The Hive (2 page)

‘Why do you suppose she changed the reporting?’

Ruth shrugged, her eyes still on the mirror.

‘Gawd knows, ducky. Wants to spend the morning going through old Biggs’ files, I suppose. She’ll find a right old mess if she does, that’s for sure.’

‘I can’t say I like it, changing things so soon.’

‘It’s only for this morning, isn’t it? That’s what Miss Baker said.’

‘Who knows? I mean, she could be meaning to change all sorts of things. I can’t say I like it. New brooms——’

Ruth finished her face and hair, and got up to change her apron for a clean one from the bottom drawer of the dresser.

‘Well, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you, in her shoes? Biggs was here twenty years. About time someone shook the place up a bit.’

‘Why? Nothing wrong the way things are——’

‘Oh, come off it, Cramm. You may run your ward like clockwork—we all know that. If I get a nurse after she’s been with you, poor bitch thinks she’s on holiday.’ She laughed without any malice. ‘You’re too perfect for words. But there’re people like me—I’ve no illusions about
this
ward. It’s shocking really, the way I let things slide. Too much private life, that’s my trouble. Still, it won’t do me any harm to have to bustle about a bit. As long as she doesn’t go mucking about with the off duty, and trying to keep me on for more than two evenings a week, I’ll be happy.’

‘Oh, that.’ Josephine dismissed off-duty with a shrug. ‘She can do that if she likes, for my part. But if she tries to alter the way I run my ward, I’ll have something to say about it.’

‘Why should she? It’s a good ward, isn’t it? You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

‘Well, I hope not. But I wish I knew. All this waiting to see what’ll happen. It’s getting me down.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t worry, ducky. Take it a day at a time, that’s my motto. Look, I’ll send that speculum over later. She probably can’t find it, silly bitch. I’ve a ward round in a minute, and I want to have a private chat with Mr. Jessolo before he starts,’ she smirked a little. ‘Getting on very nicely there, I am. I don’t think his wife understands him. See you at lunch.’

Casualty was seething with activity, nurses scurrying from cubicle to cubicle, patients in the rows of waiting-room chairs muttering irritably at the delays, while the curtains round each cubicle swished and moved behind casualty officers doing their
best to clear them ready for the next patients with bloodied bandages, or lugubrious complaints of belly aches and sleepless nights.

In the middle of the main room, Dolly East, her tall top-heavy body planted firmly on widely spread feet, was berating a gangling student nurse, who stood miserably beside a bucket of water, a mop clutched in one hand. The girl’s dark hair was falling down from a badly pinned bun on the back of her head, and her cap sat crookedly on it over a face set in an expression of mulish obstinacy that disguised an intense desire to cry. She stood staring at the mop, as Dolly East’s voice rose higher and higher.

‘What sort of home do you come from, nurse? Are you used to filth or are you one of those people who never do a hand’s turn around a house? How many times do I have to tell you girls that you can’t have asepsis in a hospital without basic cleanliness? Look at this floor—just look at it!
You
may think it’s clean—but you can take it from me, it’s not clean enough for anyone with a
real
idea of what clean is! Do it again—and do it properly. And if you can’t make a job of it with a mop, you can get down on your knees and use those lily-white hands of yours!’

The other nurses, some busily working with bandages in the cubicles, some checking lists of patients or laying trolleys for dressings and injections, watched Dolly carefully, grateful that the student with the mop had drawn her rage, sorry for her but relieved that her defections had protected themselves from Sister’s attentions. They knew quite well that the most important thing to learn in Casualty was not how to apply a bandage or assist a casualty officer with a patient, but how to keep out of Sister’s way. Sister held strong views about the importance of training student nurses to be quick, clean and accurate, and was convinced that the best way to accomplish such training was to pounce on any shortcoming immediately and vociferously.

Not for Dolly the quiet chat in the privacy of her office, not for her the gentle remonstrance some other sisters used. She did not care who observed her anger, who overheard her comments. She believed in swift retribution. And if a nurse was
reduced to tears, well, that was due to the nurse’s lack of control. It was certainly not Dolly’s fault.

This morning, her usual irritability was sharpened by a deep sense of injustice. She had been nursing the feeling of injustice for weeks now, and if she had thought about it at all, would have expected the feeling to remain unchanged this morning. But it was worse, worse even than it had been on the day of the final selection committee meeting, when she had been told that she had not been appointed to the matronship.

She had applied for the post as soon as Miss Biggs’ retirement had been announced, quite certain that she would get the job. Was she not a Royal Gold Medallist? Had she not spent almost the whole of her professional life in the place? But it had been Elizabeth Manton who had snatched her rightful due from under her nose. Miss Manton, an outsider, an unknown quantity.

It was, in a way, the nurses’ own fault that Dolly was more sharp eyed than ever this morning, even quicker to pounce on them. In common with every other student in the hospital, they had come on duty this morning looking neater than usual, more alert, conscious of the new matron in her office, ready to look their best for her first round. Even if Dolly had not wanted the matronship for herself, this would have hurt her feelings. She cared very much indeed about her nurses, desperately wanted them to be the best set of nurses in the hospital, wanted them to be immediately recognisable as
her
staff by their tidiness and efficiency, and much of her nagging and bad temper was directed at creating this image. And they had produced just the effect she wanted this morning, but not for her. She knew this, knew it was because of Miss Manton that they were a credit to the department today, and the knowledge rankled.

Casualty was not a comfortable place to be on Miss Manton’s first day in office.

By half past ten, the theatres were well under way. The tonsil list in the second theatre was running smoothly, each flushed loose-mouthed post-operative child on his trolley passing the incoming patient at the door with the precision of a
planned choreography; surgeon and table nurse, anaesthetist and runner nurse moving along their organised routes with the ease of long practice. In the main theatre, the Indian registrar on the general surgical team was delicately and tediously working through a simple appendicectomy, while the anaesthetist half dozed at the head of the table, and the senior staff nurse, her brown-gloved hands resting against her green gown, yawned behind her mask as she watched the slow movements of the surgeon’s hands. He took at least twice as long as anyone else to do any operation, and this was a comfort. With any luck, the staff nurse would still be in the theatres when the new Matron arrived to do her first round, and that would be a very good thing.

In her office, Daphne Cooper put down the phone as soon as Miss Baker had explained that ‘Matron would like to see you after lunch, if you don’t mind, Sister,’ and relaxed. She could have taken the registrar’s list after all, but it didn’t really matter. The staff nurse would have to take Mr. Jamieson’s list this afternoon too, and Jamieson would have to put up with it, like it or lump it. She smiled a little. He wouldn’t like it a bit, but she could handle him. ‘I’m afraid I must see Matron, Mr. Jamieson. Her first day, you see. I’m sure staff nurse will look after you very well——’

Clearly there would be no Matron’s round this morning, not before the sisters had met her officially at their reporting session after lunch, so she quickly changed her theatre cap for her usual frilled and bowed one, and hurried out towards the big double doors.

‘If anyone wants me, Nickolls, tell them I’m in O.P.D., will you? I want to check on the waiting lists for tonsils. We might have to fit in an extra list if there are many on it,’ she told the theatre porter, whistling as he changed oxygen cylinders on the spare anaesthetic machine, and escaped before anyone could stop her.

And Nickolls, who knew more about what went on in the hospital than anyone else, apart from the head porter, told the staff nurse as soon as he could that ‘Sister’s gone down to O.P. for a gossip with Sister Phillips, and Gawd ’elp anyone who bothers her.’

In out-patients, there was noise, lots of noise. The big tiled waiting hall with its rows of tubular steel and canvas chairs was like an echo chamber, making the smallest sound reverberate against the ceiling, turning the clatter of trolley wheels into a cacophony, making ordinary human speech sound like roars of anger.

Because it was impossible to be quiet there nurses were noisier than they needed to be. It was pleasant to be able to shout patients’ names above the din, to enjoy stretching one’s lungs to their utmost, to be able to clatter across the terrazzo floor without fear of being told off, as one was on the wards. And one could talk quietly of the most private things without fear of being overheard, something the patients well knew as they exchanged symptoms and surmise about treatment while they waited their turn on the uncomfortable chairs.

It was because of the noise that Susan Phillips ran her department from her office, a tiny cubicle tucked away behind the lifts on the far side of the big waiting hall. She hated noise, hated the din that was so much a part of the day, and spent as little time as she possibly could out of the office. She would have been much happier, in one way, to have been a ward sister, to have a job where she could enjoy quietness, but a ward had its drawbacks. Only in O.P.D. could she be sure of having every evening off duty, every week-end, like Daphne Cooper did. Because she was in O.P.D., she and Daphne could spend more time together, and that was the way she wanted things to be. So, she was an out-patient sister, and spent her time in her office, stretching the paper work that was so much a part of her department to fill the day, while the nurses contentedly ran the clinics and clattered and shouted in the waiting hall.

Daphne put her head round the door, and grinned at the bent fair head at the desk before coming to perch beside the pile of clinic lists on which Susan was working.

‘I’ve come for some gen about the tonsil waiting lists,’ she announced. ‘In case I might need to shove in another list in the theatres.’

Susan’s wide blue eyes lit up with laughter. ‘The coffee’ll be in in about five minutes. I had a feeling you’d be needing the
tonsil lists—or something——’ and she giggled delightedly.

‘Well, dammit, lovey, what’s a girl to do? Can’t wait for a natter till lunch time, can I? Not with East sitting there looking like Dracula’s grandmother, turning you off your grub.’

‘Poor old East. You can’t help feeling sorry for her.’

‘I can! Her and her big ideas. Honestly, Pip, just think what today would have been like if she
had
got it—don’t bear thinking of, do it?’ And Daphne’s mock cockney accent made Susan giggle again.

‘We wouldn’t have had her at meals, mind, if she had got it. Or in the Home. No more banging on the wall after ten o’clock at night if she was Matron, all tucked up in her flat in the hospital——’

Daphne snorted. ‘I much care about East banging on the wall. She’s just jealous, anyway. Hasn’t a friend to call her own, and loathes us because we have.’

‘Lucky us,’ Susan said.

‘Lucky us. Lucky Manton. Poor old East.’ There was a tap on the door, and the O.P.D. orderly appeared with a tray of coffee.

When the woman had gone, Daphne said, ‘Have you been told not to report till after lunch?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Wonder why? Just to show she’s new—you know——I’m boss now, and I’m doing things my way? La Biggs saw everyone at ten on Monday morning, so I’m going to be different?’

‘Sweety, I couldn’t care less, to put it mildly. She can’t make changes here, or in the theatres, can she? The consultants wouldn’t wear it. So she’ll go sweeping around the wards, and much I care.’

‘Oh, I’m not particularly worried—well, not much. Not for me. But she might try a rota, you know, with non-specialists.’

‘A rota?’

‘Make the sisters change round like the student nurses do. They do that in some hospitals, these days. Except for specialists, like theatre, and maternity, of course. Cotton and me, we’d have to stay put. But the rest of you—well, you might find yourself on a medical ward any day now. Who knows?’

Susan put her cup down and stared at Daphne in horror.
‘Oh, Daphne, she
wouldn’t
! I’d only get two or three nights off a week if she did that, and every other week-end! We’d never get out together any more!’

Daphne threw her head back, and roared with laughter.

‘Oh, Pip, your face! If you could see it!’

‘Daphne Cooper, you’re a villain! You’re just trying to stir me up, that’s what you’re doing——’

‘I know, lovey. You always rise so beautifully! Silly Pip. I don’t suppose she’ll do any such thing, not for a moment. She’d have a riot on her hands if she did. But just think how they’d all flap if we told ’em at lunch we’d heard she was going to! Shall I?’

Susan produced her little girl giggle again. ‘It might be fun, at that. Go on, Daph, let’s. I’d love to see Cramm’s face if you said it——’

Sister Tutor closed her file of nurses’ reports, and folded her hands quietly on her lap, and looked across at Matron behind her desk.

‘I think that’s about all, Matron. Unless you can think of something I’ve forgotten?’

‘No, I don’t think so. It’s all quite clear. The wastage doesn’t seem any worse than anyone else’s—though the recruitment figures aren’t all they might be.’

She stood up, and began to walk about the room, her hands clasped in front of her.

‘You know, you’re the only sister I’ve seen this morning, apart from Night Sister. I’m not seeing the others until after lunch. And I’ve done this for a very good reason. I wanted to talk to you in particular first.’