Turn Us Again by Charlotte Mendel Read Free Book Online

a.m. infuriated her. They paraded from bed to bed, discussing various ailments and treatments, avoiding eye contact. To them the patient was not a person but a set of disorders. They scrutinized the report at the foot of the patient’s bed and sometimes asked Anne for clarification.
    â€œDid the dose of morphia cause vomiting?”
    â€œYes. Poor Mr. Jones felt quite uncomfortable for a while, didn’t you Mr. Jones?”
    â€œDid you notice any other symptoms?”
    â€œNo.”
    And the doctor would turn to his students to see if they had any suggestions or ideas.
    Her favourite patient was an itinerant Irish tramp with cancer of the larynx, who had been placed on a side ward because he was so ill. After the doctors had swept out of the cancer ward, she went to stand close by his bed, holding his hand.
    â€œHow’s my little girl?’ he whispered, then lapsed into silence.
    â€œI’m wonderful, dear sir,” said Anne. “How are you feeling? Do you have the energy for another chapter in the ongoing saga of a Cambridge nurse’s life?”
    The tramp nodded and tried to smile. He loved hearing about the parties, the flirtations, the excesses, the troop of interested young men falling like dominos in Anne’s energetic wake.
    â€œI had a quiet drink with John last night, and if I can get through eight more hours of work I shall dance at Dorothy’s tonight. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
    The pressure of his hand told her he was listening.
    The nurses got an hour off for lunch, which they took in shifts. Anne bolted down her food and rushed back to her room to have a sleep. Louise opened a sleepy eye and looked at her.
    â€œYou have feet like an elephant, Smithie.”
    Anne laughed, “You sleep like a baby.”
    â€œYou mean ‘well’?”
    â€œDo you know any babies who sleep well? That’s such a misleading expression.”
    Louise plumped up her pillow and leaned back resignedly.
    â€œHow was the morning?”
    â€œThose bloody doctors, swanking in and talking about the patients as though they weren’t there.”
    â€œOh Smithie, who cares? The patients aren’t complaining. Why do you have to take on other people’s issues all the time?”
    Anne picked up her sugar jar, which she kept in a cupboard in the bedroom.
    â€œI’m so sick of drinking tea without enough sugar. It’s been three years since the end of the war. When are they going to stop rationing food? I can’t survive on such minute quantities. Your name is coming off your jar, by the way. You’d better fix it, or I might help myself to your sugar by mistake.”
    â€œYou should be pleasant with the doctors instead of getting angry. Your opinion would have more impact that way,” said Louise.
    â€œI can’t help feeling strongly about things.” Anne sat down on her bed and blew on her tea. “Certain images make me want to weep, like my mother waving goodbye on the train platform in her little pill-box hat, her unhappy eyes above her smile. But I could have died laughing when John Drake told me that he couldn’t live without me last night, despite his misery. That reminds me, are you coming to Dorothy’s tonight?”
    â€œGod no. How do you do it, night after night, after working twelve hours?”
    â€œDon’t be so pathetic. Don’t you have the next couple of days off?”
    â€œAnd I need them to recuperate. In bed with a good book. It’s madness, the way you live.”
    Anne snuggled into bed and looked at Louise through lowered lashes. Louise is rather exotic-looking, she thought to herself. There’d been no blacks in the middle-class district in the north of England, where Anne had grown up. A few Jewish girls minced on the outskirts of her ballet lessons, forming a little clique on the sidelines. They would gather together and talk loudly and seemed to possess a