It Won't Hurt a Bit (16 page)

As we gathered round Sister Miller for the morning report, I got a flicker of pity whilst the rest of the staff were handed lengthy work slips. Sister Miller’s usually blithe expression was grim. ‘Nurse Macpherson,’ she started to roll up her sleeves, ‘the rest of us will have to cover for staff shortages because we’ve lost a vital team member and you’re with Sister Gorightly.’

‘Oh God!’ I suddenly remembered the girl who’d fled the Nurses’ Home, the overheard conversations of nurses scarred by an experience best not shared, and my stomach turned.

Yet out of the sluice, a vision of loveliness appeared whilst Sister and her staff melted away.

But surely this couldn’t be the harridan responsible for all those tales of tears and trauma? This was a sweet-faced, silvery-haired angel with a peaches-and-cream complexion and an hourglass figure, over which a turquoise-coloured dress strained in enough places to engage the interest of patients previously considered moribund. Her heeled shoes accentuated the neat ankles now flying in my direction.

In the distance someone dropped a bedpan, breaking the hush that had fallen upon the ward.

‘Ah, Nurse Macpherson! I’ll be with you today to check out your practical work. I’m sure we will have a very instructive day.’ Her tones were dulcet – her smile dazzling, showing very white, if sharp, teeth.

‘Now, let’s start with something simple. I’m thinking of a bed bath. A basic but essential procedure.’ She made for a patient who, in the absence of Mrs Cockburn, had been looking forward to fester unmolested in bed. His smile faded as she explained, ‘Nurse Macpherson needs a little practice in the art of bed bathing, so we’ll just see how she gets on with you. You’ll be happy to help I’m sure.’

‘But I’d a bath yesterday and Ah’m getting hame the day,’ he protested, a leg making a rapid bid for the floor. ‘In fact,’ he glanced at the wall clock, ‘ony minute noo.’

‘Nowsie wowsie, Mr Souter, this won’t take but a matter of minutes and you must go home fresh.’ Sister Gorightly gave a tinkling laugh whilst transfixing him with a light touch and steely eye.

‘Everybody ca’s me Dod,’ he said in an attempt at cosiness whilst clutching his blankets so that his knuckles gleamed.

A cloud passed over that lovely countenance. ‘Oh my goodness, no! We can’t have that. Familiarity is not our way. It’s Mr Souter,
Mr Souter
, always – we must respect our patient’s dignity.’

Unaware he was going to lose it big time, Dod returned his leg.

‘Nurse, you go and prepare the trolley and I’ll get Mr Souter ready.’ Dod’s face went as white as the hands pulling the screens round him. The subsequent brisk sounds of tugging and argument suggested Sister Gorightly’s lily whites might not be as pure as they looked.

I went to get my trolley ready, managing to swipe enough towels from the shared linen cupboard to start a revolution on the female side. With confidence and the friendly warning squeak of wheels, I trundled my wagon to the bedside.

‘Noise, noise!’ came a scolding shout. It was discomfiting to find the sister bent double and covering her ears as if in pain, whilst looking straight ahead, our patient held firmly onto his remaining sheet.

Sister Gorightly straightened, took in the trolley and drew breath. ‘But this isn’t a proper setting. Where are the cover cloths and where last was that basin? Actually, this is a nothing trolley. Dear me! I don’t know what the tutors would say to this. It’s poor, poor.’ She grabbed a metal jug, the only one I could find. ‘And this looks as if it came out of the Ark. Look at the rust! It’s just as well this isn’t an operation this dear man’s having, our Mr Souter’, – a little coo, a little eyelash flutter, a little playful tweak – ‘dear me no! It’s just a leetle freshen up. Isn’t that what we promised?’

‘Ouch!’ Dod rubbed a reddening cheek. ‘I could easily have hid a dook in the shower on ma ain.’

‘What! After all the good work repairing that hernia?’ she pointed, and our patient subsided.

‘And we certainly won’t be needing these.’ She clattered away the pile of kidney dishes with waitressing expertise.

I’d been rather proud of them, having had to fight hard to get them off Staff Nurse’s wound-dressing trolley. You never knew when they might come in handy, but maybe this wasn’t the moment to promote their use as a denture box, even if we had run out of the official ones.

Meanwhile, trying to remember Mrs Low’s dictates and keep my instructor at bay, I’d become as nervous as Dod – already the soap was speeding from my grip to land under the next patient’s bed.

‘Catch!’ Right away it was thrown back over the screens. The ward broke into hilarity.

‘Pleased to be of service,’ Alex’s voice floated through talc-laden air.

Sister Gorightly’s silence was thunderous.

I replaced the modesty sheet with a towel, which somehow lost its purpose and hit the deck. There was a nursing decree that nothing should fall on the floor barring the odd patient, so I knew things were on a slide, especially as the remaining face cloth Dod was clutching as his last defence was plainly inadequate.

‘You don’t seem to have grasped this most fundamental of skills. Are you really telling me you passed your P.T.S. exam? Dear me! I’m sure Mrs Low would be shocked to see these breaches of etiquette,’ she said, nodding at Dod’s trembling form. ‘This poor fellow’s in danger of hypothermia. Go and get another towel.’

‘You can’t have any more,’ said Staff Nurse who’d overheard, ‘they’re all done.’

‘Really!’ said Sister Gorightly as if it were a medical term.

‘Ah jist wint ma blankets back,’ said Dod, ‘an ma PJs. Ah’m freezin!’

I was sharing his cold sweat; but at last, and with enough blankets to flatten him, our patient had a normal temperature return along with his pyjamas.

‘So you didn’t enjoy that much, Mr Souter?’ Sister Gorightly asked and added in a roguish way, ‘perhaps Nurse Macpherson will do better the next time. Being such a new recruit, she needs the practice.’

I tidied away my trolley, thinking its squeak had become sad, unlike Dod’s wife who was waiting for him with a suitcase at the ward entrance.

‘Is he ready?’ she asked, all smiles and hope. ‘I’ve got his clothes here.’

I didn’t want to be the one who told her he was in danger of a relapse, but already he was at my shoulder.

‘Get me ootta here,’ he said clutching his pyjamas at the neck and waist-band and looking frantic.

‘But, Dod, what about your clothes?’

‘Ootahere – this meenute.’

Sister Gorightly’s honeyed voice lassoed him. ‘My dear man, you can’t possibly go home like that. Go and get dressed, there’s a good fellow – we can’t have you catching pneumonia, now can we?’

‘You’d a damn good try,’ he muttered, but complying.

Dod’s wife was awe struck.

‘How on earth did you manage that? He’s been enjoying the wee break so much I thought he might not want to come home.’

But Sister Gorightly had no answer. Looking round the ward, a light in her eye, she was on another mission

‘I’d like to see you doing the drinks round now, Nurse Macpherson. See if you can do that a little better.’ She fluttered a dismissive wave to the Souters. ‘You’ll excuse us, as I’m sure you’re aware, this young probationer is needing all of my time. Come along.’ The shove on my back propelled me towards the kitchen.

‘I’ll give you a few minutes to set up,’ she said, brushing a hand across her forehead as though she was feeling fevered, ‘then I’ll come along and check it before we start. Let’s hope you get this right.’

The drinks round was usually a chatty casual trundle with the natural spillage you expect of patients drinking from a difficult angle. I hadn’t ever found it difficult and hoped that here at least, my performance might improve.

‘Are you setting up for Royalty?’ the kitchen maid asked, looking at a trolley loaded with every conceivable drink combination. ‘Sorry, but there’s no ice. It’s been nabbed by the female side. They said it was payback time for the linen raid.’

‘Don’t worry, with Sister Gorightly around, there’s no shortage.’ I was too busy looking for a clean cloth to notice she’d arrived and so had Hazel, who was carrying a tray of dirty dishes.

‘Ah! How nice to see you, Nurse.’ The tutor sounded genuinely pleased. ‘You’ll see I’m working with your colleague today – though I’m afraid it won’t be for the short while spent with you.’ She laughed and tapped her fingers together. ‘Of course, I know you have a father who’s in the business, shall we say, and able I imagine, and keen, to advise you, so I expect that must put this colleague at a disadvantage.’

‘But her Dad’s a plumber.’ I opted for sarcasm.

Hazel giggled, ‘Of sorts.’

‘A plumber? Oh dear me, no. He’s a very important surgeon,’ Sister Gorightly, a stranger to irony, puffed out her chest, putting the buttons at risk, ‘and I see from your tray that the female side has had their drinks. We must be late. Now, Nurse Macpherson – quickly, quickly.’ She looked over the trolley with disfavour. ‘Where’s the shower cloth?’

A shower cloth?

I’d never heard of such a thing and neither had the kitchen maid, but she took a towel from her precious collection and handed it over as if it were her last.

‘I suppose that will have to do.’ Sister Gorightly examined it minutely, then, laying it over the trolley with the care of a magician, drove at a spanking rate into a ward full of thirsty patients.

‘And high time too,’ said Sister Miller. She looked harassed and in need of refreshment herself. ‘Hurry up before there’s a revolution. Some patients have even been consulting their temperature charts and saying they’re feeling dehydrated – though goodness knows where they found that word.’ Any medical knowledge beyond its experts was apparently considered dangerous.

‘We’ll do our best,’ Sister Gorightly rocked the trolley as if it were a pram, ‘it’s just that Nurse Macpherson’s rather slow.’

‘She’s not usually,’ retorted that lovely ward sister, and throwing me a smile, hurried away.

The Sister tutor raised her eyebrows and set off. ‘We must make this a pleasant occasion. I’ll show you.’

I was surprised when she approached nice but nervous Mr Watt. He wasn’t long out of theatre after major abdominal surgery, an event he’d approached with some trepidation, and (had) new striped pyjamas supplied by an equally anxious family.

‘This can’t be necessary,’ he cried, now corseted into a tent-sized bib, ‘I’m only allowed a few sips of water.’ There was a ‘Fluids Only’ sign above him and enough tubes coming from him and draining into the bags hooked on the bedside to justify his caution. He clutched his head as if suspecting it might be equally trapped.

‘Rubbish!’ insisted the tutor. ‘What you need is a nice cup of tea. Just drink up and you’ll be on the mend before you know it.’

She picked up a chart and clicked her teeth. ‘Would you look at this! Whoever filled this in hasn’t given the proper details. There’s nothing written here. See! This is how you do it.’ She wrote at length and signed off with a flourish.

Mr Watt swallowed his tea with reluctance and was now beginning to look so upset I wondered if I should do something. Sister Gorightly wouldn’t like her authority challenged, so I could only wait until she put it to the trolley before nodding my head and swivelling my eyeballs to Staff Nurse. She looked concerned and went to look for Sister. I just hoped they didn’t think I was having a fit. Meanwhile, the circus moved on.

‘I wasn’t needing a bed bath,’ grumbled Alex, who had escaped all attentions other than a nerve-ridden splash. ‘Wee Mac doesn’t usually drown us.’

‘Such familiarity,’ tutted Sister Gorightly.

At last the round was completed and I found the power of prayer when my tormentor wiped her brow and said she’d had enough for the day. She tottered off, presumably to burnish her halo, whilst I retired to the sluice for a bit of sniffing, then returned to the ward to find that Mr Watt was now screened off.

I was anxious about him, but the ward resumed its frantic pace with another twenty-nine patients all needing attention. Eventually, tired, anxious, dispirited, but lacking the courage to look behind Mr Watt’s screens, I went off duty.

Feeling a failure and sure dismissal was minutes away, I thought it best to hand in my notice now and was so busy concocting the words, I hardly noticed reaching the Nurses’ Home. But it would have been hard to miss Isobel, who was brightening up the entrance hall in a pink dress, mini enough to have Matron reaching for the smelling salts.

‘Jane, you’ve not been crying surely?’

‘No, no – it’s just a bad cold. I think it calls for an early night. Not like you, you look as if you’ve a heavy date, you lucky girl.’

Isobel shrugged. ‘It’s not a big deal. Come on. You’re more important. Let me come up with you. You can go to bed and I’ll fill a hot water bottle, and what about some aspirins and some tissues?’

‘I’ll be fine. Look, you hurry on. I don’t want to make you late.’

A fancy car had drawn up at the entrance and a good-looking chap I’d seen in the hospital corridor, followed by medical students hanging on his every word, got out. He smoothed his hair in an Adonis-confirming sort of way, looked anxiously at his watch and then at the door where Isobel now was. His face fell as quickly as it had lit up as she smiled, waved, mouthed, ‘Ten minutes,’ then turned away.

‘Don’t you worry, you and the bottle filling are of paramount importance to me,’ she assured, putting a light hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ll do it properly and you can give me a score.’ She nodded carelessly at her escort now kicking his heels in the car park, ‘It’ll do him good to wait. Everybody but me seems to think he’s God and not a common surgeon for goodness sake. Come on.’

When we got to my floor, Isobel put in a tactful ten minutes in the kitchen whilst I looked from my window to the hospital through a vale of tears. Now that I knew some of the dramas within the grey granite I wondered if, after all, I’d chosen the right career. It all seemed so difficult with Sister Gorightly making impossible the simplest of tasks. At least, I thought, having one last hiccup, Maisie had gone straight home after her shift. She’d been spared the floodworks and I, an off-key rendition of ‘Jesus loves me’.