Read Online Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough - Free Book Online
Authors: Colleen McCullough
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place under the bloody razor — yer worse than Kaiser Bill!”
“Poor chap!” said Grace to Kitty later on, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “He got a rabid suppository rammed up his arse by Sister in person not five minutes later, and spent a terrible morning on the toilet. Luckily he could walk.”
There were many funny moments, but there were also moments so wrenchingly sad that it took all that year of 1926 for the Latimers to learn to cope with the sorrow. Some people, they discovered, were so brave! Others flinched and started squealing before they were touched. No one stayed in hospital any longer than possible, not entirely because it was hospital policy. The notorious stinginess of the Superintendent, Frank Campbell, affected the patients as much as the staff. Lumpy old mattresses, sheets worn so thin they were darned, towels devoid of their nap, home-made and hideously caustic soap, cut-up newspapers for wiping bottoms, and the worst food shearers’ cooks could provide.
What baffled the Latimers was how their father could be a member of the Hospital Board and stroll through the wards every day without seeing what Frank Campbell had done and was doing. No, Daddy drifted on his saintly way, smiling, comforting the patients spiritually while ignoring their acute physical misery as if it did not exist. For hospital wasn’t free . Even the poorest patient received a bill, which made the Almoner’s job the hardest in all of Corunda Base; she had to find a reason notto charge for services, and that was very often impossible. The consulting specialist doctors were a decent bunch, but Frank Campbell charged for every square of cut-up newspaper.
Kitty bloomed, especially after she was sent to Children’s, where many of the little patients had bone problems: broken limbs in the main, an occasional congenital displacement of the hips, infected fractures, diseases of bone density, and too much rickets among the poor. Whatever was wrong, they tended to be cheerful children inured to pain and bed, or a perilous nuisance once they were allowed out of bed. To Kitty it didn’t matter; she loved every child, every obstacle, every moment.
Boys and girls were nursed together until they turned six, after which the ward was split into Boys and Girls. At fourteen they were admitted to the adult wards. Winter saw more broken bones, summer more enteric or gastric diseases, but all year round the fifty beds were filled, as child patients tended to need longer hospitalisation. Here alone had the Reverend Thomas Latimer made an effort to ease the suffering; there were plenty of toys and books, and the steam radiators were kept functioning, which wasn’t always the case elsewhere. Frank Campbell’s budget provided for just one plumber, whose perpetually unfulfilled dream was to have a plumber’s mate.
The moment when Kitty realised that her depression had gone for good was so buried under the demands of her work that she was never able to pinpoint it. Perhaps it had been too stealthy, too gradual, but certainly after she went to Children’sit never reared its head. Children’s nursing wrapped a blanket of wellbeing around her that comforted, nourished, calmed and satisfied her every desire. The world, she understood, was stuffed with people whose needs and insults made her own seem laughable, ridiculous. From nineteen years of being the centre of the world, Kitty saw herself relegated to its outermost margins — a nobody, a nothing. And she loved it so much that she forgot she was beautiful, even forgot Maude and life in the Rectory. Not the naughtiest or nastiest child had the power to dent her newfound confidence, the tranquil peace she concluded with herself. Finally, Kitty flew free.
What she didn’t understand was that her awakening had only served to increase her beauty. In desperation to remove her from the gaze of as many men as possible, Matron had sent her to Children’s as a last resort.
“The trouble is
“Poor chap!” said Grace to Kitty later on, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “He got a rabid suppository rammed up his arse by Sister in person not five minutes later, and spent a terrible morning on the toilet. Luckily he could walk.”
There were many funny moments, but there were also moments so wrenchingly sad that it took all that year of 1926 for the Latimers to learn to cope with the sorrow. Some people, they discovered, were so brave! Others flinched and started squealing before they were touched. No one stayed in hospital any longer than possible, not entirely because it was hospital policy. The notorious stinginess of the Superintendent, Frank Campbell, affected the patients as much as the staff. Lumpy old mattresses, sheets worn so thin they were darned, towels devoid of their nap, home-made and hideously caustic soap, cut-up newspapers for wiping bottoms, and the worst food shearers’ cooks could provide.
What baffled the Latimers was how their father could be a member of the Hospital Board and stroll through the wards every day without seeing what Frank Campbell had done and was doing. No, Daddy drifted on his saintly way, smiling, comforting the patients spiritually while ignoring their acute physical misery as if it did not exist. For hospital wasn’t free . Even the poorest patient received a bill, which made the Almoner’s job the hardest in all of Corunda Base; she had to find a reason notto charge for services, and that was very often impossible. The consulting specialist doctors were a decent bunch, but Frank Campbell charged for every square of cut-up newspaper.
Kitty bloomed, especially after she was sent to Children’s, where many of the little patients had bone problems: broken limbs in the main, an occasional congenital displacement of the hips, infected fractures, diseases of bone density, and too much rickets among the poor. Whatever was wrong, they tended to be cheerful children inured to pain and bed, or a perilous nuisance once they were allowed out of bed. To Kitty it didn’t matter; she loved every child, every obstacle, every moment.
Boys and girls were nursed together until they turned six, after which the ward was split into Boys and Girls. At fourteen they were admitted to the adult wards. Winter saw more broken bones, summer more enteric or gastric diseases, but all year round the fifty beds were filled, as child patients tended to need longer hospitalisation. Here alone had the Reverend Thomas Latimer made an effort to ease the suffering; there were plenty of toys and books, and the steam radiators were kept functioning, which wasn’t always the case elsewhere. Frank Campbell’s budget provided for just one plumber, whose perpetually unfulfilled dream was to have a plumber’s mate.
The moment when Kitty realised that her depression had gone for good was so buried under the demands of her work that she was never able to pinpoint it. Perhaps it had been too stealthy, too gradual, but certainly after she went to Children’sit never reared its head. Children’s nursing wrapped a blanket of wellbeing around her that comforted, nourished, calmed and satisfied her every desire. The world, she understood, was stuffed with people whose needs and insults made her own seem laughable, ridiculous. From nineteen years of being the centre of the world, Kitty saw herself relegated to its outermost margins — a nobody, a nothing. And she loved it so much that she forgot she was beautiful, even forgot Maude and life in the Rectory. Not the naughtiest or nastiest child had the power to dent her newfound confidence, the tranquil peace she concluded with herself. Finally, Kitty flew free.
What she didn’t understand was that her awakening had only served to increase her beauty. In desperation to remove her from the gaze of as many men as possible, Matron had sent her to Children’s as a last resort.
“The trouble is
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