Don’t hang about. Try and find something to do,” I nearly burst into tears.
Fortunately there are a number of tasks to be performed which require no medical knowledge and not all of them are directly connected with bowel movement. Preparing and taking round “elevenses” is one such job and it gives me my first real chance to get to know the patients. Their favourite tipple is marked up on a board in the kitchen and it is with a start of recognition that I see the name Arkwright. Could it be the famous Groper Arkwright who shared my lift when I came for my interview with Matron? I do remember an old man curled up asleep at the end of the ward.
In an even more worried state of mind I set off pushing my trolley and trying to smile sweetly. “Mr Evans? Cocoa, isn’t it? Would you like some sugar?”
“Yes please, Nurse. Three.”
My spoon is poised over the mug when Staff Wood snatches it away. “Mr Evans is not allowed sugar,” she says coldly. “Get a grip on yourself.”
I blush scarlet and wish I could get a grip on Staff Wood’s wind pipe. Why does everybody have to be so unpleasant? It soon becomes clear to me that most of the patients would be quite happy to kill themselves for a spoonful of sugar and that nearly all of them are treating themselves for their own versions of the ailments.
An exception to this rule is Mr Buchanan in the third bed down. He has already given up the ghost. When I approach him he beckons me closer and addresses me in a confidential whisper that can be heard four beds away. “Don’t bother with me, lass. You give your time to those it can still benefit. Just let me be and I’ll try not to be too much trouble. I’ve had a good innings and I can’t grumble.” He squeezes my hand and a tear glistens in his eye. It is all very affecting.
“Has he got a chance?” I whisper to Nurse Wilson as I push my trolley on to the next bed.
“Who? Mr Buchanan? He’s being discharged next week.”
How strange, I think. It was never like this on the Doctor Eradlik programme.
The next bed contains Mr Arkwright who still appears to be sleeping soundly. I have half a mind to tiptoe past but it occurs to me that I have got to come into contact with him sooner or later so it might as well be now. Taking the steaming mixture of malt, milk, eggs and added vitamins that I have been reading about on the tin I advance to the side of the bed. He probably won’t recognise me anyhow.
“Mr Arkwright,” I croon. “Wakey, wakey.”
Immediately, a scrawny arm shoots out and claw-like fingers sink into the soft flesh at the top of my thigh. “I want to play naughty nanas with you,” husks a familiar voice.
“Mr Arkwright! Please!”
“Come on, my little chickabee. Pull the screens round and hop aboard the love train.”
“Oops!” I don’t want to pour steaming Ovaltine all over the dirty old sod, but it is not surprising that I lose my balance when he tries to shove a couple of gnarled fingers up passion alley.
“Nurse! What have you done? Are you all right, Mr Arkwright?”
It is the first time that I have heard Staff Wood say anything nice to anyone and I realise that “Mr Sunshine” is a male version of what Natalie is going to be like in about seventy years time. What a revolting thought.
“Don’t just stand there, Nurse. Can’t you see that Mr Arkwright is in pain?” For one wonderful moment I think she is going to tell me to shoot him, but in the end I have to strip the old swine’s bed and change his pyjamas. Since this manoeuvre is performed behind screens there are ample opportunities for Mr Sunshine to demonstrate that his reflexes are as quick as ever and few of them are missed. When I limp away with a pile of sodden bedding my bottom is black and blue.
“Is he always like that?” I murmur to Nurse Martin.
Nurse Martin, having been on the ward for three whole weeks, looks surprised that I should have the barefaced cheek to address her unprompted. “Always like what?” she says haughtily.
“Grabbing and mauling,” I say.
Nurse Martin makes a convincing job of looking amazed.
“‘Grabbing and mauling?’ Why, he’s a sweet old man. They call him—”
“Don’t tell me,” I say. “‘Mr Sunshine.’ O.K., it must be me.”
“It certainly must,” snaps Nurse Martin. She looks at me as if I have still got a bat’s leg sticking out of the corner of my mouth.
The next face from the past I bump into belongs to the bearded character who took my cab. He is dressed in a white coat and is skimming through a patient’s notes as if trying to produce a picture.
“If you don’t get out of bed soon I’m going to have to kick your fat arse off it,” he bellows. “We need that bed for someone who’s ill. I want to hear that you’re feeling much better when I come round tomorrow, right?”
There is a mumble of assent from the bed and the doctor turns to find himself face to face with me.
“Why, if it isn’t Kung Fu,” he says. “You want to be more careful with those karate chops, I practically had to give that cabby the kiss of life before I could get up to town.”
He runs his fingers through his mop of dark hair and goes on to the next bed. “You’re not still here? I thought I discharged you yesterday. You stick around here much longer and we’ll have to start charging you rent.”
Blackbeard’s bedside manner differs considerably from that practised by Doctor Eradlik and I think how coarse he is. Definitely not like most of the young doctors I have noticed at Queen Adelaide’s. They tend to be rather smooth and wear striped ties underneath their white coats. Blackbeard’s white coat makes its owner look as if he helps out in a fish-and-chip shop on his evenings off. I am very surprised to find that he is some kind of doctor.
After the Arkwright botch-up Sister Bradley must decide that I am totally useless because she gives me the job of re-doing the labels that cover most of the surfaces of the sluice, linen-room and kitchen. These are neatly printed in biro and protected by sellotape which is now beginning to peel and turn yellow with age.
Halfway through the afternoon I have to copy out “No unlabelled specimens will be left standing” four times before I get it right and it occurs to me that I am becoming more exhausted than a blackleg in a prostitutes’ strike. I can hardly keep my eyes open.
“Hi, there.” The voice is upper class but deep and warm. I look up and my heart skips a couple of beats as I see Doctor Fishlock smiling down at me. “I wondered where I was going to find you.” He says it like he has been looking since puberty.
“Hello,” I simper, “I’m doing the labels.” He would have to have his eyes closed not to know that, but I never find it easy to chat to dishy men. I always imagine that they must be thinking what a fool I am. Of course, while I am thinking that, I am behaving like a fool and they soon become perfectly entitled to their opinion.
“How’s it going?” Doctor Fishlock pulls up a chair and settles down on the other side of the table. “I know just how tough these first days can be.”
I warm to him immediately because that is just the kind of kind, considerate thing that Doctor Eradlik would have said. He even stretches out an arm and pats the back of my hand. Surely this can’t be the man that Penny was talking about? He seems too gentle, too refined for those acts of wild animal passion. Sometimes I think her excitable imagination gets the better of the truth.
“It’s not too bad,” I say. “No worse than I expected.”
“That’s the girl.” Robert’s eyes glow like the embers of a cherished fire. You see how my imagination is calling him Robert already. There is something about the man that makes me feel I have known him all my life—well, not all my life. I don’t want to sound unhealthy about it. “I have the feeling that this