In the Midst of Life

his and say goodnight. He took my hand, and then pulled me towards him.
    ‘Come back with me … Don’t go … Come to my flat.’
    I stiffened with surprise.
    ‘Just for a little while – I need you so.’
    I tried to pull back.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You know quite well what I mean.’
    He pulled me closer and tried to kiss me, but I didn’t want it, and turned my headaway.
    ‘Don’t turn away! Why did you take my hand in the concert then, if you were going to turn away from me now?’
    I should have said, ‘From pity, nothing more, just pity’. But I didn’t. Feebly I said, ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Well, I do, so come with me now. Just come. I can’t go on like this. It’s been fifteen years since I’ve known a woman. I shall go mad.’
    He pulled me tight to his body and I felt him hard against me.
    I tried to pull away.
    ‘I’ve got to get back to the convent. I will be working in a few hours.’
    ‘You prissy little convent girl,’ he snarled. ‘You have no understanding of the needs of men.’
    ‘That’s not fair!’ I shouldn’t have said it, but I added, ‘I just don’t fancy you, that’s all.’
    He jumped back as though I had shot him, and a strange, strangled cry came from his throat. I freed myself and, sensing my power, I had the cruelty, not to mention the bad taste, to add, ‘Anyway, you are too old for me.’
    I walked away without turning. It was twelve years before I saw Dr Hyemagain.

 
     
    Judith, aged seventeen, died of a brain tumour. Her mother writes:
    ‘That night, as I prepared for bed, Judith said – “Mom, why don’t you put the light on? It’s getting so dark.”
    ‘“I can manage, dear,” I replied. I didn’t tell her that the light
was
on. As usual, I pushed my bed alongside hers and lay on the top in my dressing gown. We held hands, and with a soft pressure on mine she said, “You’ve been a lovely Mum.” Shortly after she drifted into a last sleep and a blessed unconsciousness.
    ‘During the night Cheyne Stokes breathing took over and, as day broke, I crept into my husband’s room and switched off his alarm clock. He stirred and looked up enquiringly. “You won’t be going to work,” I said. “Judith will die today.”
    ‘Later in the morning, the rhythm of her breathing changed. Quickly, I knelt beside the bed and slipped my hand into hers. Her fingers curled automatically around mine, like those of a sleeping babe, and she suddenly became so very young and vulnerable, like a creature emerging from a chrysalis into a new life. It was a beauty so fleeting I held my breath in wonder – and in the room there was no breathing at all. The dying need only a hand to hold and a quiet in which to make their departure.’
     
    — from
Nurse on Call
by Edith Cotterill (Ebury Press,2009)

THE MARIE CURIE HOSPITAL
     
    In the early 1960s, I was ward sister at the Marie Curie Hospital in Hampstead, London. It was part of the Royal Free Hospital, and was reserved for specialised radium treatment. It had originally been built as a cottage hospital around 1900, and was small, consisting of only thirty beds. The hospital was divided into two halves, a twelve-bed ward and three small side wards for the men, and the same for the women. A similar amount of space was occupied by the radiotherapy machines, which were huge, and required a lot of room. We dealt only with radiotherapy – all operations were carried out at the Royal Free. We also had our own dispensary. A matron was in overall charge of the hospital, and I was ward sister in charge of therapeutic cases. I had two staff nurses, five or six student nurses, two ward orderlies, and a ward maid.
    Cancer is a word that evokes fear in the minds of most people, and fears linger in the twenty-first century, although medical research has enabled cures for many forms of the disease. In the 1960s, the fear was even more justified. Chemotherapy was still at the research stage; radiotherapy was crude, but sometimes effective; drugs were highly toxic, and frequently created more distress and suffering than the cancer. The most reliable treatment was the surgeon’s knife, but whilst the central growth could frequently be cut away, the secondary tumours often could not be removed, nor could the encroachment into the blood, lymph and skeletal systems be prevented.
    Staff nurse and I were preparing Mrs Cox for her third treatment. Heaven knows, it was hopeless, but if the radium could reduce some of the