At the End of the Day

‘No, ducks.’

‘Then I’m going to bring you two cream crackers and you’re going to eat every crumb. Will you do that?’

‘Anything to please yer, love,’ said Mrs Winter obligingly.

Julia went to the kitchen, found the crackers, put two on a plate and bore them to the ward. She hadn’t quite reached it when she heard the swing doors open and close behind her and turned her head to see who it was. Professor van der Wagema, unsmiling as usual—perhaps he hadn’t had his breakfast after all; she had no idea where he lived, but even if it had been next door to St Anne’s which she very much doubted, he wouldn’t have had time. She waved the plate of biscuits at him. ‘I’ll be right back, sir, Mrs Winter must have these now—she didn’t eat her bread.’

She disappeared through the ward door and when she returned found him standing in the middle of the landing, still frowning.

‘Mrs Collins is still unconscious, I’ve just had a quick look. The Path Lab are sending up the results within the next half hour. Do you want Doctor Reed?’

Doctor Reed was the registrar; a nice quiet little man who loved his work. He had a very large wife and any number of small children. The fact reminded her that she was feeling sorry for the professor.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ she offered, and she added persuasively, ‘and a biscuit?’

‘You are thinking “Feed the brute”,’ said the professor, surprisingly.

‘No—no, of course not. Only night nurse said you were here early this morning and you can’t have had much time for breakfast.’

He looked down his domineering nose at her. ‘I can see no reason for you to concern yourself about my meals, Sister Mitchell. If it is convenient to you, I should like to see Mrs Collins.’

She didn’t feel sorry for him any more. With her head high, she swept down the ward. Never again, she promised herself silently, would she offer him refreshment of any sort; of course the obligatory cup of coffee after his twice weekly rounds would have to be given to him, but that hardly counted. She slipped behind the curtains, nodded to Nurse Wells to go, and took up her position on the other side of the bed from the professor.

He bent over his patient, examining her with great care and presently Doctor Reed joined him. ‘Difficult to determine hemiplegia,’ muttered the professor, ‘but I’m pretty certain it’s a cerebral thrombosis.’ He straightened up and glanced at Sister Mitchell. ‘Have you any news of Mrs Collins’ family or friends, Sister?’

‘None,’ said Julia, ‘I’ve ‘phoned the police and they’ve drawn a blank so far.’

‘We must hope that they will have success before very long, it would be of considerable help to us. Now, as to treatment…’ The professor never hummed and haa’d, he knew what he wanted done and made his wishes known concisely; what was more, he didn’t like having to repeat his instructions, something Julia had discovered more than three years ago when she had taken over the ward. She had a good memory and was familiar with his ways; she listened carefully, said ‘Very well, sir,’ in the colourless voice she used on his ward rounds, and followed the two men out of the cubicle, beckoning to Nurse Wells to return as she did so.

She accompanied them, as custom dictated, to the ward doors and once through them wished the professor a brisk good morning, to be rewarded by a dark stare. ‘I should be glad of a cup of coffee, Sister.’

Julia gave him a limpid look. ‘Why, of course, professor,’ she spoke in the tones of a much-tried hostess, ‘do go into the office and I’ll see about it.’ She looked at Dr Reed and said warmly, ‘You too, Dick?’

He grinned at her and nodded and she sailed across the landing to the kitchen. Old Meg was there, brooding over the mid-morning drinks trolley. She had been at the hospital for almost all of her life and refused to move with the times; trade unions, strikes, who did what and when, had made no impression on her; she still considered herself an old-fashioned ward maid and took no notice of anyone who tried to get her to think otherwise. She looked up now and gave Julia a reluctant smile. ‘Sister there ain’t no cocoa—I’d like to know where it goes at night, that I would! Want yer coffee?’

‘Not me, Meg—Professor van der Wagema and Dr Reed do. If I get a tray ready will you boil some milk?’

‘For ‘im I will,’ declared Meg, ‘nice gent ‘e is’.

‘Dr Reed?’ Julia was putting cups and saucers on to a tray.

‘Oh, ‘im—’e’s all right, no—the professor, ‘e’s a bit of class, asks me about me corns…!’

Julia’s lovely eyes widened with astonishment. Meg’s corns were a constant source of annoyance to her but she had never complained to anyone but Julia about them. ‘Give me the push if I tells ’em,’ she explained, ‘though I don’t mind you knowing, Sister.’

Presumably she didn’t mind the professor knowing either. Perhaps, thought Julia with a soundless giggle, there was a charming side to him she hadn’t been privileged to discover. She picked up the tray and carried it to her office, where the professor was sitting at her desk, writing, and Dr Reed was perched on the radiator, looking out of the window. He got up and took the tray from her as she went in but the professor didn’t raise his head.

Julia smiled at Dr Reed and whisked herself out of the room again. ‘Rude man,’ she muttered as she closed the door.

There was a great deal to do in the ward; beds were being made, patients were being got up and arranged in chairs and once in them remembered books, spectacles and knitting which they’d left behind on their lockers which made the whole business long winded. Besides that, there were the really ill patients; Mrs Wolff with severe thyro-toxicosis, little Dolly Waters holding leukaemia at bay from week to week and young Mrs Thorpe with transverse myelitis. She was barely in her thirties with a devoted husband and two small children, and had paralysis from the waist down. Several months in a plaster cast had done no good at all, but now she was out of it and the professor was going to examine her again. He hadn’t pretended that he could cure her, but neither had he drawn a gloomy picture for her to worry about and he had promised that if there was anything to be done, he would do it. Julia, helping one of the student nurses to make her bed, reflected that tiresome though he might be, his patients trusted him.

She went back to her office presently; the nurses were going to their coffee two by two, and when they got back she and Pat would have theirs, until then, she would get on with her paper work.

The professor was still in her office, writing busily, he looked up as she went in, said coolly: ‘I am almost finished, Sister.’ Then went on writing. She didn’t go away but stood by the door, watching him. He looked tired; after all, he was no longer a young man and even his good looks couldn’t disguise the fact; she was still annoyed with him about his rejection of her offer of coffee and food, but a pang of something like pity shot through her, instantly doused by his cool: ‘Pray don’t stand there, Sister Mitchell, there must be something you can do and I shall be a few minutes still.’

‘Oh, there is plenty.’ She matched her coolness with his, although she was put out. ‘Only it’s all on my desk and you’re still sitting at it.’ She allowed a small pause before adding, ‘Sir’.

He said without looking up from his writing: ‘How long have we known each other, Sister?’

‘Us? Oh, three years or more on this ward—you lectured me when I was a student nurse but one could hardly say that you knew me, then.’

He glanced up and smiled briefly. ‘That makes me feel very old.’ And then to surprise her entirely: ‘How old are you, Sister Mitchell?’

She said indignantly: ‘That’s rather a rude question…’

‘Why?’

‘Well, wouldn’t you think it rude if I were to ask you that?’

‘Not in the least,’ his voice was bland. ‘I’m forty-one and looking forty-two in the face. I don’t imagine you are forty yet?’

She gasped with annoyance. ‘Of course I’m not, if you must know I’m thirty—today.’

‘Many happy returns of the day.’ He finished his writing and sat back to study her. ‘I must say that you don’t look your age.’

‘Thank you for nothing, Professor.’ Her green eyes flashed with temper. ‘I find this a very pointless conversation and I have a great deal of work to do…’

He got up slowly. ‘When are you and young Longman getting married?’

She blushed and hated herself for it. ‘I don’t know—there’s plenty of time…’

He sauntered to the door. ‘Oh, no there isn’t—once you are thirty, the years fly by.’ He opened the door. ‘I’ll be in to see Mrs Collins this afternoon. Good morning to you, Sister.’

Her ‘Good morning, sir,’ was snappish to say the least.

But she forgot him almost at once as she became immersed in her work; there were always forms to fill in, requests to write, the off duty to puzzle out; she worked steadily for half an hour or so; Pat was in the ward, keeping an eye on things and presently when the nurses had been to coffee, they would have theirs and sort out the day’s problems before the various housemen did their rounds. And the professor, of course; an even-tempered woman, despite the fieriness of her hair, and possessed of more than the usual amount of common sense, Julia found herself feeling sorry for him again. Of course, away from the hospital, he might be a devoted husband and father, a frequenter of night clubs, a keen theatregoer, a fervent sportsman, but it was impossible to know that. His private life was a closed book to her and she wasn’t interested in looking inside, only it was a pity that he found her so irritating. And yet she knew for a fact that he had told the Senior Medical Officer that she was the best sister he had ever had to deal with. It was probably her fault, she mused, for she answered him back far too often.

She sighed, reached for the ‘phone and dialled the laundry. As usual she needed more linen and as usual she was going to have to wheedle it out of them.

Pat came in presently and they drank their coffee and filled in the rest of the off duty. ‘My weekend,’ said Pat happily, ‘I shall go home.’ She poured more coffee. ‘Is Dr Longman off for your weekend?’

Julia shook her head. ‘No, he’s going to Bristol—he’s applied for the registrar’s position there, and this Saturday seems to be the only day they can interview him.’

‘Would you like my weekend?’ asked Pat instantly, ‘then you could go with him.’

‘That’s sweet of you Pat, but he’ll be better on his own, besides what would I do there? I’d be by myself most of the time. He’ll go on to his home and spend Sunday there, and I’ll go home on my weekend; we can sort things out after that.’

The niggling thought that Nigel could have invited her to go to his parents’ home and joined her there popped into her head to be instantly ignored as petty childishness. ‘Now, how can we fit Nurse Wells in for that extra half day we owe her?’