Bittersweet

  Dr. Gordon was glad to have a new audience, it seemed, for he cheerfully talked his way through an appendicectomy, just to instruct her and annoy Junior Sister.

  “You’ll note, nurse, that we don’t simply dive into the middle of the abdominal contents — too dangerous. But you can see the colon clearly, lying across the thinner entrails, can’t you? Yes? Good! Note that the interior of the abdominal cavity is a vivid pink — first indication of coming sepsis, but we’re here in time, he won’t develop peritonitis. The operation is simple enough because the caecum lies close to the ventral surface, and the vermiform appendix juts off it. Nuisances that are always infecting! Things get stuck inside with nowhere to go, like hard little faecal pellets.”

  Was she supposed to ask questions? “Constipation, sir?”

  He guffawed. “Wrong end of the colon for that, nurse.”

  “Do you open the bowel itself, sir?”

  “I wish! No, the bowels contain faecal matter that teems with germs. Open the bowel, let any faecal matter spill into the abdomen, and you’ve caused peritonitis, sepsis, death. You see, we don’t have any medicines that can kill the germs. So if I do a Billroth I or Billroth II to remove part of the stomach or the pylorus for ulcers or cancer, it’s of paramount importance to clamp the ends of the remaining tissue so that no contents can escape before you anastomose them together. You can try the same if removing bowel for cancer with a view to an end-to-end anastomosis, but it’s very risky. Gall bladders are easier,” said Dr. Gordon. “What we have to do is find a way to kill germs by mouth or injection. Come on, nurse, ask questions!”

  But the one question Edda burned to ask, she did not dare: why were so many surgeons of Scottish ancestry? If they weren’t surgeons, they seemed to be engineers, and there was a connection.

  Dr. Herzen was a German born and bred, and Corunda knew itself extremely lucky to have acquired a bone specialist of his distinction; patients came from Sydney to see him. The most mortifying incident in Dr. Herzen’s history had occurred during the Great War, when, despite Corunda’s screams of outrage, the jingoistic federal government had interned him as an enemy alien and denied him the right to practise. As his medical degree was from Sydney University, it made no more sense than did his two-year detention. His devotion to Corunda was understandable, given the town’s staunch fight to free him, but Corunda had known what it was doing. A natural denizen of Macquarie Street, Sydney, chose to continue practising in Corunda, which had also obtained him a British passport.

  Herzen’s days in Theatre were inevitably busy, whereas Dr. Gordon’s intake varied. Both surgeons saw their share of work in the Casualty department, and they could, if necessary, pinch-hit for each other.

  Edda’s most extraordinary experience came after she had been promoted to instrument nurse. Theatre Sister had decided to like her, which meant she would receive the full gamut of Theatre’s jobs apart from Sister’s own, and even that would be touched upon.

  Gordon and Herzen operated together, with Herzen taking the lead, and no anaesthetic.

  “The patient is comatose and has been fitting,” said Sister Marshall as they scrubbed. “Dr. Herzen is going to try to remove a subdural haematoma — a blood clot that has formed over the outer surface of the brain and is pressing down on it. Such clots keep on absorbing fluids and swelling. Because the cranium is a bony box, swollen contents have no room to expand. So even though the brain itself isn’t injured by the external clot, it becomes injured as a result of being squashed. Unless the pressure is released, the squashing will progress to death. And our surgeons are going to try to stop the squashing by removing the clot.”

  “How do you know the patient has a subdural haematoma?” Edda asked. “There’s no test to show it up, is there?”

  “The coma, the epileptic seizures on one side of the body only, and one pupil bigger than the other — this last is the classical sign of a subdural haematoma,” said Theatre Sister. “No X-ray shows the clot, but Dr. Herzen is sure he’ll find a huge clot over the left fronto-temporal cortex. The patient had developed a specific speech loss indicating this area, and Dr. Gordon agrees.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather have Nurse Trimble on instruments?”

  “Frankly, no. Some of the instruments had to be borrowed from Sydney and Trimble wouldn’t know them, whereas you’ve had tutoring on unusual instruments, even if only from books. With any luck, none of them will be needed, but —”

  The Goddess had spoken. Edda climbed up to stand on her stool just to one side of Theatre Sister, her training vindicated.

  Having made a small incision in the scalp and laid bare the bone, Dr. Herzen picked up what looked exactly like an ordinary bit-and-brace. The bit was circular, hollow, and toothed, with a spike in its centre; it was about the size of a ha’penny or a quarter. When the surgeon turned the handle on the brace wheel, the bit gouged its way into the bone, with Dr. Gordon carefully scraping up the moist granules of bone dust as the bit bored downward.

  “I’ve reached the table — watch out,” Herzen warned. A moment later, and the bit withdrew holding a ha’penny coin of bone. The surgeons huddled to look; Edda couldn’t see.

  “It’s black from blood under the dura, Erich — you’re right on the nose!” said Dr. Gordon delightedly.

  “Sucker ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to snip the dura — Sister, are your nurses set to deal with our patient if he comes to and panics?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dr. Herzen made a minute pair of snips, cross-shaped, with small, curved, pointed scissors; blackish jelly welled into sight immediately, and Dr. Gordon went to work with the sucker tube.

  Still comatose, the patient didn’t rouse as the pressure on his brain was relieved, so the two surgeons waited to see if the bleeding was still going on, or the right kind of clot had formed underneath the malignant one. Finally Dr. Herzen sighed.

  “I think we can close up, Ian.”

  The disc of bone was gently pushed back into place and the bone shavings patted around it; four scalp sutures, and the craniotomy was over. The patient began to stir.

  “Why didn’t you use a trephine, Erich?” Dr. Gordon asked.

  “Don’t like ’em” was the reply. “It’s too easy to go too far once you reach the table. Well and good for the Sydney boys who do this sort of thing all the time, but how often do I ever drill burr holes in a skull? Sure means not sorry. A bit-and-brace I find easier to control.”

  “Understood, and filed for future reference.”

  When the patient went home a week later none the worse for his head injury, Edda regarded it as a minor miracle; one day, she vowed, she would see the real neurosurgeons operate at Queen’s Square in London. Perhaps by then the ghost of Victor Horsley wouldn’t be pedalling his bicycle around Bloomsbury, but there were others, and that part of London abounded in famous hospitals.

  After two years of nursing, the three remaining Latimer sisters were well ensconced in their niche; their faces under the silly winged caps were well known to everyone from Matron Newdigate and Superintendent Campbell through West Ender nurses to wardsmaids and porters, and each had discovered a preference for one kind of nursing above all others, though none liked mental asylum nursing.

  For Edda, the Operating Theatre and Casualty nursing reigned supreme. The reasons why were glaringly obvious: the drama and air of urgency and peril which accompanied every patient beyond the walking wounded. Would the procedures go smoothly, or would the patient produce some unexpected, occasionally shocking, factor that turned the surgery into a race for life? Impossible to tell. Since the horrors of the Great War, surgery had gone ahead rapidly, but there were still so many problems it could not, as yet, even begin to tackle. Once her nursing training was over and she was registered, Edda decided that the life of a theatre sister was for her.

  Her trim, tall form attracted attention from men that could not be misinterpreted, for she drew men; yet Latimer was not a
man-eater, never seemed to notice the glances, passed off the comments with a shrug, and gave a terse refusal to those who had plucked up the courage to ask her out. Except, that is, for Jack Thurlow, with whom she maintained a genuine friendship. For though she loved him, she had no intention of putting his demands on her emotions ahead of her nursing. No, Jack Thurlow would have to wait a little longer before she made any move in his direction… Even then, a part of her was unsure about marriage. A lifetime of Maude had soured her regard for wedlock, she supposed, or perhaps it was more truthful to say that something in her just plain rebelled against taking the subordinate role in life that marriage demanded of a woman.

  “It’s logical,” she said to Tufts and Kitty one evening after they had all come off duty, “that women have to be subordinate in a marriage, I suppose. They bear and raise the babes, who do better in the care of their mothers than they do in the care of minders or even nannies. But it doesn’t seem fair all the same.”

  “Then don’t marry,” said Tufts, grinning. “I won’t.”

  “Oh, poop to the both of you!” Kitty cried. “A career is well and good, but what about love and companionship?”

  “What’s love got to do with companionship?” Edda asked.

  “Everything! Oh, you’re deliberately baiting me! Surely you can see that love without liking is doomed to failure? Love and liking must both be present.”

  “The men who’ve inspired the one in me certainly haven’t inspired the other,” said Edda, eyes gleaming.

  “Oh, yes, and of course you’re so experienced! You, Edda Latimer, are a fraud,” Kitty said, disgusted.

  It was on the tip of Edda’s tongue to mention Jack Thurlow, but she didn’t. Somehow Jack was her secret, hers and only hers. Especially now they were meeting regularly. Oh, just as friends, good friends in that slightly remote way she had set as their style very early on. For Edda had great pride; she had no intention of showing any man, even Jack Thurlow, her vulnerabilities. He must believe that she cared little for love and less for casual dalliance; that, to her, his male sex was a simple accident of fate, of no importance to their relationship. No come-hither glances or fiery invitations from her eyes!

  “You’re determined to travel once you’re registered,” Kitty said to Edda in accusing tones.

  “Yes, naturally. Oh, come, Kitty, don’t tell me you’re going to endure three years of this just to get a job in Corunda Base as a junior sister!” said Edda, astonished.

  “I love Corunda!” Kitty protested. “Why travel to see yet more human misery than we have here?”

  “Don’t talk like that, Kitty,” said Tufts sharply.

  “No, no, I don’t mean it in a down-in-the-dumps way, Tufty, honestly! But I do love Corunda, and I want to marry a man I love and like, preferably right here in Corunda.”

  “More fool you,” said Edda, pouring tea.

  “I understand,” said Tufts more kindly, and smiled at her twin. “However, like Edda I mean to travel, do different sorts of nursing.”

  “We’ve never been apart,” said Kitty on a sniffle.

  “Nor had Edda and Grace, but growing into legal adults says we’re bound to split up. Edda is a nurse, but Grace prefers being a wife. You and I are exactly the same. I’m the nurse, you’re the wife,” said Tufts.

  “Oh, enough!” Edda shouted, thumping the table.

  The next time Edda met Jack Thurlow on the bridle path, she did something she never afterward understood, even years later, when time and distance lent her thoughts detachment: she asked him if he would like to meet her twin sister, Grace.

  They were sitting companionably on their log and he was rolling a cigarette, his square brown hands entrancing Edda as the bones empowering them moved under the smooth skin; not the hands of a manual labourer, for all that he said he worked on the land. His were the boss’s hands, neither cracked nor crabbed.

  The fingers stopped moving; he glanced at her from under his brows in that keen, searching look he sometimes gave her when she surprised him. “Meet your sister Grace?” he repeated.

  “Yes, but only if you’d like to,” she said quickly. “I do occasionally realise that I never make any of the expected social overtures to you.” She shrugged offhandedly. “Feel free to say no, Jack, and I do mean that.” She produced a bored expression. “It wouldn’t be very exciting. Grace is expecting a baby in about three months, and rather full —” she chuckled — “good pun! — of her cleverness at doing such a unique, amazing thing.”

  His laughter was hearty but ironic. “Poor Edda! You’re asking me because you want company. Your visit must be overdue.”

  “How well you know me! Will you come? Say no!”

  “I’d like to meet your twin, though the mind boggles at two Eddas. You’re identical?”

  “At birth, yes, but living rather lessens the likeness. My twin looks like me, but she’s a far different sort of person, and less overpowering. Not another Edda!”

  “That’s a colossal relief.”

  “Nonsense! Since when have I overpowered you?”

  “Never, I admit it. Sometimes I wish you did.”

  “Grace’s house is on Trelawney Way,” Edda said, changing the subject. “Number ten. Shall we meet there — when?”

  He lit his cigarette. “When’s your next afternoon off?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “I’ll pick you up in front of the hospital at three.”

  “No, make it the Town Hall for pickup.” And that was that. Instead of accompanying her, Jack remounted, tipped his hat in her direction, and cantered off.

  Edda stared after his retreating form in dismay. Fool! To alter anything in a relationship was dangerous, yet she had to go and do it! Why? For the same reason, she thought, riding back to the Rectory stables, that once made me put my chair leg on top of a snake’s head. To see if I could. What is it about me, that I can’t leave well enough alone? Is it alive, or dead? All others will run, but Edda will stay to investigate, experiment.

  Jack Thurlow rode away wondering why he had agreed to meet Grace Olsen née Latimer, though in his bones he had an uncomfortable sense that it was because Edda Latimer fascinated him. Did she not, he wouldn’t bother with these fool gallops he didn’t need, in the saddle every day and longing to be out of it. He had a huge physical lust for her, but he was a man knew how to control his passions, and he had no intention of giving in to Edda. Elegant, sophisticated, aware of sex, she gave off powerful emanations of a carnality his experience told him was rare in one so carefully brought up. A true virgin, but by choice; she hadn’t met anyone good enough yet, the little snob. He realised that she was attracted to him, too, but he had dismissed it as a symptom of her boredom. This was a young woman hankered for a bigger, wider life than Corunda offered.

  For the moment marriage wasn’t on her agenda, and it was never on his; a good reason not to start anything — anythings could wind up in pregnancies. So perhaps, he thought exultantly as he turned off the bridle path in the direction of his home, his acceptance of Edda’s invitation was the best way to reduce the girl to ordinariness: an unimpregnated sister with a pregnant sister, part and parcel of the Corunda he hated most.

  When old Tom Burdum had given him Corundoobar for his own, deeded it outright, Jack Thurlow’s world had completed itself, and he was happy. The son of old Tom’s daughter, he had endured a stormy childhood of financial and social ups and downs that still bewildered him, they had been so many and so different. Its chief result, in Jack’s mind anyway, was his ongoing horror of the Evil Twins — Money and Power. A horror that had led him to refuse to be old Tom’s principal heir, and set the old man off in search of a new heir, the Pommy doctor. Well, good luck to old Tom!

  At 5000 acres, Corundoobar wasn’t the largest of the Burdum properties; this was rich country, a man didn’t need many thousands of acres to do well as a pastoralist or as a farmer. The soil was deep and nutritious, the rainfall higher and more reliable than in most Australian places,
and the district’s plateau elevation gave it a kinder climate, at least during the six months of summer.

  Jack had worked Corundoobar since returning from boarding school in Sydney at eighteen; his education had been excellent as far as it went, but he chose not to advertise the fact, preferring the image of inarticulate pastoralist engaged in producing fat lambs and, more recently, the breeding of Arab saddle horses. Arabs were too small for many male riders, but ideal lady’s mounts, and everybody knew women were the horse-mad sex. Old Tom had derided the venture, but had to swallow his scorn when Jack’s Arabs did amazingly well right from the start. Nowadays Jack was entering his Arabs in the big rural shows across the state; his ambition was to exhibit them at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, the biggest and most important venue for livestock in the whole of Australia.

  Corundoobar homestead sat athwart a cone-shaped hill, rolling down all its flanks to an enviable three-quarter-circle frontage on the Corunda River where it never dried up into a string of water-holes; windpower gave him enough pressure to pump to his paddock troughs, while the home gardens were so enclosed by the stream that watering them was a tank tower and gravity feed. For drinking water, there were underground storage tanks to hold rain runoff from roofs.

  The original Burdum house, it was built of limestone blocks on a square pattern with a hip-roof of corrugated iron and a wide verandah all the way around it. The gardens were lush, green, and a mosaic of flowers from September to April; at the present moment, high spring, everything producing bloom was in luxuriant flower. Each time he rounded the hill on the Doobar Road and saw the homestead come into sight Jack felt his breath catch, his heart leap in his chest as it never had for a woman. The loveliest place in the world, and legally, irrevocably his!