Seven Dials (16 page)

‘Well, get on, girl, get on!’ McIndoe barked. ‘I want my tea and I’ve a lot to do before the day’s over, if you haven’t -’ And she glanced up at him, stung, remembering how much she too would have to do before she could drag her exhausted body to bed tonight and he looked back at her, his eyes bright above his mask, and she relaxed. The Boss’s bark, they had told her, was much worse than his bite, and so she was discovering. His famous impatience in the theatre was aimed not at self-aggrandizement but at getting the best possible work done,
and that was an aim they all shared, so she smiled at him, her eyes narrowing above her own sweat-damp mask and bent her head to the work.

Around her the theatre sounds, so familiar and comforting, accompanied the movements of her fingers; the soft susurration of the anaesthetic machine, measuring the steady rise and fall of the patient’s breathing as the oxygen bag on it filled, emptied and filled again; the trickle of running water and the hiss of steam from the sterilizers outside and the click of the instruments on the trolley as Sister checked them, all made a counterpoint to the rhythm of her work, and she set the stitches delicately, moving as precisely as though she were dancing, sliding the curved needle through the fibres easily and gently, tying each stitch with its own careful knot; and slowly the muscle took its normal form, the gaping hole that had split it down so far that the underlying teeth could be seen, narrowing and finally closing to leave it looking as it did in the illustrations in her textbooks, smooth and red and with her line of sutures snaking elegantly across it. Now, it was the masseter muscle, running from maxilla to mandible; she could remember learning about it, long ago, in her first year as a medical student, enjoying the euphony of its name, and now it lay there beneath her hands bearing the clear evidence of the repairs she had made to its living fibres. It was an odd thought, that. That she had done something so powerful, so creative, was remarkable, and she stared at her handiwork and was cautiously pleased with herself.

‘Very nice too,’ McIndoe said and prodded the muscle with a critical finger and it resisted his touch and regained its smoothness, as soon as he moved his hand away. ‘Very nice indeed. We’ll make a plastic surgeon of her yet, eh?’ And he jerked his head at the anaesthetist at the head of the table who laughed and said, ‘If she survives you, Archie, she can survive anybody. She’ll do fine -’

Standing there between the two men as Sister reached across to move the clips on the skin flap so that McIndoe could start replacing it across the naked muscle Charlie felt absurdly, childishly, pleased with herself. Praise from men like these was praise indeed; maybe this past few weeks of incredibly hard work and long hours had taught her something?

Certainly she would never have believed she could work as
delicately as she just had when she had first come out here to East Grinstead, and she looked down again at the face on the table, now rapidly becoming ever more normal, as McIndoe, working with his usual incredible speed, restructured and shaped the skin flaps, and felt a great wave of affection for the patient to whom it belonged. She would watch him very carefully as he recovered, tend his scar, make him look as good as she could - it was a warming prospect and for the first time since she had arrived here she felt as she used to feel long ago; calm and content and happy.

It really had been a miserable time, those weeks, and she looked back over them as she stood there beside McIndoe, snipping the catgut for him as he completed each stitch, seeing herself as she had been.

She had left Brin at the convalescent home in a towering rage; he had shouted at her, demanding that she take him at once to East Grinstead so that he could see McIndoe for himself and then, when she had refused to entertain such a stupid idea, had started trying to plead with her and when she had shaken her head at him, embarrassed at his obviousness, and had told him that unless he stopped she would have to leave, he had glared at her furiously and then turned on his heel and gone stamping away, leaving her there in the wet garden alone. And because even though she sent messages up to his room he had refused to speak to her again, she had had to walk out of the place, turning her back on him, miserable at having to behave so, never before having abandoned a patient in her professional life but not seeing anything else she could do.

And then having to honour the arrangements she had made to leave Nellie’s and join the staff at East Grinstead, dealing with the farewells at the one and the newness of work at the other against a background of silence from him, had been dreadful. She had called the convalescent home the very next day after her visit only to be told by the Matron in a decidedly icy and yet somehow triumphant tone of voice that Mr Lackland had discharged himself the previous afternoon, and no, she had no idea where he had gone, and that had left her desolate. She had failed abysmally, both as a doctor and as a woman, and she hated herself for that.

How she had got through those exhausting first weeks at East Grinstead she would never know, but get through them
she had, and now she stood in the main theatres, on this dark mid-December afternoon, feeling for the first time since she had arrived here that she was, after all, going to be able to cope. She may have failed with one patient, but she could still succeed with others.

‘Right,’ McIndoe said and pulled off his gloves and threw them on the floor as he went marching away from the table. ‘Penicillin umbrella for this one for the next week - those teeth could give us trouble if we don’t - and then get him back to his own hospital as fast as possible. I want that bed for a new pedicle graft for one of my air-crew boys. It’ll be his last try at getting his nose right. The last two efforts we got gangrene, God knows why, but we did. This time I’m going to get it right, so help me Hannah, so we need that bed. Try to get this fella out before Christmas, Lucas, and we’ll start those trims on Davy Smaul this evening as soon as you can get the theatre cleaned, Sister.’ And the big double doors swung closed behind him and he was gone.

‘I’ll be ready here in three quarters of an hour, Miss Lucas’ Sister said crisply. ‘Nurse Hudson, Nurse Angers, you two get straight here and then go to your suppers. Peters and Dallas can set up for the evening list and I’ll be back to take it. You can scrub too, Angers. Miss Lucas,
if
you please, the sooner we can get this man on his way the sooner we can all get on -’

The man was lifted to his trolley by the theatre porter who winked at Charlie behind Sister’s back and she took charge of the complex tubing of the blood transfusion that was dripping into his arm - for he had bled copiously at the start of the operation - as a nurse took the other end of the trolley to see the man out and on his way to the ward, glad to leave the bustle of the theatres behind her for a while. Ten minutes in the ward, checking all was well, then a snatched cup of coffee and a sandwich in the common room and she could be back here ready for another couple of hours hard surgery before the day ground to an end in exhausted sleep. And tomorrow there’d be the usual mounting panic of dressings and ward rounds and theatre lists and more ward rounds and - she sighed softly and pulled off her mask and dropped it into the hamper before padding away alongside the trolley to the ward.

Usually she hated appearing there in theatre garb, knowing she looked absurdly young in her regulation white cotton dress and ankle socks and white plimsolls and that it was that which made the men tease her, but she was getting used to it. Apart from their appalling injuries, they were vigorous and healthy young men in whom the sap ran high, and she shared with the nurses the sort of attentions such men always paid to young women. They called her Charlie, loudly, and whistled at her, and the more daring ones pinched her bottom as she leaned over their beds, and though at first she had hated that, now she felt as the nurses did about it. It showed a man had hope for his future in spite of his appearance, that he hadn’t given up trying; a pinched bottom and a lascivious leer and outrageous suggestions whispered into your ear as you performed a tricky dressing became experiences to be cheered, not reprimanded, indications of successful care.

The ward was full of its usual busy early evening hum as she got there, following the man on his theatre trolley, and she handed over the blood set to the ward nurse and stood there waiting for the theatre staff to get him into bed and safely tucked in, looking round and smiling a little.

The patients’ taste in Christmas decorations was, to say the least, exotic. Paper chains and garlands hung from every available space and were looped dizzily round the metal girders that made up the ceiling, while a vast Christmas tree at the far end was so laden with parcels and baubles and homemade trimmings that it was almost impossible to see any of the green of its branches; but she could smell it, the sharp pungency of pine filling her nostrils and mixing uneasily with the usual Ward Three smells. There was a rather more evident reek of beer tonight, too, and she grinned as she saw the cluster of men in the far corner who, rather red of face over their bandages and sweaty of bodies, were busily putting together a special parcel amid great peals of noisy laughter. God help the poor nurse that was destined for, she thought, and then turned as the ward Sister came clacking across the wooden floor behind her.

‘Ah, Miss Lucas - I’ve a letter here for you. I’m sorry - it actually got here this morning but the post clerk is new and didn’t realize he should have taken it over to the mess for you. And I’ve only just seen it. Hope it isn’t something madly
important - I’ve told the post clerk in future to see to it you get your letters delivered to the right place at the right time, but there, you can’t get any decent staff these days - now, you men,
what
are you up to there? I’ve told you before, I’ve had about as much of this mess as I can take -’ And she went plunging towards the noisy group in the corner, who immediately went into a scurry of activity, as they hid away whatever it was they were busy with, leaving Charlie staring down at the envelope Sister had thrust into her hand.

The envelope was written in block capitals so that she couldn’t certainly identify the handwriting and the postmark was blurred so that she couldn’t read it, and she stared at it for a moment before pushing it into her pocket and hurrying over to the bed of the operation case, now safely ensconced and with the bottle from his blood transfusion glowing redly above his head on a stand, trying to concentrate on the matter in hand, which was ensuring that he was in good condition; but it was a difficult thing to do. All the time she examined him, checking his heart rate and his blood pressure, she could feel her own pulses beating harder and faster than they should in her ears and she was furious with herself. It was only a letter, damn it, and she couldn’t even be sure who had sent it. Why get so excited? Calm down, do your job -

She hurried through her tasks; had to, unable to be comfortable until she could rip open the envelope and smooth out the pages inside, but then, when at last she had turned her patient over to the nursing staff and could go away to the mess to collect her meagre supper, she took her time. She sat in the corner of the big shabby room, withdrawing from the rest of the staff who were there chattering over their own meals and ate her sandwich slowly, not tasting it, but behaving as though it were something especially to savour, sipping her coffee as though it were a really fragrant brew instead of the repellent bottled stuff that was all that the hospital provided. And then when she had finished and couldn’t delay any longer, she took the envelope slowly from her pocket and unwillingly opened it. And it was, of course, as she had known from the moment she had looked at it, from Brin.

‘My dear Charlie,’ his large erratic handwriting sprawled over the page. ‘How I’ve the brass neck to write to you, I’ll never know. Heavens, how badly I’ve behaved! To nag you so
and then to sulk and fuss and go stamping off like a spoiled two-year-old - you don’t have to say it. I’ve said it all to myself and more these past weeks. I’ve been saying it ever since I got here, the day after I was so hateful to you at that ghastly Broadstairs pest house. (It was awful, wasn’t it? That Matron had lysol in her veins, I swear, but she adored me so she couldn’t have been all bad, I suppose!) I went marching home like a stupid schoolboy and the moment I got here I knew I’d been an idiot. But there it was, I was here and there was no way Sophie was going to let me go straight back to London, which was of course what I wanted to do as soon as I got off the train at Haworth station! She took one look at me, being very much the big sister, and began to cluck like the most proverbial of hens and laid on so much in the way of food and hot water bottles and soft beds and general tender loving care that I couldn’t escape.

‘My father fussed too in his dour fashion and made me feel frightful. He’s a good enough old stick, I dare say, but I can’t pretend we’ve ever been as close as we might be. He’s always been so wrapped up in his boring old Mill and local politics - and nothing is more boring than Yorkshire politics except perhaps Yorkshiremen, who are indeed a special breed - that talking to him was, for me, like climbing up the moors in bedroom slippers. And my dear, the weather here made it all seem so much worse! Tansy Clough (that’s the family home, they’ve been living here for who knows how many generations, madly feudal) is all grey stone and bitter nights and not enough coal and what there is smokes so that you’re kippered - but Sophie and Father have done so much to try to make it agreeable for me that I just got stuck here. Sophie has managed to get hold of some wood and so there we sit night after night, staring at the flames while my father nods over the
Yorkshire Post
and Sophie knits and watches me, anxiety on a plate! So, as you can see, I’ve had a rest as you suggested - but it’s the sort of rest I imagine corpses feel they are getting, tucked into their graves.

‘Anyway, here I am now, apologizing to you for being such a wretch and treating your kind efforts on my behalf like some sort of oaf. Of
course
you were right. I have to be patient, and if you feel you can eventually operate on me and make me look as I should, then I’ll be forever grateful. So, please,
dear
Charlie, this letter is to ask you to take me on again. I’m coming back to London - I’ve got to - can’t stand it here another day - though quite what I’ll do about a job I can’t imagine, and I’d be so glad if you’d see me again, and make a plan for taking me in hand as soon as possible. I can hold on till the summer - that’s when you’ll be finished there at East Grinstead, isn’t it? And then it’ll be back to Nellie’s and a nice new face for yours truly!