Tread Softly, Nurse Read online

  “Don’t worry about them. If anything comes in before you’ve got your man settled I’ll attend to it myself.” She moved the tray to the next locker while Fenella went to fill the bowl with hot water. “Would you like me to see to Mr. Parsley for you?”

  “No, thank you, Sister. He won’t mind if I leave him till last. He’ll be reading, I expect.”

  Sister nodded, and swam-away in the dimness. “I’ll take him his drink, anyway,” she said. “Then you can tuck him up later.”

  It took Fenella: another hour to give the medicine and treatments, and tidy the surgical ward, and she was on her way to Ward 5 when the front door bell pealed. She heard Sister rustling along to answer it. Then there was the rattle of a stretcher-trolley, and men’s voices. Evidently an ambulance had arrived.

  She hurried in to the private ward. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parsley, to have kept you waiting...” She stopped. Inside the door, looking down at her quizzically, was Sir David.

  “Good evening, Nurse.”

  “Oh—good evening, sir. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here. I’ll come back later.”

  He shook his head. “I’m just going. Did I hear the ambulance?”

  “Yes, sir, I think so. Sister’s looking after Casualty.”

  “I see. Then I’ll go along. She may need me.” He nodded to Bernard Parsley, and sketched a salute. “Good night, Parsley.” “Good night, sir. And thank you.”

  Fenella put her tray down on the locker—and then she looked back sharply at the bed. The bedspread was already folded and hung on the bottom rail, the blankets were smooth and tidy, and the pillows neatly piled. What was more, Mr. Parsley was just finishing his milk.

  “Oh! Has Nurse Minner done your bed, Mr. Parsley?”

  He shook his head and buttoned his mouth into a mysterious smile.

  “Sister, then? Or Nurse Lewis?”

  “Try again.”

  “I’ve no idea. One of the day nurses? But when...?”

  “You’ll never guess, Nurse. So I’ll tell you.” The round little , man hugged his knees. “It was this way ... when Sister brought my milk in she said you were very busy, with Nurse Dennis being off, so I thought I’d try to tidy the bed myself. And I got into such a tangle with the sheets, and just then Sir David popped in, so I explained, and...”

  “Don’t tell me he made your bed?” Fenella admired the sharply mitred corners, and the sheet turned down to precisely the regulation eighteen inches. “It’s tidier than I could make it!”

  “He did. Drawsheet and all! And took my flowers out. I knew you’d be pleased.”

  “Well, I’m glad you weren’t kept waiting, but you shouldn’t have let him, Mr. Parsley. He...”

  “I couldn’t stop him, Nurse. He insisted. He said: ‘If Nurse Scott is doing all Nurse Dennis’s work, we must help her, musn’t we, Parsley?’ And he enjoyed it, my dear.”

  When she had wished him good night and dimmed his light, she put her tray away and hurried down the corridor to Casualty. In the doorway she met Sister, coming to fetch her.

  “Nurse, there are two admissions here. One for you and one for Nurse Lewis. Both private patients. You can have your man now. Is the bed made up?”

  “Yes, Sister. I’ll take him straight along, shall I?”

  Sister beckoned her further away from Casualty doors. “A car crash—a couple. The girl’s badly hurt—she’s for the theatre. The man’s a straight concussion, as far as we can see ... The press will be ringing up, I expect—it’s Gilda Seymour.”

  “The ballet dancer?”

  Sister nodded. Her normally pale cheeks were faintly rose. “Yes, Nurse. Such a lovely dancer. I’ve watched her many times.”

  “And the man?”

  “He was with her in the car. Stephen Ames. He’s a B.B.C. producer, Dr. West says. Television, you know. Now do be careful if you answer the telephone, Nurse—I’ll speak to any enquirers myself. The Press are not to have any details yet. That’s Sir David’s order, Nurse, not mine. It seems he knows Miss Seymour personally.”

  “Very well, Sister.”

  She took one of the ward trolleys into Casualty, through the hooked-back double doors. Behind one screen lay a girl with long blonde hair, draggled with mud, her face as still as marble. There was a large cradle over her legs. Across the room, Sir David was bending low over a young man with red hair, their cheeks almost touching, as he peered through the ophthalmoscope into his eyes. Michael West was filling in the Casualty book.

  Fenella pulled the trolley alongside the couch, tucked the trailing blankets under the young man’s legs, and took a grip on his ankles.

  When Sir David straightened up she said: “Will you help me, sir?”

  “Of course.” He took Stephen Ames by the shoulders and hips, supporting his head carefully, and swung him easily on to the trolley. “Nasty smack on the head, but I don’t think there’s any fracture. There’s no compression, anyway. We’ll get him X-rayed in the morning. Meantime you’d better immobilise his head. No fluids yet.”

  “No sir.”

  He looked at her keenly. “Anyone to help you with him in the ward?”

  “No, sir, but I can get Nurse Minner to...”

  “I’ll come.” He waved her to the bottom of the trolley and took the head himself, pushing it along the corridor to Ward 4.

  When Fenella had put the light on she looked at him. “Fracture bed, sir?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Just one board at the top. You run and get it while I stay with him.”

  When she came back with the board and slid it under the top third of the mattress he had already opened up the bed and folded the blankets down. That reminded her. “Sir—it was kind of you to see to Mr. Parsley’s bed.”

  “No trouble.” He pulled the trolley to the bedside and prepared to lift Stephen Ames on to the bed. “You seemed to have a good deal to do, that was all.”

  Fenella knelt on the bed with her arms outstretched to receive the patient, and he and she gripped one another’s wrists to take the weight. She had not foreseen the warm shock of his touch, until she felt his strong fingers closing. Nor had she thought, until it actually happened, that if his head should brush her shoulder she would tremble with the sudden potency of his nearness.

  They tucked in the blankets without speaking or looking at one another. Stephen Ames still lay white and quiet, his eyes closed, and his red hair startling on the pillows.

  “Will you stay with him, please?” Sir David’s voice was gruff.

  She thought for a moment. “I suppose I shall have to sir. Someone must. But I’ve no junior in the wards.”

  “I’ll arrange something. You can’t have Nurse Lewis’s girl—she’s got a theatre case.”

  “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll manage somehow.”

  “I don’t want you to manage ‘somehow’, Nurse Scott. It isn’t necessary. I’ll see Matron if Sister Barclay can’t arrange something.”

  “But you can’t, sir! She’ll be...”

  “In bed? Too bad. I’m afraid she will have to be disturbed if all else fails.” His voice sharpened with authority. “You must have some help. Please stay here while I see about it.”

  He strode out, his chin set determinedly, his mouth tight. Two minutes later Michael West came in. His blue eyes were bewildered as he came over to the bed. “What on earth’s bitten the Chief?”

  “Why?”

  Michael spread his hands. “You ask me why? Because he’s raising Cain in the front hall with Sister Barclay. Says she’s to get two more nurses, this minute, and that I’m to stay here while you go and get your tea. What next?”

  “Oh, no!” Fenella flushed with embarrassment. “It’s ridiculous. I’ll manage. Of course you can’t stay here—I can take turns with Nurse Minner.”

  Michael sat down firmly in the chair beside the bed and folded his arms. “That you won’t! The edict has gone forth—the great man has spoken. ‘West,’ he said, ‘you’ll kindly stay in Ward Four until Nurse has
had a break. She’s not a pack-mule.’ So here I am, at your service.” Then he dropped his voice and grinned at her. “Hop it, Fenny. Get your blessed tea. I don’t mind, silly.”

  “Why on earth is he making such a fuss? The wards must have been busier than this, many a time. Nights off have been taken before...”

  “Indeed they have. But the question of Nurse Scott being overburdened hasn’t arisen before. Mark my words, Fenney, you...”

  “How absurd you are!” She flashed her torch near Stephen Ames’s eyes, now half open. There was no reaction from either pupil or eyelid. “He’s still out. Maybe I could trust you with him for a few minutes, Micky? I could certainly do things to a cup of tea, if you really don’t mind.”

  “I’ve said I don’t. And if you don’t go soon you’ll lose your chance—I shall be in the theatre inside half an hour.”

  She thought of Gilda Seymour, lying out there in Casualty, her famous vitality arrested and pinned down, like a broken butterfly. “Is he ...is Sir David operating? What is there to do?”

  Michael shook his head and frowned. “It’s nasty.” He glanced at the bed and lowered his voice. “I’ve a horrible feeling her dancing days are over.”

  “Her legs?”

  “One of them. It was jammed in the car door when it turned over. Darn near ripped the gastrocnemius muscle to bits—the lateral head’s badly lacerated. Lord knows how he’s going to patch it up. Apart from any loss of function, she’s going to have a murderous scar ... By the way, the Chief says you’re to go in the theatre.”

  Fenella, half out of the door, turned back. “Me? But why?”

  “Now how would I know? I’m only a poor houseman, not a mind reader. Ask Parsley—he might know.”

  She hesitated in the doorway, then shrugged and went to find Sister.

  Mair came out of the theatre in her rubber apron, and waved to her. “I’ve got to take this case,” she said. “Theatre Sister’s out. They’re putting the theatre pro up, but the big white chief says she’s to stay with Ames to give you a break, and you’re to come to the theatre. And he’s made Sister get one of the day pros up, to do Dennis’s work. You never heard such a shemozzle.” She put her head on one side and looked at Fenella oddly. “You haven’t been complaining, have you?”

  “Good heavens, no! I hope Sister doesn’t think...”

  “Sister never thinks. She just does as he says. She dotes on him. But I’ve never seen him so wild—burbling on about ‘ridiculous understaffing’ and all the rest of it. He must think you’re a sensitive plant.”

  “Thinks I’m hopeless at the job, more likely. But Sister said he knew Gilda Seymour personally—maybe that’s what’s shaken him?”

  “Could be, could be,” Mair mused, narrowing her dark eyes. “Anyway, he says it’s time you found your way round the theatre. After all, on my nights off you’ll have to come in if Theatre Sister has a late evening.”

  “But I haven’t worked in the theatre for ages.”

  “Time you got back into it, then. Don’t you like theatre? Your Dennis would give her eyes.”

  Fenella pushed her hair back under her cap and wiped her damp palms on her apron. “Like it—yes. But I’m out of practice, and I don’t know the layout here, yet. Or what Sir David likes.”

  “That, my dear,” said Mair sweetly, “is just the point. You have to learn.”

  The two of them went through into the theatre annexe. The sterilisers were boiling, and the trolleys stood ready to be set. The steaming lotion bowls were ready, and the drums of gloves and towels were unlatched.

  “Now look—the instruments can come out. While I go and see if Sister has that girl ready, you do the trolleys, will you? And I’ll be back. I’ve rung for her doctor, but he’s out on a job, so Micky’ll have to do the anaesthetic. He’ll see to his own trolley so don’t bother about him.” Mair whisked off out of the theatre.

  When she had found a rubber apron Fenella slipped into white theatre wellingtons and twisted a turban round her hair instead of her starched cap. Then she took the big cheadle forceps and spread sterile towels, and began to line up the instruments.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sir David, in singlet and flannels, come into the annexe and begin to scrub his bare arms under the long-handled mixer tap.

  She had to screw herself up to speak to him. “Sir...”

  “Yes, Nurse Scott?”

  “Are you left handed or anything?” She looked down at the trolley she was setting, deciding which end to begin.

  He stopped scrubbing and stood with his hands dripping, considering her before he spoke. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘or anything’, but I’m certainly not left handed.” Then he looked away and went on scrubbing again. “And my glove size is seven and a half. Is anything else troubling you?”

  “No, sir. Except ... will she be able to go on dancing?”

  He drew in a hissing breath. “That,” he said slowly, “is not the kind of question I care to be asked before I operate. But I think it extremely unlikely. There’s going to be an appreciable shortening of the gastrocnemius, and the soleus too, probably. One calf is badly ripped about.”

  “What a pity!”

  She put a dry sterile towel into his reaching hand. He dried his hands slowly. “Nurse Scott, you have a flair for stating the obvious—but it’s not a pity; it’s a tragedy.” He looked out through the window into the dimly lit road behind the hospital. “I remember her when...”

  He stopped as Mair came back into the theatre. Fenella checked the suture and ligatures, and the gauze mops bundled in tens, and then went along to Ward 2 to fetch Gilda Seymour.

  Michael was just coming out of her room. “Calm her down a bit, Fenny, before you bring her. She’s had a shot, but it hasn’t taken effect yet. She’s awake and she’s in a sweat about her leg. Don’t tell her anything, there’s a dear. Not till we’re sure.”

  Gilda Seymour rolled her head fretfully from side to side. Her cornflower blue eyes were glazed from the drugs she had been given, but her finely drawn eyebrows were puckered in a frown and her mouth was compressed in pain.

  “Nurse,” she whispered. “Please tell me—my leg—what happened?”

  Fenella put a hand on her damp forehead. “Don’t agitate yourself. Miss Seymour. Try to relax. Doctor has given you something to help you to rest.”

  “But my leg ... What have I done to it? Is it serious?”

  “We’re going to look at it right away. We don’t know yet. Try to take it easy.”

  The dazed blue eyes focused on her face with difficulty. “I tried to get out,” Gilda said huskily. “He meant to kill us both, Stephen...”

  “Hush, Miss Seymour. You’re upsetting yourself.”

  “He was angry.” She gripped Fenella’s hand, sinking her long nails into the skin. “He said he would kill us both...”

  Fenella took both the restless hands and held them firmly. “In a few minutes we shall take you along to the theatre. You’ll have another injection, and when you wake up everything will seem different.”

  She watched the wandering gaze slow down, until the eyes blinked and closed. Nurse Minner’s moon face came round the door. “I’ve brought the trolley, Staff.”

  “All right, Nurse. Help me with her, will you?”

  Together they lifted the slight body, Fenella supporting the slim leg with its great wad of dressings, and wheeled her along to the theatre. Nurse Minner ambled blankly back to the wards, and Fenella held Gilda’s arm while Micky injected pentathol. She opened her eyes once, as the needle went home, sighed, and slept.

  For nearly an hour Fenella stood quietly behind Sir David. After the first quarter of an hour he became “David” in her mind. She found it impossible to be there, near to him—noticing the way his crisp hair grew in the nape of his neck below the white cap, seeing for the first time, as though everything about him were magnified and overcolored by the big theatre lamps, the tiny scar above the point of his jaw—and at the same ti
me to think of him by any name less simple than “David” or “he”.

  She watched his hands as he trimmed and repaired the mutilated muscle, patiently dissecting, stitching and swabbing, until at last something approaching a normal leg emerged. It was spidered with dark stitches, the skin puckered here and there, but the great gash was repaired as neatly as it humanly could be.

  When the time came for her to. lift Gilda’s leg down from the stirrup fitting, he stood back, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, his eyes clouded above his mask. Because she was looking at him, trying to assess his mood, whether it were hopeful or despairing, she slipped in a small puddle of antiseptic that had dripped from Mair’s lotion bowl as she wrung out a swab, and the clatter of the bucket sent flying under the table from her foot broke into his silence.

  It was as though she had made some violent assault on him. His dark eyebrows came down, and he snatched off his gloves and mask angrily and threw them down. There were deep lines about his mouth as he plucked irritably at the tapes of his gown.

  “Was that necessary?” He asked harshly. “If you can’t be quiet, Nurse Scott, please don’t come into the theatre again.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” She and Mair lifted Gilda on to the waiting trolley, and as Mair fell back to retrieve a blanket from the table he took an end of the trolley and ran it down to the ward. In silence he waited while she and Nurse Minner got the girl into bed, cradling the blankets from her injured leg, and setting the foot of the bed up on wooden blocks to counteract the shock of the accident and the operation.

  Then he jerked his head at Fenella. “I want to look at Ames again.” She followed him into Ward 4. The day junior, dragged from her bed, shot blinking to her feet as they went in.

  “He’s been conscious, Staff, but he’s off again now.”

  David went over to the bed and turned up the dimmer switch a point or two. “Did he say anything?”