Wish with the Candles

Emma advanced two cautious steps and held out her small capable hand. ‘How do you do?’ she asked politely, and added ‘Professor,’ hastily.

He took her hand briefly. ‘How delightful to meet you again, Sister,’ he remarked in such a mild voice that she gave him a faintly startled look, to find the green eyes staring into hers with a most decided twinkle. ‘I have been looking forward to this,’ he went on, ‘ever since we met in Holland,’ and explained to the room at large, ‘You see, we are already acquainted,’ which remark was met with a chorus of ‘Oh, really?’ and ‘How extraordinary!’ a chorus to which Emma didn’t add her voice, being far too occupied in restoring her calm. It was only when she realized that five pairs of eyes were watching her that she managed weakly:

‘Yes, it’s a small world, isn’t it?’ and followed this profound remark with a more businesslike one to the effect that the theatre was ready.

Professor Teylingen said at once, ‘Splendid. I look forward to a most interesting morning.’ He smiled at Sister Cox as he spoke and to Emma’s surprise that formidable lady smiled back and got out of her chair with a show of willingness quite unusual to her. Probably the old battleaxe was holding her fire until they got into the theatre, where the professor would only have to ask for something she either hadn’t got or didn’t want, for her to flatten him. Emma took the opportunity to look at him as he stood talking to Little Willy—no, he wouldn’t be easily flattened; it would remain to be seen who would come off best. She slid away from the office, put on her theatre cap and mask and went to send the nurses into theatre. She found them bunched together in the anaesthetic room and said urgently, ‘For heaven’s sake—he’s about to scrub up!’

‘Not before he’s met the rest of the theatre staff,’ interposed the professor’s voice from the door, and she wheeled round to encounter a smile which threw her quite off balance.

‘Oh well—yes,’ she began inadequately, and then becoming very professional indeed, ‘Professor Teylingen, may I introduce Staff Nurse Collins, Nurse Jessop and Nurse Cully—we have a nursing auxiliary too, but she’s not on duty until this afternoon, and two technicians and the porters.’

He said with a little smile. ‘Yes, I met them yesterday evening when I came round with Mr Soames. I feel sure we shall enjoy working together.’

The smile became brilliant as he went away, closing the door quietly behind him.

Jessop spoke first. ‘Golly, Sister, he’s smashing—he doesn’t look bad-tempered either—they said he was.’ Her tone of voice suggested that if anyone thought otherwise they would have to settle with her first. And Cully, who was a little older and a little wiser, observed, ‘He’s quite old, isn’t he, but it doesn’t notice—it makes the medicos look like schoolboys.’ And Staff, who was engaged to be married and should have known better, asked, ‘Is he married?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Emma calmly, ‘and since he’s only here for a couple of months and doesn’t live in England, there isn’t much point in getting turned on, is there?’ She added in a quietly severe voice, ‘Now into theatre all of you, please—Sister will want us all to give a good impression.’ She paused as she went. ‘And Nurse Jessop, do try not to drop anything.’

The first case was a lengthy one and Mr Soames did it with the professor assisting and Little Willy making himself useful. It was the repair of a hiatus hernia which involved a partial gastrectomy and some excision of the oesophagus. Mr Soames was good at it; he did a great many week after week, and being familiar with his work was completely relaxed—as was the professor. The two of them talked as they worked, frequently including Little Willy and Mr Bone in their conversation, and even Sister Cox, who didn’t agree with talking in theatre unless it was strictly business, so that her answers were short and a little snappy.

‘You don’t like conversation in theatre, Sister?’ asked the professor at his mildest. She shot him a darkling glance over her mask.

‘No, sir, I can’t say I do,’ she said huffily. ‘We’re here to work.’

She snapped her Cheatles angrily above her head and Emma, interpreting their clatter, nodded to Cully standing ready with her receiver to take what Mr Soames held dangling from his forceps. He flung it lightly, forceps and all, in her general direction and she caught it with a dexterity which would have done justice to a first-class cricketer in a Test Match, and disappeared in the direction of the sluice, acknowledging Mr Bone’s thumbs-up sign with a soundless giggle. The professor, without looking up from the little bit of sewing he was engaged upon, remarked:

‘I must compliment you upon your dexterous staff, Sister Cox,’ and when she gave an impatient grunt, went on, ‘I hope I shall not put you out too much while I am here. I find I work much better if there is a certain amount of talk. It is relaxing, you know—so vital to our work, do you not agree?’

Emma could see by the look on Mad Minnie’s face that she had no wish to agree but felt it expedient to do so. After all, the wretched man was important, though why they had to bring foreigners into the country to teach them something they could do better she did not know. Emma read her superior’s mind like an open book and suppressed a smile as Sister Cox’s eyes widened as the professor went on, ‘I daresay you find it most vexing to have to put up with a foreigner for even a short time. I’m sorry to hear about your—er—feet. I take it the operation is to be quite soon?’

She looked as though she would explode. ‘In two days’ time,’ she handed him a grooved director which he accepted politely and didn’t use. ‘You’ll have to manage with Sister Hastings—by the time I’m back you’ll be gone.’ Her tone implied ‘and a good riddance too’.

‘Regrettably,’ said Professor Teylingen gently, ‘but I am sure your operation will improve you in every way, Sister Cox.’

Mr Soames made a muffled sound behind his mask and Mr Bone and Little Willy dealt with sudden coughs and the nurses, who had the rest of the day with Sister Cox to face, saved their giggles until they could get down to the dining-room, where they would recount the conversation word for word, together with a thorough description of the handsome Mr Teylingen.

The professor accepted another needle and gut into his needleholder and began to stitch with the finicky concentration of a lady of leisure working at her petit point, while Emma nodded to Staff to go and start scrubbing, ready to retire to one corner of the theatre and lay up for the next case. The professor, she noted, was a meticulous worker but a fast one, something which he chose to disguise under a deliberate manner which could be deceiving. He had also, to confound rumour, remained perfectly good-tempered throughout the lengthy operation, though there had been nothing to arouse his ire—no dropped dressings, no lotion splashed on the floor by Jessop’s too quick hand; nothing in fact to spoil the calm of the theatre’s atmosphere, only Mad Minnie’s tartness, of course. Emma had got so used to her that she had rather overlooked the fact that a stranger coming into their circle for the first time might find her a shade dictatorial. She picked up the dressing lying ready under the trolley and arranged it correctly around and over the drains and tubes which the two surgeons had stitched into the patient with all the care of a dressmaker stitching in a zip, aware as she did so of the close proximity of the professor to her.

They had coffee at the end of the case while the nurses bustled around theatre, readying it for the next case, and Staff, sterile in gown and gloves, waited patiently by her trolleys. The office, thought Emma, was hardly the place for the social drinking of coffee by five people. She perched uneasily on the second chair while Sister Cox sat behind the desk, looking murderous, and the men lounged against the walls, drinking coffee far too hot and eating biscuits with all the enthusiasm of schoolboys while they discussed the case they had just finished. That the talk was highly inappropriate to the drinking of coffee, or for that matter, the drinking or eating of anything, didn’t worry Emma in the least; for several years now she had reconciled herself to taking her refreshment to the accompaniment of vivid descriptions of any number of unmentionable subjects. Now she listened with interest while the professor explained why he had found his method of performing the next operation so satisfactory—something which he did with a nice lack of boasting. She went away when she had finished her coffee and started to scrub up and was almost ready when the three men sauntered in to join her at the sinks.

‘Taking the case?’ inquired the professor idly, and when she had said that yes, she was, she added, ‘Are there any particular instruments you prefer to use, sir, or any you dislike?’

He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Very considerate of you, Sister Hastings. I like a blade and a blade holder—always. I like Macdonald’s dissector, I take a size nine glove if you have them and I prefer Hibutane solution. There is no need to bother about these today, though I should be grateful if the gloves could be changed.’

Emma said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and went into theatre. She sent Staff for the correct size and stood quietly while Cully tied her into her gown and then opened the glove drum so that she could take her own size sixes. The operation would be a long one—the removal of an oesophagus in a patient with cancer; the man was still young enough to make the operation worthwhile, severe though it was, and as it had been diagnosed in good time, there was every chance of success. She went without haste to her trolleys and began the business of counting swabs and sponges, threading needles and checking the instruments before making sure that all the complicated machinery needed was in position and that the technicians were ready. Sister Cox wasn’t in theatre; she had gone to see the orthopaedic surgeon about her feet, so that the atmosphere of the theatre was a good deal lighter than it had been, although there was no let-up in the strict routine. Emma reflected that it was nice to see Cully and Jessop so relaxed, and Jessop, by some miracle, hadn’t dropped anything at all.

The patient was wheeled in with Mr Bone at his head and propelling his anaesthetic trolley with him. He winked at Emma as the porters arranged the patient on the table and she returned the wink, for they had been friends for several years and indeed she was one of the few who knew that his wife had been in a nursing home for years and was very unlikely to come out of it—a wife whom he dearly loved. The three surgeons walked in and behind them, Peter Moore, the houseman, who was coming to watch. Peter was young and awkward, very clever and just about as clumsy as Nurse Jessop. Emma heaved a sigh as she saw him, for if Jessop didn’t do something awful, he certainly would.

She handed the sterile towels and watched while the surgeons arranged them with meticulous care and then fastened them with the towel clips she had ready. The professor asked placidly, ‘Is everything fixed, Sister?’—a question she knew covered not only the actual operation itself but the patient’s immediate aftercare as well. She said briefly, ‘Yes, sir,’ and proffered a knife.

He took it without haste. ‘Good—I take it we’re all ready,’ and made a neat incision.

The operation seemed to be going very well. The professor dissected and snipped and probed and cut again and after a long time he and Mr Soames started to stitch the end results together. They were perhaps half-way through this delicate, very fast process when Jessop, about to change the lotion in the bowl stand beside the professor, made one of her clumsy movements and lurched against him, pouring a jugful of warm saline over his legs, and for good measure, touching him with her hand. Emma prayed a wordless little prayer as she said calmly:

‘Another gown for the professor, Staff. Nurse Cully, fetch another set of bowls. Mr Moore, be good enough to stay by me in case I should need anything.’ She handed a tetra cloth to Mr Soames, and the professor, after one short, explosive sentence in his own language, stood back from the table so that Staff could take his unsterile gown. He nodded to Mr Soames before he went to scrub again and Mr Soames said, ‘Right, old chap, Will and I will carry on, shall we?’

No one else had said anything—what was there to say at such a time? Poor Jessop, quite overcome, had fled out of the theatre, and Emma had let her go, for she would be worse than useless now, and a good wholesome cry in the kitchen would restore her nerve more quickly than anything else.

Professor Teylingen came back presently and Staff with him to relieve an uneasy Mr Moore, and the operation was finished without further mishap with the men talking among themselves in a deliberate, calm manner which Emma felt sure that in the professor’s case was assumed, for she could sense his rage, well battened down under his bland exterior, and felt sure that once he had finished his work he would make no bones about unleashing it.

He did, but not immediately. The patient had gone back to the IC Unit, the theatre had been cleared and got ready for the next, luckily short case and Emma was scrubbing up once more before he appeared beside her. He wasted no time on preliminaries, but, ‘Sister, you will be good enough to see that Nurse Jessop remains out of the theatre while I am in it. I will not have my patients’ lives jeopardized by a nurse who cannot do her work properly.’ He picked up a nailbrush and gave her a cold look. ‘Perhaps I should speak to Sister Cox.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ said Emma before she could stop herself, and then remembering who he was added, ‘Sir,’ and saw his lips twitch faintly.

‘No one—I repeat, no one, Sister Hastings—tells me what I may dare to do or not to do.’

Now she had made him even more angry. Poor Jessop! ‘Listen,’ she said earnestly, quite forgetting to say sir this time, ‘don’t tell Mad M…Sister Cox. You see she’s…she didn’t want Nurse Jessop here in the first place and so she thinks she’s no good, and Jessop’s scared stiff of her. I know she’s clumsy and slow, but if she’s given a chance she’ll be a good nurse one day. Give her that chance, I’ll keep her on swab counting if you like…but if only someone would tell her she’s not a fool.’ She sighed. ‘People are so stupid,’ said Emma indignantly, and glared at him over her mask.

‘And I am included amongst these—er—stupid people?’ He sounded interested.

Her ‘Yes’ was a mumble. She had got herself into a fine mess. Probably he would request Mad Minnie to keep her out of the theatre too and that would leave only Staff to scrub…and serve him right. She began to scrub the other hand with her usual thoroughness and had the brush taken from her as he twisted her round to face him.

‘I don’t seem to be starting off on the right foot, do I?’ he asked mildly. ‘I don’t make a habit of making girls cry, you know—but the patient comes first, don’t you agree? Would it help if we were to go and find this nurse and endeavour to calm her down? You say she is going to be a good nurse—who am I to dispute your opinion?’

They found Jessop in the kitchen, squeezed behind the door with reddened eyes and a deplorable sniff. Emma said at once, ‘Ah, there you are, Jessop. I shall need you in theatre in a minute or two, so stop crying like a good girl. No one’s angry—here’s Professor Teylingen to tell you so. Now I’m going to scrub and when professor goes to scrub too go into theatre and make sure everything’s ready, will you?’

She walked away, leaving him to deal with the situation, and presently when she went into theatre, evinced no curiosity as to what he had said to Jessop, who was standing, gowned and masked, waiting for her. The operation was to be a comparatively simple one. The patient had suffered a stab wound some weeks previously, had recovered from it, and now was back in hospital with an empyema. Now he was going to have an inch or so of rib removed and a drainage tube inserted—a fairly quick operation which Jessop should manage to get through without doing anything too awful. Emma counted her swabs, signed to Jessop to tie the surgeon’s gowns, checked the contents of the Mayo’s table and handed the first of the sterile towels to Little Willy.

A quarter of an hour later she was clearing up her instruments once more and Jessop was carefully unscrewing the sucker jar. The men, with a brief word, had gone, Staff and Cully would be back in twenty minutes or so and Mrs Tate, the auxiliary, would be on duty in a couple of minutes. Emma put the last of the instruments into one of the lotion bowls and said, ‘All right, Nurse, you’re off at one, aren’t you? Mrs Tate can finish that,’ and bent to do her sharps as Jessop said: ‘Thank you, Sister,’ and ploughed her way to the door, narrowly avoiding two electric cables and a bucket, and then turned round and ploughed all the way back again. ‘He’s lovely, Sister,’ she breathed. ‘He told me that when he was a medical student he forgot he was scrubbed up and turned on the diathermy machine and everyone had to wait while he took off his gown and his gloves and scrubbed up again and on his way back he touched the surgeon’s gown. He says he’s never forgotten it, and he said,’ she went on rapidly, ‘that you have to do something awful like that just once and then you never do it again, so I’m not to worry.’

She looked rather imploringly at Emma. ‘He is right, isn’t he, Sister?’

‘Yes,’ said Emma firmly, ‘he’s quite right, and he’s been very kind too—you realize that, don’t you? You could have done a lot of damage to the patient. Supposing Professor Teylingen had jerked his hand—he was stitching, remember?’

Jessop looked crestfallen. ‘Yes, I know, Sister. I—I thought I had—that’s why I ran away. I’m sorry I did. He said I must never run away again because we’re a team and we can’t manage without each other. I thought…that is, Sister Cox said I was a nuisance…’

Emma started on the needles. ‘No, you’re not—you’ll do quite well, especially if you remember that bit about one of a team. And remember too that Sister Cox has had a lot of pain with her feet and she’s been in theatre so long, she’s forgotten just a little how difficult it is at first.’ She smiled. ‘Now go off duty, Nurse.’

Jessop went to the door again. At it she said, ‘Goodbye, Sister—you’re nice.’

And let’s hope I stay that way, thought Emma, and don’t get like Mad Minnie. The prospect was daunting; she closed her mind to it and began to think about Little Willy’s invitation to go with him to see the latest film that evening. They had been out together on several occasions, but although she liked him, that was as far as it went and she suspected that it was as far as it went with him too. She supposed she would go, and along with the thought came a speculative one as to what the professor intended to do with his evening, and where he was living, and with whom.

In the Sisters’ dining-room, where she went a short time later, she was greeted with expectant faces and a great many questions.

‘You lucky devil,’ remarked one of her closer friends, Madge Freeman from Men’s Surgical. ‘I saw him in the distance this morning—that hair—and his smile!’ She groaned in a theatrical manner. ‘A trendy dresser too. What’s he like, Emma?’

Emma looked resignedly at the cold meat on her plate and helped herself to two lettuce leaves and a radish. ‘Very neat worker,’ she stated. ‘He’s here to demonstrate his theory about…’ She was stopped by a concerted howl from her companions.

‘Cut it out, Emma,’ one of them begged. ‘Who cares about his theories? Is he married—engaged? What’s his voice like? Does he speak with an accent? Is he…?’

Emma peered at the potatoes; being late, there wasn’t much choice. ‘Cold,’ she pronounced, ‘and hard,’ and seeing the astonishment on her friends’ faces, hastened to add, ‘The potatoes, and it’s no good asking me. I don’t know a thing about him, I really don’t. He’s got green eyes,’ she offered as an afterthought, ‘and a deep voice.’

‘Dark brown velvet or gravelly?’ someone wanted to know.

‘A bit of both,’ said Emma, having thought about it, ‘and he’s got almost no accent.’

She applied herself to her dinner amid cries of discontent from her table companions. ‘Well, don’t carry on so,’ she advised kindly. ‘He’ll be going to the wards to see his cases, won’t he?’

She looked at Madge, who brightened visibly and asked, ‘What’s he got this afternoon—something for ICU, I suppose.’ She looked round the table. ‘Margaret isn’t here—she’ll get it.’

‘There’s a lobectomy at half past two; he’ll be using his new technique, so there’ll be an audience in the gallery and the patient will go to Margaret—she’s got the others. Why don’t you go up and see her? You might be able to meet him, he’s sure to be in and out of there for the next few hours after theatre’s finished.’

Several pairs of suspicious eyes were turned upon her. ‘You’re very casual, Emma. If I were you I’d keep him to myself,’ remarked Casualty Sister, a striking girl with corn-coloured hair and enormous eyes.

Emma helped herself to treacle tart and gave the speaker a considering look. ‘If I were you, Sybil,’ she said reasonably, ‘I jolly well would.’

The afternoon’s work went perfectly, probably because neither Sister Cox nor Jessop were there. The professor worked smoothly, his quiet voice detailing every stage of the operation he was performing to the audience in the screened-off gallery. When he had finished he thanked Emma nicely and left, closely followed by Little Willy and Peter Moore. Little Willy came back after ten minutes or so and asked Emma if she had made up her mind about going to the cinema. It was, he pointed out, a rather super film and if she could get away in time… And Emma, who, for some reason she didn’t care to name felt restless, agreed to make the effort. Two hours later, as they were leaving the hospital by its main entrance, they passed the professor coming in. His ‘good evening’ was casual, but his green eyes rested thoughtfully for several moments upon Emma.

The next day he wasn’t operating at all; Mr Soames did a short list and then an emergency on a stoved-in chest. The professor, Emma was informed at dinner, had spent most of the morning in ICU getting to know the nurses…a most unfair state of things, someone remarked, for Margaret, who was in charge, was happily married. Madge had had a visit from him too, which had caused her to go all dreamy-eyed and thoughtful.

‘He turns me on,’ she sighed. ‘I know he’s quite old, but he’s got such a way of looking at you.’ She added complacently, ‘I think he likes me. Is he nice to you, Emma?’

‘He’s very pleasant to work for,’ said Emma sedately, ‘but he can be quite stern—Mad Minnie didn’t stand a chance with him; a good thing she’s going off to Sick Bay tomorrow. By the time she gets back he’ll be gone.’

She suffered a pang as she spoke which was almost physical.

Kitty was waiting for her when she came off duty that evening, sitting on the bed reading the latest book on theatre technique which Emma had just bought herself. She got up to embrace her sister, observing:

‘Darling, what a conscientious girl you are—this is only just out.’

Emma cast her cap on to the bed and started to take the pins out of her neat topknot. ‘Yes, I know, but things change all the time. How are you, Kitty?’

She smiled at her sister as she divested herself of her uniform. Kitty was four years younger than she was and by some quirk of nature, although they were alike, Kitty had been cast in a more vivid mould. Her eyes were brown and fringed with extravagantly curling lashes whereas Emma had to be content with hazel eyes and lashes of the same soft brown as her hair so that she had recourse to the aid of mascara when she had the time and patience to use it. Kitty’s hair was a rich glowing brown and her nose was small and straight, while Emma’s tilted at its end. They had the same mouths, though, rather large and turned up at the corners, and they both had the same sweet smile.

‘How did the exams go?’ inquired Emma. Kitty was a second year medical student at one of the London hospitals and doing well.