Lily Harlem - Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, seriously.’

She tugged Mr Parslow’s vest off his left arm and I did the same with the right, then we slipped it carefully over his head. As his bony skull settled back on the pillow I tried to close his eyes with my palm, but they slid back to half mast, unseeing and milky-glazed.

‘Roll to me?’ I asked.

Annie was already wringing out the flannel ready to wash his back. ‘Yep.’

I tugged the frail body by shoulder and hip, exposing angled scapulae and prominent vertebrae. A huff of air, like a strangled groan, rattled up from his chest and scratched through his throat. I glanced downwards. His jaw had slackened a little further at the movement. ‘Do you think the porter could be making it up? You know what they’re like.’

‘I don’t know, it’s a rumour, and rumours are like wildfire once they get started around here.’ She washed his back quickly then dried with a flourish. ‘But there’s no smoke without fire and stranger things have happened than the hospital’s number one stud getting up-hill action with the senior nurse.’

‘I suppose.’ I wondered what Javier could possibly see in Iceberg. She was a cold-hearted cow – everyone thought so. Last week she’d snapped at me for sitting down on the job when I’d gone off duty twenty minutes previously and was waiting for the rain to ease before heading home on my bicycle. Not bothering to listen to my explanation, she threatened to have my pay docked and inform Personnel of my inherent slackness.

I rested Mr Parslow onto his back again and rummaged in the bedside locker for clean pyjamas. Found some; navy and crisply new, with a Marks and Spencer price tag still in place. I wondered if whoever bought these had any idea they’d be the last clothes he’d ever wear. If so, it was nice that they were M&S, you could rely on the quality.

Annie had whipped off the existing pyjama bottoms and was washing his withered, lifeless penis with well-practised efficiency. ‘Apparently he’s off in March, got a registrar post at St George’s.’

‘In London?’ I took up the task of drying where her flannel had been.

‘Yeah, will serve Iceberg right if she falls for him then he goes and leaves her.’

I muttered an agreement and we dressed our silent patient in his smart, new pyjamas. Despite the quiet, reverent task I couldn’t help the wave of panic in my guts. Javier had been working in my hospital for nearly two years and I hadn’t once played hide-the-sausage with him. I always presumed there’d be plenty of time for that conquest. Part of me enjoyed the slow burn, the flirty smiles and suggestive banter we indulged in whenever our paths crossed in the dead of night. Another part of me now worried that I’d been wasting time when I could have been getting down and dirty, sweaty and naked, with my very own Italian stallion.

There was only one thing for it. I would have to up my game, become the hunter rather than the hunted.

Javier had no idea what was about to hit him, literally.

Mr Parslow was now fresh and dressed. Annie and I quickly tidied the room, did an inventory of his meagre belongings – splayed toothbrush, red comb strung with silver hairs, a half packet of toffees and several items of nightwear in various states of cleanliness – then we wrapped him in a paper-thin shroud and covered him with a clean sheet.

Annie left and I dropped the last of the damp towels into a linen skip.

A sudden bang on the window caught my attention. I turned and stared into the bleak darkness. The blind hadn’t been drawn over the slightly open pane and a feathery flash of silver-white knocked up against the glass. Once, twice, three times.

Curious, I stepped closer, trying to discern what was buffeting the rain-splattered window with firm insistence.

A gasp of surprise caught in my throat. It was a dove, out at night, in a gale.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ I bent and peered closer.

A black, beady eye’s attention settled on mine for the briefest of moments, then the dove took off, into the night, its wings ethereal and ghost-like, flapping against the wind.

I glanced at the mound on the bed and fought a prickle of unease tickling the back of my neck. Odd things happened in a hospital, but a dove, at night; that had been a first.

Quickly I shut the window. Mr Parslow’s soul had had ample time to depart. All that remained was his shell, so there was no need to have an escape route for his spirit to start its journey to Heaven; and I was pretty certain it would be Heaven, what with having a white dove coming to collect him on a storm-wild night.

I didn’t mention the dove to Annie or Tinkard. I just called for a porter to help me transfer to Rose Cottage and tugged on my coat. I checked my iPhone again. Another message from Tom.

You coming?

I typed back quickly.

Yes, so will you soon!

The porter appeared. He was new, a young guy, wide and stocky with hair so short you could see his scalp through it. He had the word love tattooed over the knuckles on his right hand.

‘You got one for Rose Cottage,’ he grunted, tugging the closed, coffin-style trolley along behind him.

‘Yes, sideward six.’

Luckily Mr Parslow’s skinny body was light, and within a few minutes we were heading out of the ward with him safely ensconced in the metal trolley.

‘Hey, Sharon,’ Tinkard called. ‘You may as well go for your break after you’ve done that, it’s just gone midnight.’

‘Right you are.’

The ward door shut with a heavy click and I put some muscle into pushing the trolley along the deserted corridor. As the pace picked up I stared at the lumpy back of the porter’s head and wondered if he was the one who’d found Javier and Iceberg.

If only I could see into his mind.

I pondered on whether I should question him. Just come straight out and ask if he’d seen the hottest medical senior house officer since Pompeii’s hospital had got showered in ash, shagging the Wicked Witch of the West where the sun doesn’t shine.

I thought better of it. My asking alone could become gossip, and I was keen to avoid gossip that included myself. There were too many skeletons in my cupboard, and, for that matter, in clinical rooms, sluices, linen rooms, and in that handy, unused office at the back of the pharmacy. No, I would keep quiet and do my own investigating.

Stepping out into the night, I was whipped in the face by my hair, the band holding it in a low ponytail no match for the ferocity of the gale. I hunched my shoulders and stooped, trying to shelter my face from the needle-points of rain blasting my cheeks. The sound of the torrent of drips hitting the metal trolley was almost as loud as the wind creaking at the row of oaks leading to Rose Cottage. Their boughs strained and moaned, their leaves hissing in great waves of noise.

The porter sped up behind the back of the canteen and put considerable energy into pulling. By the time we went past the incinerator and turned the final corner, I found myself jogging along the uneven path.

Luckily Tom was waiting with the door to Rose Cottage held open.

We rushed in, the trolley banging over the door-bar and a scurry of leaves whirling around our feet.

‘Fucking hell,’ the porter said. ‘It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey out there.’

Tom shut the door, winked at me, then took hold of my end of the trolley and wheeled it into the bay of body drawers. I trailed along behind, tucking my wind-wild hair back into its ponytail.

‘Yeah, good job the VIPs in here don’t care about shitty weather,’ Tom said, stopping at twenty-six C and then opening the trolley’s lid to reveal Mr Parslow’s covered body.

‘Bloody hate this part of the job, me,’ the porter said, staring at the shroud-covered lump and shuddering. ‘Don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.’