Love Over Scotland

– a feeling which Irene decided was based on his fundamental 262 No More Nonsense, Nurse Knows Best insecurity and his inability to engage in a non-paternalistic way with an informed patient.

“I’d like you to have a chat with Nurse Forbes,” said the doctor. “If you don’t mind, that is. She runs a class, you know.

Not that you would need a class, of course. Not in your case.”

“On the contrary,” said Irene coldly. “I have already decided to sign up for it.”

“In that case,” said the doctor, “you can see Nurse Forbes straightaway. She’s in the building. Speak to the receptionists first. I’m sure that the two of you will get on very well.”

Irene had not bothered about the receptionists. She had left the consulting room and walked down the corridor to the door marked Nurse Forbes. She had knocked on the door and, a moment later, a voice had called out: “Come in!”

It was a milky-sounding voice, Irene thought.

84. No More Nonsense, Nurse Knows Best Nurse Forbes was a woman in her early forties. She had been brought up in Haddington, the youngest of three girls, all of whom became nurses. Her mother had been a nurse, as had her grandmother.

That she should become a nurse too had been accepted from the very beginning, and when the time came for her to leave Knox Academy, she had enrolled on a nursing course at Queen Margaret College in Clermiston. In due course she had graduated with distinction, as her two sisters had done. She completed her training in the Royal Infirmary and in that classic of Caledonian-Stalinist architecture, the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion.

Marriage came next – to a man who worked as an accountant in a brewery – and then there had been public service: she had served for a short time on the Newington Community Council, and had been appointed by the Secretary of State to the Departmental Committee on Maternity Services and the Healthy No More Nonsense, Nurse Knows Best 263

Eating in Pregnancy Initiative. She was very good at her job.

Irene, of course, knew nothing of this distinguished career when she knocked on the door marked Nurse Forbes. There were so many people who seemed to work in the health centre that it was impossible for her to keep up with them all, and she had great difficulty in working out who was a receptionist, who was a doctor, and who was a nurse. It was most confusing – and irritating.

Nurse Forbes looked up from the report she was reading.

Patients were normally announced by the receptionists and she was mildly surprised to see Irene in her doorway. Now, who was this woman? She seemed vaguely familiar, but then she saw so many people. Pregnant, obviously.

“You are Nurse Forbes, I take it,” said Irene.

Nurse Forbes smiled. “Yes, I am. Please come in. Did doctor send you?”

Irene winced. She did not like the doctor to be referred to simply as “doctor”; it was so condescending to the patient, as if one were a child.

“Yes,” she said. “My doctor sent me.” There was a great deal of emphasis on the possessive.

Nurse Forbes invited Irene to sit down. This, she thought, is the typical patient for the area. Thinks she knows everything.

Will condescend, if given the chance. But she knew how to deal with people like Irene.

“I’ll just take a few details,” said Nurse Forbes. “Then we can have a wee talk.”

Irene sat down. “I don’t have a great deal of time,” she said.

“I was planning to come to those classes you’re running.”

“You’ll be very welcome,” said Nurse Forbes. But she would not. This sort of person tended to be disruptive, and sometimes she wondered why they came at all.

“The classes are quite well-subscribed. I think that people find them quite useful,” she said.

“I’m sure they are,” said Irene.

“But if there are any particular issues you’d like to raise with me privately,” said Nurse Forbes, “please do so now. Sometimes people have concerns that they don’t like to raise in front of others.”

264 No More Nonsense, Nurse Knows Best Irene nodded. “There are,” she said. “I do have some questions . . .”

Nurse Forbes raised a hand. “But first we need to go over one or two things,” she said. “You know, diet issues. General health matters.”

“I have a very healthy diet,” said Irene. “You need have no worries on that score. And I take all the necessary supplements.”

Nurse Forbes looked up sharply. “Supplements?”

Irene smiled tolerantly. Nurses could not be expected to understand dietary issues. “Shark oil capsules. Slippery elm. Red raspberry. Wild yam,” she paused. Nurse Forbes was staring at her. Would she have to explain each of these?

“Why are you taking these . . . these substances?” Nurse Forbes asked.

Irene took a deep breath. It was going to be necessary to explain after all.

“As you may know,” she began, “modern foods are lacking in certain important constituents. This is a result of