Nurse Jess (19 page)

Jessa finished weakly,
“
It
’
s rather shaggy and he wears big glasses.
”

“
That
’
s what I
’
m telling you,
”
Vanda said with a sulky
air.

“
What about your lantern evenings? You launch a lantern on the lagoon and make a wish, remember
—”

“
Most of the lanterns still sink,
”
said Vanda, determined to be difficult.

“
Didn
’
t Roger ferret out a solution for you?
”

“
Roger hasn
’
t time to ferret out anything,
”
returned Vanda resentfully again, and Jessa thought wisely, putting Vanda
’
s disillusion down to the preponderance of women and Roger
’
s well-known susceptibility,
“
So
that
’
s
it.
”

“
And Lopi?
”
she asked, though not very hopefully. Vanda had never liked Lopi.

“
If you mean have I conducted any tours up to that wretched crater, the answer is no. Luckily none of the tourists have wanted it, and the conventions invariably do nothing but talk.
”

“
That
’
s what they come for.
”

“
I
’
m not grumbling,
”
said Vanda hurriedly.
“
If they didn
’
t talk they
’
d want to inspect. I mean, they
’
re not the type simply to lie on a beach.
”

“
No,
”
said Jessa, trying to think of the Professor simply lying on a beach and not succeeding,
“
I suppose you
’
re right.
”

She went up to Lopi herself before she returned to Belinda. Several of the male guests would have come eagerly if she had encouraged them, but Lopi was not a place to be taken lightly. Without ever having admitted it, Jessa took the old fable very seriously. It was not just a matter to her of approaching the volcano with a gift of red berries, it was that other rule, too...the rule of the heart.

She drove the station wagon as far as the lava fields and walked up the hard black earth. She looked over the edge of the eternal internal fire and threw in her berries.
“
For you, Goddess,
”
she called.

Lopi gave back a sigh and a bubble.

She seemed peaceful enough, in spite of Barry
’
s doubts. Probably those doubts were, as Mummy had asserted, just
“
wishful thinking.
”
No self-respecting tourist bureau, Barry must have known, would want to sponsor an island with an active crater.

She looked down again, and was not so sure of its placidity this time—though probably she had only caught Barry
’
s germ.

Was
Lopi sulky? Then if so what was troubling her? Was it the influx of tourists? Or had some misbehaving lovers annoyed her? Oh, Jessa, you fool, she scorned aloud, it
’
s just an old dead volcano, don
’
t be absurd.

She walked though
t
fully down to the station wagon and drove back to the hotel.

The days of her break went quickly enough. Halfway
through, the present tour departed, said farewell with jessamine leis which they threw into the sea from the crash boat, and the next day the next tour began.

There were more girls than ever in this group, and Vanda was sulkier than before. All things considered, and Belinda urging her back, Jessa was glad when her break was up.

Barry was still on stand-down, so she travelled back with the alternative pilot. The crossing to the coast was on schedule, so by five o
’
clock that afternoon she was consulting the hospital roster to find out when she started again. It seemed a long time since she had worked at Belinda, but, of course, that was because of the quads as well as her break. She saw that she didn
’
t commence until night duty tomorrow evening, so that would make it even longer still.

She knew she could not wait till then to see the Perfesser, and when she came away from him she knew, too, that she must peep in at the other babies as well. Three weeks away... why Deb. Number One and Brains Trust and Calypso Pete would be almost outsize. She hurried along the long corridor.

She didn
’
t visit them, however, because someone else had thought of it before her.

He stood as tall and gangling and owlish and somehow vulnerable as ever... and beside him stood Margaret. They were deep in conversation. It could have been a baby
’
s cot temperature, a baby
’
s diet, an Rh-factor problem, a vocal cord affection to be considered, anything, but Jessa knew it was not.

And all at once she knew something else as well—she knew, like the Professor, that she was vulnerable, too. She was vulnerable to hurt—and to love. She stood very still a moment in the shock of it. All these weeks, she realized, she had been planning ostensibly for
Margaret,
but in her heart she really had meant somebody just as humble as Margaret—in order words, a similar semi-trained prem baby nurse, and in other words again,
herself.

Never, she knew, would she have dared plan such a thing for Jessamine Barlow, so she had substituted, perhaps
not awarely, with Margaret South. She had even made a sort of dedication of it, but now, watching that absorbed pair, one solid fact emerged: love, plain and
simple—her
love of a man about as remote to her, she thought sadly, as the moon and stars.

For the Professor was a big figure in medicine, a world figure; countries acclaimed him, referred to him, read his books, asked his advice. How then had she even had the nerve to plan to bring him and
Meg
together...? More than that, how did she have the nerve to stand gazing wistfully now and wishing something else that could never never come true?

Because it was impossible, of course. A learned professor and a prem trainee were a universe apart. Perhaps it could happen to someone like Margaret, serene, controlled, sensible Margaret, Margaret of the quiet manners, gentle ways and the high marks, but never to a red-haired hoyden who flew down corridors, who knocked professors over, who said the wrong thing at the wrong time, who got Average Only
—
never to Nurse Jess.

All at once she felt horribly tired, every bit of her, eyes, shoulders, feet—and yet through the weariness and emptiness she still felt that beloved proximity with a sharp immediacy; it was something, she thought helplessly, independent of change, time, distance, anything at all, it was simply
there.

She stepped back out of sight, yet still keeping the pair of them in her sight.

Oh, Meg, her heart cried childishly, I thought I was planning it for you, but all the time it was really for myself, and I never knew it until I saw you like this with him.

The minutes ticked by
...
the pair still stood absorbed

What now, Jessa asked herself helplessly, and her honesty forced her to answer.

Now I
’
m jealous, was the reply, I
’
m fearful that what I told myself I wanted for Margaret
will
come true

As she had done already over a score of times at Belinda, Jessa wheeled and ran away down the long corridor—but this time unseeing and unhearing, only desperately anxious to escape.

At the end of the hall she raced up the stairs to the refuge of her room.

CHAPTER XIV

IN the following ten nights Jess wished again and again that she had been placed on ordinary duty. Days, she had always found, gave you far less time to think.

Not that there was ever any surplus of spare moments on any Belinda shift, but there were more interruptions by day to keep your hands active and your thoughts inactive ... phones rang... parents came... babies woke more, fed more, were sponged, diapered and put back more often into their cribs.

But night-time seemed to mellow everybody and everything even as it muted the little whisperings of birds. Admittedly babies cried at night, but in quieter tones, less frequently, and mostly they slipped back into sleep without even a persuasive word.

Some of the nurses openly disliked Nights because of a curtailed social life; some admitted they disliked the responsibility, the staff being a skeleton one, of making decisions which otherwise would have been referred to higher up; some said quietly that death chose night, and left it at that.

Jessa, ordinarily, agreed with none of these reasons. She had no coveted social life to speak of, had a happy attitude towards making decisions and generally steered a cheerful mid-course... then had not both Tar Baby and little Brer Rabbit left them while the sun was still in the sky?

At any other time she might have enjoyed this roster of Nights. Undoubtedly, it was easier work, and the hours were shorter, too. But not with that pain in her heart becoming heavier every second... crying out to be lightened each time she had a moment for introspection, a minute to think of herself.

She worked almost feverishly. She insisted on making the tea snacks. She answered a baby
’
s cry before anyone else could. She spent precious breaks on sterilizing, polishing, patching, things ordinarily that were left, by tacit agreement, to the day staff.

But she was not always successful. Inevitably pauses came, moments of waiting, in the self-imposed nervous activity of her night. They were unwanted, but ruthlessly they descended on her. However hard she tried she could not fill in all the gaps, the perilous blanks that caught her between one job and the next.

I don
’
t want to think, she told herself, but the next moment she was thinking in spite of it all.

It
’
s all very small and very unimportant, she said determinedly. I foolishly have fallen in love with a man who could never love me, but it mustn
’
t matter, and it doesn
’
t, I have the rest of my life time to love again.

But I shall never love again, she knew sadly, I shall only love once, and I love him.

How did I come to love him in the beginning? In books they start with dislike and then suddenly something else, something radiant and enchanted, breaks through. But I never disliked the Professor, I liked him right from the first. I felt kindly and maternal to him, and you can
’
t love a man you feel maternal to, but I do, oh, I do.

The ten nights proved eventful enough. They had an emergency transfusion the second night and an expected transfusion the fourth. Doctor Elizabeth, whom Jessa was working with, sighed with relief after the emergency.
“
Belinda is the only city hospital to admit outside prems like that one,
”
she said feelingly.
“
As you can see, one has to move fast.
”

The second and expected
transfusion
was a baby from their associated midwifery clinic, St. Hilda
’
s. They
knew all about it in advance and the operation went like schedule.
“
It
’
s easy when one is prepared,
”
said the doctor, looking down on a baby whom several decades ago would not have lived.

Jessa christened the two Rh
’
s, since no time had been wasted,
“
Jack-Be-Nimble
”
and
“
Jack-Be-Quick,
”
which really was quite unsuitable as one, the emergency one, was
a Jill.

Calypso Pete gave them a few bad moments on the fifth night. He had been doing wonderfully, leaving his contemporaries Deb. Number One and Brains Trust ounces behind, when suddenly he must have decided on more attention, and achieved it promptly by putting on a breathing act. Indeed, he succeeded in turning a deep purple. Doctor Elizabeth and Doctor Mary were just considering an artificial opening in his tiny throat when he decided, his goal evidently having been achieved, to act normally again.

“
Remind me,
”
said Jessa, tucking him in later,
“
to spank you the very minute you reach five pounds.
”

Calypso Pete shut his eyes on her and went to sleep. During those ten nights Jessa saw nothing of Margaret
—
or Professor Gink.

There was nothing unusual about not seeing a fellow nurse on a different roster from yours. You were in bed during their working hours, they worked when you slept. But she
had
expected to see the Professor, either on a social visit to Master X or a business call on one of the emergencies. Explanation came when Doctor Elizabeth sighed gratefully and said,
“
Thank goodness we came through all right. I don
’
t know what I would have said otherwise to Professor Gink.
”

“
Is he away?
”

“
He was here on call, but he didn
’
t want to be summoned unless we feared we wouldn
’
t make it. He can
’
t always be around, so we have, to learn to stand on our own feet, and now was the time to begin.
”
Doctor looked proudly down on the emergency Rh.
“
And we did stand on our feet, didn
’
t we, poppet?
”

Jack-Be-Nimble yawned in her sleep.

On the morning after her last Night, Jessa sat blissfully on her bed, luxuriating in the fact that her roster was completed and that she needn
’
t go to sleep at once, but could wait, like other people, till ordinary time.

The way it always was with the end of Nights, she felt as lively as a cricket... too lively to relax in bed.

She tidied her drawers, that had got into a fine mess what with spilling out of the blankets at ten p.m. and sliding into them again at six am. and not spending a moment on any personal chores.

Snapshots, handkerchiefs and other contents were sorted out carefully. There were letters from home, from some of the G.S. girls—two notes from Professor Gink.

She unfolded and read these, though that was not necessary. Even now she remembered the contents by heart.

This was the first scrawl thanking her for mending his glasses; this was the second suggesting she do the same to
another pair. One was signed,
“
Thanks,
”
one was signed,
“
Yours
.”
Both were initialled B. G.

And that, she knew, remembering the Winthrop quads and how
they had been named after their parents and a nurse and a professor, stood for Barry Gink.

She put the things back, took a shower and dressed in a skirt and jumper.

If the Perfesser had not been out on the verandah she would have waited until later to visit him. Visitors, although welcome at any time, were not encouraged to come until after ten.

But the Perfesser was not a patient now, he was a very young man living an almost normal baby life, not a prem in a heated ward any more:

In which case she felt that a pre-ten visit, although in civilian clothes, would not be frowned upon, so took herself down the stairs and along the corridor.

Her
baby was in the same cot in the same corner he had shared with the injured hot-rodder. She wondered if young Jill and Jim had married yet...bought a secondhand car... put a deposit on a block of land. Somehow she felt that everything had turned out right for them. Babies were magic, they achieved results that nobody and nothing else could.

The Foundling, the Perfesser, Master X, whatever it was you chose to call him,
w
as asleep. Jessa looked at the little face that was actually beginning to take shape and felt that familiar stab of love in her heart.

It was really too bad to call a baby the Perfesser, she decided. One must be young before one grew wise, and it seemed like burdening him before his time.

And yet, she thought, I can
’
t call him Master X or the Foundling. To me he is somebody, he has always been somebody, he has always belonged.

In an inspiration she bent over the bassinet and said aloud,
“
Hullo, Barry Boy.
”

“
Barry?
”

The interrogation came at the same time as the steps came. She had not heard him walking down the long corridor, through the arch, not until he arrived arid questioned her from the other side of the cot did she recognize Professor Gink.

“
Barry?
”
he repeated.
“
Is that his name, Nurse?
”

She felt the colour coming up into her face like a sunrise. He had not minded that jocund the Perfesser, she thought, but how would he take to this more personal Barry Boy?

“
Is it?
”
he was persisting quietly.

Jessa said,
“
Well—yes.
”

“
Matron
’
s choice?
”
After all, the Professor was thinking, the baby had no background, and it was only natural that Matron Martha would insist on something more dignified than an absurd nickname.

“
No—no, not Matron Martha
’
s choice
... mine.
”

“
Yours, Nurse—but why Barry?
”

Jessa grew redder than ever. He didn
’
t like his name being used, then. It was all right when it was all in fun, but when one became more pertinent it was a different thing it seemed.

“
Why, Nurse Jess?
”
asked Professor Gink.

She could not say,
“
Because it
’
s yours, sir, and because somehow I have always associated this baby with you,
”
so she just stood and said nothing.

The Professor said nothing, too.

The silence grew between them. Perhaps it might have been broken in time by another persistent query from the Professor, an impulsive explanation by Jessa, but Nurse Gwen came out on to the verandah at that moment, gave Jessa a cold look for visiting at eight a.m. in a skirt and jumper, gave the Professor a respectful if reproachful look for not visiting with a stethoscope and a remote air, and whisked the young man in for his bath.

The Foundling, Master X, the Perfesser, Barry Boy, whatever you liked to call him, shut his eyes and opened his mouth and yelled.

The Professor jumped. You would have thought he had never heard a baby cry before, the way he started. With a mumbled apology to Nurse Gwen he hurried off.

Waiting for him to clear the long corridor but not waiting for Nurse Gwen
’
s censure, Jessa went as well.

She met up with Margaret at lunch, and together they took their trays to their favourite nook by the window. It was a long time since they had eaten together like this
—
even prior to the quads, Jessa
’
s break, and later, her Nights, they had been on different rosters—but Meg now happily confided that they would be eating together for the next few weeks at least.

“
We
’
re rostered from eight a.m., Jessamine, and in the same wards; we
’
re workmates again at last.
”

“
Yes,
”
said Jessa, and tried to make it sound as enthusiastic as Margaret sounded. She looked at her uncomfortably, hoping she had noticed her slightly dubious note. Somehow she could not help feeling different with Margaret. It was absurd, it was more than that, it was really unfair and unkind of her. Margaret had done nothing except let something happen that she, Jessa, had been wishing upon her ever since they had come to Belinda. Margaret was sweet and sincere and lovable.
How
lovable, Jessa
’
s heart tried not to ask.

Margaret had not noticed anything. She was her usual gentle self. She drew Jessa
’
s attention to some delphiniums enamelling the plot beneath their window with heraldic azure.

“
Wait till you see Gainsborough,
”
she told Jessa.
“
We called it that because its eyes are as blue as the sky.
”

Jessa
’
s interest was captured. It always was with a new baby.
“
How big... when... girl or boy?
”

“
Boy, of course,
”
laughed Margaret, answering the questions in reverse.
“
Remember Gainsborough
’
s
‘
Blue Boy
’
? ... and he came in Sunday, and he
’
s quite a large specimen, four pounds.
”

Since nurses
’
coming off Nights were not expected to start till the next day Jessa decided to spend the afternoon mending and brightening her summer wardrobe in the back garden.

This garden was kept sacred to the nurses. Other parts of the grounds were open to parents and visitors, but this pocket handkerchief of lawn was enclosed by a private thicket and one could sun-bake, lounge, sleep, read, or in Jessa
’
s case, sew to one
’
s heart
’
s content.