. ‘No. Naturally a little surprised, a little sad. I hate saying goodbye to my friends.’
His sigh of relief travelled clearly across England and Scotland. ‘I’ve kept telling myself that’s how it would be for you, but knowing how it was for me up in Gairlie ‒ and with you so like that other poor kid ‒’
‘I realized that. But, Archie, I’m not her.’
‘That I have now figured. I still don’t like to leave you, Elizabeth. I aim to come back and finish my vacation some time. Can I see you, then?’
I said he could. He said he would contact me directly he returned to England. I asked after his cold; he asked after my chest; we said we’d enjoyed meeting each other. Then, as we had nothing left to say to each other, he rang off. I thought it possible we might meet again, but not probable. Who liked being reminded of the one thing he wanted to forget? But I had liked Archie, so for a little while I did feel a little sad. Only for a very little while.
Chapter Eleven
CLOUDS ACROSS THE MOON
I helped Sister with the beds that evening, then roamed the ward for more jobs until she turned me out. Dr MacAlistair came out of his office as I was returning to my room.
‘Am I right in diagnosing an acute attack of the terrible tedium of true convalescence, Miss Wade?’
‘Perfectly, Doctor.’
‘A good sign.’ He opened my door for me. ‘May the Lord preserve us! Roses in April! Where did these come from? Glasgow?’
‘London.’
‘By air and the evening coach from Inverness?’
Highland Interlude Page 13