A Surgical Affair (11 page)

“I’ll wait,” he said firmly, “because I love you, Di.”

“I think,” said Diana slowly, twisting a piece of grass around her finger, “that it won’t be very much longer now. I have a feeling that by the end of the year—you’ll know where we stand.” The end of the year. What had made her say that? She would be finishing he
r
resident appointments at the hospital then, but something el
s
e, some premonition, told her she would be able to make a decision about Richard.

And the sun was setting, making a silhouette of the mountains and trees, as they walked slowly back to the cottage.
Soft, hot sand under his back, sun over his head, and Denise, in a distractingly brief bikini, lying beside, him.

Diana shut her eyes and heaved a long sigh. She couldn’t help it. This picture of Mark in the South of France kept coming into her mind.

“You’re jealous,” she told herself firmly. “Miserably jealous.” Then Mrs. Field came out into the garden and gave Diana an envelope.

It was blue; there was a French stamp on it. The neat handwriting belonged to Mark. It had been sent on to her from the hospital.

Diana gazed at it for a moment. Then, her heart beating faster, she tore it open and began to read.

Cap d’Antibes Monday

Chère
Diana,

I’m writing this on a balcony of the villa where I’m staying. Occasionally I look up and gaze across the calm, dazzling water at the scorched coastline in the distance. The garden is full of the most exotic flowers; I can smell them from here.

Every day, before lunch, I go for a swim. I go out to a raft and sunbathe on it. Then I swim slowly back, thinking of the two-hour-long meal, with the best wines, which we’ll have on the shaded veranda downstairs. Quite a change from hospital food. After tea, Denise’s father, a retired oil company director, an amiable sort of fellow, may take us all out in his speedboat. Then change for dinner, another large, leisurely meal, and off to the Casino, or to a hotel for dancing.

It’s a great life, but a very lazy one—and fattening. I’ll not be sorry to start work. Even this sort of existence can be boring, after a time. (A good thing Denise will be staying on here after I leave. I can borrow her Cadillac when I return!)

I think about you a lot and wonder what you’re doing. I’m not looking forward to that new house surgeon. It’ll be like breaking in a new horse, teaching my little tricks all over again.

Au revoir,

Mark.

Diana read the letter three times, until she knew it by heart. Then she put it back in the envelope and lay down on the grass. She repeated over and over to herself,
“
I
think about you a lot and wonder what you’re doing.
”

Three days later, Diana heard from Sister Baker.

The Marine Guest House, Cliff Walk, Eastbourne.

Dear Dr. Field,

I’ve just come back from a walk. It’s been cloudy all day, but the sun is trying to come through. I hope that the red sky means we’ll have a fine day tomorrow.

The guest house is all right. “Three minutes’ walk from the sea, television in the lounge, no dogs or children.” But the guests! There isn’t one under 70! Sitting on the pier in the morning, listening to the band in the park in the afternoon, and walking along the beach, that’s about all anybody does here.

Not like those holidays I had with Cousin Fay and Kate Harvey! I’ll never forget the time we were completely lost in Venice and nobody we met could speak English. And the night in Paris, when we drank so much wine, and the three of us just couldn’t stop laughing!

Perhaps I’m missing the hospital? Always plenty to do there, no time to be lonely, and I enjoy a joke with Dr. Royston, a gossip with Sister Burns. I’ll be glad to get back. I’ve read three novels and finished off a scarf I’m knitting for Cousin Fay. I’m just not used to sitting about doing nothing.

I thought of sending you one of those naughty colored postcards, but perhaps they’re not respectable enough for Mansion House! I’d love to hear from you, Dr. Field, if you can spare a moment, particularly about all the hospital news you hear when you get back. I expect you feel better for a rest at home and are ready for your new job. I’m sure you’ll enjoy working for Dr. Barker. He’s very nice.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The loud, shrill ringing of the telephone by her bed broke into Diana’s heavy sleep. She groped for the receiver, her eyes shut.

“I’m putting you through to the Nurses’ Home, Dr. Field,” said the switchboard man who worked the night shift.

The Nurses’ Home? Diana sleepily wondered whether some mistake had been made and prepared to be very annoyed with him.

“Sister Cooper here, Dr. Field. Will you come immediately, please. One of the nurses is seriously ill.” She spoke quickly, softly.

Then Diana remembered. As house physician on duty at night, it was her job to look after sick nurses. She found the bedside light and switched it on.

“As soon as I can, Sister. Where is she?”

“Room Four. Third floor. Hurry, please,” and Sister Cooper hang up.

Diana yawned, then got out of bed and looked at her watch. Four-twenty a.m. She put on a cotton dress, ran a comb through her hair and slipped on the first pair of shoes she could find. Grabbing her white coat from the back of the door, she left the room, stethoscope dangling from her pocket.

For the second time that night, Diana walked along the silent, empty corridors. Three hours before, she had been called to her ward. Mr. Ernest Stokes, a fat, red-faced man of 62—occupation, grave-digger—was having his second heart attack in five days. She had given him two injections immediately into a vein, and gradually his breathing became easier, the pain more bearable.

Diana reached the Nurses’ Home and took the elevator up to the third floor. She recognized the two Night Sisters standing outside Room Four. They both looked anxiously at her.

“I hope it’s not too late,” one of them said quietly, as Diana quickly opened the door and went in.

A nurse in blue striped uniform lay on the bed, her long black hair spread out on the pillow, the young face ashen white, pale lips slightly apart, eyes closed. Straightaway, Diana realized with horror that it was Nurse Edmonds. Then she told herself that she was confronted with an unconscious patient. That was all that mattered.

Sister Cooper was talking. “Nurse Baldwin, who has the room next door, heard her walking around half the night, so she came in to see what was the matter—and found Nurse Edmonds like this. We’ve tried to rouse her. It’s impossible.”

Diana looked around the tiny room. It contained the usual paraphernalia of a girl’s bed-sitter—portable radio, photographs of all the family, a pile of books and magazines, a packet of detergent on the dressing table.

“We found two empty aspirin bottles on the floor by the bed,” Sister told her, as though reading her thoughts.

Aspirin poisoning. Quickly, calmly, Diana recalled all the steps in its treatment, learned as a routine many months ago and put away in the back of her mind. At last, here was an opportunity to use the knowledge.

She and Sister Cooper worked hard for the next half hour. Eventually Nurse Edmonds lay in Diana’s ward, sleeping soundly and out of danger.

There was nothing more to do. In a few hours’ time everybody on the hospital staff would know about it. It was difficult to keep this sort of thing quiet. People who had never known Nurse Edmonds would be wondering what she was like and why she had done it. Others, who knew her, would either say how cheerful and happy she always seemed, or that she was reserved, serious, just the sort to try to commit suicide.

Diana walked slowly back to her room. The sky was already a light blue. It was going to be another gloriously hot day. Her stomach was feeling empty, her legs were weak and aching. She hoped there would be bacon and eggs for breakfast and that the telephone would be silent during the remainder of the night.

When, she reached the door of her room, Diana didn’t open it, but stood looking down the corridor, at the four doors farther along. Nurse Edmonds had been to one of those rooms on the night they had bumped into each other. Diana couldn’t help feeling there was some connection between that visit and her attempted suicide.

Diana pondered: “The two doors at the far end; one leads up to the roof, the other into the tiny kitchen, where the maids prepare the early morning cups of tea. But those other two doors? Whose are they?”

Her curiosity aroused, she walked toward them. On the first door was a label, an untidy scrawl, in red ink. “Bill Evans.” She thought, “How clearly the character of some people shows in their handwriting.” The next door had a neat label in copper-plate handwriting: “Dr. Pallie.”

Arriving back at her own room, Diana glanced at Mark’s door. In the excitement of the night she hadn’t thought of him; she had eve
n
forgotten he was coming back from France in a few days’ time. And now she had to face once more the possibility that Nurse Edmonds was visiting Mark that night. But this time she couldn’t dismiss it from her thoughts so easily.

Diana fell into an uneasy sleep, three names, Mark—Evans— Pallie; Mark—Evans
—
Pallie, racing around in her mind. And she kept seeing the white face of Nurse Edmonds, with its half-open mouth.

“I’ve heard she was attacked by a large man with a black beard,” announced Tony Spring, as several of the resident doctors stood around the bar in the common-room that evening.

“It was ordinary, straightforward attempted suicide,” somebody declared authoritatively.

“Perhaps she was worrying too much about exams,” Mike Simons suggested, pouring himself another sherry.

“Or maybe was crossed in love.” It was Dr. Pallie who spoke. Nobody had noticed him, sitting alone at the other end of the room, flicking through a magazine.

“Well, she’s a pretty little thing,” Tony Spring admitted. The conversation was always relaxed and uninhibited at the bar before dinner. Usually it was about cars or work, or just gossip about hospital staff. The consultants and most of the registrars had gone home. Only the resident doctors were there, and for them it was the best time of the day. The patients were having supper or seeing visitors; with any luck, the buzzers in the white coats would be silent for an hour.

“I’ve got a pathetic girl up in my ward,” remarked Malcolm Smith, “talking of pathetic girls. She was all ready to emigrate with her husband and kids—to Canada. They’d sold their house and furniture, and then, at their medical examinations, she was found to have a T.B. patch on her lung.” He lit a cigarette and slowly blew the smoke out through his nose. “So now they’re all left without a home and the husband with no job.”

“And little prospect of ever getting to Canada,” put in Diana, who was sitting on one of the high stools, resting her back against the wall.

“I’m thinking of going out there, when I’m married and I’ve saved enough,” said Tony Spring. “There are some pretty good jobs to be had, if you’ve the right experience.”

“Have you ever been there?” Malcolm Smith asked him. “Because it’s mad to sell up and emigrate where you’ve never set eyes on a place. My brother did that. He spent a year in South Africa, then couldn’t stand it any more, came back, and had to start all over again from scratch, building up his practice as an architect.”

Then Diana remembered Mark, as he sat on the sofa in her room, the night of her birthday. He had said, “If I ever marry again, she’ll have to be Australian. Any other girl would probably start grumbling about the food or the heat or the people, as soon as she stepped off the boat.”

“You’re right,” she agreed reluctantly, nodding at Malcolm Smith. “It would be like putting all your savings into a practice in the Highlands of Scotland, without seeing what it’s like first.”

“But some of these jobs abroad—gosh, they’re so tempting!” went on Tony Spring. “They give you an enormous house, pay the fare, hardly any income tax, long holidays—”

“Sun and blue skies,” Diana added.

“Mosquitoes, diarrhea, and
The Times
a week late!” Malcolm Smith reminded them dryly.

They all laughed, and then the conversation returned to Nurse Edmonds, but Diana didn’t want to think about her.

“I’m going to eat,” she said quietly, edging her way through the crowd of people.

It was a hot, still evening, and as she toyed with her ham and salad in the dining room, she watched the visitors pouring out through the front gate and wending their way home.

“I want to forget all about Nurse Edmonds,” Diana thought. “But it’s not going to be easy. Not until I know why she tried to kill herself.”

Three days later, Diana joined Sister Baker in the office of the new private patients’ ward (Women’s Surgical).

“Congratulations—on your promotion.” Diana said, smiling happily. “It is a promotion, isn’t it? Only a Sister with 14 years’ experience would be asked to run this special ward.”

Sister Baker put down her pen and shrugged. “I suppose it is, but the ward isn’t really open yet, not officially until next year. There are only a dozen patients and one nurse, at the moment. But I’m glad to be idle for once. I think Mr. Cole recommended me for this ward because he knows Charity must be the busiest place in the hospital.”

Diana looked intently at Sister sitting proudly at her shining new desk and was relieved to see how well she looked.

“I see they’re advertising for a new Matron. Why not try for it, Sister? Baker for Matron! I’ll be your campaign manager.”

“Not for me. I’m quite happy here, in my quiet new ward.”

Diana sank into the large armchair. “How’s the cottage going?”

“They’re decorating it now, and with luck I should be moving in January. I’ve started choosing carpets and curtains, but there’s all the furniture to buy, and I don’t want to rush everything.”