The Private Wing

by Claire Rayner

  He looked up then and saw her, and a slow smile spread over his face, and he lifted his chin towards the sleeper and raised his eyebrows, asking her to join in his scorn of so absurd a character. And she smiled back, but went over to the armchair and gently shook the young man’s shoulder.

  “Chuck? Hello. Ngaire asked me to tell you she’ll be right down. And – er – look, I’d suggest you wait out in the garden there. Home Sister – she’s a bit of a nagger, you know!”

  The young man shook his head in a dazed way, and then woke up properly and grinned at her. “Hello there yourself. You must be Trish – Ny told me about you. Said you were a real dolly – and she’s right, from where I’m sitting. Outside, you say? Oh well, I’m getting used to it. She doesn’t like my gear, this Home Sister of yours? Boy, oh boy, these old birds – they do jump around their conclusions, don’t they? I’m so square it isn’t true – working like a lunatic and all that, but I like to dress gear. Still, I’ll get out of the way.” He stood up and stretched. “Come with? We’re going to a great gig – and there’s plenty of room for one swinging dolly more – ”

  “Hello, darling.” David’s hand was firm on her arm. “Ready? I’m double-parked – ”

  “Hello, David. This is Chuck – a friend of Ngaire’s. Chuck, this is David Talbot – ”

  “Hi. Great to see you – your’s must be the E-type I saw – the yellow one? And a real dolly to go with it. Great!” Chuck said, and David nodded back rather icily and said, “Er – yes – Nice to meet you. Ready darling?” and firmly manoeuvred Tricia away and out of the door. She looked back apologetically at Chuck who waved a hand, and then spread both wide in a gesture of amused and understanding defeat.

  “You didn’t have to be quite so snappy with him,” she said, as they went towards the courtyard and the main gates. “I suppose he did look a bit scruffy, but so many people do now, and anyway – ”

  “Not my sort of people,” David said firmly, and then gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. “How are you, darling? You look a shade peaky – too much night duty, that’s what it is – ”

  “Well, thank you very much, Mr Talbot,” Tricia said frostily. “There’s nothing makes a girl feel better than being told she looks a mess.”

  “I didn’t say that.” He held the passenger door open invitingly and helped her in before going round and climbing into the driver’s seat. “I was simply trying to express a legitimate concern with the way you look. Beautiful. Infinitely desirable. But tired.” He crinkled his eyes at her, and then leaned over and tipping her chin with one finger kissed her gently, then more firmly. But when he raised his head, there was a faint line between his eyebrows. “Yes. Very tired. Come on. You need some food and peace and quiet.”

  He drove through the thick evening traffic with the expert care she had learned to expect of him; making the most of his opportunities to get through quickly, but never breaking even the most minor of the rules of the road. And as the car climbed the hill towards Hampstead Heath and the small very intimate and far too expensive (in Tricia’s estimation) restaurant they usually went to, she let her mind go back to the afternoon. To Dr Kidd’s oh-so-polite words yet oh-so-insulting manner, to Sister Cleland’s icy ill temper, and the thought of three months to be spent in so unpleasant a way.

  She wondered for a moment if it would be worth discussing the whole thing with David, but then told herself drearily that there would be little point. To pour out her woes wouldn’t make her feel any better, and it would give David the chance to start again on his nagging technique, and she was in no mood to face that. And somewhere deep within her she also knew that now, while she was at a pretty low ebb, he might well persuade her to see things his way; and what a waste of all these past months and years of effort and swotting and hard work that would be –

  Smoothly, David manoeuvred the car into the last parking space on The Mount, and turned to look at her in the dimness, for it was now nine o’clock and the last of the April evening light had given way to a deep blue dusk through which the elegant old lamps in front of the pretty, well-kept houses glowed softly.

  “Bit better?” he said softly.

  “Better than what?”

  “Not so annoyed with me? I’m sorry, sweetheart – but some of these hippy types – they do get on my nerves. But I shouldn’t have been so rude to him. Any friend of a friend of yours and all that. Forgive me?”

  “Oh, David, of course,” she said and was swept with remorse. “I’m sorry to have been so snappy, too. I suppose I am a bit tired, really. I didn’t sleep much today, and I was on duty from half past four – ”

  “And you look beautiful on it.” He kissed her again, and this time she softened and let her mouth relax, and then his arms were round her, harshly urgent, and she emerged breathless from as passionate a kiss as she could ever remember from him.

  “Hey!” she said, her voice a little uneven. “Give me warning next time you feel quite so – so – ”

  “In love,” he said, a little huskily. “As if you didn’t know.”

  He took a deep breath, and then said in a firmer voice, “And you need some dinner. Come on, sweetheart. Your table awaits you.”

  They walked down to the restaurant hand in hand, his grasp firm on her chilly fingers, and were welcomed to the restaurant like old friends by the eager Cypriot waiter who, chattering incomprehensibly (and they exchanged amused glances; they’d never been able to understand his rather twisted English) led them to a candlelit table in the corner, screened from the rest of the small restaurant by a trough of exuberantly growing plants.

  “David, my dear man! This all looks very elegant!” Tricia said, looking at the avocado pears filled with succulent pink prawns, that stood ready at each place, and then at the dented but gleaming ice bucket that stood beside David’s chair, a gold-topped bottle nestled in a white cloth lying invitingly in it. “What are we celebrating? The end of my night duty?”

  The waiter deftly thumbed the cork from the bottle and filled their glasses with the faintly bubbling pale amber liquid and nodding and bobbing cheerfully went away, and David picked up his glass and looked at her over the top of it.

  “You’ve forgotten,” he said softly.

  “Forgotten? David! What?” she said, suddenly worried. “My God, it isn’t your birthday? No. No, of course not. That’s not till July – I don’t – forgive me if it’s a special day. Night duty makes anyone’s memory haywire – ”

  “Two years ago tonight, sweetheart, I allowed myself to be dragged along to a medical student’s party at the Royal. I’d had a hectic day in the surgery, and a bigger one booked for the next day. But I went because young Harry was so keen I should. And I stood there in all that awful din and guffawing great rugger-playing beer-swilling medical types, and wondered how soon I could get away. And then I saw a girl on the other side of the room. Tall – leggy – a little bewildered in the middle of it all. But then, she was just a young first year student, after all. And I stayed at that party till everyone else had gone, and took the leggy student nurse back to the Home – ”

  She smiled then, and relaxed. “Is it really two years? I suppose it must be. I’ll be old soon, at this rate – ”

  He refilled both their glasses and she watched the bubbles rise and thought confusedly, “Two years. And most of the time we’ve been engaged in an unofficial sort of way – it’s ridiculous.”

  Almost as though he’d read her mind, he said, “It’s absurd, isn’t it? Darling, eat your pear. There’s duck with orange waiting after this.”

  “All my favourites,” she thought, as obediently she sank her spoon into the delicate pale green of the pear. “Oh dear! Please don’t David, not tonight. I’m so tired. Not tonight – ”

  He didn’t say any more about the anniversary as they ate the duck and crisp salad, and finally the delectable cream-filled chocolate profiteroles, and finished the bubbling wine, only talking of amusing general things, about an absurd patient he had had
that day, and what she had said when he told her she really would have to lose her teeth; about the incredibly silly relief dental nurse the agency had sent him, and the way he had worded an advertisement designed to get a really good one; about the new equipment he and his partner in their thriving West End dental practice had ordered. And Tricia listened, and laughed and listened again, and relaxed.

  “Too many calories altogether, David!” she protested when he tried to persuade her to take another helping of the profiteroles. “I’ll get enormous!”

  “Never too enormous for me. And anyway, I’ll tell you as soon as I think you’re in need of taking care,” he said, and looked down at his coffee, busily stirring it, and went on in a studiedly offhand way. “Some girls have a problem when they start a family, of course. I remember how my sister suddenly plumped up after young Jeremy was born – but she’s dieted it away very well now – ”

  Abruptly, all the relaxation the food and wine had given her vanished, and she felt herself tense up. And he looked up and saw her face, and said with sudden irritation, “Ye Gods, Trish! What do you want of me? I asked you to marry me a bare two months after I met you. And you agreed, and I thought – well damn it, do you love me? I love you more each month that goes by. Is it asking too much of you to set a date? To let me give you a ring, announce the engagement, start planning? In another three months you’ll have finished your training – and though I never did see any point in it, and still don’t, I agreed you’d finish it before we got married. And yet – do you love me?”

  She looked at him, at the square handsome face creased now with anxiety, and affection for him welled up and spilled over and she put her hands out and took one of his between them. “Oh, David, don’t – don’t look like that. I don’t mean to be selfish, really I don’t. But – oh, I suppose I’m stubborn. I set out to train as a nurse, and once I’d started – it’s like reading a book, in a way. I mean, once I start one, I have to finish it even if I hate it – ”

  He looked at her sharply. “Do you hate it? Nursing. I mean?”

  “No – darling, no, of course not.” She struggled with her conscience for a moment. “Not everything I do is as much fun as it might be, I can’t deny. They’ve put me on the Private Wing, and I can’t pretend I like it much. But I have to finish what I start. It’s the way I’m made.”

  He smiled a little lopsidedly. “I should be grateful for that, I suppose. At least I’ve the reassurance you’ll marry me eventually. But when is eventually? We agreed you’d finish training – ”

  “I’ve told you since, though, that I’d feel sort of – well, incomplete if I never used it. My training, that is. I’d like to do something – ”

  “Darling, I’ve told you, once we’re married, you won’t need to work! It’s not as though I have to send my wife out to work to make ends meet. Damn it all, dentistry is – ”

  “I know. It’s a pretty affluent sort of career. You’ve told me before.”

  “And you aren’t one of these militant feminist types, are you? These women overflowing with ambition – they don’t know what they’re missing – ”

  “I’m not militant, of course not,” Tricia said and stopped and thought for a moment. “I want to marry and have children just like anyone else, I suppose, but I’ve plenty of time, haven’t I? I’m only just twenty-two, after all, and I’d like to – well, be a Sister for a while before I take to the kitchen sink.”

  “Darling, being a mother is worth being ninety-nine Sisters. And being my wife won’t mean tying yourself to the kitchen sink. I’ve been looking at houses, and – ”

  “You’ve been what?”

  His jaw hardened. “Looking at houses. The lease of the flat is up in a couple of months anyway. And the houses I’ve seen are all biggish – with room for resident domestic help. I know such people are expensive, but I think you’re worth it. You’re worth everything, anything you want – ” He leaned forwards and cupped her face between his hands. “Don’t you understand? I love you. And that means I need you. Every time I see you it gets worse. I’m a one woman man, and you’re my woman. And for a year now you’ve been so – so wrapped up in your blasted nursing you’ve no energy or time for me, it seems. What am I supposed to do? Live like a monk for ever? I have – for two years now. Because I love you. I could do what some other people do, I suppose. Find some easy-going girl to keep me – company – until you’re ready to settle down, but that’s not my way. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “A great deal.” Gently she took his hands away from her face, and held them warmly. “You mean a great deal to me. You’re so marvellous to me, you make me feel like a complete bitch. But – ”

  He leaned back, and his face hardened, and he pulled his hands away from hers, and thrust them into his pockets.

  “But what you start you finish. And you haven’t finished with your bloody career yet. So hard luck, Talbot. Is that it?”

  “Well, what’s wrong with having a career?” she flashed into anger suddenly. “I’m not the only one who’s stubborn, damn it all. I’ve told you, over and over, that if you’ll agree to let me go on with nursing for a couple of years, we could get married as soon as the Final results are out. But – ”

  “I’ve told you. No wife of mine is going to work.”

  “Just how antiquated a set of ideas can a man carry, for God’s sake? It’s not that I’m not interested in domesticity and motherhood and the rest of it. I am – but not to the exclusion of everything else. All I want is a chance to be me. Me, Tricia Oxford SRN, not just Mrs David Talbot, LDS. Is that so much to ask?”

  “If you really loved me you’d have no need to want to be – ”

  “Love has nothing to do with it. I do love you, as far as I can tell. But I want more from life than just love. Would you give up dentistry just to marry me?”

  He frowned sharply. “What do you mean, ‘as far as you can tell’? Either you love me or you don’t.”

  She closed her eyes wearily. “I mean I’ve never felt about anyone else the way I feel about you. I like being with you. I like being kissed by you, I feel comfortable, and safe, and at peace with you. Except when you nag me like this – ”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him then, and suddenly it was all too much to cope with; her fatigue, the way the elation the wine had created had ebbed, leaving a flat weariness behind, the expression on his face. And her eyes filled with tears, and she swallowed hard and took a deep tremulous breath.

  “Oh, darling, I’m sorry!” He was all contrition. “I’m a louse to go on at you about this tonight. You’re dead on your feet – you must be. No wonder you’re being so – look, let me take you back. It’s gone eleven, and you need your sleep.

  And phone me tomorrow, yes? And we’ll go out and talk properly another time. When you aren’t so tired, and I’m not so – well, never mind. I’ll tell you next time we meet. All right darling?”

  She nodded, and sniffed noisily, and then laughed shakily as he gave her his handkerchief. “I’m sorry – that did sound horrible, didn’t it? I must be more sleepy than I thought. Yes please, David. Take me back. And I’ll phone you tomorrow to let you know my off duty, I promise. Tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  It helped a little to come on duty next morning and find that Sister Cleland was away at a ward sisters” Study Day. Tricia took a deep breath of relief when she saw Bridie Cavanaugh sitting at the office desk, the report book in front of her, ready to give the day’s instructions to the staff. She would be much nicer to work with than unpleasant Sister Cleland.

  Tricia was feeling a good deal less weary than she had the previous day, for she had slept heavily and dreamlessly, but she was still depressed, not least because of the episode with David. He had been so tender, so solicitous as he drove her back to the hospital, had kissed her goodnight so gently, and now she was filled with remorse as she remembered how she had treated him.

  He had gone to all that trouble to arrange
their dinner date, had tried so hard to celebrate what should have been as important an anniversary to her as it was to him, and she had thrown it all back at him. How could she be so unkind to someone who so patently loved her so well?

  And as she looked along the line of nurses waiting for Cavanaugh to start the giving of the report, she couldn’t help feeling that perhaps David was right after all in his dismissal of her career ambitions. One of the joys of the nursing life had always been, as far as Tricia was concerned, the camaraderie of being one of a group of people with shared aims and interests. The feeling of belonging, of being a “Royal Nurse” wasn’t one she had ever thought about much, but now she realised just how much it mattered to her. For the first time in all her almost three years of training, she was with a group of nurses who were not tied by such bonds, who were simply doing a particular job because it suited them.

  She looked at Ingrid Jensen’s withdrawn expression, at Prue Gallon’s weary one, at the other so far unknown nurses and wondered if this was all she was working towards; a rather dull job with spoiled uninteresting patients. If it were, David’s offer of a comfortable, easy marriage, a life filled with peace and pleasure rather than effort, had a greater attractiveness than it had ever before exerted on her.

  “Now, me dears,” Cavanaugh said briskly. “To the day’s news. Mrs Kester in room 301 had a poor night – drugs as usual, and dressings prn. She’d best be specialed today, I’m thinkin’, Jensen, so I’ll ask you take her and only two others. Mr Scott-Lanyard for one – he had his last bladder washout at six a.m. – ”

  Swiftly, she went through the list of patients, and Tricia realised as she listened that the system the Floor used was to allot to each nurse her own complement of patients for whom she was fully responsible. She perked up a little at that. At least she wouldn’t be just a little junior runabout, as she’d feared she would be as the only student among a staff made up entirely of qualified girls. But her hopes were dashed as Cavanaugh came to the end of the report and looked up at Tricia with a slightly lopsided smile.