‘Joel Kirby.’
Ann looked up from her knitting. ‘The one you don’t like? Does he like you?’ I shook my head. ‘But you said he was nice to Marcy?’
‘He was. Very. He likes kids. He’s good with them. He was as a student. I guess that’s one reason why they made him Paediatric H.P. when he qualified.’
‘You knew him before?’ The old light was flashing in her eyes. ‘He married now?’
‘They tell me, near as makes no matter.’
David said, ‘That’s blasted Annie’s day!’
‘No such thing!’ Ann clicked her needles triumphantly. ‘I can’t think of a better job for a husband than a schoolmaster. Long holidays, regular pay, no prospect of unemployment in the foreseeable future, and obviously fond of kids.’
David said she should have met the right bunch of sadists that taught him.’
I asked, ‘Not even one norm?’
‘Not as I recall, though I’ll admit I do my best not to recall the dear old school. Don’t I, Ann?’
She wasn’t listening. She was planning my trousseau. She would have ordered it next day, only it was Sunday.
I was trying to clear our yard of its more obviously lethal tiles and old nails when she came out of the hall door with George. He had come to ask after Marcy, having heard of her fall from Maggie MacDonald that morning and was looking uncharacteristically respectable in a dark grey suit, white shirt, and sober tie. He was, he said, just passing.
Ann was having none of that. ‘Weren’t you just coming in for tea, Pippa?’
I asked her as well as George to join the party. George admitted he wasn’t really in a hurry. Ann was. ‘I have to see to David’s, dear. You do understand?’
David had vanished to work after lunch, warning Ann not to come near him until supper unless the house was on fire and then only after she had rung the fire brigade. Had I reminded her, she would have produced one of her very nasty headaches. So I said I understood.
George gave our living-room the same once-over as Maggie yesterday. He explained his fine clobber. ‘I took Aunt Clara to lunch with my Head and his wife. I’ve just put her on the train to Leeds. She’ll be back next week-end. I think I’ll miss her ‒ and her cooking. How’s yours, Pippa?’
‘Fair on basics, bad on anything classy. My cakes are literally for the birds.’
Marcy wiped her jammy mouth with the back of her hand, then her hand on the tablecloth. ‘Even Dusty won’t eat Mummy’s cakes!’
George smiled indulgently. ‘You’ll learn, Pippa.’
I glanced at him, then removed the jam from Marcy’s reach. She still had enough on her face for two slices of bread.
George asked her, ‘Grazes really better?’
‘Nk you.’ She tried to drown in her milk.
‘Careful, little one!’ He caught her mug just before it went off the table.
Marcy showed her appreciation by giving him an old-fashioned look and then shoving an entire wholemeal biscuit in her mouth. George looked politely away until the chewing and heavy-breathing subsided. And I brooded, as probably every parent since parents started treating their children as human beings, on the strange way one’s child (or children) has of invariably behaving worst when one wants to show off an angel-child. No-one seeing Marcy in her little horror routine now could believe her the child I had taken to hospital yesterday. Certainly Joel yesterday hadn’t suffered the crashing disadvantage of being one of her Sirs with the added awesome aura of teaching those celestial and elderly beings between nine and eleven to whom she always referred with the deepest respect as The Big Ones. But nor, it had to be admitted, had Joel treated her as an official ‘Little One’. He had treated her as a fellow, rational, if slightly older, adult. And that wasn’t his medical training. I had seen hosts of doctors talking down to small children and then growing infuriated by their own inability to communicate. ‘You have a go, Nurse. I can’t get any sense into the kid!’
‘Please-can-I-get-down-and-go-and-watch-Aunty-Ann’s-tele-vision?’
George waited until the door closed. ‘I hope she’s not too addicted to the box?’
‘I hope not. More tea?’
‘No, thanks. Mind if I smoke?’
‘Go ahead.’ I went over to the mantelpiece for an ashtray and found he had followed me.
‘Where was that photo of your husband taken? Le Mans?’
‘Yes. You been there?’
‘Couple of times. I used to follow the circuits when I was a student.’ He examined the lighted end of his cigarette. ‘Until Margaret MacDonald told me this morning, I never realised you were Marcus Holtsmoor’s widow. I thought there was possibly some connection as it’s not a common name. Why haven’t you told me? And why did you just say he died in a car crash?’
‘Because he did. On a trial run.’
‘And the bits you left out? Didn’t you feel you could trust me?’
I sat on the arm of a chair. ‘George, have you forgotten how strung up you were that first night?’
‘No. You didn’t want to hurt me more?’
‘Not only that. I didn’t want to hurt me.’
He looked at me curiously. ‘You can’t still be in love with him surely?’
’No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I am. But I did love him and his death did hurt like hell.’
‘So you still don’t like talking about it?’
‘I don’t even like thinking of it.’
I did not expect to hurt his feelings. It did. ‘Look at the things I’ve told you. Wouldn’t it help to tell me?’ I did not answer. ‘I’m sure it would. I know in your place, it would help me.’
Since he could not see the obvious flaw in his argument, I didn’t offer it. I talked about Maggie. ‘Did she tell you her brothers have moved in here?’
‘Yes. We had the longest chat I’ve ever had with her. Under all the starch and exhausting briskness, she’s fairly intelligent. And so am I, my dear, so don’t try and head me off again. I want to talk about you and you know bloody well why. We’ve got to talk this out, as until we do, I can’t get through to you.’
‘That’s important?’
‘It is. To me.’
Honest, I thought, if also revealing.
He said, ‘You do realise this kidding yourself you’re still in love with a dead man is plain sick?’
‘Haven’t I told you I’m not?’
‘If you’re really not, what other explanation can you give for your present set-up?’ He stubbed out his cigarette, grinding the stub to fragments. ‘You can see yourself in a mirror. You’re no innocent teenager ‒ if such an anachronism exists. You even manage to look dead sexy in a nurse’s uniform.’
‘If you think that’s a problem, chum, you don’t know your Freud.’
He seemed to hesitate, then allowed me a point. ‘Not that that alters your main problem.’
‘Which is?’
‘How to get yourself another man. You must want one. So why’ve you waited so long? Because you’re sick. Q.E.D.’
I was interested to discover how little this kind of thing now ruffled me. I had had it before. It was something every young widow in this country gets offered surprisingly shortly after the loan of a handkerchief. I had never been able to work out precisely why, or which was the greater, the impertinence or the insensitivity. Time was, when it had reduced me to tears.
Time healed. I said, ‘You could be right, but couldn’t I also have waited for the simple ‒ and in my case true ‒ fact that I’ve yet to meet the man I want to get? And having married a man whom I believe loved me as much as I loved him, I can tell love from lust. It’s like butter and margarine. Leaves a different taste on the lips.’
He flushed. ‘So you think I’m offering you marge?’
‘What are you offering me?’
He answered my question by kissing me. It didn’t give him any joy. ‘You’re sicker than you know, Pippa.’
‘Sorry about that, George.’
�
��Sorry!’ He snapped. ‘Person I feel most sorry for is your kid! You keep this up and you’ll wreck her life with smother love!’
That did ruffle me, but since it would soothe his ego to put all the blame for my lack of response on me and I did like him, I managed to hang on to my temper. He did not help me in this by adding a stern warning on the way he thought I was already spoiling Marcy. We were both in very bad tempers when he left.
Ann all but exploded into the front hall as I closed the front door. ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘Duckie, don’t be so maddening! Has he made another date?’
‘No.’
Ann was not ruffled. ‘That shows he’s sensible. David’s always said that any man who wants to get you’ll have to play it dead crafty. I don’t mind telling you now, I’ve sometimes said, why should any man bother that much? Not just about you, but any woman. The world’s full of others willing and able. But David says when a man really wants a particular woman, he’ll genuinely go through fire and drink water to get her. David says that when you see how men react to any form of opposition is when you can sort out the men from the boys. He doesn’t think you’ll be happy with a boy as you’re strong enough to be able to push him around too much but not tough enough to want to spend your life doing that. David knows you pretty well.’
‘He does. Where’s Marcy?’
‘Happily entranced by a couple of bishops and a long-haired whiz-kid interviewer thrashing out teenage morals in Meeting Point.’
‘Ann. Do I spoil her?’
‘Sometimes. Not that it seems to have done her any harm. Why? George didn’t ‒?’
‘He did.’
‘He probably meant it kindly. He looks far too nice to have wanted to hurt you.’
Neither of us had noticed David had joined us. He was sitting on the stairs. ‘Where do you want me to put the body, Pippa? Kitchen floor, or back yard?’
Chapter Ten
A CRISIS IN A LIFT
Mr Jones, the Wing Head Porter, had been a Cas porter when I was a Cas third-year. He never troubled to use my married name and allowed me the privilege of calling him Trevor. He was on a late shift on Monday night.
‘Nurse Dexter, there’s hoping I was to catch you!’ He backed into his office and reappeared with a wrapped sheath of flowers. ‘The young gentleman did not wish to take them up to your ward at this hour and there’s anxious he was you should have them. Promised him, I did, I’d see to it myself.’ The stage whisper produced by his great bass voice must have been audible throughout the hall. ‘Pinned the letter inside, I have.’ He looked beyond me as he handed me the sheath. ‘If it’s Sir Thomas you’re waiting for, Dr Kirby, sir, he’ll still be up in Luke.’
Joel and the Senior Casualty Officer had come out of the latter’s office. ‘Thanks, Trevor, I’d better get up to him. Hold that fast lift, Mrs Holtsmoor,’ Joel called languidly, ‘and I’ll drop you off at the ninth.’
My flowers could only be from George. Irrationally or not, they had made me feel so guilty that I was quite glad of a genuine excuse for postponing reading his letter. Joel took so long to saunter over to the lift that I could have read it. Only I was lift-girl. Joel lounged against the rear lift wall, his hands in his pockets whilst I closed the gates and pressed the right buttons. Saturday afternoon was years back; Thursday night two minutes ago. But he had been nice to Marcy. I said, ‘She’s mended.’
‘Good,’ he remarked to the floor.
The warmth of the lift enhanced the scent of the jonquils in my arms. Since I could not pretend they weren’t there and flowers were the one gift other than confectionery that Martha’s nurses were allowed to accept from patients, ex-patients, or relatives, to ease the stifling silence I said something trite about mine proving spring was here despite the icy wind presently blowing outside. Joel answered with a brief nod. I nearly told him to relax. I had the message.
‘When was Marcy last vaccinated?’
I looked at him, quickly. ‘She’d a booster four months ago. Why? Smallpox in our area?’
‘Uh-huh. A man walked into Medical Admissions with it this afternoon. He works in the docks and his four kids go to local schools. Not one’s been done ‒ until late this afternoon ‒ as Dad never held with shoving all that bloody muck into healthy kids. The local M.O.H. and the cops have been rounding up all known contacts, but they’ve still to trace the original source. They’ll get it eventually, but till they do, if there’s one case, there’ll probably be more.’
‘Probably. He walked in? Wasn’t he feeling like death?’
‘Only reason why he dragged himself in. He’s never held with bloody doctors either.’ He rubbed his eyes as if they ached and I noticed absently he was greenish as Jolly with her migraine. ‘He’d been in bed at home since yesterday, thinking he’d got the flu bug. “Them nasty pimples upset him, Doctor.” Poor stupid bastard! He grew visibly worse the short time we had him before packing him off to Fevers. He’s in for a bad go and will be dead lucky if he comes out alive. I hope to God his kids aren’t cooking it already. Smallpox without vaccination can be, and generally is, a killer.’ The lift stopped at the ninth. He put his hand on the gates without opening them. ‘When were you last done?’
‘Forget exactly. My third or fourth year. I know! The time that houseman ‒ what was his name? George Ashby picked it up on some holiday in foreign parts and came out with it the day he got back here. The Path Lab nearly went berserk doing the whole hospital.’
‘Your third year and it was John Ashby.’ He looked at my flowers to mark his appreciation of my Freudian slip. ‘The Path Lab’ll be doing all the staff with more than a two-year gap tomorrow. They’ll have enough vaccine by nine. Don’t go until you’ve been done.’
‘I must, to take Marcy to school. Can’t I come back and be done later?’
‘So long as you don’t forget. You live and presumably shop locally. Smallpox is no respecter of age or sex, and though this aspect may not have occurred to you, a small girl of five needs her mother around.’
I had been honest when I told Brendan Cousins I liked a quiet life. I didn’t want to fight with George or Joel. I wanted to get on with my own life and to let other people get on with theirs. I didn’t expect everyone to like me; I didn’t expect to win ’em all. But after Joel Thursday, George yesterday, and Joel now, there didn’t seem much percentage in this turning the other cheek. ‘Do you seriously think I need to be told that?’
‘Don’t be so bloody edgy, girl! If I hadn’t thought it, I wouldn’t have said it!’
That did it. ‘If I’m edgy, what the hell do you think you are? Apart from being bloody rude! God knows I’m now used to that on duty and I’ve taken it for the good and simple reason we both know I’ve had no alternative. We aren’t on duty now ‒ or anyway, I’m not, yet ‒ and this isn’t a professional matter. This concerns my private life! Do you imagine being S.M.R., W. gives you the right to criticise that?’
He seemed speechless with surprise. He gripped the gates so hard his knuckles were white.
I hadn’t done. I knew he was paying George’s bill as well as his own but was too angry to care. ‘What gives with you, Joel?’ I demanded. ‘Where, along the line, did you turn from a human being to the rightest little God Almighty that ever donned a white coat? Where did you lose your sense of humour and plain honest to God, common-sense? Why do you now keep both in tidy little pigeon-holes marked “Patients, for the use of”? And why do you have the staggering conceit to assume that you, and you alone, know all the right answers? When you aren’t even asking the right questions!’
He propped himself against the gates. ‘No?’ he queried calmly.
‘No!’ His calm was a match to petrol vapour. ‘Like why should a well-heeled Holtsmoor work nights? Why in hell would any woman with the job of both parents want a third? One simple reason, dear! The rent and the groceries have to be paid for! Never struck you, did it? Like it never struck you to remember little items l
ike Death Duties and Inland Revenue arrears, has it? Never heard of fee earners getting in the red, unintentionally? And since you’re hearing so much, hear this! Though I enjoy my job ‒ when you’re not beating me up ‒ and though I see no reason why I, or any other healthy young woman, shouldn’t turn breadwinner willingly when necessary as it’s the other side of the equality coin ‒ still not one night goes by without my at some time feeling torn in two. Possibly only another parent could understand that. I assume you’re not one?’ He shook his head. ‘Then get yourself a wife and kids before you next have the bloody impudence to lecture me on parental responsibility!’
‘Even Homer sometimes nods, Pip, but in this case,’ he caught his breath queerly, ‘you’re doing the nodding. If you’ve finished clouting me with your bruised ego, let us get one minor item straight. Obviously, just now I expressed myself badly. You don’t have to believe me, but I was referring to your health and not your way of life. As for the rest ‒’ He gave a long sigh as if he had lost all interest. ‘Get on-duty and cool off, Pip. You always were over-emotional.’ He pushed open the gates as if they were very, very heavy. ‘God alone knows how you’ve managed to produce such a well-balanced kid.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘thanks!’ I slammed shut the outer gates and looked at him through the gates. ‘One thing you haven’t lost, Joel, dear, is your talent for kicking below the belt.’
He didn’t answer. He looked back at me and suddenly his stance and expression stiffened into a peculiar rigidity that left me nearly as rigid when the lift went on up. I had seen that peculiar rigidity before and the recognition removed my anger instantly. It was the outward sign of acute, physical pain. The kind of pain that leaves the sufferer no breath for as much as a moan or energy for lifting the little finger.
I pressed my face against the gates, listening. I heard the lift stop above, but no gates opening. And then, a heavy thud.
I reached for the bell and kept my finger on it as the lift began coming back. It was stopping as one of the larger lifts coming up stopped in the next well. A girl said, ‘Evening, Staff. I’m Hills, Parsons’ replace. Lord! What’s happened to Dr Kirby?’
The Healing Time Page 11