Final Year Page 4

  He shook his head with the quick understanding I knew so well.

  “Of course not, poppet. I’ll see you in the ward in the evening to see how you did. Not that I expect you to have done other than perfectly, of course! But all the same - best of luck!” and he made the little moue that passed between us for a kiss.

  “Thank you,” I said softly, smiling. But for some reason, I didn’t return the gesture. He looked puzzled for a moment, but he went, closing the screen gently behind him.

  I stood there for a moment, the chart in my hand. I couldn’t really think at all. Suddenly, I was desperately tired. Too tired to think about Dickon, the exam, even Peter. I put the chart down on the locker, and sat and stared at Mr Jeffries’ closed and sleeping face.

  I didn’t even hear the screens part, this time. I only found Peter beside me, his hand on my shoulder.

  “You can be proud of yourself, Avril,” he murmured. “If you hadn’t been so quick off the mark, this man would certainly have died.”

  “If you are pleased with me, then I’m glad,” I said softly.

  “Very pleased, my dear.” It was the second time he had called me his dear, I thought foolishly. Dear Peter. Darling Peter. And I looked up at him, knowing my pleasure in his presence was written all over my face, and not caring.

  He leaned over Mr Jeffries, listening to his chest, carefully checking the new dressing over the wound.

  “He’s a healthy chap,” he said. “He’ll live - thanks to your quick thinking, Avril. Go on with the blood at this speed till morning, will you? You know what danger signs to watch for, don’t you?”

  He stretched and yawned hugely, his white teeth gleaming in the light. “Thank God this happened on your ward, and not on that Jennings’. She’d have soothed his brow, I daresay, but he’d have died while she did it. Remember that next time someone tells you you think too much about theory. It was knowing your theory that saved this chap.” He looked down on the face on the flat pillow. It was pinker now.

  “Come and have coffee with me after your exam, Avril. I’ll want to know how you got on. Twelve o’clock in the canteen?”

  I nodded, too happy to speak.

  “Good. I’ll look forward to that. Good morning, Avril. Look after yourself - and good luck with the paper.” He touched my cheek again, leaving the same burning spot I had felt earlier in the evening.

  I followed him out of the screens to watch him walk down the ward, smiling foolishly, and hand on my cheek. Then I turned to go back to Mr Jeffries. And saw Dickon at the desk.

  He was standing very straight, a chart in his hand, looking after Peter’s retreating figure. His face was very still and lines I had never seen there before were etched sharply between his nose and his mouth.

  For a moment, I felt sick. Had Dickon heard Peter ask me to have coffee with him? Had he realized I’d accepted, only minutes after telling Dickon I’d be too tired? Even as I thought, I felt my own face harden. Why should I worry, after all? Dickon didn’t own me. I had every right to see Peter if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to hurt Dickon - we had been friends for a long time, after all.

  I walked over to the desk, where Dickon was still standing, that odd hard look on his face. “Dickon,” I said. “Dickon, I - “

  He looked at me then. He seemed taller, suddenly. “Yes, Nurse Gardner?” His voice was harsh, even though it was pitched to a night duty lowness.

  The chill in his voice made me angry. “Nothing at all, Doctor Barlett. I merely came to see whether you had finished with the charts,” I said icily.

  He put the chart he was holding neatly in the centre of the blotter.

  “I have quite finished, thank you. Quite finished,” and he walked swiftly down the ward to the swing doors, his rubber heels squeaking on the polished wood of the floor, under the firmness of his tread.

  For a moment, I wanted to run after him, but I stood firm, my head high, angry patches of red flaming high on my cheeks. If he had stopped even momentarily at the door, and looked back, I think I would have followed him. But he didn’t.

  The swing doors flapped and swung softly behind him, and I was alone in the ward with thirty sleeping men.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I worked through the morning rush with a kind of dumb automatism, so much so that the arrival of the day staff came as a surprise.

  Mr Jeffries was much better. His colour had returned almost to normal, as he lay looking at the bottle of blood hanging above his bed, in a sort of bemused wonderment. He remembered nothing of the night’s panic on his behalf, and I decided not to tell him about it. I would leave that to the day staff, for he was still too sleepy from his two anaesthetics and his drugs to take in the information properly.

  I changed into my clean apron while waiting for Day Sister to come and take the report, reminding myself to make a special effort to keep it clean. It was the last one I had until the laundry came back that evening, and I could imagine what the Pawn would say if I arrived looking anything less than perfectly spic and span for the exam.

  It was almost a surprise too, to remember that exam. I had been too wrapped up in thoughts of meeting Peter later that morning to think about it.

  As I pinned my cap into place, after combing my hair, I thought wryly how odd it was that Peter should have this effect on me.

  “Sensible Avril - Huh!” I told my reflection, looking wanly back at me from the speckled little mirror. “Ambitious Avril who upsets her friends for the sake of ambition, and then practically jettisons it for the sake of a man who cares more for ambition than anyone you ever met!”

  My reflection mouthed back at me, and I laughed at my silliness. “Night nurses’ nuttiness, that’s what it is,” I thought. “Time I was on days.”

  “Sister’s here.” Barlow put her head round the door, her cap slipping off her tousled hair. “I say, Nurse - “ She came into the cloakroom, and shut the door behind her. “Please, would you tell me what to do?”

  I collected my cape and bag. “What is it, Barlow? Worried about your anatomy lectures?”

  She shook her head vigorously. Obviously she couldn’t have cared less about anatomy.

  “It’s Billy - the boy in Bed Seven. He’s going home today. And - er - well, he’s asked me to go out with him. I don’t know what to do. I think he’s the nicest boy I ever met, but nurses aren’t supposed to get - friendly with their patients, are they?” She twisted her fingers in a characteristically unhappy gesture. Then she went on with a rush. “But I do like him so much. I’d be so miserable if I couldn’t see him again. What shall I do?”

  I rubbed my face wearily. “Look, Barlow, it’s no use asking me - I’m no one to advise you. But I’ll tell you this. Getting involved with men - or even with nice boys like Billy - plays havoc with your career. You can’t concentrate properly.” I thought of Peter, and Dickon, and wished suddenly that I’d never set eyes on either of them.

  “If you want to be a good nurse, wait till you’ve qualified before you start to get interested in men. It’ll save you a lot of headaches.”

  She nodded. “I know. But you see, I don’t really care about a career. I just want to be Mrs Somebody.” She blushed, and her voice softened for a moment. “And I’d rather be Mrs Billy than anything in the world.”

  She pulled her cap off and started to comb her hair viciously. “I wish I was a shorthand typist or something. I’m fed up with lectures and no private life and not being allowed to make friends with patients. I wish I was like you. Single minded. It must be nice to be you.”

  I laughed, a little bitterly. “Do you think so? I’m not so sure.” I picked up her cape and thrust it at her. “I’ve got my problems too. Lots of them. And we’ll both have more if we don’t go to Sister soon. She’ll give us socks if we keep her waiting much longer.”

  I gave Sister the report, and she nodded briskly when I told her about Mr Jeffries.

  “You did very well, Nurse. Kept your head in an emergency. I’m pleased with you -
but that’s no reason to allow you to get away with leaving a bloodstained dressing towel in the sluice. Go and deal with it before you go to your meal, please.”

  I was furious. If I’d been ready to give her the report as soon as she had come on duty, she wouldn’t have noticed the towel until we’d gone off duty. But it had to be done.

  I marched down to the sluice, in a rage, and grabbed the bowl the offending towel occupied. Obviously, I was in too much of a rage. The bowl slipped from my hands, and a spurt of blood-stained water splashed right into the middle of my clean apron.

  “Hell! Hell! Hell!” I cursed between clenched teeth. “Now look at me!”

  The senior day nurse, who was testing specimens, grinned understandingly at me. “I’ll do it for you, Gardner. You hop it. You’ll just have time to change it before your meal if you hurry.”

  “Bless you, Casey.” I grabbed my things, and slipped out of the fire escape door to run over to my room to get a clean apron. I was halfway across the courtyard before I remembered I hadn’t got a clean apron. I turned and ran back towards the dining room, cursing again. I’d have to borrow one from one of the others. I carried my cape awkwardly in front of me as I ran, praying I wouldn’t meet the Pawn.

  I had heard quite enough from her on the subject of nurses who soil their aprons the other morning, in the classroom.

  I explained my dilemma to Night Sister, composedly serving roast lamb to her tired nurses. She tutted at me, but said I could go into the dining room, blood-stained as I was, if I made sure that I left before Matron came on duty. “It would never do to let her see you in that state, Nurse, would it? She strongly disapproves of dirty looking uniforms.”

  I ate very little. My appetite when I was on nights was fickle enough, in all conscience, but the events of the night, the exam to come, and now this! I felt thoroughly irritable.

  “Anyone lend me a pinny?” I called above the clatter of plates and cutlery.

  “Mine would go round you twice,” Chick said through a mouthful of roast potato. “Ask Jo - she’s about your build.”

  Joanna Jennings was swotting surreptitiously from a book on her lap - textbooks are forbidden in the dining room - and I had to ask her twice before she lifted her face to mine. Her floppy hair was lying lankly on her forehead, and her green eyes were miserable.

  “For Pete’s sake, let me swot in peace! I’ve got heaps of stuff to revise before the exam. If only I could remember things!”

  “Lend me a pinny, Joanna,” I said urgently. “I haven’t got one till the laundry comes, and this one’s all bloody.”

  She dropped her head to her book again. “There’s one in my top drawer,” she mumbled. “Help yourself. Measles, chicken pox - “

  I thanked her unresponsive cap, and slipped out of the dining room to run over to the Nurses’ home. Joanna’s room was three doors away from mine, exactly like it in every respect, just as all the rooms in the building were. But, as I went in to it, I marvelled, not for the first time, at the way each room seemed entirely different from every other, once the occupant had impressed her personality on to it.

  It was untidy, in a pleasantly comfortable way - not sluttish, like Jane Mellows’ room, but lived in, a well-loved room. It was littered with magazines and books, knitting and sewing, and from every available surface a boy in a wheelchair looked out of framed photographs. Her brother, I thought, as I rummaged in the top drawer of her chest of drawers. The boy who had polio.

  There weren’t any aprons in the drawer, and I swore yet again, looking wildly round the room. There were a few aprons on her bed - three rather crumpled ones, and two that looked fairly respectable. “Silly ass doesn’t know where she keeps things,” I muttered as I grabbed one, and ran along the corridor to my own room.

  I got to the classroom at two minutes to nine, panting a little from my headlong rush across the courtyard and garden. But all was well. The Pawn hadn’t arrived yet to start the exam, and the rest of the set were sitting untidily at their desks, some chattering, some feverishly repeating facts to themselves in an undertone.

  I slid into my seat with a sigh of relief, folding the corners of my apron up on to my lap in the accepted fashion. Across the aisle, Joanna’s seat was empty, and as I arranged my pencils and filled my fountain pen, I wondered what had happened to her.

  The Pawn stalked into the room, holding a pile of blank paper and the sheaf of question papers. We eyed these uneasily as we rustled to our feet, and the room slid into silence. As the Pawn reached her dais, Joanna panted in through the door, her cap slipping off, her face anguished. She ran to her desk, and leaned across the aisle towards me.

  “Gardner,” she hissed. “That apron - “

  “It’s all right,” I hissed back reassuringly. “I found one. Bless you for helping me out.”

  “But - “

  The Pawn’s voice cut across sharply. “Nurse Jennings,” she called frigidly. “Is it not enough for you to be late? Must you also waste time in idle chatter?”

  Joanna gulped. “Sorry, Sister,” she said, and I looked at her sharply at the sound of incipient tears in her voice. We all knew how much trouble Joanna had with exams - she studied hard, yet she never seemed to be able to cope with exam papers. She had been at the bottom of the set all through, just scraping her way through after at least one failure per exam from our P.T.S. days onwards. We were used to the way she worried about exams, but she had never sounded as distressed as she did this morning.

  The Pawn was passing out the blank sheets and the question papers, laying the latter face down on each desk. We sat in silence until she returned to her own vantage point and surveyed us sternly.

  “You all know the rules, Nurses. Three questions out of the four set to be answered,” she said crisply. “One side of the paper only to be written on, and your name to be clearly written at the top of each sheet. And not one word to be spoken from the time the examination commences.”

  She looked at her watch. “You have one and a half hours. The time is now five minutes past nine. I shall stop you at five and twenty minutes to eleven. You may now turn your question papers over and start.”

  Sixteen papers rustled over, and sixteen heads bent to read what they held. Would it be the things we had specially studied? Or would it be the things we had left out, hoping we wouldn’t be asked about them? My heart lifted as I read the questions.

  (1) List three of the common fevers of childhood, giving an account of their signs, symptoms, incubation periods, and treatment, together with a discussion of the prevention of complications.

  (2) What are the signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure? Describe the treatment and nursing care of a patient with this condition.

  (3) Describe the treatment of a patient suffering from chronic nephritis.

  (4) What medical treatment may be prescribed for a patient suffering from duodenal ulcer? Describe the nursing care in detail, with reference to the psychological implications of the disease.

  If I had set the paper myself, it couldn’t have been more to my liking. I decided to leave out the heart question, and settled happily to write the answers I knew so well.

  I put my pen down for a moment after finishing the first question, and flexed my cramped right hand. Across the aisle I could see Joanna sitting, her head bent, over what I could clearly see was a completely blank paper. She hadn’t written a word. Even as I looked at her, a tear slid off the end of her nose and landed on the paper with a soft plop. Chick, on her other side, looked up sharply at the minute sound, and her expressive face softened with ready sympathy.

  “Poor Jo,” I thought. “Why does she struggle on so? She’d be much happier in another sort of job.” But I hadn’t time to worry about Jo now. I returned my own pile of paper, and started on the nephritis question.

  At ten thirty five exactly, the Pawn rose to her feet. I put the last sheet of paper on to the top of my neatly written pile, and clipped them happily together. I knew I had written good a
nswers - the questions had been so exactly right for me. And I had finished comfortably. I could see Chick and Barbara and Jane scribbling furiously, trying to finish the last few words before the Pawn stopped them, and grinned in sympathy. It’s one of the hardest parts of an exam - getting everything down on the paper in the allotted time.

  The Pawn was collecting the finished papers. I folded my question paper and tucked it into my bib, so that I could show it to Peter over coffee. My heart leapt as I thought how soon I should be seeing that smooth blond head.

  The Pawn put her hand over my shoulder to collect my paper just as I leaned back and stretched, wriggling my cold toes inside my shoes. My feet always get cold when I write exams.

  Suddenly, the Pawn’s voice above my head snapped me to attention.

  “Nurse Gardner. What is that on your apron?”

  I looked up at her. Her face was rigid with anger, and with something else I had never seen in her face before.

  “What, Sister?” I asked, puzzled.

  She pointed, and I followed the line of her accusing finger down to my lap. The corners of the apron I was wearing were folded neatly on my lap, as they were supposed to be. And on one of them in tiny print, was a list of the incubation periods of the fevers together with a list of the days on which the rash appeared in each of them. Even as I stared disbelievingly at the ink which glared up at me from the starched whiteness, I noticed, almost automatically, that they were all correct, exactly as I had written them in my paper.

  “I - I don’t know,” I said slowly, too amazed to think clearly.

  The Pawn stared at me with the same strange expression on her face, and now I recognized it for what it was. She looked disgusted, almost as though I had said something filthy, or spat at her - as though it was all she could do to stay in the same room with me.

  Then she ruffled through the sheaf of papers she held, until she came to mine. She read what I had written for the first answer, her face grim. I sat in frozen silence until she raised her head and looked at me again.