Heartbeat (Medical Romance) (6 page)

'You know perfectly well I hold a post-registration paediatric qualification and other diplomas. Plus the course in nutrition at the London School of Tropical Medicine.'

They had reached the out-of-the-way corner that housed the generator and she raised her voice shrilly above its ceaseless engine noise. 'I have my own work to carry out, I’m not here to be your dogsbody!'

'Keep your hair on,' sneered Ross, complimenting himself on controlling an overwhelming desire to put this argumentative redhead under a cold shower. ‘It's your physical well-being we’re concerned with. Not your competence.'

Jenni ground her teeth. That 'we' was a masterly touch. A dangerous man to tangle with, Ross McDonnell. She swayed slightly, suddenly aware of feeling limp as a rag. This unwelcome confrontation had drained the last of her resources.

The doctor's forearm brushed hers just above the elbow, and she flinched as the fleeting contact gave rise to a burning sensation searing through her skin to the underlying nerves. He evidently intended to see her right to the door of her room. What was he afraid she'd get up to, left to her own devices? Creep off to Admin and secrete herself in Paul's bed?

Probably jealous. A virile doctor with a bunch of middle-aged nuns for company. No wonder he was so ratty, considered Jenni with a woozy smirk, almost tripping over her own feet again.

They came to the verandah steps. Ross bade her a terse good night.

'Report to Beatrice first thing in the morning - and try to stay in the shade until you get acclimatised. Right, you know where you are now.' Like a gaoler he was waiting to see her enter the doorway, a foot lodged on the bottom step, his shadow menacingly huge against the fitful flickering light. ‘Let’s hope you’re in a more civil mood tomorrow. Good night.' He turned on his heel and strode off into the shadows, apparently heading out of the compound and in the direction of the distant river.

Deprived of the last word, Jenni went seething to her room, where, switching on the ceiling fan to stir the sultry air. she put out her white cotton uniform ready for the new day…

…Which dawned cool and pleasant, the air full of jubilant birdsong and saturated with the smell of strange shrubs. A shy black girl in a red dress several sizes too big brought bowls of hot water to each room. Jenni had slept like a top and been awakened by a nearby radio tuned to the BBC World Service. 'Dammit, I keep getting Radio Moscow!' complained a disembodied voice through the cardboard-thin walls. Someone on the other side was viciously slapping at cockroaches.

The morning clouds glowed red and gold, and Jenni felt absurdly happy as she hurried across to breakfast. People were tucking into fried food, but all she craved was a steaming cup of coffee, and fresh paw-paw with a squeeze of lime, to get the juices flowing. 'Good luck,' encouraged Paul in passing, squeezing her shoulder warmly, 'you can tell me all about it this evening.'

Though she looked for them, there was no sign of Ross or Matt Blarney. Jenni headed for the building glamorised with the name of 'hospital'. The Red Cross truck was gone and the parking space beneath the baobab tree was empty. Peculiar trees, mused Jenni, squinting at the huge swollen water-storing trunk and flattened crown. Most of the European staff, medical and missionary, had been introduced during supper—except for Sylvia Anstey who was taking a turn on night duty, with a newly enrolled African nurse to help her. Ross seemed to be on permanent call. Grudgingly Jenni had to concede that the doctor was certainly setting himself a tough pace for the duration of his East African contract.

She found Sylvia and Bea in the small office that linked the two wards. Bea was welcoming, Sylvia less so. She was a tall girl, in her late twenties, with sun-streaked brown hair that had been short when she arrived at the Mission two years back but which she'd given up trying to cut herself and was attempting to scrape back into a messy ponytail. Her features were handsome rather than pretty and her skin, noted Jenni with a pang of envy, had an even golden quality that wouldn't freckle in a month of sunny Sundays. Jenni wondered if Ross had already bad-mouthed her to his staff. Sylvia didn’t seem friendly and was obviously keen to go off duty as soon as she had given the night report. Bea, though, held her back. ‘One moment, Sylvia, how did you find Nurse Ndogo? She only came to us last month, Jennifer, and this was her first night here on duty.'

'Fine,’ said Sylvia. ‘A bit slow, perhaps. I had to chivvy her a bit to keep her awake, but she's willing enough and competent in all the basic procedures. I'd be happy to leave her in charge after a few weeks.'

'Good,' approved Bea, 'that's what we want to hear. One day,' she explained to the alert-eyed Jenni, 'we shall withdraw and let the Africans take over responsibility for their church and hospital. Paul’s always reminding us that we mustn’t think we’re indispensable.'

The nun looked like any other charge nurse in her white cotton dress, fob watch pinned to an expanse of plump frontage and her stoutish legs in thick support stockings. 'The heat plays murder with my varicosities,' she said in tones of cheerful uncomplaint, waggling a sandalled foot. Jenni looked down at her own bare legs with distaste. They looked even more pallid in daylight.

'Wherever have you put all that hair?' queried Bea, peering at Jenni's neat French pleat.

Jenni laughed. 'Years of practice! I can do it with my eyes closed in about twenty seconds.'

'Oh-oh, someone’s crying. We’d better investigate.’

The nurses walked into a hub of chatter in the children’s ward where Jenni could see nine or ten infants laughing and splashing as they were given their morning baths in big tin tubs. Two girls in yellow overalls covered by plastic pinafores were supervising the proceedings, helped by the women who squatted on mats among the cots: mothers, sisters, aunts—whoever could be spared to stay with a sick child.

Morning sunshine streamed in through the windows, and though the room was overcrowded and not much bigger than a large bedroom, it was cheerful and fresh with white walls and blue paint-work. A sugar-paper frieze drawn by the Sunday School and colourfully depicting African village life, ran all round the walls to brighten the stay of children who had to be kept in for treatment. Wherever possible, explained Bea, they were allowed home. If seriously ill and beyond the help of the Mission doctors, they would be transferred by ambulance to the General Hospital in Moshi.

A tiny boy with matchstick-thin limbs, a swollen stomach and soap in his eyes, was sobbing piteously. Jenni scooped him out of the bath and cuddled him, making crooning noises. The scene was a news-still become three-dimensional and a lump rose in Jenni's throat. Here at last were the children she had yearned to work amongst. And paediatric nursing was the special skill she could offer. It wasn’t all about Paul. No it certainly was not.

His eyes free of soap, the child examined Jenni in alarm and held his arms out to Sister Bea, keening to be rescued from this strange being. The other children grew quiet and they too latched on to Jenni with timid, wondering eyes. The mothers stopped their chattering and stared. One of the helpers took the boy and after delivering a smacking kiss to each tear-stained cheek wrapped him in a dry towel, saying, 'There there,’ over and over again.

'They think your head's on fire,’ warned Bea. ‘Pat your hair and keep smiling. Show them it isn't hot.'

Bea spoke rapidly in a tribal dialect, her words incomprehensible to Jenni but the tone of her voice just like any mother's coaxing a smile from a troubled child. The children giggled and shy smiles broke out. Reaching into a recovery cot, Bea handed Jenni a baby with bandaged eyes who dabbed sightlessly at her freckles and discovered instead her tip-tilted nose, crowing with delight.

'Ross operated on this little chap before he left for Dar. And those two over there. Congenital cataracts—tragically commonplace in this part of the world.'

The baby clung to her and with regret Jenni lowered him back into his cot, planning to come back and cuddle the child the first opportunity she got. Where was his mother? He seemed quite alone. She went round to each child, helping with a T-shirt here, straightening a cotton blanket there, holding a small head while a thirsty mouth slurped water from an enamel mug, stroking a sticky brow and all the while smiling, 'Jambo! Hello. Jambo!’ to the women crouching nearby.

Bea was busy instructing the local girls she was training in basic nursing care. When she had finished she beckoned Jenni to her side.

'Through here you'll find the kitchen and the sluice, and beyond them the Outpatients' Room and our mini-marvel OR and the autoclave room.' Sister indicated for Jenni to go ahead.

'What a blessing, having an eye surgeon of Dr Mcdonell’s calibre working here. The thought of him going back to Liverpool just breaks my heart. But there, we should be grateful he cared enough to come to us in the first place. I’m told,' said Sister confidingly, 'he needed to get away for a while. Personal circumstances. Not that Ross is a man to air his washing in public, though he'd find nothing but understanding at the Mission. Goodness only knows but we've all got skeletons in our cupboards.'

Talking of cupboards reminded Jenni that she'd left the vaccines and medical supplies in hers. She must hand them over today.

'I sense he may have known deep unhappiness,' sighed Bea, opening the door of the cubbyhole that served as a sluice. 'Sometimes I see a look in his eyes that makes me wonder if ... Not quite like you're used to, dear, but it serves, it serves. The kit for the urine tests you'll find in the cupboard above the sink.'

Jenni concealed an ironic twitch of the lips with a tactful hand. Personally, she couldn’t dredge up much sympathy for Dr McD. If anyone had suffered, it was Paul; but no one here seemed to know anything about the broken engagement, and she wasn’t going to gossip about having a sister who’d done something of which no woman could be proud.

All the same, it was interesting to speculate. Had some professional crisis driven Ross McDonnell to pack scalpel and ophthalmoscope and head for Africa? Or was it a private affair, involving a woman?

Paul might know. He was a man people would confide in.

'Our layout here would make an architect's hair stand on end,' said Bea with cheerful unconcern. 'When we've got a bit more money we just tack on another section and everyone mucks in to help. We’ve even learned to make our own bricks from the red soil. Father Paul's worked like a Trojan, putting up buildings with his own bare hands.'

She bustled ahead. 'Now these are the two adult wards. Sister Joanna is in charge here. And there's Dr Blarney taking samples for tests ... I don't think we'll disturb them, dear, you can pop in later. Have a quick peep in the Out-patients' Room. Ross has a clinic in here to-morrow afternoon. Sylvia usually works with him but she's on nights this week so I'll be asking you to take that job over.'

'Of course, Sister,' responded Jenni, who was never going to shirk an assignment, however distasteful.

'Now, while I supervise breakfasts, you have a nose round on your own and see where our equipment is stored. Then when you've got your bearings you'll be ready to get cracking. I'm afraid you're going to have to accept a flexible schedule.'

'That's fine with me, Sister,' agreed Jenni cheerfully.

Beatrice patted her arm, 'And I can tell you will be,' she said and hastened on her crêpe-soled way.

DISPENSARY, read the black lettering on the opposite door. Thinking it was surely too early for anyone to be in there working Jenni tested the handle, expecting to find the place securely locked. Nothing of the sort. She peered inquisitively into a small but efficient laboratory. Three walls were fitted with waist-high lockable cupboards, ranks of bottles lining the open shelves above, neatly stacked cartons and dispensing paraphernalia conveniently to hand.

A work bench ran the length of the window wall, with an inset sink at which a tall young African in a lab coat was washing his hands.
'Mr Mwinyi!
' he whispered urgently. The head dispenser was seated on a high stool examining slides under a microscope. He turned round.

'I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ apologised Jenni.

Mr Mwinyi peered at Jenni over gold-rimmed bi-focals. ‘Nurse Westcott, is it not? His face lit up in a broad grin. He had greying hair and an enormous mouth of widely spaced teeth. ‘Come right on in, if you please, Nurse. Permit me to introduce my most able assistant, Kefa…’

The young man was clearly shy of Jenni, retreating from the warmth of her handshake into his work. Reaching for a tablet counter, he began refilling small plastic containers, all the while darting sidelong glances at this vision in nurse's uniform.

‘Feel free to look around. Ask me any questions.’

‘CDM?' wondered Jenni aloud, reading out the mysterious initials on a huge bottle of liquid mixture.

'Children's Diarrhoea Mixture. The dispenser wrung her hand and reminded her that they had met at supper the previous evening. 'How nice to see you again, Mr Mwinyi,' said Jenni hastily, afraid she might have given offence. 'You must forgive me for not immediately recognising you. In the past twenty-four hours I've been introduced to about fifty different people!'

'And we Africans all look alike,' suggested Francis Mwinyi with a humorous twinkle in his eye. 'Now, miss, please sit here and view for yourself this slide. You are of course regularly taking the malaria pills? Good. I will show you a typical example of plasmodium vivax, colloquially known as the malarial parasite.'

Jenni hoisted herself up on to his stool and adjusted the microscope's eyepiece to suit her slightly short-sighted vision. She had examined slides like these as part of her nutrition course (which included an introduction to tropical diseases) but did not wish to give offence by saying so.

The morning sped by with scarcely a moment to think of Paul. Ross McDonnell, she learned, had set off at daybreak for his weekly visit to a distant riverside village where he was treating all the children for bilharzia, contracted from playing in the murky larvae-infested waters. In her lunch break Jenni unpinned her hair and sat on the verandah with her feet stuck out into the sunshine and her legs shiny with cream, a sketchpad on her lap as she made swift charcoal drawings of the schoolchildren playing in the compound.