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

been leaving messages on it all morning. It was him again. I didn’t get up.

Tom and Casey had gone to the gym. Tom had distinctions in virtually every exam. I suspected he’d gone out to get out of my way. He felt bad for me and couldn’t cope.

I hauled myself up from the bed and made my way downstairs, debating whether to call Mum, ask her to come over. I thought about it for at least half an hour. Then I picked up the phone. She didn’t question me when I asked her to drop in to Boots to pick something up for me.

She arrived at the house within an hour and a half looking completely together and in control. I didn’t bother telling her about the car crash of my exams. It was irrelevant at that moment.

‘I can’t believe this,’ she said as she walked into the hallway.

‘I might be wrong.’

She handed me her purchases. She’d bought two. ‘Go on, I’ll wait down here.’

Half an hour later, I joined her in the kitchen. She was washing up. Why couldn’t she be like this all the time? She turned and lifted her brows.

‘I am.’

‘You’re a medical student; how could you have been so stupid?’

There were times when my mother’s ability to aim right into the centre took me by surprise. That was one of those times, and the heat of anger threaded through me. ‘Just for once, can’t you attempt to control what comes out of your mouth?’

‘It’s your life. You should have gone on the pill.’

‘I took a morning-after. We used condoms. This shouldn’t have happened.’

‘Is it your new boyfriend’s?’ she asked quietly.

‘Of course it is.’ I faced her. ‘Please go. I need some space.’

Without another word, she got up and left.

I went back upstairs and lay on the bed. Less than an hour later, I called Daniel.

‘It’s all going to be fine,’ he said.

‘This is just the wrong time, so completely the wrong time.’

‘We’ll get you through the exams and the placement. Will you tell your tutor?’ he asked gently.

‘That I’m having a termination?’

‘No, Rose. I want you. I want the baby.’ He went quiet on the other end of the phone. ‘I love you.’

I began to cry. It was what I’d wanted to hear. What I’d needed to hear. I had no problem with the ethics of abortion, but I could not have one.

‘I’m coming over,’ he said.

‘You really want a baby?’

‘It’s not a problem, Rose.’

‘Can you come over now?’

‘Already in the car.’

Leaving the front door off the latch, I returned to my bedroom and waited. A baby. I couldn’t think.

I heard the door open and then close, Daniel coming up the stairs. I shouted from my bedroom and he came in, lay on the tiny bed next to me. We didn’t say a word. At last he kissed my forehead and I turned sideways, looking at him. ‘You really are a surprise, Mr Deane.’

‘So are you, Rose.’ He buried his head in the hollow of my neck.

And I could not see his face.

27

17 June 1991

Daniel left late the evening before. I’d told him I wanted to be alone a while to think.

I got up and called my GP surgery and managed to get an appointment that evening. The doctor confirmed the positive test, and despite my thoughts of the previous night, despite Daniel wanting our baby, I told him that I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure about going through with the pregnancy. I have to finish my course, I said, with an uneasy feeling in my gut betraying my uncertainty. I have to qualify.

He was a youngish doctor, maybe around Daniel’s age, maybe a little older. I studied him. No older than forty. He understood my dilemma completely, and handed me tissues. He’d been my GP for ten years and knew about some of my problems, all related to my home life and my mother. He gave me strict instructions to discuss it all with the baby’s father, and then made me an appointment at the main NHS hospital for the following morning; the appointment that could set in motion the road to a termination. I cried as I left the surgery.

I had no intention of discussing it with Daniel. This was my decision.

The next day, Daniel called early and I could hardly bear to listen to the excitement in his voice. He wanted to meet later that afternoon; I told him I had uni work to do.

My appointment at the hospital was at 10 a.m., and I was sitting in the waiting room at 9.30. Luckily, and astonishingly, they were running ahead of schedule, and I was inside a sterile consulting room at 9.50. It smelt of Dettol and antiseptic cream. I cast my eyes around; the paint on the wall was peeling, and one of the lights on the ceiling didn’t work, so it was too dark. The room had no window to the outside.

The doctor who would be advising me had a long, lean face that didn’t appear to lend itself to smiling.

‘Please take a seat,’ she said.

‘Thanks for fitting me in so soon,’ I replied, sitting down.

She looked at my notes. ‘Time is of the essence,’ she glanced up at me, ‘as you will understand, being a medical student.’

I nodded.

‘Year four?’

I nodded again. My situation would be positive for the outcome I wanted. Being in the fourth year of a medical degree was a viable and understandable reason to want a termination. But did I want a termination? Now there, I wasn’t so sure.

‘I’m here, Miss Trahern,’ she carried on, ‘to explain about having a termination, and to assess whether it’s something you really want. After our consultation, and if you still want to go ahead, another doctor has to agree with the decision, and then we can book you in for a termination. I’m sure you’re aware of this protocol?’

‘I am, yes.’

‘And you are aware of the procedure? What it entails?’

I wanted to say of course I