A Weekend in The Garden (The Jason Trilogy Book 2) Read online

Catherine studied her hands and wondered how damned sure Mr MacDonald would be when he realized tonight Maria was staffed by a third-year and first-year with several heavy medical patients genuinely demanding constant attention in their separate rooms as well as his one post-op. Then she realized the possibility, if not probability that he wouldn’t have to realize this. She hoped not, for many reasons. Still thinking he’s in Martha’s, she mused without rancour, remembering how it had taken her a few weeks to accept the fact that no matter how urgently an extra nurse might be needed, if there wasn’t one, somehow, they had to manage without. But lacking the Night Superintendent’s phlegmatic temperament, though Catherine knew the night staff would do their best, she was aware of the times when their best couldn’t be good enough. This was her most constant professional anxiety, but being accustomed to anxieties, she had taught herself to live with it too.

  Matron’s office had been empty and Catherine crossing the front hall from her round of the second medical ward when Henry put through the call from the San. ‘Thought with any luck I’d catch you in the Office afore going up to Maria, Sister. A Nurse Ash would like a word personal. Got a message from Dr Jason, she says.’

  Catherine smiled instinctively, sat down at Matron’s desk and listened to Sugar Plum’s breathless conspiratorial voice. She kept repeating, ‘You’ll tell him tomorrow evening, Mrs Jason ‒ and give him my love ‒ and ‒ oh yes, I’ll give Dr Jason yours though he was nearly asleep when I left him.’

  ‘If he’s asleep, duckie, don’t wake him. Hand it on when he wakes. Got that? Fine. Yes ‒ sure ‒ I’ll tell him. I’ll nip along now. That’s okay ‒ have a good night.’

  There were no patients in Casualty when she went through. In the lodge, Henry was reading the Arumchester Argus, Joe Rolls was talking in an undertone into the telephone on the high standing desk at the back of the treatment alcove to his girlfriend at home who always rang him on Saturday nights when he was working; Nurse Blake was on a high stool in front of the unscreened emergency-set alcove, mending rubber gloves. A glass trolley laden with punctured gloves and repair equipment was drawn up beside her. Glove-mending in Casualty was done at night, in the theatre by day, and in both departments was a nursing occupation as continuous as the apocryphal painting of the Forth Bridge.

  ‘Don’t get up, nurse. Just passing through.’ Catherine exchanged waves with Joe and told Henry she’d be in Men’s Surgical for the next five minutes.

  ‘Aye, aye, Sister. Night Super’s just finished in there and gone aboard in Women’s.’ Henry wagged his grey head uneasily. ‘Don’t much fancy this flat calm.’

  Nurse Blake gloomily inflated a repaired glove and tested it against her cheek. ‘Personally, Sister, I think it’s downright unhealthy.’

  Joe momentarily covered the mouthpiece. ‘If this keeps up I’ll be on the dole. Nobody wants me anywhere.’

  Catherine’s eyes laughed. ‘I’m glad to see you’re all healthy. Nothing’s more unnerving than when the staff stop grumbling.’ She shot on from habit rather than present necessity.

  David Hartley was asleep and looking visibly stronger, but not too much so. A too great improvement too soon was always worrying. The night senior behind Mr Parsons’ drawn curtains heard the muted chorus, ‘Nurse! Sister Jason!’ and hurried out anxiously. She was a tall, be-spectacled serious-minded girl who always appeared in an acute-anxiety state, though she was one of the most competent third-years and already marked down by Matron as a future Men’s Surgical staff nurse. ‘So sorry, Sister ‒ just doing Mr Parsons’ back.’

  ‘I’m not here officially, nurse. Just a message for Mr Hartley.’ Catherine handed it on, put her head round the curtain to exchange greetings with Mr Parsons and tell him truthfully he looked much better tonight, then hurried out. She paused in the corridor at the clatter coming through the closed pantry door, then went in. ‘Sorry, Nurse Geraghty, but you mustn’t make this row. The men’ll never get to sleep with you breaking up the happy home in here.’

  Nurse Geraghty spun round from the sink, pushed her cap further awry with one wet hand and absently dried the other on her damp apron skirt. ‘It’s sorry I am, Sister. I’d no conception at all I was making a noise.’

  ‘Everything makes a noise at night, nurse.’ Catherine looked the pantry over. ‘I’ll give you a tip. When you’re washing up at night, cover the draining board with any tea-towel too damp to use ‒ so.’ She glanced at the damp apron. ‘Here’s another. Shift from that sink, duckie. Watch me.’ She stood at but a few inches back from the sink. ‘Get yourself in the habit of never letting any part of the front of your apron touch any part of a sink in here or the sluice. That saves that wet patch over your belt and tummy and if you have to dry your hands in a hurry, never use your apron, use the back of your dress under your apron skirt. So.’ She demonstrated on herself. ‘No one ever notices smears on one’s dress skirt, but messy aprons worry patients as they expect us all to look white and starched and the sight of a messy apron convinces them something terrible must be happening.’

  Nurse Geraghty’s round face was pink with embarrassed interest. ‘Would that be why you took off your apron at once last night, Sister, when it was all soaked with the blood?’

  ‘Bright girl. Yes. Blood on a nurse’s apron really shatters a ward. I learnt that one in the war.’

  ‘You were nursing then, Sister? In that old war?’

  Catherine controlled her amusement. From the kid’s expression, time was when Miss Nightingale and I walked hand in hand in the wards of Scutari. ‘Yes. From ’40 onwards. I was a VAD for a couple of years before I started training. The experience came in dead handy when I was a pro ‒ we were “pros” in my time, not first-year student nurses. Not that there’s any difference in the work. Non-stop skivvying for us, too. But I got the hang early of keeping my Red Cross apron clean, by always sticking out my bottom when near a sink. So! And if you’ve ever wondered why so many sisters and staff nurses walk round wards with their bosoms out fore and bottoms out aft, here’s your answer. We all picked up the habit scrubbing out kitchens and sluices as pros. Brought a clean spare apron on with you? Good girl. Change into it as soon as you’ve finished in here, but don’t bundle this one up. It’s only damp, not dirty. Hang it up to dry on one of the bathroom hot rails, then it’ll be a semi-spare if you need another before morning. Don’t look so glum, nurse.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve only damped yourself. When I was a pro I once slipped in a ward and emptied the basin of washing water in my hands over Sister at the middle table.’

  Nurse Geraghty clasped her hands in ecstasy. ‘You never did such a thing, Sister! And what did Sister do?’

  ‘Tore me off a strip and sent me to Matron who called me a butter-fingered unpatriotic lemon as starch was short in wartime. I lived it down with Matron, not that Sister. She gave me the worst ward report I ever collected and I collected more than a few. But I must get up to Maria. Thanks, nurse.’

  Nurse Geraghty held open the door. ‘I’ll not be forgetting what you’ve said, Sister.’ And to prove it, immediately she closed the door she spent the next few minutes prancing round the pantry with her bosom and bottom thrust out.

  The hospital garden looked so lovely and smelt so exquisite in the long, lingering summer twilight that Catherine was tempted to loiter on the ramp. When Mrs Ford vanished down Maria corridor, Catherine was glad she hadn’t. It took her another fifteen minutes to soothe Mrs Rogers, look in briefly on the elderly retired bank manager recovering from bronchial pneumonia in 2, and move on to 3.

  The room was very quiet and filled with rose-coloured light. The curtains drawn across the windows still closed to keep out the noise of the Fair that had ended two hours ago were the same shade as Mark’s new pyjamas and matched the carpet and the loose cover of the armchair pushed back into a corner. It wasn’t a large room, and for easier movement round the single high white hospital bed, the locker, a couple of hard chairs and the bedtable holding the chart, notes, the single thermometer in d
isinfectant in a former fish-paste jar, blood-pressure machine and ward stethoscope, were lined up against a wall. The bed with the white stand holding the drip-infusion at the foot and discontinued oxygen cylinder at the head, looked incongruously aseptic on the crimson carpet and the girl in the white operation gown lying with her eyes closed and pale face framed by short pigtails of black hair tied at the ends with neat white gauze bandage bows, looked small and forlorn.

  Catherine knew she was awake before she gently touched her wrist. She said very quietly, ‘I just want to take your blood-pressure, Mrs Jones. I’ll try not to disturb you too much. Don’t bother talking if you don’t feel up to it.’

  The girl opened unhappy brown eyes. ‘What the hell does it matter how I feel ‒ oh ‒ another new face.’

  ‘Sorry. Yes. I’m the Night Sister.’

  ‘You are?’ The girl frowned. ‘I thought the fat old biddy who shoved a harpoon into me said she was the Night Sister.’

  ‘Night Superintendent. I’m her junior stooge. There are two of us Night Sisters, but the other’s on holiday at the moment. May I have this arm?’ Catherine rolled up the gown sleeves, fitted on the inflatable blood-pressure bandage, connected it with the machine and hitched on the stethoscope. ‘Won’t take a minute.’

  The girl stared up at the expressionless fair face with growing antipathy. ‘I suppose you’re not going to tell me what it is?’ Catherine smiled and removed the bandage. ‘No. But would it mean anything to you if I did?’

  ‘Suppose not. Anyhow, what the hell?’

  Catherine said nothing, replaced the machine and stethoscope on the table, made a couple of entries on the chart, and waited.

  ‘I bet you all think me the original fallen woman, Sister.’ Catherine went back to the bedside.

  ‘That shows you don’t know much about hospitals, duckie. Sorry. You’ve lost that bet.’

  ‘Is this just part of the patter or do you really mean it?’

  ‘Both.’ Catherine went for a hard chair, set it by the bed and sat down. ‘My feet can use it.’

  ‘That’s patter too. What you really mean is you want to have a heart-to-heart.’

  Catherine took her time. All patients needed careful handling; the best way was through their own strength. The reverse could be used successfully, but it was much more difficult. ‘Again, the answer’s both. If you’d been on nights for a year you’d use a chair whenever you could.’

  ‘A year?’ The girl was reluctantly interested. ‘Why in hell?’ She looked at Catherine’s left hand. ‘Widow?’

  God forbid. ‘No. My husband’s got TB. He’s a patient in Oakden Sanatorium and as we’ve no kids I work nights to have more time off in the day with him.’

  ‘My God.’ The girl closed her eyes. ‘Sorry. Had the wrong number.’ She opened her eyes and added accusingly, ‘Your fault for looking so bloody glam and so bloody efficient.’

  ‘Would you really feel happier to be nursed by incompetent battleaxes looking like the backs of buses?’

  The girl smiled faintly, reluctantly. ‘Perhaps not. God, I feel bloody.’

  ‘You would. You’ve had a tough time.’

  ‘That’s not why, as you bloody well know!’ The words were spat. ‘My baby had it a bloody sight tougher! It was ‒ oh hell! What’s the use of trying to explain? It’s all over! I didn’t want to do it ‒ I honestly didn’t want to ‒ but what else could I do? I ‒ I always knew he was married and wouldn’t be able to help me if ‒’ she broke off. Then, ‘I know you won’t believe this, Sister. It was just once.’

  ‘Oh yes, I believe you. No kidding. You’re not the first girl I’ve believed who’s told me that. I know. Anyone who’s worked in a gynae ward or done midder knows ‒ once is enough for conception.’

  ‘So the quack was right,’ she murmured.

  Catherine stayed silent.

  ‘You needn’t try and look dumb, Sister. I’m not dumb. I’m not going to tell you his name though he’s not struck-off or anything. Just someone who knows someone who knows someone and so on. He said as I wanted the baby, couldn’t my parents help? Not a hope and not their fault. My father’s pension is just enough for them to live on. I’ve supported myself since I left school. I’ve got a good job as a ‒ hell ‒ this stuffs making me muzzy. What was I saying? Yes ‒ my job. Nine quid a week. Luckily my boss never spotted I was pregnant and nor did anyone else who mattered or I’d have been fired. I don’t know what I’m going to tell him on Monday.’

  ‘That’s simple. Tell him you’ve got ’flu and been whisked in here as you passed out on the coach. People don’t usually collapse with ’flu, but the symptoms can be so varied that anything’s possible, specially in today’s heat. That’ll explain why you got on the wrong coach, will need at least a couple of weeks off and will look pale and interesting when you get back.’

  The girl raised her head, ‘Yes! Oh. Won’t the hospital tell him the truth?’

  ‘You sure don’t know much about hospitals. Blood from a stone is a piece of cake compared to getting information about any patient out of any hospital unless you happen to be the next-of-kin. And in some, even they can have it tough.’

  ‘What about my sick-note?’

  ‘Couldn’t you lose that one too? Like your Identity Card? If he plays up, suggest he rings The Garden to check you’ve been here.’

  The girl had flushed faintly. ‘He won’t do that. He’s a decent old chap. Only, respectable as hell. On my own, I could always get another job, but not with a baby. I couldn’t have supported it without a job, or got anywhere to live. I’d have been thrown out of my digs had my landlady guessed. Landladies slam their front doors if you turn up asking for rooms with a baby in your arms. I know! One of my girlfriends slipped up last year. She tried ‒ God ‒ she did try ‒ on what? Thirty bloody bob (30/-) a week from the National Assistance. That’s the most you can get. I thought about it. I thought like hell, Sister ‒ and what a bloody choice! Either kill my baby or see it starve or have to give it to the Waifs and Strays or Barnardo’s or someone and never see it again. I had to do it, Sister ‒ I had to.’ Her voice broke. ‘What else could I do?’ she urged and began to cry.

  Catherine sat on the edge of the bed and cradled the girl’s head and shoulders in her arms until she had calmed. She didn’t say the weeping had helped, though it had, or anything at all. A few minutes later the girl lay back, her red eyes closed, and yawned deeply.

  ‘God, I am so tired. I feel as if I haven’t slept for weeks.’

  ‘I expect you’ve got a lot to make up. And that shot the Super gave you is beginning to do its stuff. It wasn’t an immediate knockout. Slow, but lasts longer.’

  ‘Good.’ She blinked more wearily than unhappily. ‘I’ve had it for tonight. You be back?’

  Catherine was on her feet. ‘In and out. So will the night nurses, but if you want anything anytime no one’s around, just press this.’ She put the girl’s hand on the electric bell with its flex running through the large safety-pin fixed to her top pillow.

  ‘Someone else told me that ‒ oh yes ‒ the dark thin surgeon with the rather dreamy voice who’s nuts on fishing.’

  ‘Mr MacDonald.’

  ‘That his name? Don’t think he said ‒ he might’ve done. He kept appearing this afternoon and just before old Fatso gave me that shot he came and sat on my bed and talked about fishing. I don’t know why. It was quite restful just listening to him waffling on as I liked his voice. Something he did say ‒ what? ‒ oh yes ‒ why everyone kept calling me Mrs. He said it saved me from having to put up with a lot of boring questions. Made sense.’ Her eyes fell shut. ‘I am so tired.’

  Again Catherine stayed silent. A couple of minutes later when the Maria night senior came in quietly, the girl was asleep. Catherine’s eyebrows signalled that they would discuss her condition in the corridor and they were backing out when simultaneously they stiffened then swung their heads towards the windows. The next second they were behind the still drawn chintz cu
rtains at separate windows and gazing out over the heads of the late evening strollers on the Green and High Street pavements. All the strollers below had as suddenly stopped, and every head in sight was turned towards the road up Oakden Down.

  The cacophony of clashing metal, screaming tyres, squealing brakes and oddly muffled thuds reverberated through the Sanatorium. Mark stirred in sleep, sighed, and slept on. But all along the cement plateau little groups of up-patients in their hastily pulled on and much stoved and washed white towelling Sanatorium dressing-gowns, stood staring downwards. In the deepening dusk they made ghostly figures against the shadows of the buildings and their ward night lights were still pale as the evening star.

  No one below noticed the figures that had only appeared after Catherine’s single agonized glance at the row of small wards. And then their Night Superintendent shoo-ed them back to bed. ‘Back you go, this instant, my dears! Back to bed, please, and try not to disturb the patients already asleep. I know how you are all feeling and I’m very sorry you’ve been woken, but you must remember you are patients yourselves and your rest is essential and I’m here to see you get it. Back you go ‒ all of you ‒ back to bed! I’ll be round to see you’ve all settled very shortly and if I’ve any news you can depend on my telling you.’

  Once the plateau cleared, she walked slowly past the small wards. All sleeping. Good. Nevertheless, knowing Dr Jason, she retraced her steps. He was a better actor than many people realized, but she had nursed tubercle too long, she reflected, for any patient to pull the wool over her eyes. She went quietly into his room and stood for over a minute checking his respirations. Then she checked his glasses were in their case on the locker-top and binoculars on the lower shelf. She had never let him know she knew his secret habit of hiding both under his top sheet when pretending sleep. All good patients had their secrets, needed the comfort of believing them unsuspected, and he was a very good patient. She sighed and turned away without touching his pulse. He was one of those patients always woken by even the lightest touch and there was nothing she didn’t know about his condition. She was deeply relieved he’d been asleep already. He’d said he thought he’d get off early and had had a splendid day.