Call Me Sister (19 page)

The word triggered off a reaction so aggressive that Bobo, coming out in sympathy, growled.

‘How dare you use that word!’ she shrilled. ‘The correct term is
lower back
. You should know that. What kind of training school did you go to?’ She put her hands over her head and groaned in despair, ‘I wouldn’t have to be telling you this if you’d trained in the hospital where I was matron.’

I’d only met Mrs Henderson for the first time today, but I reckoned she’d never speak to anybody like this. Whilst Miss Crawford might live in comfortable wealth in a better part of my district, I thought that in terms of sociability, she was poverty stricken.

After the bathing was accomplished as best I could, she sighed, and wiping her brow as if she’d come through a major trauma, she stroked Bobo for comfort. ‘Well! I’m glad that’s over. What d’you say, Bobo?’

I almost expected the dog to reply but he was taking a lot more interest in the face cloth. Very politely but firmly, he took it and held it as if it was his own.

With a look of dawning horror, Miss Crawford grabbed it, then with the force of an accomplished cricket bowler, lobbed it over the side of the bed, screaming, ‘Nurse! You’ve been using Bobo’s cloth!’

Recalling the incident, I wondered what Miss Cameron would say if I gave her the true facts, but was saved from saying anything because she went into musing mood. ‘Miss Crawford’s bound to know that lying in bed all the time’s bad for her. We only went in after she’d a bad dose of flu to help get her over it. Of course, now she’s become over-dependent on us and being a matron from the Old School,’ she smiled apologetically, ‘she’s used to getting her way. I don’t know how we can get her to change.’

I could have told her that I could. Not only had it been successful in getting our patient to leap out of bed, but it had given her an impetus to leg it to the bathroom. Miss Cameron might be as surprised as I was to learn that Miss Crawford could easily manage to use her shower and to do it herself. Instead, I went for a lighthearted diplomacy. ‘It can’t be easy being on your own most of the time. Maybe being an old matron can damage your health.’

The tutor giggled then blushed as if levity was a sin. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I don’t think I’d like to be one. I rather lead than command. Now go and catch up on your notes.’

Wondering what I should write about Miss Crawford, I settled for something as bland as had previously been written. Clearly nobody wanted to mess with an ex-matron and I hadn’t wanted to hang about after she was safely out of the shower. I wondered would there be a fallout and suspected trouble could be heading my way.

Reading the fascinating notes on Mrs Henderson shifted my thoughts. I learnt that the twins and their birth had been as big a surprise to everyone as was, seven years later, their mother’s death. Immobilised in her bed, Mrs Henderson had seen both.

Clinically, the notes recorded nursing intervention, dealing with her shock and subsequent declining health. Then, there was a small footnote mentioning Hilda. Coupled with her appearance and perhaps the twins’ growth and dependence, Mrs Henderson had improved. No mention was made of the twins’ father, which remained a mystery. It’s only now I wonder who he was. Nor was I curious about Mrs Henderson’s son. The notes didn’t mention him other than he was a relation. I only knew that he worked and when he came home to the flat, she said he helped.

Happily for my young and big ego, Mrs Henderson seemed far more interested in me. In the following days, I brought her my news from an outside world denied to her.

‘I’m going to a Nina Simone concert tonight,’ I told her one day. ‘She’s going to be in the Usher Hall.’ I gently dabbed my patient’s face dry with a towel, wishing it wasn’t as hard as the colour of its stripes, then went on, ‘I can’t wait to hear her. She’s a wonderful singer. Plays the piano too.’

‘I expect it’s modern stuff. More the twins’ style,’ scoffed Hilda. But Mrs Henderson looked thoughtful. She moved restlessly. ‘D’you think they’d like her?’

I was dubious about the radiogram but it was one way to find out if it was ever used. ‘I’ve got an LP of hers and if you like, I could bring it. Then you could hear her too. See what she sounds like.’

A flush of pleasure warmed her face. ‘Now
I’ll
have some news to tell the girls for a change.’

The Usher Hall is on Edinburgh's busy Lothian Road. Traffic adds congestion but any passer-by who hasn't stopped to admire the concert hall's imposing frontage should. I had, and wondered what it looked like inside. Tonight would bring the answer.

I got ready early, but knowing I'd a ticket, I dawdled the short distance from Castle Terrace only to see a worryingly long queue snaking down the road. I checked my watch as I joined the line. Half an hour before blast off !

‘Fully booked!' The words travelled down the line, person to person. Those who hadn't tickets stayed put, whilst the rest of us, trying not to look smug, passed them. Still, they seemed happy enough to be waiting in a biting wind on the chance of getting a late entry.

They must have been disappointed. The concert hall was packed. There was such a babble from the audience's excited voices travelling round the curved walls it was hard to imagine the place ever being silent, but soon after I sat down, the noise was cut as if thrown by a switch.

Unannounced, an elegant figure glided on stage. Nina Simone appeared luminescent in a long shimmering dress with the lights catching the pearls in her piled-up hair and glinting on her long dangling earrings. She bowed to the burst of applause, moved to the grand piano and touched it as if greeting an old friend.

When she sat down and began to play, the audience stilled. The notes floated out, wrapping us into one listening body. Then she began to sing.

I had never heard anything so lovely. Her smoky voice curled around each listener as if giving a personal message. The line of her song began, ‘My baby don't care for shows.' The effect was electrifying.

The audience sat, bewitched by the figure bent over the keyboard. We might not have known what it meant but all recognised the mystery of soul music.

It was an extraordinary performance and brought a normally restrained people to its feet. But however crowded and grand the Usher Hall with its ornate cornices and plush seats was, it could not have held a more appreciative audience than the humble room I was in the following day.

‘I've polished the record player,' said Hilda, taking the record from me and removing its cover. I was too late to suggest she keep her fingers clear of the vinyl for she'd already lifted the record player's lid, blown dust off the turntable and lowered the record into place. ‘There!'

Despite the record player's aged needle having to plough through Hilda's fingerprints and hissing on play throughout, it was no distraction to a spellbound Mrs Henderson. Her right-hand fingers tapped out the rhythm as if she too were a pianist. Even the fire flames seemed to cheer up and dance higher, whilst Hilda had the far-off look of someone visiting an enchanted place.

‘I've got life,' Nina's mellow voice eventually ended on that song.

Silence fell, then was broken by the sound of the needle veering out of the record's grooves. Whilst Hilda rushed to lift it off, Mrs Henderson patted my hand with her good one.

‘And I've still got my boobies too,' she grinned, taking a line from the song. ‘I think the girls will like it too. Will you leave us with the record for a few days, Nurse Jane?'

Miss Macleod would have had a fit at the informality, and so, I imagined, would Miss Cameron. She'd certainly not have expected general nursing care to be accompanied by the songs of a jazzy-blues singer, but a routine had been established. Mrs Henderson was keen to get more Simone records, Hilda happy to help and the twins were making a bid for The Rolling Stones
.
General nursing care in the Henderson house was never going to be the same again.

Perhaps if I got a new patient I'd manage to be more professionally correct. I might even get a chance to use a Queen's poke.

I got the chance the following week when Miss Cameron bent a blue gaze on me.

‘Apparently Miss Crawford's decided to get out of bed. She says she's fully recovered. Doesn't need our service. Now, isn't that strange?'

On my rounds I'd glimpsed Miss Crawford walking Bobo, who was giving a lamp post the same level of interest he'd given his facecloth. The best I could manage was, ‘Um.'

It had been miraculous seeing the old lady out during the day. I suspected that to keep the real state of her health a secret, she'd have previously taken the dog out at night, but it was also worrying that she might have told Miss Cameron about the face cloth. I held my breath. The tutor clasped her hands together as if about to give a sermon.

Here goes, I thought, relieved if startled when she said, ‘You know Miss Macleod has mentioned you'd quite a reputation for helping your patients towards independence. “Unusual methods,” she said.' For a moment, the tutor looked thoughtful then continued, ‘So in place of Miss Crawford, I'd like you to visit Mrs Collins. See how you get on dressing her leg ulcer. Apparently she's been treating it herself for the past few months but has at last admitted to her doctor it's not getting any better.'

I should have realised Miss Macleod would be making contact with Castle Terrace. After all, time was passing and she'd want her staff member back, qualified. Soon we'd be taking our final exam where the emphasis would be on the practical side. Knowing that Miss Cameron would be the examiner, I hoped to finally achieve a truly professional approach with one patient at least. Mrs Collins, her leg and some finely honed Queen's pokes might give me that chance.

I was full of good intentions on making that first visit. My patient lived in a tenement flat. Going through its main entrance, I thought how few visits I paid to patients who lived in houses. If I hadn't had an aunt living in genteel poverty in a Morningside one, I might have thought Edinburgh houses were reserved for only the very rich and healthy.

Meanwhile, I climbed up stone steps so clean they looked like they'd been recently scrubbed. And they were worn, as if by thousands of feet. But the silence in the building said it was giving nothing away whilst no sound escaped through the heavy doors of the flats I plodded past.

The Collins name stood out on a plaque under a brass doorknocker. Both shone in burnished splendour out of a newly painted black door. The noise of its rapper seemed like a gross intrusion in that silent stairwell space, but as soon as the door was opened, a shout of welcome rang out.

‘You'll be the nurse. I'm not really needing one, but come in anyway.'

Even if she hadn't said that, I'd still have known she was my patient. The bandaged leg was the giveaway. Otherwise she could, with her round figure, white hair and pink cheeks, have been mistaken for Granny Bun of
Happy Families
.

Despite her only accepting our service with reluctance, her welcome seemed genuine. She beckoned me into a room where the black lead fire-range had had much the same loving attention lavished on it as the brass fittings on the door. The sun streamed in through the top part of a sash window, its light diff using through impressively white lace netting strung on a rod across the bottom half.

‘Sit down, sit down!' She switched off the television and pointed to a chair matching the mock leather sofa where a small boy sat.

‘Aw, Granny!' he said, shaking his carrot-coloured hair in annoyance. ‘I was watching that.'

Resigned to boredom, he began to twiddle his Clarks shoes, exploring his nose with a careful finger and sliding back and fore over the sofa's highly polished surface.

‘Well, you're not now. Go and play upstairs.'

The response was quick. ‘You haven't got an upstairs and it was
The Clangers!'

‘
'I'll clang you, Tom,' said his grandmother, aiming a casual blow in his general direction. ‘Just you wait till your mum gets in from work. Honestly, the sooner you go to school, the better it'll be for my health. Anyway, nurse here isn't going to be long, are you?' Her voice, if kindly, was anxious.

Tom stuck out his bottom lip and folded his arms, his eyes just visible and glaring out from under his long fringe, resentment filling the air. I was an intrusion. Mrs Collins looked anxious. Despite her tuts at Tom, I knew that if it came to a toss between loyalties, I'd be the loser. If I wanted to get back here, I'd need to think of something quick.

I went to sit beside Tom. ‘You don't have any comics by any chance?'

He stopped sliding for a moment whilst his granny looked surprised. ‘Well, there's last week's
Dandy
. Look, it's right by you.'

‘Great,' I spread the paper on my knee. ‘Can I show you something, Tom?'

He looked at it in contempt and folded his arms. He really did a lovely pout. ‘Granny's read it to me already.'

‘Ah! But it's perfect for this,' I said, and with many a theatrical flourish, conjured up a Queen's poke.

Tom wasn't going to be impressed. ‘So?' His look was challenging. ‘What's it for?'

I could hardly say it was for burning so I held it up as if it was an objet d'art.

‘It's a boat, silly! Anybody can see that. Now you could make one, take it to the bathroom and see if you can sail it in the sink, and if not, you could try bombarding it with soap. See how long it takes you to sink it. But, Tom,' I knew by his bright green eyes fixed on the poke that he was interested. ‘I bet you can't make one.'

He was scornful and jumped off the sofa. ‘Huh! That's easy.'

With Tom more gainfully engaged at a table, Mrs Collins lay on the sofa whilst I undid her bandage.

‘I bet you don't often sit, never mind stretch out,' I said. ‘You keep this place so spotless. I've never seen anywhere cleaner.'