The Lonely One Page 7

  Bridget was enjoying herself. The department was so clean and quiet, the junior singing unmelodiously in the sluice as she washed that day’s dirty bandages, and Bridget was at peace. The late sunshine of a summer evening slanted across the tiled floor, lighting the flowered cubicle curtains to an incongruous gaiety, glancing off the chrome and enamel of the instrument cupboards, while the sterilisers hissed contentedly in the corner, and the distant sounds of people in the courtyard outside came through the big double doors. Bridget was to have a day off next day, and as none of the others had days off to coincide, she had planned to spend it all alone, sight-seeing around London, for as a Northerner there was still a delight for her in behaving like a tourist in London.

  She had just tucked the last bandage into its box, and was stretching in luxurious relaxation, when the rough, urgent peal of an ambulance bell cut across the peace of the big department. Bridget felt her heart fall with a sickening thump; an emergency – and Staff Nurse wasn’t here and would be furious if Bridget sent for her before finding out just what the case was. Perhaps it’s for the Maternity department, she told herself with hope, even as she hurried across the big floor to open the curtains of one of the cubicles, to get it ready for a possible case. Her hope was short-lived, for the big double doors swished open and two ambulance men almost tumbled through, pushing a trolley as fast as they could.

  ‘Bleeding – ’ one of them muttered, as he manoeuvred the trolley towards the opened cubicle. ‘And he’s damn’ near ’ad it, I reckon – where do you want ’im, Nurse? –’

  Bridget stared down at the patient on the trolley, almost paralysed with fear, all her new-found skills and knowledge seeming to melt away. ‘What do I do now?’ she asked herself in desperation. ‘What do I do now – ’

  There was a youth on the trolley, a fair boy, with straight hair flopping into half closed eyes, with faint rims of blue showing under the lax eyelids. He was waxen white, his skin showing the faint blue-green tinge of extreme blood loss. One arm was clumsily wrapped in a big bath towel, and the gaudy reds and blues of the pattern on the towel seemed smudged with the much brighter red that was spreading over it with ominous rapidity.

  ‘Put him on the couch,’ Bridget managed. ‘I’ll help you – ’

  Behind her, she heard the double doors swish open again, and she looked up, praying it was Staff Nurse come back, but it was a woman, a woman with the same sort of fair hair as the boy on the trolley, a face twisted with fear, and streaked with tears, yet obviously enough like that of the patient to make it clear she was a relative.

  ‘If you’ll just wait in the waiting room,’ Bridget said, with the automatic brightness she had learned to use when dealing with anxious relatives, ‘I’ll call the doctor, and he’ll see you as soon as he’s examined the patient – ’

  ‘Hurry ’im, then – please, get the doctor quick – he’s a bleeder, see, he’s a bleeder – it won’t stop, no matter what, it won’t stop – told ’im I did, been telling ’im all ’is life – you’re a bleeder, I told him, don’t go playing with things what might start you off, but ’e won’t listen, you know what boys is, and ’e wouldn’t listen – make the doctor ’urry, Nurse, get ’im quick – e’s a bleeder, see, like my dad – a bleeder – ’

  Bridget stared at her in bewilderment while the ambulance men fussed over the boy on the trolley, lifting him onto the couch.

  ‘A bleeder?’ she said stupidly. ‘A bleeder – like your dad?’

  ‘That’s right – ’The woman came close, and putting her hands on Bridget’s arms, shook her in urgency. ‘’e’s a bleeder – ’e needs some of that snake stuff – do ’urry – for Christ’s sake, ’urry.’

  And then, something she had read in one of her long mornings in the classroom came back into her head, and almost without thinking Bridget called quickly to the nervous junior who was standing hovering on the outskirts of the little group.

  ‘Get the surgeon on duty, Nurse Stead – and then call Staff Nurse – as fast as you can – ’ and as the junior scuttled for the phone, Bridget ran across the big room towards the tall medicine cupboard on the far side.

  ‘Please God, let there be some. Please God, let there be some,’ she prayed urgently under her breath, as she scrabbled through shelves, not completely sure what she was looking for, but hoping she would know it when she saw it. She could feel the stillness behind her, the urgency in the ambulance men and the fair woman, all standing helplessly watching her, and she let her eyes run across the shelves, looking desperately for something she prayed she would recognise when she saw it.

  And then, tucked at the back of a shelf, she did see it. A small box with a dimly written label. ‘Russell’s Viper Venom. Packed in Fibrin gauze. Sterile.’

  With hands shaking with a mixture of fear and relief, she grabbed the box, and almost slid across the floor in her hurry. The ambulance men without a word stepped back, one of them leading the frightened woman away towards the waiting room while the other stationed himself behind the couch, ready to help Bridget.

  With infinitely careful fingers, her heart seeming to be in her mouth, she began to unwrap the now completely bloodsodden towel. As the last fold came away from the arm, she could see the really comparatively small cut that was causing the trouble, a mere inch long, but from which blood was pouring, an ominous bright red, completely unclotted, liquid. The towel that had been wrapped round it showed no sign of a clot anywhere, unlike most blood-soaked things Bridget had seen before.

  With her lower lip clenched between her teeth, she mopped at the cut with a big swab from the little table ready set up beside the couch, as in all the cubicles, and with a sign to the ambulance man, let him hold the swab firmly over the cut while she opened the precious box she had found in the cupboard. The pads of sponge-like yellow fibrin gauze tumbled out into the dressing-bowl on the trolley, and with a pair of forceps, she picked up one piece after another – there were three – and pressed them onto the wound, dropping the already soaked swab onto the trolley beside her. Then, she piled thick pads of cotton wool on top, and strapped them down with sticky tape the sensible ambulance man had cut ready for her as she worked. And then they both stood there, staring down at the dressing, not much whiter than the skin of the arm against which it lay.

  Bridget stood, absurdly aware of the sounds from the courtyard outside, the clatter of wheels and drums as the sterilising porter went by with his load of drums to be baked in the big autoclaves of the main operating theatres, the high voices of children passing by in the street outside, on the other side of the department. As she stared at the makeshift dressing she had put on, her eyes never shifting from it.

  A patch of blood appeared in the centre, spread slowly. She found herself praying, confusedly – ‘Please let it work – please let Staff Nurse come back soon – please let it work – ’

  Then, after a long pause, she let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked the ambulance man, still standing silently beside the couch. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’ve done it, Nurse – that patch hasn’t changed last minute or so, has it?’

  ‘I thought it hadn’t – ’ she murmured, and stood staring still. But the patch didn’t grow any bigger, just remaining in the middle of the snowy cotton wool dressing as an uneven splodge of vivid red. Maybe she had done it –?

  The doors swished, and footsteps clattered purposefully across the terrazzo tiles, and the cubicle curtains billowed as Josh appeared at the side of the couch.

  ‘What gives?’ he asked gaily. ‘Some hysterical child on the phone rang the common room with some garbled tale about a blood bath down here – I’m not on Casualty call, but I thought I’d better come – oh, hello, there!’ and he grinned in a friendly way as he recognised Bridget standing still, leaning over the silent pale boy on the couch.

  ‘Bleeder, sir,’ said the ambulance man with cheerful officiousness. ‘Got a call from the
other side of the railway station there – found this feller goin’ like a stuck pig – ’is mum said ’e’d been muckin’ around with a hammer and chisel – anyway, he was damn near right out then, and by the time we got ’im ’ere, ’e was right out – and bleeding! – cor, never saw so much blood in all my natural, and I’ve seen a bit in my time, I can tell yer!’ He grinned with a sort of horrible relish – ‘Bleeding like a stuck pig, ’e was – you should just see our ambulance – ’

  ‘Mmm – ’ Josh pushed him to one side with an inoffensive gesture, and the ambulance man gave way, leaving Josh to bend over the boy, one hand on his pulse, the other lifting one eyelid with a practised gesture.

  ‘My God, but he’s exanguinated – ’ he muttered.

  Bridget lifted her eyes for the first time from her dressing, in which the tell-tale splodge of blood had made no change, smiled shakily at Josh, and said, ‘He must be – that towel was wrapped round him – ’ and she indicated the sopping wet towel on the floor at the foot of the couch.

  Josh looked at it, and nodded crisply. ‘What did you do?’ he asked, as he touched her dressing on the lax arm with delicate fingers.

  ‘I – I hope it was right,’ she said, suddenly remembering just how junior she was, frightened in case she had done the wrong thing. ‘His mother said her father was the same, and I thought – I read it somewhere – I put Russell’s Viper Venom on it – ’

  ‘You were absolutely right – ’. He smiled at her warmly. ‘I’ve seen this boy before – he’s a haemophiliac all right. If you hadn’t put the venom on he’d have been dead by now – as it is, he’s in a pretty bad state – well done, Tiddler – ’

  And then, Staff Nurse came clacking across the department, summoned from her cosy chat on the ward by the frightened junior, her face a picture of guilt.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Simpson,’ she said, lying bravely. ‘I had to go away for a moment – ’

  ‘Not to worry, Staff,’ Josh said, grinning at her obvious confusion. ‘Your deputy here did nobly and well. A proper little life-saver, eh?’ and Bridget felt the all too ready blush climb into her cheeks.

  ‘Better get this boy to a ward,’ Josh said. ‘And we’ll need some blood for him – chase up his notes, Staff, will you? There’s a record in them about his blood group, and I’ll take some from that sopping towel for a cross match – jump about now!’

  And in record time, the boy was whisked away to a medical ward, while a medical registrar came and relieved Josh of his cross-matching job. By the time the night staff arrived, and Bridget was free to go shakily off duty, feeling desperately tired as a sort of reaction to the fright of the past half-hour, Josh too was free to go.

  He hurried across the courtyard after her, and caught her up at the gate to the Nurses’ garden.

  ‘You did very well, Tiddler,’ he said, his voice warm. ‘You showed a presence of mind not many as young and inexperienced as you could have managed. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, agonisingly aware of his warm hand on her arm. ‘I – I’m glad I remembered – ’

  ‘He’ll be glad too, I imagine,’ he said dryly. Then, with a pressure of his hand, he held her back, as she started to try to go on through the gate. ‘Listen, Tiddler – isn’t it time you and I got to know each other a little better? When we’re with the crowd, I never get the chance to talk to you – ’

  She bit her lip. ‘I – I’m sorry – ’ she said awkwardly.

  He smiled then. ‘You’re always apologising,’ he said, and his voice was teasing. ‘Nothing to apologise for. What say you and I take an evening out on our own, hmm?’

  She looked up at him miserably, at the handsome square face, the friendly eyes looking at her so warmly, and let her own gaze slide away.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘There’s Bobby – and David.’ Why she said David’s name she wasn’t quite sure. Somehow, she felt obscurely ashamed. Josh knew, knew perfectly well, that she and David had spent time necking, that he had kissed her and fondled her, just as Josh himself had behaved the same way with Bobby, and she wanted to explain how little she cared for David, feeling that quite apart from Bobby’s claim on Josh, she could not possibly go out with Josh if he thought she cared for David at all. But he misunderstood – and why shouldn’t he? she thought miserably – I’m so bad at explaining.

  Misunderstand he certainly did, for his hand dropped from her arm and his face closed suddenly.

  ‘Yes – yes, of course – ’ he said. ‘Sorry to be so silly – I’ll see you around, then,’ and he turned and went, striding across the now dusky courtyard back towards the lights of the main hospital. And Bridget stood at the gate on the edge of tears, feeling a mixture of reaction to the episode in Casualty, kicking herself mentally because of the way she always said the wrong thing to this man, a man she cared far too much about for her own peace of mind.

  Chapter 7

  The last brown leaves from the trees carpeted the courtyard with dangerous wet drifts, and the November wind sent them swirling messily in all directions, as the four girls hurried across on their way to the main hospital. Bridget felt her knees shake as she thought of the interview to come, though the other three chattered cheerfully enough. She could not tell them how scared she was or even why, since they seemed so unconcerned. And why should I be scared? she asked herself with an attempted reasonableness. Everyone has to see Matron to get their second-year belts – but it made no difference. She was scared.

  The four weeks of the Preliminary State Block were behind them, the examinations had been written, the vivas struggled through, and now the results were out. Bridget hadn’t found the exams too difficult, the long hours of study she had spent standing her in good stead. And the other three, needing constant help as usual, had badgered her to hear their learning, to check their notes for them, and this had helped Bridget’s own studies, too. It was odd, somehow, how quickly the past year had gone, yet how slowly too. It seemed to her she had spent her whole life at the Royal, that she had known no other existence. It had been a happy year, most of it, except for the ever constant ache about Josh. For the status quo was maintained. The four girls and their regular escorts still went about together, their relationships with the men seeming to change little, though it was obvious that Liz and Ken were very deeply in love with each other – certainly more genuinely attached than any of the others were.

  Bobby still went about with Josh most of the time, though Bridget knew she also went out with other men on the staff, and, while on holiday, with men from her home town in Surrey. Bobby was rarely in her room during her free time – always out with someone, and in a way Bridget was glad she had so many boy-friends. It made her dates with Josh less hurtful somehow. Maybe one day Bobby will tire of Josh? she would think sometimes, and then push the thought away. Even if she did, it would make no difference. Since that evening in Casualty he had never again made any attempt to ask Bridget out on her own, made no sign that he regarded her as any more than just one of the crowd.

  David was a problem, though. Still morose, still not particularly communicative about himself, still he seemed perfectly happy to escort Bridget on all the group outings, still took it for granted that they would make casual love at the end of the evening. She had come to loathe those silent hours spent in the front of his car, or in the Nurses’ garden, sitting on a bench under a tree. She often tried to tell him she didn’t really like necking with him, didn’t want to go out with him. But she could never find words, and anyway, he would take no notice, stopping her from speaking by seizing her and kissing her. There had been a couple of occasions when he had tried extremely hard to go a great deal farther than just kissing, moving his hands over her body in a way that made her go rigid with fear, once even made her pull roughly away from him and run stumbling across the garden to the safety of the Nurses’ Home.

  She had hoped, after that evening, that he would at last realise how she felt, and make no further attempts, but he behaved as though i
t had never happened. And when Bridget tried to tell Bobby that she didn’t really like David, that she didn’t want to go out with him any more, even if it meant not going out with the group at all – which would have been the best solution for Bridget, meaning she would not need to see Josh with Bobby – Bobby had become very angry. It was odd, she thought sometimes. I need Bobby and Liz and Judith, and I know I need them. Life without them would be dreadful. But why does Bobby need me? She must, or she wouldn’t get so angry when I try to opt out of going out. I suppose she must need me and the others, though I can’t think why. She could make friends with anyone, she’s so gay, and so much fun –

  No doubt about it, the happiness of the past year had nothing to do with Bridget’s private life. It was in the time she spent working that she found pleasure, a deep, very real pleasure that almost surprised her. She found a sort of love, compounded of pity and, of practical sympathy welling up in her when she was with patients, an enormous satisfaction in being able to make ill people comfortable, do something real and constructive towards making them healthy again. And when someone who had been very ill walked out of the ward, on their way back home, she would feel that everything she had done for them, be it only emptying bed-pans, making beds, or dusting lockers, had been infinitely worth while.

  As the months went on, she learned more skills, was given more complex jobs to do, and gloried in these new abilities, gloried in the increasing responsibilities that they brought with them. Her only regret was that so few of the senior staff seemed to like her. When she was assigned to a new ward, she found the Sister there often cool, on one or two occasions actively hostile, and she could never understand this, for though she made no conscious efforts to please them, she knew her work to be well done. They should have liked her.

  She would have been less surprised had she been able to listen to some of the gossipy conversations the Sisters indulged in in their sitting-room at nights. They talked about the nurses endlessly; and as a group, tended to form opinions based on others’ experience and stick to them. And Sister Youngs, on Bridget’s first ward, had disliked Bridget, said so loudly, and convinced all the others that the reserved, quiet girl wasn’t just shy – which was the truth – but that her silence hid slyness, and that her watchful look was not born of interest in her work and concentration on it, but was rooted in a nasty sort of selfishness.