It Won't Hurt a Bit (15 page)

‘They’re not in the female side that’s for sure.’

‘That’s what I suspected. See, there’s an auxiliary running amok in our ward with a huge basin and surprising a lot of men behind the screens. She speaks in staccato and I think she should have a licence.’

‘Did you happen to notice her name?’

‘Yeah. Cockburn.’

‘Well that figures.’

No one from our group was in the dining room.

‘Probably running the wards by now,’ said Hazel, throwing down her coffee and jumping up from the table. ‘Wonder how Rosie’s doing.’

‘Giving Woodend a fright I bet.’

There were some nurses heading purposefully for a small room just off the dining room. Hazel looked at them. ‘They’re going for a smoke. Fancy going to see what it’s like.’

‘No thanks. I’ve got a ward to run.’

‘Ah! You’re back and in time to watch.’ Sister Miller pulled a screen round the blue knight who was considering her covered trolley with apprehension, heightening as she donned a mask and gloves. Turning a swab purple with gentian from a gallipot, she advanced.

‘Now, Alex, we need to put this on to keep out more infection. The fire’s left you with some very nasty chest burns and look at your poor face. We’ll get something else for that.’ She gestured at the trolley groaning with lotions.

It was going to be a long session, but Mrs Low would have approved of the way the sister dressed Alex’s weeping sores. Her light touch and soothing manner could have had the angels singing if Alex had been more appreciative but, unfazed, she carried on, her hands flying over and applying the various lotions with such adroitness, even the bottles clinked in disbelief.

At the end of it all, our patient said in plain English that he thought he felt rather better and was glad that the shiny armour plate caused by the gentian violet would slough off, allowing his manly chest to reappear to the joy of one and all.

‘The hair might take a while to grow in again,’ said Sister Miller, shoving a lock of her own behind her ear.

Alex gave a toothless smile.

‘That’ll be ok. The wife’ll give me some of hers.’

‘You can usually tell when a patient’s getting better when they start to make jokes,’ she returned, ‘and some are better than others.’

The clatter of the departing trolley drowned out his reply.

By now, a ceasefire had been declared and some kind of order restored to the ward. Patients coming back from theatre were reviving and their demands immediate but clear.

‘Daftie!’ chortled Mrs Cockburn, replacing my tumbler with a urinal and giving it to a patient. ‘Get it back soon eh?’ She winked then, black eyebrows shooting upwards. ‘Somebody’s up! Shouldn’t be. Catch him.’ She nodded at a naked sprinter carrying the intra-venous bottle connected to his arm like an Olympic torchbearer. He was heading for the toilet and going so fast I had to run to catch up with him.

Staff Nurse had been so diligently observing patients on the horizontal she hadn’t noticed anybody on the vertical. ‘Emergency?’ she called and for a moment took her eye off the blood pressure monitor.

‘Could be,’ I mouthed, aware that running was only for special occasions.

‘You were all too busy, I didn’t want to bother you,’ said the patient limping back to bed.

‘What a relief eh?’ shouted Alex, proving Sister Miller’s restorative touch; but she had adjourned to her office, from which there now issued the proper caring sounds of relaxed chat, fag reek and real coffee.

‘You’re supposed to be the watchman, you should have let us know we had a streaker,’ I chided Gordon, who looked crestfallen and admitted that he had been unable to resist a new comic supplied by Alex.

‘Don’t give him a hard time, Nurse,’ said Alex. ‘How would you like to be stuck in here ’cause there’s no spare beds in Sick Kids?’

‘It’s ok,’ Gordon replied, his old man’s face turning boyish, ‘who else would look after you?’

‘Certainly not the wife.’ Alex cleared his throat. ‘Whenever she comes to visit she just says I was a fool to fall into the fire and what a mess the fire brigade made of our bonny fender.’

I left the boys to their old men’s tales. It was time to go off duty. Along with the clock, my feet told me the time and when I reached my room, I kicked off my shoes and heard them scream with delight.

Maisie stuck her head round the door. ‘Can you still walk?’

I consulted my toes. ‘No.’

My pal’s curls looked subdued as she staggered in wearily. We swapped notes but she was in a gynaecological ward, so there wasn’t much to share apart from throbbing feet and sluice duties.

‘Have you seen the others?’

Maisie took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes. ‘A surgeon’s asked Isobel to go round the ward with him and the sister was so rattled at a mere first year being seen outwith the sluice, she sent her right back to where he found her.’

‘Good Lord! I didn’t think the gods sluice-crawled or knew there was a life beyond sore bits and Sisters.’

Maisie’s replaced spectacles magnified a twinkle. ‘Well, it’s not worrying our Isobel – he’s asked her out for a dinner date. Oh!’ Maisie threw her hand to her mouth. ‘I nearly forgot. Rosie phoned. I just happened to answer. She says she nearly died because she had to wash someone’s feet and she just hates feet. Jo’s ok, last seen climbing into her biker’s gear and I don’t know about Sheila *cause she was on late shift.’ Curls beginning to revive, Maisie leapt to her feet declaring an urge to tidy drawers and put in rollers. As she left she asked about Douglas.

‘I might try and phone him after I’ve had a quick death,’ I said, and did a little practice, falling down a dark corridor of sleep to chase a blue knight trying to save a changeling boy from falling off his air cushions.

When I woke, it was morning.

It was hard to remember Ward Eight was part of a training hospital. A world away from the classroom, the most important thing here was getting through the work, not killing anybody and being able to stagger off duty without shoes going on fire. Unless I wanted to live dangerously and grind work to a halt, questions that might have helped in the long term remained unasked, and when I remembered Mrs Low’s lectures, I couldn’t properly follow them through since none of the patients had the enduring patience or painfree zones of the classroom Mrs Brown.

Nor were they lining up to guinea-pig that first injection or stitch removal. There was so little time to persuade them this could be their moment of history, it was amazing I learnt anything at all, but I did. After three weeks I could drive a trolley with skill and precision.

Still, if there wasn’t student status in the wards, I wasn’t looking for it off duty, so a visit to Beth to find her in her sitting room, but studying, was a disappointment.

‘Have you seen Douglas lately?’ Sally skittered past on her high heels carrying an armful of books.

‘Actually no – I’ve been trying to phone him yet always seem to miss him.’ I aimed for cool and disinterested. ‘Of course, I’m pretty busy myself.’ Then hedging bets, ‘It’d be nice to catch up though.’

‘If I see him in the library, I’ll tell him I’ve seen you. Bye!’ Sally sounded rushed.

‘He’s there a lot.’ Beth raised her head and gave me a long look. ‘It’ll soon be exam time, and for us too.’ The remark was pointed.

The heavy front door slammed. Beth bent her brain-stuffed head over her work and shuffled her papers.

‘Maybe I could catch him there then.’

Beth clicked her teeth in exasperation. ‘For one thing, you wouldn’t get in, as it’s the university library, and Douglas probably needs to get on with his studies, and for another, you’ve just arrived in Aberdeen and shouldn’t be chasing the first bloke you meet.’

I was insulted. ‘Honestly, Beth, you take the biscuit. I’ve seen you snogging that bloke from chemistry – and he comes from Brora! You’re such a Holy Willy, you’d think you were my keeper.’ Lost for further words, I stomped off to find Mrs Ronce, who was in her sitting-room mulling over
The Scotsman
.

‘Ah! Janey – the very one! Come and help me with this crossword. What’s two words for relatively annoying?’

‘Try pesky sister.’ My tone was sour.

Mrs Ronce giggled. ‘Beth’s just anxious. She’s conscientious and wants to pass her exams really well, and she’s certainly not sitting one on your feelings.’ She threw aside her paper. ‘I know, since we’re not getting very far with this,’ she picked up the Scrabble box and rattled it, ‘this looks like a better option.’

I was still smarting from my spat with Beth, so I was glad of the diversion. I had picked up some new words from the ward and thought it unlikely Mrs Ronce knew them.

‘You forget. I shoved a W.R.V.S. trolley round the wards and I was also married to a sailor,’ she triumphantly got rid of an x and two letters, ‘and it was one of the reasons for my divorce. Oh look! I’ve got a treble score.’

As she totted up the final humiliating score, Beth came in. ‘Can I make you two a cup of coffee?’ She sounded conciliatory.

‘No, let me. I’m needed in the kitchen to boil fish for my poor starving cats. You sit down, Beth, and I’ll make it.’

The Roncers must have heard her for they appeared out of nowhere and shepherded her into the kitchen with rapturous purrs. At least they seemed happy.

Beth cleared her throat, ‘Um, Jane. I shouldn’t have said what I did and I’m sorry.’

‘That’s ok, but tell me, Beth, is Douglas seeing somebody else?’ Unsure if I wanted the answer I looked out at the sodden garden where, huddling in the rain, the shrubs bent together like gossips.

‘No, but he’ll be up to the eyes in work. Next year’s the finals and that’s grim stuff. You’re at the beginning of your training and he’s coming to the end of his. The summer break’s coming up and he’ll be away home for three months and it’s no use you sitting round moping when he’s away and probably having a good time,’ she paused for a moment, ‘if he’s any sense.’

I could have mentioned nurses’ monopolies on good times but Beth’s apologies were rare.

‘You’re probably right and what’ll be will be,’ I sighed. I thought about my own pre-exam anxieties, and how Douglas might have his own set of worries and plans, and that three years training was a long time. Then, linking arms with Beth, considered the fire embers. ‘Maybe I’ll write him a letter. Tell him whilst he’s planning being prime minister, I’ll be concentrating on becoming the next Florence Nightingale. You could tell me about the Brora bloke. Do you think Mrs Ronce would mind us putting on some more coal?’

Back in the ward, Alex was making such progress he’d been forced to look at brochures of mantelpieces about which his wife would question him during the visiting hour. His face was clear and his eyes a guileless blue, though his chest remained a constant violet. Still, the pink, healing, surrounding skin was a sign he could soon get home. Then, out of the ward’s earshot, he and his wife could discuss future living arrangements in a proper manner.

‘It’s my homework,’ he sighed, throwing down the pamphlets. ‘I do miss wee Gordie. When he was here the wife didn’t like to shout at me in front of him in case she upset him and the Beano made a better read than this lot. Anybody know how he’s getting on?’

Gordon had been found a bed in the Sick Children’s Hospital and by all accounts he was recovering; he had put on twice the weight taken away with his burst appendix and infected entrails, replacing the old man look with a cheeky young one.

‘Different laddie.’ Mrs Cockburn advanced on Alex with a steaming bowl and assertive air. ‘Popped in, saw him last night. Ok.’ She gave the thumbs up.

‘Well that’s great news, and if you visit him again you can tell him I’m allowed out of bed now, so somebody else can have that wash,’ said Alex, morphing into a blue flash.

‘What were the air cushions for?’ Mrs Ronce had asked, enchanted at the idea of a small boy ruling from on high.

‘Bed sores,’ I said briefly, aware that Mrs Low considered such things a scandalous dereliction of duty by nurses unwilling or unable to move patients from one position to another so that blood didn’t lie, turning into bruising and worse. Our tutor had made an hour unpleasant describing its aetiology.

‘It’s such a busy ward. There never seems to be enough staff, time, laundry or equipment to meet everybody’s needs; our tutors would have a fit if they saw the shortcuts,’ I tried to explain.

‘Thanks for the warning – it’s another incentive to keep healthy, so I’ll keep taking this sherry. Cheers!’

I hadn’t known then that the teaching department would be sending clinical instructors to make sure we were doing our work properly. In the classroom, improvisation had been frowned upon, but in those first few weeks in the wards we had had time to perfect it. Instructors might have a tough call and word was out they were coming.

‘Who’s yours?’ asked Maisie, as if they were personal property. ‘Mine’s Maggie Dee.’

As we went on duty she was practically skipping. Sometimes Maisie’s early morning, breezy way bordered on the unnatural. ‘They say she’s ok – better than that Sister Gorightly. Apparently she’s a holy terror.’

‘I’ll find out soon enough but I hope I don’t get her. She sounds awful.’

In the ward cloakroom, a limping Mrs Cockburn was the first casualty of the day. She tore off her cap, threw it into a bin, then, taking a large man-sized hanky from the shopping bag in her locker, trumpeted into it. ‘That woman,’ she said, slamming the locker door shut, ‘confiscated my bowl, tore strips off me in front of the patients and said I wasn’t to come back until my leg was better. Well, there was nothing wrong with it until her foot got in the way.’ She turned the locker key as if she were screwing a lid on tight, grabbed her coat and, before I could say anything, hobbled out the door.

Alarmed by her upset and use of whole sentences, I joined the ward report group, worrying how we could cover her work as well as our own and already missing the clarion call, the chrome clang and the bunion-shaped shoes which bounced her so cheerily round the ward. How would we get our patients mobile now?