Women on the Home Front (48 page)

Connie's heart plummeted. Alone in the sluice room she took a bottle from the shelf and put it in the autoclave. While she waited for it to sterilise, her gaze fell upon a treatment trolley some nurse had abandoned without clearing it up and an idea slowly formed in Connie's mind.

Sailing down the ward towards Mr Dunster's bed, Connie prayed her second prayer that morning. ‘Oh God, please don't let Sister see me …'

‘Good morning, Mr Dunster,' she said loudly and cheerfully as she reached his bedside. ‘I'm afraid I have to ask you for another sample.'

‘That's quite all right, nurse,' he grinned.

As she pulled the curtains around his bed, Connie was aware of the other patients watching and heard one of them whisper, ‘Lucky dog.'

‘I'm glad it was you who came to help me, nurse,' said Mr Dunster wanly. ‘I just don't feel up to it today and you've got such lovely long fingers.' He closed his eyes and leaned against the backrest with a sigh.

‘That's what I'm here for,' said Connie, tying on a face mask.

Someone on the other side of the curtain sniggered. Connie pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves making sure that they snapped loudly against her wrists. Mr Dunster's eyes flew open.

‘I'm afraid I owe you an apology,' she said crisply. ‘I'm new here and the last time we did this, I didn't know the correct procedure. I'm sorry about that.' She whipped off the green cloth from the top of the tray to reveal a urine bottle and a large pair of flat bladed forceps. Mr Dunster's eyes grew large.

‘Now I want you to relax, Mr Dunster,' said Connie brightly. She heard another snigger from the other side of the curtain. ‘This won't hurt … much.'

The silence seemed to grow as she guided Mr Dunster's member towards the bottle, careful to keep a very firm grip to avoid any accidental spill. Moments later after sailing back down the ward with the sample, her head held high, she bumped into Sister by the door of the sluice room. Her heart went into her mouth. Oh Lord, now she was in trouble …

‘Well done, nurse,' said Sister Brown and it was then that Connie noticed the twinkle in her eye. ‘You're learning. He won't be doing that again, and while you're doing your own sterile tray, would you clear up this trolley? I think the night staff must have forgotten it.'

The door swung for a moment or two as she left and Connie set about clearing up the sluice room. How did Sister Brown know what she was up to? The woman must have the eyes of a hawk. One thing was for sure. Mr Dunster wouldn't be wanting her help again, especially as she'd held the forceps for a very long time under the cold water tap before she'd used them to hold his member.

Sally Burndell had had a letter from Terry. As soon as the letter fell on the mat, she'd recognised his writing. She'd planned to read it in her lunch break at work but she couldn't wait. She'd opened it on the bus. After that, she didn't remember much about the journey. The next thing she knew, she was at the terminus in Littlehampton. She'd been crying and she was as white as a sheet. The conductor had been so concerned he'd taken her to the First Aid room at the bus station.

‘I think she might have had some bad news,' he told the nurse.

Sally heard them talking but it didn't seem important. She was still clutching Terry's letter in which he'd told her it was all off. The conductor put her off at the bus stop where she'd originally got on. She thanked him but she still seemed to be in shock. He worried as he watched her making her way back home again.

A couple of hours later, Mrs Burndell staggered up the garden path with her shopping.

‘You look well loaded,' said her neighbour Mr Keen. He was on a stepladder and clipping the privet hedge.

‘Donkeys go best well loaded,' she joked and he smiled. Her arms were nearly pulled out of their sockets and of course Sally wouldn't be there to help her. She was working her notice at the nursery. Next week she would be starting her secretarial course and she was so proud of her. Sally was the first girl in the family to have a proper career of her own. She was a bright girl, a bit lippy at times but she had a good head on her shoulders. Sally was destined to go far and Mrs Burndell could only hope she would give herself the chance to see a bit of the world before she settled down with Terry.

Mrs Burndell fumbled for her back door key.

‘It'll be open,' said Mr Keen. ‘Your Sally's home.'

Mrs Burndell frowned, puzzled. She put down her bags and opened the back door. It was difficult bringing in the bags and keeping the door open at the same time. The door slammed and Mrs Burndell stumbled over something on the floor. As she looked down, all the colour drained from her face. Sally was crumpled up on the floor.

‘Sally?' There was no response at all. Mrs Burndell fell to her knees and held her daughter's wrist. Thank God, there was a reedy pulse. She had to get help, but what had happened? Opening the back door again, Mrs Burndell screamed out, ‘Mr Keen, Mr Keen help me! Get a doctor. My Sally's been taken bad.' She turned back into her kitchen and tried to make sense of what she was looking at. The washing pulley was in bits on the floor. Sally must have been hanging the washing and it all fell down. She pushed the bits of wood out of the way and glanced up at the huge hole in the ceiling. Mrs Burndell turned her daughter slowly and that was when she saw the rope around her neck.

Connie was on top of the world. By the time the last vestige of double summer time had been eradicated by the clocks going back the final hour in the middle of November, she had realised that she had truly found her vocation. There was a strong feeling of camaraderie between the student nurses. They supported each other when things went wrong and applauded each other when some milestone of achievement had been met. At first she and Eva avoided each other but things finally came to a head on their first night duty together and ironically, thanks to two dead men, the girls finally became friends.

Mr Ockley still hadn't been taken to the mortuary when Mr Steppings passed away. Sister Brown rang the porter's office only to be told that no one was available for at least another hour. There was a bit of a flap on somewhere.

‘Nurse Dixon,' she said as Connie came by the night sister's desk with a full bedpan, ‘when you've finished that, I want you and Nurse O'Hara to take Mr Ockley and Mr Steppings to the morgue. We'll be starting the morning round soon and I can't have the patients waking up to two dead bodies on the ward.'

Connie chewed her bottom lip anxiously.

‘Yes, I know it's not very pleasant walking across the grounds in the dark,' said Sister completely misunderstanding Connie's hesitation, ‘but if there are two of you, you can look after each other.'

Eva didn't look too thrilled when Connie told her. They put the two men on the trolley, one in the box underneath and the other on the top covered with a sheet. It was a tidy walk to the morgue and there wasn't time to do two trips.

They worked in silence until they got to the lift. As Connie pulled the trolley in, she bumped it and an arm slipped from under the sheet and bopped Eva on the bottom. The shock made her cry out and for a second Connie wondered if she'd be accused of doing it on purpose, but Eva clutched at her chest and said breathily, ‘He scared me half to death.'

‘I guess it was his last chance to touch a pretty girl,' Connie grinned and the atmosphere between them lightened.

The lift went down and shuddered to a halt. They opened the doors and walked along the corridor through the swing doors and out into the night. They were glad of their cloaks because the mortuary was at the other end of the hospital grounds. It was very cold. There was a light breeze and the moon was full. Even though she was with Eva, Connie felt nervous and a bit spooked up.

When they got to the morgue, there was only one porter in the office, having a tea break. He wasn't very pleased to see them, throwing his sandwich back into his lunch box and scraping his chair in annoyance as he stood up.

‘No peace for the wicked,' he grumbled. ‘We haven't stopped all bloody night and even when I gets five minutes to meself, you comes down.'

‘Sorry,' said Eva, ‘but Sister wants them out of the way before the rounds start.'

‘Well, you'll have to help me,' he said grudgingly. ‘I can't put him to bed on me own.'

He walked ahead of them, switching on the light. It was the first time Connie had ever been into a morgue. Inside it was almost as cold as out of doors. They laid Mr Steppings on the only free slab (someone else lay on the other one) and covered him again with the sheet. The porter turned to go. ‘There's another one in the box,' said Connie matter-of-factly.

‘You what?' the porter demanded.

‘We've got two bodies,' said Eva. ‘Mr Ockley is underneath, in the box.'

‘But we ain't got no more room,' the porter said.

‘Well, you'll have to put him somewhere,' said Eva, her hand on her hip. ‘We can't take him back.'

The porter made a great show of his irritation and went back into the office to get a clipboard and another trolley. Together they checked the paperwork and laid Mr Ockley on the top of the porter's trolley and covered him with another sheet. ‘Turn out the light when you goes,' said the porter going back to his sandwiches.

Connie flicked the switch and the two of them were just turning to go when Mr Ockley let out a long sigh. Connie froze.

‘You all right?' said Eva.

Connie put her hand to her throat. ‘Is he still breathing?'

Eva shook her head. ‘It's only trapped air coming out of his lungs,' she said.

Connie put the light back on and stared at the sheet.

‘You've gone deathly white.' Eva went back to the trolley and pulled back the sheet. ‘Check for yourself, Connie, or you'll always wonder.'

Connie went back and looked at the old man. There was no doubt. Mr Ockley was definitely gone. Already rigor mortis was setting in. She looked up at Eva.

‘Okay?'

Connie nodded and pulled her cloak around her. On the way back to the lift, she glanced across at Eva. ‘Exhausting, isn't it?' Eva turned and gave her a quizzical look. ‘All this not speaking to each other, it's exhausting.'

Eva nodded. ‘You're right.'

‘I really liked you that day in London,' Connie went on.

‘And I you,' said Eva. ‘It was good fun.'

Connie sighed. ‘Whatever the quarrel is between our families, it's not ours.'

They had reached the lifts. Eva pressed the button. ‘You know what? You're right.'

They smiled at each other shyly. ‘I think Ga would skin me alive, if she knew,' said Connie. ‘Someone sent her that newspaper cutting of us in the fountain with those sailors and she went mad.'

‘Who would do that?' Eva frowned as they stepped out of the lift.

Connie shrugged. ‘I thought she'd be annoyed that I was in the water with two strange men, but she was far more upset that I was with you.'

Eva giggled. ‘Oh dear.' She linked her arm through Connie's. ‘I'd better be careful not to let my bad reputation rub off on you then.' And laughing, they pushed open the ward doors to begin the morning rounds.

Jane Jackson wrote to tell Connie that Sally Burndell had lost her place in the secretarial college. Apparently she had been very upset about it and so her mother had sent her to stay in Oxford with her grandmother for a while. Connie told everybody at home, and Ga, after a little persuasion, agreed to have her back in the shop when she was well enough. Sally came back to work in the nurseries just before Christmas.

Connie had been dreading Christmas because she was so close to home and yet unable to be with the family but in the event, it turned out to be rather special. On Christmas Eve, she and her fellow students put on their blue and red cloaks and went round the wards singing Christmas carols. Eva managed to get hold of an old-fashioned oil lantern and the rest of them carried torches. Sister Curtis was wearing angel wings on the back of her uniform. On the women's ward, a patient who had spent most of the day in theatre had just come round from the anaesthetic for the first time. Seeing Sister Curtis and her wings, her eyes grew as wide as saucers.

‘Bloody 'ell! Looks like I've died,' she whispered and then relaxing added, ‘Well, at least I'm in the right place.'

On Christmas Day, every patient was given a gift from the management committee while Father Christmas (thanks to the hospital porter) turned up to give them out. He and the mayor toured the wards spreading their unique brand of goodwill. Throughout the hospital, the visiting hours were extended. Later in the day, the staff put on a concert and on Boxing Day the patients were allowed to invite their visitors to tea. The Hospital Bees Christmas party raised a much needed £29 for hospital funds and the week-long festivities ended on Saturday, 29 December with the nurses' dinner and dance. Connie loved every minute of it.

She managed to go home for the day on 30 December, her day off. Pip and Mandy were overjoyed when they saw her coming down the path, and to Connie's delight, the family had saved their Christmas meal to have it with her. Gwen had saved a few presents for everyone to unwrap and a box of crackers from Woolworths, so Connie felt very spoiled.

She discovered that late on Christmas Eve, the Frenchie had called by with Connie's old pram although it didn't look like her old pram any longer. Apart from Simeon's attention to the bodywork and the hood, the Frenchie had painted Snow White in her rags on one side and with her handsome prince on the other. The two pictures were linked together by trailing rose buds and Mandy had been thrilled to have it. She showered her sister with kisses. Before she left for the hospital again, Connie dashed off a note of thanks but when she went round to the workshop, she had to make do with putting it under a brick on the doorstep. There had been no bill sent so she put £3 in the envelope and asked the Frenchie to tell her if the work cost more than that.