The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

home and called Daniel. I knew I wasn’t making much sense, but I heard him juggling the phone at the other end, asking Ed to take my pre-placement study to Leeds.

‘No!’ I yelped into the receiver.

‘Calm down, Rose. I’ll be over in half an hour and I’ll take it.’

‘Like you posted it?’ I said.

By then Tom was standing next to me, and I think he’d got the gist of what was happening. He’d sent his pre-placement study off to his supervisor way ahead of the deadline, received a receipt of submission too. Why hadn’t I checked if I’d got a receipt? I was totally losing it.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘No, I’m not. I think I’ve failed the writtens too.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Daniel’ll be here soon. He’s going to take my pre-placement study to Leeds for me.’

‘I can ask my dad.’

‘It’s okay, but thanks for offering.’

He shrugged in surrender, then said, ‘You need to calm down for tomorrow. You know the Old Guard have a way of eating female students for breakfast in the viva.’

‘I know. I’ll be fine.’

‘You don’t look fine. You look ill.’

‘I think I have a bug. Going to grab a few hours’ sleep after Daniel’s been and gone.’

‘I’m off to the library. I’ll check in on you later.’

‘Thanks.’ A sweep of nausea hit me again and I pushed past him to the loo.

Daniel turned up exactly half an hour after the phone call. He took me in his arms but said nothing.

I handed him the package. ‘Make sure it gets there, Daniel.’

‘I will. And it was posted.’

‘Did you post it?’

‘I gave it to Ed. He took it to the post office with all my other correspondence.’ He looked at me. ‘It was sent, Rose.’

I didn’t answer; there was nothing to say.

He carried on. ‘Don’t worry about your exams; they’re just trying to put the pressure on. He didn’t say you’d failed. Bastards. Get ready for the viva tomorrow.’ His eyes swept over my face. ‘You look pale.’

‘I’m very anxious, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow after the exam.’ He kissed me on the cheek, took the envelope and left.

I was glad to be alone. I hauled myself up the stairs like a zombie and fell onto the bed, slept for two hours and then sat at my desk doing last-minute revision on the shoulder girdle complex. My eyes settled on the notes – the triangle of auscultation, I read, and pulled the plastic model of the shoulder from my shelf. Studied it, studied the names and the alignment, the spacing of the intricate muscle groups that held the shoulder together, and the nerves that innervated those muscles.

The names danced in front of my eyes, ulna, radial, brachial, median. My stomach had settled down. I went downstairs and ate toast. Carried on revising until late evening. Daniel called the landline and left a message. The package was with Mr Michael Warner. Safe.

I went to bed, my head full of anatomy and Latin names.

Full of the mistake Daniel and I had made.

26

16 June 1991

‘Miss Trahern,’ the senior anatomy lecturer said, peering blatantly at my breasts before his gaze moved upward. My hair was scraped back and I wondered if he was scrutinizing the frown lines that had appeared overnight above my nose. ‘Can you please explain, briefly, the general configuration of the muscles, together with the main nerves around the shoulder complex, and then illustrate your answer by using the skeleton in front of you.’

I stood tall and gave my explanation. ‘The triangle of auscultation has the boundaries of, superiorly, the inferior portion of the trapezius muscle; inferiorly, the latissimus dorsi; and laterally, the medial border of the scapula. The rotator cuffs are the important muscles giving the glenohumeral joint its stability.’

‘Give me the names of the rotator cuff muscles, Miss Trahern.’

Easy. ‘Teres minor, supraspinatus, infraspinatus and…’ I tailed off. It had gone, the last one.

‘Easy question. Please answer.’

I rooted around my super-crowded and fuzzy mind. It really had gone.

He sighed. ‘Subscapularis, Miss Trahern. Remind me not to include you in my surgical team.’ I knew I’d gone bright red. I hated blushing, especially in that situation. ‘Now, please carry on and tell me about the other muscles in the upper thoracic dorsal region.’ A pause. ‘If you can remember them, that is.’

I took a huge breath and told myself not to allow him to rile me. The next fifteen minutes went okay, I thought. In fact, I was sure the esteemed professor had a fact wrong about the rhomboids and their synergy with the levator scapulae muscles, which elevate the medial border of the scapula, and also downwardly rotating the scapula with respect to the glenohumeral joint, and I told him so. Which of course, being a woman, was totally the wrong thing to do. He scowled, and I saw him glancing at the Gray’s Anatomy sitting in front of him. If I was a male student I knew they’d be having good-natured banter about it. Not with me, though. Daniel was right. They were all bastards.

When I left the room, the student due in after me was sitting on the edge of one of the rock-hard chairs that lined the corridor. Gary Bolton. Nice guy. He nodded and didn’t ask how it had gone. It was a kind of rule between us all. Never ask. I saw Tom sitting at the end of the corridor. He smiled at me thinly but didn’t ask either. I touched his shoulder as I walked by at speed, desperate to get outside and away from the smell of the uni, of medicine. Of failure.

Two days later, I got confirmation that Warner had received my pre-placement study. I also found out I’d failed two clinical-based papers (I thought they’d gone okay), though I’d managed a distinction in the anatomy viva. Re-sits it would be. At least they were allowing me to.

I threw myself onto my bed; I felt terrible. The phone rang and I let it go to answerphone. Daniel had