Call Me Sister (17 page)

‘
Queen’s
Nurse?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she replied vaguely. ‘Started by Queen Victoria, I believe.’

Where was the Sister bit, I wondered. I’d only just got used to the title.

That wasn’t an issue with Miss Cameron, but clothing lengths were.

‘Good! Not too short,’ she said, looking at her class, now rigged out as if ready for a funeral. ‘Go ahead and try on a hat. Hopefully the weather’ll be fine.’ She paused for a moment and I brightened. Maybe if the sun shone we could cast off things which suggested a career in the Desert Foreign Legion, but then Miss Cameron finished. ‘And then you won’t need to have their lugs down.’

I remembered the Ross-shire pillbox hats with affection. They could be set at a jaunty angle. They could even conceal a few hair rollers fitted under them, handy if, after work, the wearer fancied a night out in Strathpeffer and didn’t want to go there with hair hat-flattened. The Edinburgh ones only stayed in one position, were the same colour as our coats and defied any sort of creativity, unless you could do a fancy bow with the ties, there to secure the earflaps to the top of the hat.

‘You’ll need one of these.’ Our tutor pointed to a row of Gladstone bags.

‘You must keep them spotlessly clean, and don’t forget the cotton linings. They’ve to be taken out, washed and bleached regularly. You can expect spot-checks on your bags.’ She shuddered. ‘The last class kept theirs in a disgraceful condition. I even found a packet of fish in one of them. The student said it was for a patient’s tea.’

Ignoring our stifled giggles, she warmed to her theme. ‘Well, you know, you’re all qualified registered nurses so you must know the importance of hygiene and cleanliness, even if some of the homes you visit might challenge those standards.’ She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Her voice rang out as if marshalling the troops. ‘But you must, you must, do your best to keep them. Standards now – they’re a must!’

As if surprised by the strength of her eloquence, she paused, giving one girl the chance to look in one of the bags.

‘It’s easy seen these don’t belong to midwives,’ she said. ‘The toenail scissors, tube and enema funnel are giveaways.’

I wondered if I should mention my recent ambulance trip with Meg Vass but Miss Cameron was ahead of me. ‘With a bit of luck,’ she said, ‘you won’t be called to do any midwifery work on this course. I know a few of you have the qualification, but here you’ll be covering a district which will have its own midwife. You’ll probably not meet her, as she’ll be attached to a GP practice. Referrals for their work come from their doctors and maternity units but our work comes from here.’ She pointed a finger upwards. I thought she meant Heaven, but she was heading back upstairs. ‘Come along,’ she called, ‘I’ll show you. It’s part of Headquarters.’

There were grey steel case filing cabinets lining one side of an office where a red telephone made a colourful statement on the secretary’s desk. She was just visible behind a huge typewriter with the heavy presence of a steam engine. Momentarily she stopped typing. without the machine’s clatter and ting, the sound of distant buzz of traffic drifted up, reminding us that we were in the centre of a busy city. The building had such a cocoon-like quality it was easy to forget that. Then the telephone rang.

Miss Cameron said, ‘As you see, our busy secretary deals with calls as well. They’re usually for us from GPs. After she’s taken the details and depending on their urgency, she’ll either give them to whoever’s on call or to the nurse who covers that GP’s area.’ She pointed to the filing cabinets. ‘And these hold the patients’ records. As soon as the nurses come back from their visits, they must fill them in.’

I thought about Sister Shiach and her minimalistic record keeping. Here, I suspected, a tick wouldn’t suffice.

‘Will we be going out on district soon?’ someone asked.

‘Yes. After a week, and you’ll have a district nurse with you as well. She’ll check to see you’ll manage all right.’ Miss Cameron glanced at her watch. ‘Good heavens! If we hurry, there’s just enough time before lunch to give out your bus passes and let you know the areas you’ll be covering. We’ll get that done in the classroom.’

Following her stocky frame, we trooped up another flight of stairs and into a big room, light-filled by huge windows looking out on to Edinburgh castle. It was a stunning view but apparently lost on Miss Cameron.

Nodding towards it, she said, ‘You know, it’s shocking the things that go on over there!’ Outrage, magnified by her tortoiseshell-framed spectacles, hardened her eyes into blue stones. She pointed towards the castle’s rocky ramparts.

The class as one turned to follow her gaze then burst out laughing after she conceded, ‘Mind you, you’d need binoculars to see them.’

She’d sounded horrified, but now she sucked her bottom lip then, supplicant-like, bent her head. ‘Ah well, I’ll be talking to you about being non-judgemental and discretion later. Maybe I should start with myself – but,’ she added with a righteous sniff, ‘modern times aren’t always the best.’

She went back to tutor mode, and dusting the sides of her skirt addressed the class as if about to give a huge honour. ‘Make it a short lunch break because I’ll be showing you how to make Queen’s pokes and we’ll need plenty time for that. I’m looking forward to getting some really professional work done.’

We were waiting for Miss Campbell when she came into the classroom, staggering under the weight of a huge pile of
Sunday Post
s. She thumped them down on a table.

‘Oh, I say! Maybe we’re going to get a seminar on
The Broons
,’ whispered Tina, who was sitting beside me. ‘It might help me with the Scottish dialect.’

‘I don’t think that’s a problem for you,’ I replied, giving her a friendly nudge. ‘After all, even if you are English, you’ve been a matron in a boys’ school there, and I’d think you could cope with anything, never mind our language.’

Tina was unique in our group in that she looked great in the uniform. Her slim figure and blonde, petite good looks must have been a challenge to any hormonally-charged boy under her care.

‘What made you want to do district nursing?’ I’d asked over the lunch break. ‘It must be a world away from school life with all its lovely holidays.’

‘Believe you me,’ she said, wrinkling her nose, ‘they were never long enough. Anyway, I wanted to get back to real life and proper caring.’

‘I’m not sure you’ve come to the right place. I hadn’t thought the
Sunday Post
was a font of medical wisdom.’

‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘What about the letters sent to the
Post
’s doctor’s column? I believe they give GPs a clue as to what ailments will be waiting for them on Monday mornings.’ She chuckled then put her hands to her lips as Miss Cameron cleared her throat, a discreet sign she was going to begin.

‘You’re going to find newspapers really useful when you’re out on district and, no, they’re not for reading on the bus.’ She blinked in surprise at the class’s ripple of laughter then, looking pleased, continued, ‘I’m going to show you how to make a bag from this.’ She held up a
Post
and waved it like a banner. ‘It’ll be something you can put soiled dressings in before you dispose of them. As most of your patients will have coal fires, you’ll be able to immediately burn them. It’s a proper hygienic method of disposal.’

She beckoned to us with a plump finger. ‘It’s probably easier if you come up to the table and see how it’s done.’

Obediently, we surrounded her. We craned forward with the attention of origami enthusiasts as she spread out two sheets of paper, smoothed, folded, creased and tucked with the expertise and speed of someone with an ironing fetish.

‘There! A Queen’s poke. See how easy it is!’ She held up the finished article.

The
Sunday Post
papers had been transformed into a sturdy bag. It had a certain charm and definite usefulness. It stood on its own, had a wide mouth, a flat base. It even had a lid. Had it not been made of paper it could have made a handy saucepan.

‘Now it’s your turn,’ said Miss Cameron. ‘Let’s see what you can do.’

As we set to, she adjusted her spectacles and, assuming an air of academic interest, ambled to the window.

‘If she’s looking for trouble,’ muttered Tina, ‘she should check up on her class.’ But our tutor was lost in her observational station. She seemed deaf to the sound of tearing paper, didn’t see screwed up balls of paper aimed into the wastepaper basket or paper darts made efficiently but in a spirit of frustration. But at length, she turned round.

The jumble of shredded paper lying on the table wouldn’t have been what she expected.

‘Oh dear, it’s not usually a problem,’ she sighed. Then, reluctantly leaving her post, she came back to the table and took us slowly and with great patience through the process again. And again.

Finally, we managed to get it. Hiding newsprint-blackened fingers behind our backs and standing as proudly as successful bakers, we lined up behind a row of perfectly made Queen’s pokes.

‘At last!’ said our tutor, touching them in a light-fingered gesture of approval. ‘Well done. I know you’re going to find these handy. Now, has anybody any questions?’

‘Em, Miss Cameron,’ said Tina, ‘why are they called Queen’s pokes?’

Miss Cameron looked surprised and a bit discomfited. ‘I’m not really sure,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s seen a reason to ask before.’

There was something endearingly innocent about our tutor. I thought that if Miss Macleod had been asked and didn’t know, she’d just have spun a yarn.

She seemed a long way away then and two weeks later, so did Dingwall.

For a start, I wouldn’t have had to rely on public transport. Here, where people filled the pavements, the morning traffic growled along Princes Street as if complaining at its slow progress. I was waiting for a bus, and with none in sight, began to worry that I was going to be late for my first patient on my own – not an auspicious start.

I wondered how the rest of the class was managing. After our first week with Miss Cameron, we’d spent the next one shadowing a district nurse. We must have done all right because we were now, complete with bus passes, street maps and a list of patients’ names and addresses, all out on our own rounds.

‘Check the nursing notes beforehand. Then you’ll get an idea of what to expect and what needs to be done,’ said Miss Cameron, looking at us over the top of her spectacles. ‘And, Nurse Macpherson, your first patient is Mrs Henderson. There’s quite a lot to read about her in the notes because she’s been on our list for so long. You’ll not manage to read everything about her, so just give the recent notes a scan to grasp the essentials. You can catch up with her full history afterwards.’

It had taken me longer to decipher the handwritten notes than I’d planned. Now, still with no bus in sight, I tried not to panic that I might have wasted time. I gazed skyward. High above and dominating the skyscape, the castle glowered down, making my thoughts drift back to the weekend.

David, my old school pal, had come through from his work in Glasgow and we’d gone to see round the ancient fortress. There Edinburgh’s history reached up and enfolded us, whilst we fell into the familiar ways of a friendship moving towards something far more interesting.

The signs were there as, hand in hand, we strolled towards the Castle Gardens. Their winding paths took us through a park where rabbits scampered through trees and weed-filled long grass. Lacking the manicured perfection of the Princes Street Gardens, the park had instead a rustic charm. But no seats.

‘This’ll have to do.’ David took off his jacket, and after spreading it on the ground, sat down. Patting a space left on it, he said, ‘Lovely view from here.’

‘Some view!’ I said, joining him and squinting up at the sky. ‘One minute I’m looking down on the Scott Monument and the next I can only see clouds. Ow!’ I shot back into the standing position. ‘I’ve been stung.’

Too late I saw a nettle patch, small enough to be inconspicuous but big enough to cause my sudden levitation. I rubbed my leg, beginning to regret that I was wearing that killer mini-skirt I’d broken the bank to buy. ‘You must have seen them,’ I yelped.

‘Well, as a matter of fact I didn’t but, och, you’ll be fine,’ he said, then laughed and lay back, cushioning his head with his hands. The sun beat down, a cloud drifted past and he closed his eyes. ‘Go and see if you can find a docken. They’re supposed to be good for stings.’

‘It’s just as well you’re not the nurse,’ I said and made to go and look for one, when he caught my ankle.

‘Gotcha!’

I crashed down. It was a soft landing but not from David’s point of view.

‘You nearly flattened me,’ he gasped. ‘Get off !’

‘That’s not very chivalrous.’ I got up once more. ‘So where’s a nice knight in shining armour when you need one, pray?’

‘Here!’ he wheezed.

At last, strategically avoiding the nettles, I made a final descent.

With his eyes full of mischief and his arms stretched out, David cried out in best Glasgow, ‘And she’s going down for the third time!’

A startled blackbird that’d been eyeing us with keen interest flew from a nearby tree, leaving us in a pleasant silence. Momentarily I wondered if Miss Cameron was scanning the horizon, then forgot.

A little later we grew cold. Clouds began to gather in a way that threatened rain. Shivering, David got up and put his jacket back on. ‘I know,’ he said as if suddenly struck by a monumentally clever plan, ‘why don’t we go back to your place? I fancy a wee lie down. I’d a really early start to get here.’

I stared at him. ‘You mean, back at the home?’

‘Yeah. Why not?’

I brushed grass off my skirt to give myself a bit of time to think, whilst imagining the conversation. ‘Ooh, hello, Miss Cameron,’ I’d say, dead casual. ‘Look! I found this nice young man in my bedroom. Seems a decent sort of chap. He wants to stay the night. I know it’s only a single bed, but I’m happy to share.’ Then I’d nudge her in the ribs and say in a jokey way she was bound to find irresistible, ‘We Highlanders know a thing or two about hospitality, don’t we?’