Authors: Claire Rayner
‘Not a bit of it!’ Daphne opened her eyes wide. ‘Any more
than Miss Manton chose last time to get at Jo. Did you, Matron?’
Elizabeth frowned sharply. ‘Look, you really must try to see that these discussions are not designed to get at anyone. If this is all you think they are, all of you, then we’ll abandon the scheme here and now. I didn’t propose the discussions in order to give people a chance to score off old disagreements. They’re meant to be constructive. Any—personal disclosures are incidental to that.’
‘Then let’s have an incidental,’ Daphne said at once. ‘I think this is important. Ruth here thinks her patients have—unpleasant relatives. Well, doesn’t this affect her relationship with her patients? It must do. That’s why I think she should tell us how they’re so—unpleasant.’
‘You know quite well what I mean,’ Ruth said sulkily. ‘Why ask me to tell you all again? Do you just enjoy getting second-hand thrills.’
‘Charming!’ Daphne said, ‘Is that why you usually tell us all the details of your nights out, then? To give us second-hand thrills? What does that make you?’
‘It makes me normal!’ Ruth said with reckless anger. ‘That’s what! I like men, I like going out with them, and if a patient’s husband fancies me, why the hell shouldn’t I go out with him? The trouble with you lot is you’re scared of men—that’s all——’
‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks——’ Swinton said softly.
‘And what the hell does that mean?’ Ruth said sharply.
Swinton shrugged. ‘Just that. You know what they say about suicides. The ones who talk about it never do it.’
Ruth went a fiery red, and leaned forward to stare at Swinton with her eyes screwed up into tight slits.
‘Do you know what I think about you? I think you’re jealous. No one ever asks you out, and you know they ask me, and you’re jealous.’
‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake!’ Swinton moved sharply and looked at Ruth with an expression of irritable boredom on her face. ‘Can’t you understand something obvious? We’re bored, bored stiff by the way you go on and on about this marvellous time
you’re supposed to have. If you have it, fine, enjoy yourself. But why do you have to talk about it so much?’
‘You do, don’t you, Ruth?’ Daphne said maliciously. ‘If there’s ever been a breakfast when we haven’t had to listen to you talking about your night out, I can’t remember it——’
‘Well, why shouldn’t I? And if you’re all so bored, why haven’t you said so before?’
‘Because you enjoy it all so much, I suppose. I would have thought you’d have seen before now that we aren’t very interested in your fancy tales——’ Swinton said.
‘What do you mean, fancy tales? It’s true, every word of it!’ Ruth said, her voice high with anger. ‘It’s easier to say it’s lies than to admit the facts—you’re just jealous!’
‘I didn’t say it was lies!’ Swinton said. ‘Why should you think I did?’ She smiled gently. ‘Because it is?’
‘It is not!’ Ruth almost shouted. ‘It’s just——’
‘Whether it is or not, I hardly feel that this has any part in our discussion tonight,’ Elizabeth cut in. ‘I’m sorry to abrogate your position as chairwoman, Sister Cooper, but I really feel we must get on to the point again. Now, Sister Phillips. We haven’t heard from you yet this evening. You deal with patients who are not in bed. Does this have an effect on your attitude to them?’
Obediently, Susan produced a few trite comments about the differences between out patients and in patients, and gradually the room settled down again, Ruth sitting in sulky silence for the rest of the evening, and Daphne paying only lip service to her chairwoman functions, leaving the control of the subject to Elizabeth, rather to Elizabeth’s irritation.
The evening ended when the discussion petered out, and Elizabeth, a little wearily, called a halt.
‘I hope that you all feel this has been constructive,’ she said, as she stood up to leave the sitting room. ‘And I must warn you all again—we really mustn’t use these meetings to—make personal attacks. I’m sure it won’t happen again. Goodnight, sisters, and thank you.’
Only McLeod and Mary Cotton followed Elizabeth out, and there was a sharp silence in the big room after the door had closed behind them.
‘Just what was the point of that piece of bitchery, Cooper?’ Ruth said at last, leaning back in a pose that was meant to show insouciance but that had more of tension in it than relaxation. ‘Just for the fun of it? Do you want to show Manton I’m a Big Bad Woman, or something? What did you expect to get out of it?’
Daphne shrugged, and stood up. Susan followed suit.
‘I thought it would be interesting to get a thumb-nail sketch from her about you, that’s all. You put Cramm on the hotplate last time, so I put you there. Why not? You ask for it, don’t you? You have done for years——’
‘Ah, balls!’ Ruth said, with a return to her usual manner. ‘You just wanted to stir it up generally that’s all, and I didn’t feel in the mood to play it your way——’
‘Is that why you got so angry?’ Swinton said lazily. ‘Because you weren’t in the mood? And I could have sworn you were really bothered——’
‘You’re worse than Cooper. She just felt like a bit of bitchery for the hell of it, but you—you’re a bitch all the time, because you’re made that way. You let on you’re so bored by me, make a big show of it, but you listen when I talk, Christ, but you listen! I wasn’t wrong, was I? You’re eaten up with jealousy. You’re just a sour old virgin, and you want——’
‘That’s enough, Arthur.’ Dolly’s voice cut across sharply. ‘This is a sisters’ sitting room, not a public house. Remember where you are, and keep your foul talk for your filthy friends——’
‘And you’re just the same! Frustrated as hell, tying yourself in knots because you can’t get what you want, because Manton got your job! What
you
need is a good poke, that’s what you need—that’s what you all need—maybe that’d cure you of your——’
‘Maybe it’s what
you
need, Arthur,’ Swinton said softly, and got up and walked to the door. ‘Hmm? Maybe you wouldn’t have to spin your breakfast time tales then. Goodnight, everybody. Interesting evening, wasn’t it?’
One by one, the others followed her, not looking at Ruth sitting very still in her armchair, only Susan looking back with some distress at the silent figure.
‘It wasn’t fair, Daph,’ she whispered as she closed the door.
‘I know she’s a bit much, but honestly, it wasn’t fair. And Swinton was so
nasty
. What do you suppose she meant—what she said before she went out?’
‘What it sounded like,’ Daphne said, and giggled. ‘I hadn’t thought about it, really, but she may be right at that. Maybe old Arthur
isn’t
what she cracks herself up to be. I’ve never seen any of these men of hers waiting at the Home for her, have you?’
‘She meets them in town,’ Susan said.
‘Well, if Swinton’s right, she doesn’t meet them anywhere, does she? Lumme, but this group thing’s turning out better than I thought! Who’ll get their knuckles rapped next time? Dolly wants a go—Manton, bet you anything you like. She’ll put Manton in a corner, and stick pins in her—and it’ll be a giggle.’
Alone in the big sitting room, Ruth stared at the fire, and her thoughts pleated themselves into words, chasing each other round her head.
‘She’s followed me, that’s what it is, followed me. Watched—she couldn’t, could she? Watch? She did, she must have—how else could she? Unless it’s what she said. Maybe she’s a—that’s it. She does it herself, and she can tell the difference.
She doesn’t. She couldn’t—I’d know, wouldn’t I? How could I know? I never—not really—Christ, she must have followed and watched—but even if she did, how would she know? She’s never been—does she? She must. Does she like it? Cow, she’s a cow. I’ll have to do it. I’ll have to. Why not? I won’t if I don’t want to, why should I? I’ll have to. Someone good. I always meant to, but it was more fun not to, wasn’t it? Or would it be more fun if I did? How will I know if I don’t? I must. I’ll give myself some penicillin, then nothing’ll happen. Nurses know how to take care of themselves, they all say that. Nurses know how. Penicillin. Christ, suppose I get caught all the same? I could use some ergot, I suppose. It might hurt. Oh, hell, why should I? But I’ll have to—and when I tell her, she’ll know, won’t she? If she has herself. Lousy stinking bitch, lousy stinking bitch, she’s a lousy——’
Ruth came off duty the next evening, after a day during which the nurses had been startled by her unusual bad temper,
in a state of shaking nervousness that twisted her guts inside her, so that she felt sick. But she had made her mind up, made it a firm decision, and she wasn’t going to go back on it.
She dressed and made up automatically, choosing her underclothes with the sort of care she usually only gave to her top garments, and last thing before she left her room, she made up an intra-muscular injection of a million units of penicillin, using a syringe and phial she had brought from the ward.
She stood, one leg up on the bed, the syringe in her hand, looking down on her thigh, bulging a little over the top of her stocking, and breathed deeply.
‘Once I’ve done it, I’ll have to. There’ll be no going back, you know that, don’t you? You’ll have to then. Please God, make it someone nice, make it someone nice——’
She watched her hand move down, watched her other hand pinch up a piece of the pinky mottled flesh, and pushed the needle home sharply, almost as though it was someone else who was receiving the injection, someone else who was giving it, as though she were three people, the nurse, the patient, the onlooker. As she pushed the plunger home, and a deep ache filled her thigh, moving up through the muscles to fill the pit of her belly, she threw her head back and drew in a breath that rattled thickly in her throat, letting the pain wash over her.
It settled then, settled to a dull ache, and she pulled the needle out, and threw the syringe under her pillow before moving her leg, feeling a sharp twinge of pain again as she did so.
But it was better now. Her fear had gone, the sick anticipation leaving her filled with a heavy sense of reaction, and she walked heavily out of her room and down the stairs, moving stiffly, with no spring in her step at all.
‘Please God, let it be someone nice—let it be someone nice——’ All the way up to town, in the rattling train, the words went over and over in her head, mixing themselves up with the advertisements she read on the walls of the train. ‘There is no substitute for—let it be someone nice—for wool—’Pon my soul, said the—let it be someone nice—for Assurance, remember the—let it be someone nice——’
He was a small man, not particularly tall, with a heavy overcoat and a double breasted blue suit under it that had widely padded shoulders, and he sat with the jacket thrown open, his hands in his trouser pockets as he talked at her over the meal they ate in a Fortes’ restaurant in Leicester Square, so that the suit made his shoulders look disproportionately wide. She watched him talk, a blank and automatic smile on her face, and wondered how he would look without the suit.
‘Will I have to see him naked, or will the lights be off? Christ, will I have to? Will he want me naked? How do you take your clothes off when they’re watching? Do a strip-tease thing? That’d be a—how do you take your pants off without looking bloody silly—they never show you that, do they? Always show you before and after, never show you the thing—I can’t do it—I’ve got to. I’ve had the penicillin—I’ll have to—ergot—I could use that if it happened. How much? When? How do you find out how much and when? One of the patients—will one of them know that? How can I ask them? Christ, what’ll he do? Put the light out?’
The pick-up had been so easy, everything had turned out to be too easy altogether. He was staying at the Regent Palace for a week, he’d said in the bar, over from the Channel Islands for a week on business, something to do with agricultural machinery. And he was experienced, she could feel that. The smooth way he had started talking to her, even before she had had to do anything to attract attention. No by-play with watches and telephones this time. She’d just ordered a drink, and there he was, asking her out for a meal. And a careful man with money, no fancy restaurant, just Fortes—he knew his way around, and he wasn’t going to be any mug, not this one.
‘How about a little drink, eh, Sylvia?’ he asked, when he had paid the bill, and they were out in the noise and fried onion smell of Leicester Square. ‘These pubs look too crowded for comfort, what do you say? Come on back to my room, eh? Got a nice little bottle there—brought it over—don’t see why I should pay fancy prices in these pubs when I’ve got some of the real stuff in my room——’
She didn’t argue, not even in play. There was no point. She
had made up her mind, and there was no point. The only way in which this evening was the same as others was in the way she had chosen her name.
‘I’m Sylvia Swinton,’ she had said firmly, and rather loudly, when he had told her his name was Jimmy Rennard—‘From the French you see—should be Reynard, I daresay, but Rennard is how we say it. Must have been a Frenchman in the family somewhere, eh? Got the best of the French, and best of the English, that’s me——’ And he had pinched her thigh under the table, and winked heavily.
In his room, he took her coat, and then sat down beside her on the bed, his free arm round her, drinking his whisky in short gulps, watching her over the edge of the glass as she sipped hers.
‘Nice girl you are, Sylvia? And a nurse—it’s a great job, that, and you nurses, you know how——’
‘How to look after ourselves—yes,’ she said, and put her glass down on the floor at their feet.
He emptied his, and dropped it on the bed behind them, and grinned widely as she lifted her head.
‘Well, it’s nice to know that, anyway,’ he said, and put his face close to hers. She didn’t turn away, holding her head still with a conscious effort, and he kissed her, his tongue forcing teeth apart, thrusting hard into her mouth so that she had to pull back, feeling nausea rising thick in her throat.
He pulled back too, and looked sharply at her, his eyes narrowing. ‘What’s the matter? Got bad breath or something, have I? Or are you one of those who only go half way? Because if you are, I’m not falling for——’