Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions

In this respect the most persistent character is Doctor Seamus MacSweeney, known as Shameless. He goes around the wards as if permanently pissed out of his mind and is not slow in making his feelings felt—both by hand and mouth.

“Oh Rosie,” he grunts. “You’re like a bowl of shiny cherries and I want to suck you down to the stones. I dream about you, I can’t sleep because of you.”

“How can you dream if you can’t sleep?” I say, trying to avoid his hands.

“Rosie, big, little Rosie. Don’t drown me in semantics. I can’t stand being mocked. I’m tearing my heart out and offering it to you. How long can you go on spurning me?”

“I think you ought to have a look at Mrs Wheeler. She’s been coughing a lot tonight.”

“What about me? I’m dying. Have you no compassion? I’m not asking much. Just the benediction of your body. You can withhold your mind to a future date.”

“Doctor MacSweeney. Please!”

“You don’t have to beg me. I can’t bear to see a beautiful woman go down on her knees. Take me! I know you’re battling with yourself. Surrender to your natural instincts. Your heavenly body was made for the act of love and I to be the instrument of your ecstasy!”

You may not care for the style but five minutes with Doctor MacSweeney has more action than ten episodes of Crossroads. And all delivered in an accent which would have Dave Allen reaching for his throat spray.

“I’m serious about Mrs Wheeler.”

“She’s stronger than the dray horse that brings my breakfaSt Come on, Nurse. You know my heart’s in the right place.”

“I know that. It’s the rest of you I’m worried about. Let me go!”

“And so witty, too! Jasus, but it’s a delight to try and shove my hand up your uniform. Tell you what, I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll look at your terrible patient if you make love to me afterwards.”

“I’ll make you a cup of tea. That’s all you’re getting.”

“You heartless hussy.” Shameless shakes his head. “I suppose I’ll have to agree to your terms. But make no mistake.” He wags his finger at me and screws up his eyes. “I intend to eat my lust off your alabaster body before we move into the vernal equinox or the new medical school.”

Shameless’s nose is spread across his face like a pat of butter and he looks as if he spends his time opening doors with his head. Despite that and his non-stop groping I can’t help liking the bloke. It is always nice to be fancied by anyone and I often find the things he says amusing—when I can understand them.

Now that Labby and Tom Richmond are unofficially engaged I see even less of my help-mate and it is on one of the many occasions that she is away from the ward that I have my most explosive brush with Doctor MacSweeney.

I am sitting by myself studying for my prelims and wondering why the parts of the body can’t simply be numbered when I hear the strains of When Irish Eyes are Smiling approaching down the corridor. The voice is unmistakeably MacSweeney’s and he appears to be in a good mood. When he slumps down on the other side of the table and blinks at me through bleary eyes it occurs to me that, this time, he really is drunk.

“I came as soon as I could, which is much earlier than it might have been in the circumstances, my alabaster princess.”

“What were the circumstances?” I ask.

“The Patron’s Dinner. Jasus, I’ve never seen such a geriatrics’ picnic. Most of the old buggers who give money to this outfit must be lining themselves up with a place to die in. I only stayed because it would have been insulting to leave so much liquor.”

“You can’t have left much by the look of you.”

“Oh, Rosie. You’re a sharp tongued wench and that’s no mistake. I creep away for a little succour and you treat me like this.”

“You should have crept back to bed. You’re not fit to be on duty. You could be struck off if Sister came along.”

“I can’t let the lads down. They’ve stood up for me—I mean, stood in for me for long enough as it is.”

“It looks as if they will have to stand up for you.” Shameless staggers to his feet and for a moment I think he is going to keel over. He shakes his head a couple of times and sits down again—at least, one half of his bottom does.

“There you go again. I come to lay my fevered brow on your milk-white breasts and you’re all petulant with me. It’s your duty as a nurse to respond to my demands. Come and make love to me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t leave the patients.”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re all chronic malingerers.”

“All the more reason why I shouldn’t leave them.” I must read the patients’ records more carefully. I can’t remember anything about Malingerer.

Shameless lays his head on the table and stares up at me. “If I told you I was hopelessly and madly in love with you, you probably wouldn’t believe me?”

“No.”

“Well I am. I want to bury myself in you until I feel myself running away like bath water. I want to pull your tight little buttocks to me until I feel them fluttering like imprisoned wrens.” What a way to go on! I have never heard such language. Certainly, Geoffrey never said things like that. “I’d sentence each rosebud nipple to a thousand snake-tongued jabs. I’d ride you through the night like a wild mare fleeing through a forest fire, pink tongues of flame licking your gleaming flanks, the night owl’s shrieks shriving your broken moans.”

It is awful. I am shivering with embarrassment. If all Irishmen are like this it is a wonder that any of the motorways ever get built. “Shameless! You must go. Supposing someone comes?”

“Don’t say things like that. You inflame me.” He makes a grab at me and my reading lamp clatters to the floor.

“Don’t be a fool, Shameless. Go to bed. I’ll ring the senior house surgeon.”

“I want your body, Nurse.”

MacSweeney’s voice is rising and already a couple of patients are beginning to stir. I walk out of the ward into the imagined safety of the hall that leads to the corridor.

“You’re waking the patients, Doctor MacSweeney. If you don’t go I’ll have to call someone.”

“There’s only the consultants and you’re not allowed to call them unless Matron is being raped which is impossible.”

Shameless seizes me by the shoulders and I realise how strong he is. If he wanted to he could probably take me by force. Crikey! How horrible.

“How can you send me away when you know how I feel about you? Have you no heart? Jasus, a man could drown on those lips.” Shameless presses me back against a door and we are suddenly inside one of the private rooms. Fortunately it is empty—cancel that statement! Unfortunately it is empty. “This is where we belong,” husks the great drunken mick. “Let me assist you to remove those drab threads of neutered cotton that bar the natural expression of my feelings.”

I realise he means my panties when his hands disappear up my uniform. Thank goodness I am proof against his wild Irish blarney and rough celtic romanticism. Some girls might not be so firm. Some might even respond to his powerful, hairy wrists scuffing the inside of their thighs, the raw drink-sodden warmth of his lips invading their mouths, the hard—“Take that obscenity off. I want to see your tits.”

He is so coarse! Breasts would be bad enough, or even boobs—but, “tits”. Really! “Take it off, I said!” He reaches out and rips my blouse open so that my watch flies across the room and my apron flops down to my waiSt “You fantastic mammal!” His hands plunder my breasts and push me back onto the bed.

This is terrible! I am going to be raped—and by a doctor, too. At any second he is going to tear open his flies and attack me with his purple-headed bed snake. I will scream and fight until there is not a breath left in my body but it will do no good. He will rip aside the thin curtain of material that shields my reception area and thrust his hideous weapon deep into my defenceless body! It is too horrible to think about.

“Rosie! Quick! Matron’s coming!”

“Uuuuurgh.” No sooner has Labby stuck her head round the door than Shameless slumps to the floor, out like a light—or, more appropriately, a case of light.

“He was drunk. It was awful,” I explain.

“It’s going to be even more awful when Matron gets here.”

“What are we going to do?”

In the circumstance it is not surprising that there is a slight edge to my voice. My uniform torn down to my waist and a large heap of doctor at my feet.

“Get him under the bed.”

I don’t know if you have ever attempted to move a paralytically drunk fourteen stone Irishman but it is like trying to push a rolled up Persian carpet through a letter box. It is only when Labby accidentally squeezes Shameless’s balls and he cracks his head sharply on the edge of the bed that our job gets easier.

He has just disappeared from sight when I hear footsteps approaching down the corridor. I look around desperately for somewhere to hide but the only place is that occupied by Doctor MacSweeney.

“Get under the bed!”

“There isn’t room.”

“Hurry up!”

“Help me move the bed.”

We tug the bed away from the wall and it is possible for me to slide under it until I am jammed face to face against the boozed Shameless. He smells like a smash and grab raid in a distillery. No sooner am I uncomfortably wedged against his body than I hear the door open.

“Good evening, Nurse – hic.”

“Good evening, Matron.” The degree of surprise that Labby manages to get into her voice is well up to Chingford Rep. standards.

“I thought I’d have a look round on my way back from the—hic dinner. Oh dear, I seem to have got the hiccups. Could you get me a glass of water?”

“Of course, Matron. Would you like to come into Sister’s office?” Yes, push off into Sister’s office, fatso, my nerves can’t take much more.

“No, I think I’ll sit down here for a—hic minute. It’s been a very exhausting evening.” It hasn’t been so great for the rest of us I think to myself. There is a disturbing chatty edge to Matron’s voice that I have not heard before. She does not sound drunk as much as relaxed and expansive. Her ample weight descends on the springs, and my head is dangerously close to becoming sandwich filling. I have just dared to start breathing again when I feel a hand gently running up the inside of my leg. Oh no! This is too awful. I can’t move my arms which are folded up against my chest and I dare not make a noise. Surely no man could be so debased as to take advantage of a girl in this situation. Before me, one of Shameless’s eyes opens and remains open long enough to become a wink. The swine! Unfortunately I am not wearing tights and the dirty beast has no difficulty in slipping his fingers under my panties and tugging the fuzz at the entrance to my love cave.

I have half a mind to shout the place down and say hang the consequences but as usual there are other people to consider. My parents would be horrified if it came out—I mean, if it was revealed that I had been forced to shelter in a semi-naked state under a bed even though it was not my fault. I don’t want to cause them any heartache. Even the wretched MacSweeney merits some consideration. He is so drunk that he does not really know what he is doing and if he is discovered under the bed his career will be over. I suppose I will have to put up with it.

Shameless wriggles even closer and to my disgust I feel his love truncheon following the trail blazed by his exploring fingers. This is too much! I would not have thought it possible but with a twist of his hips he presents himself beside my front door and slides into my silently protesting body. It is rape, brutal rape! If he had hit me over the head with a sandbag he could not have taken me more against my will.

Very slowly he eases his pussy pummeller backwards and forward and I clench my fingers so tightly that my nails dig into the palms of my hands. The sensations of disgust that sweep through my body like mighty ocean breakers are almost too overpowering to describe.

“Here you are, Matron.” Labby has come back into the room.

“Thank you—hic, Nurse. Oh dear, this is most unusual. I don’t think I’ve had hic-hiccups for years. Who are you on duty with?”

I hold my breath and even Shameless stops moving for a moment. “Nurse Dixon, Matron. She’s in the toilet. She’s got a bit of an upset tummy.”

“I think I’m going to have one after the meal we had tonight—hic. So much rich food.” She starts rabbiting on about the Patrons’ Dinner and it becomes clear that she is settling down for a good chat. “I like keeping up the old customs.” Shameless nods vigorously and gives a thrust of the hips and I close my eyes. The man is no more than a beaSt “Of course, it was different when I was a gel …” Oh my gawd! Another trip down memory lane. This should be good for half an hour. Supposing Night Sister rolls up?

No sooner has the thought occurred to me than the door bursts open. “Nurse, what do you think—! Oh, Matron. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s all right, Sister. We were just having a little chat. I thought I’d have a look round on my way back from the Patron’s Dinner.”

“We’re very glad to see you, Matron. Was it a good dinner?” It is all I can do to groan silently. I never reckoned Night Sister as a grade one crawler.

“Very nice, thank you, Sister. We had turtle soup and …” … fried fillet of plaice and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. I could repeat the whole menu out loud. How long can they go on for? My right leg has gone to sleep and I only wish that a particular part of Doctor MacSweeney’s anatomy would drop off—permanently!

In fact it is another ten minutes before Matron says that she had better be getting back to bed and another ten minutes before she actually goes. I wait for the door to close on the three of them but it is only Matron who toddles off, still burbling about the good old days.

“What were you doing in here?” Sister’s voice sounds colder than a game of strip poker in a cold storage unit.

“I was doing a stock check in the linen cupboard and I wanted to see whether the beds were made up, Sister.”

“Humpf. You’re getting very conscientious all of a sudden, Nurse.”

“It helps to pass the time, Sister.”

“Where’s Nurse Dixon?”

“I think she’s picked up a bug, Sister. She’s gone to the loo. Matron knows about it.”

“If she’s not feeling up to the mark she’d better go back to the nurses home. A sick nurse is no good to anyone. I can stand in for her.”

“I’ll ask her when she comes back, Sister.”

As Night Sister prepares to leave the disgusting MacSweeney gives a few last wriggles and his mouth pops open in an exclamation of happy release. How revolting! I have really had a bellyful of the man.

“Goodnight, Nurse, I expect to find you on the ward in future.”

“Yes, Sister.”

The door opens and closes and I wait a few moments before pulling down my uniform and scrambling to my feet.

“You were marvellous,” I say to Labby. “You handled everything brilliantly. That creature handled everything, too. I’d like to kill him.”

We peer under the bed but Doctor Seamus MacSweeney appears to be sleeping peacefully. There is a smile on his face.

CHAPTER 9

I am very distressed by my experience with Seamus MacSweeney—especially when the dirty brute shambles off into the night with no more than a belch in my direction. Even when he sobers up he does not apologise. “Like a velvet fox glove,” he husks, settling his hand on my mons venus. “Let’s probe for pollen.” It really is too bad when you consider that my silence probably saved his career.

I am also getting increasingly choked by the extent to which my virginity is becoming threatened. Like most girls I want to be delivered in mint condition on my wedding day and at the moment some of the post marks are gettting dangerously near to spoiling the issue.

Of course, once again, to all intents and purposes, I was raped, so my mental condition is in no way threatened. This is by far the most important factor but I do worry sometimes about the effect these unwelcome pussy pummellers are having on my spasm chasm—I don’t want it to be turned into alley valley before my wedding day. The man I marry will no doubt be sophisticated and have had lots of experiences with girls freer than myself and I would hate him to get the wrong impression.

Thank goodness I am on the Pill in these free and easy times, when no girl is safe from attack.

Christmas is approaching fast and the white trimming on the robe of the Father Christmas in the local department store has already turned grey. I had been expecting to go home on the day, but there are so many nurses who come from faraway parts of the country that I quite understand when I am asked if I will stay on duty and take some leave afterwards. Geoffrey has asked me to the New Year’s Eve Dance at the tennis club and so this will fit in very well.

Christmas at home is always the same anyway. Natalie and I agree not to give each other anything, Dad gets three pairs of Marks and Sparks socks and Mum a jar of bath salts she never uses. We all make excited noises as we open the presents we have helped each other wrap up and Natalie starts eating glacé fruits before breakfast Dad goes off to the boozer and gets paralytic and Natalie watches the carol service on the telly and says which of the blokes in the choir she fancies moSt Mum gets on with the cooking and has “a little glass of something to keep herself company.” By the time Dad gets back from the pub covered in lipstick, she is as pissed as he is and Natalie has started on the chocolates filled with Babycham. We all sit down to dinner at about three o’clock and Dad says a few words about family unity, before tearing Mum off a strip because he reckons the turkey has not been in long enough. Natalie has to go upstairs after three mouthfuls and we find out that we have just missed the Queen’s speech. We get the telly on in time for the national anthem and Dad insists on us all standing up—he gets very patriotic when he is pissed. The Christmas pudding won’t light because Mum has poured olive oil over it instead of brandy and Dad breaks his dentures on one of the lucky threepenny bits that have been used for so many years they have a coating of green mould on them. After dinner we decide to go for a walk but by the time Natalie has come out of the toilet it is dark so we spend the rest of the day in front of the telly. Dad falls asleep with his hands down the front of his trousers and Mum nods off over The Stars’ Christmas Party which was recorded in July.

The whole occasion is not something I am going to miss very much.

Not, of course, that Christmas is anything less than a big deal at Queen Adelaide’s. All the wards are decorated and Father Christmas, played by a senior consultant in one of his sober moments, tours the children’s wards and grapples enthusiastically with any nurse he can get his hands on. “A time of grope and good cheer” is how Penny describes it and there are few male patients who don’t seem to have found a sprig of mistletoe. Mr Arkwright’s invitations to play “naughty nanas” take on a seasonal ring and everybody tells me what “tremendous fun” the staff lunch is going to be. Apparently the doctors and sisters serve the nurses and everybody pulls crackers and drinks wine. It sounds almost as exciting as being at home.

In fact, Christmas in a hospital is fun. There is always a great deal of work to do and time never hangs on your hands as it can do at home when you just sit around waiting for the next eating session.

I arrive for the staff lunch, late, exhausted and ravenously hungry and it is clear that most of my fellow nurses have benefited from a few drops of Christmas cheer during the course of the morning.

“Over here, Rosie, we’ve kept you a place.”

Penny has not gone home for Christmas, either. She is nuts about one of her patients and does not reckon that festive high jinks with Daddy would be much cop anyway: “His idea of Christmas is to go out and shoot something—preferably my mother, but he’ll have to settle for pheasants until he buys an elephant gun. I’ve laid every man in the parish under sixty apart from the vicar’s son and apparently he’s useless—his sister told me—so what is there to go home for? Anyway, staying here is the best Christmas present I can give them.”

I push in beside Penny and notice that Tom Richmond is giving Nurse Wilson’s lips the vacuum cleaner treatment under what looks like a human toe with an arrow through it. From the arrow hangs a sign saying “MISSILETOE”. Really! These medical school jokes go too far sometimes. That is the kind of thing that MacSweeney would think was funny. I look round and see him carving a huge turkey with Robert Fishlock. He does something very unnecessary with a sausage and winks at me. I know he is going to say “breast or leg” and leer at me when it comes to my turn.

“Did you hear about the great romance on your old ward?” asks Penny, arranging a paper hat on the back of her head so that her breasts are shown off to the best advantage in the process.

“Jim North and old Mr Chapman’s daughter. They’re going to get spliced. They wanted to haye the ceremony in the ward but Matron said, over her dead body. I thought it was quite a good idea, myself. I mean, they probably wouldn’t have been able to see each other over her dead body but—”

“Oh, do stop being such a fool and pass your plate up.” The girl on Penny’s right knocks her glass over and in the confusion the subject is changed. I feel a slight pang of envy when I think about Jim North and the Chapman girl. I did not fancy him myself but it means that there is one less male left in the pool of available talent. The numbers are being whittled away before my thighs—I mean, eyes.

“I thought we were getting champagne,” sniffs Penny, holding up one of the bottles on the table. “‘Portuguese Graves’. I think the body was still warm when it went into this one.”

“Do you think I could squeeze in between you when I’ve finished my duties?” Dishy Doctor Fishlock flashes his pearlies at us and distributes a couple of plates of turkey.

“Please do.” Penny turns on her breathless “come and get me” voice and I can practically see dotted lines building up between their eyes.

“What time have you got to be back on duty?” I ask Penny.

“Just as soon as I’ve gobbled this lot down and allowed Flashcock to lure me back to his pad for a cup of coffee we won’t have time to make.”

“You’re so cold blooded about it.” I don’t mean to sound jealous, it just comes out that way.

“Rubbish! My blood is as warm as this plonk. You’re the one with the deep frozen knickers.”

Further discussion is prevented by the arrival of Robert who settles in between us and proceeds to direct a non-stop stream of rabbit at my room-mate. This does not please me very much and I am not over-thrilled when Adam “Blackbeard” Quint’s enormous bulk settles down opposite me. “Would you like my belly on the table or underneath it?” he asks. He is not kidding either, because he has a paunch like a couple of sofa cushions shoved up his jumper. Penny says that she finds him “sexy in a revolting sort of way” and I wish she would prove it and leave me to chat up Doctor Fastcock—I mean Fishlock. Why do I keep making those silly mistakes? It would be so easy for someone to get the wrong idea.

“If this turkey is a typical example of our surgeons’ work I hope I never come under the knife.” Quint examines a scrap of meat on the end of his fork and smiles at me. He is an irritating man because nothing you say or do seems to affect him. He goes his own way. “Hey, boy.” The big, black Labrador that has been stretched out by one of the radiators pricks up its ears and sidles over to receive the meat.

“Who looks after him when you’re on duty?” I ask.

“My landlady. She likes dogs and she has a son who takes him for walks …”

He should take you as well, I think as I watch Quint’s belly half obscuring his plate. I can see hairs peeping out of the front of his shirt. So repulsive, I mean, I like hairy men but he is like an animal. I shudder to think of what he must look like without any clothes on.