by Betty Neels
He stared at her very hard. ‘Would you consider another job? As a surgery nurse? I told you that I have two partners; the practice is big and covers a large country area. We each have our own consulting rooms as well as a clinic in Ommen and we all have beds in hospitals in Zwolle and Hoogeveen. I travel a good deal too. Our nurse is getting married and we need a replacement—we have a receptionist and a secretary and part-time help, but we can’t manage without a nurse. Would you like to take the job for a time and see how you like it? You would be in Ommen because one of my partners has the clinic close to his house and that is mostly where you would work. He’s married with children and a rather nice wife. The other partner lives at Dalfsen, and I live between the two near a village called Vilsteren. You could take over the rooms Ellie had and the salary would be much the same as you’re getting at present.’
‘The language…’ Philomena pointed out breathlessly.
‘We all speak English, so, to a certain extent, does the receptionist. Basic Dutch will be more than sufficient. Presumably you will have to give a month’s notice at Faith’s, so during that time you can take a few lessons.’
‘You’ve thought of everything,’ she said wonderingly.
‘Er—I have given it some thought…’
‘Why me?’
His reply was prompt and matter-of-fact. ‘Mr Dale tells me that you are a first class nurse, but he also mentioned that there is no hope of a Sister’s post for months to come. You might just as well have a change of occupation while you’re waiting for it. You’ll suit Theo de Klein, my partner, very well, he likes a sensible girl with no nonsense about her, and no immediate prospect of getting married—all the girls he has interviewed so far have boy-friends or want their evenings free.’
Philomena swallowed this frank statement as best she might while a strong and sudden desire to show the tiresome man that she was none of these things possessed her. Her serene expression didn’t change, but her green eyes gleamed at an idea she had just that moment had. She would take the job, presumably she would see something of the doctor from time to time and that would give her an opportunity to make him eat his words. It would be difficult, of course, because she was actually all the things he had described, but at least she would try…
She said in her sensible way: ‘May I think it over? I rather like the idea, that is, of course, if your partners approve.’
‘They will.’ He sounded very positive. ‘A trial period, perhaps, and if you like the work and everything else is satisfactory, we can come to some arrangement.’
She said slowly: ‘Yes, I think so. You mentioned that the girls already interviewed wanted their evenings free…does that mean that there are clinics every evening?’
He looked a little surprised. ‘Good lord, no—though evening surgery does go on till eight-ish. I think we agreed among ourselves that too much outside interest—coming in late, being late at work in the morning as a consequence—it just wouldn’t do.’
‘You want a girl with no other interest but her work and possibly a little reading and knitting in her free time.’ She sounded tart, and he said at once:
‘I put it badly—not made myself clear.’
‘On the contrary, you made yourself very clear.’ Philomena gave him a pleasant smile. ‘Ought we to be going?’
He lifted a finger for the bill, looking at her. ‘You will consider my offer? I go to Edinburgh tomorrow and I expect to be away about a week. Would that be long enough?’
She nodded. ‘Telephone me when you get back.’
‘I’ll do better than that; if I may, I’ll take you out for a meal.’
She rose from her chair and went composedly to the door. ‘That would be nice. Thank you for the coffee.’
And after that the conversation was exclusively of the party, the charm of the hotel and Wareham and the extraordinary good looks of her stepsisters. ‘They’re quite gorgeous, aren’t they?’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘I’m surprised every time I go home and I’ve known them for ten years, how they must strike someone who hasn’t met them before is quite something.’
Doctor van der Tacx threw her a sidelong glance. ‘It is. Is there a list this afternoon?’
They talked about the hospital and new techniques and the variety of patients they had encountered until they reached the outskirts of London, when he left the main road, weaving the car through the side streets until she exclaimed in some surprise: ‘We’re in the Brompton Road!’
‘With time enough for lunch.’
He took her to the Brompton Grill and Philomena did full justice to the delicious meal: sole, with scampi sauce, tiny new potatoes and even tinier peas, and a whipped-up froth of cream and fruit for dessert, and because she would have to work that afternoon, a light dry wine which the doctor assured her would do her no harm at all.
They hadn’t a great deal of time and the doctor didn’t mention his suggestion that she should work for his partner again. Philomena occupied the short journey to the hospital with small talk delivered in a bright manner which she hoped concealed the splendid muddle of feelings jostling each other inside her. As they approached the narrow street which would take them round the back way to Faith’s, she fell silent, compiling a graceful speech of thanks for her ride and her lunch, a speech which, however, she had no opportunity to make, for driving in through a side gate they were at once caught up in a tangle of ambulances, police cars and people.
‘What on earth…’ began Philomena, and then: ‘There was that march this morning…’
The doctor slid the car between two ambulances with an inch to spare on either side, shot across the forecourt and parked with instant smoothness beside the Rolls-Royces, Daimlers and Jaguars belonging to the consultants. ‘We’ll soon see,’ he observed with calm, and opened her door. They had just gained the front entrance when another ambulance, its light flashing, its siren wailing urgently, raced in. Potter, the Head Porter, was for once out of his little office, a paper in his hand, giving instructions to his team, but when he caught sight of them he broke off to say: ‘Mr Dale was asking for you, sir—if you would go to the Accident Room and join him there, and Staff, Sister Brice left a message. You’re to go to the Accident Room and stay there until you’re no longer required, and then you’re to return to Men’s Surgical.’
She nodded. ‘OK, Potter, but what’s happened?’
‘That march—got out of hand, it seems—any number of casualties, and we’re the nearest hospital.’
‘Oh, lord—is the march still going on?’
He gave her a withering look; he was elderly and tired, and people had been asking questions all the morning. ‘No, it’s not, but the fighting is.’
Philomena was halfway to the nurses’ home when she remembered that she hadn’t said goodbye to Doctor van der Tacx, let alone thanked him for her lunch.
The Accident Room, when she reached it ten minutes later, was crowded and to a casual onlooker, chaos appeared to reign although this was not the case; the serious, the not so serious and the lightly wounded had been sifted, so that the bays at the end of the vast apartment were filled with stretchers whose unfortunate occupants were being examined by the various consultants and their registrars, dealt with and despatched to the wards or theatre, the larger bays which ran the length of the place were crammed with cut heads and faces, simple arm fractures, contusions and the like, and the remaining benches lining the walls taken up with minor injuries. Of course, to these were constantly added fresh patients, so that the coming and going was considerable, with Sister Curtis, who had spent her nursing life first in Casualty and then in the Accident Room, marshalling her forces with an expert hand. She buttonholed Philomena at once with instructions to station herself at the main doors and classify the cases as they came in. ‘You’re a sensible girl, so I’m told,’ she observed in her forthright manner. ‘Use your discretion and don’t hesitate to get help if it’s needed stat.’
So Philomena wormed her way through the ma
ss of patients, most of them policemen, waiting their uncomplaining turns, and arrived at the doors just as another ambulance drew up.
It held four casualties; two policemen stretched out unconscious on their stretchers, both with ugly head wounds, and the two sitting patients, one an old lady with a cut hand, roughly bandaged, and the other a small boy with his arm in a sling. Neither of them said a word, just looked at her as they were shepherded into the Accident Room, and she sat them down with a murmur of assurance and turned back to the stretcher cases. One was a good deal worse than the other; black eye, broken nose, cut lip and a nasty jagged wound across the back of his head. Broken bottles, Philomena guessed, and probably a boot in the face; she had seen it before, and probably, she thought wearily, she would see it again. The second man was young, his fair hair full of fragments of glass, one cheek slashed and oozing sluggishly. She called a nurse over to help her and together they unbuttoned jackets, took off boots and began their careful search for bodily injuries, before sending them over to the swelling numbers of seriously injured. ‘And stay a bit,’ cautioned Philomena to the nurse, ‘make sure that someone knows that they’re there; they do need warding quickly.’ She smiled at the two porters as she turned back to her other two patients.
It was difficult to know which one to attend to first. The small boy was crying now, but the old lady, although she wasn’t complaining, had become alarmingly pale. Philomena started to talk to the child while she eased off the old lady’s coat. Probably there was some other injury as well as the cut on her hand, which was nasty enough but hardly warranted the pallor. She cleaned and dressed the wound with gentle efficiency, laid the old lady down on the stretcher the porters had brought back, took a decidedly poor pulse and asked cheerfully: ‘Did you have a nasty shock, my dear? Were you pushed or bumped or knocked down?’ and while she talked she probed gently for broken bones.
‘Got pushed around,’ muttered her patient, ‘knocked about somethink shockin’—me ribs ’urt, Nurse.’
A clue to be followed up. Philomena took a close look under the cardigan; there was a small slit in the brightly patterned blouse, easily overlooked, just as the faint bloodstains round it were almost invisible. And underneath the blouse there was another slit. Philomena delved gently and presently found what she had expected; a small almost hidden stab wound just under the old lady’s ribs, its lips curled in nastily; such a small cut, but probably it had done a good deal of damage. Philomena slid a sterile pad over it, talking soothingly while she did so, and signed to the porters. ‘This one’s urgent,’ she whispered as she scribbled a note. ‘Give that to someone at once—Mr Dale if you can get at him, if not, his registrar.’ She smiled at the old lady. ‘That’s a nasty bump on your ribs,’ she warned her. ‘If they want you to stay here for the night and rest, is there anyone you want us to tell?’
The old lady shook her head. ‘Ain’t got no one,’ she muttered. ‘I’d dearly like a good sleep.’
‘Not to worry, we’ll look after you.’ Philomena squeezed the rather grubby hand and sent the porters on their way, then went back to the small boy. The ward clerk was there, coaxing his name and address from him. ‘He can’t remember the name of the road,’ she said worriedly. ‘Tall chimneys at the end of it, he says, and a pub in the middle.’
‘Pickett’s Lane,’ said Philomena promptly as she slid the sling off the small bony arm, ‘about five minutes’ walk from here. What’s your dad’s name, love?’
‘Merrow.’ The child suddenly burst into tears. “’E won’t ’arf tear inter me, ’e told me not ter go inter the street.’
Philomena was putting the sling back on again; a simple Colles’ fracture which could be put into plaster without further ado. ‘He’ll be so glad to see you back I don’t suppose he’ll be at all cross,’ she soothed him. ‘You go with this nice porter and they’ll have you as right as rain in no time,’ and as he was led away: ‘See if you can get hold of a bobby to send someone round to Pickett’s Lane and fetch his dad here, will you, Jean?’ and as the clerk sped away, Philomena straightened out the trolley and turned to receive the next load from the arriving ambulance.
And so the day wore on; it was long past teatime before the last of the casualties had been dealt with. The Accident Room emptied itself slowly and a fresh batch of nurses moved in to take over. Philomena, a little untidy by now, straightened her cap and repaired to Men’s Surgical; she was on duty until eight o’clock and there was still an hour or more to go. She plodded up the stairs, wondering what was for supper, reflecting that lunch seemed a long time ago. She had seen Walle van der Tacx once or twice in the Accident Room, looming head and shoulders above everyone else, but always at a distance, and when she had had the chance to look around her, there had been no sign of him. She sighed and opened the doors of Men’s Surgical.
Sister Brice was on duty and in a towering rage; the ward was choc-a-bloc for a start, a number of nurses from other less busy wards had been sent to help her and as they weren’t ‘her’ nurses, she naturally disapproved of them, and the inevitable untidiness of the ward caused by the sudden influx of new patients had irritated her to a state of snappishness, making life difficult enough for the nurses without the burden of the extra work with which they were coping. Philomena, called into the office to be given a spate of orders, received the full brunt of her superior’s wrath. She received it meekly, as there was no point in getting the poor woman more upset than she already was, and when Sister Brice paused at last for breath, suggested that a nice cup of coffee might ease her feelings. ‘Dora’s in the kitchen still,’ said Philomena helpfully, ‘and I know she’ll make you one at once. I’ll ask her on the way in.’
Dora, smarting from Sister’s tongue, wasn’t disposed to be co-operative. ‘Why her?’ she demanded. ‘You all deserve a cup. I don’t see…’
‘Dear Dora,’ wheedled Philomena, ‘how thoughtful you are—of course we’d all like a cup, but we’re off in another hour and Sister will have to write the report and give it. She’ll be ages after us—be a darling.’
Dora made a face. ‘OK, since it’s for you, Staff, but I’m not saying I’m doing it willingly.’
‘That’s what makes you a darling,’ said Philomena.
It was almost nine o’clock before she got off duty. Sister needed help—she couldn’t write the report and give it and be sure that the ward was adequately covered at the same time; Philomena must stay until the night staff were free to take over. So she stayed, to go down to the dining room presently to a supper which an hour earlier had been nice enough but which was by now dried on its plate. She begged bread and butter from the canteen maid and carried it off with her to her room, where various of her friends waited with tea and an assortment of food; potato crisps, someone’s birthday cake, some rather stale biscuits, and a bag of toffees, stuck together. Philomena ate her starved way through anything offered to her and then sat down on the bed to compose a note to the doctor; she still had to thank him for her lunch and the lift back. They seemed a long time ago now. She took it down to the porter’s lodge presently, with instructions to Potter to give it to Doctor van der Tacx if he should see him. Potter’s rather stern features confronted her through his little window. ‘Well, I will do that, Staff, though I don’t know what’s coming to all you young persons nowadays—nurses writing notes to senior members of the medical profession!’
She pushed her cap straight on her untidy head. ‘Potter dear, it’s a bread and butter letter—you know…he gave me a lift up from my home and we had lunch, so of course I have to thank him—we didn’t have time when we got here, now did we?’
He relaxed a little. ‘Well, that’s different, Staff. I’ll let him have it. He’s still in the hospital, up in theatre.’
The news made her feel happier, although she didn’t know why. ‘What a day, Potter—I bet you’re dead beat.’
He smiled a little. ‘That I am, Staff.’
‘And I heard Mr Dale say that you’d done a marvel
lous job, getting the porters organised so well.’
Potter did his best not to look pleased. ‘It’s my duty, Staff,’ he added. ‘Not but what you haven’t done yours and no reward expected, either.’
A true enough statement, but one which proved wrong for once. Philomena was on her way to her midday dinner the next day when a porter caught up with her and handed her a very large box. She was already late for her meal, as were several of her friends with her, but that didn’t stop them from pausing long enough to tear off the wrappings, to reveal a handsome box of Fortnum and Mason’s chocolates, a sumptuous affair of blue brocade and satin ribbons. There was a note with it and there was an excited chorus of: ‘Philly—who’s the boy-friend? What a dark horse!’ An illusion she was able to dispel when she had read the note.
‘Probably you had no tea—perhaps these will help to make up for it. We shan’t work you so hard in the practice.’ It was signed with the doctor’s initials.
‘Who cares for romance, anyway?’ enquired one of her companions. ‘That’s a three-pound box, Philly—and what does he mean about the practice?’
They had reached their table and Philly was left to guard the chocolates while the others queued for their dinners and hers too. She wondered when he had found the time to buy them, or perhaps he just ordered them by telephone. It had been kind of him—he was always kind and perhaps a bit crafty this time too, making that allusion to the practice. She hoped he had got her note, and now she would have to write another. She remembered that he was to go to Edinburgh, so her thanks would have to wait. She accepted her plate of stew and urged on by her friends, ate it rapidly; if they were quick, there would be time to make tea and sample the chocolates before they were due back on their wards.
CHAPTER FOUR
IF PHILOMENA had expected the week to drag she found herself very mistaken; days had never flown by so quickly, so that she had very little time in which to think over the doctor’s proposal. True, she intended accepting his offer, but there was a great deal more to it than that. A hundred and one details would have to be discussed, her stepmother told, her notice given in, the doctor’s airy suggestion that she should learn some Dutch before she left to be gone into. All these were at the back of a mind much too busy to deal with them, so that when he returned at the end of the week and she came face to face with him on the landing outside Men’s Surgical, all she could do was to gape at him and say hullo in a feeble sort of way.