Silver Linings (22 page)

Jenny nodded, knowing that the thought of a new baby would stop her from falling down into the deep depression that was about to engulf her again. All her life she had battled with that demon. In the past, Donald had supported her through the dark days and now as she looked at Connie, she thought that God, her God that she always turned to, had sent her another arm to lean on. An arm she wished she had been able to lean on last night …

When Kitty and Jenny had made their way over Leith Links towards Leith Hospital Nurses’ Home on Sunday night, Jenny had earnestly tried to engage Kitty in conversation. Kitty’s mind, however, was just so full of memories of Jack that she didn’t hear a word her grandmother said. She was wondering why God had taken a young life like her brother’s. Would it not have made more sense for Him to have answered old Mrs Dickson’s daily plaintive plea: ‘Why have You forgotten me, dear Lord? Don’t You realise that people are talking and saying that You just don’t want me up there beside You.’

All too soon they had gone up King Street and were at the entrance to the Nurses’ Home. ‘Kitty,’ her grandmother had pleaded, ‘is there nothing you would like to say to me before you …’

‘Sorry, Granny,’ Kitty had mumbled. ‘Look, I just want to get inside and away to bed. I start on the wards at seven thirty tomorrow morning. But I promise you that I’ll come and see you on my day off. Don’t know when that will be but what I do know is that I have to work fifty hours every week and for that I will be paid seven pounds a month.’

‘Only seven pounds!’ Jenny had expounded. ‘But how will you manage on that? It will barely keep you in stockings.’

A sly laugh had then emitted from Kitty. ‘Well I will just have to do as I did to get this nurses’ Burberry coat and hat – either buy them second-hand or get Nurse Fowler’s cast-offs. Don’t worry, Granny, I’ll survive.’

Before Jenny or Kitty could say another word a young woman with an oversized suitcase arrived at the door. ‘I’m Dorothy Keane, but everybody calls me Dotty. I’m starting my nurse’s training here tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ replied Kitty, ‘I’m Katherine Anderson, but everybody calls me Kitty, and I’m pleased to meet you. How about we go in together?’

‘Yes. And I’m sure that we all have a single room but perhaps we will be next door to each other.’

When the door closed on the girls Jenny had felt bereft. Her grandchildren were so important to her. She was beginning to think that somehow she was losing them. She knew she had to accept that Jack was gone never to return. She also feared that Bobby, even if he did not settle in Wales, would not make his home in Leith and now Kitty, Sandra’s pretty Kitty … Tears welled up in her as she accepted Kitty would now become a career nurse and where that job would take her she didn’t wish to guess or know.

* * *

Monday morning started with Kitty being startled by the clanging of a handbell being rung in the corridor outside her room by the Nurses’ Home Sister. She glanced at her alarm clock which registered 7 a.m. ‘Good grief,’ she muttered as she leapt out of bed, ‘I have to be up, dressed and breakfasted and report to Sister Burgess on Ward Two by seven thirty.’

She was just pinning on her white starched hat when her door opened and there stood Dotty. ‘Not ready yet? I’ve been up since six. Just so want to get on to the wards and get started. Luckily I’m to be on Ward Two along with you. Don’t know where the other ten who started with us are but we’ll find out when we all have to meet the Virgin Mary at three this afternoon.’

‘The Virgin Mary – who is she?’ Kitty asked as she bent down to tie the laces in her plain black shoes.

‘The Matron,’ replied Dotty, opening the door and signalling with a jerk of her head that they should be on their way.

The minute Kitty and Dotty met Sister Burgess, who looked at the girls and then at her fob watch, which was pinned to her uniform dress, they knew she was a strict disciplinarian.

‘You are?’ her clipped voice asked while she surveyed them from top to toe.

‘I’m Kitty and my friend here is Dotty,’ an eager Kitty replied.

Sister Burgess sighed. ‘On the wards when you are training you will be referred to as Anderson and Keane. Now, Anderson and Keane, we have wasted enough time. What is required of you is that you pull out all of the beds and sweep the whole ward floor. Then you will wash, with warm soapy water, all the lockers, give bedpans to those who require them and all this has to be done before you serve breakfast to the patients. Breakfast normally arrives punctually at’ – she consulted her watch again before stressing – ‘eight thirty.’

Dotty and Kitty just looked aghast. How on earth would they get all that done? They were still contemplating the problems when Sister Burgess added, ‘Also you should note that Matron will be making her ward visit mid-morning and that you should stay in the background … Stand erect with your hands behind your back. You only speak to Matron if she deigns to speak to you. Now could I suggest that you both get a move on?’

At nine o’clock in the evening twelve very tired young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two arrived back at the Nurses’ Home.

The three o’clock meeting with the Matron and Sister Tutor had been an eye-opener. The first half hour was spent with the Matron, Miss Mackay, an extraordinary and very slim woman who seemed to float about everywhere in her voluminous cape. Her welcoming talk commenced with her stating that the time spent at the meeting would be taken from the nurses’ break time. She then went on to elaborate that they had joined a band of very intelligent, committed ladies and that there was no finer career available for dedicated women such as they would become. Sucking in her lips and sniffing loudly she paused before proclaiming in a sharp voice, ‘Now it is best that you understand from the start that you will all require to meet the high standards of General Nurse Training, which will prepare you for State Registration. That is your ultimate goal – to become a State Registered Nurse. Now I must advise you that in all my time here as Matron no one has failed their final exams! That is not to say that everyone who enters the portals of this magnificent hospital leaves as a State Registered Nurse. No. I, and especially Sister Tutor, usually know well before the final examination who is not fit to earn that illustrious title and we invite them to resign.’

Before Miss Mackay floated away to terrorise the ward sisters she said, ‘And now I will hand you over to Sister Tutor, Miss Smart, and I advise you to follow all her advice to the letter.’

Miss Smart waited until the door closed on Matron before she smiled at the gathering. ‘Now,’ she began, ‘you are all on the threshold of becoming fully qualified nurses. A qualification gained in this hospital will take you anywhere in the world that you wish to serve in. But getting there is a long, hard journey. Firstly you must be very disciplined in your approach, not only to your studying for examinations but most importantly to your patients too. Their welfare and well-being whilst they remain in hospital is your priority. Now just to the little things. You must always be punctual, polite and report for duty properly attired. No make-up is allowed whilst on duty, nor is the smoking of cigarettes. Please do not get engaged to be married whilst you are in training – any request for someone to be allowed to marry will be refused. Really, ladies, involvement with young men, I have always found, is detrimental to you achieving your goal of becoming a fully qualified nurse.’

Kitty had just opened the door to her room and had turned to wish Dotty goodnight when Dotty pushed past her.

Throwing herself down on the bed, Dotty snorted. ‘Know something, Kitty? I didn’t know that we’d joined a convent.’

After taking off her shoes Kitty flopped down on a chair. Gently she began to rub her tired right foot before dreamily uttering, ‘Yeah, no make-up. No smoking. Mind you, that won’t bother me as I don’t smoke anyway. But … the next three years with no men in our lives as well …’

‘That was what I was meaning. Believe me, we would have had an easier time of it if we’d signed up with the Little Sisters of the Poor. At least they get a rest when they pray on their knees for hours on end.’ Dotty lay back on the bed and kicked her legs in the air before chortling. ‘And just look how happy that would make my mum if we’d thrown our lot in with them!’

‘Happy she would be – but why?’

‘Because isn’t my mum St Teresa of Avila incarnate.’ Dotty now crossed herself before adding, ‘Honestly, her giving birth to eight children was, as she saw it, her carrying out her duty as a good Catholic woman.’ Dotty now clasped her hands in prayer and raised her eyes to the ceiling before adding, ‘And when God calls her to kneel before Him she hopes to be able to say that it was her ambition to give birth to six sons who all became priests and six daughters who became nuns.’

‘But you said you only have seven siblings.’

‘That’s right. But twelve good Catholic children were what my mother desired to have. She also prayed that any children she did have would be servants of her God.’

‘And how many are in religious orders?’

‘None.’

‘Not one?’

Dotty was now sitting on the side of the bed but her legs were still moving. ‘That’s right. Not one.’ She gasped in feigned disbelief before mischievously twittering, ‘She nearly had one success with my brother Paul but the devil stole the pattern. Lured him into the claws of Bernadette Shaw, he did.’ Dotty sighed again. ‘And believe it or not they don’t take married men with triplets on the way into the seminary.’

Kitty chuckled. Already she knew that she liked Dotty and her even dottier sense of humour. A friendship was forming and Kitty knew, or hoped, it would last their whole lives through. Her curiosity was awakened now and she was eager to know more about Dotty’s background. Tongue in cheek, she asked, ‘And what does your dad do?’

‘Oh, he faithfully bends his elbow every night in Flannigan’s bar,’ quipped Dotty before brusquely changing the subject. ‘But enough of me; what about your parents?’

This terse reply alerted Kitty to the fact that jovial Dotty did not wish to discuss her father. She too did not wish to say anything right now about her dad but she did manage to mumble, ‘My mum is … Well she passed away when I was fifteen.’

‘And your dad?’

‘My dad … ?’ Kitty just shook her head and decided not to elaborate on him. Deftly she changed the subject by adopting a confidential pose and whispering, ‘What is also alarming about the draconian rules in here is, and that is according to one of the second-year nurses’ – Kitty paused briefly to make sure that she had Dotty’s full attention before adding with a tease – ‘that the Assistant Matron patrols our block here every night just to make sure we’ve not smuggled in any young, handsome, virile men! She also said that we would be severely reprimanded if we opened windows to admit nurses who have been out dancing and missed the curfew at ten!’

Dotty got up off the bed. ‘Well I don’t think I’m going to make their or my mother St Teresa’s grade.’ She now advanced to the door and she turned and awarded Kitty with a roguish smile before quipping, ‘Not sure if I want to but what I do know is I’m too tired to resign tonight so I’m off to bed.’

Kitty too was smiling as the door clicked shut.

Mondays in Leith Hospital’s Outpatients and Emergency department were always extremely busy. The unit was managed by a very strict Sister. Doctors, nurses and cleaners were all terrified of her. It was even rumoured that the cockroaches, when they heard her approach, flung themselves into the boiling sterilising unit as it was less torturous than being put to death by her. Nonetheless, she ran an efficient division, probably the most effective department in the whole of the hospital, and nurses accepted that being trained by her was their passport to any job that they would apply for when they graduated.

The unit attended to all the casualties that were brought from the various industries. In particular, they were kept extremely busy with workers from the shipyards and docks, where men’s working conditions were far from safe.

It was into this environment that Kitty and Dotty were transferred when spring had arrived. Dotty and Kitty had been so excited to be starting their accident and emergency training. It was true that they had got used to mopping up vomit and cleaning backsides on the wards – but getting the opportunity to be on the front line, when patients who had just experienced accidents or traumas came in, just seemed so stimulating and worthwhile.

They both did very well in the Outpatients and Emergency department and were sorry when their four-week stint was over. Kitty was then transferred to the Men’s Medical ward and Dotty to Men’s Surgical.

* * *

It only took two weeks of being on the Men’s Medical ward for Kitty to feel that she had no other option but to hand in her resignation to Matron. The decision to resign was not being made rashly by Kitty. In fact, when she thought back over the events leading to her taking this momentous decision, she still felt it was the right course for her to follow.

Always, she would remember that from the minute she had met Sister Irvine of the Men’s Medical ward an instant animosity rose up between them. Kitty felt that even if she had stood on her head she could never have pleased the frustrated old bitch, as Kitty thought of her.

This present bright Monday morning brought everything to a head. Kitty had arrived on duty ahead of time. She did this in an effort to make sure that she did not get off on the wrong foot with Sister Irvine. She had just finished dusting the ward piano when the Sister swept up the ward and immediately ran her right index finger over the instrument. ‘Do you call this dusted?’ she hissed.

Kitty could only shrug. It was dusted but it would never be to the unreasonable standards of Sister Irvine.

Embarrassed, sulking Kitty then went as fast as she could to put the bedpans out before going on to wash the lockers. She should have had a trainee nurse like herself working with her but the poor lass was suffering from a sickness bug. Just when Kitty was rushing to take the bedpans in and put them into the sluice the breakfast trolley arrived. She was so pushed for time she decided not to wash the bedpans there and then but to attend to them later. Quickly, she dashed back into the ward to dish up breakfast when Sister Irvine screamed, ‘Anderson, where is Mr Smith and when did you last see him?’