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

  ‘What constitutes a crisis, Rolls?’

  Joe looked straight at MacDonald. ‘God knows, sir, and I hope I don’t.’

  ‘Quite. What happens over your weekends off and holidays?’

  ‘Arumchester lends us a houseman.’

  ‘Off every other weekend?’ Joe nodded. ‘Half-days?’

  ‘Thursdays. Always our quietest. Friday’s pay-day round here. Either Mr Gordon or Mr Evans stand-in for me ‒ when I can get off.’

  ‘That one hasn’t changed.’ MacDonald looked from Casualty to the new buildings in the back garden, then up at the side of the old house. ‘As I’ve not yet been here twenty-four hours it might seem presumptuous for me to offer any opinion but that’s not going to stop me from doing so. If you can’t have a registrar, I do think our new masters would be well-advised to build you a bigger morgue. From the traffic I’ve just seen alone, you’re going to need that.’

  ‘Mr Gordon’s said that ‒ and every pundit in the Group who works in The Garden. Snag is,’ Joe went on feelingly, ‘the chaps running the shop haven’t yet got it into their thick heads that this ain’t no more the cosy little cottage hospital it once was ‒ if it ever was. I wasn’t here then. I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Regrettably, I can understand the cosy-syndrome. When I drove down yesterday, despite Mr Gordon’s remarkably accurate account of what my locum would entail, I found it difficult to rid myself of my pre-conceived theory that a job down here must be a sinecure.’ The slight smile was openly self-derisive. ‘Mr Gordon said my wee glimpse into how the other half of the NHS lived might prove illuminating. He was bloody right.’ He paused, but Joe was too surprised by his honesty for speech. ‘Anything else come up since I took the road?’

  ‘Er ‒ no, sir. Rest of the hospital’s quiet ‒ Oh God, sorry, I mean, yes ‒ only she said it wasn’t urgent. The Assistant Matron would like a word with you when you’re free.’

  MacDonald looked at his watch. ‘I’ll see her now. If we’re still quiet after, I’d like to drive up to see a patient in the San. If I can get there before I go over the road for lunch, I should catch him before the afternoon rest period. I’ll let you know when I leave the Assistant Matron. After, if you want me, ring the San. I’ll ring over directly I’m back at Gordon’s house.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Joe was puzzled. ‘I didn’t know Mr Gordon had a patient in the San?’

  MacDonald said evenly, ‘He hasn’t, to my knowledge. I should’ve said, a friend of mine who’s warded up there. Dr Jason. He was my house-surgeon for a spell in the war. Thanks, Rolls.’ He walked off into Casualty, Joe watched his back and wondered absently why Mrs J. hadn’t told him this last night. Then he remembered last night. It seemed lifetimes back and it bloody was.

  ‘Oy! Mr R.!’ Aggie Martin leant on the long handle of the mop she was using on the treatment alcove floor and beckoned him. The empty alcove was about the size of Mark Jason’s single-ward, and as she had pushed aside the enclosing screens, the area was flooded with the strong sunlight streaming through the open entrance doors. ‘Where’s Mister-just-call-me-MacAlmighty going like a bat out of hell?’ she demanded, when Joe reached the perimeter of the wet floor.

  ‘Date with the Ass. Mat.’

  She looked dead-pan at his grave face. ‘He’s wasting his time.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Get her in the linen cupboard for a slap and tickle and all she’ll know what to do is hand over a couple of clean sheets.’

  He smiled reluctantly. ‘Think he’ll know what to do?’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking, Mr R. You have got to be joking.’

  He grinned for the first time since nine-thirty and stepped closer. ‘No kidding?’

  She shook her head, wolf whistled softly, then glanced downwards. ‘My Gawd! Get those big feet off my floor or I’ll do you!’ She shook a fist under his nose. ‘Off! Out from under me feet or else!’

  He backed laughing. ‘Know what I go for about you, Staff? Your gentle ministering angel’s touch.’

  He helped himself to one of the four empty wheelchairs behind the lodge, pushed the chair out into the yard and sat down, yawning in the sunshine.

  Aggie smiled to herself and her smile was maternal. You had to be able to laugh, or you cracked and she’d seen a few housemen and nurses crack since she’d started in this racket. She tilted more carbolic solution from her bucket and swooshed it liberally around. She could have left that floor to her junior, but washing down a floor when she was het-up always soothed her no end. And what’s more, there was nothing to beat the strong clean pong of carbolic for obliterating the pong that had clung to the back of her throat and nostrils all morning. She had nursing friends that claimed they could see Death; others that they could hear Death. She believed them as she knew she could smell Death. Not the dead. Death, hanging around at a bedside, in a ward doorway, or a treatment alcove. This bit of a breather was what they all needed as much as Cas., that sunlight and a good whiff of carbolic. If she could get off, she’d sunbathe this afternoon ‒ lovely to see that sun … lots of sun in Australia … Sydney? Or, Perth?

  ‘Just a brief appearance, Mr Mackenzie, but The Friends so appreciate support from our consultants, and Matron will be so grateful,’ murmured the Assistant Matron from one corner of her stiff, pale, mouth. She was a stiff, pale woman of about MacDonald’s age and invariably spoke as if the repository of so many confidences that she dared not open her mouth properly in case the secrets came crashing out. ‘The Friends do so much for us. They provided all the patients’ wireless headphones, the wirelesses in the Sisters’ and Nurses’ Homes and they’re hoping to raise enough this afternoon to give us a television set. So kind, but ‒’ her voice dropped to near-inaudible even to his ears ‘as Matron says, where will we put it? We haven’t a room we can spare in The Garden and, of course, it can’t go in a ward.’

  MacDonald roused himself from his mental assessment of the type and degree of her anaemia. ‘God forbid, Sister. Ill patients need quiet wards.’

  ‘Just so. If we get a set it’s bound to attract great attention. I think there are a few sets in Oakden, but I’ve never seen television. Have you?’

  ‘Occasionally.’

  ‘And what is your opinion of it?’

  They were standing in the imposing oak-panelled oak-floored front hall. He glanced at the face of the grandfather clock against the wall a few feet behind her. ‘Like the curate’s egg.’

  It only took her half-a-minute. She smiled stiffly. She enjoyed a good joke. ‘So droll! And I may tell Matron you will try and look in at the Fair?’

  ‘Certainly, if I’m free, Sister. Was that all you wished to see me about?’

  She needed another half-minute. It was all so difficult ‒ so many responsibilities ‒ so much to remember ‒ Matron coming and going all morning about the Fair ‒ Mr Gordon away ‒ Mr Evans on holiday ‒ the senior staff at half-strength as always over the weekends, now even staff nurses had to have alternate weekends off instead of just one day a month when she was a staff nurse ‒ and everything rested on her shoulders. ‘Ah yes! Sister Men’s Surgical left a note on her way to lunch ‒’ she scurried back into the Matron’s office, rootled amongst the sheaf of memos on the blotter and returned with one written mainly in block letters. ‘Whilst you were held up in Casualty with that distressing young couple on the first motorbike, Mr Hartley’s next-of-kin arrived from London ‒ I should say ‒’ she consulted the note again ‘acting-next-of-kin ‒ a cousin ‒ his parents are abroad on holiday. A Miss Ruth Dean ‒’ she had the names right owing to Sister Men’s Surgical’s foresight, ‘and Miss Dean asked to see the surgeon-in-charge but Sister explained you could not be disturbed and apparently Miss Dean was most sensible and understanding and said she would return this afternoon and hope to see you then and suggested three o’clock and that if that was not convenient could you kindly name a time.’

  ‘Foreseeably, three’ll suit me, Sister.’ He glanced unseeingly at the carved wid
e oak stairs running up from the back of the hall to the circular gallery of the first floor landing that was a part of Maria Ward. ‘Is Miss Dean returning to London this evening?’

  ‘Sister says not until tomorrow. She seems to have friends in Oakden and expects to stay with them overnight. So convenient. We’ve no accommodation for relatives in The Garden.’

  He looked at her quickly. ‘I took Hartley off the DIL and put him on the SIL (Seriously Ill List) when I went round with Sister earlier this morning, so on paper there’s no necessity for the hospital to arrange for his next-of-kin to be at hand, but I’d stay another twenty-four hours were I his next-of-kin. What happens when you’ve got DILs? Presumably here, as elsewhere, their next-of-kins have the right to stay?’

  She sighed ambiguously. She could have been regretting The Garden’s lack of accommodation or the relatives’ rights. MacDonald correctly diagnosed the latter. He had met other members of her profession and his own, who regarded their patients’ relatives as intruders that must be endured but not encouraged. He didn’t share that attitude. His manner hardened. ‘What do you do about them, Sister?’ he persisted.

  ‘We call on The Friends Of The Garden. They have a bed-and-breakfast rota and will always take relatives into their homes and never ask for remuneration ‒ though very often the relatives insist on paying something ‒ but are never charged more than ten shillings a night and the money goes into The Garden Fund. As I’ve said ‒ they do so much for us.’

  ‘Clearly. If that’s all, Sister, may I use your phone to let Mr Rolls know I’m leaving the hospital? I’d better speak to him myself. Something may have cropped up since I saw him.’

  ‘Please ‒’ she fluttered backwards into the Matron’s Office. ‘The black receiver for the hospital switchboards. The white is a direct line to the Oakden Exchange. We only have two whites ‒ the other is in my office ‒ Matron feels that just in case anything should go amiss on our boards, we should have some alternative.’

  ‘Very wise.’ He raised the receiver but kept his finger down on the rest. ‘If you’ll forgive my mentioning this, Sister ‒’ he grinned quickly, ‘my name’s MacDonald not Mackenzie.’

  She had been about to take umbrage. On average, she took it once an hour. His grin removed the possibility. Such a charming man ‒ really, quite charming. Her stiff smile re-appeared. ‘I do apologize but ‒ a little confusing.’

  ‘Scottish nomenclature, Sister, is more than a wee bit confusing,’ he agreed pleasantly, made his call and as nothing had cropped up, took himself off. The Assistant Matron sat down at the desk and sighed without knowing why. Had anyone told her she was sighing for her lost youth and years of enforced sexual abstinence she would have gone to the stake before she accepted that truth, even to herself. She had trained in a non-teaching hospital and on her one day off a month been too tired to make outside friends. Her war as an Army Sister had widened her life, but come too late to widen her mind. Her father had been killed in the Great War, she had no brothers, and had never learnt how to talk to men when out of her uniform. She had never had one date with a man.

  She added a note to Sister Men’s Surgical’s memo and reminded herself to tell Matron that Mr MacDonald really was most charming. Being in the habit of changing her mind as often as she took umbrage, her present opinion of MacDonald lasted her usual average.

  The Sanatorium patients’ lunchtime was over and the hot cement of the plateau was empty of beds and deckchairs. A few yards below, a little group of male up-patients sprawled on the yellowing grass of the steeply sloping lawn banked at the foot by flowering currants, heathers and a long low hedge alive with dog roses. Beyond the hedge the greenish-brownish turf spilled on downwards and looked in danger of spilling over onto the pinkish, orange, red, white weather-boarded and thatched roofs of the toy houses radiating out from the toy grey church that in reality was the size of a small cathedral. Church and town had grown from the monastery that had once stood on the land now occupied by the bus station and the Town Hall. Monastery, church and town had prospered on the backs of the sheep that for centuries had thrived on the rich grass of the Weald and Romney Marsh. Sheep-shearing had begun and from far below the peculiarly penetrating wails of the newly-shorn floated up to the hilltop and interwove with the steady drone of traffic, hum of bees and lazy voices of birds. A heat haze shimmered over the pink and white orchards and golden fields, and seemed to sway the forests of hop-poles and the black-coned roofs of the oast houses. The south-eastern horizon was edged by the sparkling blue of the sea that was only slightly darker than the sky.

  MacDonald stopped on the plateau and for a few moments looked down then slowly up at the sky. His thoughts travelled back to the glorious summer in 1940, then fast forward to Casualty this morning, the front hall just now, and the bunting-decorated Green he had just driven past. Then his gaze and thoughts moved to a young woman standing with her back to him outside one of the open walls of a single-ward about twenty yards along. An ambivalent smile lit his narrowed eyes. There’d always be an England … and standing along there was one of the reasons why.

  The sprawling young men ignored him and the view below. All their heads were protected by either old panama or wartime jungle hats and all the heads were turned towards the young woman. She wore a shapeless button-through blue cotton frock she had made herself from a pattern she had used since the war when British women’s fashions had stood still. It was a good pattern. She saw no reason to change it or the hair-style she had worn since she left school eleven years ago. Hair tidily tucked up into a ribbon ‒ or shoe-lace ‒ tied round the head, stayed neat under a cap.

  The young men on the lawn didn’t notice what she was wearing. It was a rare man under sixty, and not improbably eighty, who noticed what Ruth Dean wore at first meeting. She had the kind of figure and legs on which the pin-up industry depended and a natural grace of movement that ballet-dancers trained for years to achieve. It was an even rarer man of any age who remained conscious of her physical attributes after his first few minutes’ exposure to her overpoweringly efficient, authoritative manner. Ruth Dean was a Martha’s gold-medallist, a senior ward sister, and at twenty-nine the youngest woman ever to be considered for the position of Assistant Matron at Martha’s. The post was due to fall vacant this coming October and her name was on the short-list. She was the type of ward sister for whom patients, Matrons and consultants, prayed; the prayers of the present day and night nurses, house-surgeons and registrars working in Walter Walters Ward, were polarized on the request that Miss Dean be their next Ass. Mat.

  The young men glowered enviously when MacDonald walked up to her. She turned, put a finger to her lips and allowed him a reserved smile of welcome. There were some things one just couldn’t forgive.

  The foot of Mark Jason’s bed was drawn up to the edge of the open wall. He was propped in a high sitting position, fast asleep and looked very comfortable. Ruth Dean had re-arranged his nine pillows and the single top sheet neatly turned down at his waist. His long limp forelock looked dark brown against his brow, and his long limp legs thin as the covering sheet. He wore the new dark crimson poplin pyjamas Catherine had brought on her last nights off, and the skin was so taut over his powerful shoulder and chest bones, that with every inspiration the outlines of his ribs were visible through the poplin. In sleep his wasted face looked younger, and more than peaceful. From the faint smile on his lips, his dreams were happy. He always slept more deeply in the peace of early afternoons than at night when the whirr of a bat, or distant scream of a hunted rabbit, could jerk him fully awake and into that clarity of thought that only darkness illuminates to perfection.

  MacDonald and Ruth watched the sleeping man in the same clinical way with the same blankness in their expression. She glanced at MacDonald from time to time as she would have done had they been standing at the foot of one of her patients’ beds. She thought of Mark Jason as ‘a patient’ not a man, because that was how she always thought of patients. Her world ha
d three sexes; men, women and patients. She quite liked the first two; the last she loved. She had little imagination but great professional knowledge. She knew what MacDonald was thinking. It was over a year since he had last seen this patient. She was sorry the patient was missing Mack’s visit. He had told her he expected Mack would try to get up to see him and that when Catherine had told him Mack had turned up in The Garden, he had laughed like a drain and nearly coughed up his other lung. ‘And what’s all this about his heading for the far north for keeps? He hadn’t time to tell all to Cathy. Give, girl, give! I’m a human question-mark.’

  Ruth hadn’t wanted to talk about it, but patients had to be humoured. She had kept it short, then added, ‘I suppose one has to remember he is a Scotsman,’ in a tone that made it clear she equated this with St Anthony’s Fire. Mark Jason had stifled his laugh with a false cough and recalled his earlier conversation with Catherine.

  Catherine had said, ‘If Ruth shows up today, darling, lay off the careless talk about Sugar Plum. The poor kid has enough problems.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I know. I mayn’t have worked with Ruth since I was her night junior but when you’re shut up with a girl for three months, you learn one hell of a lot about her. She was the best senior I ever had, but possessive plus, plus. MY ward, MY patients, MY Martha’s ‒ and even although she never wanted to marry him and got him out from under her skin years ago, it’s still MY Mack.’

  ‘That’s for sure.’ Mark grinned reminiscently. ‘Poor old Mack. I’ll bet she’s given him hell for kicking Martha’s back teeth down its throat with his oh-heave-ho.’

  ‘I sort of got that impression last night. Never dawned on either of us then our Unknown was MY cousin. If Ruth catches on, he won’t be the one who’s doing the leading up the garden path, it’ll be that fast little flirt up at the San. Ruth still thinks in “thirties” school slang because off-duty mentally she’s never left school. Don’t forget she’s very near the top brass. She’s only got to drop one disapproving word in The Garden for it to be up here before Sugar Plum’s turned over in bed. I don’t say that’ll get her out of her job, but it won’t help her working life. The poor kid’s too pretty for any woman to give her the benefit of the doubt and though dumb, not all dumb. That’s why she was so scared of my telling Ruth.’