A Surgical Affair (9 page)

Mark was chewing hard. “Mine’s nougat. It’s good.”

Miss Enid Johnson came through the door. It was only the second time they had seen her since that well-remembered evening when Mark had lost his temper with Dr. Pallie. As usual, she was wearing her brown tweed suit and flat-heeled laced shoes.

“Good evening. May I have Sister Baker’s notes, please?” she asked quietly.

Diana gave them to her off the desk. “Mr. Cole is with her at the moment, Miss Johnson.”

“Good, good. We can all have a bedside conference.” She giggled nervously and trotted out.

“Should I have offered her a chocolate?” Diana asked anxiously. “We were both chewing away, but somehow she seems to be above eating chocolates.”

Mark sat on the desk. “I don’t think she noticed.”

“We were at the same college at Oxford,” Diana told him proudly.

“You don’t look that old.” he said, grinning.

She ignored his wry comment. “She was the most brilliant student they had there for years. She turned down the offer of a Fellowship at the college, so she could be an anesthetist.”

Mark looked unimpressed. Instead he said, “I like that dress. I haven’t seen it before.”

Diana sighed with exasperation. “Don’t you admire great intellect?”

“Sure I do, but I’d rather judge people by what they’ve done when they’re 60, not when they’re students.”

She thought about this, then nodded. “I agree. You’re right—as usual!” and added, smiling, “I’m glad you like this dress. It’s new.” It was beige cotton; cool and simple, and Diana knew the color blended well with her auburn hair.

Mark took another chocolate. “Seriously though, I’m glad Miss Johnson will be in charge tomorrow, although some of these women anesthetists are strange types. There
was one at a hospital in New York who spent the whole time in her room, except when she was eating or working. She didn’t read or listen to music, just lay on her bed. Crazy, wasn’t it?”

“How do you know that she was just lying on her bed?”

“Well, people called on her at times, to see if she was ill or dead or something, and they always found her lying there, staring up at the ceiling.” He shrugged. “She did her job all right, though.”

“The only odd thing I’ve noticed about Miss Johnson,” whispered Diana, “is that she always asks me to leave the cloakroom when she wants to change for the theater.”

“Perhaps she’s had her chest tattooed!” Mark laughed, while Diana giggled so much that she nearly choked.

The next morning, before breakfast, Diana was doing a cut-down on Sister Baker’s arm.

“If I didn’t have this operation, would the aneurysm definitely burst open?” asked Sister. She obviously knew the answer, but was hoping desperately for some consolation.

“I’m afraid so, sooner or later.”

Sister was watching the sun’s rays streaming through the window onto her sweet peas. “I can’t help remembering all the patients I’ve seen
having a cut-down before an operation. I never imagined that one day it would be my turn
...
Mrs. Charlton has been in Charity Ward for the last four years, you know—second bed down on the right. With a fatal growth in her stomach and most of her bones, Mrs. Charlton somehow refuses to die. Every time Mr. Cole suggested that she might go home, the pains would become worse, and we would all think, ‘It can’t be long now.’ I
called in Father O’Shanahan, the hospital priest. But next day she would still be breathing, eating a little, and smiling. Now why did I start thinking of her, at this moment?”

Diana was glad Sister kept talking. It was better than lying quietly, thinking.

“I’m not afraid,” Sister said softly. “I just feel none of this is really happening to me. Isn’t that strange?”

“There, that’s the best drip I’ve ever put up,” declared Diana at last, watching the blood drip steadily down from the bottle hanging over the bed. Then she smiled down at Sister, making a great effort to sound cheerful and confident. “I’ll have to say goodbye. I’ll see you when you’ve come around. It won’t be long now.”

“This blood has made me feel better already! Thank you, Dr. Field. See you later.”

Diana walked quickly from the room, hoping that the premedication drugs the nurse had given would work quickly.

Sister was alone now; alone with nobody to comfort her. She would probably remember that time long ago when her aunt called at the house one rainy day after tea, to say that her parents had died in an air-raid. Sister had told Diana this once; she had the same feeling then of being alone.

Diana knew too that suddenly Sister would feel afraid and desperately want somebody to come into the room and talk to her, even if it was only Nurse Edmonds. At that moment, she would actually envy Nurse Edmonds, who was young and pretty, and not waiting to have a scalpel cutting through her skin and a piece of artery taken out.

Then Sister would start wondering which of the doctors Nurse Edmonds had been to visit that evening, and think it was a pity Dr. Royston couldn’t settle down
...

Diana knew Sister would be feeling very sleepy when they came in to take her up to the theater.

It was 11 o’clock, and Sister Baker had been on the operating table for two hours.

Mr. Cole was speaking slowly as he worked. “Here’s the aneurysm
...
larger than I thought
...
Now, we’ll cut off the blood supply above and below it. Clamps, please.”

Standing next to Mark, Diana could not see what was happening. Two pairs of hands and all the instruments obscured her view. She concentrated on holding back the flaps of skin and muscle with one of the hoe-like retractors, so that the others could see to work.

“Taking out the abnormal bit of the aorta—isn’t the difficult part
...
sewing in the graft, that’s when we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed.”

Miss Johnson sat bolt upright on her stool, busily writing detailed notes on Sister Baker’s condition, or checking the gas flow to her lungs, or filling syringes. Not reading a newspaper, thought Diana, like the anesthetists do in movies.

At ‘lunchtime,’ anybody in sterile gloves and gown was refreshed by a drink of orange juice, through a straw. The fifth bottle of blood, now dripping into Sister’s arm, was nearly empty. The theater was hot, everyone was tense and on edge; even Harry, the porter, usually so cheerful, was looking anxious now.

Three times Mr. Cole stitched in a graft, slowly, painstakingly; and three times it failed. When the clamps above and below were released, blood poured out through the ‘joined’ edges, swamping everything.

He was sweating. “Suck it out! Suck it out!” he told Mark, who said later that it was “like bailing out a sinking boat with a tablespoon.” Only by closing the vessel with his finger and thumb could Mr. Cole stem the flow of blood, while Mark drew the rest away with the sucking machine.

At two o’clock, Miss Johnson sent a nurse to fetch the eighth bottle of blood.

The fourth graft was stitched carefully into place. Then everybody waited, as Mark removed the clamp above it, letting the blood flow through. This time the stitches held firm, no blood oozed out at the junction. Gently he loosened the clamp at the
lower end. The blood went on its way, through the graft and into the aorta. Again none of it oozed out.
They all stood and waited, almost daring those man-made stitches to loosen and allow the blood to leak out.
But nothing happened. At last Sister had a new artery—some of it her own, some of it borrowed.

“We’ll close up,” Mr. Cole said and heaved a great sigh. They all looked at each other and smiled.

CHAPTER TEN

July was hot that year. 31 days of sun blazing out of a deep blue sky. When there was no breeze, everybody working at the hospital moved about as little as possible, sipped cool drinks and longed for the evening. On other days they made plans to go swimming or sit in the garden as soon as they were off duty.

Diana and Mark were reading the newspapers in the common-room. Nobody else was there, but they sat in silence, except when reading aloud something amusing or interesting.

“You’ve never been to Oxford, have you?” Diana asked, putting down her paper and looking across at Mark from her armchair.

He shook his head.

“I’d love to take you there. You can’t leave England without seeing it.”

And so, on their next off-duty day, they put a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine into the Cadillac and drove away. It was their first outing alone together.

It was good to be out of the hospital, away from the corridors, the ringing telephones, and the sight of death. They were both tired. Fresh air, sunshine and new surroundings would rest them.

Diana wore a sleeveless blue cotton dress and white sandals. Mark had on an open-necked shirt and grey sports slacks. They didn’t talk much as the car sped smoothly toward Oxford. He seemed very happy. Diana, beside him, felt cool and contented, the warm breeze blowing through her hair. There was a faint smile on her lips.

They reached Headington Hill, and then Magdalen Tower, majestic in the sunshine, came into view.

Diana could not explain to Mark the excitement she felt every time she went back to Oxford. She supposed everybody who had ever lived there felt the same. It was like coming home.

They parked the car and walked slowly through the narrow streets, past the ancient colleges, all burning in the mid-day heat.

Cycling up the High in her gown, crumpets by the fire at Balliol,
The Merchant of Venice
in Worcester College garden ... so many memories flashed through Diana’s mind. Unimportant really, but she would never forget those carefree days.

They sat on the hot stone walls in the cloister of New College, away from the roar of the traffic. There was complete peace, broken only
by the sound of the chapel organ. The silence and the sunshine had an intoxicating effect, leaving them both drowsy,

They came to Diana’s own college, smaller and younger than the others, but with a dignity and beauty of its own.

More vivid memories flooded back into her mind, as she led Mark through the porter’s lodge and across the garden. Diana had never forgotten the first time she saw those cherry trees in blossom, the smooth green lawns, the students sitting on the library steps in the sunshine.

“You see through those trees? That’s the hospital, where I saw my first operation. I’ve forgotten what it
w
as about now, I was so fascinated by everything going on.” Diana" told him excitedly.

She showed Mark the little bed-sitting room she had occupied years ago. He saw only a rather uncomfortable-looking bed, an old wooden table, a bookcase and closets for clothes. But Diana was remembering essays written at midnight; coffee parties and gossip and laughter; dressing for a ball on a hot summer evening.

They took a punt on the river, a new experience for Mark, but he soon learned the knack of wielding the pole. Then, in the peaceful shade of a weeping willow, lying at opposite ends of the punt, they had their lunch.

Diana, watching a cloud float slowly across the blue sky, felt hot, lazy, and a little sad.

“Do you realize,” she said slowly, chewing a cucumber sandwich, “I finish working for Mr. Cole at the end of next week?”

Mark poured her a glass of red wine. “I knew it was soon, but I prefer not to think about it. I don’t want any other house surgeon. You suit me fine—in every way.”

“I shall apply for Tony Spring’s job when he starts as casualty officer. Tony says Dr. Baker likes women house physicians. All the same, I’d rather go on doing surgery. There’s always something positive happening in the theater, more activity there than in the medical wards.”

Mark did not answer, but stared thoughtfully at the cool water lapping against the side of the boat. He didn’t seem to want to talk about the hospital or surgery or jobs.

“Perhaps at this moment,” Diana thought, “he wants to spend the rest of his life in Oxford, on a summer’s day, with me? Because there can’t be much happiness for us in the future.”

“Perhaps they won’t give me the job, and I’ll have to find another hospital,” she went on.

“Barker would be crazy not to have you,” Mark said indignantly, rousing himself from his reverie.

“It would solve some of my problems if I did leave,” Diana persisted.

“What problems?”

“You know what problems.” But she wondered if he really did know what a large part he had come to play in her life.

Suddenly, after a few minutes, Mark said calmly, “I’m going to the South of France for a few weeks soon.”

Diana smiled. “To see the girls in their bikinis? As you planned to.”

“A friend of mine has a villa there.”

She felt a cool breeze blow up the river. It made the willow branches stir for a moment, and she shivered. She gave him a strawberry from the basket beside her, and asked quietly, “The same friend who lends you the car?”

“The same one.”