Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse (7 page)

Oh bloody hell.

‘And when your union hears about this you can kiss goodbye to any rep support. It’s hardly something they’re going to be jumping up and down to defend you for. The opposite will happen. They’ll kick you out faster than you can say “malignant hypertension” and that will be the end of your nursing career as well as your monthly wage packet.’

Fuck.

‘And as for the Nursing and Midwifery Council.’ She grinned, but not in a nice way, more in a mad Doctor Evil kind of way. ‘You’ll be stripped of your registration and no one will employ you without that, you’re illegal then, qualified but not recognised.’ She shook her head and pursed her lips into a cat’s arsehole again.

I hung my head, knotted my fingers in my lap and fought the moisture welling in my eyes. I would not let the evil bitch see me cry. No way. Even if I lost everything. I would not let her see I was upset about it.

‘And in a regional plastic surgery unit too.’ She stood and paced around her desk towards me. Her footsteps were heavy on the wiry carpet and her bulk created a draught on my bare arm as she walked past.

I got the impression that in her head she was acting out a scene from some cop drama. Pretending to be the super-clever detective that had cracked a case and now just had to get her suspect to squeal. That ridiculous thought helped stave off the tears. I bit my lip and sucked in a deep breath.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said, standing behind me, bending and talking into my ear. ‘A helpless, defenceless man who can do nothing for himself!’

I forced myself not to jerk away. Not to show weakness. Any crack and she would turn it into a crevasse.

‘What the hell were you thinking? Seriously, staff nurse, tell me.’

I kind of shrugged, sort of. There was no denying what she’d seen, but what I’d been thinking, well, that was a different matter. She saw Ted as a man who now relied on others from the minute he woke to the moment he went to sleep. But, of course, that hadn’t always been the case and after hearing his life story I felt I knew him. He’d loved and lost, had his ups and downs, he’d made mistakes and tried to fix them, but ultimately he was a fine and brave hero. He was also a man, a man with needs, one of them I’d been able to fulfil and make him happy on an evening where he would otherwise be staring at the TV immersed in worries for the future and trying to ignore the pain in his hands.

‘You were masturbating a patient,’ Iceberg said in a slow and deliberate voice, drawing out the word ‘masturbating’ into four long syllables. ‘Masturbating a sick, vulnerable patient when you were supposed to be caring for him. Helping him wash.’ She moved around to the side, rested her knuckles on the table, and stared at me.

Now I knew she was pretending to be DC Iceberg. If she could have had a set of cuffs hanging on her belt next to the massive set of keys that swung there, I’m pretty sure she would have.

What the hell does Javier see in her? Power-crazy cow.

I gulped and willed myself to think of a solution to this enormous pile of crap I’d managed to land myself in.

Lose my job. Lose my registration. That couldn’t happen. Since Michael had left two years ago I had a mortgage to pay on my own, a loan that required monthly deposits, not to mention the holiday to Ibiza that I was still paying off from last year.

Damn. I needed the money like I needed to breathe. I could end up bankrupt just from doing a good deed? And I would if Iceberg got her way.

‘It was what you saw,’ I said, trying to hide the wobble in my voice. If she thought I was feeble she’d go for the jugular even quicker. ‘But not for the reasons you think. There’s no kind of relationship between us other than a professional one.’

She straightened, folded her arms again and looked down her nose at me. ‘Go on.’

‘He’s a young guy and had a really terrible time lately after risking his life to save a pregnant woman, so let’s be honest about his needs.’

‘Honesty would be refreshing in this place.’ She moved back to her seat, sat and curled her fingers around the lip of the table in front of her. ‘Tell me more about these “needs”.’

‘I’d helped him wash, as you said, and he’d told me all about his wife and how she’d run off with his best friend when he found out he couldn’t have children. He’d lost his parents in a plane crash and his sister disowned him. He’s now a fireman and spends his days putting himself in danger to rescue others.’

She clicked her tongue. ‘So you thought you’d cheer him up?’

‘Well yes, kind of, but it just happened. It wasn’t exactly planned. He got a stiffy, er, I mean an erection when I was washing him. It happens, doesn’t it? You must know.’

She neither shook nor nodded her head, just glared.

I steeled myself to stay strong. ‘And then suddenly, he was groaning and not in pain, but with pleasure. I stopped straight away, I was drying him then, and I was, naturally, completely shocked. So was he, but even so he asked me to go on. Well, I knew it was wrong, but …’ I leant forward, trying to appeal to any dormant scrap of humanity in her. ‘But how could I refuse a man who has no function with his hands? I just couldn’t. Not when I could tell it would only be a quick couple of strokes and then all over.’

She raised her eyebrows.

‘It was very wrong of me to go through with what he wanted, and I’ll apologise to you and the hospital profusely, if that’s what you need me to do, but …’ I paused. ‘I don’t regret what I did. That man had probably the first genuine smile on his face and the first snippet of pleasure rather than agony from his body in weeks. He needed that more than I needed to be professional.’

I folded my arms, held her gaze and raised my chin a little. What I’d said was true. I would regret losing my job – damn, that would land me up shit creek without a paddle – but would I regret making Ted come? No, that would never be a regret of mine. I would always believe I’d made the right decision on that one. I had to; it was the only way to stay sane.

‘Mmm,’ she said, rubbing her chin. ‘I see.’

A small flicker of hope swirled in my chest. Quickly I squashed it down. Iceberg was known for her lack of compassion. She wouldn’t understand Ted’s needs nor believe my story. Who was I kidding? I was done for. I may as well hang myself now.

The tears threatened again, but like last time, I blinked them away, willing them to reabsorb into my eyeballs. Don’t cry, don’t cry, I repeated in my mind.

Eventually she broke the silence. ‘Did you tell any of the department nurses why you had to leave and come immediately to my office?’

‘No, I just got my bag and left.’

‘So the only people who know about this incident are you, me and Mr Graham?’

‘Yes.’ That flicker was trying to ignite again. What the hell was she getting at?

‘Mmm, that is one good thing I suppose.’

My mouth was dry, and my heart romped up another notch. Really? She wasn’t going to have me flogged by a group of whip-wielding, paper-pushing personnel types who took delight in beating the real workers?

She breathed deep, narrowed her eyes, and tugged on her bottom lip. ‘Perhaps this could stay between us.’

OK, so now there was a real, live flame of hope burning in my guts. This maybe wasn’t the end of my nursing career, a roof over my head, and food on the table!

She tapped the tips of her fingers together. ‘No, no, I’m sorry that won’t work.’

‘Yes it will.’

‘What if he tells his family when they visit?’

‘He doesn’t have any family. He’s all alone in the world. Just a few work colleagues and that’s it.’

She continued to tap her fingers. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because this will be my neck on the line, too, you know, if I don’t report it.’

‘I understand that, and I appreciate that you’d keep this under wraps for me. I really can’t afford to lose my job, and certainly not my registration. Nursing is all I know. It’s my life, I can’t do anything else.’

‘Well, I think tonight you proved there’ll always be an alternative career for you, Nurse Roane.’

Bitch. I rolled my lips in on themselves, held the word back. It was hard, it sat big and heavy on my tongue. Tickling my throat and catching my breaths, it wanted to come out into the open so badly.

She gave a gruff laugh. ‘Yeah, I know, everyone hates me. But I don’t care. It’s not my job to be popular. I’m paid to keep this place running smoothly and make sure the patients are well cared for and happy.’

Some nurses can do that and still be nice people. But I didn’t say that either. I was dangling by a thread, my situation as precarious as it could be.

‘So,’ she said, ‘how would it suit you if we just draw a line under the whole incident and forget it ever happened?’

‘That would be great. And I promise it will never happen again. Never, nothing like it at all.’ I was sweating now, despite the cool room. My underarms were damp and I could feel moisture on my brow. ‘I promise.’

‘Good. In that case, we’ll turn a blind eye to your blatant disregard for nursing ethics, hospital, union and professional body protocols as well as personal morality.’

There was nothing wrong with my personal morals. The other stuff, well yes, that was all true, but morally, I felt I’d been in the right, damn it. ‘Great. Thanks.’ I stood, desperate to get out of there and away from her weird and uncharacteristically kind gesture.

‘Wait, not so fast,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’

I did as she asked. My heart, which had been soaring, was now sinking. I knew it had been too good to be true.

‘Whilst I appreciate your words of thanks, a return gesture is in order.’

‘I don’t know what you mean?’ Yeah, I did. I should have guessed she’d want something for letting me off. The words deal and devil came to mind.

‘I have a little problem, you see. Well, actually it’s not so little. It’s a big old pain in the arse problem that I’m getting sat on for.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘You might be the perfect person to help me out,’ she said, tipping her head and studying me.

‘I will if I can.’

‘Oh, you will, yes, you most definitely will.’ She pursed her lips again, and I forced myself to look at the withering plant rather than her cat-bum mouth.

‘You go to just about every ward in the hospital during the course of a month or so, don’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes, I suppose.’

‘So you know everyone, and I don’t just mean nurses, but doctors, porters, pharmacy staff, you get my drift?’

‘Well, only the night shifters. I haven’t worked a day shift in nearly five years. It doesn’t suit me.’

‘Mmm, well that’s OK. Because it’s something on the night shift that I need you to look into for me.’

I had to admit, I was a little intrigued. Iceberg had a problem that her superiors were getting agitated about. She needed my help so badly she was prepared to let me off a massive misdemeanour instead of sitting back and enjoying watching me getting professionally hung, drawn and quartered. ‘What’s that then?’ I asked.

‘This will stay between us, won’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m not going to risk you telling Personnel about my little slip from protocol, am I?’

‘No, I suppose not, but what I mean is, I don’t want whoever is doing it tipped off that I’m onto him or her.’

Tipped off? ‘Why, what is it?’

‘Someone.’ She leant forward and narrowed her eyes, ‘is taking benzodiazepines from pharmacy. Out of the night stock cupboard.’

‘Bloody hell, really?’ OK, now that had my attention. Some arsehole was taking drugs for recreational use, from my hospital. That wasn’t on. That shit was for patients. ‘What’s going missing?’

‘Temazepam. Quite a bit of it too. It has to be signed for, so we know just how much there’s supposed to be in the emergency cupboard, but every week or so, I go and it’s just about cleared out.’

‘And you have no idea who’s doing it?’

‘Nope. No idea at all.’ She lifted her huge silver clunk of keys and jiggled them. ‘I’m the only one with access to the night stock cupboard. If a ward runs out of something, they call me and I go and get it for them. But it seems that I’m no longer the only one with a key.’

‘Maybe it’s someone on the day staff coming back in at night?’

‘I thought that too, but Personnel questioned everyone when the last lot went missing. All eighteen staff with key access had solid alibis. So that ruled them out. It has to be someone who is a night-time regular. Could be a nurse, a porter, or even a radiographer. Who knows?’

‘But how do you think I’ll be able to find anything out?’ If Personnel couldn’t and neither could pharmacies own staff, I didn’t stand a chance. I’d never even been in the emergency night drug cupboard for anything. Hadn’t ever needed to.

‘Because, Sharon, you know everyone and work everywhere. You slip through the wards and departments pretty much unseen, so I want you to listen to conversations, pick up on any odd behaviour or rumours and report back to me. No one really takes any notice of bank nurses, you’re just there to earn your cash then go home. Likelihood is tongues will loosen if it’s just you around.’

Charming. Was I really so invisible?

‘So from now on …’ She sat forward, picked up a pen and pointed the nib at me. ‘You’re my grass, OK? Anything you hear out of the ordinary, you come and report to me. At the end of each shift I expect to see you here. Doesn’t matter if you don’t think it has anything to do with the missing benzos, I want to hear it. How else can I put together the puzzle if I don’t have all the pieces?’

My head was spinning. ‘But what if I don’t hear or notice anything? What if I can’t find out who’s helping themselves to drugs?’

‘You will, oh, you will. And what’s more you have two weeks exactly to do it in. Because if you don’t, then I’ll be picking up that.’ Using the pen she pointed at the phone on the desk. ‘And calling Personnel to tell them all about your indecent misconduct with Mr Graham. And don’t think it’ll be my word against yours and there’ll be no case if he doesn’t admit to it, because it doesn’t work like that. I’m senior, much more senior to you. They’ll believe me, end of story.’

A knot grew in my belly. She had me by the short and curlies that was for sure. What could I do?