by Betty Neels
Her companion opened the door a little wider. ‘Easy to get around in,’ he told her in a placid matter-of-fact voice which made its price seem quite reasonable after all.
‘Do you travel a great deal?’ she asked him as he got in beside her.
‘Quite frequently—I have a sister living in the south of France.’ He swung the car neatly into the evening traffic. ‘Do you drive?’
She told him about the Mini. ‘I keep it at home, though, I’m not much good in London traffic.’
‘No? But surely it would be useful when you go home?’
Philomena looked out of the window, not really seeing the cars streaming along in the clear April evening. ‘I don’t go very often.’
He didn’t question her further but embarked on the kind of conversation which needed little reply on her part, but which nonetheless put her at her ease. ‘You said Soho,’ she reminded him presently as he turned up into Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘I’ve never been there—not for a meal, I mean.’
‘I thought we might go to Kettner’s.’ He had turned the car into Frith Street and then into Romilly Street and they had stopped before she could say anything. She had heard of the restaurant, of course, but the few evenings out she had enjoyed had ended at more homely places; young doctors tended to choose a steak bar or the Golden Egg, but this was something different; she was heartily glad that she had worn the green dress and taken pains with her face and hair.
They were shown to a table at once—presumably he had booked one while she was changing—and she sat back and looked around her with unconcealed pleasure. ‘What a super place!’ Her wide mouth curved in a lovely smile. ‘You’re very kind to bring me here.’
‘It is you who are kind to keep me company—and may I call you Philomena?’ He lifted a finger to the hovering waiter. ‘I shan’t ask you what you would like to drink—we’ll celebrate with champagne.’
And probably it was the champagne which gave Philomena the pleasant feeling that Doctor van der Tacx was an old friend, and when presently he suggested mildly that she might call him Walle, she agreed readily enough before getting down to the serious business of deciding what they should eat. In the end she took his advice, given in a casual almost unnoticed way, and chose paté maison, a magnificent dish of lobster, fried with herbs and then covered and set alight with cognac, and rounded these delights off with Vacherin.
‘That was sheer heaven,’ she assured her host over coffee, ‘I’ve never had such a gorgeous meal and in such a super place.’ She beamed at him widely. ‘I never thought I’d celebrate like this.’
He smiled back at her. ‘Perhaps you will have your celebrations next time you go home,’ and when she didn’t answer: ‘You live a long way away?’
A hundred and thirteen miles was nothing; three hours at the most and in a car such as his, much less; a loving family or a devoted boy-friend would have made light of it. She said reluctantly: ‘Not so very—my home’s at Wareham, in Dorset.’
His only comment was: ‘Ah, yes—a charming place, I’ve been sailing in those parts,’ and at her questioning look, he added blandly: ‘I was up at Cambridge for some years and I have friends in England—I spent a good deal of time with a fellow student who was mad on sailing.’ He laughed. ‘Lord, it makes one feel old!’
She hadn’t really thought about his age; his hair was fair and thick and silvering at the temples, but he had the kind of good looks which would be very much as they were now in twenty years’ time. ‘You’re not old,’ said Philomena. ‘I’m twenty-three.’
He dropped the heavy lids over his eyes to hide their sudden gleam of amusement. ‘And I am thirty-six.’
‘That’s not in the least old. I expect you’re at the height of your career and very content with your life and everything in the world to look forward to.’
‘Thank you, Philomena. Until now I have been more than content with my life, but now I’m not so sure.’ He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘You know you haven’t asked me if I’m married.’
The champagne had made her decidedly chatty. ‘Well, no, but I don’t think you are…’
‘Do tell why?’
‘Well, you’re not the kind of man who would—would ask the first girl you met to go out to dinner with him if you were married.’
‘You’re right of course, but too flattering. I don’t fancy that you know much about men.’
She poured more coffee. ‘No, I don’t. You see, I don’t go out a great deal with them—there are so many pretty girls in hospital, and of course the housemen go for them first.’ She gave him a rather appalled look; the champagne had certainly made ducks and drakes of her usual quiet matter-of-factness. If he paid her a compliment now about being pretty, she would hate him for it.
He didn’t. He said with calm: ‘Young men always go for the pretty girls, that’s human nature, but young men grow up, you know.’
Probably he was right; he had a very assured way of speaking so that one believed him, and besides that, she felt at ease with him, as though they had been old friends for a very long time. She voiced her thoughts with unconscious forlornness. ‘I suppose you’ll be going back to Holland very soon?’
‘No, I’ve several people to see over here and there’s a seminar I’m going to in Edinburgh. I’ve two partners in the practice so that we can all get away now and again. I’ve promised to do some shopping for my mother and a cousin, perhaps you would help me with that? Tritia wanted to come with me, but she’s only nineteen and what would I do with her while I’m at the hospital? And I certainly didn’t want to take her to Edinburgh—she’s pretty and spoilt, the kind of girl young men look at and then get to know without waste of time.’
Not like me, thought Philomena sadly. I expect he’s in love with her. And to make it worse he added smoothly: ‘She lives at my home for the moment, an aunt of mine whose adopted daughter she is, has gone to Canada to visit her son. I must say Tritia gives life an added zest.’
Philomena could see the girl vividly in her mind’s eye; dazzlingly pretty, loaded with charm, small and dainty so that men rushed to open doors and lift things for her… Why, oh, why couldn’t she have been just a little like that? Certainly she was small, but she was what her stepmother laughingly called verging on the plump, which somehow carried an awful warning of what she would be like in ten years’ time, but prettiness had passed her by and she had always been in the habit of doing things for herself; no young man had ever felt the urge to open doors for her. She had charm, but she was quite unaware of that, just as she could see nothing remarkable about her green eyes and golden hair. She said humbly: ‘She sounds quite something. I expect you like taking her out.’
He smiled at her across the table. ‘Oh, I do, although I find it rather exhausting. She likes to dance until the small hours, on top of dinner too.’ It was hardly the moment for him to ask Philomena if she would like to go on somewhere and dance.
She schooled her voice to polite regret and seethed under the green dress. ‘I’m on early,’ she explained in a slightly wooden voice. ‘It’s been a delightful evening and I’ve enjoyed it so much. I really should get back…’
He glanced at the paper-thin gold watch on his wrist. ‘I did put it badly, didn’t I? I’m sorry. Won’t you change your mind? It’s early—barely half past ten.’
And now he was being polite, which made it even worse—he must be thinking of that cousin and wishing she were opposite him now. Philomena stifled a strong urge to burst into tears for no reason at all and repeated, just as woodenly, her regrets.
He was too well mannered to persist. He said all the right things and asked for the bill and while he paid it she looked around her, making a note of her luxurious surroundings so that later, when her friends asked her where she had been, she would be able to give a glowing account of her evening. It had been a lovely evening, she chided herself silently, and why on earth should she expect a chance acquaintance who had been kind enough to ask her to share his dinner to be mo
re than casually friendly? And kind. She mustn’t forget that. She was aware, because her stepmother had told her so on many occasions, that she had very few social graces. It hadn’t been said unkindly—her stepmother was too easy-going to be unkind—merely a stated fact; probably the doctor had been bored stiff for the entire evening…
‘Why do you look so stricken?’ asked her companion quietly.
Philomena composed her ordinary features into a smile. ‘Oh, I suppose I was thinking about work tomorrow—rather a comedown after this.’ She waved a small, practical and well-kept hand at their surroundings. ‘An evening to remember—I can never thank you enough.’ She added inconsequently: ‘Celebrating after the occasion is never celebrating, is it?’
‘No, Philomena, it isn’t. Shall we go?’
The streets were quieter now and the short journey seemed even shorter than it was. She couldn’t remember afterwards what they talked about, but it couldn’t have been anything important. He got out and opened the car door for her when they reached the hospital, and walked with her to the entrance. The old building loomed dark and almost silent around them, its small night noises almost unnoticed; the hiss of steam from the boiler room, a child’s cry, the quiet voices coming from the Accident Room in the far corner and the bang of an ambulance door.
‘Oh, well,’ said Philomena, her hand on the door, and then took it away to offer to her companion. ‘Thank you once again, Walle.’ She smiled up at him, looming beside her in the dimness. ‘I hope you enjoy your seminar.’ She had quite forgotten the shopping.
His hand closed round hers. ‘Goodnight, Philomena. I’m not much good at quoting, but your Shakespeare had the right words: “Fortune, goodnight, smile once more, turn thy wheel.” King Lear, and rather apt, I would say.’
He opened the door for her and she went past him with a murmur. She longed to look back, but she didn’t, hurrying through the hospital while his words rang in her ears. Had he been polite again, or had he meant it? Probably polite, she decided sensibly as she opened her room door, just to round off her evening for her.
She would have liked to have sat and thought about it, but there was no chance; several of her friends had returned from their own celebrations and someone had made the inevitable pot of tea; it was nice to be able to throw a careless ‘Kettner’s’ at Jenny when she asked where she had been, and to see the looks of interest turned upon her person. Everyone broke into talk then, saying where they had been and what they had eaten, and just for once, instead of playing the role of interested listener, Philomena was able to toss back champagne, paté maison, lobster and Vacherin into the pool of conversation. She retired to bed presently, nicely sated with her companions’ cries of ‘Oh, Philly—how super!’ She should have slept soundly in deep content, but she didn’t; she lay awake for hours thinking about Doctor van der Tacx.
CHAPTER TWO
OF COURSE, Philomena overslept; she didn’t doze off until the early hours of the morning and although she heard the night nurse’s thump on her door, she turned right over and went to sleep again. The subdued thunder of nurses’ feet and the banging of doors brought her awake again, and by dint of bundling her hair up anyway and doing nothing at all to her face, she managed to get down to the breakfast table in time to swallow a cup of tea and gobble bread and butter and marmalade before making for Men’s Surgical. Sister had her days off, which made them short-handed for a start, and as well as that, there was a theatre list. Philomena took the report from the Night Staff Nurse, scanned the notes of the two new admissions since she had gone off duty, and plunged into the ward, to be instantly swallowed up in its routine. Drips to check, dressings to do, theatre preps, blood pressures—she didn’t do them all, of course, but she had to check that they were being done. She was glad when she could escape to the office and drink her coffee, and even that precious five minutes was blighted by a telephone call from the second part-time staff nurse to say that her youngest had the measles and she wouldn’t be coming in that afternoon. A sad blow for Philomena, for the other part-timer was on holiday, so it would mean that she would have to stay on duty all day and the next day as well, unless the Office sent someone to relieve her. But nobody suggested that when she telephoned the Office, only a harassed voice wanted to know if she thought she could manage. She replied that yes, she could and wondered fleetingly what would have been said if she had declared flatly that no, she couldn’t.
The Registrar, Toby Brown, came in then, so that she had no time to feel sorry for herself; they did a round of the ward and she pointed out a little worriedly that Commander Frost didn’t seem so well. He was naturally peppery, they both knew that, but now he seemed strangely subdued.
‘Are the X-rays back?’ asked Philomena. ‘I wonder what they found? He’s having trouble with his breathing…’
‘The chief’s got them—said he’d meet me here presently—they’re not too good, I gather.’ He gave her a brief glance. ‘I say, Philly, you look like a wet week and I’ve quite forgotten to congratulate you—sorry. You deserved it, nice, hard-working girl that you are.’
She was digesting this sincere but not too flattering remark when Mr Dale arrived and she hurried to meet him. Her step faltered only very slightly when she saw that Doctor van der Tacx was with him. She had thought about him quite a lot since the night before, but somehow she hadn’t expected to see him again. Mr Dale muttered something and glanced at them both, and the Dutch doctor said at once: ‘We’ve met already,’ and smiled at her, then transferred his attention to Mr Dale again. Toby joined them then and they all went off to take a look at Commander Frost. After they had examined him, Mr Dale said: ‘All right, Staff Nurse, we shall just have a little chat—there’s no need for you to wait.’
Her ‘Very well, sir,’ was brisk as she made herself scarce, but his words sounded an ominous note in her ears; little chats usually meant bad news delivered in a carefully wrapped up way so as not to alarm the patient, but she doubted very much if the Commander would stand for that. And she was right, for doing a dressing on the other side of the ward presently, she could hear the old gentleman voicing his opinion about something or other in no uncertain manner, followed by Mr Dale’s surprisingly conciliatory voice and the deeper murmur of the Dutch doctor. Presently they came from behind the curtains and in answer to Mr Dale’s demand for her presence, Philomena handed over to the nurse assisting her, and led the three men into the office.
‘Operating this afternoon, Philly,’ said Mr Dale, who had called her Philly unofficially for years. ‘Commander Frost—hasn’t a chance unless I do, and not much of a one then. Better than lingering on, though. Bronchus quite useless on the right side and the left rapidly worsening.’ He looked round him and enquired: ‘Coffee?’
She whisked out of the little room, put her head round the kitchen door with an urgent message for a tray of coffee, and went back, while Mr Dale continued, just as though he had never interrupted himself: ‘He’ll be last on the list—what have I got?’
She told him. It wasn’t a long list, luckily; the Commander would go to theatre at four o’clock. ‘There’s just one thing,’ went on Mr Dale, ‘he refuses to go anywhere but here afterwards. You’ll have to fix that…off duty then?’
‘No,’ said Philomena in a carefully cheerful voice, ‘I shall be here.’
‘Good—he’d like you to be there with him. Stretch a point for once and stay on for a while, will you? There won’t be much to do—usual recovery stuff. Got enough nurses?’
‘I daresay the night staff will be on by the time he’s recovered,’ she pointed out sensibly.
The coffee arrived just then and she said quietly: ‘Unless you want me for anything else, sir, would you excuse me? Dinners…’
‘Of course.’ And as she reached the door which Doctor van der Tacx was holding open for her, ‘Philly, the Commander hasn’t a chance, you know, but he wants me to operate.’
She said ‘Yes, sir, I understand,’ and slipped past Doctor van d
er Tacx with no more than the briefest of glances.
She took the old man to theatre herself, holding the thin bony hand in hers as she walked beside the trolley, and when, in the anaesthetic room, he said in the commanding voice the pre-med hadn’t quite dimmed: ‘You will be with me when I wake, Philly,’ she said in her calm way: ‘Yes, I’ll be there, Commander.’ He had never called her Philly before.
The anaesthetist came in then; Doctor van der Tacx. She supposed that she should have felt surprise, but he seemed to be popping up all over the place, and besides, she was worrying about the Commander.
He came back from the recovery room just after seven o’clock, looking like a bad reprint of himself, and the nurse who had accompanied him handed Philomena the chart with a small expressive shrug. As she helped Philomena with the tubes and drips and all the paraphernalia attached to him, she remarked: ‘He’s not round, Philly. Mr Dale said he was to be returned to you before he regained consciousness; the rest’s as well as can be expected. Mr Dale’s been in to see him; he’s coming here presently. Who’s the anaesthetist? A super heart-throb, even Sister smiled at him.’
Philomena was frowning over Mr Dale’s frightful writing on the chart. ‘Oh, he’s a friend or something…I say, is this a two or a three? Why didn’t someone teach Mr Dale to write?’
The nurse went and Philomena hurried back to the Commander, sat down by the bed and began to fill in the last of the day report. The ward was quiet now, the other operation cases were sleeping, the patients who had been allowed up were being got back into their beds, she could hear their cheerful talk among themselves and the quieter voices of the nurses. The men were a little subdued, though; the Commander had been in the ward for a long time and they all liked the peppery old man.
He hadn’t roused when the night staff came on duty. Philomena left a nurse with him and whisked into the office to give the report, and that done: ‘I’m going to stay with Commander Frost for a bit,’ she explained to Mary Blake who was taking over from her. ‘I promised I would.’