Life Class (21 page)

Before Dory could apologise for summoning her, Jo spoke.

‘I’m not an errand boy. I don’t expect to fetch and carry.’

Tipping her head towards the front of the building, Dory said, ‘I think someone I know has just come in for screening.’

‘For goodness sake! We can’t let embarrassment stop us doing our jobs!’ Carly had returned to the lab now, wide-eyed she looked from one to the other. ‘You shouldn’t be in this kind of work if you can’t handle it,’ the Sister continued.

Stung by the implication she was a raw recruit, Dory countered, ‘I was actually trying to spare the
patient’s
feelings, not mine.’

‘And why are these so late?’ Jo changed tack. ‘Most of us are lucky to snatch a fifteen-minute break, but you have no qualms about swanning off for a long lunch!’

‘Hardly long …’

‘The trouble with you part-timers is you don’t live in the real world.’

‘What?’ Dory was almost lost for words. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not as if I’m inexperienced in this job.’

‘Oh fine!’ Jo Finch nodded and crossed her arms, as if she’d at last been proved right. ‘I was waiting for that one! “I’ve run my own clinic so I can’t be told what to do”! You’ve only been here five minutes. You’ve no real concept of what it’s like working in the NHS!’

‘Hang on! I’m sorry if my part-time status offends you, but I
have
been working here over three months! I’ve never undermined you or queried your way of doing things. When we’ve been short staffed I’ve never complained about anything I’ve been asked to do outside of my job description!’ It wasn’t unknown to find herself called into the treatment room to hold a penis while the nurse took swabs.

‘Ooh! Get me! “Outside of my job description”,’ Jo mimicked contemptuously. ‘A two-hour lunch break isn’t what
I
call mucking in.’

Dory pulled her shoulders back and straightened her spine. ‘I don’t think you’re being fair!’ She had several inches on the woman. ‘When I hadn’t had the results by half ten this morning, I phoned through to the main lab. They have a couple of staff on winter breaks, and someone off with flu. They told me they couldn’t get the test results to us before lunch. So I got on with some admin. By twelve, not a soul had come in, so I decided to walk into town. Maybe I
was
slightly longer than an hour … fifteen minutes at most. But my lateness didn’t hold anything up. The results had only just arrived. I passed the porter as I got back. That’s right, isn’t it, Carly?’

The young nurse nodded. There was nothing Jo could say. Her chin went up; her small, darkly lipsticked mouth set into an affronted line. Staring back from her superior height, Dory was pleased to notice that the woman’s glossy helmet of unnaturally auburn hair needed its roots doing. And the style, a sharp-edged, cheek-length bob, presumably meant to distract from the woman’s heavy jawline, was not doing its job. The Sister turned on her kitten heels, and muttering – ‘There are going to be some changes around here!’ – stalked out.

Once out of earshot, Carly said, ‘Snotty cow! Are you all right?’

The debacle had raised Dory’s heart rate. She sat back down on her stool and sighed. ‘I could have done without that! No, I’m fine. Thanks.’

‘Sorry. I’d have popped the files through to her office if I’d been here, but …’

‘Don’t apologise. It wasn’t your fault. Anyway, you’re a qualified nurse, it’s not fair treating you like a gofer.’

‘You know I don’t mind. Jo was definitely out of order. No one else thinks like that, you know, about part-timers. I don’t think
she
does, really. She’s just in a bad mood at having to come in today. There’s no point taking it out on us. It’s not our fault everything’s topsy-turvy. It’s just a blessing we’ve been so quiet.’ Carly paused. ‘You sure you’re OK?’ Dory had dipped her head onto her hand.

‘I’m fine, really,’ she answered, straightening up. ‘It would take more than Jo Finch to upset me. I’ve something on my mind, that’s all.’

Apparently reassured, Carly continued. ‘Anyway, she’s just plain wrong if she’s saying that it isn’t an issue … people coming in who members of staff know. Of course it can be embarrassing. Or worse! This guy came in, I mean, really buff! He didn’t know me from Adam but I knew him. A mate of mine has the hots for him. And he was in here for, well, the obvious reasons. And all I could think about was how my mate wanted to get off with him … if she hadn’t already. After he’d been screened I sneaked a look at the preliminary results from our lab, and later at the results when they came back from “Bacteriology”. Turned out he was OK, though I noticed he’d given a false name and only a mobile number. But if he
had
been positive for anything, GC, STs, or even worse, what would I have done? What about patient confidentiality?’

‘I sympathise,’ Dory said. ‘It’s one of the dilemmas of working in STIs. Patient confidentiality is paramount. You could lose your job for gossiping. Presumably your friend knows you work here? You wouldn’t have to spell it out about her boyfriend. There are ways of hinting to someone.’

Carly went off to continue her own work. Dory looked blankly out of the window. She recalled telling Fran what wonderful nurses she worked with. True, most of her colleagues were great. Jo Finch was definitely the exception that proved the rule – it was just a shame that she was the one in charge.

All Dory could now do was wait for the next slides to be brought in to her, knowing who’d provided them. It wasn’t just the identity of the donor that bothered her; it was the connection between him and the man outside. Dory reminded herself again that it was none of her business. She swivelled her stool round to face the two microscopes. At least her attention had been diverted from Stefan’s house.

‘Talk about coming down to earth with a …’

A thump, then the door swung open. Shaskia sidled in sideways, her hands full. She grinned. ‘You talking to yourself, girl?’ In her gloved hands, the nurse carried her patient’s notes and an oblong papier-mâché dish.

‘Overworked and underpaid,’ Dory responded. ‘Is that for me?’

Shaskia looked around exaggeratedly. ‘Don’t see no one else in here.’

Before taking the dish, Dory swivelled back to the bench and reached for a packet of surgical gloves. ‘So, what’s your verdict?’ she asked, pulling them on. It was the kind of inconsequential query she might have made about any patient whose slides the nurse had brought in for her to analyse. Why did the answer feel significant? The nurse winked an iridescent eyelid, gave a saucy, gap-toothed grin.

‘Cute!’

‘Not how fit you think he is, naughty girl!’

‘But too young for me … and gay, sadly,’ Shaskia added with a laugh. ‘We’ve not seen him before. Claims he’s not an IV drug user and that he’s asymptomatic, which is why I dealt with him. Couldn’t find any evidence of infection, but he’ll be lucky if he hasn’t caught something, given his lifestyle.’ She rubbed her fingers together in the age-old gesture denoting a monetary transaction was involved. ‘Even if the main lab results come back all-clear for HIV, he’ll be recommended a retest.’

Shaskia pursed her raspberry glossed lips and arched her plucked eyebrows. ‘You can’t have so much sympathy when they’ve brought it on themselves, can you? Opposite of the girl I’ve got next. She says she’s … she
was
a virgin. Very religious. She was raped, poor soul. The rat convinced her he was a taxi driver.’ Peeling off and disposing of the gloves she was wearing, the nurse left the room. She would be putting on a fresh apron and pulling on a new pair of surgical gloves before dealing with the rape victim.

Dory swivelled her stool back to face the two microscopes. Irrationally, she was glad that she’d not need the ‘dark ground’ microscope. It was only used if the patient had sores. Swabs were taken of the discharge and the resultant slides were screened for the presence of spirochetes, which indicated syphilis. It was a preliminary screening that, to Dory, seemed an unnecessary duplication, as syphilis was tested for again in the Bacteriology Department.

The papier-mâché container that Shaskia had brought in contained two slides and a shallow Petri dish. Dory put the slides on a hot tray. She put the dish, a blood agar plate, into the incubator to keep it at a constant temperature until it was collected and taken to the main lab later in the afternoon. Dory wrote down the patient number in her notebook. At this stage, the number was all she usually knew about the patient. Today she had an image in her mind’s eye of the pale boy with the long, dark hair who, as often as not, stood across from her in the life class room.

Change the subject, she told herself irritably and switched her thoughts to the next patient whom Shaskia had spoken of. Apart from the danger of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, there was a second possibility rape victims were tested for. She wondered what the girl would choose to do if …? Dory shook her head at the complex human dilemmas this work exposed her to. Pregnant. The word resonated in her mind. What would
she
do? Chance would be a fine thing, she thought ruefully. The boy’s slides should be dry by now. She took them off the hot tray and began to prepare the first for a Gram stain, which would define any organisms that might indicate an infection.

Minutes later, she fixed the slide in place under the lens and for a moment sat there looking
at
the microscope instead of
through
it. In all the years she had done this job she’d never felt less objective. She breathed in. Then she bent her head, lining up the double eyepiece and making minute adjustments to the focus. What she was looking for first, in a high-powered field, were leukocytes, or white blood cells, which would be stained a deep violet colour. These were Gram-positive, and indicated streptococcus or non-specific urethritis. Having examined one field, she re-adjusted the microscope and looked at four more, prepared to count the organisms. Her notebook was beside her to write down what she saw. She wrote nothing.

She switched her attention to look for organisms stained red, which had taken up the Gram-negative stain. Here, she was looking specifically for kidney-shaped organisms in sets of two – diplococci – which indicated Neisseria Gonorrhoea, referred to as GC. Her notebook remained empty. At length, after carefully studying both slides, her breath was released in a sigh. Dory swivelled her stool to the adjoining bench where the patient’s notes had been placed. Picking up her pen, she filled in the results on the designated form. She would transfer her findings to her ponderous mammoth computer later.

A revamp of the department had been on the cards for over a decade, offering a purpose-built, multi-million pound building housing modern offices, treatment rooms, and a vastly expanded laboratory. A new computer system had been delayed to coincide with the project. Even before the change of government these plans had suffered a series of nips and tucks. Now, with the whole structure of the health service in question, it looked increasingly unlikely that any part of the scheme would go ahead. Instead of a glitzy new building and a state-of-the-art computer system linked to the main hospital, redundancies, retrenchment, and privatization of anything not screwed down were in prospect. Was Jo Finch the only person who really believed there were going to be changes that anyone working here could welcome? Maybe now was the ideal time to set up on her own.

When she’d finished writing up the findings, she opened the patient file and added them. So far so good, but this was just stage one. Maybe the main lab’s results would make grimmer reading. He’d never been here before. The screening tests she’d carried out were the first. The only other documents the file contained were the questionnaire he’d filled in and the notes written up by Shaskia, who’d talked to him before she took the samples. Dory resisted the temptation to look through them. She didn’t want the nurse’s remark about ‘lifestyle’ coloured in with any more detail. At least he’d been brave enough to give his real name.

She closed the file and turned it over. Her eyes dropped to the address. She breathed in. There was a sense of the inevitable about it. No one was keeping secrets. The evidence had been there all along, she’d just been too blind and stupid to see it. Of course that’s where the boy lived. Of course two plus two equalled four. But why should she care? Shrugging, she leant across the desk to place the file with the others. A sudden disorientation threatened her balance, as if her neck was too frail to support the weight of her head.

Chapter Twenty-two - Stefan

It felt like he’d been here for hours. He could no longer bear to sit in the car and so for a while he’d been walking around the huge car park, chain-smoking. There was nothing to see, just cars and more cars, and concrete and ugly hospital buildings. Perhaps it was a blessing that the scene was becoming obscured in shadow. Was today the shortest day of the year, or was that yesterday? Surely it was darker than it should be, even for midwinter? Pulling up his collar and hunching his shoulders, he scowled at the inky cloud that had piled back across the sky. Despite his impatience and frustration, he’d had to stay within sight of the front entrance of the clinic, unable even to go for a warming coffee in the main hospital block.

At last, the slight, black-clad figure – hood pulled up over his head – emerged. He looked towards the car and saw it was empty. Stefan dropped the cigarette and strode quickly towards him. The figure turned away and took a few steps in the direction of the city.

‘Dom!’ The boy stopped and looked for the source of the voice. ‘Dom! I’m here. Don’t go.’ Stefan broke into a run. He reached the boy, panting. ‘Bloody fags!’ he gasped. ‘Got to give them up!’

Dominic looked pale, but then he always looked pale, and he looked angry too. Stefan’s heart dropped.

‘What’s up? Was it nasty?’

‘It was gross!’ His chin was twitching, his skin goose-bumped, as if profoundly chilled. ‘There was this thing, like a long wire with a loop on the end and they stuck it up …’

A void opened in Stefan’s gut. ‘I get the picture,’ he interrupted, a chill washing through him at the mere idea.