To Break A Doctor's Heart

‘Haven’t seen you since last week. Did you have a good weekend?’ asked Anna, as she bundled a dirty sheet into the linen skip.

‘Yes, lovely, thank you,’ said Claire. ‘Did you?’

‘Awful! I was on a late on Saturday, followed by an early on Sunday. Old Staff Nurse Droopy-drawers was in a foul mood because she wanted to be with her beloved Nigel, choosing wallpaper. I’m shattered today. Still, I’ve got a long weekend coming up.’ Anna glanced at her fob watch. ‘Better get a move on—it’s Stellingworth’s grand round today.’

Claire’s heart skipped a beat when she heard the grand round mentioned. Perhaps she would see Luke. She worked quickly and efficiently, watching the more experienced third-year for any short cuts.

They were halfway down the ward when Claire recognised one of the patients. ‘Why, it’s Mr Lucas, isn’t it?’ she asked. What a difference five days could make—she could scarcely believe that it was the same man. He sat in a chair by the side of his bed, still slightly breathless, but needing no oxygen and with a vastly improved colour.

He nodded. ‘You’re the little nurse who washed me on me first day, ain’t you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ smiled Claire. It was the first time that a patient had ever called her Nurse, and it gave her a real feeling of pride.

After they had finished the beds, Anna helped Claire put an elderly patient in the bath. His limbs were rigid and he stared straight ahead, drooling a little from the left side of his mouth.

‘Mr Poole has had a bad stroke,’ Nurse Hunter explained. ‘But the physiotherapist likes us to keep him as mobile as possible. If you give him a quick bath, I’ll go and do the four-hourly temperatures and pulses, and be back in time to help you get him out and dressed.’

‘Thanks,’ said Claire, and squirted some bubble bath into the water. She gently began to wash the old man, pushing the flannel between his contracted fingers. Mrs Haynes had taught them that a patient should always be treated with the utmost respect and dignity, whether he appeared to understand what was going on or not. And so Claire began to chat to him, telling him her name and talking about the weather, and what was happening in the news that day.

Anna came back ten minutes later and helped Claire get him into pyjamas and back into his wheelchair.

‘Come and join me in the clinic-room when you’ve given him a drink. Oh, and don’t forget to write how much he takes on his fluid chart!’

Claire nodded and wheeled Mr Poole into the sunny day-room. She bent down to reposition his feet and was just getting up again when she heard footsteps approaching and, as she stood up, she turned and there was Luke behind her, his green-grey eyes scrutinising her.

‘You—again!’ He smiled at her. ‘Young Nurse Scott.’

He looked crumpled and rumpled and very slightly disreputable. His tie was loose and his chin was dark with five o’clock shadow. His eyes looked incredibly weary.

‘You look terrible,’ she said, without thinking.

His eyes crinkled at the corners at her frankness. No one had spoken to him like that for years, and normally he would never have tolerated a comment like this from such a junior nurse. But this girl was different.

‘I’ve been up all night,’ he explained briefly, and looked her up and down. ‘How are you? Are you enjoying it? You look very efficient in your uniform, I must say.’

She blushed. ‘Do I? I don’t feel very efficient, I can tell you! I’ve been given a pile of textbooks that seems as high as Mount Everest! I don’t think I’m ever going to learn it all.’ She looked at him, and her dazzling blue eyes were serious. ‘But I love it so far, really love it.’

She did too, Luke thought. She really looked happy—like a different girl. ‘It obviously wasn’t such a ludicrous suggestion after all, then?’ he asked.

Claire shook her head and smiled. ‘Only for about an hour! I rang the School of Nursing the next day and had an interview the following week. I managed to convince them I was serious about the idea! They took some convincing. They were able to offer me a cancellation and I had a place within the month, and—here I am!’

‘So I see.’ He couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘I suppose they thought you were crazy, throwing up something like modelling for nursing?’

She nodded. ‘Everyone—my parents, my agent, even the Director of Nursing Education—was sceptical for a bit. They automatically assumed that I’d never be able to manage on a nurse’s salary.’

‘And can you?’

‘No,’ she joked. ‘It’s a diabolical pittance!’ And they both laughed.

‘I’d better go now,’ Claire said apologetically, tugging at her crisp white apron. ‘I must give Mr Poole a drink and Nurse Hunter will be waiting for me in the clinic-room.’

‘Yes, of course you must. I’ll see you soon.’ Luke gave her that heart-wrenching grin of his.

She smiled back at him and walked up the ward towards the kitchen.

So she was conscientious too. He hated the nurses who would stand around and chat and bat their eyelashes, while the needs of the patients went unanswered. Perhaps he’d known too many nurses like that in the past.