Cottage Hospital Read online

  Other titles by Claire Rayner

  Postscripts

  Nurse in the Sun

  The Lonely One

  The DOCTORS OF DOWNLANDS

  The FINAL YEAR

  COTTAGE HOSPITAL

  Claire Rayner

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-049-3

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

  Isle of Man

  IM2 4NR

  United Kingdom

  Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672

  email: [email protected]

  This revised edition, complete with new introduction,

  first published in Great Britain 1993

  Copyright © 1963, 1993,2010 by Claire Rayner.

  Introduction © 1993 by Claire Rayner.

  All rights reserved. The moral rights of the author to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Rayner, Claire

  Cottage Hospital. – New ed

  I. Title

  823.914 [F]

  e-ISBN 978-1-84982-049-3

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  INTRODUCTION

  By Claire Rayner

  Twenty-five or more years ago, I was a young would-be writer, trying to learn how to make my way in the world of books. I was writing for magazines and newspapers and I’d produced a couple of non-fiction books, but story-telling … that was a mystery to me. I knew I liked stories, of course; I’ve been an avid reader since before I was four years old and to this day I’m a pushover for a well-told tale. But how to tell a tale that was the mystery.

  So much so that it simply did not occur to me that I might be able to write fiction. But I was persuaded to try my hand. And because I knew that it is a basic rule of the learner writer always to write what you know, I opted to write about hospital life. After twelve years of sweat, starch, tears and bedpans as a nurse and then a sister in a series of London hospitals, I had an intimate knowledge of how such establishments work. I also knew that a great many people love peering behind closed doors into worlds they don’t usually get the chance to experience.

  So, I had a go. I started to tell myself stories of hospital life-rather romantic, but none the worse for that-only instead of keeping them in my own head as I had when I’d been a day-dreaming youngster, I struggled to put them on paper. And to my surprise and delight I found that publishers were willing to have a go, and gamble on me. They put my words into books - and I was delighted.

  But also a bit embarrassed. I know it isn’t an attractive trait to admit to, but there it is - I was a bit of a snob in those days. Not a social snob, you understand, but an intellectual snob. I had the notion that stories like these were a bit ‘ordinary’, that what really mattered was Literature with a capital ‘L’ and I knew perfectly well I wasn’t writing that! So instead of using my own name on my first published attempts at story-telling, I borrowed my sister’s first name and a surname from elsewhere in my family. And Sheila Brandon was born.

  Now I am no longer a literary snob. I know that any storytelling that gives pleasure and interest to readers is nothing to be ashamed of and has a right to exist. It may not be Literature, but then what is? Dickens was just a story-teller in his own time, the equivalent of the writers of ‘Eastenders’ and ‘Coronation Street’. Today he is revered as a Classic. Well, these stories of mine are never going to be classics, but I don’t think, now I re-read them, that I need blush too much for them. So, here they are, the first efforts of my young writing years, under my own name at last. I hope you enjoy them. Let me know, either way!

  Chapter One

  The operating theatre was quiet, the big shadowless light above the table throwing a pool of clear radiance over the humped figure of the patient on the table and the bent heads of the two surgeons. In the shadows beyond the central pool of light, the little junior nurse padded softly from swab rack to trolley, from anaesthetic machine to sterilising room, her brown eyes absorbed in the task of the moment, her smooth young forehead creased a little as she concentrated.

  Barbara, standing quietly at Daniel’s side, putting instruments into his hand with automatic precision, felt happy. It was the sort of case she loved, she thought contentedly. An extra appendix put on at the end of the list, uncomplicated, and nothing but tidying up and off duty to come. And it was always nice to take Daniel’s cases. She looked at the back of his head, at the line of dark red hair just showing beneath the green theatre cap, at the broad square shoulders, and smiled a little, under her mask. Quiet easy going Daniel, who never shouted at the nurse who scrubbed for him, who knew what he wanted to do and how to do it-he was comfortable to be with. And for Barbara that was one of the nicest things about him.

  “Ten years,” she thought, as she turned to her trolley and started to thread the skin needles with nylon sutures. “Ten years I’ve known him – it’s ridiculous – it can’t be ten years since I came here –”

  But it was. Ten years since she had first come to the Royal, a gawky nineteen year old, all legs and eyes, as Daniel had said the first time they had met.

  Barbara slid into memory. She had been rushing across the courtyard from the Nurses’ Home, her cape held round her with one hand, the other clutching desperately at the cap that refused to stay put on her silky black hair. She had careered head first into the big red-headed young man, the short white coat of the senior medical student straining across his wide shoulders.

  “Here, hold on!” he’d cried in mock indignation. “You can’t go around bashing medical students like that – we haven’t enough to spare for that –” and he’d taken her cap from her, and pinned it securely on her head while she stood scarlet with mortification wishing the ground would open and swallow her up.

  “There!” he’d said finally, standing back to admire the effect. “That’s the way to wear those silly scraps of starch – it won’t come off now –” He’d grinned at her red face then, and said with a voice bubbling with laughter, “We must be short of nurses at the Royal these days, if they’re cradle-snatching babies like you to fill the school. You look like a young colt – all legs and eyes. How old are you?”

  “Nineteen,” Barbara had said defensively, trying to look it.

  “I don’t believe it,” he’d said, his eyes glinting with amusement. “Not a day over sixteen –”

  And they had both laughed, and Barbara had gone on her way on duty feeling suddenly much happier. It had been lonely, those first weeks at the Royal, she remembered, turning round to put a needle holder in Daniel’s outstretched hand. Daniel’s easy friendship had helped her a lot, and she had come to watch for his big figure moving with deceptive laziness around the hospital. They had drifted into a companionable relationship, sharing the occasional free tickets to the theatre that came from Matron’s office, going out together to celebrate on the day Daniel qualified, playing casual tennis with the rest of their small set of friends, thrilled for each other when one of them passed an exam, commiserating over the occasional setbacks. And if there had been a time, one hot long summer, when Barbara had found herself thinking of him as more than just a friend, she had learned to push those thoughts firmly away. He was a good friend – and that was all, she had told herself,
when the mere sight of him had been enough to send her heart racing madly, enough to make her knees tremble with pleasurable fear. And he had never noticed, she thought gratefully, never seen the way I nearly made a fool of myself.

  And now Barbara was the theatre Sister, no longer a leggy colt, but a tall and quiet woman with an air of serenity about her, wearing her smooth black hair in a neat chignon on which her snowy cap sat with authority. Daniel was the senior surgical Registrar, his Fellowship safely passed, and a brilliant future confidently prophesied for him by the consultant surgeons he worked for. There was some glinting white hair among the dark red at his temples now, and his face had settled into a craggy firmness that matched his powerful body.

  “He must be – thirty-four now,” Barbara thought, a little amused. “We’re getting old – positively antique –”

  Daniel started to put in the last of the skin sutures, as the anaesthetist at the head of the table turned off his machine. Another few minutes, and the patient would be on his way back to the ward, leaving Barbara and her junior free to tidy up and go off duty, and Daniel to his last ward round of the day.

  As she started to prepare the skin dressing, Barbara grimaced a little. The gnawing pain that had been bothering her so slightly all afternoon was getting worse again – she’d better send the junior to find some milk as soon as they’d finished, she thought irritably. Damned pain – and she pushed the implications of the pain into the back of her mind, refusing to think about it.

  “All done and dusted!” Daniel straightened his back, and looked across the table at his assistant. “Thanks, Jeff. Nice little job, wasn’t it? Got it just in time – I thought it was just on a rupture –” and he nodded with obvious pleasure in the clinical judgement that had led him to time this operation so neatly.

  “Very pretty, Dan. You fished it out a treat. I’d hate to have to play with a retro-caecal as inflamed as that little beauty.” Jeff Peters pulled off his gloves, and stood back to let the porter lift the unconscious patient on to the trolley, watching them on their way out of the theatre, back to the ward. “Me for a quiet beer – it’s been a long day. Join me?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’m on call, laddy. You’ll have to swill on your own. Sister –” he turned to Barbara, “ – about that gastrectomy tomorrow –”

  He broke off sharply, and then leaned over to peer at Barbara more closely. She was standing beside her trolley, grasping the edges with her gloved hands, her head bent.

  “Barbara! What’s the matter?” His voice was sharp with anxiety suddenly. “Are you ill again?”

  Barbara hardly heard him. The pain under her ribs had suddenly flared, and the green tiled walls of the theatre had started to move, rotating and seeming to merge into shimmering gleams of light. Daniel’s voice seemed to come muffled, from miles away, and she concentrated with every fibre of her being on standing still. “I won’t faint,” she told herself grimly, staring at a pair of forceps on the trolley beneath her hands in an effort to make the room stop moving. “I won’t –”

  Daniel’s hard hands grasped her shoulders, and for a second, the walls steadied, and the blackness hovering at the edge of her vision receded. But then, as he gently pulled her back to lean against him, her willpower slid away from her, and she slipped into the blessed peace of oblivion.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was lying in the big armchair in the surgeon’s room, her mask pulled away from her face, her gloves and gown lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Daniel was standing looming above her, holding a glass of warm milk, his face grim.

  “Here you are.” His voice was curt as he held out the glass to her. She tried to speak, but he glowered at her, and thrust the glass into her hand. Obediently, she took it, and began to sip.

  Daniel stood at the window, his back to her, staring out at the light of the main ward block across the twilit courtyard. Barbara sat quietly after she had drunk the milk, the glass on her lap, waiting for the pain to recede, too tired to attempt to speak. Outside she could hear the clatter of bowls and instruments and thought confusedly that she ought to go and help the junior clear up –

  Ten minutes slid quietly by, and then she stirred experimentally and sat up, her hand automatically smoothing her hair.

  “I’m sorry, Daniel,” she said, her voice a little husky. “Stupid of me –”

  “Bloody stupid!” His face blazed with anger as he whirled from the window and came to stand towering above her. “Has the pain gone now?”

  She nodded, her head bent, unwilling to meet his eyes.

  “You are without doubt the stupidest woman I know.” His voice was still angry, but there was a hint of softening in it. “Are you trying to perforate that damn’ ulcer of yours? Are you completely devoid of any common sense?”

  Barbara pulled herself to her feet. “Look, I said I’m sorry,” she said wearily. “I finished the case, didn’t I? It isn’t as though I flaked out in the middle –”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it,” he said brusquely. “I told you three months ago when you first started to get symptoms of a peptic ulcer that theatre was too much for you –”

  She stood very straight, and looked at him levelly. “See here, Daniel. I know you mean well. But I am not leaving the theatre, and that’s that. This is my job, and I like it. If I’ve got an ulcer it’s just one of those things. I was stupid today and I admit it – I hadn’t time to go to lunch and that’s why this happened. But it’s the first sign of trouble I’ve had for weeks, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. But I told you before and I’m telling you again. I’m not giving up my job –”

  “For God’s sake, Bar!” he ran his hands wearily across his face. “You know as well as I do that you ought to be working in a more peaceful atmosphere! The stress of theatre work is colossal, and you can’t expect to do it well unless you are really fit. You got an ulcer because you work here, and if you go on in theatre with all the flap and bustle and the irregular meals, and all the rest of it, you might perforate and haemorrhage, and make a downright mess of yourself! It just isn’t worth it.” He came and stood beside her, taking her white face between his big hands.

  “My dear, I know what it is to do the work you love. I’d be as miserable as hell if I had to give up surgery – but damn it all, your health’s more important! Do something lighter for a year or so, and then you’ll be fit enough to come back –”

  Barbara set her mouth stubbornly. “No, Daniel! You’re sweet to be so concerned, and I appreciate it. But this is my – my life and I’d be more than miserable if I had to give it up. So please, forget what happened this evening. I’ll make sure I get my food regularly, and I’ll take my pills and I’ll be fine –”

  He dropped his hands to his sides, and stood defeatedly staring at her. Then, he shrugged and turned and went, the door slamming behind him.

  Barbara finished the evening’s work with a sense of relief. She knew Daniel was right, but she felt she had convinced him with her refusal to listen to him. As she scrubbed instruments, and prepared for the next morning’s lists, she remembered, unwillingly, what Sir Peter Field had said when she had been sent to see him three months before.

  “Duodenal ulcer, Sister – not good. You ought to leave that madhouse of a butcher-shop before you make an invalid of yourself. Come to one of the country branches, hmm?” But she had shaken her head, a little amused by his physician’s prejudice against surgeons and operating theatres.

  “I shall be all right, Sir,” she had said quietly. “Diet and rest when I can. I’d be extremely unhappy to give up my post. It means a lot to me –”

  Old Sir Peter had peered at her under his bushy brows and sighed gustily.

  “Stubborn woman! All right then. But one more go like this last one and I’ll see to it that Matron makes you take life easy. I’ll put you on Probanthine now, anyway, and see you get the right food – but remember – I’m warning you –”

  Well, she had had another go like
the first one, this evening. Barbara scrubbed industriously at a pair of artery forceps and grimaced a little. There was no need for Sir Peter to know, she thought. I was silly today, but I won’t let it happen again, so there’s no need to report sick. No one need know.

  But when she came on duty the next morning to find the second sister from the private theatres in her office, and a note asking her to report to Matron’s office, her heart sank.

  “Hi, Hughes,” Dorothy Barker was pushing her thick fair hair under a tight green theatre cap. “What gives? Why the panic? Home Sister comes bustling over to me at the crack of dawn to say I’m to come here, and now this –” she gestured with her head at the note on the green paper that Matron always used. “What’s the matter?”

  Barbara managed a smile. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said easily. “Probably there’s a big job out at one of the country branches. I’ve had to do that before, if there isn’t anyone there who can cope –”

  Dorothy peered at herself abstractedly, her pug nose close to the little mirror. “Cripes, these bloody pimples! Theatre’ll make a hag of me before I’m thirty – I daresay you’re right. What have we got here?”

  “Gastrectomy, exploration of abdominal mass –”

  They slid into rapid discussion of the morning’s work, while Barbara ran through the details of the morning’s lists, and re-arranged the staff off-duty so that Dorothy would have enough senior nurses to cover her. Then she smoothed her apron and powdered her nose, ready to go across to Matron’s office.

  As she combed her already immaculate hair, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Dark brown eyes, set deep under straight brows, a high forehead, and cheeks shadowed under the high bones. “I look lousy,” she admitted to herself miserably; “Lousy,” and her eyes looked unhappily back at her, the skin under them smudged with violet shadows, the white skin taut over her temples.