Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [70]
‘Campion, Matron.’
‘Thank you, Sister.’
Grace was sure that Matron must be able to hear her knees knocking together as she stood nervously in front of her, whilst one of the sister tutors stood discreetly to one side of her.
Grace had only seen Matron once before, the day after the trainees had first arrived, when she had given them a warning speech about how hard they would have to work and how high the hospital’s standards were. She had warned them then that many of them would not be able to meet those high standards, and now here she was, having failed them, Grace thought miserably, as she saw how Matron frowned as she looked down at the papers on her desk.
Abruptly she lifted her head and looked at Grace, subjecting her to gimlet-eyed scrutiny, before saying crisply, ‘Passed.’
Passed? She had passed? Grace didn’t know what to say or do. She heard Sister Tutor clearing her throat warningly and just about managed to gather her wits together sufficiently to stammer, ‘Thank you, Matron,’ before backing out of the door that Sister Tutor was now holding open for her.
She had passed. She was going to be a nurse; a proper nurse. Grace felt like turning cartwheels and whooping with joy, just like the twins did when they were excited. Giggles bubbled up inside her at the thought of Sister Tutor’s reaction if she were actually to do so. She would probably be dismissed on the spot, or put in a strait-jacket.
All the girls, they discovered later, on being given their results, had been instructed either to return to their individual rooms to pack their things prior to leaving the hospital, or to go and be measured for their new uniforms. The dining room that evening positively hummed with the sound of young female voices forced down to the low tone they had been instructed to use as trainee nurses, as they exchanged results.
Grace’s group were thrilled that all six of them had passed. They congratulated one another happily and exchanged horror stories of just what they had done wrong in their exams.
‘Have you been told yet what ward you’re going to be on?’ Hannah asked Grace.
‘Yes. Men’s surgical. What about you?’
‘Theatre,’ Hannah told her, pulling a face. ‘I’m pleased in a way, but I hope I don’t disgrace myself by fainting the first time I have to help scrub up for an operation. I’ve heard that some of the housemen take bets on how quickly new nurses faint their first time in theatre.’
‘You won’t faint,’ Grace told her firmly.
‘I hope I don’t. Did they tell you you had to be on the ward at seven thirty a.m?’
‘Yes,’ Grace confirmed, as the others chimed in with details of the wards they were to be in.
‘I was told we’d have to move our things out of our rooms and that we’d be given new rooms in the nurses’ home when we report for duty on the Monday evening,’ Iris offered. ‘I’ve heard it’s like a prison over there with all the rules they’ve got.’
‘All I want to think about right now is having a week off,’ said Lillian.
‘Did you see the queue to use the telephone?’ Jennifer groaned. ‘I’m not bothering. I’m going to wait until I get home to tell everyone.’
Grace had come to the same decision. She still couldn’t quite believe that she had actually passed, and she couldn’t stop smiling either.
‘What do you mean, there’s no supper?’
Bella tossed her head and glared at Alan as he stormed into the kitchen. She was very proud of her kitchen. Everything in it was brand-new, including her Cannon gas cooker, in the very latest design. Its cream enamel was matched by the set of pans and oven dishes they had received as a wedding present. Not that she planned to use her cooker very much.
Her mother had had the white curtains, with the red cherry design on them, and the frill across the top of the window made for her. They had chosen the fabric together in Lewis’s. A matching gathered skirt on elastic discreetly covered the space beneath the draining board and under the sink. A new gas water heater has been installed to one side of the kitchen window, and the smart linoleum