The Hive (12 page)

‘I know that, Sister. It can’t be easy for you, with so many chronics, I know that. I’m just trying to suggest that there might be a better way of caring for them. A less—methodical way—a more relaxed one.’

‘I—— Honestly, Matron, I just don’t see what you’re getting at. The doctors—they like this ward. They’re always saying how nice it is, it never smells the way it might, with so many incontinents——’

‘My dear Sister, I told you—I appreciate all that—very well indeed. Look, perhaps I can explain if——’ She stopped. Then with a rather uncharacteristic diffidence she went on.

‘I didn’t want to talk of things that happened before I came here—I hardly have any right to do so. But something did happen on this ward that very clearly illustrates the point I want to make. About six months ago, a patient climbed over her bedsides, and fell, and she fractured her femur.’

‘It happened at night! There weren’t enough nurses on duty! And anyway——’ Josephine’s voice rose in shrill triumph. ‘Doesn’t that show that bedsides are needed?’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I’m afraid it shows the opposite. I went for the woman’s notes, and as far as I could see, she was in no way disoriented when she was admitted. There was nothing in the report book to show she ever became so. She was in for investigation of hypertension——’

‘I remember. She shouldn’t have been in for more than a few days——’

‘But she was in for months, over on the surgical ward. It seems to me that that accident happened
because
of the bedsides. She may have felt shut in—imprisoned. Maybe that
was why she tried to get out of bed and only succeeded in falling over the top of the bedsides. Or she may have wanted to go to the lavatory and not been able to attract the nurse’s attention. So she tried to get out for that reason—and whatever the reason, in having to climb over the bedsides she didn’t need, because she was in no way displaying the sort of disturbed behaviour that makes the sides necessary, in trying to get over them, I say, she fractured her femur. They made her illness worse, rather than better. I didn’t want to use this example, but I had to, to show you what I meant——’

‘You mean to say you think that accident was my fault?’

‘Not directly, and certainly not from negligence. But perhaps partly because of your misdirected zeal.’

‘No one—not the doctors, or Mr. Heston,
no one
, said it was my fault when it happened. Even the relatives, they all saw we’d done our best. If the sides hadn’t been on and it had happened it would have been different. I’d have thought it was my fault then, and I’d have said so——’

Elizabeth tried not to look impatient. ‘I’m sure no one blamed you. I’m not trying to blame you now. It’s all past history anyway. I’m simply trying to suggest to you that you might be—too rigid. That you worry too much about details——’

‘Well, I can’t deny I get into a state sometimes, but it’s only that I want to do things properly——’ Josephine stopped, and then said almost slyly, ‘Is this to do with the group discussion idea?’

Elizabeth looked startled.

‘I wasn’t thinking about that when I decided to talk to you about this. Why do you think I might have been?’

‘It was something someone said. About the discussions. It could—help people to get better methods—or more co-operation from the nurses with the ones you’ve got. I just thought—well, if you don’t like my way of doing things—I don’t know——’ Her voice trailed off.

Elizabeth smiled. ‘Well, whoever said that was quite right. The discussions could help people to understand their methods in rather more depth. Look, Sister, let me say this. I’m not happy altogether with this ward. It’s run very well in many
ways—a showpiece——’

‘I try to keep it nice——’

‘And you succeed. Very much so. And when I assured you all I had no wish to interfere drastically with individual wards, I meant it. But I feel very strongly that these patients of yours have some needs that aren’t being met as fully as they might be. I’m not criticising your efforts, or doubting your—sense of responsibility. I’m simply suggesting that you need to give some thought to what I’ve said.’

‘Yes, Matron.’ Josephine sounded tired suddenly.

‘And since you yourself mentioned the group discussions, may I make a suggestion? Could we perhaps choose to discuss method and orderliness at our first meeting? I think I must be the chairman for the first time, and I’ve been casting about for a suitable subject. This might make a very useful one——’

‘Do you want the others to tell me that I’m wrong, then?’ Josephine said quickly. ‘Because——’

‘Nothing of the sort,’ Elizabeth was soothing. ‘They will have no knowledge of this discussion between us. And the meetings won’t be designed to set up one person as an Aunt Sally for everyone else. They will be a chance for people to talk about their own ideas, that’s all. You may be able to convince me I’m wrong——’

She turned to go, Josephine automatically falling into step beside her.

‘Please don’t feel hurt by this little talk we’ve had, Sister Cramm. I’m well aware of your immense value to the Royal. I want only to help you do an even better job than you are doing—and to give you something to think about. I hope you will.’

Josephine watched her go, and turned back to her ward, to the quietness and peace of it, and stared round in a state of considerable unhappiness. Somehow it had lost its power to reassure. She felt almost naked, as though her uniform had been pulled off her back, and she shivered suddenly, before hurrying down the ward to the nurse at the linen cupboard. The girl was putting hand towels next to the dressing towels, and if she did that, someone would be sure to pack the wrong ones in the drums. No matter how often you told them, they never seemed to remember.

Elizabeth was almost the last to arrive in the consultant’s dining room which was used for the committee meeting. It wouldn’t do to let them think she had time to spare to sit about and wait for them. Mr. Heston, at the head of the long table, surrounded by papers, rose to his feet as she came in and greeted her with a booming heartiness.

‘Ah, Matron, good afternoon! Good of you to be so punctual. We’ve a lot to get through this afternoon! Perhaps you would sit here—and here is your copy of the agenda——’

He fussed with papers, and Elizabeth settled herself in the chair at the foot of the table, opposite his own, to which he had led her, and while ostensibly reading the agenda, took stock of the men around her.

On her left Jamieson sat sideways, his long legs sprawling, staring out of the window at the foggy afternoon in apparent boredom. He had nodded his greeting at her, and now seemed to be disinterested in her presence. Beside him, Sisson sat with his heavy shoulders hunched, staring down at his own agenda, his face set in a sulky expression. On the other side of him, two men, Michael Norton, a surgeon, and Albert Jessolo, the gynaecologist, were in quiet conversation, and beyond them, Sir Peter Jeffers, his body looking lost inside his elderly morning coat, sat muttering to himself as he peered at his own agenda.

Of the five men on the other side of the table, Elizabeth was aware of only one, James French, who sat in the centre of the row, his head to one side as he listened to the conversation between the paediatrician and the Ear-Nose-and-Throat man on his left. As Elizabeth put her agenda down and folded her hands on the table, French caught her eye, and bowed his head with an ironical look on his face. She allowed herself a small smile, and then looked calmly down the table at Heston, who was now making small coughing noises, preparatory to opening
the meeting.

‘Well, now gentlemen, before we start on the first item, I am sure you would like me to welcome Miss Manton, our new Matron, to her first committee meeting with us. I am sure she will have much of value to offer our deliberations, and on your behalf I would like to assure her that we will be very happy to answer any queries she may have—though we have a great deal to get through today——’ The men moved slightly, and nodded, and Heston smiled at Elizabeth and bowed, and immediately forgot her.

‘First, then, Item one, finance sub-committee report.’

Jessolo coughed, and leaned forward to gabble the finance report, and Mr. Goldman, the E.N.T. consultant, cut in with an argument about the refusal to buy a new audiogram for his department. Elizabeth listened to the wrangling that ensued, and let her thoughts slide away.

There was really only one item on this agenda that concerned her, the allocation of the beds in the old Light Department, now called Mary Cooper Ward, and this was well down the list, set just before Any Other Business. She could feel French’s eyes on her as she thought about it.

How powerful could she be in the matter? It was hard to say. According to French, the most important argument against his request for them would be the nursing problem. If this was in fact so, then she would have a good deal of power. And French wanted her to use it on his behalf.

She began to doodle on her copy of the agenda. When to use that power, that was the question. Now? If she did that, would French no longer have any need for her in her position as Matron? And if he no longer needed her as Matron, would he be prepared to consider her as a woman?

She had few illusions about James French. She knew perfectly well that he had never felt anything stronger for her than an intellectual interest. She had never aroused in him any real emotional response. She felt a sudden anger rise in her. It was so unfair, really. He had always had an intense physical attraction for her, one that had first excited her, and then depressed her. It wasn’t just his good looks—she had never been a woman who found a beautiful face and muscular body
particularly interesting. Indeed, the sort of man she admired most was the bony ascetic type. The two men she had enjoyed affairs with in the past had been like that. She had enjoyed them, and then discarded them when they had become boring to her and bored with her, and with no regrets on either side.

But this man, who could make her aware of his presence in a room as no other man ever had, wasn’t like them. He would never bore her either physically or mentally, and it was this realisation that made her angry. It wasn’t that she nursed a romantic love for him—she wasn’t the type to love anyone in that way, she was sure. But this violent feeling he could arouse in her—and she was adult enough to recognise it as uncomplicated physical desire—it was infuriating.

If it had been less strong, more like the pleasant stirrings her previous lovers had caused, she could have enjoyed the present situation more thoroughly. It would have been amusing to juggle with him, to plan a campaign to get him as a lover, if it had not mattered so much that she should succeed.

But it did matter. She wanted him, and if she failed to get him, she would suffer. This clamouring need that their remeeting had brought back so sharply complicated matters so.

She looked at her doodles, and her sense of humour came to her rescue, helping her to relax and think more objectively. She had drawn a series of circles, looping all round the print on the paper and had linked them so that they looked like a sinuous tube. All round the tube, she had drawn a series of mountain peaks, each peak behind two others, so that the drawing seemed to stretch into infinity.

‘And if that isn’t Freudian, I don’t know what is,’ she told herself in amusement. ‘Tubes and phallic symbols—ye Gods, how obvious can I get——?’

The afternoon dragged on, through interminable talk about house surgeons’ and registrars’ duty rotas, the parking problem in the main courtyard, the arrangement of Out Patient sessions to fit in with theatre lists and ward rounds.

But they reached Item six at last, and Elizabeth became more alert, and looked at Heston as he cleared his throat again.

‘Item Six—allocation of Mary Cooper Ward. Ten beds, in two five-bedded units. We have three applications for them
here—Mr. Jamieson’s, who wants them to extend his existing bed allocation for general surgery, Mr. Sisson’s, who wants them for a gastro-intestinal ward, and Dr. French’s, who wants them for a purpose not yet fully explained. Any comments, gentlemen?’

Sisson leaned forward with the first sign of energy he had shown all afternoon.

‘Mr. Jamieson will forgive me, I hope, if I point out that his own bed allocation already exceeds everyone else’s. He’s got forty-five beds to my twenty—and even if these ten are given to the medical side, we still won’t have anything like parity with the surgeons. As I see it, we’re already out of balance at the Royal—far more surgical work than medical, and with all respect to surgery, you can’t run a hospital that way. It’s my medical unit that provides a good deal of the surgical work as it is—and the local G.P.’s are sending far too much good stuff outside the area because I can’t find beds for their people without keeping ’em waiting for months. And there’s turnover too. Medical bed turnover is—um—let’s see’—he ruffled his papers—‘ten days on the average, to a surgical turnover of five days. You get two surgical patients in to every one medical one as it is——Ten more beds, and you’ve put the balance out for good and all. I don’t see you can legitimately support your request, Jamieson, and since we know virtually nothing of French’s ideas, I’m hoping the committee will see this my way.’

He leaned back, and glowered at Jamieson, who had not moved during the time Sisson had been speaking. French made no move, but several of the other men moved slightly, showing discomfort. None of them had any desire to add to their own bed allocations, but they had a passionate desire to prevent Jamieson from adding to his. Jamieson had already managed to overload his own department with great success, using a mixture of sheer bullying at committee level and flattery of the nursing staff. Jamieson was very popular with the sisters at the Royal, and there were few of them who had not at some time helped him when he had wanted to poach other men’s patients, other men’s beds, even the services of other men’s registrars and housemen.

‘There’s no need yet for me to intervene,’ French thought.
‘The first step is to get Jamieson’s request turned down in favour of a medical demand.’ So he sat quietly, inscrutable as he listened.