A Weekend in The Garden (The Jason Trilogy Book 2) Page 10

  Close to tears of relief, Catherine smiled. ‘Please don’t worry over that, Mrs Weston. I expect I’ll sleep very well. I always did on nights in training. Noise didn’t bother me unless it actually involved me.’

  ‘If you think you will, my dear, then that’s all settled. I think we now deserve some coffee.’

  Catherine had never slept quite as well, as, in the last year, she had managed to convince Mrs Weston. Mark had known this without being told, but his professional knowledge had forced him to accept Catherine was somehow getting enough sleep; she had not had one night off sick since she started in The Garden or had even a cold in the head. She had the great physical stamina so often at its greatest in the slight and wiry. Recently, she had secretly been conscious, and in bed on that Saturday morning she was acutely so, that even the strongest individual has a physical breaking-point and she was nearing hers. She had seen Mark break physically. Never mentally.

  A year ago in his office, Dr Skinner asked her privately, ‘Can you manage to keep this up, Mrs Jason?’

  She looked at him before she answered. ‘I’ll manage, doctor. I have to.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes. When one has to do something, one can do it.’

  Think, she thought, think. She stared with sandpapered eyes at the dusty leaves of the oaks, at the dandelions and overgrown grass on the lawn. Ruth had promised to drive her up to pay a short surprise visit to Mark this evening, but she couldn’t leave the words she might have to say until then. When she first woke in the evenings now, her mind went into slow-motion until she got into uniform. Once in uniform, old habit and long training jolted her immediately into her professional self. She hitched her hair up from the back of her head, spread it fan-like over her single pillow, and chose, discarded and re-chose words and the monologue next door ran on.

  ‘… and don’t get so engrossed in your sermon that you forget you’re helping judge the children’s Fancy Dress at three-thirty, that you’ll need at least fifteen minutes for the drive in today’s traffic and to close the outer front door when you leave to show the parish we’re both out. If Catherine’s friend Ruth arrives before I’m back she’ll know to go round the garden to the french window ‒ and that reminds me, William! Remind me to look in on Ruth’s cousin in The Garden tomorrow afternoon. She says he should be allowed general visitors by then. And don’t forget to put him on your Garden visiting list. William! Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Most attentively, my dear.’ The vicar was a large, amiable white-haired man with a large, amiable voice. ‘I’ve jotted it down: children three-thirty; drive fifteen minutes; close front door; remind M. ‒ what is the name of this unfortunate young fellow?’

  ‘Hartley, dear. David Hartley. Bed 5, Men’s Surgical.’

  ‘One moment ‒ there! Will you be back for tea?’

  ‘Of course I won’t and nor will you. We’ll have it at the Fair. The Working Men’s Club are running refreshments and entertainments as usual.’

  ‘How pleasant. The Working Men provide excellent teas.’

  ‘They take great pains but only the tea’ll be palatable. The heat in that tent will have the bridge rolls swimming in margarine and all the sandwiches curling ‒ ah, the bell! It’ll be Beryl Edgehurst to collect me and I haven’t got my hat on ‒’

  ‘I’ll attend to her, my dear.’ The vicar stomped from study to glass inner front door and welcomed the anaesthetist’s wife with the announcement that Oakden was singularly blessed in its Fair weather.

  ‘Good for the Fair, vicar, not The Garden.’

  The last two words rather than Mrs Edgehurst’s high voice penetrated Catherine’s mind. She had lifted her head before the vicar’s, ‘Keeping the good doctor busy?’

  ‘Busy! They had him back twice last night and he’s been there since breakfast. Casualty, he said, when he rang whilst I was waiting for lunch. He said I’d better put his back in the oven and walk to the Fair and he’d try and pick me up at The Green later. Some poor gel collapsed on the London coach that had just got in. I suspect appendicitis. Gerald said young Rolls had just had to call Alex’s locum down from the San., otherwise I’d have thought heatstroke more likely. I can’t think why the locum was up there. I didn’t know Alex had any TB patients ‒ one piece of good news ‒ Alex’s father is a little better and Alex rang The Garden just before Gerald rang me to say he thinks he may be back for sure Tuesday night ‒ ah, there you are, Maud! Afraid we’re going to have to walk but we’ll probably be quicker. High Street’s chock-a-block …’

  Catherine flopped back in bed. Aggie’s in Cas. thank God, she thought. And then she thought, if he only got up there around one, Mark may have been asleep. She closed her eyes. Please God, please, let my darling Mark have been asleep. Seconds later, she was asleep.

  In those seconds, across the high street, in the inspector’s small office behind the booking-hall of the bus station, the driver of the London coach that had arrived in Oakden at 1 p.m., sipped a mug of tea. ‘I don’t mind telling you,’ he admitted between sips, ‘she gave me a fair turn. There she was sitting up the left window corner of the back seat looking like she was still kipping when the others got off. “Wakey, wakey, miss!” I calls. “Oakden. Last stop this run. You want to get off.” She opens her eyes and gives me a nice little smile. Nice looking young lady. She makes to stand then says, well-spoken, “So sorry ‒ don’t think I can ‒” and down she goes. Then I gets close and being a family man I sees what she needs is The Garden sharpish, for all it don’t take women’s troubles no more. Still, a doctor’s a doctor and a hospital’s a hospital and as well for her she weren’t took queer till Oakden. Wouldn’t much’ve fancied seeing what I sees in that long haul up over the Downs.’

  Mrs Parsons lowered her comfortable figure onto the seat of her husband’s locker and decorously adjusted the accordion-pleated skirt of the cerise rayon with a cross-over bodice that Mr Parsons had used his own clothing coupons to buy her last month. Her black hair was layered in tight sausage curls and her contented face still pink from the drier. ‘Took on shocking, I did, Harry, when the old Sister rang in the night to say you’d gone back down the theatre. Wanted to come straight up I did but the old Sister said best not as you was under the anaesthetic and all gone lovely and to ring Sister Men’s Surgical soon as she come on at eight. Afore I done that I said to our Angela, soon as Eloise opens you nip along and cancel my hair-do. But Sister Men’s Surgical said as you was resting lovely and best to leave it till this afternoon, and stay shortish and only the one at a time. So seeing as I promised Mrs Weston I’d give a hand on the Mothers’ Union stall and you’d said particular to have the hair-do, I done like you said.’ She studied her husband. ‘I’ll not say you don’t look a mite peaky, but that’s a nice plaster the new surgeon give you.’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘All right’ was Oakden’s highest approval, but as Oakden never formed hasty judgements and Mr Parsons was an Oakden man, he added dourly, ‘Seemly’. He eyed his wife with a satisfaction he concealed. ‘Took on, did you?’

  ‘Shocking, Harry. Our Angela was ever so good. She’d the kettle on and would’ve gone down the road in her pyjamas for my mum if I’d not shouted to put on her school mack. Ever so upset she was but real cheered up when Sister Men’s said to tell her special to look in later today. Thinks the world of her dad, she does.’

  Mr Parsons scowled to hide his joy. Angela Parsons was a clever child with her father’s colouring and determination. She had passed the Eleven-plus at Oakden Primary and moved straight into the A-stream in Arumchester Girls’ Grammar School where she was now a sub-prefect in the first-year Sixth, with 9 O-levels and according to her head teacher ‘sailing serenely towards 3 A-levels and university’. Mr Parsons’ pride in his daughter’s academic prowess maintained a running battle with his engrained belief that a woman’s place was in the home. When Angela attacked him on the last, he said there was no harm in a girl getting herself a decent education before she sett
led down to looking after her husband and children. When the subject of all this educating girls arose over his nightly pint in The Wheatsheaf ‒ he never had more than one in two halves ‒ he said he didn’t blame any girl for fancying her schoolbooks to the shower of layabouts that called themselves lads in Oakden and when his girl was busy on her homework he knew where she was of an evening which was more than he could say for others present.

  Fortunately for Angela, as her father’s pride was a local legend, she had inherited her mother’s charm and had a sense of humour that was her own. She was popular at school and the seat next to hers on the school bus was the cause of regular fights amongst the senior boys of Arumchester Boys’ Grammar. The Grammar bus ‒ a coach ‒ ran non-stop between Oakden and Arumchester, and was sub-contracted from a private coach firm in Arumchester. Being half-term weekend for both Grammar Schools, for that afternoon the school bus had reverted to its former occupation and was one of three taking holiday visitors from Arumchester on a tour of the district south-east of Oakden.

  The yellowish tinge had gone, but Mr Parsons was still pale and notwithstanding his long sleep, his eyes were shadowed. ‘Give me a bit of a shock, Nell,’ he said. ‘When I see that blood spurt up and then Sister Jason ‒’

  ‘Blood!’

  ‘Didn’t the old Sister say?’

  ‘Not rightly. I mean ‒ well ‒ I didn’t like to ask. Taken poorly, she said. Got to go back the theatre. What ‒ what happened, Harry?’

  Mr Parsons enjoyed the effect of his explanation. Up and down the ward his fellow patients were enjoying entrancing their visitors. By now, Mr Parsons, his bed and Catherine were soaked to the skin in blood and the five minutes between MacDonald’s receiving the telephone call in the Gordons’ guest-room and arriving in Men’s Surgical, cut to five seconds.

  ‘If I’d gone Private like you said, Nell, and had to ring the bell for a nurse in one of the little rooms up that Maria Ward, how long would it have taken afore she stopped it, eh? Up in Maria, sterilizing-room where they keep the tubes and things is down by the Sister’s office. She’d have had to run for the tourniquet, run back to me, run back to the office to ring to fetch up the Sister ‒ and what do you think would’ve happened to me then, eh, my girl?’

  Mrs Parsons mopped her eyes. ‘It was Meant, Harry, that’s what. Meant.’

  He avoided her eyes. ‘I’ll not say my luck wasn’t in.’

  She gazed at him anxiously. She had never before heard him admit to being in luck about anything. He had never told her of the time in the desert when the sergeant sent him to brew-up whilst he and the other lads shifted their broken-down trailer off the road and a minute or so later hit a landmine. Not enough left of any to fill a bully-beef tin. Mr Parsons thought he had forgotten all that until last night when Sister Jason gave that tourniquet a real good tug and ‒ and it stopped. He had fainted then for the first time in his life and when he came round his first thought had been ‒ still got the one left.

  Mrs Parsons didn’t know what to say. She looked round at the half-drawn curtain of Bed 5. ‘Not allowed visitors?’ she whispered.

  ‘Aye. Only family today. A young lady come in this morning afore you. Didn’t stay as he’s kipping. Down from London, Chesty over in 15 was saying. Cousin. Not got hisself a wife yet and his mum and dad’s on their holidays. He come in last night. Copped it up the cross-roads off the bypass. Cops was in this morning, Chesty says and he heard ’em tell the Sister the car’s so burnt out you’d not reckon what it was. I’d a word with him dinner-time. Name of Hartley. Bit of a toff but a nice enough young chap, seemly. Doing nicely, the Sister says and needs his kip.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ She had another peep round the curtain. ‘Shame. Nice looking young chap. On his holidays?’

  ‘Nah. Just the weekend.’

  ‘You’re sounding tiring, Harry. Best leave you to have a rest.’

  ‘Aye. Best. Off you get but don’t you go spending money like it grows on trees. I know what Fair’s like.’

  She was happier. This was more like Harry. ‘All in a good cause, Harry, as you well know.’ She rose and kissed his cheek. ‘Take care, God bless and mind you be good.’

  ‘Huh! Fat chance I got to be anything else tied up by the leg in this bed.’

  She smiled down at him, enjoyed the sympathetic and interested glances of all the other visitors, and exchanged smiles with Mrs Barnes but not with Mrs Ellis. Their mothers were first cousins and hadn’t been speaking since no one could remember when or for why. Blood, Mrs Parsons told Angela, was thicker than water. On her way out, she paused in the open doorway of Sister Men’s Surgical day-office. The young staff nurse reading the ward report book looked up. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Just stopped to say I’m leaving now, Staff. Our Angela’ll be in later. He looks a mite poorly, but got to expect that, Sister said over the phone.’

  The staff nurse smiled politely, ‘Oh yes. Goodbye for now.’ She waited until Mrs Parsons was out of the short corridor to cross quickly to the pantry and demand of the second-year preparing teas, ‘Who is that woman in red on the ramp? Accordion skirt.’

  The second-year stuck her head out of the window. ‘Mrs Parsons. 6’s wife. Secondary haemorrhage last night.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Thank goodness!’

  ‘Why, Staff?’

  ‘Oh ‒ nothing, thanks.’ The staff nurse rushed back to re-read the report book. She had no idea yet why she had been hastily sent from her own ward Men’s Medical to take over Men’s Surgical, or how long she would be there. All she knew was that the staff nurse she was replacing had been temporarily needed in Maria too urgently to give her a verbal ward report. ‘Read the report and any problem shout for Ginger or the Ass. Mat. Sister’s off two-to-five,’ was all she’d had time to say.

  The Assistant Matron gratefully sipped weak tea from a fluted cup. Who would have thought that charming man could be so difficult? She had done her best to try and explain that she was not responsible for the new ruling. He had cut her short most abruptly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister, but to hell with the new rules. That girl’s staying here pro tem. Rolls says you have an empty room in Maria ‒’

  ‘Room 3, Mr Mac ‒ umm ‒ but booked by Dr Smythe our senior consultant ‒’

  ‘I’m aware of Dr Smythe’s position, Sister, and that that room’s empty until tomorrow morning. Rolls says you’re allowed to admit NHS patients to the private rooms as General Ward Emergencies. We’ll admit this girl to Room 3 as a GWE straight from the theatre. Will you please arrange for her to be specialed by a surgical staff nurse when she reaches Maria. I’ll let you know when the special can be discontinued.’ He signed and handed her the Admission Form. ‘I’ll ring Dr Smythe later. Excuse me. I’m due in the theatre.’ He strode out of the Matron’s Office as fast as he had come in.

  The Assistant Matron took another sip of tea, picked up the Admission Form and sighed over the entries in MacDonald’s neat italic script. Name, Mary Jones: Age, 22: Next-of-kin, None known: Religion, C. of E.: Address, London (Unspecified.) Patient ‘staying with friends’: Diagnosis, Miscarriage. Mr., Mrs., Miss: Miss. (Identity Card lost.)

  Not her real name, of course. They all called themselves Jones, Brown, Smith, or something similar and usually Mary. They all claimed to have no next-of-kin, to be staying with friends, and have lost their Identity Cards. However, she was relieved by the written diagnosis. When MacDonald had told her bluntly, ‘C.A., Sister,’ from the look on his face she had quite expected to be forced to enter ‘Criminal Abortion’ in the hospital report book and once in writing the law had to be observed. What Matron would have then said, she dreaded to think. Of course the poor foolish girls knew they had broken the law and that was why they would never admit by whom or where their babies had been aborted. None ever seemed to have realized they were risking their own lives and that the results of unsterile, illegal instruments in incompetent hands could be exceedingly grave and not infrequently, fatal.

 
Oh dear. It would have to be Fair afternoon. The Management Committee were not going to like this at all and nor would Dr Smythe. It had to be remembered that Dr Smythe was the cardiologist and senior consultant physician to the Arumchester group, that physicians took precedence over surgeons, and that whatever Mr MacDonald’s position in St Martha’s, in The Garden he was merely a locum. Dr Smythe had especially insisted on Room 3 for the cardiac he was sending in tomorrow; the patient’s heart had gone into failure and 3 was the quietest room in Maria. It overlooked The Green, which was why Dr Smythe was waiting until tomorrow to remove his patient from her sickbed at home.

  It was all very difficult. Sister Men’s Surgical was not going to be at all happy when she returned to find a medical staff nurse had taken over, but what else could she, the Assistant Matron, do? Mr MacDonald had just refused to listen to reason. If only it hadn’t been Saturday the coach would have gone to Arumchester, but on Saturdays they ran extra coaches to cope with the weekend visitors. The poor girl had told Staff Nurse Martin she had expected to go on to Arumchester, and Staff Nurse Martin had found the return ticket in the girl’s handbag.

  The Assistant Matron sighed again and not unkindly. Victims of backstreet abortionists were very rare in The Garden, but her pre-war non-teaching hospital had been in a large industrial city. She had seen too many post-C.A.s carried in half-dead, any longer to be shocked by what she accepted as the regrettable moral frailty of some young women. She laid no responsibility on the men involved because she never remembered men were involved. And as she had never seen one man visit the post-C.A. patient with whom he had conceived the aborted baby, in this context her memory remained unrefreshed. She was genuinely sorry for the poor girl, but that didn’t alter the fact that The Garden was no longer supposed to admit gynaecological cases. Oh dear.