“He does look funny, but it’s best to keep an eye on him, especially if he’s going down a slope…”
I’ve changed the names, but I owe them all. ~ Ian
Nigel
Nigel’s a medical orderly like me, but with rather more experience! He works in the same ward so I see quite a lot of him. He‘s English, 37, about my size and build, neat, without much tan, but healthy.
He wears glasses and his nose is rather prominent. His upper lip slopes out towards the tip of his nose so that he gives the impression of perpetually sniffing at something. He’s friendly, something of a snob, likes to feel superior and blushes easily.
He spends part of his evenings on duty reading his Bible, and asked me once if I was a chapel or a church goer. At the time I thought he was sneering, but apparently he was just embarrassed to ask. Being those things, he rather disapproves of too much drink or too many women, but tries to communicate not only disapproval but also a sophisticated tolerance: “I know these things exist and disapprove of them, but I’m not shocked.“
Unfortunately, for all his sophistication he’s rather uncertain and gauche with women. New Zealand girls are rather too robust and socially indiscreet for him.
Altogether he’s rather likeable, a little vain perhaps, with one of those faces behind which people hide themselves, and which always let them down, if not in present company, then in tomorrow’s. Come to think of it, I’m probably more like him than anyone else here!
§
Nigel cycles the 20 miles to his bach twice a week and flicks the ash off his cigarette by snapping his fingers.
§
Got rather brassed off with Nigel today. He’s pleasant when “off duty”, but otherwise inclined to be something of a boss. We flunkies should be more egalitarian. Have noticed he mutters a swift grace before his meals.
§
Nigel said this morning, “Very nice nurse on last night. Delightful, a very bright spark indeed.”
Tonight I was sitting in the office with the Bright Spark, and also another nurse, who said, “Who’s on next Thursday? Oh no — not Nigel!”
“What?” says the Bright Spark, “Nigel’s fabulous! He’s really good!”
§
“That bloody Nigel was reading a queer book last night, the lazy sod,” said Sister E.
“Oh, Sister,” I said, “What was it?”
“Religion from Tolstoy to Camus or something.”
“Oh yes, Sister, that’s my book.”
“Oh… your book?”
“Yes.”
“Who the hell’s Camus anyway?”
“Camus? He was a Frenchman – a bloody frog.”
“And I thought Tolstoy was just an author. What’s he got to do with religion?”
“He took up religion in his old age.”
“He was a Russian, wasn’t he?” she said “I thought the Russians were a lot of bloody heathens.”
§
“I’ve put the drugs out, Mr Baugh,” says Sister E. “By the way. why are you reading about Tolstoy’s religion? Are you going to be a minister?”
“No.”
“Well, why then?”
“Just because it interests me.”
“Tolstoy’s the one who wrote Anna Karenina isn’t he?”
“Amongst others.”
“Big books, eh?”
“Yes, my copy of War and Peace runs to 1400 pages.”
“That’s probably what made me think of it. No bloody intention of reading them either. I’ll stick to murders. I read a good Ngaio Marsh the other day.”
§
I was dreading that Mr S. would die while I was alone on night duty and I wouldn’t know what to do.
He did die today. I helped lay him out. God rest his soul. He’s at peace, or rather, he looked peaceful. Like the piece of wood washed up on the shore after the storm.
§
“Brrrr” goes the buzzer.
Tramp, tramp, tramp. Click. Buzzer off.
“What is it, Jimmy?”
“Straighten my legs please, Ian?”
“Straighten them yourself, Jimmy.”
“Oooh”, says Jimmy — and he straightens them!
§
Bert
Tonight I discovered that Bert and Gordon should have their buttocks and other pressure areas washed every four hours. I’ve only been here a month! I brought out all the paraphernalia to do the job — trolley, bowls, unguents, solutions, etc.
“What are you going to do?” asked Bert.
He didn’t know either, or maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. He’s been here a few months.
§
One day, not long after I got here, I was feeding Bert. He had a bib around his neck, and he looked at me with his big, bulging, mournful eyes and asked if I could help him die.
§
On a different morning I was treating Bert‘s eyes, and he was tearfully telling me that he would never be able to see properly again. The moment was tense and unhappy, and the whole ward seem to be listening, when suddenly from two places down Gus leapt up.
“I can’t stand it anymore!” he screamed.
My God, I thought. I could only imagine he was going to berate me for maltreating Bert. I wondered what I would do.
“What’s the matter, Gus?” I asked him warily.
“II can’t stand it any more!” he screamed again.
“What?”
“You are late with med’cine! I can’t stand it! Give me the constipation med’cine!”
Gus caught me out when I was distributing the pills for the first time — I gave him one pill instead of two.
§
When I came on duty today, Bert tried devilish hard to tell me something. I couldn’t catch the words. Was his bum sore? Did he want to sit higher in the chair? Did he want a drink?
No!
At last I caught it. His daughter has had a baby son! His fifth grandchild, excluding one dead. He cried with pleasure when I caught on. I congratulated him wholeheartedly and passed on the good word to everyone else — so he’s had a weepy afternoon!
§
Charlie
Charlie told me that I should be a shearer, a scrub cutter, a farmer.
“Your trouble is you have no gut,” he said, “no muscle on your bones!”
§
Charlie left Chile to go to sea at the age of 16, around 1890-1895, and came to Wellington a few years later. He and a friend jumped ship in Wellington and ran away, with 7/6d between them and the police in pursuit. They were eventually assisted by the Maoris.
His first job when he came to New Zealand was as a blacksmith “striker” — swinging the 12-pound sledge and doing all the donkey work. As was usual, he picked up the trade while working as a striker, and eventually worked as a Smithy himself all over the North Island except in Northland. He also knew “all about“ saw milling, worked in a flax mill, worked as a shearer and farmer, and could put up fences with the best of them. But the best work was smithing.
§
I didn’t mentioned it before, but Charlie’s the man I asked at what age men lost interest in women.
He said I’d have to ask someone older than him because he didn’t know.
He’s 87.
§
Fred
Above all else Fred enjoys holding court. He holds court in the dining room with us, in V-Block with the girls, and in almost every conversation. And he’s exactly the sort of person who’s good at it. He’s charming and witty and polite. He’s intelligent and sympathetic. His interests are wide and his conversation interesting.
He’s also predictable. The people who want to stop the Rice Davies girl coming to New Zealand are narrow minded hypocrites. Albert Schweitzer is a religious bigot. And so on. He started a Revue in Wellington featuring fairies as striptease impersonators.
§
Fred’s a little too bohemian for me, but his strengths are my weaknesses and his weaknesses are far from being certainly my strengths. He’s likeable and friendly and this I appreciate. He’s good company, which is more than can be said for me.
There’s only one thing missing — scars. His world has been the post-war world. Where choice has replaced chance, analysis evil, and security selfishness. He’s never starved nor feared nor fought, except perhaps in small doses — he has his native compassion, native tolerance, native goodness, but he’s under no worldly — and therefore little moral or mental — stress. Easy virtue, easy tolerance.
Me, of all people, criticising Fred for having no scars!
§
Norman
2.10.65: Norman had another stroke today. His left side is semi-paralysed, he can’t move his head much, and his fingers not at all. The stump of that leg is immobile. He has trouble swallowing, he drools continually and his mouth is twisting and sagging, milk and saliva dribble from it. Nor can you talk. A few words are distinguishable, but mainly he talks by signs, and weak, gangling writing using his good hand. His failure to move and communicate can be distressing. He dropped a lit cigarette on his lap and couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I found it before it could do too much.
Bill says he can expect more of these. His wife was upset, of course. She clung to his neck. For once Norman didn’t tell her off for a bloody fool for asking silly bloody questions. He couldn’t, of course! But it was more than that.
Norman deteriorating, Mr G. haunted by a smell that could indicate cancer of the bowel, Bill says. The best patients, the fightingest men.
§
20.10.65: Norman could go tonight, and will almost certainly be gone by the weekend. His latest trouble started on Monday morning. It mostly stems from his diabetes. The diabetes causes poor circulation, poor circulation causes strokes. He had another one at 7 am on Monday that continued the work the others had done. His left side was absolutely useless, and even the reflexes in the throat for swallowing have gone. The stroke and the reaction from excess blood sugar caused by the diabetes made him very hard to rouse. He’s been in an almost continual stupor since. Although he could write down his requests on Monday, now he can hardly open his eyes.
At midday on Monday they thrust a tube down his nose into his stomach for feeding, and the oxygen equipment was readied. Nothing further happened, but his condition continued to deteriorate.
During today, Wednesday, his temperature began to rise, until tonight it stood at over 39C, with his pulse and respiration at over twice their normal rate, although still strong. He had pneumonia. No antibiotics, said the doctor, that would be prolonging the inevitable. Just keep him comfortable…
21.10.65: Said Dr Noble, broncho-pneumonia is the old man’s friend.
25.10.65: I worked at the Cabaret again last night. It was very enjoyable as a change. When it was over I went back up to Kevin’s place while the others finished drinking. I put the kettle on and made a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. Plenty of butter, one half marmite, the other honey. It was just 3 o’clock when I sat down to enjoy this food and at that time Norman died. Death came and led him away.
This is the way my life ends
This is the way my life ends
This is the way my life ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
§
Conrad
Conrad and I talk in the kitchen of the single men’s quarters. He likes his tea just so — strong, with a drop of milk and three spoons of sugar — and his toast cooked quickly and well browned. He cuts the crust off, slices the remainder in four, and eats the quarters in one bite after folding them in half. He likes plenty of butter.
He’s in his late 30s, with a smart beard and thinning hair, and becoming quite friendly. He‘s getting divorced and will probably marry again, a Rhodesian girl called Penny. He’s a one woman man, he says. Never plays the field, never looked at another woman while with his first wife, and wouldn’t have gone with Penny if they hadn’t agreed to divorce. Now, with Penny back in Rhodesia, he’s not going out with anyone. He loves his 12 year old daughter but his first wife has custody. For the child’s benefit. “Never get involved in divorce“ he says. “It’s hell. But our lives would have been hell too. So there was no choice.” I believe what he says.
He’s another of the people who seem to be candid and open with me. It’s a particular type of person, uncertain to some extent, sensitive, thoughtful. Some have asked for advice, others have wanted moral backing for their actions, a few just wanted to talk, but they all seem to have trusted me.
I wonder why, and if I’m exaggerating the importance of this. I don’t think so. Not many people think of me as a social partner. That hurts.
§
The new orderly
The new orderly says that for the last sixteen years, off and on, he’s worked as a steward aboard ship. That entailed a lot of drudgery, which he didn’t like, but he got promoted to chief steward and earned a sheaf of references from all over the world.
He likes cities. London is his favourite. It’s more cosmopolitan than Paris. Past and present live together at every corner. Pavement art is beautiful, and pavement artists are paid in pennies. New York is too high and too fast and hysterical. One lives in shadow. But it’s astounding.
Seamen like company because they live lonely lives at sea. Perhaps it’s boring, but not with books and music and a typewriter, and being able to sit up under the funnel and watch the sun set — or rise.
He’s worked in the holy of holies — Temple Court — and been paid an extra fiver and leftover liquor for work well done.
Once he got a job as part of the delivery crew for the Sheik of Qatar’s new royal yacht. That was in 1961. The yacht was beautiful, built in Germany with English engines and stabilisers. Air-conditioned and ultra luxurious, with lush furnishings and beds, and breezy, open sun decks. He was flown to Germany to join the crew, sailed with the boat to the Isle of Wight for trials, and then to Qatar and the Persian Gulf, or as the Arabians call it, the Arabian Gulf.
Out from the Isle of Wight they went through a Force Five gale. The boat was not very good in such a sea, but then the Arabian Gulf is not the Isle of Wight — and His Highness wouldn’t stay at sea in a Force Five gale.
When he got to Qatar he was asked to stay on for a couple of months as part of a settling-in crew. He enjoyed contact with all the top palace staff and lived like royalty, but grew to dislike having every door opened and every bag carried. Doha, the capital, is a city of contrast. The poor sell fresh fish on the dirty streets, shooing off flies, but in the supermarket you can buy lamb from New Zealand, pork from Germany, poultry from America — anything from anywhere. Being a providore for the Sheik’s yacht he didn’t have to look at prices.
The way of life is completely different. There are many palaces, for the Sheik himself, his sons and wives (the Sheik has only five). Inside, the palace is gardens and luxury and cool air. Outside, battlements and turrets and rifle slits — as like as not in the middle of barrenness, with water, precious water, pumped miles to feed the gardens and fountains.
His Highness builds schools but his young subjects go home to hovels.
Etiquette is subtle. He could eat pork and drink liquor in his flat in Doha, but not onboard the yacht. Animals for eating had their throats cut in a dhow next to the yacht and were roasted whole or in halves. The oven on the yacht could hold two half sheep or 30 chickens. They wanted to install two but it couldn’t be done. Coffee is drunk bitter in tiny egg cups. If, when you hand your cup back to the servant you don’t wiggle it from side the side in your fingers, you will be given another. And another and another! Which can be quite annoying for starchy Europeans
Two years ago his father had a stroke and he flew back to New Zealand from Bombay. He’s stayed here since.
Last year he went to one of the offshore islands with a scientific team as cook. Just after they arrived the volcano erupted and they had to be evacuated. When they went back there was trouble, he wouldn’t tell me what, but he suffered some mental strain that required psychiatric treatment “and all that stupidity“. He was evacuated, and after treatment went for a holiday down the South Island, and then came here.
He’s worked in a hospital before — mainly, I gather, with children, including the mentally deficient and physically and mentally deformed. He says it was at times grim and at times beautiful and happy — once the eyes got used to the deformities and could see through to the person.
Like his sailors, he likes to talk — but he knows that about himself. He doesn’t intend to stay long.
§
The Charge Nurse
Barry is the Charge Nurse in my ward — I think that’s his title. I always call him Barry — what do you call a male Sister? I admire Barry very much. He’s friendly and hardworking. He injured a leg as a kid, and now limps around his ward doing unto others as they did unto him.
We have a quadriplegic called Matt, and every day Barry pulls the curtains and does for Matt what he can’t do for himself. Takes a bit of time while the two of them talk adult to adult about whatever comes to mind. a bit like the diesel mechanic who comes round to do something on a tractor that the bloke who owns it can’t. The fact that he needs a bit of help from you doesn’t mean you’re not equals.
Barry had me practise giving my first injection on Matt because he can’t feel a thing. Matt didn’t mind and it seemed to go ok.
§
17.11.65: On Monday evening, Mr A. broke wind almost continuously. I wrote a long letter to Barry saying I regretted to inform him that Mr A. was having an enjoyable evening producing what in the popular vernacular are known as farts, and although he was deriving considerable cheap, wholesome and harmless entertainment from this pastime, his neighbours were finding it rather odious, or odorous. I hoped that Barry could suggest something of a medical nature to attack the cause.
Mrs M. says Barry laughed. I’m going to miss that boy, he said, he’s got a sense of humour.
He wrote me a long reply suggesting that rather than attack the cause we should make positive use of the effect. He drew comparisons with the good use the country is making of Kapuni natural gas, and suggested a piccolo.
Funny how important other people’s affection is to us.
§
Ward 3
I worked in Ward 3 today because Neil was sick.
Karl, who is huge and has Parkinson’s, crumpled on the floor, and I almost ruined my back lifting him back up.
Another man who also suffers from Parkinson’s can hardly talk, although the experienced can make sense of his stiff-lipped whispers. They dress him in his pants and pyjama shirt and he trots and bounces around the ward and grounds during day. He does look funny, but it’s best to keep an eye on him, especially if he’s going down a slope, as he gets up a fair amount of momentum and can’t always stop. On the other hand, it’s best to be careful restraining him, moving him on or changing his direction. He’s very powerful.
§
Mr H. said that in his years at sea, at the turn of the century, he went to America. He said that in America the cowboys were a free and easy lot except when you laid a finger on their wives or their horses. He’s of middle height and thin, with a bushy moustache, stringy hair and red, rheumy hairless eyes and an excited, high-pitched voice. He pilfers like a magpie.
§
It was cold when I got Mr N. up this morning. He curled up on the mattress when I took the bed clothes off and shivered and said, “Bob-bob-bob-bob-bob-bob!” furiously because I was awkward and let him get cold. He looked very small, curled up, but I made him stand and he unfolded like a tent pole, about 6’4″ high.
After lunch, he kept waving a pipe at me most irritatingly as I walked past and saying, “Bob-bob-bob-bob?”. So I got him a match and lit it for him, whereupon he nodded his head and jerked his hand in thanks.
Again, after tea, he asked to go to bed. So I put him to bed. When I’d tucked him in I asked him, “Are you comfortable?”
“Bob-bob-bob-bob,” he said, with a contented smile.