Angel

by Colleen McCullough

  I haven’t quite made up my mind about Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, though I do like her very much. She reminds me of some of my more memorable patients, those who manage to stay with me for as long as I’ve been doing Xrays, maybe are going to stay with me for the rest of my life. Like the dear old bloke from Lidcombe State Hospital who kept neatly pleating his blanket. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was folding sail, and then, when I settled to talk to him, he told me he’d been bosun on a windjammer, one of the wheat clippers used to scud home to England loaded to the gunwales with grain.

  His words, not mine. I learned a lot, then realised that very shortly he was going to die, and all those experiences would die with him because he’d never written them down.

  Well, Kings Cross is not a windjammer, and I’m no sailor, but if I write it all down, someone sometime in remote posterity might read it, and they’d know what sort of life I lived. Because I have a funny feeling that it isn’t going to be the boring old suburban life I was facing last New Year’s Day. I feel like a snake shedding its skin.

  Tonight’s wish: That the parents don’t have a stroke.

  Friday January 15th, 1960

  I still haven’t told them, but it’s going to happen tomorrow night. When I asked Mum if David could eat steak-and-chips with us, she said of course; best, I think, to wallop the whole lot of them at the same time. That way, maybe David will get used to the idea before he has enough time alone with me to nag and hector me out of it. How I dread his lectures! But Pappy is right, it is going to be easier to get rid of David if I don’t live at home. That thought alone has kept my course steering for the Cross, as the natives call it. Up at the Cross, to be exact.

  I saw a man today at work, on the ramp leading from X-ray to Chichester House, which is the posh red brick building housing the Private Patients in the lap of luxury. A room and a bathroom each, no less, instead of a bed in a row of about twenty down either side of a whacking great ward. Must be awfully nice not to have to lie

  listening to half the patients vomiting, spitting, hacking or raving. Though there’s no doubt that listening to half the patients vomiting, spitting, hacking or raving is a terrific incentive to get better and get out, or else get the dying over and done with.

  The man. Sister Agatha grabbed me as I finished hanging some films in the drying cabinet-so far I haven’t had one ponk film, which awes my two juniors into abject submission.

  “Miss Purcell, kindly run these to Chichester Three for Mr. NasebyMorton,” she said, waving an X-ray envelope at me.

  Sensing her displeasure, I took it and hared off. Pappy would have been first on her invitation list, which meant Sister Agatha hadn’t been able to find her.

  Or else she was holding a vomit bowl or dealing with a bedpan, of course.

  Mine not to reason why-I hared off like the juniorest junior to the Private Hospital. Very swanky, Chichester House! The rubber floors have such a shine on them that I could see Sister Chichester Three’s pink bloomers reflected there, and you could open a florist shop on the amount of flowers dotted around the corridors on expensive pedestals. It was so quiet that when I bounded off the top step at Chichester Three level, six different people glared at me and put fingers to lips. Ssssssh! Ooooooaa! So I looked contrite, handed the films over and tiptoed away like Margot Fonteyn.

  Halfway down the ramp I saw a group of doctors approaching-an Honorary Medical Officer and his

  court of underlings. You don’t spend a day working in any hospital without becoming aware that the H.M.O. is God, but God at Royal Queens is a much superior God to God at Ryde Hospital. Here, they wear navy pinstriped or grey flannel suits, Old School ties, Frenchcuffed shirts with discreet but solid gold links, brown suede or black kid thin-soled shoes.

  This specimen wore grey flannel and brown suede shoes. With him were two registrars (long white coats), his senior and junior residents (white suits and white shoes), and six medical students (short white coats) with stethoscopes ostentatiously displayed and nail-bitten hands full of slide cases or test tube racks. Yes, a very senior version of God, to have so many dancing attendance on him. That was what caught my attention. Doing routine chests doesn’t bring one into contact with God, senior or junior, so I was curious. He was talking with great animation to one registrar, fine head thrown back, and I think I had to slow down and shut my mouth, which does have a tendency to catch flies these days. Oh, what a lovely man! Very tall, a good pair of shoulders, a flat tummy. A lot of dark red hair with a kink in it and two snowwhite wings, very slightly freckled skin, chiselled features-yes, he was a lovely man. They were talking about osteomalacia, so I catalogued him as an orthopod. Then as I slid by themthey did rather take up all the ramp-I found myself being searchingly regarded by a pair of greenish eyes. Phew! My chest caved in for the second time in a week,

  though this wasn’t a surge of love like Flo’s. This was a sort of breathless attraction. My knees sagged.

  At lunch I quizzed Pappy about him, armed with my theory that he was an orthopod.

  “Duncan Forsythe,” she said without hesitation. “He’s the senior Honorary Medical Officer on Orthopaedics. Why do you ask?”

  “He gave me an old-fashioned look,” I said.

  Pappy stared. “Did he? That’s odd coming from him, he’s not one of the Queens Lotharios. He’s very much married and known as the nicest H.M.O. in the whole place-a thorough gentleman, never chucks instruments at Sister Theatre or tells filthy jokes or picks on his junior resident, no matter how hamfisted or tactless.”

  I dropped the subject, though I’m sure I didn’t imagine it. He hadn’t stripped the clothes off me with his eyes or anything silly like that, but the look he gave me was definitely man-woman. And as far as I’m concerned, he’s the most attractive man I’ve ever seen. The senior H.M.O.! Young for that post, he couldn’t be more than forty.

  Tonight’s wish: That I see more of Mr. Duncan Forsythe.

  Saturday January 16th, 1960

  Well, I did it at the dinner table tonight, with David present. Steak-and-chips is everybody’s favourite meal,

  though it’s hard on Mum, who has to keep frying T-bones in a huge pan and keep an eye on the deep fryer at the same time. Gavin and Peter get through three each, and even David eats two. The pudding was Spotted Dick and custard, very popular, so the whole table was in a contented mood when Mum and Granny put the teapot down. Time for me to strike.

  “Guess what?” I asked.

  No one bothered to answer.

  “I’ve rented a flat at Kings Cross and I’m moving out.”

  No one answered that either, but all the sounds stopped. The tinkling of spoons in cups, Granny’s slurps, Dad’s cigarette cough. Then Dad pulled out his packet of Ardaths, offered it to Gavin and Peter, then lit all three of their smokes o f f the same match-oooooo-aa, that was trouble!

  “Kings Cross,” said Dad finally, staring at me very steely. “My girl, you’re a fool. At least I hope you’re a fool. Only fools, Bohemians and tarts live at Kings Cross.”

  “I am not a fool, Dad,” I said valiantly, “and I am not a tart or a Bohemian either. Though these days they call Bohemians Beatniks. I’ve found myself a most respectable flat in a most respectable house which just happens to be at the Cross-the better end of the Cross, near Challis Avenue. Potts Point, really.”

  “The Royal Australian Navy owns Potts Point,” Dad said.

  Mum looked as if she was going to cry. “Why, Harriet?” “Because I’m twenty-one and I need space of my own, Mum. Now I’m through training, I’m earning good money, and flats at Kings Cross are cheap enough for me to live yet still save to go to England next year. If I moved out to some other place, I’d have to share with two or three other girls, and I can’t see that that’s any better than living at home.”

  David didn’t say a thing, just sat on Dad’s right looking at me as if I’d grown another head.

  “Well, come on, bright boy,” Gavin growled at him, “what
have you got to say?”

  “I disapprove,” David answered with ice in his voice, “but I would rather talk to Harriet on her own.”

  “Well, I reckon it’s bonza,” said Peter, and leaned over to give me a cuff on the arm. “You need more space, Harry.”

  That seemed to decide Dad, who sighed. “Well, there isn’t a lot I can do to stop you, is there? At least it’s closer than old Mother England. If you get into trouble, I can always yank you out of Kings Cross.”

  Gavin burst into a bellow of laughter, leaned across the table with his tie in the butter and kissed my cheek. “Bully for you, Harry!” he said. “End of the first innings, and you’re still at the crease. Keep your bat ready to deal with the googlies!”

  “When did you decide all this?” Mum asked, blinking hard.

  “When Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz offered me the flat.”

  The name sounded very peculiar said in our house. Dad frowned.

  “Missus who?” asked Granny, who had sat looking rather smug throughout.

  “Delvecchio Schwartz. She’s the landlady.” I remembered a fact I hadn’t mentioned. “Pappy lives there, that’s how I got to meet Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz.”

  “I knew that Chinky girl was going to be a bad influence,” Mum said. “Since you’ve met her, you haven’t bothered with Merle.”

  I put my chin up. “Merle hasn’t bothered with me, Mum. She’s got a new boyfriend, and she can’t see any farther. I’ll only come back into favour with her when he dumps her.”

  “Is it a proper flat?” Dad asked.

  “Two rooms. I share a bathroom with Pappy.”

  “It isn’t hygienic to share a bathroom,” said David.

  I lifted my lip at him. “I share a bathroom here, don’t I?” That shut him up.

  Mum decided to bite the bullet. “Well,” she said, “I daresay you’ll need china and cutlery and cooking utensils. Linen. You can have your own bed sheets from here.”

  I never thought, the answer just popped out. “No, I can’t, Mum. I’ve got a whole double bed to myself! Isn’t that terrific?”

  They sat gaping at me as if they envisioned the double bed with a bus conductor’s bag on the end of it to collect the fees.

  “A double bed?” asked David, paling.

  “That’s right, a double bed.”

  “Single girls sleep in single beds, Harriet.”

  “Well, that is as may be, David,” I snapped, “but this single girl is going to sleep in a double bed!”

  Mum leaped to her feet. “Boys, the dishes don’t wash themselves!” she chirped. “Granny, it’s time for 77 Sunset Strip.”

  “Kooky, Kooky, lend me your comb!” carolled Granny, skipping up lightly.

  “Well, well, did you ever? Harriet’s moving out and I’ve got a room to myself! I think I’ll have a double bed, hee-hee!”

  Dad and the Bros cleared the table in double-quick time, and left me alone with David.

  “What brought this on?” he asked, tight-lipped. “Lack of privacy.”

  “You have something better than mere privacy, Harriet. You have a home and a family.”

  I pounded my fist on the table. “Why are you such a myopic git, David? I share a room with Granny and Potty, and I have nowhere to spread my things without picking them up the minute I’ve finished with them! Whatever space I have here is also occupied by others. So now I’m going to luxuriate in my own space.”

  “At Kings Cross.”

  “Yes, at Kings bloody Cross! Where the rents are affordable.”

  “In a lodging house run by a foreigner. A New Australian.”

  That killed me, I laughed in his face. “Mrs. Delvecchio 34

  Schwartz, a foreigner? She’s an Aussie, with an Aussie accent you could cut with a knife!”

  “That is an even greater indictment,” he said. “An Australian with a name that’s half Italian and half Jewish? At the very least, she married beneath her.”

  “You bloody snob!” I gasped. “You bigoted git! What’s so posh about Australians? We all came out as bloody convicts! At least our New Australians have come out as free settlers!”

  “With SS numbers tattooed in their armpits or tuberculosis or stinking of garlic!” he snarled. “And `free settlers’ is right-they all came out here for a mere tenpound subsidised passage!”

  That did it. I jumped up and started whacking him on both sides of his head right over his ears. Wham, wham, wham! “Piss off, David, just bloody piss off!” I yelled.

  He pissed off, with a look in his eyes that said I was having one of Those Days, and he’d be back to try again. So there you have it. I do like my familythey’re good scouts. But David is exactly what Pappy called him-a constipated Catholic schoolboy. Thank heavens I’m Church of England.

  Wednesday, January 20th, 1960 I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to sit and write this, but things are looking all right. I managed to talk Dad and the Bros out of inspecting my new premises (I went last Sunday to have a look, and they’re not fit yet for inspection), and I’m working like stink to get my things together for next Saturday’s move. Mum has been colossal. I’ve got heaps of china, cutlery, linen and cooking utensils, and Dad shoved a hundred pounds at me with a gruff explanation that he didn’t want me touching my savings for England to buy what by rights belonged in my Hope Chest anyway.

  Gavin presented me with a tool kit and a multimeter and Peter donated his “old” hi-fi, explaining that he needed a better one. Granny gave me a bottle of 4711 eau de Cologne and a set of doilies she’d crocheted for my Hope Chest.

  There’s a sort of an archway between my bedroom and my living room in my new flat-no door-so I’m going to use some of Dad’s hundred quid to buy glass beads and make my own bead curtain. The ones you can buy are plastic, look awful and sound worse. I want something that chimes. Pink. I’m going to have a pink flat because it’s the one colour no one at Bronte will permit anywhere. And I like pink. It’s warm and feminine, and it cheers me up.

  Besides, I look good against it, which is more than I can say for yellow, blue, green and crimson. I’m too dark.

  My flat is in the open air passage that goes down alongside Pappy’s room and leads to the laundry and the backyard. The rooms are big and have very high ceilings, but the fixings are pretty basic. There’s a kitchen area with a sink, an ancient gas stove and a fridge, and it’s

  impossible to make it look nice, so I rang Ginge the head porter at Ryde and asked him if he could find me an old hospital screen-no trouble, he said, then started moaning about how dull the place is since I left. What rubbish! One Xray technician? The Ryde District Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital isn’t that small.

  Ginge was always one to exaggerate.

  Matron came to visit X-ray yesterday. What a tartar she is! If the H.M.O. is God, Matron has equal rank with the Virgin Mary, and I think virginity is a prerequisite for the job, so it isn’t an invalid comparison. No man would ever get up the courage, it would take a dove flying in the window to quicken any matron. They’re always battleships in full sail, but I must say that the Queens Matron is a very trim craft. Only about thirty-five, tall, good figure, red-gold hair, aquamarine eyes, beautiful face. You can’t see much of the hair for the Egyptian headdress veil, of course, but the colour’s definitely not out of a dye bottle. Her eyes would freeze a tropical lagoon, though. Glacial. Arctic.

  Ooooooaa!

  I felt rather sorry for her, actually. She’s the Queen of Queens, so she can’t possibly be a woman too. If you want to slap a coat of paint on a wall or you stick up a poster to amuse the patients, Matron decides what colour the paint will be or if the poster can stay there. She wears a pair of white cotton gloves, and while she can’t do it in X-ray (strictly speaking, she’s the guest of Sister Agatha in X-ray), on all ground where nurses work or play she runs the tip of one finger along skirting

  boards, window ledges, you name it, and God help a ward sister whose premises produce the faintest tinge of grey on that wh
ite glove! She heads the domestic as well as the nursing staff, she ranks equally with the General Medical Superintendent, and she’s a member of the Hospital Board, which I have found out is chaired by Sir William Edgerton-Smythe, who just happens to be my dishy Mr. Duncan Forsythe’s uncle. The reason why he’s senior H.M.O. of Orthopaedics at his age becomes clearer. Unk must have been a great help. What a pity. I rather thought, looking at Mr. Forsythe, that he was the sort of man who doesn’t stoop to string-pulling Upstairs. Why do idols always turn out to have feet of clay?

  Anyway, I was introduced to Matron, who shook my hand for the precise number of milliseconds courtesy and rank demand. Whereas when I met Sister Agatha, she stared straight through me, Matron held my eyes a la Mrs.

  Delvecchio Schwartz. It seems Matron came to discuss the purchase of one of those new rotating set-ups for X-ray theatres, but a tour of the whole place was obligatory.

  Tonight’s wish: That I stop thinking of Forsythe the Crawler.

  Saturday January 23rd, 1960

  I’m here! I’m in! I hired a taxi truck this morning and hied myself and my cardboard cartons full of loot to 17c

  Victoria Street. The driver was a great bloke, never passed any sort of remark, just helped me inside with my loot, took the tip graciously, and pissed off to his next job. One of the cartons was chocka with tins of pink paint-ta much for the hundred quid, Dad-and another held about ten million assorted pink glass beads. I started in without any further ado. Got out the drum of ether soap (handy to work in a hospital and know the value of ether soap), my rags and scrubbing brush and steel wool, and set about cleaning. Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz had said she’d clean it up when she showed me the place, and she hasn’t done a bad job, really, but there are cockroach droppings everywhere. I’ll have to ring Ginge at Ryde again and ask him for some of his cockroach poison. I hate the things, they’re loaded with germs-well, they live in sewers, drains and muck.