Our Country Nurse: Can East End Nurse Sarah find a new life caring for babies in the country?. Sarah Beeson

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СКАЧАТЬ tears started to trickle down her freckled cheeks and her narrow shoulders shook as she took short intakes of breath. ‘I feel so lost sometimes. One minute I’m looking at him and my heart is fit to burst, I love him so much. But there are times in the middle of the night when I feel utterly alone. Joe’s snoring, none the wiser, the baby won’t go down in his crib and I’m so tired I can barely see straight. I swear I’ve seen the sunrise every morning since Craig was born.’ I sat by her side and listened, nodding and acknowledging her feelings. ‘Why did no one tell me it would be this hard? I don’t recognise myself at the moment and Joe’s life carries on exactly the same.’

      ‘Let’s look at one thing at a time. You’re doing really well, Mrs Rudcliff, you really are. What do you think could be better?’

      ‘The feeding. He’s so heavy, and he pounds on me with his fist and thrashes about and leaves me aching. I dread it, I really do, and it’s not getting any easier. I’m not fit to be his mother.’

      ‘You are a splendid mother. Do you think an unfit mother would care this much?’

      She gave me a little shy smile. ‘I suppose that’s right. You’d know, Nurse.’

      An hour later Craig was sleeping peacefully, we’d discussed feeding, sleeping and nappies, and Mrs Rudcliff was calmer but I was still worried about her health. She needed a bit of looking after. The kitchen door swung open and Joe Rudcliff appeared. A burly man and at over six feet his head practically scraped the ceiling as he came in. Silently he pulled off his muddy boots and went to wash his hands and face in the kitchen sink. He didn’t say a word or even show the slightest awareness there was a stranger, me, in his house.

      ‘What’s for lunch?’ he asked his wife, his back to us as he gazed out of the kitchen window onto his empire.

      ‘I’ve made mackerel pâté and freshly baked bread.’

      ‘Again?’

      She nodded.

      ‘I’ll be half-starved in a month if you carry on this way,’ he informed her, taking a huge hunk of bread from the kitchen table and spreading it liberally with the delicious looking pâté. He stomped off, followed a minute later by the sound of the radio blaring from the sitting room.

      ‘I’m going to go now if there isn’t anything else?’ I asked. But Mrs Rudcliff didn’t reply. ‘While the baby’s asleep eat up some of that scrumptious pâté and then get your head down for a bit if you can.’

      ‘Would you like some?’

      ‘No, thank you. You eat it all up while you can.’

      ‘I will, Nurse,’ she said. A tone of defiance creeping into her voice. ‘But before that I’m going to telephone my mother and see if she can come for a bit.’

      ‘I think that’s an excellent idea, Mrs Rudcliff. I’ll call in next week and see how you are but do telephone me at the clinic if you need anything.’

      As I made my way back down the path to my abandoned Mini I turned and saw Mrs Rudcliff in the window with a telephone in her hand. I grinned. Good for you, I thought. My first visit as a health visitor had been a good one but what did the other 799 and counting have in store?

      When I returned to see Mrs Rudcliff at Treetops Farm the following week I fully prepared for the ascent in a pair of newly acquired black Wellington boots purchased at a smart little shop in Canterbury. I’d christened them on my second Sunday in Kent, digging over my small vegetable patch after borrowing a fork and spade from Clem. It would be a while before I could sow anything but at least I’d made a start – I was well on my way to becoming a country nurse, or so I thought.

3

      I knew I was frowning slightly as Flo poured me a cup of tea before the doors opened for the two o’clock Totley baby clinic on Tuesday afternoon. I’d been stunned when Mrs Martha Bunyard, a matriarch of clinic volunteers, had practically shoved me into the cramped consulting room away from the hall when I arrived, but now I was fuming.

      ‘Your predecessor always saw mothers in here, Nurse. That’s the way we’ve always done it in Totley. Stops time-wasters taking liberties,’ she had informed me.

      We’ll see, I thought as I agitatedly sipped my tea. Flo looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Don’t want to rock the boat at your very first clinic, do you?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘Martha Bunyard and Doris Bowyer have been running things round here for years, Nurse. No one likes change, do they?’

      ‘Hmm,’ I replied. I thought of Susan, whose baby I’d helped deliver only days before, and felt a pang of sympathy for her. The stalwart so-called helper, who was most likely banking on me being out of sight and out of mind, was probably a relative of Susan’s new husband, his mother even – poor girl.

      Flo straightened the biscuits on her trolley. ‘Have you got through that vegetable box we left you, yet?’ she asked, changing the subject.

      ‘Still working my way through it. Best produce I’ve ever tasted,’ I enthused.

      Flo beamed with pride. ‘I don’t like to boast but my Clem has won “Best in Show” for his root vegetables at the village fete every single year for the last decade. Beetroot, carrot, potato, you name it, he’s won the blue ribbon for it. Mr Hopkins and Father Nick are almost green with …’ She stopped herself. ‘Pride comes before a fall,’ she reminded herself. ‘Lots to do; while you’re all out and about I think I’ll give the health visitors’ room a quick once over with a duster,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Mrs Drummond does have rather a lot of knick-knacks that are magnets for dust,’ she added, bustling off behind her tea trolley. ‘And Mrs Jefferies is in today. She’ll be running a gloved finger over everything, you mark my words.’

      Oh yes, I still had to meet the fourth health visitor; ‘Mrs N. Jefferies’ read the little name plaque she had facing outwards on her desk. I scowled again at the thought of Mrs Martha Bunyard telling me what to do. Maybe I’d needed to be firmer from the off? I must stop sulking, I decided. I needed to observe and see how it all went. If it worked for the mothers then it didn’t matter if I was shut away in the dreary claustrophobic backroom.

      There was a tap on the semi-open door. I saw a woman in a yellow and cream V-necked floral dress with tiny round buttons plus matching russet jacket and sandals standing in the doorway. Her almost white blonde hair was pulled off her face by a couple of golden combs. Her eyes wrinkled into deep furrowed lines as she gave me a broad open smile.

      ‘Knock, knock,’ she called as she stepped into the room. ‘I thought I’d come and say hello. I’m Monika Michalak, the clinic doctor.’

      ‘Where have they shut you away?’ I asked, stepping forward. ‘Sorry,’ I corrected myself, realising how much I was giving away, ‘I’m Sarah Hill, the new health visitor.’

      ‘Don’t worry. They do rather like to tuck us out of harm’s way in the broom cupboard, don’t they?’ she said, laughing. ‘I turn up and do my bit. But I often think it’s a shame we only see a mother by request.’

      I smiled thoughtfully, drinking in the situation. Wait and see, wait and see, Sarah, don’t be too hasty, I said to myself.

      Dr Michalak cast her eyes down, smiling shyly as she checked her wristwatch. СКАЧАТЬ