Snowflakes in the Wind by Rita Bradshaw

Author:Rita Bradshaw [Bradshaw, Rita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781447271604
Publisher: Macmillan

Chapter Seventeen

Contrary to what she had expected, Abby didn’t see hide nor hair of Joe McHaffie the following morning, and the journey to Galashiels was uneventful. Going home had been a mixed blessing for many reasons, and although she wouldn’t have admitted it to a living soul because it would have felt like disloyalty, Abby knew the umbilical cord had been well and truly cut for good.

If she’d had the time, she might have grieved about the end of an era. As it was, what with a ward change and lectures three times a week, it was all she could do to keep her head above water in the day, and at night she was asleep within moments of snuggling under the covers. Within a few days it was as though she had never gone home as the hospital routine took over so completely.

To Abby’s delight, she found Pam was one of the nurses on her new ward, Male Medical. This was doubly comforting in view of the fact that the sister in charge was a terrifying creature with the reputation of a fearsome temper. Sister Woodrow was also a born nurse, from the top of her immaculate cap to her pristine shiny shoes, and she expected nothing less than perfection from every single one of her nurses, even the trainees. The patients on the ward were as frightened of her as were the nurses, and to see forty men, some twice the sister’s age, grovelling in obedience to her orders, was not unusual. Needless to say, Male Medical ran like clockwork.

Now bottles were added to the bedpans, sluices and lavatory duties. The first time Pam had explained what the bottles were for, Abby stared at her in horror, especially when Pam added that in certain cases the men were either too old or too ill to insert the offending organ into the bottle themselves and it was the nurses’ job to do it for them. ‘But be careful,’ the worldly-wise Pam whispered. ‘Some of them make out they can’t do it just to get a cheap thrill. You know what I mean?’

Abby hadn’t known, and when her friend had elucidated further, she’d been doubly aghast. It hadn’t helped that Pam had had a fit of the giggles at the shock on Abby’s face. ‘I keep forgetting what an innocent you are,’ she said when she could control herself. And then, as the staff nurse called down the ward, ‘Could you break the habit of a lifetime, Nurse Lyndon, and actually get on with some work?’ Pam muttered under her breath, ‘She’s got a mouth on her like a bee’s backside, that woman,’ in response to the stinging remark.

Abby smiled. She’d thought reading the nursing textbooks had broadened her horizons, but she found she could still be surprised, like today. She might be an innocent in Pam’s eyes, but she felt that Male Medical and her friend were definitely completing the education that the women in Gynae Ward had begun.

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