‘Seems they fancied taking a couple of Hovis loaves back to their flat with them, and Matron, of all people, caught them red-handed! Walked right into them, apparently, as they smuggled them out the door, still warm and wrapped in their aprons!’
I gulped as Lesley continued the tale, knowing how seriously this offence would be viewed. ‘Matron was purple with rage as she marched them to her office, shouting as she did so. Nancy Porter heard every word and it’s gone all over the hospital!’
Lesley jutted out her chin, pursed her lips and pushed out her chest, Miss Morgan-style. ‘You have stained your reputations as upstanding, trustworthy young ladies!’ she mimicked. ‘Your mothers will be distraught when they find out about this disgraceful carry-on. Do not darken the door of the MRI for one month. You are suspended with immediate effect. Take the time to contemplate the error of your ways.’
‘Shhhhh!’ hissed a young nurse I’d never seen before, who suddenly loomed in the linen cupboard doorway. ‘I can hear you on the ward – and Matron’s coming!’
Lesley and I both fell into a heap, stuffing flannels between our teeth to stifle our laughter. We hid behind the door until the sound of Matron’s clicking heels subsided. We’d had a lucky escape and we wanted to keep it that way, so we held our breath as we strained to hear her distant tones telling some poor soul to report to her office at once. ‘It appears you need a reminder …’ we heard Matron saying before her voice faded away. No doubt she was going to deliver a lecture about skirt lengths or tidy hair, her two bugbears.
Before I finished my shift that day I went to see Mrs Pearlman.
‘Hello, my dear, I’m glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘I have something for you.’ She reached for an elegant gold watch that was lying on top of her locker and held it out to me.
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly …’ I began. I had never seen the watch before and I knew patients were not meant to have valuables lying about the place. I was pretty sure nurses were not meant to accept gifts like this from patients, either. I’d seen Sister Gorton confiscating bottles of sherry given as gifts to nurses at the eye unit, though rumour did have it that she was ‘fond of her drink’ and took the bottles home with her, whereupon they were never seen again.
‘Please take it,’ Mrs Pearlman said, clutching my hand and curling the watch into my palm. ‘You will make an elderly lady very happy. I want you to have it.’
I smiled and nodded awkwardly, slipping it into my pocket before thanking Mrs Pearlman politely and wishing her a good night. As I walked out of the ward I felt very uncomfortable. I imagined Matron striding up to me, her X-ray eyes zooming in on the gold in my pocket. ‘Explain yourself!’ she would bellow, I was sure of it. What if she thought I’d stolen the watch from Mrs Pearlman? My blood ran cold, and I decided to drop by Sister Barnes’s office on my way out, to ask her advice.
When I laid the watch on the table before Sister Barnes, I felt instant relief. ‘I didn’t want to offend her, but now I don’t know what to do,’ I explained.
‘You’ve done exactly the right thing in coming to see me,’ Sister Barnes smiled. ‘A small box of chocolates at Christmas is one thing, but a gift like this is something else. Your instincts are quite correct. I’m afraid you will have to return the watch to Mrs Pearlman and explain that, although you are very touched by her generous gesture, it is against the rules to accept gifts from patients, and you are sure she will understand that you do not wish to get into trouble.’
I exhaled rather more loudly than I meant to, releasing my stress.
‘How are you getting on?’ Sister Barnes asked thoughtfully.
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Just fine?’ She raised an eyebrow quizzically.
‘Yes, it’s just … it’s harder than I thought it would be.’
‘I remember thinking the very same thing when I was your age,’ she replied. ‘You need to believe in yourself more. I think you have what it takes, but do you?’
I felt very small and meek besides Sister Barnes. My shoulders were hunched, my chin was lowered and I felt washed out with tiredness. She, on the other hand, looked vibrant and full of life. Her eyes were twinkling, and she had an energy about her that made me want to straighten my spine and pull my shoulders back.
Sister Barnes eyed me thoughtfully and then stood up and clapped her hands together twice, as if struck by a bright idea.
‘Come with me,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Wash your hands and put your apron back on. I have a patient who needs an injection, and I think you are exactly the right nurse for the job.’
My heart leapt. I’d been desperate to give someone an injection ever since I arrived, but until now the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Sister Barnes was young enough to remember how much it means to a young student nurse to be trusted with a syringe and a vial of drugs for the first time. I was thrilled.
As soon as I saw the patient in question I allowed myself a wry smile, remembering Linda’s description of the whale-like patient who was her first ‘victim’. Mrs Butcher was the female equivalent and I knew exactly why clever Sister Barnes had decided to let me loose on this particular patient.
‘Mrs Butcher, Nurse Lawton is here to give you your injection,’ Sister Barnes announced as she pulled the curtain around the bed and asked Mrs Butcher to lift her nightdress and present her right buttock.
‘Is it the first time she’s given an injection?’ Mrs Butcher asked, surveying me suspiciously, no doubt because I looked so young.
‘Not at all,’ Sister Barnes replied. ‘This is a demonstration to show how proficient Nurse Lawton is.’
Mrs Butcher sniffed and rolled over clumsily while I reminded myself to seek out the upper, outer quadrant of the buttock as I’d been taught during our practice on oranges in the classroom. Moments later, I pushed the needle through Mrs Butcher’s extremely well-padded rump and administered the drug steadily, with surprising ease.
‘All done!’ I said triumphantly. I tingled inside. I felt absolutely fantastic.
‘Didn’t feel a thing!’ beamed Mrs Butcher, her face cracking into a satisfied smile.
‘Thank you, Nurse Lawton,’ Sister Barnes said. ‘Now you can pop back in on Mrs Pearlman before you finish for the day.’
I wanted to skip down the corridor, I felt so exhilarated. I didn’t, of course. I walked on the left-hand side, as always, but there was a different rhythm in my step. It felt as though I was bouncing along on fluffy carpets instead of stepping purposefully on the hard stone floor, and I was pretty sure my eyes were twinkling just like Sister Barnes’s.
By now, we student nurses had been working flat out for about ten months. Nights out were rare, as we were usually either working, studying or sleeping, but that weekend Linda and I went to a dance at the university. We wore red and yellow mini skirts that Cynthia Weaver had helped us make, after we each bought a strip of fabric in Debenhams. We’d discovered that Cynthia was a very talented dressmaker, making every stitch of her clothing by hand, which is how she managed to always be in the latest fashions. On her advice we teamed the skirts with floral blouses, and I wore my hair in two long plaits, secured with velvet ribbons. As a final touch I doused myself in a generous splash of my favourite perfume, Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew, cramming the turquoise bottle into my tiny macramé handbag so I could refresh it later.
Strictly speaking, you had to be a university student to go to the dances, but we never had any trouble getting