Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions

CHAPTER 5

Penny is not in the room when I get upstairs and I imagine that she must have gone to the toilet. I want to find out what G.B.H. said but I am so exhausted that I fall asleep the moment I tumble into bed. The next thing I know, the alarm clock is scrambling my brains and I discover that it is six o’clock. Penny’s fingers are still clutching at air on the bedside table.

“Cancel this morning, will you?” she groans. “I am feeling distinctly fragile. That fourth pint of Guinness was definitely a mistake.”

“What happened with G.B.H.?” I ask. “Is he going to report us?”

“I think I have more grounds for reporting him,” yawns Penny.

“Why? What did he do?” I can imagine G.B.H. waking up, thinking that he is faced with a couple of burglars and—

“Virtually nothing. Snivelling little gnat-testicled creep. He couldn’t satisfy an over-sexed elf who went off like a tin of pre-war snoek.”

“Penny! You didn’t—he didn’t—”

“Oh, don’t be so wet. It was the only way of shutting him up, wasn’t it? I didn’t notice you hanging around to explain that we were collecting for the Salvation Army.”

“I came back,” I say indignantly.

“It’s more than he did,” sniffs Penny. “He makes love like someone rubbing a pencil mark off a sheet of tissue paper.”

The very thought of being touched by Mr Greaves makes me feel sick and I am relieved that he is not in his office when we go to breakfast. This meal is served in the main hospital dining room and it gives me a chance to survey some of the medical talent on display. There is only one real hunk of Eradlik material to be seen and I am not on the brink of tears when I notice him gazing at me moodily over the rim of his coffee mug. Not to be outdone, I return his piercing glance and slowly raise my own cup to my lips without taking my eyes away from his. Unfortunately, I have forgotten to remove my teaspoon. By the time my eye has stopped watering I find that Penny has moved in and is sitting down beside Doctor Dish and fluttering her eyelashes as if trying to pick up speed for take-off. She is certainly hot stuff with the fellows, this girl. In fact, once or twice during the previous evening I thought that her behaviour was a bit over-friendly. Still, I must not be too unkind. It is probably that I am not used to upper class high spirits.

The breakfast itself is not a great success, unless you like hunks of bread cut thicker than platform shoes and fish cakes that taste as if they have been made from whale blubber. Not that I am worrying about food too much. I am nervous about what the day has in store and dog tired. If I was at home I would still be in bed. I feel a mixture of home sickness and resentment that I ever had to leave.

Our first job after breakfast is to draw kit and and our second to satisfy Sister Tutor that we can wear it without looking like reject waitresses.

“It’s a cap, not a tiara, Dixon,” she snaps at me. “And you, Green. Yours looks as if it was put round a cake before it went in the oven.”

“Rotten old bag,” hisses Penny. “Obviously aching for a couple of yards of steaming tonk.” All the other nurses look round and I wish she had not addressed the remark to me. I see the girl who was outside G.B.H.’s room giving me an odd look and I smile sweetly. The girl turns away hurriedly. Oh, dear.

When I first put on my uniform I feel as self-conscious as a shaven armpit in a French convent but soon, looking round me, I feel almost comforted by the knowledge that most of the patients will not be able to tell the difference between me and a S.R.N. until I give them an enema. That day seems a long way away as Sister Tutor gives us a lecture on the structure of the hospital—everyone except the woman who dishes out library books is senior to us—and moves smartly on to the structure of the human body with the aid of a couple of skeletons. “Norman and Henry Bones, the boy detectives,” says Penny. “I’ve been out with Henry. He’s a disastrous poke as you can see.” I turn redder than Ted Heath being caught fiddling with his organ during choir practice every time Penny opens her mouth but she is certainly the liveliest of my fellow trainees. Further evidence of her speed off the mark is given to me when I lie flat on my bed after an exhausting day and watch her giving her eyes the full Mata Hari treatment—or matted houri as seems more appropriate in her case.

“Mark?” I ask.

“No. He deserves a period of rejection after standing me up for the Royal Family. I’m having a drink with Robert Fishlock, that dishy houseman we were both ogling this morning.”

“Great,” I say, spelling the g-r-a-t-e in my imagination.

“Where’s he taking you to?”

“His flat. Intimate, don’t you think?”

Quite possibly, I must. Still, I expect Penny can handle herself—as a last extreme.

When my flat-mate has gone out I settle down with one of the medical books I have been forced to buy but I am so tired that I can hardly look at photographs without falling asleep. Some of those bushmen are quite extraordinary, aren’t they? No wonder his wife is smiling.

Penny returns just as I am about to turn off the light.

“Did you have a nice time?” I hear myself saying.

Penny examines her neck in the mirror and shivers. “Out of this world,” she croons. “I believed that things like that only happened in dreams I was ashamed of thinking about when I woke up. I feel like a piano that’s just been played by Artur Rubinstein. All my keys are glowing.” She pops open the buttons of her blouse and touches her breasts as if bringing back memories. Crikey! I wonder if you can get Dr Fishlock on the National Health.

“Did you er-um?” I murmur tactfully.

“You mean, did he introduce his love truncheon to my spasm chasm?” says Penny cheerfully. “You bet he did. You don’t have to help this stallion to clap hooves under a mare’s belly.”

“How nice,” I say, patting my hair nervously. She is so outspoken, isn’t she?

“‘Nice’ is too small a word for what happened in that flat,” snorts Penny. “We tore up the Kama Sutra and wrote a new book. Suddenly The Perfumed Garden seemed like A Guide to Compost Growing.”

I try to control my excitement. Penny Green sounds like a girl who has been around a bit in her time and if she reckons that Dr Fishlock is sexy then I am very interested. Not of course that I want to get involved in any sexual shenanigans. It is just that I would like to be able to resist someone who was supposed to be very attractive. You have to stick your big toe in before you know whether the bath water is cold. I also feel slightly choked that Penny got to Doctor Dish before me. He did make eyes at me first and if I had not had my accident with the spoon—who knows? It would probably have been me resisting his passionate advances.

Penny is still rambling on when I fall asleep and it is just as well that I do get some shuteye because the following day we are introduced to life on the wards.

“Everard Hornbeam, and don’t get in everybody’s way,” says Sister Tutor looking me up and down as if she expects to find that my uniform is on back to front. All the wards in the hospital have names like that and seem to be called after famous surgeons or benefactors who gave money after the hospital had disposed of a troublesome mother in law.

When I get to Everard Hornbeam, Sister Bradley nods at me briskly and passes me on to Staff Nurse Wood who steers me towards Nurse Wilson who smiles fleetingly and gives me into the charge of Junior Martin who I later find has been on the ward for three weeks. Nurse Martin hands me a bed pan and directs me to the sluice.

In the hours that follow I get to know the sluice pretty well and I begin to suspect that the patients’ cornflakes were laced with syrup of figs in expectation of my arrival. I also discover that I have about as much status as a pork chop at a bar mitzvah. So much for my illusions about being on the same footing as the rest of the nurses once I was wearing a uniform. Nobody is fooled for an instant. I am on a men’s ward and I can see the patients nudging each other and winking as they make remarks about me. It is all very embarrassing and I suddenly become very conscious of my body. Every time I bend down my breasts and bottom seem to be lunging out all over the place and I can hardly walk down the ward without tripping over my feet.

All the other nurses move around as if programmed by computer and when not bearing full bedpans and bottles in one direction and empty ones in another I hover by their sides like a humming bird waiting its turn at a flower. In all respects I am totally useless and left in no doubt of this fact: “Nurse. Carry on with this dressing, will you? No, you can’t do that, can you?”—“Nurse. Test the diabetic specimens. Damn. You can’t do that, can you?” When Staff Wood comes up beside me and says “Come on, Nurse. 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 isn’t the first job you’ve done. There’s a poise, a style about you that makes me certain that I’ve seen you somewhere before. Weren’t you on the cover of Vogue?” I cut through the oilcloth that covers the table and drop my sellotape on the floor. We both dive down to pick it up and our heads clash. Funny how Ali McGraw never does that.

“Crazy,” says Fishlock, gazing into my eyes until I can feel them going soggy at the edges. “You make me feel all fingers and thumbs. You’re like a feather dancing in the sunlight.”

What a fantastic bloke! Nobody has ever talked to me like that outside my imagination and there you have to knock before you can come in.

“My name’s Robert Fishlock,” he purrs. “Do you think you’re going to be fit enough to have a little drink with me, this evening?”

“Oh, Doctor Flashcock! I’d—” I break off in horror when I realize what I have said. Penny called him that and it must have stuck in my mind. Robert’s eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling. “My name’s Rosie Dixon,” I say hurriedly. “And I’d love to if I get finished in time and Sister Tutor doesn’t need us, and—”

“Splendid,” drawls Dreamboat, patting my wrist again. “Why don’t you come round to Bedside Manor. It’s only just round the corner from The Virgins’ Retreat.”

“That’s where you live, is it?”

“In congenial squalor. Twenty-three Prendergast Villas. Eight till late—anytime you can make it.” He turns on that hundred watt smile and my heart turns to toasted cheese.

“Keep your pecker up. The first few weeks are always the worst.” He brushes his index finger along my lip and stands up. “I’d better be going. There’s a chronic polycythaemia with multiple scattered thrombi that I want to keep an eye on.”

“I hope it’s all right,” I say.

“I think he’ll come through.” One more smile and I am left alone with my labels. But what a difference in the way I feel! I amaze Sister by finishing the labels without a single mistake and skim round the ward with the teas as if on wings. Mr Arkwright has a trolley across his bed and I find that by seizing this, putting his tea on it and pushing it towards him I can avoid actual bodily contact. Mr Sunshine leans back against his propped-up pillows and watches me like an aged lion waiting for a schoolgirl to stick her hand through the bars of the cage.