Acting Sister, page 8
‘I see, Sister.’ There was one of those long and almost unbelievable pauses, a pause when Sally would have given everything for something to happen. A word. A gesture. Some indication of the way Matron felt. But she did nothing. Then she said, ‘I am somewhat surprised that you should conduct your courting in such a public place, and in such a manner.’
Oh heavens, whatever were they doing? Sally thought. She hung her head.
‘I am extremely sorry, Matron.’
‘For my part I am not entirely satisfied about this story, but you are a trusted nurse, there has never at any time been the slightest question over anything that you have ever done, and I can only believe what you have told me.’ She paused then, almost as if she waited for Sally to take her last chance; Sally said nothing. Matron ended it. ‘Very well then, Sister. I am disappointed, but there is nothing more to be said.’
‘Yes, Matron.’
What could she say? Nothing. What could she do? Again, nothing. But she had done the right thing, of course. Matron rose, which was dismissal.
Sally’s one terror had been that she would be deprived of her new position as Acting Sister, for she had expected to lose it; anyway that was safe. Things could have been worse. She said, ‘Thank you,’ and for a single moment their eyes met. I don’t believe she has swallowed a single word I have said, Sally thought, and she turned to the door.
She walked out of the room breathing a breath of relief that the interview was over. She walked down the corridor to the lift, for now she would have to go up to the theatre floor, and start her work there. She waited for the lift and that was the moment when Ferdie came round the corner. Naturally he had timed it nicely, she had always had the impression that he was the sort of man who works things, and does them well.
‘Okay?’ he asked her.
‘Fine, thank you. Matron was really very nice about it.’
‘And you haven’t lost the Acting Sister post? That was my big worry.’
‘I thought I should myself, but I didn’t.’
He came closer, and spoke in a low voice. ‘I made up my mind that if that happened, and it could have done, then I would have to confess the truth, and be damned to what happened to Barbie or to me. I ‒ I couldn’t have let that one pass.’
‘You’ve let me in for quite enough as things are,’ she reminded him.
‘I know, and I’m sorry. I ‒ I do know,’ and he looked very crestfallen about it. ‘I’m ashamed of the whole thing, if you want to know the truth.’
The lift came down.
She went straight up to the theatre floor, and into the anteroom. An op was progressing, for the red light was on over the door, which would leave her time to get ready for the next one, and somehow she was glad to have that time to pull herself together a little, for the apprehension of the interview with Matron had taken it out of her far more than she had thought it possibly could.
‘It’s a nice easy list this morning,’ said the little student nurse who was waiting for the in-coming patient, for they were finishing inside, and in a few moments now another stretcher would be arriving, and they would be getting ready for the next op.
‘A straightforward appendix, Sister,’ and she held out the piece of paper, with two entries under the appendix.
‘Thank you.’
Sally got into theatre things, and when the patient was wheeled out still unconscious, she went inside, and took up her place by the table. The Sister-in-Charge motioned to her. Everything was in order; ready with that spruce orderliness of every operating theatre in every big hospital.
Somehow Sally felt that the place was deadly hot. She had never noticed the undue heat before, could it be reaction after the interview, and were the harsh lights really hurting her eyes? Or was it that she had come here from the strong mountain air in Wales, and the contrast was too much for her?
There was the automatic precision about the theatre, something which she had forgotten, everything working to the tick, the one place where there could not possibly be mistakes made. The surgeon today was Mr Willis, one of their own men who was renowned for unhurried skill. He worked like a machine. But the place is so dreadfully hot, she thought; then, I can’t faint on my first day whatever happens, I must not faint as though I were a student.
Dr Bridgewater, the anaesthetist, glanced across at her. They were sewing up now, and he had turned his machine off, his work finished. He came to her.
‘Feeling a bit off, Sister?’
‘I have been feeling horribly so, and cannot think why.’
‘Go out into the anteroom and get a breath of fresh air out there. This heat always gets you on the first day. Then you get used to it.’
She murmured something about feeling such a fool.
‘You’ll feel more of a fool if you flop.’
She went to the anteroom, and instantly the change of atmosphere was a relief. She had eaten hardly any breakfast, of course, couldn’t get it down, and anyway after a week spent with Aunt Glynis’ expert cooking, the hospital breakfast was not exactly what a girl wanted.
She stayed a short while, had a drink of water, and when she went back into the theatre she had recovered completely. She went through a tonsillectomy without a quiver, and went downstairs to a late lunch.
The dining-room was half empty, with only latecomers like herself there. This meant that the main lunch was off, but she got a poached egg, and maybe that poached egg was far better than the proper lunch had been. She felt that she was bucking up. She had come out of the contretemps as Acting Sister still, she had covered the whole episode for Ferdie and Barbie, and Ferdie had apologized. Just as she was finishing her coffee, Barbie came rushing in. She had managed to come off duty because she was crazy to know what had happened.
‘Sally, how did it go?’
‘All right. I am still Acting Sister, thank God, and you and Ferdie are out of the wood for the time being, so you too are all right.’
‘You are a dear! I wish I was rich, and could buy you something truly lovely, for I’d adore to do that, but I can’t.’
‘Don’t worry. There isn’t anything I want.’
‘Aren’t you lucky?’ Barbie was one of those people who could change on the instant, and now, when she thought it was all over, she was enchanted again. ‘You won’t find Ferdie too awful. He can be the greatest fun, and he has a lot of money, which is always useful when it comes to taking a girl about.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ and Sally said it drily.
‘No, don’t take it wrongly. He can be so nice. I wish he’d marry me, but he isn’t the marrying kind, and of course he was awfully spoilt at home. Coming after that flock of sisters, and with his mother a doctor. I always think women doctors are pretty awful on the whole. I’m thankful my mother was an actress.’
‘You need not be sorry for me,’ Sally said, ‘I shall see as little of your Ferdie as I possibly can, for he does not fascinate me.’
‘That’s only because you’ve never been in love. You know nothing about men. One of these days you’ll suddenly find the man, then what?’
‘Exactly! What?’ and Sally rose.
Barbie did not know what she was talking about, and Sally went out of the dining-hall and upstairs to the lift. She was remembering those violet-blue eyes which had been so unbelievable in the hut that night. Mike must have been in very bad pain, she knew that, and they had talked together, had come close to each other, with the world blotted out by that gloomy slow-moving fog, and with no knowledge of whether they would get away tomorrow, or not.
I’ve got to forget him, she thought. But Barbie had been right. Once you fall in love, once you have a romantic experience of that kind, it is not easy to forget. It is far easier to remember.
She went back to the theatre and worked through the afternoon with no return of the faintness. It had been the result of no breakfast, apprehension and fear that something too terrible might happen. She was now herself.
Two appendices and a gall-bladder were on the list, but she was kept so busy that she did not get the opportunity to see very much. This, she thought, is when you really become a Sister, when you want to see everything that is going on, and do not shrink away from it. She felt that today she had accomplished something. As though she had grown up.
When it was over and they had finally cleaned up and left the theatre spotless for the morning, she went out into the gloriously summery evening. It was one of those first days of heat, and that had added to the trouble this morning, of course. The heat combined with the strain of it all.
She walked out of the hospital with a longing for the air, and down to the Thames side. She watched the water passing by, silent, with no hurried movement, yet never entirely still, and she knew that it made her feel better.
She returned with the idea of finding some small cake shop which still might be open, some little cafe, somewhere where she could get a snack in the way of supper, for the thought of going back to the hospital where everybody knew about the morning’s interview, was too much.
She walked straight into Ferdie.
‘Fine,’ he said, ‘I was looking for you.’
She had not been looking for him, and she said so.
‘I’m sorry about that, but I happen to know that this is your evening off, a nice hot evening, and I suggest that I take you out in my car. We could nip out of London down somewhere like Virginia Water or Old Windsor?’ Then he saw her demur, and knew that she did not want to do it; hurriedly he stopped her from saying so. ‘We’ve got to be seen out together, you know. We can’t do this thing by halves. I promise not to be a pest. I’ve learnt my lesson and at this time of the year the country is quite lovely.’
‘Very well.’
‘Get your things and meet me in the courtyard.’
She got her things, a white fluffy overcoat which went well with the little cotton dress she was wearing, and she went out into the courtyard to find him. He had parked in the space marked doctors only.
‘Aren’t you warming the bell a little?’ she asked. ‘You’re not a doctor yet, you know.’
‘That’s right! Be snobby about it! I had to put the car somewhere, hadn’t I? There was no room for a matchstick anywhere else.’
She got into the car, an expensive one, and although Barbie had said so this afternoon, she had not thought of Ferdie as being rich. It was lined with black leather, most comfortable, and she sank back into it, grateful for its luxury. When they moved, it went smoothly, it was like sitting on a very benign chesterfield sofa, the kind her mother clung to at home.
They went out of London, just too late for the bad rush hour, and on to Egham (Sally had never realized what a sweet little village old Egham was), up the hill at the far end, then down again to Virginia Water. He turned off the main road then, into woodland with a green park on one side of them and oak trees on the other. It was cool, and there was the delicious smell of verdure.
‘It’s nice here,’ he said.
‘I’ve never been this way before.’
He ran the car on to the side under an enormous oak tree. It gave the feeling of a tent spread over them, and every little while there came the purr of leaves against each other, and a coolness which was most acceptable. You could hear the noise of the traffic on the main road, but that had become like a sea with a tide which had crescendo, and then decrescendo, then came nearer again.
He brought out a packet of sandwiches.
‘These are really quite nice, the home-made sort, for I hate bought sandwiches, and on hot nights I come down to a place like this and eat sandwiches. It’s pleasant at the end of the day.’
‘It’s lovely.’
Here was pâté, chopped egg and cress, smoked salmon, and she remembered ‘no breakfast’, then hardly any lunch, and no tea. ‘I’m going to be something of a pig,’ she murmured.
‘Good!’
‘I didn’t know I was quite so tired. At this job you go on and on, then the moment it stops, you stop, too. Then you know.’
He had brought with him a bottle of sparkling wine, and made her have some. It was the right meal at the right hour, and she seemed to be changing towards him. She was almost ashamed that this could happen, but he was a very charming young man. They had met in odd circumstances, and what she had done had been to save both Ferdie and Barbie from a very nasty situation; now tonight she could see it as it were from a distance. She could see herself, and she was not feeling so badly about it all.
‘This is a lovely place to be in.’
‘It’s better than those nasty little cafes round St Gray’s.’
‘I know, and on student’s pay it often has to be the nasty little cafe, or the dining-hall, and that is vile, as everybody knows.’
‘It’s the same in the medical school. It’s good that you like it here, I thought you would. It’s quiet and peaceful. I wonder if the Queen has ever roamed under these trees.’
‘I wonder, too.’
He brought out a basket of fruit. It was just the right picnic for the hour, and this young man had good taste. He talked of his own spoilt youth.
‘It was bound to happen, coming after all those girls.’
‘What made you want to go in for medicine?’
‘Mum, of course. She had designed that before I was born. No good protesting. She had hoped one of my sisters would take it on, but oh no, they were a bit of a mixed bag. So it had to be me.’
‘You like it?’
‘Of course I like it. You couldn’t be a good doc if you didn’t like it. Too much like hard work. I do like it.’ He paused, then spoke again. ‘What are we going to do about this?’
‘You mean about us?’
‘Yes, about us.’
‘I ‒ I don’t know.’
‘We shall have to treat it very quietly. Go about together, and I promise I won’t be difficult. Then possibly we shall have an awful row, and end the whole thing. I shall qualify, with luck.’
‘Then it breaks off?’
‘Yes, but we shall have to be careful, for the Matron and the Warden will keep an eye on us, of course. We must do nothing in a hurry.’
‘I am worried about it.’
‘Why should you be?’ and he turned quickly. ‘The other man? There was another man, the fellow you spoke about.’ He hesitated, then he said, ‘I’m most awfully sorry about that one.’
‘He won’t know,’ she said quietly, ‘it need not worry you.’
‘It should never have happened, and I think we both feel the same way over that. But it has happened, and now the thing to do is to treat it as best we can, and end it when the first opportunity presents itself.’
He was not entirely the Lothario whom she had disliked so much. He could be a very charming companion and a very kind friend, and she was grateful for this.
‘You’re being very kind, and it is quite lovely here.’
‘I shall get you back well on time.’
She gathered some early honeysuckle from the hedge and knew that the perfume would fill her room all night. Then as they started on the home journey, she was angry with herself for having enjoyed it so much. Instinctively she was biased against Ferdie Strong, for she felt that he had behaved badly in ever permitting this to happen. But this evening he had shown a very different side to his nature, which she was now finding rather defeating.
He ran the car back into the place marked doctors only (One day he’ll have trouble over that, she thought), and she made a dash for the nurses’ home.
She was even slightly early.
She slept badly that night, finally falling off when she was almost due to rise, then sprang up in a panic, and went on duty without any breakfast. It was not the best way to succeed, but somehow too much had happened, and she knew that she was beginning to feel the strain of it. It was possibly this which had stopped her sleeping.
It was one of those difficult mornings, one for which she should have been fully ready to conduct matters, and fully awake. Two hernias, one a complicated op which took them over time. Then Mr Haxton came up; he had arrived at St Gray’s only a fortnight ago and was looked upon as being ‘new’. This time it was a mastoid. Usually mastoids today responded to antibiotic treatment, so that they did not have so many operations, but this patient was a young boy, allergic, it seemed, to every form of cure which could help him.
He was wheeled into the theatre quite unconscious, and laid on the table. Mr Haxton was a big abrupt man, clumsy, one would have thought, but the strange thing about these surgeons was that those who looked like big burly gardeners could be even gentler than a woman when they handled a scalpel.
He came closer.
I’d hate that man to touch me, Sally thought behind her mask. He asked the Theatre Sister a question, then turned to Dr Bridgewater about the anaesthetic. Apparently Mrs Bridgewater was going to a wedding this afternoon, and the doctor very much hoped to get away in time to attend it with her. The surgeon shook his head.
‘Better get someone to phone your wife that you could be delayed. This is a long job.’
‘But it’s only just after eleven.’ None of the staff had seen Dr Bridgewater look quite so petulant before. He was usually a quiet little man who never made a fuss.
‘I refuse to be hurried. This is a difficult job, I anticipate complications. It would be wise to let your wife know.’ He rapped it out almost as though it were an order, and Dr Bridgewater obviously lost heart, and beckoned to a student nurse from the side. He gave the telephone number and the message to her. Everyone knew that already the surgeon had upset the whole theatre over it.
Mr Haxton moved to the table, and the silence came. There was always something vaguely agitating about the first few minutes, even when you were used to them; that quietness, ominous save for the purr of the big lamps, or the chink of a scalpel against a bowl, the rustle of a gown, or a sudden command from the surgeon himself, who seemed to be the only one allowed to speak; then noticing the order of instruments used, which told them how the operation was progressing.
