As ward manager I’m part matron, part nurse. At Kate’s the matrons are managers who perform hundreds of administrative duties on the three critical care wards of the hospital. 9B has a core nursing staff supplemented by roaming ‘bank’ nurses. It is a reflection of the strange hospital hierarchy that the amount of patient contact within a role dictates that role’s position in the hospital food chain. Many hours of patient contact – healthcare assistants, porters, cleaners and nurses – are the plankton and krill, yet positions with very few or no direct hours with patients – most of the ‘Ist’s’ – are the sharks and whales of this peculiar ocean. Despite my increased administrative duties, I’d never give up the patient contact. I studied medicine at UCL but failed the first round of doctors’ exams. I was devastated at the time, of course, hated the way my parents quietly hinted I was more suited to nursing. As it turns out, they were right; I am more suited to the human part of medicine. I administer drugs, change sheets, comfort families and hold the hands of dying patients until their last breath. I’m with them. I’m happy to be plankton.
‘OK, let’s see here,’ Carol says, reading from the schedule. ‘Well, you’ll continue with Frank, Brighton have requested bed two for a thirty-year-old head trauma, GCS 4 coma patient, but she won’t be arriving until this evening or maybe even tomorrow. Lizzie is getting the bed ready now. If you could take on Ellen Hargreaves, she’s got all sorts of appointments today; Paula said she’s been bad, especially at night, getting very agitated. She keeps calling out like she’s back in the Blitz, poor love. Oh, and the notes mention something about mouth ulcers and her g-tube needing to be checked. We have a meeting with her children at two o’clock. Then if you could do afternoon rounds, check in with George Peters’ family – he was with a bank nurse over Christmas so I think they need some attention – and then get going with the Nursing rota that would be great. I was also wondering, Ali … you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on Lizzie for the next few weeks as well, would you? Just make sure she’s finding her feet, that sort of thing.’ She lobs a grin at me again and I smile back, before walking onto the bustling ward to meet the long day ahead.
I pull in to our drive at 22 Blackcombe Avenue just before 7.30 p.m. David and I have lived here since we got married, seven years ago. It’s one of those houses that’s shrouded in evergreen bushes, giving the impression that it’s much smaller than it is. Like something from a children’s book, the dark front door seems to peep out of the shrubbery like a kindly eye. Built in the fifties, it was considered indescribably ugly when we first bought the red-brick two-storey house – perhaps that’s why the previous owners planted the shrubs – but now it’s called ‘retro’. David tells me that – as he knew it would – mid-century’s become cool again, so we’re bang on trend apparently. David describes the house as ‘Old Hollywood’, a phrase I’m sure he picked up in one of his architecture magazines, which he now uses to make me laugh and give me an excuse to call him an ‘Archi-wanker’. I have to admit, though, it’s a fairly good description. The house has a balcony around the back, with glass sliding doors that overlook the sloping garden. David loved the generous proportions and the opportunity for building an extension; I loved the three bedrooms and the opportunity for building a family. Of course, now we just have two spare rooms.
It’s dark in the house so David must be out. David works for the Planning Permission Trust, and for the last six months he’s been working from home, which suits his budget-minded boss and also suits David who I know carves out extra hours to work on his private architecture projects. David said this year will be the year he reduces his hours at the Trust to finally practise full-time as an architect. His job at the Trust, where he pursues and debates controversial planning applications for local government, was always supposed to be just a stop-gap, a year tops, while we settled into our new semi-rural Sussex life. But as the financial crisis hit, people stopped planning expensive home conversions while Tesco’s still needed their car parks, so David dug his heels in and clung onto his desk and we talked at night about how it’d just be for another year or so, until the economy improved.
David’s out now though; he’s taken Bob, our black Labrador, with him. I fondle the wall for the light switch and shrug my coat off, dropping my bag with a thud on the stone floor in the hallway. Claire once described our house as ‘adult tidy’. No muddy trainers or wooden toys dot the floor. There are no safety locks on the cupboards or potties behind the toilet.
Our kitchen is a miniature farmhouse kitchen with a little larder and big windows out to the garden. David, I know, would prefer something modern but I’ve always been a sucker for anything rustic. I step over Bob’s chewed sleeping rug and stare into the fridge. I quite fancy a glass of wine but we always try and do a month off booze for Dry January, so I pour myself a large glass of fizzy water instead and lean against the trough-style sink to text Jess.
Can you guys come for dinner next Thursday? David wants to catch up about the extension. I’ll get him to cook and we could make a night of it? X
As I press send the outside light flashes on and through the kitchen window, I see David. He looks like he’s recently been on fire; white clouds of sweaty heat billow around him like smoke, puffing up from his Lycra running top. He’s breathing hard and puts one hand flat against the driveway wall as he uses the other to grab his ankle and stretch out his long thigh, the muscles in his standing calf tense with his weight. He only holds the pose for a couple of seconds, before he does the other side. Stretching’s never been his thing; he’ll be sore tomorrow.
There’s a light scratch at the front door. I open it and Bob’s slick black head pushes forward, pink tongue lolling out, urgent for affection. I give him a pat on his cold, muscular shoulder. He’s breathing hard but still manages to raise his eyebrows in pleasure as I look in his loving eyes and reassure him he’s a good boy.
David walks through the door, kicking off his ancient running trainers. His greying hair clings to his forehead in sweaty curls as he leans towards me for a salty kiss. His eyes rest on mine, taut just for a second, scanning to check I’m OK.
To reassure him that I am, I look down at his sweaty running kit and say, ‘I’m impressed. New Year’s resolution number one.’
He laughs. ‘I know, big bloody tick for Bob and me. I have to say though, Bob didn’t do much for morale, did you, Bobby?’ Bob, at the sound of his name, only has the energy now to thump his tail a couple of slow, heavy times against the floor where he’s already collapsed in his basket on his side of the kitchen, his black flank moving wearily up and down.
David refills Bob’s water bowl before pouring himself a glass from the tap. He drinks it in three gulps and says, ‘He was doing that stopping thing he does, you know, where he just sits down, refuses to budge and then starts trotting home. I had to drag him along.’
I laugh. Bob can be as stubborn – and heavy – as a mule.
David strokes my bottom as he passes me to get to the tap for a refill. ‘How was your day?’ he asks.