The Edge of Winter

CHAPTER TWO

ST KATHERINE’S was one of the older hospitals, maintaining its proud reputation despite its out-of-date wards, its endless corridors and numerous, quite unnecessary flights of stairs. It looked particularly depressing and down-at-heel as Araminta parked the Mini in the shed reserved for the nursing staff and walked across the wide forecourt and in through the hospital’s forbidding entrance. She had driven the two hundred and seventy-odd miles with only the shortest of breaks and it had taken her eight hours; she was tired and hungry and anxious to get to her small basement flat not five minutes’ walk away from the hospital, but first she had to let Pamela Carr, the relief Sister who had been doing her duties for her, know that she was back, so that she wouldn’t need to come on duty in the morning. She found her in the Accident Room, and for once there was a mere handful of patients there, and none of those in dire need. Sylvia Dawes was there too, sitting in the office, frowning over the pile of forms on the desk. She was a small, neat girl, Junior Sister on the department and a great friend of Araminta. She looked up as she went in and said in a relieved voice: ‘Oh, good, you’re back—now I can leave these wretched things for you. Did you have a good time?’

Araminta perched on the edge of the desk, ‘Lovely. Quiet—rotten weather most of the time, though, but a smashing hotel; oak beams and comfy chairs and gorgeous food.’

‘No men?’

She shook her head. ‘Middle-aged, and one or two sailing enthusiasts.’

‘Did you go sailing, then?’

‘No—yes—well, I did, just once.’

‘Was it fun?’

Araminta allowed her thoughts to dwell on the ill-tempered giant who had rescued her and Mary Rose. ‘No, not really,’ she admitted, and felt regret that it hadn’t been. ‘Anything happen while I was away?’

‘The usual,’ Sylvia told her, and Araminta nodded her head. ‘The usual’ covered a multitude of things: road accidents, small children who had fallen into the washing machine, old ladies with fractured thighs, old men dying for lack of warmth or good food, housewives who had fallen off chairs while hanging the curtains, youths with broken noses and badly cut up faces, coronaries, and distraught men and women of all ages who had taken an overdose. She got off the desk, said: ‘Oh, well—back to work tomorrow. Pam’s off in the morning, isn’t she? Are we on together at eight o’clock?’

Sylvia nodded. ‘I’m off at one o’clock and then two days off—you’ve got Staff Nurse Getty, though, and that nice Mrs Pink as well as two students.’

Araminta nodded in her turn. ‘I’m going home now—see you in the morning.’ She said goodnight and went back to the Mini and drove herself back into the street, to turn into a narrow, dark thoroughfare not a stone’s throw away. It was lined with grim Victorian houses, all exactly alike and all long since turned into flats. She stopped half way down the terrace, opened the squeaky area gate and descended the steps to the neatly painted door of her flat, and went inside. There was the tiniest of lobbies leading to a quite large sitting room where she cast down her handbag, wound the clock, switched on the radio and then went back to the car for her luggage before driving a few yards down the road where she had a lock up garage. The little car safely stowed, she went back to the flat, shut the door on the dark evening and went along to the minute kitchen to put on the kettle.

The little place looked pleasant enough with the lamps switched on and the gas fire burning; she went to the bedroom next and unpacked her case, then made tea and sat down to drink it, casting a housewifely eye round her as she did so. The place needed a good dust, otherwise it was as clean and tidy as she had left it; its cheerful red carpet brushed, the colourful cushions nicely plumped up, the small round table where she had her meals shining with polish. It was a very small flat and rather dark on account of it being almost a basement, but Araminta counted herself lucky to have a home of her own, and so close to her work, too.

She poured herself a second cup and looked through her post; the electricity bill, a leaflet asking her if she had any old iron or scrap metal, and a letter or two from friends who had married and gone to live in other parts of the country. She read them all in turn and poured more tea. ‘What I would really like,’ she told herself out loud, ‘would be a huge box of wildly expensive flowers and a note begging me to spend the evening at one of those places where the women wear real diamonds and there’s a champagne bucket on very table.’ She kicked off her shoes for greater comfort. ‘I should have to wear that pink dress,’ she mused, absorbed in her absurd daydream, ‘and I’d be fetched by someone in a Rolls—the best there is—driven by…’ She stopped, because the dark, bad-tempered man in the yacht had suddenly popped into her head, so clearly that there was no question of anyone else taking his place.

‘Fool,’ said Araminta cheerfully, and took the tray out to the kitchen.

The morning began badly with a severely burned toddler being brought in by a terrified mother. Araminta, her honey-coloured hair crowned by a frilled cap, her slim person very neat in its navy blue uniform and white apron, sent an urgent message to James Hickory, the Casualty Officer, to leave his breakfast and come at once, and began the difficult task of saving the child’s life; putting up a plasma drip, assembling the equipment they would need, preparing the pain-killing drug the small screaming creature needed so urgently. It was an hour or more before Mr Hickory, the redoubtable Mrs Pink and Araminta had done everything necessary; the small, unconscious form was wheeled away to the ICU at last, and she was able to turn her attention to the less serious cases which had come in and which Staff Nurse Getty was dealing with.

The morning followed its usual pattern after that, with a steady stream of patients arriving, being treated, and dispatched, either home again or to the appropriate ward, and because there was a sudden rush at midday, Araminta didn’t go to the dining room for her dinner, but gobbled a sandwich, washed down with a pot of tea, in her office. She didn’t mind much; she was off duty at five o’clock; she would cook herself a meal when she got home, go to bed early and read. Viewed from the peak hour of a busy day, the prospect was delightful.

She managed to get over to the Nurses’ Home for tea; the Sisters had a sitting room there, and it had long been the custom for them to foregather at four o’clock, that was if they could spare the time. There had been a break in the steady stream of patients coming into the Accident Room, and Araminta, leaving Mrs Pink—a trained nurse of wide experience—in charge, felt justified in taking her tea break.

There was quite a crowd in the sitting room, bunched round the electric fire while Sister Bates, by virtue of her seniority both in service and in years, poured out. Araminta squeezed in between a striking redhead of fragile appearance, who ruled Men’s Medical with an iron hand, and a small, mousey girl who looked as though she couldn’t say bo to a goose, but who nevertheless held down the exacting job of ENT Theatre Sister. They both said: ‘Hi—how’s work after the Cornish fleshpots?’

‘Foul,’ declared Araminta succinctly. ‘That trachie we sent you—how’s it going?’ she asked the mousey girl, and the three of them talked shop for a few minutes while they drank their tea and ate toast and the remains of someone’s birthday cake. ‘Going out this evening?’ asked Debby, the redhead.

Araminta shook her head. ‘Supper round the fire, bed and a book.’

‘And that will be the last time for weeks,’ observed Sister Bates, who had been eavesdropping quite shamelessly. ‘Who’s the current admirer?’

Araminta grinned up at her from her place on the floor. ‘Batesy dear, I haven’t got one…’

Sister Bates frowned with mock severity. ‘You’ve got dozens—well, all the unattached housemen for a start. I’ve never met such a girl!’ But her blue eyes twinkled as she spoke. Araminta was so very pretty and nice with it; she never lacked for invitations although everyone knew that she never angled for them, they just dropped into her lap and she accepted them, whether they were rather grand seats at the theatre or a quick egg and chips at the little café round the corner, and not even her worst enemy—and she had none, anyway—could accuse her of going out of her way to encourage any of the men who asked her out, and she made no bones about putting them in their place if she found it necessary. Sister Bates thought of her as an old-fashioned girl, an opinion which might have annoyed Araminta if she had known about it. She had a great many friends and liked them all, men and women alike. That she got on well with men was a fact which didn’t interest her greatly; one day she would meet a man she would love and, she hoped, marry, but until then she was just a pleasant girl to take out and remarkably unspoilt.

But for the next few evenings she stayed in her little flat, catching up on her letter writing, re-covering the cushions in the sitting room and painting the tiny kitchen. She made such a good job of this that she decided to paint the sitting room too, a task she began a few days later, for she had her two days off; ample time in which to finish the job. She came off duty full of enthusiasm for the idea, had a hurried meal, got into paint-smeared sweater and slacks, piled her bits and pieces of furniture into the centre of the room and started. She had just finished the door and was about to start on the wainscoting when someone banged the front door knocker and she put down her brush with a tut of impatience. It wasn’t late, barely seven o’clock, but already dark, and she had no idea who it might be—true, James Hickory had wanted to take her to the cinema, but she had refused him firmly, and any of the other Sisters would have called through the letterbox. She got to her unwilling feet and opened the door, sliding the chain across as she did so. The dark giant who had rescued them from the beach was standing on the steps outside and she stood staring at him, round-eyed, for a few moments before exclaiming: ‘Well, I never—however did you know that I live here?’

His eyes dropped to the chain and he smiled faintly. ‘Your aunt gave me your address.’

‘Aunt Martha? Why on earth should she do that?’

‘I asked her for it. I thought you might like to hear about Mary Rose.’

‘Oh, that’s why you came. Come in.’ Araminta slid back the chain and allowed him to enter. ‘I’m painting my sitting room, but do sit down for a minute—I’ll make some coffee.’ She led the way into the muddle. ‘There’s a chair if you don’t mind turning it right side up—I’ll go…’

He filled the little room, she began to edge past him, conscious that she was glad to see him even though she didn’t like him at all, and then came to a halt when he said: ‘Is that the kitchen through there? Suppose I make the coffee and you can go on painting. May I take off my coat?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She hoped she didn’t sound ungracious, but really, he had a nerve, though perhaps he only wanted to be kind. She took a quick look at his face and decided that he looked more like a robber baron than a do-gooder. She picked up the brush once more and got down on to her knees, feeling that she had rather lost her grip on the situation. ‘I don’t know your name,’ she called through the open door, and then as he showed himself in the open doorway, ‘Mind that paint, I’ve just done it.’

‘Van Sibbelt—Crispin,’ he told her, and disappeared to turn off the kettle. He was back again presently with their coffee mugs on a tray. He handed her one, offered the sugar and sat down on the wooden box she had been standing on to reach the top of the door.

‘About Mary Rose,’ he observed easily, ‘she’s doing very well, clumping round in a leg plaster.’ He saw her look of enquiry and added placidly: ‘I telephoned to find out.’

‘I’m glad she’s OK’ Araminta felt a little out of her depth. ‘It was very nice of you to let me know.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘You live in London?’

‘No.’

A not very satisfactory answer, but she tried again. ‘You’re not English, are you? Your name—isn’t it Dutch?’

‘Yes.’

She put down her mug with something of a thump. ‘Look, I’m not being curious—just making polite conversation. In fact,’ she added with some asperity, ‘I’ve every right to be curious, for I can’t think why you should go to the trouble of coming here. If my aunt gave you my address you could just have well sent a postcard about Mary Rose.’

He regarded her in silence, his face a little austere, then just as she was beginning to feel uncomfortable, he said: ‘I wanted to see you again.’

At the very last second she thought better of asking him why, but instead she asked him, very nicely, if he would go. ‘Such a pity that you should call at an awkward time, but you can see that I’m at sixes and sevens with this painting—you don’t mind, do you? Do finish your coffee first, though.’

He looked as though he was going to laugh, but instead he said gravely, ‘I see how busy you are. If you have a second brush I will do those bookshelves for you—half an hour’s work at the most—it would help you a good deal.’

She got to her feet, which was a mistake, because he stood up too, towering over her, making her feel very small and at a disadvantage. All the same, she said a little coldly: ‘It’s most kind of you to offer, but I can manage all the same, thanks.’

‘The brush-off,’ he murmured, and grinned disarmingly, so that instead of looking like a well-dressed man of forty or so, he was a boy enjoying a splendid joke with himself.

‘Men,’ thought Araminta, crossly, watching him put on his coat again. Here he was, walking in and out of her life just as the fancy took him. She wished him goodbye in an austere voice and closed the door firmly on his broad back.

She went on painting until very late; the book-shelves proved awkward to do and she had to stand on the box again. The second time she fell off she was unable to refrain from wishing that she had accepted Dr van Sibbelt’s kind offer.

She finished towards evening the next day and that left her with a whole day more in which to plant spring bulbs in the troughs and pots which lined the tiny paved area outside her front door. She lingered over the task, looking up and down the street from time to time—perhaps Doctor van Sibbelt was still in London, and despite his cool reception, would come again to see her. He didn’t; she went indoors, washed her hair, did her nails and watched a boring programme on TV before going to bed early.

She had been on duty barely an hour the next morning when they were all startled by an explosion, its repercussions rumbling on and on, so that even the solidly built Accident Room shook a little.

‘A bomb,’ said Araminta, busy at her desk, and left her papers to hurry into the department. It wasn’t the first time; they all knew what to do, they were ready by the time James Hickory reached them with the news that they would be receiving the casualties. Such patients as there were were moved to one end of the receiving area with a borrowed houseman to look after them. Araminta sent a student nurse to look after him and went to answer the telephone. There would be twenty odd casualties, said an urgent voice, mostly glass wounds, but there were still some people trapped.

She relayed the information to James, telephoned for another houseman and went to cast a trained eye over the preparations. There would be more nurses coming within a few minutes and probably Debby, who wasn’t on duty, but would return if she were near enough. Araminta took off her cuffs, rolled up her sleeves and went to meet the first ambulance, its sing-song wail reaching a crescendo as it stopped before the open doors.

There were two stretcher cases; the other two, both men, were walking, helped by the ambulance men. They were covered in dust and nasty little cuts from flying glass and wore the look of men who had been severely shocked. Araminta consigned them to Mrs Pink and turned her attention to the stretcher cases. They were both unconscious, badly cut about the head and face, and one of them had an arm in a rough sling. She set to work on them, with calm speed, following James’ careful instructions; they had barely dealt with them and sent them up to waiting theatre, before the second ambulance arrived.

After that, time didn’t matter. They kept steadily on, coping with the stream of patients, seeing that the very ill ones had priority, and Araminta had the added task of seeing that her team of nurses, now swollen by extra help sent from the wards, were deployed to their best advantage. It was fortunate that a number of the victims were only slightly injured, so that after having cuts stitched, bruises treated and a hot drink, they were able to be sent to their homes. But that still left a hard core of badly injured, and some of them she could see wouldn’t be fit to be moved for a little while yet; not only were they badly injured, they were filthy dirty, with hair full of glass splinters and torn clothes which had to be carefully cut away so that they might be examined for the minute but dangerous wounds made by metal splinters and slivers of glass and wood. She was cutting away the hair from a scalp wound when another ambulance arrived and within seconds the ambulance men were coming through the door with the stretcher between them, not waiting for the porters’ help. Araminta knew both the men well; solid, reliable, not easily put out, but they looked worried enough now. She handed her scissors to the student nurse who was helping her and hurried across the littered department, sweeping a trolley along with her.

‘I take it it’s urgent, George?’ She eyed the grey face above the blanket.

‘Just got ’im out, they ’ave, Sister—lorst a leg. There’ll be a copper along with details—’e’s in a bad way.’

She looked around her. Everyone was busy; a houseman was disappearing through a door carrying a child, the nurses were stretched to their limit, James and the house physician who had come to give a hand were bending over an elderly woman, who, not seriously hurt when she was admitted, had collapsed with a coronary. Someone would have to come. The ambulance men slid the stretcher on to the trolley and swung it into an empty bay and she lifted the blanket.

The patient, if he were to be saved, would need a blood transfusion before anything else. Araminta bade the ambulance men goodbye and picked up one of the small glass tubes lying ready on the dressing trolley; at least she could get a specimen of blood while she waited for a doctor. She was putting the cork back in when she was addressed from behind.

It was the senior consultant surgeon, Sir Donald Short.

‘Ah, Sister, you appear to need help.’ She had never been so thankful to hear his rather gruff voice. ‘Perhaps we could give a hand.’ He had come round the foot of the trolley and was already taking off his jacket. ‘I see you have taken some blood—good. Run along to the Path Lab and get it cross-matched—and look sharp about it.’ He lifted the blanket in his turn. ‘We must do what we can for this poor fellow.’

Araminta didn’t stop to speak. There was no need to detail the man’s injuries; she turned round to do as she had been told and found her way blocked by Sir Donald’s companion—Doctor van Sibbelt, no less. The interesting and strangely disturbing fact registered itself upon her busy mind to be dismissed immediately; there were other, more important matters on hand.

By the time she got back with the two vacoliters of blood, the two men were hard at work with artery forceps, tying off carefully as they went. Sir Donald barely glanced at her, and Doctor van Sibbelt didn’t look up at all.

‘Get that up, Sister,’ the consultant commanded. ‘Crispin, see if you can find a vein in that arm—we’ll run in the first liter as fast as we can and follow it with the second before we take him to theatre.’ He paused for only a moment. ‘Finished, Sister? Get hold of main theatre and tell them I want it ready in five minutes.’

He watched his companion slide the canulla into a limp vein. ‘Crispin, will you give the anaesthetic? It’ll relieve the pressure on the other theatres.’ He added sharply: ‘We need more blood, Sister.’

‘It’s on its way, sir,’ Araminta was unflurried, ‘and I’ll see that it goes to theatre.’

‘Good girl—let me have a pad here, then. Poor devil!’

Araminta took a blood pressure which only just registered. The face on the pillow was grey with shock; it could have belonged to an old man, although it was a mere lad lying there. She pitied him with all her warm heart but there was no time for pity; efficiency and gentleness and speed—above all, speed, came first. She could pity him later.

She sped away to telephone theatre, and saw as she went that the place was at last almost empty—there were still three or four patients waiting to be warded, and a handful of slightly injured people waiting to have stitches and anti-tetanus injections. She had a quick word with Mrs Pink and Staff Nurse Getty, then flew back to escort her patient to theatre. Sir Donald, Doctor van Sibbelt and their patient had already gone; she cleared up the mess in the bay and turned her attention to helping James. And after that there was the business of clearing up—they were quick at that, but it took time; everything had to be exactly as it was, ready for any kind of emergency once more.

The morning had gone. It was long past the nurses’ dinner time, she sent them in ones and twos for their belated meal, and when Staff got back, retired to her office, where old Betsy, the department maid, had taken a tray of coffee and sandwiches. She lingered now, to receive praise from Araminta for the useful part she had played in the morning’s work.

‘Cups o’tea,’ she declared contemptuously, ‘and collecting up the dirties—that ain’t much, Sister. Not when I seen you and the nurses covered in blood, mopping up and bandaging and giving them nasty jabs.’

She spoke with some relish, for although she was a dear old thing, devoted to Araminta, zealous in her cleaning operations round the department and with a heart of gold, she enjoyed any dramatic occasion.

‘Go on with you, Betsy,’ said Araminta. ‘You know as well as I do that hot tea is one of the quickest ways of helping someone who’s had a shock to feel normal again—why, if you hadn’t been there with your urn, we should have had twice as much work.’

She took a sip of coffee and bit into a sandwich, and Betsy, looking pleased, pushed the sugar bowl nearer. ‘That young man, ’im with the leg orf—is ’e going ter be OK?’