Diary fragment · 2 min read ·
The Porter Notes
A hospital night porter keeps his ward rounds as numbers only, and one row each night belongs to a ward the plan has never shown.
- dated: "late November"
- narrator: "Effie Roubal, night porter"
Tues. Fourth night on nights and I have the ward list wrong again. There are the wards on the plan in the front office — eleven of them, and the linen room — and then whatever number they call out on the tannoy at the change of round. I have started writing the tannoy calls in this book instead, because the plan does not carry a fire door where they called Seven-five tonight, and the corridor behind east reception is eleven door-widths too long for the plan when you walk it off.
Weds. Tannoy at 03:11. Six calls, all plain: Four, Nine, Seven-five, Nine again, the laundry, and one I did not get down before the speaker cut. Six calls, so that is how I know there were seven wards answered tonight, because the nurses answered them. Every ward you call gets the double-flash on the board, and there were seven double-flashes, and I wrote the board minutes in the margin: 3,3,3,3,3,3 and one other. One other. The plan has eleven wards. There is room on the board for twelve.
Fri. I checked the bellboard wiring with Tod from maintenance, who is a friend and did not laugh. The board accepts twelve lines. It is labelled to eleven. The spare slot is not wired to anything, and at 03:11 tonight it flashed anyway, and nothing on the tannoy was said, which is the wrong way round from usual, and I have written down which wards answered and it is the first night I cannot make the numbers come out. Count of flashes: seven. Wards named aloud, including the laundry: six. The one I missed the other night was not one of these seven. So the unnamed one answers without being called, and calls itself nothing, and takes its turn like a ward with manners.
Sat. The old man in Nine says there has never been a ward between Nine and the laundry and I do not need to trouble myself, and then he asked whether it was the flash or the voice tonight, which is not a question you can ask unless you have heard both. I said the flash. He said that was it resting, and to stand the tannoy calls in the book all the same, because a call that is not said still wants answering.
Sun. Last of these nights for a fortnight, handover done. What I put to Tod this evening and will put to nobody else: the plan runs eleven wards and the board runs twelve slots, and the porter's sheet wants the twelfth initialled at every change of round, which I have initialled every night I have been on, being told nothing, and having signed anyhow. Whoever reads this book: the blank line in the crossword is still a line. I initialled it again at 03:11, before the calls, and the ink was dry before I finished, and the bed-count page for the twelfth ward came out of the printer already totted.