Final Year Read online

  “You seem very prone to write on your apron, Nurse Gardner. I seem to remember your doing it on a previous occasion. Yet you have the temerity to do something like this, even though I once saw you - “ She shook her head. “This is something beyond my jurisdiction. You will stay here until I return. All of you, please. I am going to telephone Matron immediately.”

  I sat still, too shocked to move, until she reached the door. Then I leapt to my feet.

  “Sister!” I called after her. “Sister! I didn’t - “

  But she shook me off. “I have no wish to discuss this matter any further, Nurse. You may explain to Matron when she comes, as I have no doubt she will,” and she closed the door firmly behind her, leaving me standing and staring at it.

  The room exploded into agitated sound behind me. The other nurses crowded round me, asking questions, pulling at my apron to see the writing on the corner of it. Above the noise I suddenly heard Jane Mellows’ sharp voice, full of condemnation.

  “We might have known no one could be as smart as Gardner is without some sort of help. Cribbing, yet! How anxious can you get about exams?”

  I turned on her furiously. “I have never cribbed in my life, Mellows, damn you! How dare you say such a thing!” I whirled again and looked at Joanna. “Ask her about this apron. Go on! Ask her!”

  Joanna was sitting still and silent at her desk, looking as though she hadn’t moved since the Pawn had first spoken to me. Her face was closed, unreadable.

  “It’s my apron,” she said dully. “I told Gardner to help herself to one from my room. And I - forgot about the one I had left ready for myself. She took the one - “ And then she dropped her head into her hands and started to weep silently.

  There was a shocked silence. Then Chick stepped forward and leaned over her.

  “Jo - Joanna, honey. Why? Why did you do such a damnfool thing? You must have known what would happen if you were caught with a crib!”

  Joanna choked, swallowed, and raised her face to Chick.

  “Matron told me I had to pass this one,” she said in a voice so low I could barely hear it. “She said - she said she couldn’t let a nurse from the Royal go in for the State in the sure knowledge she would fail. So I had to - make sure - “ her voice trailed away. Then with a visible effort she started to speak again. “The fevers were the hardest of all to remember. So I made a crib. And Avril is wearing it.”

  Chick shook her gently, “Jo, for God’s sake! Nothing in the world is worth this sort of misery! The hell with it! Take up something else if you can’t cope with the nursing exams. Why not be a nursery nurse? You’re marvellous with kids - “

  Joanna shook her head miserably. “I’ve got to qualify. Because of Michael.”

  “Michael?”

  “He had polio when he was seven, and he has to be in a special school if he’s ever to do anything with his life. I can’t afford the fees for the one he wants to go to, but they’ll take him when he’s twelve if I qualify for the job of the school nurse. I’ve - only got till next March to do it, or he’ll lose his place there - and we’ve only got each other. So - so - “ Joanna dropped her head on to her desk and wept in good earnest, her arms flung out in front of her.

  Chick stood up and looked down at the weeping girl, her thumb nail tapping thoughtfully against her teeth. Then she turned and looked at me.

  “What are you going to do, Avril?” she said evenly.

  “What do you mean?” I was uneasy.

  Chick tightened her mouth. “You know perfectly well what I mean. If you split on Joanna, she’ll be in real trouble. If you carry the can back for this, you’ll probably get away with a stiff reprimand. You’ve always done well - no one will ever think you really used the crib, not if you did your other questions well. And you did, I suppose?”

  I nodded. This was no time for modesty.

  “Right then,” Chick smiled fleetingly. “Are you going to help Jo out of this mess? You can see how important it is to her. What are you going to do?”

  I stared at Chick, and then at the ring of nurses standing round us. Joanna lifted her head, hope in her eyes suddenly.

  I tried to think. I thought of the medal, and knew that an accusation of cheating could put paid to that for good and all. I thought of Peter, and heard his deep voice saying, “Girls like that are a menace, if they’re faced with an emergency.” I remembered the way he had talked about hospitals being battlefields, where there was no room for incompetence. I thought of Mr Jeffries, and wondered what would have happened if Joanna had been on duty. Would she have recognized an internal haemorrhage with her woeful lack of the right theoretical knowledge?

  And I remembered the pictures of the boy in the wheelchair, the pictures that dominated Joanna’s room - and I thought again about the medal I had worked for for so long, and worked so hard, about the way Susan and Claire would react when I told them I had it, how Peter would approve -

  Behind me, the door opened. Matron walked in, her iron-grey head held high, her veil floating behind her, her neat black shoes making no sound on the polished floor. Behind her, the Pawn stared at me with cold loathing on her face, so that I wanted to run and beat my hands against her stiff blue dress, telling her that I hadn’t cheated, I hadn’t -

  Matron stood in front of me, her height and cool elegance making me feel insignificant and childish.

  “What is this Sister Chessman tells me, Nurse?” she said, her low-pitched voice reaching clearly to the farthest corner of the room. “Have you been cheating?”

  I could sense the tension among the girls behind me. I could feel Joanna’s eyes on my back, and Chick’s presence at her side. Matron stood quietly, her eyes never leaving my face. Absurdly, I wondered why I had never noticed before that she had hazel eyes that glinted in the sunshine with little yellow flecks in them. And then those eyes hardened a little. “I am waiting, Nurse.”

  I was almost surprised to hear my own voice.

  “No, Matron I have not been cheating.”

  “Then how do you explain - that?” and she indicated my apron by a minute movement of her head.

  “I borrowed it, Matron.” Even as I said it, I wished the words unsaid. I felt the nurses behind me slacken their tension, heard Chick’s sharply indrawn breath, and for the first time, I felt tears prickling my eyelids.

  “From whom did you borrow it?” Matron asked.

  But I could only shake my head dumbly.

  She looked at the others, then. Her eyes travelled slowly across them, and as they did, each girl blushed, and looked uneasily at her feet, all feeling guilty, as people do when such a thing as had happened in that classroom happens to them. Her level gaze lingered over Chick’s distressed face, and passed over Joanna’s tearstained one as though she hadn’t seen her.

  “Which one of you loaned this apron to Nurse Gardner?” she asked softly.

  There was a long pause. Then Joanna stood up, painfully, like an old woman. She didn’t speak. She picked up her pen and pencils and her cape, and as she did so, her question paper fluttered to the floor. For another second she stood and looked at it, before she turned to look directly at Matron. “I did, Matron,” she said, and her voice was clear and firm. Matron nodded slowly. “I see, Nurse. You will come to my office at seven this evening, please. You must go to bed now, and try to sleep. And the rest of the night nurses must do the same.”

  Matron looked at me again, and for a moment I thought she was going to speak. But she just drew her brows together in a fleeting frown, and turned to leave. The Pawn followed her, leaving the door open for the rest of us to go.

  In silence, Joanna went after them, her head high. As she passed me, she stopped for a second, and smiled waveringly at me, but I couldn’t respond. I just stood in rigid silence.

  As Joanna’s footsteps died away, the room became silent, thick with silence, so quiet that it rang in my ears. My head ached abominably now. I longed for Peter, longed to see a friendly face instead of the scorn that stared
at me from the eyes of the girls around me. Then, one by one, they stirred, and picking up their things, went to the door. As Jane Mellows passed me, she stopped and spoke, her mouth twisted into an ugly sneer.

  “I don’t think you deserve it, Gardner, but I’m damned sorry for you. You’ve got all your ideas mixed up, if you ask me,” she said clearly. Then she followed the others out, leaving me alone with Chick.

  There was no sound in the big sunny room. Then Chick moved sharply.

  “Jane’s right, you know, bitchy though she is,” she said wearily. “You could have covered up for that poor kid. Under the circumstances.”

  I was angry. “Oh for God’s sake! What if I had? She’d have failed her State too, she’s so useless at exams. I’ve only speeded things up a bit, that’s all. Why the hell should I ruin my whole damn career for the sake of a sentimental gesture? If it could have done any good, all right, but as thing are - “

  Chick shook her head. “You know perfectly well that the State is much less tough than the hospital exams. It’s part of the Royal tradition to be tough. And Jo would have been on days for the State, and that would have helped her. She might well have made it.”

  “But what’s the use of a nurse who’s weak on theory? She’d be a menace in an emergency,” I cried, remembering Peter’s voice.

  “Don’t be so bloody arrogant!” Chick exploded. “She may be a bit vague, but she does know her stuff! She can’t put it down on paper, that’s all. Just because you’re fluent with a pen, it doesn’t mean you’re a better nurse. Joanna would make three of you when it comes to honest-to-God bedside nursing! She’s all heart. You’re all brain.” Her voice was scathing.

  “Oh, Chick.” I flopped into a chair, tears perilously near the surface again. “You know how much it means to me to get this exam. You know. How could you expect me to give up nearly three years of hard work for someone else? How could you?”

  Chick came and stood beside me, and held my face between her capable hands for a moment. “It’s all a matter of values, hon, like Jane said. People are more important than anything else, don’t you see that? What you would have lost is trash compared with what Joanna has lost this morning. Surely you see that?”

  I shook my head away from her hands stubbornly. “No I don’t,” I snapped. “Everyone has to do the best they can for themselves - if they do, then everyone’s all right - “

  “But sometimes you need other people’s help to do the best you can for yourself. The way Dickon needs you, for example - “

  My head snapped up. “Dickon? What has he got to do with this business?”

  “Quite a lot - if only as an indication of the way you’ve become wrapped up in yourself lately. He’s - very unhappy,” Chick said.

  “Oh, rubbish - “

  She shook her head. “No it isn’t. You’re treating him shamefully, Avril, and what you’ve done this morning is much the same sort of thing. If you were being unkind to Dickon because you care about someone else, I’d understand, perhaps, but when it’s only because of ambition - “ She stopped short as the ready colour leapt into my face.

  “So that’s it,” she said slowly. “There is - Peter Chester, by any chance? Has he caught your eye?”

  I turned away to pick up my cape and pens and pencils.

  “Really, Chick,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Must you be so - crude?”

  “Crude I may be,” she said shortly. “But I’ve got a damn sight more insight into people than you have. To give Dickon the run around for a smoothie like Chester! Ye gods - “

  “Shut up!” I flared. “Peter’s a hardworking intelligent man. He tries. Not like Dickon - he’ll plod on for the next fifty years getting nowhere, and not even care! And why the hell shouldn’t I like Peter, anyway? He understands me - “

  “Understands you?” Chick scoffed. “Like hell he does. He’d sell his soul for fifty cents, or whatever he could get in the way of a shove up the ladder of success. Dickon understands you, all right, but Chester!” She shook her head firmly.

  “Dickon doesn’t see things the way Peter and I do,” I said defensively. “He’s all right, of course - I mean, I’m very fond of him - but Peter’s different. And he’s not a bit like that - he’s as sincere as - “

  “How can you tell?” Chick interrupted. “Two nights ago you’d never even met him, and now you think he understands you better than Dickon does, and that you understand him - and you’ve known Dickon for two years!”

  I made for the door. “I’m not staying to listen to this,” I said, furiously. “You’re crazy. You only met Peter yourself two nights ago - how can you be so damn cocksure about him? I don’t see you as any expert on his character. So stop trying to run my life for me. I know what I want, and I know how to get it. So leave me alone!”

  Chick shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it, O.K. But just remember I’ve no axe to grind - unless you can call me biased because I’m a friend of Dickon’s. If I offer advice, it’s because I happen to be a friend - to both of you. And I’m not the sort to drop a friendship just because someone goes off the rails for a bit. I may be a sucker for punishment, but there it is. If you want me, you know where I’ll be,” and she brushed past me, through the door, leaving me standing alone in the big classroom, tears at last running down my face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I felt cold and miserable as I hurried over to the Nurses’ home an hour later. I had spent that hour sitting in the deserted classroom trying to think, trying to decide whether Chick and the others had been right in the way they had reacted to what I had done. Part of my mind agreed with them, but another part kept reminding me that I had told the truth, and that the truth was supposed to be more important than anything else. I had given up trying in the end. I was too tired to think constructively, anyway. I felt as though I had lived half a lifetime since getting out of bed the night before - and it would still be some time before I saw my bed again. Peter would be waiting in the canteen for me at twelve, and I wanted to change before I went to meet him.

  I pulled my uniform off and grabbed a pair of slacks and a sweater before struggling into my dressing gown and going down the corridor to the bathroom. As I reached the bathroom door, Barbara Simpson came out, her face pink and shiny, her hair clinging to her forehead in damp tendrils.

  “Is the water hot?” I asked, automatically - our hot water system is erratic, to say the least. Barbara flushed, opened and closed her mouth undecidedly, and then pushed past me without answering. I looked after her as she nearly ran along the corridor, puzzled. It wasn’t like Barbara to behave like that. As she disappeared into her room, two of the other night seniors came round the corner, in dressing gowns and carrying sponge bags. They both stopped when they saw me standing by the bathroom door, hesitated, and then turned away.

  “It’s all right,” I called. “The other two bathrooms are free.” There is a suite of three bathrooms on each floor of the home. But they just went on, as though I hadn’t spoken, leaving me standing at the bathroom door. I still didn’t understand, so I ran along the corridor to catch them up. They were going downstairs to the floor below, and I hurried down after them.

  “Hey! - you idiots!” I called. “You needn’t come down here! Our own bathrooms are free.” But they took no notice at all, and disappeared into the bathroom suite on the lower corridor.

  “Don’t bother to follow them, Avril,” Chick’s soft drawl whirled me round. She was leaning over the banisters looking down at me.

  “They prefer to be downstairs if you’re using the suite on our floor.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you’d call it Coventry, if you were a Union type. They’ve been nattering in the sitting room for the past hour or so, and they’ve decided - well, they’re pretty sick about Joanna, and they say you shouldn’t have shopped her. They’ll come round - sooner or later.”

  I climbed the stairs and stood beside her.

  “Then why are you talki
ng to me?” I asked bitterly. “You made it quite clear that you thought I was beyond redemption, too. Aren’t you going to join in this schoolgirl demonstration?”

  Chick yawned. “No, I’m not. Because it is childish, as you point out from the depths of your maturity. And because, as I said before, I’m a friend of yours, and I don’t blow hot and cold. Not that I don’t see the point - as far as they’ve thought it out, that is. But you aren’t beyond redemption, as you put it. Just silly.”

  I started back towards the bathroom, my head high. Chick followed. As I started to run my bath, I said over my shoulder, “You make me sick - all of you! If Joanna had pinched my purse or something, you’d think I was quite entitled to get it back. But because she tried to cheat, and I look like having a lot of mud slung at me because of it, I’m in the wrong for not letting her get away with it!”

  Chick perched on the edge of the washbasin as I climbed into the steaming water.

  “But it isn’t quite like that, Avril, is it?” she said. “Joanna isn’t a cheat by inclination. She was just pushed into it by circumstance. You’ve known her nearly three years - you know she’s a good kid really. But she’s got responsibilities that are too big for her. If you were in her shoes, you’d probably have done much the same - I’m damn sure I would have. The point is, you could have helped her. But you preferred to be righteous because you might have lost something you thought important if you had helped her. What she’s lost is much more than anything you may have gained. Don’t you see that?”

  I soaped myself vigorously. “I know Joanna’s all right, Chick. And I’m awfully sorry for her. But there’s more to it than that. I mean - wouldn’t it be wrong for someone to qualify as a nurse if they have to cheat to do it - when they’re obviously all wrong for the job?”

  “But she isn’t all wrong for it - you must try to see that. If she was, she’d never have lasted in her training as long as she has. She’s just one of those unfortunates who don’t show up well in exams,” Chick said patiently.