by Rosie Harris
‘Will you be able to cope after this length of time away from nursing?’ Richard asked dubiously.
‘Of course.’
‘Well, you will have Peggy there to guide you and tell you what to do.’
‘Peggy! I don’t need her or anyone else to help me,’ Delia said indignantly. ‘I have been a sister longer than she has.’
‘You mean you were a sister. Don’t forget you’re going back as a staff nurse. I would imagine a demotion like that makes quite a difference.’
‘You don’t have to remind me,’ Delia said sharply.
‘Yet you still want to do it?’ He stared at her with a puzzled look on his face.
‘You want to go back to work, don’t you?’
‘That’s rather different, I’m going back to the same job as I had before and I will be holding the same rank as before.’
‘Do they have ranks in schools?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘You don’t have to be obtuse, Delia. I am going back to my old job and it is highly unlikely that it has changed in any way.’
‘Well I hope you enjoy it,’ she told him as she reached up and flicked a long gold glittering chain from on top of one of the pictures.
‘So are you going to help?’ she asked again.
‘I will do what I can. I will certainly pack the lights away, because you would probably make a hash of it and then next year I’d have to get all new ones,’ Richard said resignedly.
‘You had to get new ones this year and you were the one who took them down and put them away last year.’
Richard didn’t answer and went over to the tree, pulled out the plug and began systematically to unwind the lights from it.
They worked in silence for about ten minutes, then Richard asked, ‘Are we doing a complete spring clean?’
‘No but I do want the place to look tidy when your mother comes round to look after George.’
‘I think that’s all she is going to do, look after George, not make a tour of inspection,’ Richard said smugly.
Delia scowled. ‘Will you help me to get the rest of the decorations down or not?’ She asked him.
‘Very well, if you will go and make me a coffee,’ he told her.
‘I’m too busy,’ she told him.
‘You make the coffee and I’ll clear the room while you’re doing it,’ he compromised.
‘In ten minutes flat! I think you will find that takes rather longer than that.’
By the time she returned with two steaming cups of coffee Richard had removed all the decorations from pictures and odd places she had put them, and even taken down the Christmas cards she had fixed on the doors with blue tack. He had meticulously removed it from the back of each one and rolled it into a single ball. Everything was piled up neatly on the table.
‘We’ll drink our coffee and then if you find the boxes, we can pack all this stuff away and I’ll put it back up in the attic,’ he told her.
On returning to the house after her first day at work, Delia found Richard trying to get George to eat a sandwich he had made for his tea. George was shaking his head adamantly, tears creeping down his cheeks.
‘If you don’t eat that sandwich then you can go hungry. I’ve been dealing with awkward kids all day and I don’t want to come home and find another one,’ Richard ranted.
‘What’s the problem?’ Delia asked.
‘He is,’ Richard muttered. ‘He is complaining that he is hungry, so I’ve made him a banana sandwich and he won’t eat it.’
‘He doesn’t like bananas when they’re mashed up, he likes to eat his banana whole in between bites of bread and butter,’ Delia told him.
Richard looked exasperated but said nothing. Delia went to the fruit bowl and picked out a banana, peeled back the skin a few inches and handed it to George who took it eagerly.
‘I’ll cut you some bread and butter in just a minute, so don’t eat it before I’ve got that ready for you,’ Delia told him. ‘What sort of day have you had?’ she asked, turning to Richard.
‘Absolutely lousy! My head aches, my back is killing me and all I want to do is go and lie down for half an hour.’
‘Go on then, I’ll bring you up a cup of tea in half an hour, after I’ve got our meal ready. I’ll finish feeding George first.’
Richard grunted acceptance of the plan.
‘What was your day like? Good?’ He asked as he headed for the stairs.
Delia smiled but said nothing. She slipped her coat off and went to cut George his bread and butter. When she came back with it, Richard had vanished and she could hear him padding around upstairs. With a sigh she slipped off her own shoes and sank down on a chair.
It had been anything but a good day. Peggy had picked on her from the moment she had arrived. Under the pretence of ‘showing her the ropes’ Peggy had lectured her as she would have done a first-year student nurse. Afterwards, she had followed her around, making points and finding fault with everything she did. Some of the other nurses were exchanging amused glances and, as the day went on, Delia felt that any authority she had because of her senior staff nurse status was rapidly diminishing. To add to Delia’s chagrin, Peggy had said at the end of their shift, ‘Not too bad for your first day. Give my love to Richard when you get home.’
Give her love to Richard, Delia thought defiantly, that was the last thing she was going do. She wasn’t even going to mention Peggy’s name unless he asked after her.
Richard did ask. He wanted to know if Delia had enjoyed her first day back at nursing.
‘Of course you had Peggy to put you right,’ he said. ‘How is she?’
‘As efficient as a sister can be,’ Delia said dryly.
‘Friendly?’
Delia shrugged. ‘Personalities don’t come into it when you’re working,’ she said evasively.
Richard laughed. ‘You should try being a teacher. You would have thought that I had just arrived from Outer Mongolia and knew nothing at all about the curriculum, from the way some of the new teachers acted. I wasn’t off for all that long but there were three new faces and they looked quite hostile.’
‘What about the old guard?’
‘Oh, they were OK, except they kept ribbing me about trying to fly a plane without an engine.’
‘I suppose you have to expect that,’ she sympathised.
‘I don’t see why,’ Richard said huffily. ‘After all, it’s the nearest thing to pure flying. Birds don’t have an engine.’
‘True,’ Delia admitted. She knew he expected her to say something more intelligent than that but she was too tired to think of anything, so she quickly went on to another topic.
‘Did Bill and your mother say they had managed all right?’
‘Mother looked tired and I agreed with Bill that, since he was picking George up in the afternoon, I would read the bedtime story, so that Bill wouldn’t have to trek back here again at seven each night.’
‘That sounds sensible,’ Delia agreed, smothering a yawn as she spoke.
‘You found your first day tiring as well did you?’ Richard smirked. ‘Not used to being on your feet all day.’
Delia was about to defend herself and tell him that cleaning his house, doing the washing and the shopping, and running after George, meant that she didn’t have a lot of time to curl up with a book, but she decided not to. Instead she began to clear away the debris from their meal and carried the dishes through to the kitchen. She waited hopefully for Richard to come and see if she needed any help, but he had already sunk down in his favourite armchair with the evening paper.
‘I thought you were going to go up and read to George as soon as you had finished eating,’ she reminded him.
‘I did say I would but he’s probably asleep by now,’ Richard said not looking up from the paper.
‘I’ll go up and take a look,’ Delia said resignedly.
Richard was right. Not only was George in bed and asleep, but he was still clutching the book open at the story he wanted his father to read
to him. Gently Delia removed the book, pulled up the covers, and tucked him in.
Their first day at work hadn’t been an overwhelming success for either of them, she reflected. It was going to be necessary to ask Mary to oversee a snack for George each afternoon. Delia would also have to devise meals in advance, so that all she had to do when she came home was pop them in the microwave or ask Mary to put them in the oven before she left.
Another thing she was going to have to give some thought to was the cleaning, washing and shopping. True she was only planning to work part-time, but could she fit all those jobs in when she wasn’t at the hospital? If she felt as tired when she came home as she did today, then she wasn’t at all sure that she could. She would have to plan a detailed schedule. Perhaps ordering online might be the answer, but then what happened if they delivered and there was no one at home to take them in?
She was too tired to think about it tonight, she told herself. Well, it was early days. Once she had organised things better, it would be no problem at all. Many wives did a part time job, managed to look after their husband and several children, and still have time to go out and enjoy themselves.
Or perhaps Richard had been right after all and it wasn’t going to be possible to work, run his house and look after him and George all at the same time …
FORTY
Delia struggled to overcome the exhaustion she felt at the end of each day, trying to convince herself that it was less and less each day. When she arrived home the following week, feeling not only tired but also irritable – Peggy had been particularly trying that day – she found not only Richard and George, there but also Mary and Bill.
‘Hello, what’s going on, are we having a party?’ she greeted them in what she tried to make a cheerful voice.
‘No, we’ve got a problem,’ Richard told her.
‘Oh yes?’ she looked at him enquiringly.
‘Bill has a hospital appointment tomorrow and it’s at three o’ clock in the afternoon. So it is unlikely that he and my mother will be able to pick George up.’
‘I see …’ Delia frowned.
‘I can go on my own, there’s no need for your mother to come as well, Richard,’ Bill told him.
‘I know, but she feels she ought to be there,’ Richard stated.
‘Yes, I do,’ Mary said firmly. ‘He is having an injection and he will need someone to look after him afterwards. Someone to make sure he doesn’t leave the hospital too soon, that he manages to phone for a taxi and someone to help him into it and out again when he gets home.’
‘Yes, of course he does,’ Delia agreed.
‘The trouble is I can’t take time off tomorrow,’ Richard said. ‘We have an inspector doing his rounds so I must be there.’
‘So, you mean it is up to me to take time off.’ Delia frowned. There was a long silence while she considered whether this would even be possible. She rather thought Peggy would be furious and tell her she was only working part time hours as it was. She braced her shoulders. So, what if Peggy did? Perhaps it would be an excuse to give up nursing and to stop feeling so exhausted each day.
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled brightly, ‘I’m sure I can arrange something. We really must try and get friendly with some of the other parents,’ she added as an afterthought.
‘What for?’ Richard asked in a puzzled voice.
‘So that we could ask one of them to bring George home from school, when there is an emergency like this, of course. After all,’ she added when she saw the scowl on Richard’s face at her suggestion, ‘it would only be for about half an hour, because you are usually home just after George, aren’t you, Richard?’
‘I’m sure Peggy will understand when you explain everything to her,’ Richard said. ‘It isn’t as if it happens every other week. Bill won’t have another appointment for at least a month, will he mother?’ he asked looking at Mary.
‘Possibly even longer if they use this new injection, instead of Lucentis,’ she agreed.
‘There you are then, Bill, all solved,’ Richard smiled.
It might be solved as far as they were concerned, Delia thought, but she still had to face Peggy. She spent a restless night, constantly waking up to go over in her mind what would be the best way to ask Peggy. When she arrived at the hospital, all her prepared speeches went out of her mind. When the opportunity came for her to ask Peggy, she felt as awkward as a schoolgirl facing her headmistress. Peggy’s face was expressionless as she listened to Delia rambling on about Bill having to attend for eye treatment and not being able to pick George up from school.
‘I wouldn’t need to leave here until three o’clock.’
Peggy frowned.
Delia clenched her hands into fists until her nails bit into her palms. Surely she’s not going to say I can’t, Delia thought desperately. Instead, she was completely taken by surprise.
‘It won’t be necessary for you to take time off, Delia,’ Peggy said, ‘I am off this afternoon. I’ll pick George up from school. Give me a door key and I’ll take him home and look after him until Richard gets home.’
Delia felt at such a complete loss for words that she found herself stuttering as she tried to thank Peggy. She wanted to refuse her offer, but she realised she had no choice. She either had to accept, or defy Peggy and take the time off whether it was granted or not.
‘Don’t worry, George knows me well enough by now, he will be quite happy. Go and get me the door key.’ She looked at her fob watch. ‘I will be leaving in twenty minutes,’ she added as she walked away. Delia stared after her. What would Richard think about her giving the door key to a stranger? She thought worriedly. Well, Peggy isn’t a stranger, she thought. She’d visited them several times, she knew Richard, she knew Bill and Mary, but could she be classed as a family friend?
Delia knew that her worries were groundless. The only reason she was asking herself all these questions was because she didn’t want to think of Peggy being in the house alone with Richard.
She wouldn’t be alone with him, she reminded herself, George would be there as well.
FORTY-ONE
Two weeks later, the problem of Bill having to go to the eye hospital occurred again.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Delia groaned. ‘Mary said that it would be at least a month before he would have to go back.’
‘Grandma said that it was for his other eye,’ George, who was curled up on the settee with a book, told them.
‘That’s right,’ Richard agreed, ‘this time it is for the other eye apparently and they’ve given him very short notice.’ They looked at each other in despair. ‘I don’t think I can ask for time off,’ Richard said apologetically, ‘how about you?’
Delia shrugged. ‘I can try.’
The next day, when she asked for time off, she saw the knowing look on Peggy’s face.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of things,’ she said without any preamble. ‘When is it?’
‘The day after tomorrow.’
Peggy nodded. ‘I am off so it will not be a problem.’
Later that day, when Delia thought about it, she wondered if Peggy had deliberately doctored the list so that she could see Richard again. Then she scolded herself for being so suspicious.
Jealousy will get you nowhere, she told herself, with an inward smirk. Yet, in her heart of hearts she was positive that it was true and wondered how she could find out for sure. Don’t make waves or she might not do it, she told herself. But, for the rest of the day, the niggling thought that she was right kept invading her mind almost like a warning.
Richard raised his eyebrows when she told him the news that night.
‘It’s very good of her,’ he said in surprise. ‘Is she so helpful to all her staff or are you getting preferential treatment?’
Delia merely smiled, still convinced that her suspicions were founded, but until she could prove them to be she thought it best to stay quiet about them.
‘Perhaps she’s looking forward to b
eing taken out for dinner by you afterwards,’ she said.
Richard looked startled but said nothing and Delia wished she hadn’t said it. It was putting ideas into his head and surely he wouldn’t want to have to take Peggy out for a meal every time she came and picked George up from school. Perhaps she ought to make sure that she prepared a big casserole, so that there was enough for Peggy to be included in their evening meal at home. She decided that as she began to get things organised for the next day.
At midday Peggy made a point of letting her know that she hadn’t forgotten that she was collecting George from school that afternoon.
‘Perhaps you had better give me your door key now,’ she said. ‘You may be busy this afternoon and not able to get to your locker to find it, perhaps I ought to ask Richard to get one cut for me,’ she added half-jokingly, her eyes on Delia’s face to see her reaction.
Mary and Bill also reminded her of the Peggy’s generosity, when she stopped for a brief word with them, after she found them sitting outside the consultant’s surgery waiting to be called in.
‘It’s so good of her to give up her time off like this,’ Mary said gratefully.
‘It certainly is,’ Bill agreed. ‘I was for ringing the hospital and saying that because it was in the afternoon and sprung on us so suddenly there was no chance of me getting here, but Mary said I wasn’t to do that if it was at all possible to arrange something.’
‘I do understand,’ Delia told him, patting his arm. ‘Your eyes are very important and it’s great that you are getting so much attention.’
‘Oh, I agree,’ Bill said
‘They do need to see to your other eye,’ Mary murmured.
‘That’s unfortunately so,’ Bill agreed. ‘And I thought one injection a month was quite enough for me, now I’ll have to have one in each eye. Two per month!’ He grumbled.
If it’s known that his other eye has AMD, why weren’t both injected at his first appointment? Delia mused. She then felt that it confirmed her suspicion that Peggy had some dealings in this error, so that she had an excuse to visit Richard. Determinedly she put it all from her mind, time enough to think about it when she got home.