Amid much changing of mind on Ngaire’s part and a certain amount of fastidious rejection of food ideas from David, they settled on a supper, and Chalky brought over a tray on which plump, hot sausages, slabs of red Leicester cheese, pungent pickled onions and delicately gleaming dishes of jellied eels (Ngaire having demanded two servings all to herself) jostled large chunks of crusty hot bread and steaming Cornish pasties and glasses of beer and cider and bags of potato crisps. The food was delectable, and they ate very busily indeed, even David admitting that he’d tasted much worse.
By the time they had finished and were leaning back in repletion, they were relaxed and happy, even David seeming to have overcome his chagrin at the way Ngaire had manipulated his evening’s plans. And she had undoubtedly made a considerable effort to beguile and please him, rather to Tricia’s amusement. The pub had filled up a good deal, for it was now almost nine o’clock, and time and again people stopped by the foursome’s table to natter and tease Ngaire a little – for everyone knew and liked Ngaire – before finding tables and corners of their own.
The pop group – a very noisy one indeed – started the show at nine sharp, and the busy pub laughed, whistled and cheered them on, Ngaire and Skip providing the greatest amount of such encouragement.
It was during one of the noisier of the group’s offerings that Chalky came pushing through the crowd to shout in Skip’s ear, and he swore and stood up.
“Got to go,’ he bawled at the other three. “Some blasted idiot has spread himself all over the road under his motorbike, and I’m wanted. My only night off for a month. I’ll try to get back, Ny, but if I can’t David’ll see you back to the Home. Won’t you David?”
David looked sideways at Tricia, and opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. And nodded in resigned acceptance. Tricia, very accurately reading his mind, couldn’t help being a little amused. As though he had said it, she knew that he had fully intended to whisk her off somewhere in the car as soon as the pub closed, for the time alone with her that he wanted. And much as she enjoyed the hours they spent in each other’s arms in the car, parked somewhere quiet and reasonably romantic, much as she enjoyed his kisses, tonight she wouldn’t really mind missing them.
Ngaire seemed to accept the loss of her escort with equanimity, applauding the remainder of the group’s show with evident pleasure, but when they had departed to a renewed chorus of whistles and shouts, and David had gone to fight his way through to the bar for a last round of drinks, she propped her elbows on the table and began to look around, peering past Tricia, who was sitting opposite her, towards the main part of the big room.
“Now, let’s see who’s here with who,’ she said wickedly. “It’s always interesting to see the way the couples make up and break up and change partners – isn’t that Cora James over there? With that red-headed Laurence boy from the lab.? It is, you know. I thought he and Mary whatsit – the radiotherapy girl, you know? were a steady pair. Well, who’d have thought quiet little Cora’d manage that? Good for her. Ooh, and Trish – look, there’s your Sister Cleland!”
“Oh, no!” Tricia said. “Don’t tell me that. Bad enough I’ll see her on duty tomorrow – where is she?”
“Talking to Mr Carteret, the tutor to the PTS, over by the window. She’s not a bad looking woman, you know, out of uniform; I wonder how old she is? I’d give her about thirty, that’s all.”
“Old as sin, that’s her,’ Tricia said maliciously and grinned. “It’s something to know she’s human enough to come here with the crowd, I suppose. Tell me if she comes this way, and I’ll dodge into the loo or something – ”
“I will,’ Ngaire said. “And there’s Danny just coming in – he is fun, isn’t he? I don’t know what sort of a doctor he’ll make, but he’s a great giggle when he’s in Theatre – I say, Trish – ”
She squinted through the now very smoky atmosphere towards the door. “There’s a chap just come in I’ve sort of seen around, but I’m not sure who – what does your Dr Kidd look like?”
“He’s not my Dr Kidd!” Tricia said promptly. “And if it is him, and he comes this way, I – I’ll – ”
“Never mind what you’ll do – is it him? Have a quick peek – he’s talking to Chalky so he’ll not notice – ”
Moving gingerly, Tricia looked over her shoulder, and immediately turned back. “That’s him. Disagreeable old – ”
“Oh, I don’t know. He looks rather fun,’ Ngaire said, and then produced a smile of pure wickedness. “Tell you what, Trish, if you’re going to be working on his floor for the next three months, you ought to get to know him better. I’m going to chat him up and bring him over – ”
“You dare do any such thing, and I’ll scrag you alive!” Trish cried. “Ngaire Taylor – sit down at once!” and she leaned forward and seized Ngaire’s hands as she half stood up.
“What’s the matter?’ David had come back, and put three full glasses on the table. “You going, Ngaire?’ and he couldn’t disguise the hopeful note in his voice.
“No-not going,’ Ngaire said. “I just saw someone I thought might like to join us – Tricia knows him better than I do, though. He’s the medico on her floor of the Wing – ”
“Why not?’ David said heartily. “If he’s a friend of yours, Trish – ”
“He’s not a friend of mine!” Trish said furiously. “And I don’t want to – ”
“Oh, Trish!” Ngaire said. “Don’t be so stuffy! So you had a row with him! All the more reason to get to know him properly. It’s horrid to be on bad terms with people you’re working with. Do let me do the conciliatory bit. I’m not being naughty about this, honestly. I was at first, but now – truly, let me see if I can’t patch it up for you.”
“What sort of a row?” David said, looking closely at Tricia. “Anything to do with what you haven’t had the chance to tell me yet, about today?”
Oh, it’s nothing, nothing at all!” Tricia said angrily. “Really, I can’t think what all the fuss is about. Ngaire, sit down and drink your cider, and stop meddling. Is that mine, David? Thanks. And I’ll have a cigarette too, if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead, Ngaire,’ David said cordially. “Never mind Tricia – she’s just being silly. If you want to bring this chap over, do. Go on now.”
And after a quick glance at Tricia, Ngaire went. And after a pause David said softly, “Oh, come on darling! You can’t blame me for wanting to get Ngaire settled with another of her many friends, can you? I so want to be alone with you for a while, and with Ngaire tagging along, it’s awfully difficult.”
He looked more closely at Tricia’s face. “Are you sure this row was just nothing? If it really matters to you, I’ll – ”
“It’s not important, David! Do stop fussing. You’re as bad as Ngaire. Anyway, he’ll probably refuse to join us, since he’s a very ill-mannered – ”
“Hi, there!” Ngaire tapped Tricia on the shoulder. “Look who’s joining us! You know Dr Kidd, don’t you Trish? And this is David Talbot – Trish’s boy friend. So silly, Trish! I thought Dr Kidd was someone I knew, and then of course it turns out I didn’t, though he looks ever so much like that man who used to be in the Path. labs, do you remember? And seeing I’d made such a fool of myself, I thought the least I could do was to get him to join us, as he’s on his own – do sit down, won’t you, Dr Kidd? Or can we call you Adam? It’s an awfully nice name – ”
He sat down after politely holding Ngaire’s chair for her. “Oh, you know my name then? Perhaps after all you didn’t mix me up with an – er – old friend from the Path. lab. – ”
Ngaire went a rose pink, and giggled. “Well, maybe I heard Tricia mention it some time,’ she said airily. “Anyway, it suits you. All rugged and that – ”
“Earthy, actually,’ Adam said. “That’s what it means. Red earth. Well – Nurse – er – Tricia, did you say? How are you? Quite fit again?”
“Quite, thank you,’ Tricia said stiffly, and rather savagely stub
bed out her half-smoked cigarette.
“What’s that? Have you been ill, Trish?” David said sharply. “Is that what you meant when you said – ”
“I meant nothing.” She spoke rather more loudly than she had meant to. “And Dr Kidd is joking. I am perfectly fit.”
“Adam. Red earth, remember?” he said, and leaned back in his chair. “You must forgive me if I’ve spoken out of turn.”
“Not at all,’ she said icily.
“For Heaven’s sake!” David said. “Will someone tell me what all this is about? I have a deeply rooted dislike of sitting in on conversations that I don’t understand. Tricia, what is all this about your not being fit? I’ve a right to know, for Heaven’s sake!”
“A right? How interesting,’ Adam said, and his eyes left Tricia’s closed and angry face to sweep a glance over David.
“Oh, they’re practically engaged, you know!” Ngaire said happily. “Isn’t that nice? It’s super to see people you care about all happy and settled. And Tricia’s just about the nicest person I know – and the cleverest. Always tops the list in our exams, you know that, Adam?”
“Ngaire, you talk a damned sight too much,’ Tricia snapped.
“Oh, I know. But it’s true all the same. You’ll see Adam, now she’s on the third floor.”
“I’m still waiting to know what it is that – ” David began.
“Ah, yes. You have a right to know. Of course,” Adam said. “It was foolish of me to mention it, perhaps. But there was an episode on the floor this morning. A neurotic girl did the all-too-common stunt of climbing out on a window sill and threatening to jump. And Nurse – er – Tricia – prevented her from doing so. But it left her a little shocked. It would upset anyone, of course.”
“Was that on the third floor?” Ngaire was agog. “I’d heard that something happened on the Wing this morning, but I’d no idea! Trish, do tell!”
“There is nothing to tell. Dr Kidd has told it all,” Tricia said, her voice filled with a controlled anger. “And I have a deeply rooted dislike of talking shop in my free time, so, if you don’t mind, all of you, we’ll shut up about it. David, a cigarette, please?”
“You must have been upset,” he said in a low voice as he lit one for her. “You don’t usually smoke so much.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Tricia flared and dropped the cigarette in an ashtray and jumped to her feet. I’m beginning to feel like – like a baby! Whatever I do or say, there’s one of you – oh, forget it. Look, I’m tired. Do you mind if I call it a day? Don’t bother to see me back to the Home. I can find my own way.”
“I’m going back that way myself, actually,” Adam Kidd said, and stood up easily. “So I’ll be glad to – ”
“That’s all right, thanks, Kidd. I’ll see my own girl back to her door.” David was on his feet too, while Ngaire sat still, her face a picture of distress, her lower lip between her teeth, staring from one to the other.
“No one need bother, thank you!” Tricia snapped, and took a deep breath. “Goodnight!”
She turned to go, thrusting her chair angrily away from her, and a woman who was passing the table cried out, as the sharp leg of the chair hit her ankle, and Tricia said immediately, “Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry!” and looked up at the woman’s face.
“Not at all, Nurse Oxford,” Sister Cleland said, and bent to rub her ankle. “Not at all.”
And as she straightened up, her eyes moved slowly over the group and stopped as she came to Dr Kidd’s face.
“Good evening,” she said, and smiled thinly, and slid her eyes sideways again to look at Tricia’s mortified red face. “How pleasant to see you all enjoying yourselves. Very pleasant.”
Chapter Six
“My dear old Trish,” the letter began, “No, please, please, please don’t tear this up, but read it. Honestly, who’d have ever thought I’d have to write a letter to my best friend in all the world to get her to listen to me? Well, read me, at any rate. Look, Trish, I’m sorrier than I can say about what happened last week, but you won’t give me a chance to apologise. I honestly thought it’d help to get you and Kidd on speaking terms, after what you’d said had happened your first day in the Wing. I didn’t know about the other thing, whatever it was, that happened that day – the Friday, I mean, when we all went to the old Pigsty. I still don’t know much! Only that you clearly hate old Red Earth Kidd like poison, and if you do, then so do I. I mean, what are friends for if not to hate each other’s enemies? I just don’t know what to do. Every time I see you you stare right through me, and poor old David’s kept on phoning me because he says you’re mad at him too, and it isn’t fair, really it isn’t. I mean, what harm has he done? I reckon you’re just so miserable on the Wing that no one can do anything right. And it was no one’s fault you accidentally bashed the Cleland! Anyway, she deserved it. I’d rather bash her with a pub chair than anyone I know! Anyway, me old love, do please forgive me. Believe me, I meant to do the right thing, and though I know I acted like an ass, I always do somehow, and I’m lonely. I mean, I know all the other girls in our set, but you’re my best friend. Aren’t you? Do come and have a natter in my room when you come off duty this evening. Please? I’ll be waiting. Love. Ny.”
Tricia read the scribbled letter again, and then put it in her pocket, and stood for a moment leaning against the nurses’ mail board before climbing wearily upstairs.
I suppose I am being a bit juvenile, she told herself. Sulking like this. But she really deserves it, the silly – ijjut. She smiled a little as Nurse Cavanaugh’s favourite word slid into her mind. If it hadn’t been for dear old Cavanaugh this past week, she’d have gone right out of her mind, one way and another. Sister Cleland being as icy as Greenland, and nagging her and going on at her for every minor misdemeanour until she thought she’d hit her if she said another word; Adam Kidd being remote and extremely punctilious, yet somehow making her feel as though he were constantly weighing her in a balance and finding her very wanting. Altogether, without Cavanaugh’s cheerfulness and support, life would have been intolerable.
And I’m lonely too. I miss having Ny to natter to, and I miss David. Only how can I just pick up where I left off? It really wasn’t his fault at all, any of it, but I was so mad I swept out of there like – like some demented duchess, and left him standing like a ninny. I owe him an apology, really –
She stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, in the quiet corridor crossed now with bars of late evening sunshine, and sniffed the familiar smells of polish and bath salts and coffee and toast; there was always someone making a snack of that sort in the little kitchen at the far end of the corridor. The doors marched away from her in serried rows, each of them with their little square of white pasteboard that carried the name of the occupant.
For a moment, she could have wept at the familiarity of it all, the comfortable feeling it gave her of belonging. This had been her home for almost three years now, the only home she had really, for she could hardly count her father’s home as hers, not since his marriage. And her mother had gone to live in Italy after her remarriage, so that was that. Ngaire had been so marvellous all during that horrible winter, at the end of her first year, when the divorce had happened, making her see how important it was to live her own life her own way, and not to let her parents’ private disasters spoil things for her. She and David; between them they had hoisted her over a very difficult patch, and now she was treating them like this, sulking like a great spoiled baby, all because of people as disagreeable and unimportant to her as Cleland and Kidd.
She moved then, to the window at the end of the corridor, to lean out and stare across the garden at the beech tree, at the two or three girls lying out in the sun, greedily absorbing all they could of the warmth that struggled through the smoky London sky. The beech tree. That was where David had kissed her the very first time. It had been a very sweet kiss, she remembered now. Gentle, and kind, and so – reassuring. That was it. Reassuring. And I’m being hateful to
him now because of –
But he isn’t all that disagreeable and unimportant, is he? a tiny voice in the deeper recesses of her mind whispered. That’s really what’s bothering you. There’s something about Kidd that affects you. He makes you feel – what? Silly and stupid, and ineffectual. This is very different to the way David makes you feel. When you let him, David makes you feel cherished, and loved and protected.
Too protected. Isn’t that why you get so irritable with him? Isn’t that why you keep on and on about this business of having a career before you settle down to marriage? Your way of refusing to be looked after? And anyway, why are you thinking about Kidd and David in the same breath, as it were? One’s the man who loves you, the other just – nobody really. Just a disagreeable man you have to work with. Disagreeable – but fascinating. Admit it. There’s something about the man, the way he moves, the very square look of him, the way the crisp hair grows on the nape of his neck, the way his big hands move when he’s working on a drip, or writing up charts, or examining a patient. Strong, and delicate and impersonal and very exciting.
And isn’t that really why you and Cleland hate each other so? Never mind the fact that she apparently always is pretty rough on her staff – there’s more to it than that. She knows you find Adam Kidd as – interesting – as you do. And she shares the same fascination. You’ve seen her, watching him walk down the corridor, seen her face when she answers the phone and it’s him. And that’s why she hates you.
Though she needn’t worry about me, for Heaven’s sake, Tricia told herself firmly, still standing staring out of the window. Because I am already very thoroughly established with my super David, thank you very much, and anyway Adam Kidd obviously thinks I’m so low I could crawl under a worm with my hat on –
“Trish?”
She turned, and there was Ngaire, wrapped in a towelling robe, her hair standing up in damp spikes on her head, her face flushed with the rosiness that comes with a hot bath. “Hi Trish,” she said again a little uncertainly. “Did you get my – ”
The Private Wing Page 7