The Awakened Heart

Her flatlet might lack the refinements of home, but it was only five minutes’ walk from the hospital. She crossed the courtyard with five minutes to spare, watched, if she did but know, by the man who had retrieved her shoe for her—in the committee-room again, exchanging a desultory conversation with those of his colleagues who were lingering after their meeting. Tomorrow would be a busy day, for he had come over to England especially to operate on a cerebral tumour; brain surgery was something on which he was an acknowledged expert, so that a good deal of his work was international. Already famous in his own country, he was fast attaining the highest rung of the ladder.

He stood now, looking from the window, studying Sophie’s splendid person as she crossed the forecourt.

‘Who is that?’ he asked Dr Wells, the anaesthetist who would be working with him in the morning and an old friend.

‘That’s our Sophie, Night Sister in Casualty and the accident room, worth her not inconsiderable weight in gold too. Pretty girl…’

They parted company presently and Professor Rijk van Taak ter Wijsma made his way without haste down to the entrance. He was stopped before he reached it by the surgical registrar who was to assist him in the morning, so that they were both deep in talk when the first of the ambulances flashed past on its way to the accident room entrance.

They were still discussing the morning’s work when the registrar’s bleep interrupted them.

He listened for a minute and said, ‘There’s a head injury in, Professor—contusion and laceration with evidence of coning. Mr Bellamy had planned a weekend off…’

His companion took his phone from him and dialled a number. ‘Hello, John? Rijk here. Peter Small is here with me; they want him in the accident room—there’s a head injury just in. As I’m here, shall I take a look? I know you’re not on call…’ He listened for a moment. ‘Good, we’ll go along and have a look.’

He gave the phone back. ‘You wouldn’t mind if I took a look? There might be something I could suggest…’

‘That’s very good of you, sir; you don’t mind?’

‘Not in the least.’

The accident room was busy, but then it almost always was. Sophie, with a practised glance at the patient, sent the junior sister to deal with the less urgent cases with the aid of two student nurses, taking the third nurse with her as the paramedics wheeled the patient into an empty cubicle. The casualty officer was already there; while he phoned the registrar they began connecting up the various monitoring tubes and checked the oxygen flow, working methodically and with the sure speed of long practice. All the same, she could see that the man on the stretcher was in a bad way.

She was trying to count an almost imperceptible pulse when she became conscious of someone standing just behind her and then edging her gently to one side while a large, well kept hand gently lifted the dressing on the battered head.

‘Tut, tut,’ said the professor. ‘What do we know, Sister?’

‘A fall from a sixth-floor window on to a concrete pavement. Thready pulse, irregular and slow, cerebro-spinal fluid from left ear, epistaxis…’

Her taxing training was standing her in good stead; she answered him promptly and with few words, while a small part of her mind registered the fact that the man beside her had tied her shoelaces for her not two hours since.

What a small world, she reflected, and allowed herself a second’s pleasure at seeing him again. But only a second; she was already busy adjusting tubes and knobs at the registrar’s low-voiced instructions.

The two men bent over the unconscious patient while she took a frighteningly high blood-pressure and the casualty officer looked for other injuries and broken bones.

Presently the professor straightened up. ‘Anterior fossa—depressed fracture. Let’s have an X-ray and get him up to Theatre.’ He took a look at Peter Small. ‘You agree? There’s a good chance…’ He glanced at Sophie. ‘If you would warn Theatre, Sister? Thank you.’

He gave her a brief look; he didn’t recognise her, thought Sophie, but then why should he? She was in uniform now, the old-fashioned dark blue dress and frilly cap which St Agnes’s management committee refused to exchange for nylon and paper.

The men went away, leaving her to organise the patient’s removal to the theatre block, warn Night Theatre Sister, Intensive Care and the men’s surgical ward, and, that done, there was the business of his identity, his address, his family… It was going to be a busy night, Sophie decided, writing and telephoning, dealing with everything and the police, and at the same time keeping an eye on the incoming patients. Nothing too serious from a medical point of view, although bad enough for the owners of sprained ankles, cut heads, fractured arms and legs, but they all needed attention—X-rays, cleaning and stitching and bandaging, and sometimes admitting to a ward.

It was two o’clock in the morning, and she had just wolfed down a sandwich and drunk a reviving mug of tea since there had been no chance of getting down to the canteen, when a girl was brought in, a small toddler screaming her head off in her mother’s arms, who thrust her at Sophie. ‘’Ere, take a look at ’er, will yer? Fell down the stairs, been bawling ’er ’ead off ever since.’

Sophie laid the grubby scrap gently on to one of the couches. ‘How long ago was this?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Dunno. Me neighbour told me when I got ’ome—nine o’clock, I suppose.’

Sophie was examining the little girl gently. ‘She had got out of her bed?’

‘Bed? She don’t go ter bed till I’m ’ome.’

Sophie sent a nurse to see if she could fetch the casualty officer and, when she found him and he arrived, left the nurse with him and ushered the mother into her office.

‘I shall want your name and address and the little girl’s name. How was she able to get to the stairs? Is it a high-rise block of flats?’ She glanced at the address again. ‘At the end of Montrose Street, isn’t it?’

‘S’right, fifth floor. I leave the door, see, so’s me neighbour can take a look at Tracey…’

‘She is left alone during the day?’

‘Well, off and on, you might say, and sometimes of an evening—just when I go to the pub evenings.’

‘Well, shall we see what the doctor says? Perhaps it may be necessary to keep Tracey in the hospital for a day or two.’

‘Suits me—driving me mad with that howling, she is.’

Tracey had stopped crying; only an occasional snivel betrayed her misery. Sophie said briskly, ‘You’d like her admitted for observation, Dr Wright?’ and at the same time bestowed a warning frown on him; Jeff Wright and she had been friends for ages, and he understood the frown.

‘Oh, definitely, Sister, if you would arrange it. This is the mother?’ He bent an earnest gaze upon the woman, who said at once,

‘It ain’t my fault. I’ve got ter ’ave a bit of fun, ’aven’t I? Me ’usband left me, see?’

Sophie thought that he might have good reason. The woman was dirty, and although she was wearing make-up and cheap fashionable clothes the child was in a smelly dress and vest and no nappy. ‘You may visit when you like,’ she told her. ‘Would you like to stay until she is settled in?’

‘No, thanks. I gotta get some sleep, haven’t I?’

She nodded to the child. ‘Bye for now, night all.’

‘Be an angel and right away get the children’s ward,’ said Sophie. ‘I’ll wrap this scrap up in a blanket and take her up—a pity we can’t clean her up first, but I can’t spare the nurses.’

All the same, she wiped the small grubby face and peeled off the outer layer of garments before cuddling Tracey into a blanket and picking her up carefully. There were no bones broken, luckily, but a great deal of bruising, and in the morning the paediatrician would go over the small body and make sure that no great harm had been done.

She took the lift and got out at the third floor and walked straight into the professor’s vast person. He was alone and still in his theatre gear.

‘Having a busy night, Sister?’ he asked, in a far too cheerful voice for the small hours.

Her ‘Yes, sir’ was terse, and he smiled.

‘Hardly the best of times in which to renew an acquaintance, is it?’ He stood on one side so that she might pass. ‘We must hope for a more fortunate meeting.’

Sophie hoisted the sleeping toddler a little higher against her shoulder. She was tired and wanted a cup of tea and a chance to sit down for ten minutes; she was certainly not in a mood for polite conversation.

‘Unlikely,’ she observed crossly. She had gone several steps when she paused and turned to look at him.

‘That man—you’ve operated?’

‘Yes; given a modicum of luck and some good nursing, he should recover.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad.’ She nodded and went on her way, her busy night somehow worth while at the news.