14 September 2006
I stand outside the Students’ Union building, waiting for someone to call me out as an imposter.
But as the minutes pass, I realize no one is taking any notice of me. I’m not being judged, I am being ignored.
Bloody Marilyn. I knew Freshers’ Week would be a waste of time and it’s her fault I am going through this. When she called to see how I was settling into the halls of residence, I told her I was going to get an early night so I’d be the one hangover-free person on the first morning of real lectures.
She scoffed. ‘That’d be the worst mistake you’ve ever made. And you’ve made some stinkers, let’s face it.’
‘I’m not in the mood for socializing.’
‘You’ve just lost the habit. Setting up home with Tedious Tim before you were even out of your teens, no wonder you’ve forgotten how to have fun. Grab it, now, sis. You’re twenty-four, not seventy-four.’
I let her talk me round, so here I am, in jeans and T-shirt, nothing that suggests trying too hard. But right now, I almost wish I was back in the bungalow in Brighton.
‘Hey, what are you doing here?’
I turn to see a group of four students, two girls, two boys, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I recognize them from the day one pep talk, when the dean told us that basically all non-medic students are pissing about and we are the best thing since sliced bread, the Future, the crème de la crème.
I loathe that attitude, the idea that doctors are gods, but I hadn’t realized it started so early. My experiences in the ambulance service, watching Elaine die and being in hospital myself, have made me determined I will always put patients first.
‘You were at the lecture,’ the dark-haired girl says.
‘I was, yes. Hi.’ I give them an awkward wave. I can do this.
‘Are you here to keep an eye on us?’ one of the boys says. ‘We are going to behave, you know.’
It takes me a second or two to realize what he means. They think I’m one of the lecturers.
‘I . . . I’m not on the staff. I’m a student, like you.’
‘Oh.’ The dark-haired girl looks embarrassed. ‘Sorry. We knew we recognized you but we thought you were a lecturer because you were . . .’
‘Older?’ I suggest.
‘Maybe a bit. Not that being older is a bad thing.’
‘Right.’ I should make a joke now, cut through the tension by saying something like, Shall I go to the bar for you, you guys surely aren’t old enough to buy drinks yet? But I don’t want to make them uncomfortable.
They shuffle a little before heading into the bar, and as the doors close, I hear a burst of laughter. Perhaps they’re laughing at me.
I don’t judge them. They’ve arrived thinking that the world is theirs now, that their straight As, their impeccable work experience, their Duke of Edinburgh Gold Awards will protect them from the ordinary suffering they’re going to relieve. But I know that’s not true, that we are all a heartbeat from disaster. And that’s why I don’t belong with them.
As I trudge back to my halls, I try to remember my eighteen-year-old self: did I feel that level of certainty? Because now I am spikier than I’d have liked her to be. Even a mutual divorce takes its toll, and I am missing Tim: not as a husband but as a best friend.
The one thing I do know is that once studying begins, I won’t have time to feel lonely.
Our first lecture feels like déjà vu.
‘There are as many different ways to think about the body as there are medical schools or lecturers. But we are going to teach you to look at the body as a set of eleven main systems, functioning – or not – simultaneously.’
I have seen and heard all of this before, helping Tim with his assignments and his revision. Twice.
I sit at the back and take sparse notes. After a few minutes, I realize someone is staring at me. I look up to see the other girl from outside the union bar. Striking, South-East Asian, with a glossy fringe that makes me think of Edna from The Incredibles. She’s covered several A4 pages already, and a pile of shiny new books sits at her elbow.
I focus pointedly at the lecturer as he drones on – ‘. . . and the endocrine system influences the body’s functions through hormones, while the exocrine system . . .’ – and she takes the hint.
Later, I’m making a coffee in the communal kitchen in halls when she walks into the room.
‘You must have a photographic memory. You hardly wrote anything down during that lecture.’
She’s only being nice, but if I were to tell her why I know most of it already, that would raise way too many other questions.
‘I do have a good memory, yeah.’
‘I’m Hanna,’ she says, holding out her hand. Her nails are French manicured. Who has time for that?
‘Kerry.’ The kettle’s boiled so I let go of her hand and pour the water into my mug, a gift from Ant with the slogan KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, I’M A MED STUDENT. He’s a good mate now: we bonded when we were helping Joel get clean, and I often call into the cafe when I’m near the seafront. There’s never an agenda with Ant, and as I no longer have Joel or Tim in my life, I sometimes welcome a male point-of-view to go with my cappuccino.
The one thing we never discuss is the old days.
When I turn back, she’s still looking at me. The lines that criss-cross her forehead remind me of Marilyn’s daughter Ava when she’s puzzled by something. ‘Have I done something to upset you?’
‘No.’ Maybe I sound blunt, but I am still smarting from the encounter outside the union.
‘So you’re just rude then? Useful to know, before I waste any more time being friendly.’
Not quite the dormouse I thought she was. I follow her out into the corridor. Funny how someone playing hard to get makes me keener: another Kerry habit to break. ‘Sorry. Hanna. You’re right. I’m not used to this.’
She stops. ‘Look, you’re obviously older and wiser, blah blah blah. But you’re not a doctor yet.’ Her voice is softer but still forthright. ‘Maybe consider the fact that we’re going to be neighbours for a year and studying alongside each other for five, before you write me off simply for being friendly.’
Touché.
She seems to change in front of me: her wide eyes now look sharper, and those neat nails epitomize the good grooming we’ve been encouraged to adopt, to give patients confidence in our fitness to practise.
‘Was it that obvious?’ I say, pulling a face.
‘Er, yes.’
I proffer my cup. ‘Can I offer you a coffee as an apology?’
‘It’d be a start,’ she says, taking it and carrying it to her room. I wait for the door to shut behind her but instead she smiles. ‘You coming in, or what?’
‘You’re a cougar. I’ve never slept with a cougar before.’
I have brought a man home. Technically he’s a man.
‘I’m only five years older than you,’ I say, and we kiss again, staggering towards my single bed.
Five years, though. Five years ago, my cute second-year Geology student was fifteen. While I was earning money to keep two other adults afloat, he was at school in the Welsh town where he picked up his sexy accent, drinking dodgy cider and snogging girls on geography field trips . . .
‘Come on,’ he says and pulls my T-shirt up over my head. ‘I was messing you about. You don’t look a day over thirty!’
I laugh. This boy – Craig or Cam – is only the third person I’ve ever slept with. I almost didn’t let this happen, but somewhere between my third and fourth cider with Hanna and the others, I decided I had some catching up to do.
It feels . . . new. The first new thing I’ve experienced in so long.
Strange too. Exposing. I am turned on enough – and drunk enough – to ignore my nervousness but not so drunk that my body doesn’t register the heat as he kisses me from my collarbone and begins to move down my breasts . . .
Enough thinking, Kerry Smith. You’re not a medical student now. You’re a woman.
‘Is this OK?’ he asks and the eyes are unfamiliar but the desire in them is not.
‘Yes. Yes.’
After we’ve finished – a physical challenge in my monastic-study bedroom – he falls asleep and I lie there, trying not to think too much but unable to turn the thinking off.
I’m warm and sated. It wasn’t the best sex ever—
Do not think about the best sex ever.
It was fun. And everyone from my sister to Mo in the control room insisted that I had to get back in the saddle after the divorce.
My foot’s getting pins and needles from lying at the wrong angle in my single bed. I want to sleep. On my own.
‘Er . . .’ I say, trying to find a way of waking him without him realizing I don’t know his name. I touch his arm with my finger and draw back as though I’ve been burned.
He wakes, startled. ‘Huh?’
‘Would you mind going home? I don’t think either of us will get a decent night’s sleep.’
‘Oh. Right, yeah.’ I shift aside so he can climb over me. ‘Wanna swap numbers?’
Neither my sister nor Mo told me the right way to handle this. I look away as he starts to dress, his unfamiliar body suddenly all wrong in this space.
Never mind the game play of one-night-stands. Do I want to see him again?
He’s sweet and thoughtful, despite the drink. We could have fun together, date even, if that’s what the eighteen-year-olds call it now. I certainly don’t want to hurt his feelings or his pride or—
But what do I want? Do I want to see him again?
No.
‘Let’s leave it,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s been great, but we’ve only just started term. It’s a whole new world for both of us.’
After he’s gone, I enjoy having my space back more than I enjoyed the sex. Maybe it sounded lame to him, but a whole new world is exactly what this is for me. One where I can learn to be selfish, to ask for what I want.
As I lie in bed, I make up rules to see me through the next five years: no sex with anyone from the medical school. Fun, yes. Kindness, yes. But no serious relationships with anyone. Nothing to take my eyes off the prize.
They keep us away from patients till well into 2007, when they bus us out on our first hospital placements. The others chatter like chimps, trying to cover up their fear of actual humans. I sit with Hanna near the front, and even she looks travel sick.
But I am at home the minute I arrive. This is my world. As we’re split into tutorial groups to tour different departments, the F1 who leads our small huddle has hollow cheeks and haunted eyes but perks up when he starts to describe the grimness of life on the wards.
‘We call this ward The Walking Dead,’ he whispers, before he buzzes us through into the elderly care ward. ‘It’s not even that accurate; most of them can’t walk.’
Grim humour is a survival mechanism, but as we go from bay to bay, his attitude riles me. This hospital isn’t the flagship where the medical school is based, it’s out in the sticks, neglected, and the patients in this ward are probably more neglected than most.
‘Now I’ve got to take blood from this patient,’ says our tour guide, drawing the curtains around the bed. ‘You don’t mind if these students watch, do you, Mrs Marshall? We need to see how your body is responding to the pills we’ve used to treat the nasty bugs that have been causing so much trouble.’
His tone gets my back up, but Mrs Marshall does her best to look cheerful.
‘More the merrier, doctor.’ She wears a bright-pink dressing gown and has applied full make-up this morning, which makes her look much healthier than the women in the other beds. But it’s clear she’s not relishing the prospect any more than the doctor is. Her withered arm is polka-dotted with bruising in different shades at the wrist and the crease of her elbow. I’m sure I can see her veins shrink back under the thin skin of the antecubital fossa as the F1 moves the kidney dish towards her.
We all watch as he screws it up. Twice. Both he and Mrs Marshall stare mournfully at the newly blooming marks.
‘I’ll give it one last go before asking the phlebotomist,’ the F1 says brightly, even though the patient’s mascara is running because he’s made her cry.
Our uni has a thing about learning by doing and, having taken blood from each other several times last week, we’re all more competent than he is. But no one here would dare to challenge this kid because we already know how strictly hospital hierarchies are respected. He might be a minnow here in the ward, but we’re not even amoebae.
Mrs Marshall’s eyes rest on me and I can see her pleading.
‘Could I have a look?’ I ask the F1 and instantly regret it.
Maybe it’s because I am older than him, or the shock at being asked, but he shrugs and lets me step closer. Her outstretched arm looks so exposed and I place my hand across hers. Her fingers are red, because of the band he’s applied above the elbow to make the veins stand out.
‘I’m Kerry.’
‘Florence.’
I let my hand rest on Florence’s for a few seconds, ignoring the huffing F1 and the stares of my peers. I make my breathing slow, and wait for her to match me. Above her bed, there’s a child’s drawing, with Get Well Soooon Nanny written below a blue sky with a bright sun beating down.
‘Who did the picture?’ I ask.
‘My oldest grandson,’ she says, ‘he’s only six and look at his handwriting . . .’
As she tells me about him, I look at the crease in her elbow. There must be a vein that could work. There.
I look up at the F1. ‘That’s the basilic, right?’
‘It’s not going to work,’ he says. ‘Don’t you start getting ideas!’
But Mrs Marshall is looking at me hopefully. ‘Let her have a go, doctor. In for a penny.’
‘You have no authorization,’ he says. Yet I can tell the last thing he wants is to try again. This was the part Tim hated most too.
‘I won’t tell,’ Mrs Marshall says, her voice desperate and determined. She reminds me so much of Elaine.
I start to pull on blue gloves before I prep the collection tube. My pulse speeds up. I could probably be booted off the course for this. Why I am taking this risk?
Mrs Marshall is why.
Hanna shakes her head slightly when I look up and I ignore her. The vein is pale but I can see where the needle has to go. ‘Sharp scratch,’ I say to my patient and the point of the needle touches the faint line of blue and . . .
Blood begins to fill the Vacutainer. Mrs Marshall and the F1 exhale simultaneously. The liquid is defiantly crimson, the colour of life.
‘All yours,’ I say to the F1 as I place the filled vial back in the dish. ‘Beginner’s luck, eh?’
Now I feel it: that buzz. Knowing I made a difference to this patient. In this small way, I relieved suffering.
‘Not a word to anyone,’ he says, gaining everyone’s silent assent.
As I tape cotton wool to the inside of Mrs Marshall’s elbow, she touches my fingers with her other hand. ‘Beginner’s luck my arse, love. You can come back.’
No one says anything about it for the rest of the day, though on the coach home, someone starts singing ‘Bleeding Love’.
And the next day, Hanna informs me I have acquired a nickname: Dr Vampire.