A Surgical Affair (8 page)

“Good heavens! He’s going to cross!” she shouted.

And at that second Mark saw the man and, with all his strength, swung the steering wheel to the right and jammed his foot on the brake.

The car skidded helplessly across to the other side of the lane. “Crazy fool!” yelled Mark.

There was a loud crash and the sound of splintering glass as the car ran into the hedge. Diana was flung across the back seat, but she noticed Sister had braced herself in time for the impact. Mark was slouched in his seat, his head on the steering wheel. There was blood on his face.

“Mark!” screamed Diana, in a strangled voice. She had recovered from the shock and realized what had happened.

It was dark and raining hard; the car had crashed and Mark was unconscious.

Diana never forgot that night.

Leaving Sister in the car, and with her jacket over her head, she walked a mile along the lane until at last she reached a farmhouse. After telephoning the hospital, she hurried back to the car, shivering, wet and exhausted.

“He’s come around. I think he’ll be all right,” Sister said thankfully. She had put her coat over Mark, and he sat with his head resting on the back of the seat. “That man who stepped into the lane—just disappeared. How could anybody be so selfish and inconsiderate?”

Diana collapsed into the back
o
f the car. She suddenly felt very sick. It didn’t seem possible that only an hour ago they had all been sitting by the fire at Mr. Cole’s house.

A few minutes later the ambulance arrived and took them all back to the hospital.

The casualty officer put four stitches into a deep cut on Mark’s forehead. Although a skull X-ray didn’t show a fracture, everyone insisted that Mark should spend the night in the side room of Mr. Cole’s men’s surgical ward.

Sister went off to sleep at the Nurses’ Home, and Diana changed into a skirt and warm sweater before she went to say goodnight to Mark in the ward.

“The car,” he said quietly, as Diana sat beside his bed. “Don’t worry about that. The police have moved it—to the side of the lane. It still goes, but it’s badly damaged.” She picked up the cup of tea from his table. “Here, drink this before it gets cold.
”

“I prefer coffee.”

She smiled. “Don’t be awkward. I’ve brought you a sleeping tablet. Night Sister gave it to me.”

“All this fuss,” he murmured. “I suppose they’ll be measuring my blood pressure every half hour all through the night.”

“Now you’ll know what it’s like to be a patient.”

Mark looked at her intently. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

“I’m better, now that I’m warm and dry.”

Diana watched him as he drank the tea, then said, “Will your friend be cross—about the car?”

“I expect so. Still, it’s insured.” He put down the cup and took her hand in his.
“You and Sister won’t be coming out with me again in a hurry. I’d never have forgiven myself if anything had happened to either of you tonight.”

“We know it wasn’t your fault,” Diana assured him.

Mark touched the bandage on his forehead and grinned. “Well, I may be left with a scar to remind me of our first evening out together!”

“Sister told me tonight about her operation. Did you know?”

“Cole told me.” Mark’s eyes were shut. “It’s going to be quite a party,” he said wearily.

Diana switched off the light and sat with him in the tiny room for a few minutes.

Then she leaned over and gently stroked his soft hair. “Dear Mark,” she whispered.

He was breathing deeply as she left him.

Back in the residents’ quarters, Diana met Bill Evans in the corridor. He grinned and stood in front of her, blocking the way.

“You’re up very late, Dr. Field. Been discussing an important case with our friend Royston, I suppose?” He laughed—or rather, leered.

Diana glared at him. She was tired and disliked Bill Evans, particularly when he was facetious, but she didn’t want to wake everybody.

“Let me pass, please,” she whispered fiercely.

He smiled and put his hands on her arms, gripping them firmly. Diana wrenched herself free and brought her right hand up to his face, slapping it with all the strength she could muster. Then she pushed past him and into her room, locking the door behind her.

The rain was beating relentlessly on the windows when, much later, she lay in the dark, unable to sleep.

Diana was confused and bewildered by a sudden realization. “I’m in love with Mark Royston!” she thought. “That car accident has changed my whole life
...
And I thought my registrar would be an ogre!”

CHAPTER NINE

Sister Baker was in her bedroom, dusting the top of her closet, when Diana arrived at the apartment. She had come to carry the suitcase and generally cheer Sister up on the way to hospital.

The telephone rang.

“Hello, Nan! It’s your cousin, Fay,” said a cheerful voice, which Diana, who had taken over the dusting, could hear perfectly.

“Hello, Fay. Well, zero hour’s nearly here. This afternoon I’ll be admitted to Charity Ward.” Sister laughed nervously.

“Well, at least it isn’t strange to you. You know all the doctors and nurses.”

“Perhaps I’ll even enjoy being the center of attention. Do you know, it’s quite an unusual operation I’m having? We’ve had only one case like it since I’ve been on the ward.” Sister sat on the bed, obviously glad of an excuse to stop dusting. She was a little breathless.

“I didn’t want to ask you before, Nan, but what exactly is it they’re going to do?”

“Well, they cut out the piece of the artery that is all swollen up, the aneurysm it’s called, and then sew another piece in its place. The new piece is called a graft.”

“It sounds very simple,” Fay said vaguely.

“If Mr. Cole wasn’t doing it, I’d be scared stiff, but I feel I can trust him completely. And Dr. Royston and Dr. Field will be there, so I’ve nothing to worry about.”

“I’ll come and see you, as soon as they’ll let me, Nan.” “Don’t forget to help yourself to flowers from the cottage garden. That’s my only regret about all this. I’ve had to cancel the decorators. Oh, well, I’ve waited for so long to have my own cottage, another few months can’t make much difference. I’ll appreciate it all the more when I do move in.”

“Be seeing you, then.
’
Bye, Nan.”

“
’Bye.”

Diana noticed that Sister did not get up, because the pain had come on again. It made her sweat, and she clutched the edge of the bed, until her fingers went white. Diana thought Sister didn’t believe in God, but at that moment, with her eyes shut, she seemed to pray hard: “If there is anybody looking after us, relieve me of this agony.” And after a few minutes, the pain was gone.

In the small kitchen Diana made them both a cup of coffee, and afterward they started to pack, filling a suitcase with the things Sister always told her patients to bring when they came to her ward.

“Perhaps going through all this will make me better at my job,” Sister said. “It will be a strange feeling, going into that room in Charity Ward as a patient, lying in the bed instead of standing beside it. I’ll have to wear a hospital nightdress and cap to go to the theater, and take my glasses off. And the bed-socks—they must remember my bed-socks, before they take me up. I hope I make a good patient, not irritable or too demanding.”

Sister took a last look around the small, simply furnished sitting room, which must suddenly have seemed very dear to her. She showed Diana the green leather armchair with the broken spring—in 14 years she had never bothered to have it mended; the tiny radio, which helped to while away so many lonely hours; the three Certificates of Honor she had won as a student nurse, framed on the wall. How proud she had been of those! There would be more room at the cottage, and a garden, but this was her home, familiar and full of memories.

Diana shut the front door; Sister pocketed the key, and heaved a long sigh, and they went downstairs.

Outside, summer had arrived. The sky was a bright blue, all the birds were singing and people were not rushing along to keep warm.

Later that afternoon Sister, wearing a new pink nightdress, lay in the side room of her ward. Diana sat by the window, writing the case notes.

Probationer Nurse Joan Edmonds appeared at the door and brought in a glass and a jug of water. She was looking pale and tired.

“Nurse, are you feeling all right?” Sister asked her, ignoring the fact that, for the moment, she was no longer in charge of the nurses on Charity Ward.

“Yes, Sister, I’m—I’m fine,” the nurse replied uncertainly, avoiding Sister’s watchful eyes.

At that moment, Mark Royston pushed open the door and strolled in. Diana noticed Nurse Edmonds look up at him. Then hastily pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket, the nurse rushed from the room, sobbing. Diana knew that if they had not been interrupted, Nurse Edmonds would have poured out her troubles. Anyway, Mark didn’t appear to have noticed the girl’s strange behavior, or if he had, he chose not to mention it.

“Have everything you want?” he asked, smiling from the end of the bed. “Whisky? Cigarettes?”

Sister laughed. “I’ve got my knitting and my newspaper. They’re all I need, thank you!” She pointed to the sweet peas on her table. “And these, to remind me of my cottage garden.”

“Dr. Field told me about this cottage. You haven’t asked me to see it, Sister, and I’m most offended,” Mark said, trying to sound aggrieved.

“Oh, dea
r. I’m sorry I’ve offended you, Dr.
Royston. You must both come, when I’ve moved in,” she assured him, smiling. “By the way, how’s that car—the one we had the accident in?”

“I still drive it occasionally. It’s as good as new now.”

“You know, Dr. Field was marvelous that night, walking all that way in the pouring rain. Don’t you think so?”

He nodded gravely. “Yes, Sister, I do.”

“At this moment, I’d better leave,” Diana said, laughing. “You’ll make me conceited!”

As she left the room and walked away, she couldn’t help hearing Sister say, “She’s a very nice girl. Have you ever thought of marrying, Dr. Royston, or do you prefer being a bachelor?”

“I expect I will marry some time, but I must find the right person,” she heard Mark reply. “I’d like to have children, too. All girls. I like little girls.”

“It’s a pity to see a kind, good-looking man like you—wasted.” and they both laughed.

Mark joined Diana in the office. She presented him with a long narrow box and told him, “These are the grafts for Sister’s operation. They’ve just arrived from America. Miss Harvey asked me to give them to you.”

He opened the box, and they gazed down at the four long blood-vessels, marveling that those inert tubes had once carried the warm blood of some American, and, stranger still, that one of them would be sew
n
into Sister’s body to carry her blood.

Mr. Cole strode in through the door, hands in his pockets. “All ready for tomorrow’s test of endurance? This thing’s going to take at least six hours. The last one I did took seven and a half. Is the blood ready?”

“Yes, sir,” said Diana. “There are eight pints in the laboratory, and we can have another eight from the blood-bank, if we need them.”

“Good. Let’s hope we don’t. Miss Johnson is anesthetizing, so we’ll have nothing to worry about up that end. I see you’ve got the grafts there. You look after them, Royston. All we can do now is go to bed early. Lucky we’re not on call tonight.” He slapped Mark on the back. “No gallivanting about this evening, my boy!” he shouted, and roared with laughter.

A blush came into Mark’s cheeks. Diana had never seen him embarrassed before.

“I lead a very quiet life,” he protested. “Don’t I, Diana? You know my habits.” He looked at her appealingly.

Mr. Cole was sucking his pipe and gazing at her through the smoke. They were obviously both waiting for her to answer.

“As far as I know,” she replied, smiling, “he leads an almost monastic existence.”

Mark sighed. Mr. Cole laughed loudly and left the office saying, “I’ll just go and say ‘hello’ to Sister Baker.”

“Thanks for not blackening my character,” said Mark, when they were alone.

“Why should I do that?” she asked sternly. “Is your character black?”

“It’s no blacker than most.” He had taken a chocolate from the box on the table and was examining it. “Any man over 30 should be married, otherwise people always think there’s something wrong with him. He gets an undeserved reputation of being a Casanova. Women e
s
pecially, can’t bear the idea of a man roaming around loose, so they label him as a flirt—and I’m not like that at all.”

Diana put a chocolate in her mouth. “You’re becoming a bit cynical in your old age.” She screwed up her face. “Oh dear, this one’s coffee. I loathe coffee.”