Edinburgh Excursion Read online

  ‘Don’t bother, please. Thanks for everything. You’ve been’, I said, ‘incredibly kind.’

  ‘And what were you to Mrs Thompson?’

  We looked at each other as if we were very old friends, and both forgot to say goodnight. I went down quickly and let myself in. I did not hear his door close.

  The flat was empty and only the hall light was on. A note on the hall table said Miss Bruce had rung earlier to explain why I would be late. At ten-thirty, when Robbie had been called back on duty, the party had moved en masse to Bassy’s flat. ‘Ring if you feel up to coming on, and Wilf’ll collect you in his car. If not, please leave chain off door. G. and C.’

  I took the note, a sandwich, and milk into my bedroom, put out clean uniform, set my alarm, then sat for ages on the side of my bed, looking at the ceiling.

  ‘A wee bit grief’ was exactly how she would have put it.

  Chapter Five

  Wilf Hawkins had some time off owing, and stayed on till Sunday night. He was twenty-five, thickset, dark as Robbie, very good-natured, but no pushover. He seldom took his eyes off Gemmie and, on the rare occasions when he spoke, sounded like an early Beatle. He called us Cat, Al, and Gem.

  In confidence, Catriona and I told Gemmie that if she did not fancy him we did. Gemmie handed this on to Wilf in our presence.

  ‘Oh aye?’ Wilf smiled slowly. ‘Who’s first then? I’m not fussy.’

  The party had gone very well. The girls gave me every detail without asking for mine in return. They were too accustomed to death for morbid curiosity, and knew if I wanted to talk I would. I didn’t.

  Mrs Duncan said, ‘I’m sorry you’d that disturbing experience,’ and left it at that. This was not from callousness, but because to encourage any nurse or doctor to remain over-involved in the death of any patient is to encourage that person straight into a bed in a psychiatric ward. Sooner or later, for a little while, most nurses and doctors do become over-involved with some patient. Then, consciously, one has to move out of the shadows as there are always more shadows ahead. Old Mrs Thompson was dead, young Mr Brown was dying. Not that I found Mrs Thompson easy to forget, but for sanity and my other patients’ sake I had to make the effort. As Charles Linsey had been so involved in her death, I preferred not to think of him.

  Wilf’s visit disrupted our chore-rota. On Monday evening Catriona and I cooked supper together. It had been her day at the antenatal clinic; she had seen Robbie and he had asked after me. ‘I don’t think he really enjoyed the party without you, Alix.’

  ‘Sandra says he had a ball!’

  She cracked an egg with elegant disapproval. ‘Sandra is a bletherer and a troublemaker!’

  ‘You don’t want to take her so seriously.’ I guessed what was wrong, having had the inside story over the ’phone from Bassy. ‘So she made a pass at Robbie? Making passes is a reflex action for her.’

  ‘That’s no excuse! He was your date. You’d think she’d have more pride.’

  Pride was not a subject on which I cared to dwell. ‘Robbie’s not my personal property. We’re just casual dates.’

  She shot me a rather peculiar glance. ‘He hadn’t a reputation for casual dating in Glasgow. He may be more serious than you appreciate.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s not!’

  ‘Time will tell,’ she said, tritely and firmly. As time had already told Gemmie and me that beneath Catriona’s gentle and ultra-polite exterior lay a very strong and sometimes maddeningly stubborn character, I let it go.

  If I argued all night I would still lose out. In any clash between the three of us in the flat to date Catriona had always won. If she gave way, as over her party, it was because she had wanted to give way.

  Occasionally, and invariably without warning, Miss Bruce or another very senior sister escorted us on our rounds. The following day Miss Bruce came out with me.

  There were eleven calls on my morning list. The first was on Mr Brown. The front door was unlatched as his wife was at work and he was now having to spend nearly all his time in bed. If possible, his yellow face was even thinner and, in his wife’s absence, his huge, too-aware eyes had a dull glaze. He was reading a paperback thriller with a pornographic cover and on recognizing my companion pushed it into his bed. I didn’t think Miss Bruce had noticed. I should have remembered she was a very experienced District Supervisor.

  ‘The poor man,’ she said, when we were back in the car. ‘If any writer is capable of taking his mind off his ebbing health for a wee while I’m only too thankful.’ She read my immediate notes. ‘That was the usual amount of discharge? Dear me. Yes, yes, I agree he’s best left in his home as long as possible. He’s happiest there.’

  ‘He’s got a perfectly wonderful wife, Miss Bruce.’

  ‘Very evidently, Miss Hurst.’

  My other patients were enchanted by my high-powered escort. ‘Ye’ll be on yer best behaviour,’ they informed me, in audible whispers, ‘having the Lady Supervisor herself! Would the lady not wish to sit down?’

  Miss Bruce obligingly perched herself on tables, against chests-of-drawers, and in one house, as there was no other seat, on the foot of the patient’s bed.

  The patient, a Mrs Hunter, was an elderly arthritic, crippled in both arms and legs, but still able to use her hands through sheer will-power. She could crochet awkwardly, but skilfully, and never stopped. She never stopped talking, either. Whilst I blanket-bathed her she regaled us with her own and her neighbours’ affairs. The couple next door were not speaking, again. ‘Last year it was the ten months without the one word! Ye’ll no’ credit that, eh? And what’s he done now but bring home his fancy woman and the wife cooking for the three of them and not a word has she to say to her man! The words I’d say ‒ aye, Nurse, the water’s fine and hot ‒ and there’s Mrs MacDonald the two doors away returning to her own folk in Fife. Did ye not hear her man had passed on? Aye, up the hospital. Wait now, whiles I show you the fine wee words in the paper.’ I removed the washing-basin for her to twist round from the waist and rootle in the large plastic shopping-bag she kept by her pillows. She handed a cutting to Miss Bruce. ‘Do you see that “dearly loved husband of Mary MacDonald”? Five years she nursed him before he was away up the hospital last month ‒ and a terrible life he led her! Aye, but he was a hard man. He tried to stop her using his pension ‒ and the gas ‒ and she nursing him like her own bairn.’

  Miss Bruce said kindly, ‘Clearly a most devoted wife.’

  ‘Och no! She’d no use for him at all! Many’s the time she’d be in here. “And when’s the old de’il going to go?” she’d say. “I canna last out,” she’d say. “There’s no pleasing the old bugger, and I’ll be glad when he’s gone.” But she couldna put that in the paper.’

  ‘Scarcely suitable,’ agreed Miss Bruce. ‘Nevertheless, whatever her late husband’s faults, there seems no question that she was a most dutiful wife.’

  ‘That’s a fact.’ Mrs Hunter thrust her head through the neck of the clean, warmed flannel nightgown I was holding ready and emerged with a cheerful beam. ‘There’s some awful queer folks about. No doubt of that!’

  An administrative sister was waiting at the front door when we got back for lunch. ‘Maternity have just rung you, Miss Bruce. It’ll be convenient if you could slip up there now.’

  ‘Could you run me up, Miss Hurst? I’ll only be a few minutes, and whilst you’re waiting you may be allowed a look at your prem.’

  The Lady Superintendent of the maternity hospital handed me over to a young office sister. The office sister walked me briskly down a long polished corridor with pale-pink walls and ceiling, and stopped by the plate-glass window of the Special Care Nursery. ‘Alexander MacRae is in the Prem. Room, but if you’ll wait here, Miss Hurst, I’ll have a word about you with the ward sister.’

  I moved closer to the window. The two pupil-midwives sitting in low chairs and bottle-feeding babies glanced at me incuriously. The staff midwife by the weighing-table noticed me and came out. ‘Someone l
ooking after you, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Staff. An office sister.’

  ‘That’s an English voice I recognize.’ Robbie appeared in an office doorway as the midwife returned to her weighing-table. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Paying a social call on my prem., I hope.’ I nodded at the window. ‘How many of those are yours?’

  ‘No more than half and only two called Robert.’

  ‘Losing your touch, Doctor?’

  He came closer. ‘I’ve been thinking that, myself. I missed you at the party.’

  ‘I couldn’t help that ‒’

  ‘No, but you could’ve rung to apologize for standing me up. Why didn’t you?’ He seemed really peeved. ‘Seeing it was you that invited me.’

  I was tempted to invent, rather than hurt his feelings more, then remembered there was more than one way of doing that job. ‘I should’ve rung you. I’m sorry. Quite honestly, I forgot.’

  He smiled reluctantly. ‘I’m losing my touch, all right. Not merely neglected, but forgotten. And to make it worse, by a bloody Sassenach.’

  ‘You suffer, Robbie.’

  He dug his hands in the pockets of his long, limp white coat and hunched his huge shoulders. ‘And you,’ he said very quietly, ‘have the most beautiful dark-blue eyes I’ve ever seen. A man could drown in them gladly. Did you know?’

  The office sister was advancing down the corridor behind him with a mask and gown over one arm. I said, ‘And how is Mrs MacRae doing, Dr Ross?’

  The sister had reached us. He answered as if she had spoken, and I was now as transparent as the nursery window. ‘Mrs MacRae is getting along very nicely, but we’re keeping her in to be safe. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to hear Miss Hurst has been in to see wee Alex.’

  The sister said, ‘I expect Miss Hurst would like you to give Mrs MacRae her good wishes.’

  I said, ‘Please, Sister. Thank you.’

  England and Scotland might be different countries, but hospital etiquette had us on common ground. And after the more relaxed and much more adult inter-staff relationships on the district, this stilted formality I had for so long taken for granted struck me as silly and sad. I suddenly understood why so many senior ward sisters seemed ashamed of their femininity and passionately to resent it in their juniors. Keep up any act long enough and it ceases to become an act.

  Alex MacRae was asleep in his incubator. He now weighed three pounds ten ounces. ‘He looks wonderful, Staff. Like a baby, rather than a red, wrinkled hippie.’

  ‘He was your bairn?’ The Prem. staff midwife looked at me across the top of the incubator. ‘You’re the girl that uses shopping-baskets? You’ll not mind my saying it’s a wonder you got away with it?’

  ‘Not just a wonder, but a miracle. He scared the living daylights out of me. His mum thought him indigestion.’

  ‘But she did know she was carrying him. See these four-pounders.’ We crossed the tropically heated room to peer through more transparent walls. ‘The mother was over eight months gone and the first head presenting before she’d any idea she was pregnant.’

  ‘Two this size!’

  ‘Aye. She said neither she nor her husband had noticed anything unusual, apart from her putting on a wee bit weight round the belly, and as it’s eleven years since her last, they thought maybe she was at the change. She’s four others, and the lot laddies.’

  One of the twins was awake and drowsily blinking blue eyes. Both had delicately boned faces and a faint fuzz of red hair. ‘Is she pleased with these?’

  ‘Not yet. Maybe later. Maybe.’

  ‘Pity. These are cute. All complete?’

  ‘Perfect. So often the way with unwanted.’ She glanced over my head. ‘You’re wanted.’

  The sister and I were halfway down the corridor when Robbie galloped by, his white coat billowing behind him, and vanished through a door at the far end. I had noticed the door on our way in. It was marked baby resuscitation unit. When we reached it Sister said, ‘One moment, Miss Hurst,’ and went in. I waited, literally holding my breath. If there was a more disturbing sight than the tiny, terrifyingly limp body of a new-born baby in a state of collapse I hadn’t seen it.

  The sister reappeared as red in the face as myself. ‘They seem to be getting her going again.’ We walked on as briskly as before and in silence.

  The Dr MacDonald who had attended Mrs Thompson was Mr Brown’s G.P. I met him coming out of the buildings one afternoon some days later. ‘If I could bottle Archie Brown’s will-power I’d cure enough patients to have time for a game of golf with my wife. You a golfer, Nurse?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘You should learn. Good exercise, better relaxation.’ He watched the demolition workers across the road. ‘I’ll be glad when that job’s done and we’re rid of this dust. Have you heard it is about to be the object of a research project?’

  ‘The dust? No, Doctor. Why? So many sore throats and eyes?’

  ‘So few. For some unknown reason, the folk in this area are presently enjoying a remarkable freedom from such minor infections. That may well be coincidental, but the possibility of some bug-killing factor in this dust has occurred to learned minds. Any time now, Nurse, we’ll have a vanload of pathologists and technicians setting up shop over the way with their test-tubes, wee bags, and slides. I’ll be interested in their results.’

  ‘Do you approve of this project, Doctor?’

  He smiled lugubriously. ‘I always approve of the sight of other men working, Nurse. But, yes. In my opinion, the matter’s well worth investigation.’ He clicked open his pocket-watch. ‘Time I was away to my work and left you to yours. Good day to you.’

  I looked after him briefly and thought of Robbie. It was a Martha’s maxim that to be a successful G.P. a man needed first, luck; second, a wife; third, a black bag; fourth, patients.

  I turned away, had my usual chat with the small gang on the stairs, then on up to the Browns’ flat.

  Bassy was sitting on our stairs when I got back alone. Gemmie had gone to a movie with Sandra and Catriona had a late dental appointment. It was some time since I had seen Bassy. He wore a scarlet track-suit, white sneakers, sky-blue cravat, and one gold earring.

  ‘In drag, Bassy?’

  ‘Groovy!’ He fingered his earring. ‘Melly’s wearing the other. Any free nosh going? I’m skint.’

  ‘Sure.’ I removed my hat, coat, and shoes and took him into the kitchen. ‘Another vast book-bill?’

  ‘No. I’ll be all right when I draw out tomorrow, but if I do it today I’ll be skint two days next week.’

  I had a better look at him. ‘You’ve lost weight. Had lunch? Tea? For God’s sake, boy, breakfast? What?’

  ‘Milk. Pinta man, that’s me.’

  ‘Got a death-wish? Or just settling for tubercle?’ I draped the grill with bacon. ‘Milk alone’s not enough for a growing lad. Where’s the money gone? You’re generally so crafty at making yours last.’

  He sat on the kitchen table. ‘Some birds are more expensive than others.’

  I had not yet met Melanie. She had been at the party. Catriona described her as a very pretty little brunette, with huge goggle glasses; Gemmie, as one of yer actual female intellectuals. Wilf said, ‘Dead sexy.’ Aside from the goggles, the picture fitted all Bassy’s girlfriends from kindergarten upwards.

  ‘Melly doesn’t fancy going Dutch?’

  ‘She fancies it. I won’t let her. Her IQ’s higher than mine. Soothes my bruised ego to lash out.’

  ‘Won’t do your ego much good to have her bring you fruit and flowers when you’re smitten by some ugly bug. You will be if you keep this up.’ I added another egg to the frying-pan. ‘Tubercle’s under control, but still around.’

  ‘Take five, Cassandra. My life and my lolly.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself! Taxpayers’ plus Dad’s allowance.’

  ‘Stuff that!’ he retorted with a petulance that was mostly hunger. ‘When Dad hands out, how we use it is our
business. Nor’s the taxpayer handing out bloody charity. My grant’s an investment, and a something good investment. I’m the future of this country. Without my brains it probably will fall bloody apart.’

  ‘Which country? Scotland or England?’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Now there,’ I said smugly, ‘you are wrong.’ I repeated most of the conversation I had had on this with Charles Linsey.

  ‘When did he tell you this?’

  ‘The night I missed the party.’ I told him about Mrs Thompson. ‘I haven’t told you before as I didn’t feel up to it. I haven’t told anyone.’

  He moved off the table and drew up a chair for himself. ‘Pete saw you in Linsey’s car.’

  ‘Which Pete? The big medic, or the little man from Kent with acne who shares with you?’

  ‘Little Pete. He’s too sexually inhibited for raves and was working late that night. He’s seen Linsey around and knows his car. He says you were both in it hours before driving off. He could see Linsey more clearly than yourself. He says it looked to him as if Linsey was on the make. Is he?’

  I was half annoyed, half amused. ‘No. He doesn’t have to be. He has a very snazzy blonde of his own.’

  ‘So Pete says.’

  I handed him his food. ‘Too bad little Pete’s not twins. They could really groove it, swapping vicarious fantasies.’

  ‘You’ve got Pete wrong. He’s a good guy, and anyway he hasn’t enough imagination for a good fantasy. He’s a mathematician. He hasn’t got a mind. He’s got a computer between his ears. He just collects facts, programmes them in, and once in, there for keeps.’ He concentrated on his food for a few minutes. ‘Seems Linsey’s bird is loaded.’

  ‘So Robbie says.’

  Bassy nodded absently and went on eating.

  I was very puzzled. Though my father and I often had absent-minded moments, Bassy and mother only looked that way when their brains were working overtime on some tricky problem. Yet it could just be hunger.

  ‘Seeing much of Robbie, Alix?’