Nurse Jess by Joyce Dingwell Read Free Book Online

about Tar Baby and Margaret recounted a new inmate to Three who had received a blood transfusion w ithin minutes of reaching Belinda.
    “ Did you know we were the only hospital to admit prems from other hospitals, Jessa? Doctor Elizabeth told me that she has given transfusions to one hundred and twenty Rh-factor babies in two years, and only lost one. ”
    “ I suppose there must always be a loss, ” nodded Jessa, re membering Sister-in-charge ’ s words, that a premature chi ld had so many degrees less chance of living. For some reason she thought of her brown boronia girl.
    She fed all the afternoon. Feeding, like diapering, was always with them. The Bouncer—more affable being fed than bathed—cam e first, then the Bruiser, the Ace, Madeleine, the femme fatale, Russell, Bing, Eric or Little by Little.
    Before she went down to afternoon tea she had another peep at Tar Baby. The wee girl lay very quiet, but then so did Brer Rabbit. Jessa tiptoed away feeling a little cheered.
    When she returned she was given drop feeding, and that took a long time. It was only five minutes from the end of her day when she finished giving her last issue of drops.
    She stole along to the cubicle for a final peep, but Tar Baby was gone. Brer Rabbit was still there, still wan and pale. Perhaps her little scrap of brown boronia had been placed in an isolet. She went to enquire.
    Sister Helen said, “ Tar Baby, Nurse Jess? No, she didn ’ t make it, the poor tiny sweet. Of course we didn ’ t expect her to. She was very prem and in very poor condition. We have only faint hopes for Brer Rabbit, too, he is also frail. ”
    Jessa said, “ Yes, ” and went out into the corridor. She felt that old tight ball she always knew with finality stiffening in her heart. She had never got over it, not in her four years at Great Southern, that sudden blankness, that listening, seeking, feeling sensation... that knowledge of a falling star.
    She stood there irresolute, wanting to comfort—or was it wanting comfort?
    She had often comforted at G.S. Someone—it had been Matron—had said she possessed that touch.
    But there was no one to comfort here. Perhaps not anywhere. Perhaps the mother of the little tar baby, too, had gone ahead. Or she might be too sick to care. Or she might have known before her baby came to Belinda that it was all quite hopeless.
    Still it was strange not to go and put your arms around someone, touch their hand with yours.
    That was the comfort she was missing, her comfort in their comfort.
    On a sudden impulse Jessa went along to Ward Six.
    In the small off-cubicle she could hear a nurse moving around busily. She was the only one on duty. It was the quiet hour. Silently she tiptoed to the Perfesser ’ s crib.
    He was awake. He looked at her in that old wise way babies do even though one knows they must be unaware of everything. He still had that same lost little look. “ Hallo, Perfesser, ” she said.
    Then all at once she knew that someone else was visiting. He had come the other side and was bending over Master X, and, as usual, his hair fell forward as he did so and his glasses sat askew. A piece of cotton still dangled absurdly from one wing.
    “ Late shift? ” he asked.
    “ No, sir. ”
    The eyebrows, as shaggy as the hair, raised in silent question.
    “ Visiting, ” Jess said.
    “ Every baby ? ”
    “ No. ”
    “ But this baby? ”
    “ Yes. ”
    “ Why? ” asked Professor Gink.
    Why. Why had she visited the Perfesser? Jessa only knew one reason, and it had no connection, no connection at all, but stumblingly she stammered it. “ The Tar Baby died, ” she said.
    She knew at once she could make no sense, that this show of emotion, even to a man who advocated emotion, must border on famous sentimentality, that she was being maudlin in fact.
    Then quietly, gently, he was saying, “ So that little brown leaf has left the tree, ” and Jessa was seeing a leaf falling... falling... then lying at last on the