‘German measles?’ I croaked.
‘One mild but unmistakable example thereof.’ He stroked one finger down Marcy’s cheek. ‘You’ll cool down soon, dearie, and by morning you’ll be much better.’
‘Will you come and see me in the morning?’
‘I’ll come.’ He reloaded his pockets with his equipment. ‘All right if I wait for you in the sitting-room, Pip?’
I said, ‘I wish you would.’
Chapter Sixteen
BEFORE WAS NOTHING LIKE THIS
He was standing by the mantelpiece looking at the photo of Marcus. ‘She gone off again?’
‘Like a light. This is her normal, and once out, it’s for the night. David says an H-bomb going off on the top landing might not make her stir, though he wouldn’t bet on it.’ I had to sit and the sofa was the nearest. ‘Joel, I can’t describe how grateful I am to you.’
‘Call me the Beloved Physician and have done, darling.’
‘Can I offer the Beloved Physician some tea?’
‘Yes, please.’ He came over. ‘In actual fact, that’s why I rang you.’
I was too short of energy to rise above the obvious. ‘Why did you want me to ask you to tea?’
‘For a start, because over tea I hoped to prise out of you an invitation to stay to supper.’
‘Tonight? But it’s your birthday!’
‘Why don’t we celebrate here?’
I wondered if I had missed out on something he had said on Thursday. ‘You haven’t got one lined up for tonight?’
He sat on the other end of the sofa. ‘Not unless I succeed in twisting your arm.’
‘That party you spoke about ‒ is off? Why? Liz had to go back on tonight? Another crisis?’
He shook his head watching me speculatively. ‘Tom Shaw’s wining and dining Liz tonight.’
‘Tom Shaw! What’s he want to do that for?’
‘Darling,’ he said. ‘I appreciate you’re under the influence of an acute-anxiety-state hangover, but that’s no excuse for being infantile. What does any man want when he spends good money on an attractive woman? Though I’m much afraid poor old Tom’ll be chucking good money after bad, as Liz never has played and is now highly unlikely to play ball with him. But he gets his kicks out of his hopes. To each his own method. Personally, buggering up a date as third party doesn’t give me one kick. So I opted out.’
‘You opted out?’ I echoed incredulously. ‘After calmly handing over your girl-friend to be wined and dined by another man? This may be the permissive age, but surely ‒’
‘Pip stop waffling and concentrate! Despite the years dividing thee and me and so forth, you have still known me one hell of a long time. Can you seriously see me doing that, were she really my girl-friend?’
The trouble with being perpetually braced against the next slap in the face from life was that one remained braced when the slap turned out to be a caress. ‘That’s what’s just thrown me. I know you weren’t able to finish the big farewell scene, but every other person I’ve met in Martha’s has been putting me in the picture about you and Liz ever since I got back. Don’t you realise the hospital’s marrying you two off?’
‘My dear girl, they’ve had us in bed together for years! They’ve also had me in bed with so many other women that it’s a bloody marvel I’ve had energy left for a single ward round.’
Briefly I thought of Henry Kirby. ‘I should’ve remembered your past reputation. My set were always convinced you were dynamite and wouldn’t believe me when I said you could keep yourself to yourself. I never told you my opinion as I didn’t think you’d take it as a compliment.’
‘I doubt I would have then. Though already when I had begun to suspect the ugly truth that womanising and pure medicine don’t mix. Since I’ve been climbing the resident ladder, I’ve learnt to settle for that. Martha’s Establishment doesn’t object to its resident being hot talking topics, since all enclosed institutions have to talk, and if they’ve nothing to talk about, they’ll invent something. God have mercy on any resident fool enough to give factual cause for the talk. He won’t get any from the Establishment. Martha’s pays my salary, so I keep its rules. I don’t enjoy ’em all, but who expects to enjoy it all?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Do I have to twist your arm? Or may I stay for supper? And if so, don’t worry about food as I’ll go along to that delicatessen by Sep’s and collect some and a bottle of wine.’
‘You’re going to wine and dine me?’
‘One of the ideas I’ve in mind. May I?’
I had forgotten the particular sensation that sparked off. I smiled faintly and mostly to myself. ‘Yes. Thanks.’
‘Thank you.’ He got up to find himself an ashtray and stayed standing. ‘About that big farewell scene ‒ perhaps I should finish it off now?’
‘If you think so.’
He frowned. ‘You aren’t interested?’
‘Joel,’ I said, ‘now you’re being bloody silly. Obviously I’m a human question-mark about that, but as it has to be some very personal matter concerning Liz, and if not yourself someone else, I’m not making the leading questions. Having been at the receiving end too damned often.’
‘That figures,’ he agreed bleakly. ‘Sorry.’ He was silent for a few moments. ‘Rosser Smith.’
‘Who? Oh! That bone-graft we’d in your last night? No!’ Then I remembered. ‘Yes! The way he talked about Liz ‒ but Joel, hasn’t he a wife in another hospital?’ He nodded. ‘What a pathetic mess for all three! What’s wrong with his wife? Do you know?’
‘Remember Cooper?’
I winced. ‘Not a ward one would forget. She’s like that? Oh God, how ghastly! How long?’
‘Two years. Another fast car but she was driving alone. She’s in the Midlands. He was returning from one of his thrice-weekly visits when he landed himself in Albert. I don’t for one moment imagine he wanted to fall for Liz any more than she for him. Though he works for her old man’s old firm, they genuinely hadn’t met previously. She was put on to special him, and that did, it.’ He paused again. Then he said slowly, ‘I felt like a sadist taking you round Cooper.’
‘I’m a nurse. I had to see it.’
‘Guess so.’ He went back to Liz. ‘She had to talk to someone, she’s known me years and knew it wouldn’t affect me as it might Tom as I’ve never wanted to make her.’
‘Then that figures. Joel, what happens now?’
He shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. He’s a good man. If that sounds absurd, it doesn’t alter the fact that he is. According to Liz his wife, to date, has no grounds for divorcing him and I believe her. Liz has her bitchy side, but she’s no liar. She says she’ll wait till kingdom bloody come, and I believe that too. None the less I think she ought to get out and about more, which is why I’ve taken her out and pushed her into this date with Tom tonight. That morning in Willie-May,’ he continued, ‘she’d asked me to tell you as she knew by then she could trust you and thought she might need you as an ally. She was hellish afraid Maggie MacDonald might catch on, and despite this new complication, her job means a lot to her. How much’d it be worth if Maggie MacDonald caught on and mentioned the matter to Matron?’
‘A first-year might find herself shifted to a woman’s ward after a stern warning. Any sister getting emotionally involved with any male patient, married; or otherwise ‒ out!’ Then I caught on. ‘Liz once thought I’d shop her?’ His expression answered me. ‘My God! What kind of a bitch do you two think I’ve turned into?’
‘No-one’s ever suggested you’ve turned into a bitch. But you know dead well you have turned into the youngest, far and away the prettiest, and by no means the least powerful member of Martha’s Establishment. Can you honestly blame Liz for being shaken rigid by your return? She told me there you were all ready for a good girlish chat on the old days, and let her drop one indiscreet remark and how in hell was she to be sure it wouldn’t go straight to Matron? Not necessarily intentionally, but these things have a way of slipping out.’
I coloured. ‘I may be a Holtsmoor, but I’m not Matron’s bosom chum!’
‘No, darling,’ he drawled, ‘just her pet. And the Dean’s pet. And such a law unto yourself that you got shoved in over every other waiting staff nurse’s head, which in my ignorance of your private affairs hit me as so bloody unfair when you first came back.’
‘You left me in no doubt of that.’
‘Very intentionally. That gives me no joy now, but it’s true, so why deny it?’
I said slowly, ‘You also gave me the impression you thought me loaded, bored with motherhood, and nursing for kicks.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Plus, sex-starved.’
He grimaced as if I had struck him. ‘You would remember that!’
‘Can you honestly blame me for that?’
‘By God, I can!’ He flung back. ‘Yes, it was a bloody dirty crack and I wish I hadn’t made it, but you had it coming! You were still running a ward ‒’ He broke off, momentarily. ‘Pip,’ he continued more calmly, ‘how could you be so bloody silly? How could you ‒ you ‒ give the miserable our George go, on-duty?’
‘I gave him go ‒’
‘If not, he’d not have touched you! Always,’ he insisted, ‘as a kid and even more now, you’ve had written all over you; one pass before I give you go, buster, and that’s the last I’ll ever take from you!’ He sat beside me. ‘That nearly drove me round the bloody twist way back and was why I had to keep myself to myself when you were around. That it also kept me hanging around panting hopefully I only properly figured out after you came back. It’s a technique a lot of eager dollies who leap into bed half-way through the first party, and then wonder why they’ve no date for the next, could acquire with advantage. With you, it’s not so much technique as you.’ He dropped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his locked hands as he looked at me sideways. ‘I don’t blame our George. No man’s to blame for moving in, stat, when a girl as pretty and as desirable as you gives him go.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Finished?’
‘Yep. Subject now written-off.’
‘Now there,’ I said, ‘you’re mistaken.’
Suddenly he looked older. ‘You’ve got something to tell me?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit complicated, so before I do you’d better promise to keep it to yourself.’
‘You know I will. But is this cloak-and-dagger really necessary?’
‘If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be using it. You’ve promised. Right, duckie!’ And I told him the truth.
He went scarlet, but he stopped looking old. ‘Henry? Sweating it out amongst the splints on the top shelf of the linen-room? I hope he sweated blood! Bugger the silly young bastard!’ He looked round the room. ‘Got a stone I can get under?’
‘That’s what I wanted the night I blew all fuses and then they wheeled you off to the theatre.’
‘That’s daft! You’d done nothing to make you want to crawl back into the slime. All you said was fair comment, and indirectly gave me one hell of a boost!’
‘Why on earth should it do that?’ I demanded.
‘I want you to marry me.’ From his tone, he wanted me to pass the bread-and-butter. ‘But I’m much too selfish and too conceited ever to consider marrying any woman, even you, who’s richer than myself. Till you blew, I was under the still universally accepted Martha’s delusion that the Holtsmoors regard themselves as skint when down to their last hundred thousand.’
I felt as if I had been kicked in the ribs. That should have been unpleasant. It wasn’t. ‘That so?’
‘Yep. Hadn’t occurred to you?’
‘Frankly, no. It ‒ er ‒ explains the wining and dining.’
‘And this eyesore.’ He held open his jacket. ‘I only wore it Thursday not to hurt Henry’s feelings, and I have to say I think you and he have execrable taste, but as you said you liked it and I’m out to get in good with you, I put it on. Could man love woman more?’
I flopped against the sofa back, smiling. ‘Poor Joel! That’s a very sweet gesture. Thank you.’
He leant back beside me, without touching me. ‘There’s something else I want to give you right now, Pip, and that’s advice. Can you stomach it after the amount I’ve been pushing down with your back teeth?’
I was honest. ‘I feel strong enough. Go on.’
He took his time. ‘Here comes the old don’t do as I do, do as I say. I have to say it. You’re looking much too tired and you’re losing far too much weight. You must chuck nights and fast, or you’ll end up in a hospital bed. This recent pressure is going to be kept up, as far as you’re concerned. I heard this afternoon that after your holiday, Matron’s going to offer you the same nights off, but in Luke ‒ at the request of Bob Bush and Rowlands and much to Wally’s fury as he wants you in Arthur or Albert. All are agreed you’re far too good a nurse to be wasted on sub-acutes, and Bob Bush has asked Matron why the devil she didn’t send you to Luke originally. Luke’s the heaviest medical ward in all Martha’s. Luke will crack you, physically. I’m serious, Pip.’ That was very obvious. ‘And don’t tell me you’ll be able to turn down the offer, because we both know your professional conscience won’t let you return to a quiet ward now you know your job so well. So you’ll know that one floor up your skill is desperately needed. Move up, and you’ll crack. That’ll help neither the patients, Marcy, or yourself.’
I knew he was right. I had felt the recent pace getting beyond me, but as with so many other thoughts had been too busy to dwell on it. ‘I can’t switch to days. Full-time hours don’t fit with primary-school hours and I’m not hanging a latch-key round Marcy’s neck until she’s a lot older than five, if ever. Part-time’s out. Not enough money. One would earn more by the hour as a London cleaning lady.’
‘And the great British Public wonders why all over the country hospital beds stand empty for want of trained nurses. Good theatres close down as there aren’t the nurses to staff ’em! Strange world we live in!’ He looked at the painting of Holtsmoor. ‘Mind my asking, just what is the set-up there?’
I told him. It took some time, but he was a good listener. ‘Since we’ve moved here,’ I ended, ‘Marcy’s literally blossomed again. She loves it here.’
‘Very apparently. Insecure kids don’t radiate contentment. You have problems, Pip.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to let me in on them? You know I want to marry you. I didn’t intend coming out with it today, but as I have ‒ how about it?’
‘You’re suggesting I marry you to pay my rent and groceries?’
His face tensed up. ‘I’ve still no desire to buy you, but as I want you for my wife, naturally those are included in the deal. If you think it a lousy deal, forget it. As I won’t, I’ll be asking you again. So you slap me down again?’ His faint smile was self-derisive. ‘So I’ve more in common with Tom than I thought. He once told me he’s never managed to say the right thing at the right time to Liz. That’s precisely how it’s been from me to you.’
‘It isn’t. You said all the right things on Thursday, and as for when you were a patient ‒’
‘In an invisible straight-jacket and acting like a nice, good little wooden patient man. It was such hell that it’s one of the miracles of modern medicine that they didn’t carry me out feet first.’ He pressed his right cheek against the sofa-back to face me. ‘There I was loving you like hell and there you were being so bloody sweet and gentle and kind. Before you hand out any more bouquets, I’d better tell you I’d hate to have to admit the number of occasions on which you narrowly missed being pulled into bed with me. I’m not clear to which you owe most; to your training and yourself, or to the etiquette with which I’ve been brainwashed.’
Our eyes met. ‘You, personally, take no credit, Joel?’
‘No. Then I know what I was thinking.’
I needed to know more clearly what I was thinking, so I had to look away.
He said, ‘I discovered I was in l
ove with you around the time Worstley came in. I had thought I was before you left, but it was nothing like this. Nothing at all. After you’d gone it was hellish for a while, then it wore off. I forgot you. I remembered your first night back which made me nearly as irritated with myself as I was by your return. You were so much prettier than I remembered and so much more serious. Though I thought you bored and loaded, I never thought you a merry widow. You’d taken Marcus Holtsmoor’s death hard. Remembering my choice words before you married him, I felt bloody guilty about you. Guilt seldom brings out the best, and certainly not in me. I knew there was a strong anti-Holtsmoor faction in the Nurses’ Home just waiting for you to slip up. I thought I’d top you off, since it always helps to know the strength of the opposition. I recall giving you that tip with the back of my hand, but you took it.’
‘And very grateful I’ve been to you for it, if not for your actual delivery. But for it, I might’ve slipped up easily. I’d no idea until I started doing that homework what tremendous changes there’d been in those six years. If I have to chuck nights, I’m glad I’ll be able to do so with a ‒ so far ‒ clean slate. Yes, I got that Wing job because I married Marcus, but I owe a lot more than that to his name and I’d have hated to cast a shadow over it in Martha’s of all places.’
‘I can understand that. Do you mind talking about him? I’ve noticed you’ve never mentioned him to me before.’
‘Nor I have,’ I said looking at him again. ‘No. It doesn’t hurt now. For years it did, but now it’s almost as if the me that was his wife died with him. We’ve both slipped into a kind of half-memory, half-dream that’s lovely to remember but that every day gets more and more difficult to believe in as a reality. Even through Marcy ‒ and though Marcy is so like him.’
‘And you.’
‘You think so? No-one else does.’
‘She has his features, her own colouring, and your eyes and mannerisms. That afternoon she took over Cas ‒’ He caught his breath. ‘Pip, it was uncanny! When she looked up to announce her full name, she looked up at me with your eyes and lifted her chin exactly as you do when about to do battle. My God,’ he said very quietly, ‘did I wish I were her father. If you want to think I’m now twisting your arm or getting in good, you do that, but this is true ‒ I’d love to help you raise that kid. She’s so much a part of you that inevitably some of the way I feel for you has overspilled on her. I’d like kids of my own. I’d love to have them with you, and if I can get you to marry me, I don’t think I’m likely to forget that Marcy was the first kid who really drove home just how much I’ve been missing.’ He folded his arms. ‘Do me a favour and think it over. It might work very well.’
The Healing Time Page 19