The morning wore on until finally the Professor straightened his great back and stood back from the table. His thanks were pleasantly uttered before he turned on his heel and went along to the changing room. Not that he’d be there long, Emily decided, he’d be in and out of ITU for the next hour or so, getting in her way…
She knew her job well and set about connecting tubes to sealed bottles, setting up a drip again, checking the cardiac arrest trolley, the tracheotomy trolley, the oxygen, the ventilator… She had a student nurse to help her, to fetch and carry, but she was responsible for her patient to the Professor and any mistakes, whether she made them or not, would be her fault.
Just as she had thought, the Professor was in and out of the room for the rest of the day and a good deal of the night as well, and when he had come to examine his patient in the early evening he had requested her politely to remain on duty for a few more hours. Doctor Wright was conscious but fretful and worried because he couldn’t speak. Emily, reassuring him gently, found it pathetic that he had assured so many of his own patients in like case and still needed that reassurance himself, and her opinion of the Professor was considerably heightened by the kindly understanding he showed towards his patient. ‘We’ll keep him doped,’ he told her. ‘I’ve written him up again for another jab at ten o’clock and I’ll be in just after to see how he is. He’ll need more blood—is there plenty available?’
Emily said, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And I’ll take a blood gas estimation.’
She produced the tray without a word, waited while he withdrew the blood, signed to her assistant to take it to the Path. Lab. at once, and applied a swab to the puncture, standing patiently for five minutes while the Professor leaned over the foot of the bed, watching the patient and, from time to time, her.
‘I should be obliged if you could be on duty as early as possible in the morning,’ he observed quietly.
Emily had her eyes on her watch. ‘Would half past seven suit, sir?’
‘Very well. I’m afraid you’re in for a rough time for the next few days.’
‘Not half as rough as Mr Wright,’ she told him matter-of-factly.
But the next few days were rough. Mr Wright was a good patient but naturally enough irritable, for Emily was constantly busy with something or other, turning him, with the other nurse, from side to side, sucking him out, charting her observations, feeding him through his intranasal naso-gastric tube, tending his tracheotomy. He vented his spleen on to his writing pad, scrawling the invective he would have liked to utter so that on occasion she was forced to admit that she had no idea of what he meant. ‘You see,’ she told him apologetically, ‘there’s no man about the house to swear, so I’m a bit out of touch.’
‘Then it’s high time there was,’ Doctor Wright scribbled furiously. ‘Does Professor Jurres-Romeijn know? about the twins—and your sister?’
Her ‘No!’ was so fierce that he had added hastily: ‘All right, keep your brown hair on; I shan’t tell.’ He put his pencil down and then picked it up again. ‘You don’t like him.’
Emily’s hazel eyes flashed. ‘Never mind that, Doctor Wright. He’s a splendid surgeon.’
‘He’s a man as well,’ wrote her patient slowly, ‘a bit crusty sometimes, but I’d like him on my side in a fight. Nice with children too.’
‘I have no doubt of it,’ said Emily tartly, ‘and now lie still while I see to your feed…’
She was a first class nurse—besides, she had made up her mind that Doctor Wright was going to recover. True, life wouldn’t be quite the same for him ever again, but he had a loving wife and children and in time he might do a little consulting work; there was nothing wrong with his needle-sharp brain and he had been a top man at his job. Emily told him this, over and over again; each time she saw the worried lines deepen on his face, she trotted out her arguments with such sincerity that after a time he began to believe her, and when his wife, primed by Emily, joined in on Emily’s side it was obvious that he had made up his mind to have a future after all. Perhaps not such a lengthy one as most people, but still a future. When the Professor called that evening, he stayed twice as long as usual, listening to Mrs Wright, and reading his friend’s scribbled conversation. And he added his certainty as to the patient’s ability to work again in a calm unhurried manner which carried conviction.
Emily was tired by the end of a week. She had been sleeping at the hospital, working long hours—busy ones too, and over and above that she wasn’t happy about leaving Louisa alone for so long a time. She had managed to get home on several afternoons, just for an hour, but Louisa had sulked and the babies didn’t seem happy. If only the longed-for letter from Mary would come! thought Emily, racing back to duty again. She would miss the twins, but the life they were leading now wasn’t good enough. They should have someone’s undivided attention. Luckily she would have a good deal of off duty and days off to come to her by the time Doctor Wright left, she would make it up to them then, and Louisa too. No wonder she had sulked, tied to the house and the shopping and washing and only the twins for company. Emily, carefully schooling her pleasant features into a look of relaxed ease, presented herself at her patient’s door, declaring cheerfully that in such weather it was better to be in than out.
She had just completed all the many chores attached to her care of Doctor Wright, ensconced his wife beside him and declared her intention of going to supper herself when the Professor joined them. His ‘Don’t go, Nurse Seymour’ left her standing, rather crossly, by the door while he sat himself down on the end of the bed for what she could see was to be a leisurely chat. If he wasn’t quick about it, her supper time would be over and done with and she without her meal—and she had agreed to stay on duty until ten o’clock that evening so that Mrs Crewe, the night nurse, could go to the cinema. The canteen would be closed by then; if she wanted to of course she could wait until the night nurses’ evening meal at midnight, but she knew she’d never stay awake.
The Professor rose presently and turned round and looked at her. ‘Ah, yes, Staff Nurse—I should like a word with you.’
She followed him out of the room and stood in the middle of the landing. It was quiet there. Sister, back from her own supper, was writing the report in her office and the two nurses left on duty were in the ward. She was totally surprised when the Professor said: ‘I have to thank you for your part in Doctor Wright’s recovery. You have worked very well, I am grateful to you as I am sure he and his wife are.’ He smiled and she thought suddenly that in other circumstances she might have liked him.
‘I must admit,’ he went on smoothly, ‘that when you were suggested to me I wasn’t quite sure…’
Emily broke in: ‘No, I know—I heard you; you didn’t like to be fobbed off with a prim miss.’ She paused and quoted: ‘A small plump creature who merges into the background from whatever angle one looks at her.’
The Professor was looking at her in astonishment. ‘Good God—yes, I said that; I’d forgotten. Do you want me to apologise?’ He neither looked nor sounded in the least put out.
Emily eyed him thoughtfully. ‘No,’ she said at length. ‘Words don’t mean a thing—you could say you were sorry and not mean it.’
He shrugged. ‘Just as you like, although I might point out that I’m not in the habit of apologising unless I mean it.’ He added outrageously: ‘You are small, you know, and a bit plump, too.’
Emily made a cross sound, but before she could say anything he went on in a quite different voice: ‘I shall change the drugs this evening—you are on duty until ten o’clock, I understand? Observe Doctor Wright carefully, will you, and ask the night nurse to do the same. We must start talking about speech therapy, too.’ He nodded his head carelessly. ‘I’ll see you later.’
He left her standing there. There were just five minutes left of her supper break;