To Break A Doctor's Heart

By midday, every piece of furniture and clothing which she possessed sat in packing cases in the middle of her new sitting-room, so that the place resembled a jumble sale!

They all three set to work with a will, and by six o’clock some kind of order had been imposed. Simon had bought her an enormous bunch of white lilies, and these she placed in a tall black vase in front of the big windows in the sitting-room.

Claire walked in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I’ve found the box with the teapot and cups,’ she said, looking around vaguely. ‘But I haven’t managed to locate any tea to put in them!’ She smiled apologetically.

Simon looked at his watch. ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘The pubs are open. Why don’t I buy you both a drink?’

‘I’d love one,’ said Mary immediately, dimpling at Simon.

They all queued up to wash the grime from their hands and make their hair look presentable.

‘Simon spends more time looking in the mirror than we do!’ joked Mary in her down-to-earth way, and Simon grinned sheepishly.

It occurred to Claire that she had never seen him teased quite so relentlessly as Mary had teased him that afternoon, and she noted with some surprise that he actually seemed to enjoy it.

They walked down the road to a large pub on the corner. The last of the shops were shutting up for the night and the restaurants were preparing to open. There was a soft warmth in the air, with the promise of a hot day to follow. They were a companionable threesome, and linked arms until they reached the pub.

Simon went up to fetch the drinks and Claire and Mary found a table beneath a stained glass window, which sent pools of bright clear colour on to the dark polished wood of the table.

‘He’s gorgeous!’ whispered Mary enthusiastically. She looked anxiously at Claire. ‘You and he? Are you . . .?’

‘No, we’re not,’ interrupted Claire hurriedly, smiling at Mary’s embarrassment. ‘We’re—to use that awful phrase—just good friends.’

Simon carried three drinks of lager over from the bar and sat down. Claire sipped her drink and sat there quietly, watching as the other two tried to outdo each other with jokes about doctors!

She had never seen Simon so animated. His girlfriends had all been tall, fragile-looking fashion-plates, a complete contrast to Mary, sitting there happily in old jeans and a sweat-shirt. She was a petite girl with a glossy wing of raven hair, big grey eyes and a wide, sunny smile. One of her hobbies, it seemed, was gardening, and Claire listened in astonishment when Simon said that he had an allotment in Shepherd’s Bush.

‘You never told me that!’ exclaimed Claire.

‘You never asked me!’ he retorted, his eyes on Mary.

He invited them both for supper, but Claire said she was tired.

‘I’ve still got lots of sorting out at the flat to do, and I want to bone up—if you’ll excuse the pun—on the digestive system before I start on Belton on Monday.’

The other two didn’t look as though they minded her excuse one bit, she observed wryly.

‘Claire’s the class swot,’ said Mary. ‘She came top in the end of Block exams.’

Simon turned to her. ‘Did you really? That’s absolutely marvellous, Claire! I had no idea you were any good at exams.’ He sounded genuinely pleased for her.

‘Neither did I,’ she told them. ‘But I find I just love anatomy and physiology. Let’s just hope I can apply it to the practical side of nursing.’

She left them outside the pub and walked back up to the flat. Twinkling stars were faintly discernible in the sky. For one impetuous moment she almost felt like taking the longer route home, past the restaurant where she had first seen Luke, wondering if he ate there regularly. Then she scolded herself silently for thinking like a lovestruck little schoolgirl.

Lovestruck. An odd choice of word, she thought as she let herself in through her new front door.

But an accurate one.

On Monday morning she started on Belton full-time, and began to learn a little more about the daily routine of the ward.

Every second of every hour was taken up with something. Each one of the twenty-four patients had to be washed, fed and cared for, and this was the basic job of the nurses. The doctors were there to diagnose and prescribe treatment, and this treatment was then carried out by the nurses.

There might have been time to do everything were it not for a chronic shortage of staff, and the medical emergencies which could arise at any time. Claire quickly discovered that the entire staff for the morning shift could consist of Sister or staff nurse, a third-year and two very inexperienced first-years. Sometimes they were lucky enough to be sent ‘help’, but this invariably took the form of an auxiliary who didn’t know the ward properly and was not allowed to give out drugs or to do dressings.

Claire realised that she would have to learn to walk around the ward at the same breakneck pace as the other nurses, who seemed to be in perpetual motion, as though they were on roller skates.

Sister Thompson always tried to take the student nurses for half an hour’s teaching in the afternoon, when there was an overlap with the late shift. She was a fierce but tremendously kind woman, who expected only the very best from her nurses, and usually got it.

On Wednesday, Sister Thompson was on a late duty and so the report was given by Staff Nurse Lee, a young woman in her mid-twenties, who wore a shiny engagement ring on a chain around her neck, and managed to bring her fiancé into any conversation she could.

‘Hello, Nurse Scott,’ she said briefly, then bowed her neatly shorn head to look at the workbook. ‘I’ve put you with Nurse Hunter again. I’d like you both to make beds, please, and then help out with general baths. All right?’

‘Thank you, Staff,’ answered Claire politely, and went off to find Anna Hunter. She located her outside the linen cupboard where she was piling great heaps of newly laundered sheets, pillowcases and bedspreads. They started at the top end of the ward, stripping each bed in turn.

‘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.

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