The End of the Rainbow. Betty Neels
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full; a number of the rooms held three beds, in some cases two, and on the first floor there were three single-bedded rooms, commanding high fees for that very reason, and usually inhabited by wealthy patients who demanded a great deal of attention, and because they could pay, usually got it, however trivial.
Olympia passed these three doors now and entered a small cupboard of a room where a middle-aged woman in nurse’s uniform was sitting. She looked up as Olympia went in and smiled. ‘I’ve just made a pot of tea,’ she greeted her. ‘I bet you had to spend your off duty shopping,’ and at Olympia’s nod: ‘I thought as much—and now you’re on duty until eight o’clock this evening.’ She produced two mugs. ‘It’s really too bad; if I didn’t need the money so badly and live almost on the doorstep, I’d be tempted to try my luck somewhere else in protest, but much good that would do; you’d get all my work to do as well as your own.’
She spooned sugar into their teas and they sat down side by side at the desk.
‘How’s Harold?’ asked Olympia. Harold was Mrs Cooper’s teenage son, suffering from muscular dystrophy, and the reason why she went out to work—he was the reason why she stayed at the nursing home too, for it was only a few yards from her flat, and because nurses were hard to get, Miss Randle had reluctantly allowed her to work during the hours which suited her.
‘He had a bad night,’ said his mother, getting to her feet. ‘There’s nothing to report; they’re all much as usual. Doctor Craddock came and changed Mrs Bright’s medicine… I’ll be in at two tomorrow.’ She went to the door. ‘Mrs Drew’s making beds upstairs, and Miss Snow is getting Mr Kemp up. So long, dear.’
Left to herself, Olympia read the report, tidied away the tea things and started on her visits to the patients. They were all elderly geriatric cases; her aunt would take nothing else, since more acute nursing would mean more staff and trained nurses at that. As it was, she got by very well with Olympia and Mrs Cooper, and Mrs Drew and Miss Snow, who had had no training at all but looked like nurses in their uniforms. During the night she managed with two more nursing aides, good and competent and hard-working, and if anything needed the skill of a trained nurse, why, there was always Olympia to get up and see to things.
The three patients with rooms to themselves were nicely settled for the time being; she climbed the stairs to the floor above, where she gave out the medicines, did a bed bath, made a couple of beds, and then considerably later, climbed the last narrow flight. Here the rooms contained more beds; one held four old ladies, the other three elderly men, and although they were adequately lighted and warm enough, they were entirely bare of pictures or ornaments. The patients here had little money; just enough, with the help of relations who were horrified at the idea of sending their old folk into hospital, for the fees to be paid, leaving little over for spending. Olympia longed to tell them how much better off they would be in a geriatric unit in any of the big hospitals in London; they would have company there, and the telly, as well as the library ladies coming round twice a week and more old ladies and gentlemen to talk to. She went from one to other of them now, stopping to chat, admire knitting, discuss the weather or look at some picture in a paper. She always stopped longer than she should on the top floor, because the poor old things were mostly incapable of getting down the stairs for themselves, and Aunt Maria, although she paid them a daily visit, rarely stopped for more than a few moments. Olympia, tidying beds and listening with half an ear to their occupants, reflected for the hundredth time on the improvements she would bring about if she could take Aunt Maria’s place and run the home herself. Not that she liked geriatric nursing; she had loved her three years’ training at a large London hospital and she had done well there. She had wanted, above all things, to specialize in surgery, but she had given her word to her aunt before she began her training, and she hadn’t broken it, although sorely tempted to do so.
She knew now that Aunt Maria had been quite unscrupulous and totally unfair towards her. True, she had educated her well, bought her sensible, hard-wearing clothes which had been agony to wear in the company of her better dressed friends, and instilled into her, over the years, the fact that she must never cease to be grateful to an aunt who had taken her as a toddler and devoted her life to her upbringing. And when, at the age of fifteen or thereabouts, Olympia had expressed a wish to take up nursing, her aunt had agreed readily, at the same time pointing out that Olympia, as a grateful niece, could do no less than hand over the bulk of her salary, when the time came, to an aunt who had spent a great deal of money over the years. Moreover, she had extracted a promise that upon the completion of her training, Olympia should return to the nursing home and work for her aunt at a very modest wage indeed, because, it was made clear to her, she would be living free, and what girl in these days was lucky enough to have a good home where she could live for nothing?
Olympia, at that age, hadn’t known much about that; she promised, only asking: ‘And may I never go back to hospital? I think I should like to be a surgical nurse, and perhaps in a year or two, when I’ve trained, I could get a Sister’s post.’
Aunt Maria had laughed. ‘Why should you wish to leave?’ she wanted to know. ‘You have a duty to me, you know.’
‘Supposing I should want to get married?’ Olympia, almost sixteen, had been a romantic.
Her aunt had laughed again, a little unkindly, and had taken her time in replying. ‘My dear,’ she had said at length, ‘I cannot imagine any man wanting to marry you—you aren’t the marrying type.’ She had picked up her pen to signify the end of the interview. ‘But if such an unlikely event should happen, then naturally you may leave.’
And that had been eight years ago now; Olympia had finished school and until she had been old enough to start her training, had helped her aunt in the nursing home, running errands, cooking when Mrs Blair had a day off, making beds and sorting linen. She had been eighteen when she had left the house near Primrose Hill and gone to live in hospital, and the next three years of her life had been the happiest she had known. She had loved the work and the busy routine; she had made many friends too and had done well; so well that she had been offered the Sister’s post she had so much longed for. But Aunt Maria had nipped that in the bud; reminding her of her promise, so that she had gone back to work in the chilly nursing home and was still there, two years later. And because she was paid very little and seldom went out, she met no one at all; the doctors who visited the patients were mostly elderly GPs and even the visitors were old, or at least, middle-aged. At first, in hospital, she had cherished dreams of meeting some young man who would wish to marry her and thus solve the future for her, but beyond one or two dates which had never got beyond the first meeting, nothing had happened. Perhaps, as her aunt had pointed out, she wasn’t a girl men would want to marry.
She went slowly downstairs presently, to supervise the patients’ dinners, then went back upstairs to feed old Mrs Blake, who could no longer feed herself. The old people were out of their beds by now, sitting round the table; they enjoyed their meals, they broke the monotony of their days. They lingered over their pudding, talking quite animatedly, and after a little while Olympia left Miss Snow to attend to their little wants and get them on to their beds for their afternoon nap, then went downstairs to the dining-room where her aunt was waiting. They lunched quickly with the minimum of conversation, and that pertaining to the running of the home. ‘You must go down to Selfridges tomorrow afternoon,’ said Miss Randle as she portioned out the steamed pudding. ‘I want you to buy some sheets.’
‘It’s my half-day off,’ Olympia reminded her.
‘I’m aware of that, but what difference should that make? I imagine you will enjoy going to Oxford Street—you have no plans.’
‘Yes, I had, Aunt Maria. I’m going to the National Gallery—there’s an exhibition of paintings I want to see, and I’ve arranged to meet Sally Grey for tea afterwards.’ Sally had been one of her friends at hospital.
Her aunt helped herself to more steamed pudding. ‘You can telephone her and tell her that you will meet her on another day,’ she said positively. ‘As for the National Gallery, there is always some exhibition or other being held there; you can see something else later on.’
Olympia forbore from commenting upon this remark, for she