It Won't Hurt a Bit (14 page)

‘Well done, Nurses. You’re on your way.’ Miss Jones cleared her throat and dropped her voice, ‘We’re sorry Morag chose to leave. She’d have made a fine nurse.’

Mrs Low looked stricken whilst Miss Jones’s tone was as genuine as it was unexpected, but it was sad that the use of her first name separated Morag from the group and formalised her departure.

I was torn between exasperation that she hadn’t stayed the course and relief at the exam results, whilst the memory of Sister Cameron’s words still lingered.

‘She can’t be a real Highlander,’ she’d said. ‘Now you’ll have to prove normal ones are worth the effort.’

What’s normal, I wondered. Certainly not what’s going to happen here in a minute and courtesy of our group.

‘Right! Let’s move onto these papers.’ The tutors started to hand them out. ‘The results were good, but there are some misconceptions, particularly about the femur – Mrs Low, would you mind?’ She nodded to Skellie’s house.

Isobel and I exchanged glances whilst Rosie searched for her hanky.

Mrs Low swung open the door. There was a pause. Then, instead of Skellie, a long-dead nurse swung before us. The silence was profound and even though I knew it was the skeleton dressed in uniform, he still looked scary. Mrs Low gave an impressive leap and Miss Jones took a step back, whilst those in the class who weren’t in the know screamed.

We’d become slick at treating faints and were eager to demonstrate, but disappointingly nobody collapsed. We must all be growing battle hardened. Instead, Miss Jones picked up a ruler and tapped the apron with its ‘Nursing can damage your health’ notice written in Sheila’s perfect copperplate. ‘So can tutoring,’ she murmured. ‘Now, about the femur –’

‘Fancy Old Jonesie having a human side, and with a sense of humour too,’ said Maisie as we walked out of the classroom at the end of the day, ‘but that Morag business has put me off and I don’t even feel like celebrating. What about you, Jane?’

‘Stunned.’

‘Me too.’ Rosie turned briskly on our group. ‘I know! Why don’t we phone her, see if she got home alright. Then we can tell her about Skellie.’ She held up an index finger straight out of Miss Jones’s personal development book. ‘That’ll cheer her up. Now! Come along, everyone.’

Reaching the telephone booths, she fledgling-flapped her arms over her pockets. ‘Has anyone any money?’

‘Yup.’ Hazel slapped a handful of change on the shelf. ‘And look, Jane, there’s a note here for you.’

The booths were festooned with notes for people who hadn’t been there to take their call by people who had.

I read the note: ‘Would Jane Macpherson please phone Douglas.’ It had a number and a yesterday time. Blast! I got so few calls I hadn’t bothered to check.

‘Ooh,’ cooed Maisie. ‘Now there’s a cause for celebration.’

‘Ssh!’ Rosie waved her finger, fresh from dialling. ‘Morag?’

We grouped round and heard that soft voice reassuring her that all was well.

‘We’d a right laugh with Skellie. You’d have died laughing. It might even have cheered you up,’ Rosie, that mistress of tact, ignored Maisie screwing up her face and held the phone tighter, ‘and Jonesie even said she was sorry you’d left.’ Rosie could apparently think of no higher praise. Then whatever Morag said pleased her and brought the dimples out. ‘She’s going to finish that course in Inverness and her boyfriend’s delighted she’s going to be near,’ she relayed, twirling the telephone flex round her fingers so much she was now having to stand on her tip toes to reach the cradle, ‘and she sounds happy. Different girl.’

‘Well, Dr Rosie, that’s fine,’ Maisie reached for the phone, ‘but maybe we could have a word too.’

But our captain said we all had to dash, said goodbye on our behalf and hung up.

‘Rosie!’

‘I didn’t want to use all Hazel’s money. You can phone her yourselves with your own money,’ Rosie retorted, scooping up the change and slapping it into Hazel’s hand. ‘Now what about that celebration?’

A cleaner came pail-clanking down the stairs, muttering about a dismal job mopping up talcum powder dredged bathrooms, and though I was still mixed up about Morag and a hospital’s apparent indifference to its staff, I was relieved I wasn’t going back to cleaning – yet. Success needed to be marked in some way, but not in the present company. Maisie and I crept away.

‘Rosie is that bossy, I could scream,’ Maisie grimaced as she vented her frustration on her bedroom door handle making the door fly open.

‘Yeah – but she has moved us out of the doldrums,’ I clutched my bit of paper, trying to memorise the number, ‘and she’s put me in the mood for catching up with Douglas. What were you thinking of doing yourself?’

‘I think I’ll go and catch a bus tae Inverurie,’ said Maisie with a sly grin. ‘Sheila and I have plans for the weekend and after that, Jane, we’ll be out in the world of reality.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

I went to make my phone call.

‘You’ve just missed Douglas,’ his landlady said, ‘but I’ll tell him you called.’

There was a better result with my mother accepting a reverse charge call home.

‘Jane! How lovely to hear from you. We’ve been thinking such a lot about you and wondering how you got on.’

Bob was barking in the background and my mother sounded so cheerful, a wave of homesickness washed over me, making my good news sound wobbly.

‘That’s marvellous, but are you alright? What about coming home for the weekend? We’re dying to see you. We’ll stand you the fare.’ I could tell she was smiling.

‘Right, Mum.’ I was suddenly decisive. ‘I’ll just do that. I’m longing to see you too.’

As soon as I hung up, the phone started ringing again. Despite an uncharitable wish to leave it, I lifted it.

‘Douglas!’

‘Jane! That’s a stroke of luck,’ he sounded frustrated. ‘I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for ages. I’d to nip back to the digs for a second so I knew if I was quick, I’d catch you. How’s things?’

‘I passed.’

‘I knew you would.’ Douglas was dismissive, as if it were pre-ordained, then he rushed on, ‘Look – I’m in a bit of a hurry but there’s a folk concert on tonight. D’you fancy coming?’

A group of nurses passed in a chattering group. I waited to let them pass. The phone suddenly felt heavy. ‘Douglas, I’m sorry, I’m set up to go home.’

‘But there’ll be other times.’

‘I know. It’s just that they so seldom put on any pressure – and they’re paying the fare.’

‘Oh well, I can tell you’ve made up your mind. Another time, maybe. I need to dash now but will you phone me when you come back? At least someone answers the phone here.’ Douglas’s voice grew fainter, as if he was already gone.

‘Yes, Douglas.’ I put the phone down slowly, wishing he’d sounded more pleased I’d passed and less casual that I couldn’t make that date.

‘I wonder if the girls are as busy on their hems as us,’ said Maisie, squinting in her efforts to thread a needle. ‘They’ll be settling into their Nurses’ Home. Apparently it’s really modern, even if Woodend Hospital’s supposed to be ancient.’

During our training we would be sent to various hospitals, most of which had their own nurses’ homes. Woodend, regarded apparently and somewhat scathingly as the last outpost of the hospital empire, was on the outskirts of Aberdeen. It was a smaller, if more rural version of Foresterhill, and Jo, Sheila and Rosie had gone there.

We were in Maisie’s room and taking up hems on the uniforms waiting for us in well-organised bundles on our return from the weekend.

‘Everybody does it,’ said Hazel. ‘Honestly, the sewing department must have served time making tents. I could have broken my neck wearing something that trailed the ground. Look! I’ve had to take my hem up by a mile.’ She held a dress against her. An optimist would have said it just covered her knees.

‘Yes, but I saw one nurse the other day wearing a thing like a pelmet,’ Maisie said with admiration. ‘Good for her but it might get draughty round corners. I was surprised she was allowed to operate if you get my drift. Ouch!’ She sucked a newly-pricked finger. ‘Blast! I’ve marked an apron.’

‘That wouldn’t look good first thing arriving on the ward,’ Isobel chuckled, ‘but never mind, we’ve been given plenty.’ She nodded at Maisie’s pile of all-enveloping aprons that had a white boiled-in-bleach brilliance and conveyed a promise of cleanliness and starchy purpose. ‘We only wear them in the wards and they look easy enough to put on, though I can’t say the same about the caps.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve tried putting mine on but my hair hates it and tries to shove it off. Nightmare! I’ve had to buy two cards of kirby grips to anchor it.’

Coloured belts marked the different training years, the first being the same sober grey as the dress, the second was purple and even if the final year blue seemed an eternity away, at least we were heading in that direction. We sewed on, then, final alterations completed, we tried on the new clothes and saw strangers.

In the morning, torn between the excitement and fear of finally arriving in the wards, I suddenly wished we were back in the classroom. At least there we knew where the challenges lay. Oddly, we might even miss them, but having readied us for this moment, Miss Jones and Mrs Low were already turning to a new P.T.S. intake and Hazel and I were heading for the surgical unit.

‘Trust you to get the cushy number. I’ll be dishing out the bedpans whilst you’ll only have bottles to think about. Men’s plumbing arrangements are definitely better designed for hospitals.’ Hazel sounded genuinely envious as we parted at the common corridor. ‘I’m really nervous about this, aren’t you?’ She re-secured her cap, straightened her dress, sighed, then sprang away, showing confidence and the backs of her knees with every bounding step.

I put on my apron in a small cloakroom, then went and hovered at the entrance of a ward so full of bed-ridden patients, there didn’t seem room for any more. There were even beds down the middle into which countless trolley-borne casualties moaning and spluttering under masks, tubes and bed clothes were being transferred.

I’d have been first in the bunker if I’d known war had been declared and thought Douglas, with his C.N.D. contacts, might have warned me. In the classroom, the lecture on nuclear war had suggested little hope for survivors, but in the absence of complete wipe-out and with people still breathing, I realised this was just an ordinary war and Ward Eight, its field hospital.

‘Take care,’ cried a student nurse directing a travelling bed near the entrance.

‘Mind out!’ called porters, heads down and arms full out as they sped out of the ward, their trolleys laden with rigid cargo.

‘Can’t stop!’ shouted a harassed-looking staff nurse. ‘Just try and make yourself useful or see if you can find Sister.’ She bent over a form huddled in his bed. ‘Come on, Mr Sim, you’ve had your operation. Can you hear me?’ she tapped his cheek in a brisk way and seemed happy when he moaned.

In a stationary bed, a knight in a suit of shining purple threshed. It was difficult to make out his face, what with the stubble, crust and swollen eyes, but neither his tongue nor his vocal chords were affected and he was chanting in the same medieval tongue my father used before he got the hang of making silage.

Watching over and on high from a pile of air cushions was his neighbour, an old-looking little man so ethereal in appearance, he could have been a ghost.

‘Excuse me, Nursie. I think Alex’s needing medicine,’ he piped in a clear boy’s voice. ‘His burns are awful sore and that blue stuff’s not helping.’

He was looking at me with such urgent appeal, I forgot anxiety and promised to find someone – anyone – if he’d hang on a minute.

‘That’s what they all say,’ he said, turning an anxious gaze back at Alex.

‘Thanks for trying, Gordie,’ the knight said clearly to the boy.

Determined not to disappoint, I looked around the ward realising this was not war. It was Operating Day and contributing to the bustle and drama were doctors and nurses, some of whom were preparing patients for theatre whilst others were tending recovering returned ones. Everybody was very intent and busy but I spotted the frilly cap of a Sister and flagged it down, noting her nametag.

‘Ah, Nurse Macpherson. I wondered where you were.’ With her blonde tousled hair and distracted air, Sister Miller looked a bit scatty, but she sounded brisk and had a bright smile. She took Gordie’s message then pulled out a crumpled note from her pocket.

‘Here! I’ve made out a list for you. As you can see, this is our busiest day, so you’ll just need to get on with this as best you can. I’ll get back to you later. Yes, Gordon, I’m coming,’ she called, then, as she hurried away, added, ‘After the coffee break, you’ll come and help me with Alex. He’ll need more gentian on his burns. I understand you’ve some experience in this field.’ I hadn’t expected to hear this or her amusement.

I looked at the note. It said simply, ‘sluice duties’.

Easy! I followed the sound of plumbing noises coming from a huge cavern of a room, its shelves crammed with sanitary ware, where the Ian Charles experience came into its own. Diligently, I set about my tasks. Sister Gordon would have been impressed as I bent over a sink big enough to give ample scope and admiral status, and figured out some damned clever navigational manoeuvres for cleaning the urinals stacked beside it. I was lost in a blockade of soap when an auxiliary dashed in.

‘When finished, you go. Coffee break,’ she said commandeering the sink and filling a large metal bowl with hot water.

‘I wash purly pegs,’ she explained, adding a dash of antiseptic.

I must have looked bemused for she added, ‘It’s ok – I’m married. Must dash. Ta ta.’

Her cap, perched on a black French knot armoured in hairpins, blazed as much importance as the bunion-shaped shoes flying out of the sluice.

I left my fleet and caught up with Hazel, also heading for the dining room.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Ok, I suppose. I’m dying for a break. You?’

‘It’s not what I expected, but in a changing world, sluices remain the same.’ I was thoughtful. ‘Um, Hazel, what do you think purly pegs are?’