‘Five minutes, no more.’
Nervous about what I would find, I walked into the side room where Nelly lay. She looked just the same as she had the night before. But as I neared her bed, her eye – the one I could see that wasn’t covered in that awful expressionless mask – flickered open.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She looked at me and her breathing changed, just a little, as if she were trying to speak.
‘Don’t try to talk.’ It sounded so painful, I didn’t want her to hurt herself. I took her fingers in mine, averting my eyes fromher bandages and her terrible shaved head. Weakly, almost imperceptibly, I felt her hand squeeze mine.
‘Oh Nelly,’ I said, almost dizzy with relief. ‘You’ve given me the most awful scare, you sod.’
Her fingers moved again and her eye met mine.
‘We’ve got to get you better, love. And get you home. Because you know how untidy I am. There are already dirty plates in the sink. Piled high they are.’
I laughed, but it sounded forced and fake. Nelly’s eye closed and her fingers went limp in mine. Without thinking, I shifted my hold so I could feel her pulse. There it was, beating nicely. A little fast, perhaps, but there all the same. She was asleep. I felt light-headed with relief.
‘I have to go or Matron will be furious,’ I said. Nelly stayed still. ‘I’ll come back later. I’ll try to find the book, shall I? We can have a look at what people have been writing.’
Wiping a tear from my eye, I kissed Nelly’s hand and then headed off to my own ward to start my shift.
*
Much later, after hours on my feet and after spending half the day rearranging the ward to squeeze in another two beds, much to all of our disbelief and concern, I handed over to the night staff.
‘I owe you for this morning,’ I told Petra. She looked at me impassively through her dark, sleepy eyes and then grinned.
‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Nelly’s one of us, isn’t she? How’s she doing?’
‘On the mend,’ I told her confidently, half-hoping that if I said the words, they’d be true.
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘And thank you for passing the book on. Do you know where it’s got to?’
‘Last I heard it was going down to theatre.’
*
I found the book in the holding ward next to the operating theatre in the basement. It was strange down there, dim and gloomy in the corridors and ward, and then brightly lit in the theatre itself. I wasn’t sure how Nelly coped being down there all the time. I was glad I didn’t work in that bit of the hospital. Apart from anything else, the part of nursing I liked the best was talking to my patients and getting to know them. I wasn’t cut out to be a theatre nurse. Unlike Nelly who loved the precision that was involved.
With a shudder, I went along the gloomy hallway following the daubs of white paint that had been splattered on the walls to lead the way. It was odd down here. There were a few cupboards that were used for storage and a slightly larger room that had the emergency generator in it. I knew it had been used a few times when the power had gone out during raids. And next to that was the boiler room, which was the warmest place in the hospital. When I’d been a student nurse, we’d had the most awful cold snap with deep snow and freezing temperatures. I remembered there had been ice up the inside of all the windows at home and in the hospital and we would be shivering constantly on the wards. We nurses used to dash down to the boiler room in our breaks to thaw out our frozen fingers and sometimes we even sneaked off for a snooze down there if we’d been tired after a hectic shift. I gave a little snort of laughter. I’d had no idea back then what a hectic shift was really like.
Walking past the boiler room, I went into the holding ward. There weren’t many patients in there, but one – a man in his fifties with a bushy moustache – was sitting up in bed scribbling furiously in the book. His skin had a greyish tinge and he kept stopping to breathe in sharply. He was obviously in pain. I exchanged an alarmed glance with the nurse hovering by his bedside and she rolled her eyes. ‘Mr Hobbs here has appendicitis,’ she said pointedly. ‘And they’re ready to take him into theatre, but he’s got something to write first.’
I made a face. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘That’s my doing. It’s my book.’
‘Oh well done.’ She beamed at me. ‘It’s such a good idea. Make sure you look after it, won’t you?’
‘I will.’
Mr Hobbs finished his writing with a flourish and snapped the book shut. ‘There,’ he said, leaning back against his pillow in exhaustion. ‘Message for the wife, just in case, you know?’
‘I know,’ the nurse said fondly. ‘Having your appendix out is a routine op, though. I’m sure your wife won’t be reading that note.’ She patted his arm in reassurance and took the book from him. ‘I’ll get a porter to take you through to theatre.’
‘I’ll find Frank for you, if you like,’ I said, taking the book as she held it out to me. ‘I’m heading up to the wards now.’
‘No, not Frank, the new chap. He’s around somewhere – I just saw him.’
