The Lonely One Page 12

‘Probably,’ Bridget said. ‘They’ll know who the emergency is, anyway. Unless there’s another case for the Private Theatre – anyway, ask them.’

  ‘Someone told me it’s one of the nurses,’ the junior said chattily. ‘But I can’t find out who – Night Sister was flying around like a flea in a fit, and no one dared ask her – you know what she’s like when she’s in a flap.’

  Bridget laughed, and began to dry her hands on the sterile towel that lay ready for her. ‘I do! But there usually is a fuss when it’s staff that gets sick, you know that. We’ll know who it is soon enough. Probably turn out to be an appendix, anyway – ’ and under her breath, she muttered, ‘I hope – ’

  She shrugged into her gown, and said without turning, ‘Do up my tapes, Nurse, will you, before you make that phone call?’

  But as she spoke, the big door of the sterilising room shushed open, and footsteps came purposefully across the floor.

  Josh’s voice made Bridget stiffen. ‘I’ll do it, Nurse. You go and make your phone call, whatever it is – ’

  Bridget felt his hands behind her as he took the tapes of her gown and began to tie them.

  ‘I didn’t know you were on call,’ he said, and his voice was so low she could barely hear it above the hiss of the sterilisers.

  ‘There was a shortage of staff over in the Private Theatres,’ Bridget said evenly. ‘So I had to cover here while Sister covers them. I can cope.’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’ He stood still watching her while she pulled on her gloves, and when she had finished, and turned to go into the theatre to arrange her instruments on the trolley, he said in a strained voice, ‘Wait a minute. I – I want to talk to you about this case.’

  Obediently she stopped, and picked up a sterile towel to wrap her gloved hands in, to keep them sterile while she waited for him to speak.

  He stood undecided, his mask dangling below his chin, a white cap covering all but a rim of hair above his creased brow.

  ‘Do you know who this patient is?’ he asked abruptly, after a pause.

  ‘No – only that it’s a member of the staff. What’s all the fuss about? I gather there is a bit of fuss going on.’

  He nodded, then dropped his eyes. ‘It’s Bobby,’ he said flatly.

  Bridget felt sick for a moment. Not just because the patient they were preparing for was Bobby, but because of his obvious distress. Even though she knew that she had no hope – or even intention – of ever becoming any sort of friend, or more, of this man’s, it hurt to discover that he still seemed to care something for Bobby, despite what he had said about his feelings for her that night last Christmas.

  ‘I see,’ she said, after a moment. ‘What’s the matter? Is – is she very ill?’

  ‘Very ill indeed,’ he said, and then looked up at her, his eyes shadowed so that she couldn’t see the expression in them. ‘And you might as well know now as later. She – she’s been very stupid – ’ He swallowed. ‘She was pregnant. And – and she’s procured an abortion. I don’t know the details, but I suppose she went to some botcher in a back street somewhere. Anyway, she’s in a pretty bad state. God knows what we’ll find when we open her up – ’

  Bridget stared at him, her thoughts swirling. Bobby, pregnant? An abortion?

  He turned away, and with a vicious gesture, pulled his mask over his face and started to scrub his own hands.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said above the swish of the water. ‘But – ’

  The big doors moved, and the junior came scurrying across the terrazzo floor.

  ‘I say, Nurse Preston,’ she gasped, heavy with her important news. ‘I say, there is some blood cross-matched, and do you know who the patient is? It’s Nurse Aston, and – ’

  ‘I know,’ Bridget said heavily. ‘I know. Get my instruments out of the steriliser, please, Nurse. We’re in a hurry.’

  As she sorted out haemostats and clamps, sponge forceps and needleholders, laying them in neat rows on the trolley, as she broke tubes of cat-gut, and laid the hanks of smooth, brown ties ready on a swab, she felt strangely numb. Part of her was distressed to think of Bobby being so ill – angry and hurt though she was whenever she thought of Bobby, badly as she felt Bobby had treated her, still, they had been friends, of a sort. And to think of the gay, noisy Bobby as anything but bubbling with good health was sad.

  But what hurt most was the way Josh had behaved when he told her the news. It seemed obvious to Bridget that the pregnancy Bobby had tried so disastrously to terminate was due to Josh. Why else should Josh seem so upset? But was he distressed because of the pregnancy, or because he had known – had allowed – Bobby to procure that abortion?

  She remembered his voice as he said, ‘ – I don’t know the details, but I suppose she went to some botcher in a back street somewhere – ’ Was he telling the truth? Did he really not know? Or had he himself sent her to that botcher?

  She tried not to think about it. One of the things about Josh that she had admired most was his approach to his work. He was gay, he joked with patients, he led a noisy and hectic life on as well as off duty – but somehow she had always been aware of his deep care for his work, his feelings about its importance. Had his relationship with Bobby so poisoned his attitudes that he had lost all ethical ideas? It was more than she could bear to think about.

  And then, the big doors of the theatre swung open, and the trolley with its white-sheeted form trundled in, the porter at the foot, a weary anaesthetist guiding the head, while the junior pushed the big anaesthetic machine alongside. As the trolley came up to the table under the big, shadowless light, Josh came through from the sterilising room, and stood back to let the porter and junior nurse lift Bobby on to the table.

  Bridget looked down at her, at the white face, crumpled and half hidden under the dark-green rubber of the anaesthetic mask, at the fair hair escaping from the white cap that was supposed to be covering it, at the rim of white showing under the half closed eyelids, and felt a wave of pity wash over her. To see the pretty, gay Bobby like this, helpless under her anaesthetic, her skin blotched red by the pressure of the anaesthetic mask, the half dried tears on the white skin of her cheeks, the tears that often accompanied unconsciousness, was agonising in its pathos.

  ‘She’s bloody low,’ the anaesthetist grunted, lifting one eyelid with a practised finger to peer into the blank, blue eye beneath. ‘She’s in a high fever – and that doesn’t help. I’ve given her a massive dose of penicillin, as an umbrella, but it’s my guess you’ll find a mass of infection there – she’s been sitting on this for a week or more.’

  ‘You managed to get some details?’ Josh asked sharply, as he took the sponge forceps from Bridget, and began to swab the wide swathe of skin over the exposed abdomen with red mercurochrome.

  ‘Yup.’ The anaesthetist, a dour Scot, gave a quick snort of humourless laughter. ‘I cheated. Gave her some of her pentothal, and then asked her a few questions before I put her right out. Christ, man, we had to find out something. She wouldn’t tell us when she was first brought in, so what would you have me do? Maybe it’s unethical, but she’s too ill for me to give a good goddam about ethics.’

  ‘So?’ With a sign to Bridget, Josh began to spread the big towels in place, clipping them to expose just the square of the operation area.

  ‘She was three months pregnant – her parents were away – on a tour or some such, and she was on holiday at home. So, she tried everything from quinine to gin to hot baths with no effect, and then went to some dirty old woman she heard of – God knows where from, but they always do hear somehow. She had a sort of operation eight days ago – and I gather she had no anaesthetic, poor little devil – and started to feel ill a day or so later. Seems a daily help her family employs came to the house to get it ready for her parents’ return, and found her collapsed in the bathroom – and had the sense to get in touch with a doctor. Who sent her back here. And that’s about it – ’

  Josh stood very still for a momen
t, and then said, ‘Well, at least we know. I couldn’t find out anything. She wouldn’t talk to me. All I could get out of her was that she – she had been pregnant and now she wasn’t.’ He took a deep breath, and then thrust a hand at Bridget. ‘Can we start, McPherson?’

  ‘She’s as fit as she’ll ever be,’ the anaesthetist said. ‘And the quicker you start the sooner you’ll finish – so get on with it, man.’

  With cold fingers, Bridget put a gleaming scalpel into Josh’s hand, and watched, her face rigid under her mask as he made the first sweeping incision, from umbilicus to pubis. As the orange-painted skin parted, and the first small blood vessels spurted vividly, she found her head swimming. She had seen this many times before, but this was Bobby, Bobby – and then, as though from a distance she heard Josh snap, ‘Spencer Wells – Nurse, Spencers – ’ and she pulled herself together, and slapped a pair of forceps into his hand, so that he could clip the vessels.

  Soon, the wound sprouted a twinkling fringe of forceps, and with deft fingers Josh tied each bleeding point and discarded the used forceps for the junior to collect and reboil for later use. Bridget, her hands moving automatically, helped, swabbing, handing instruments and ties, acting as assistant surgeon, because there was no other doctor available at this hour to assist in her stead.

  She felt like an actor in a weird film, one of a group of white-gowned, head-bent people, encapsulated in the glare of the big light, while a soft-footed nurse padded busily about in the shadows beyond the focus of the table, helping the anaesthetist set up a blood transfusion. Her hands and Josh’s, so similar in characterless brownness, moved easily and smoothly about their work.

  Then, Josh straightened, and grunted softly, angrily:

  ‘The uterus is perforated – and she’s full of pus. You were right about that, McPherson. I – I don’t think I can suture it – it’s a huge tear – and both tubes are heavily infected – ’

  There was an agonising silence. ‘Well, man, you’ve got a consent form signed, haven’t you? The girl’s over twenty-one – just. She was fit to sign it – so you’d better do what you’ve got to do,’ McPherson said heavily.

  ‘Twenty-one – ’ Josh said. ‘Christ, I can’t – ’

  The anaesthetist leaned forwards and said grimly, ‘I know how you’ll be feeling, but use your head, man, not your sentiments. Even if you do suture her, what’ll happen? At best, you’ll get a uterus so scarred she’ll have no hope in hell of ever conceiving again – and with both tubes as far gone as those are, even if her uterus is salvaged, will she ever manage another baby? I doubt it. And at worst, suture it, close her up, and with all the antibiotics in the world, it’s likely the thing’ll break down, and she’ll have to come to theatre again to have a hysterectomy then – use your head, man – ’

  Josh raised his head and looked miserably at the anaesthetist. The theatre was absolutely silent except for the faint hiss of gas from the anaesthetic machine. Slowly, Josh turned his head and looked at Bridget, and she felt her throat constrict at the agony in his eyes.

  Then he said thickly, ‘You’re right – but it’s a hell of a thing to have to do – ’

  ‘Ay, it is,’ the anaesthetist said briskly. ‘One hell of a thing. But she’ll hardly survive at all if you don’t, and you know it – ’

  Josh nodded, and with a glance at Bridget, said grimly, ‘Right. Hysterectomy it is. Uterus and tubes though I think it’ll be safe to leave the ovaries – they seem healthy enough, thank God – Nurse – ’

  And Bridget handed him a big retractor, and watched him make the first steps towards ensuring that never again would Bobby have a pregnancy, wanted or unwanted. And she felt tears slide down her face as the operation went on, to sting her cheeks with pain for Bobby.

  Chapter 11

  The hospital seethed with gossip, knots of nurses standing chattering in corners in the courtyard, scattering guiltily when Sisters went by, only to reassemble like flocks of starlings when they had gone. Despite the attempts of the administrative staff to keep the facts quiet, everyone knew that Bobby Aston had nearly died, and exactly why, and they all knew, too, that she had had a hysterectomy, and it was this that made them talk in frightened awe, yet with the sort of relish that such gossip always engenders.

  Matron, deeply distressed, not only because of what had happened but because she felt she had had so little insight that she had been unable to see that Bobby was a girl to whom such a thing could happen, managed to derive some small comfort from this.

  ‘Perhaps it’s as well they do know,’ she told Sister Chessman as they sat one morning over coffee, discussing the whole business. ‘I’d have preferred to have kept it quiet, if only for Nurse Aston’s sake – but perhaps it’ll have a deterrent effect, I mean, the fact that the poor child had a hysterectomy. I don’t believe in trying to keep young girls on the straight and narrow by using fear, by warning them of the “horrid consequences” when they do go wrong, but there’s no doubt this has stopped a few of them in their tracks.’

  Sister Chessman nodded. ‘Mmm. I’ve been listening to them chatter – and there’s not one that doesn’t see what an awful thing it is to lose all hope of having children of your own when you’re only twenty-one. What’s happening to Aston?’

  Matron sighed, and lit a cigarette. ‘I’ve seen the parents – and a right pair they are! You can see why Aston’s the sort of person she is. No regret about it – not a bit. No feeling on their part that they let her down, that they just didn’t take enough interest in her – just annoyed it’s happened – it gets in the way of their private plans, I gather. They’ll have to take her off to convalescence somewhere now – and it was much simpler to have her safely tucked up here – so they thought. My God, some of these parents!’

  ‘Any idea who – who the father was?’ Sister Chessman asked curiously.

  ‘I haven’t asked her,’ Matron said. ‘It’s happened, and if she doesn’t want to tell me off her own bat, I can’t pry.’

  ‘I’m wondering if it’s Mr Simpson, frankly.’

  ‘Who can say? I know they did go about together a good deal – but according to the ward Sisters, they haven’t been seeing as much of each other as they once did.’

  Sister Chessman laughed shortly. ‘They should know. Honestly, the gossip that goes on in the Sisters’ sitting-room – ’

  Matron smiled grimly. ‘I know, I know. And perhaps I shouldn’t listen to as much as gets to me – but if I didn’t I’d know all too little about what goes on – and I feel I should – ’

  Bridget, intensely unhappy, moved through the days, working automatically, sick with reaction whenever she thought of Josh and Bobby. She assumed, reasonably enough, that the relationship had gone on as before, that Josh and Bobby were still enjoying their fullblown affair, and that inevitably, Josh had been the father of the child Bobby didn’t want – so desperately didn’t want.

  She managed to understand, much as it hurt her to think of it, why the affair existed. Bobby was ‘available’ and as Josh had said to her that night, it would be an odd man who did not take advantage of the fact. She found it impossible to realise, however, that such an affair could exist in the absence of love on Josh’s part. Bridget, still very inexperienced in the ways of men, took it for granted that a man functioned as she did – that he could only sleep with a girl he loved – for she was an intensely feminine person, and knew instinctively that for her, at any rate, such love-making and real love were indivisible. One could not exist without the other.

  So she went about her work in a state of numb misery. However much she told herself that there was no possible chance of her ever being able to think of Josh and herself as a unit, which in her heart of hearts she knew she wanted more than anything else in the world, she still could not help feeling bereft when she thought of his love for Bobby – which she was convinced he felt.

  And yet, she would tell herself, sick at heart, and yet, he let her do this dreadful thing to herself, despite the fa
ct he was a doctor, despite the fact that he loved her. How could he? How could he? she would ask herself with dreary insistence. How could he?

  So, when Josh came to the second theatre late one evening, to talk to her, she made every effort she could not to respond to him.

  He came and stood at the door, barring her from leaving and she stood rigid on the far side of the narrow operating table and looked at him, at the unwontedly unsmiling expression on his face, and said desperately, ‘Please, go away. I don’t want to talk to you – I just don’t want to talk to you.’

  He shook his head at that. ‘But you’re going to – you are going to. There – there are things I’ve got to tell you, and I must tell you. For God’s sake, Bridget, be fair. I care about you – do you understand? I’ve got to talk to you – ’

  But she blazed at him, her cheeks showing high spots of colour, her eyes sparkling with anger, an anger that was the only thing that prevented her from crying out, from throwing herself into his arms, from telling him that she loved him, and didn’t care about anything else – she loved him –

  But she used her anger to push her feelings down, and said between clenched teeth. ‘I won’t talk to you – I won’t – after what has happened – after Bobby – No!’ and she crossed the theatre, to push him forcibly away, so that he had been unable to keep her there.

  She wondered for a while whether the best thing for her to do would be to leave the Royal altogether. Somehow, it was all such a mess. She would sit in her room, alone, staring out of the window into the garden, thinking till her head swam.

  Liz came to her there, one afternoon, while she was sitting with a textbook in front of her, making a poor pretence at studying, and stood diffidently at the door, hovering anxiously as she looked at Bridget sitting still by her window.

  ‘Can – can I come and talk to you?’ she said, her face a little flushed. ‘I – I’ve got a message for you.’

  Bridget stood up awkwardly. It had been so long since there had been any real contact between Liz and herself that she felt almost as awkward and strange as she had on that very first morning in the Preliminary Training School, so long ago now.