Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?

‘Do you live in the village, Miss Drummond?’

‘Please call me Hermione off-duty, and may I call you Sarah?’ I nodded and she smiled. ‘We have a little cottage down by the river on Mill Lane.’

‘Oh, how lovely.’

‘It suits us – you must come and see us sometime?’ said Hermione, as she sat back, closed her eyes and bathed in evening sunlight. ‘You know the previous occupant of Ivy Cottage was the old district nurse? She left us only two months ago.’

‘Flo mentioned it. She said the new district nurse had opted to live in Maidstone and turned down the flat.’

‘Yes, Miss Bates. Pretty girl. Full of gusto. I’m sure you’ll get on. Did Flo happen to mention where the old district nurse moved to?’

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘Hove.’

‘Near Brighton?’

‘Yes,’ she paused and opened one eye momentarily for dramatic effect, ‘with Mr Jefferies.’

My eyes widened. ‘I’d assumed she’d retired. You mean the husband of …?’ My words trailed off.

‘Indeed, you can see why our colleague is feeling anti-sex appeal?’

I nodded. I felt quite sorry for Mrs Jefferies. No wonder she’d rolled her eyes at my hemlines. I wondered if they’d been carrying on in my flat.

‘Another reason for her to loathe Totley,’ explained Hermione, opening her eyes momentarily. ‘Apparently, he used to come over Monday, Wednesday, Friday …’

‘… and Mrs Jefferies works at the clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays,’ I finished.

She nodded. ‘Rumour has it, that it all started at last year’s staff Christmas party, and in a small village Mr Jefferies regularly stopping by the clinic, or Ivy Cottage more likely, was bound to be noticed.’ Hermione took a long sip of her sherry as I waited to hear more. ‘I remember them running away together well because Billie Jean King was thrashing Evonne what’s-her-name in the Wimbledon final and they scarpered while everyone was engrossed in the match. Proved to be a bit of an anti-climax really.’

‘The affair?’

Hermione giggled. ‘No, the match. It was all over in no time.’ And then she raised an eyebrow to wordlessly finish off the account.

I chuckled. ‘And what does Mrs Jefferies say about it?’

‘Oh, nothing at all,’ Hermione elaborated, her sherry finished. ‘She never alludes to the affair and if pressed will confide she showed him the door after discovering some troubling things in his genealogy or some such rubbish.’

‘She sounds like a snob.’

‘We’re all snobs, Sarah, it’s a question of degree.’ I smiled. She was right of course. ‘Now, I really must be getting back to Etty. It’s long past dinnertime. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Anything exciting planned?’

‘No, nothing at all,’ I sighed with a little pang for London life. When you lived with other nurses in the metropolis there was always something to do, someone to pal up with. I suddenly felt very alone.

‘I’ve always rather enjoyed my own company,’ Hermione told me as if she’d read my thoughts. ‘No one to boss you about. You can lie down, have a nice cocktail and enjoy a good book, a bubble bath or something jolly on the radio without asking anyone’s permission. I often look at young girls rushing off to the altar and think it’s such a shame, why can’t they have a bit of freedom? God knows for most of our sex the opportunities for self-indulgence are few and far between. Enjoy it while you can,’ Hermione advised sagely with a wink before she sauntered off down the garden path.

4 (#u959107b8-efc0-5076-8968-f3d8b15b50c2)

My second week in Totley began with a visit to the doctor. If you were feeling chipper when you entered the village surgery it was unlikely you’d still be bright and breezy when you departed. I eyed up the receptionist behind the desk wearily. I’d only popped in to ask Dr Drake about a referral he’d given me for an old lady, and didn’t appreciate being told to sit there like a lemon for half an hour. He’d seen all his patients, and the Victorian oak-panelled waiting room with its arsenic green peeling paint had been completely vacant of another soul for the last 10 minutes. As I watched the receptionist’s fake-pink fingernails slowly tap away on her typewriter as she ignored the ringing telephone I felt increasing narked. I didn’t believe she’d even told Dr Drake I was waiting – I think she was one of those sadistic doctors’ receptionists who stick their noses into people’s business and think they’re one down from a physician and gossip about you behind your back.

A thin man with greased-back black hair lurched out of a consulting room. His suit looked older than he was and had been pressed until it was practically threadbare. He looked about 40-odd. His eyes were narrow and his nose red. He ignored me completely and tip-toed over to the receptionist’s desk until he was right behind her.

‘Miss Barrow,’ he wheezed into her ear.

She jumped with surprise and broke off one of her ghastly nails on the typewriter. She yelped and looked up at him with wide doe-eyes. He took the damaged finger in his hand and looked it over carefully.

‘You’ll live,’ he told her curtly, dropping her limp hand. ‘Pop back to the kitchen at the house and get me a bacon sandwich, would you? I’m absolutely ravenous.’

‘Yes, Dr Botten,’ she gasped. I dropped my shoulders with relief; this wasn’t Dr Drake – I hadn’t been wasting my time waiting for him at least.

‘Oh, and be a good sport and give my golf clubs a polish while you’re there. I’ve got a game this afternoon with Captain Beauchamp-Smith and we wouldn’t want me letting the side down, would we? I plan to thrash him and then drink him under the table at the nineteenth hole up at the new course on Fairy Hill.’

‘Certainly, Doctor. I was planning on popping back anyway. There’s all the laundry to catch up on.’

‘Yes, no slacking now,’ Dr Botten replied, wagging his finger and then staggering back to his room, still without casting a single look in my direction.

I didn’t like the cut of his jib. I almost felt sorry for Miss Barrow, his besotted receptionist-cum-housekeeper. Clearly a slave driver and I bet he paid a pittance looking at the state of the décor in his surgery and his suit.

With no one on guard, I decided to take matters into my own hands and tapped on Dr Drake’s door. I knocked and heard a not unfamiliar sound. Not so much a reply but a low mumbling noise. Typical doctor too lofty to even call ‘Come in’, I thought as I rolled my eyes and pushed open the heavy door. Dr Drake was sitting in his chair in front of his battered old desk, eyes closed, head dropped onto his chest. He looked dead to the world. I peered at him; I hope he hasn’t kicked the bucket, I thought, edging closer. Then with relief I noticed the rise and fall of his chest. His lips were slowly parted and a long slow deep humming noise seeped out as he exhaled.

‘Dr Drake,’ I squeaked.

He kept his eyes shut and briefly raised one hand to silence me. I waited a few moments and took the opportunity to study him more closely. He was way past retirement age, I’d say nearer 70 than 60; maybe he needed a nap after an exhausting morning’s surgery. He let out a loud long breath, lifted his head up then opened his bright eyes and smiled at me.

‘Are you our new nurse?’ he enquired, warmly rising to his feet.

‘Yes, I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor.’

He shook my hand gently. His skin was soft and papery. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Nurse Hill. Forgive me for keeping you on tenterhooks but between the hours of 9.55 and 10.15 in the morning I practice Transcendental Meditation and am never to be disturbed unless it is an absolute emergency. Did Miss Barrow not explain that?’ I shook my head. ‘Ah, well now you know. It’s been my habit to meditate morning and afternoon since the war. Before the war I used to let off steam with a round of golf, but since I discovered the art of meditation I haven’t picked up a club. Gave them lock, stock and mashie niblick to Dr Botten’s father, my former partner.’

‘Yes, I expect they are still in good use.’

‘You may be right. Have you studied relaxation, Nurse Hill?’

‘I haven’t, no.’

‘I cannot recommend it enough. I discovered it rather late in life. I was a man of 50 when I first saw the gurus in India talk about the expansion of happiness and the power of the concentrated mind during my somewhat semi-active duty there in the war.’

I did a quick calculation in my head. Surely he wasn’t over 80? My goodness – maybe there was something in this Transcendental Meditation lark.

‘What are the benefits, Doctor?’ I asked.

‘Relaxation, the reduction of stress, a space for a positive sense of self and I would say the connection to one’s spiritual inner-being. As a GP I treat the body, but as you may have experienced healing is often as much to do with our state of mind. I can’t write out a script for that.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean. Sometimes, with the mothers I’ve often thought it’s the anxiety they’re experiencing that contributes towards issues for themselves and their babies.’

‘How very perceptive of you, Nurse.’