Guardian Nurse (16 page)

They sat in the park until the very last of the evening had scutded away, until dusk stirred in, grey at first, then, as night took over, in richer blues and violets. The stars came out. They went to dinner together at an old haunt, recapturing old memories but smiling over them now not sighing, every now and then one of them catching the other’s hand as they lived some lit
tl
e episode a second time.

Frances’ hand was just so occupied when the man appeared at their table. So absorbed were they that they did not look up until
Burn
West spoke.

‘I’m sorry to intr
u
de, but the place is rather crowded. Do you mind if I ask for an extra chair?’ Frances
cl
early had jumped at his sudden appearance; the last person she had expected was
Burn
. Scott, more collected, smiled genially and expressed his and Frances’ pleasure.

Burn
smiled.

‘In case you’re wondering,’ he said, ‘Mrs. Campbell arrived back early; her sister is away until tomorrow. I insisted that she go out at once for a meal and after that I would go, I didn’t want her to start chores on the day she arrived.’

‘Jason...’ said Frances.

‘Has been looked after.’ The eyes
Burn
turned on Frances were so cold she withdrew into herself. She wondered it Scott, too, was being allotted the icy treatment.

But evidently not. Scott suggested a red wine, and the two men argued amicably as to brand and vintage, later as to payment. So there was no coolness there. But even when the wine came, warm, full-bodied, Frances sat cold and reproved. She was glad when
Burn
looked at his watch, reminded them both of a full day tomorrow, and they left the restaurant together.

She tried to avoid
Burn
West on the way back to the apartment, and it was easy enough with three. But once in the flat he accompanied her to the door of her room and opened up. As she thanked him and passed through he said, ‘I’m truly sorry about the intrusion this evening, Miss Peters.’

‘It was not, Mr. West.’

‘No, Miss Peters?’

‘I’ve said so.’

‘Then of course’... a bow ... ‘we must accept that.’ But the eyes that caught and held hers did not accept. They questioned, demanded, refuted.

And they still glinted ice.

CHAPTER TEN

The
next morning saw the three of them,
Burn
, Scott and France ... Mrs. Campbell stayed in the apartment to prepare a meal for their return ... accompanying Jason for the first of his hospital attendances.

Burn called a taxi rather than search round, after they reached the hospital, for a parking space, and Frances noted that the hospital he called was Sydney’s largest and most
modern
. She glanced at Scott and saw his professional pleasure and smiled at him, reminding him of Brentwood’s far humbler offices. He smiled back, catching her trend.
Burn
West, sitting in the back seat with the child while the doctor and nurse shared the seat with the taxi-driver, drawled, ‘Everyone appears cheerful this morning, sonno, so I hope you’re going to be that as well.’

‘Going to be what, Burn?’

‘Cheerful.’

‘Why?’

‘Because otherwise you’ll be a frown in the Land of
Smiles.’

‘I thought this was Sydney,’ said Jason, puzzled, and
Burn
ruffled the little head fondly.

‘I’m being silly. I just don’t want you to mind what’s going to be done to you.’

‘Oh, that,’ dismissed Jason uncaringly. ‘I’ve had that lots of times. It doesn’t hurt getting it cut off.’ He gave a little old-man shrug of experience that touched Frances’ heart. It wasn’t fair, she thought, for a child
to undergo all this more than once.

‘No, Jason,’ said Burn, ‘but what if you have to be put back into plaster again?’

‘I’m always put back,’ answered Jason, patently surprised at
Burn
’s foolishness, and that was another finger on Frances’ heart.

They swept up a wide drive and came to
a
halt at the shallow flight of steps leading to the big doors. The Southern Cross Hospital, for all its immediacy to Sydney, had a garden setting; there were trees, shrubs, beds of flowers, and a fountain played.

A wardsman came out with a wheelchair, and, about to dismiss him and carry the boy in himself,
Burn
saw a certain look in Jason’s eye, and stood back. Jason sat in the chair as though he was king. The three adults followed the chair up the ramp beside the stairs, down a wide hall, then along a medley of corridors. At the end room the wardsman opened the door and pushed Jason in and lifted him on to a table.

A little worriedly Scott said to
Burn
, ‘Actually I’m out of my territory, West. You know that.’

‘Gildthorpe’
.
.
.
Gildthorpe,
Frances thought, the country’s head man ... ‘has been told. He has been told that I wish the presence of my own doctor and nurse.’ Instinctively his big hand went to his pocket for his makings, then he remembered where he was and returned the hand. ‘Also,’ he grinned, ‘my own presence, even though it may be unethical. You see, I have a very personal interest here in the boy.’

Frances wondered about this last arrangement ... Mr. Gildthorpe was quite an illustrious man, definitely not the type to be
told
... but when the specialist, accompanied by a string of barely less illustrious men, came in, she saw at once that it was to be just as
Burn
West had said. West and the doctors shook hands, Scott was brought forward. Then
Burn
turned round and included Frances.

During all this Jason sat obviously bored on the table. When Mr. Gildthorpe crossed over to him the child said before he could begin to explain, ‘I know all about it, it comes off in a big piece, and then I go to sleep while it goes on again.’

‘It mightn’t be like that this time,’ encouraged the great man, ‘though, mind you, a little sleep isn’t a bad idea while we look you over, Jason.’

‘Last time they said that and when I woke up I had a bigger plaster. Only’ ... brightening ... ‘France lets me draw things on it, so now it’s not so bad.’

‘Well, let’s see if you’ll have to draw on paper in the future, Jason.’ The specialist talked to the boy as the cast, extended as it had been to include the joints above and below the injuries to afford a rigid support, was cut away.

Jason evinced no interest at all, he had been through all this before, but the little group of medicos tightened their ranks around the boy, Scott among them. Frances half drew away, feeling she was intruding, but
Burn
came behind and impelled her forward. He stood with her as Mr. Gildthorpe spoke with the others about the revealed small, thin, white leg.

Presen
tl
y the great man nodded, and one of the doctors moved away and pressed a bell. An anaesthetist came in and got busy with the little fellow. Eviden
tl
y, from his simple equipment, Jason was only to sleep for as long as it took the men to examine him. Frances supposed the new cast would be dealt with under later anaesthetic. She watched as the boy drifted off, and then the skilled fingers of Mr. Gildthorpe and his team probed, searched, flexed, folded, manipulated. So adept they were, so certain as to what they sought, it
was all over almost in minutes. Jason was fluttering sleepy eyelids and Mr. Gildthorpe was nodding for Frances to take over.

There was nothing for her actually to do; it had been only a short unconsciousness and Jason obviously felt no faintness or nausea. Indeed, Frances doubted if he even knew he had been ‘under’.
Burn
had supplied him with a sketch book while he couldn’t use his leg for drawing, and he began filling up the pages, quite oblivious of the fact that now only Frances was by his side.

The men were away a long time. Frances, feeding Jason, for lunch had come in, and finding time to take a few bites herself, wondered if the length of time was good or bad. It seemed bad to her. It seemed another east for Jason, perhaps a still larger one. Poor little boy, when would it end?

Then the doctors came back, this time with a radiologist and an X-ray technician, and plates were taken under Mr. Gildthorpe’s direction. Then the men went out again.

Noon grew into afternoon. Jason dozed, sketched, wrote and, when an ice-cream came in, ate. Frances sat with him all the time. Then, watching the fan of Jason’s lashes fluttering drowsily up, then down, but finally staying down, and feeling rather sleepy herself, suddenly Frances was wide awake.

The doctors ... and
Burn
... were back in the room. Behind the sea of kindly but unrevealing medical faces one face stood out because of its smiling eyes. Smiling at her.
Burn
.
Burn
smiling, looking at Jason, then looking at Frances.
And smiling
.

‘He’s ’ she barely breathed.

‘
Yes, Nurse.’ It was Mr. Gildthorpe. ‘This time he
stops
out. There’s a lot to be done, of course ... a lot
of water under a bridge ... but ... The
great man stooped over Jason who now, too, was awake. ‘How would you like to be the fastest boy in the world?’ he
asked.

‘On a horse? On Candy?’

‘Why not? But only a little at a time, remember, too much and you’ll be back in a cast again. Though from what I hear, young man, you didn’t mind that once Nurse here introduced plaster writing. Did you ever hear such a thing’ ... to his fellow medicos ... ‘writing on a nice clean leg
!’

Jason watching him and only half believing said, ‘You really mean I’m not going back?’

‘I
really mean it. Unless’... a smile ... ‘you’d sooner your cast again instead of that drawing block.’

‘Oh no, thank you, oh no.’ Jason looked down on his leg. ‘No plaster!’ he echoed. ‘The same as everyone else
!’

‘So long as you do as Nurse tells you,’ added Mr. Gildthorpe. He turned to Frances and said, ‘Perhaps we could talk now while Jason is still bedazzled and has someone to watch over that happy state of mind, as he looks as bedazzled himself.’ He nodded at Burn who was sitting on the bed now and saying man-boy ... and father-son? ... things to the wide-eyed child.

‘No more plaster
!’
Jason was still echoing.

Frances found herself in an ante-room with Mr. Gildthorpe.

‘I’ve already spoken with Doctor Muir,’ Mr. Gildthorpe said, ‘though there was little to say, really. He seems a very informed and practical man.’

‘Oh, he is! I worked with him at Brentwood, and he is all that and more.’ Frances flushed, aware that she was speaking out of turn; one did not give one’s opinion to great men like this man.

But like all great men there was simplicity and kindliness there, also humour.

‘Exactly
,’
said Mr. Gildthorpe, ‘what he said of you, Nurse. No need for me to repeat the usual injunctions, I have no doubt you know quite
as
well as
I
do the after-treatment in a case like this
.’

‘Thank you, sir
.’

‘There are, of course, some things you will be unable to do for the patient, assistance that Jason must have to assure his complete recovery. I refer now to massage, electrotherapy, prescribed exercises. You understand, of course?’

‘Yes, sir, physiotherapy, but
I
don’t think the local hospital has a therapist
.’

‘Even if it did it would not suffice. I want Jason
continually
given this prescribed therapy in the next few weeks. In which case I have recommended Mr. West to take back a therapist with him to assure that no time is lost
.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Frances could not have said why she suddenly felt unnecessary, redundant ..
.
left out. Every nurse knew the limits of her service. Every nurse knew the need for physiotherapy.

The great man was looking at her almost gently if only she had glanced up. No doubt he read the little disappointment and sympathised with her.

‘You
,’
he said, ‘will be playing
a
very big part in nursing the boy. You also teach him, Mr. West has told me.’

‘Yes, sir
.’

‘You’re an intelligent young lady.
—
Intelligent enough to realise that
all
hands must help?’

‘Of course,’ Frances said firmly. And meant it.
—
Only, she thought a little wistfully, he won’t be just mine any more, that darling litt
l
e fellow whom I’ve come to love so much. Burn West’s sonno will be shared by someone else ... more than shared, since physios, I remember, become very dear, very near. Close.