Silent Song

by Lucilla Andrews

‘Then you had best get back on the job and let me get some sleep.’

  ‘How about those pillows? They look like sandbags.’

  ‘They feel all right. Just fix the light.’

  I turned off the overhead, turned on the night light.

  ‘I hope you get back to sleep soon. And, thanks Mr Renner.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Joe looked over his shoulder as I closed the door. ‘No teeth missing? He gone off form?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. How about Mrs Kenny?’

  Charlie Lloyd switched off the screen lamp. ‘My guess is Roseburn’ll want her up this weekend and operate towards the end of next week. I expect he’ll confirm this in the morning.’

  ‘At nine, isn’t it, Mr Lloyd?’

  ‘Nine. Sorry it has to be so early, but we’re starting a repair at ten that’ll use up most of the day.’

  Joe made a note in his diary. ‘Doesn’t your holiday start next week?’

  ‘Not now. Postponed for another three weeks. The boss feels by then George Farler should have been back long enough to stand in.’

  Andy raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘The Benedict’s chap with the knee? Why him?’

  Dr Francis smiled quizzically: ‘Roseburn makes his own decisions.’

  ‘Ours not to reason why, and bloody daft we would be if we did,’ added Charlie Lloyd, ‘seeing he is a man of genius. I have yet to know him mistaken over any man’s surgical potential. His choice is good enough for me, and I doubt will start a mutiny in the surgeon’s room. George Farler’s all right. It’s to be hoped his knee’s the same.’

  Joe asked if anyone knew how it was?

  ‘Fine, according to the letter Roseburn had yesterday. He’s due back to have his plaster off this weekend, and if the surgical joiners have done their job properly ‒ which could be an open question ‒ return to us Monday. I hope he can. I want my holiday.’ He peered over my head at Mr Renner. ‘Dropping off like a baby, but a difficult customer he looks. You’re not thinking of sending him up to us, Joe?’

  ‘Unfortunately, not. He’s our very own bundle of joy, and we all have the scars to prove it. That is, all but Mrs D. She seems to have a way with tycoons.’

  ‘I believe you. Right then. Coming, Dick? Good night, Nurses all ‒ many thanks.’

  They left together. I looked at Mrs Kenny, then for a second at Richard’s picture. I was free this coming weekend. I reached for the memo pad to write Sister a note about Mr Roseburn’s visit tomorrow and unconsciously thought aloud. Shirley heard. ‘Did you say ‒ long way to Peking?’

  ‘Did I? What’s tomorrow called?’

  She looked as if she thought I’d gone quietly mad, but said politely, ‘Thursday, Mrs D.’

  Next morning I had another postcard. ‘Hoping to return Saturday. Will bring cushion for long wait. Regards. A.’

  In the canteen that afternoon Dr Jones queued for tea for Shirley and myself.

  I sat down weakly. ‘What’s got into the lad?’

  ‘Haven’t you rumbled the creep fancies you? We all have.’

  I stifled a laugh. ‘Oh no, dear! I’ve been around so long I’m just another bit of Unit equipment to our men. Me and the monitors.’

  ‘It wasn’t electrodes Charlie Lloyd fancied slapping on your boobs last night.’

  ‘Charlie Lloyd, my child, would make a verbal pass with his last gasp, but I’ve never heard of his slapping a finger on anyone but his wife. He’s a harmless honey and glorious morale booster.’

  She said thoughtfully, ‘Of course, he’s a Celt, not an Anglo-Saxon.’

  ‘That makes him a honey?’

  ‘Could be why he likes women. Actually likes ’em, as people. My godfather says Celts, Latins, Slavs tend to like women in general as well as loving some in particular, but Englishmen dislike women in general like crazy. He says the only time an Englishman bothers to show an interest in a woman to whom he’s not related, is when he wants to bed her or wishes he could. He says one look around any English social scene proves this. The only men chatting up women are those on the make and the rest would rather chat up each other no matter how deadly dull than Cleopatra ‒ unless they happened to fancy her.’

  I turned this over. ‘Your godfather could be right What’s his job?’

  ‘Psychiatry. He’s a medical analyst. Freudian. If you ever meet him for God’s sake don’t mention Jung or Adler.’

  I promised I wouldn’t as Dr Jones arrived balancing tea and sugar buns. He wouldn’t let us pay. ‘My pleasure.’

  Shirley looked innocent. ‘Are you an English or a Welsh Jones?’

  He tried not to look pained. ‘English. Of course.’

  Shirley looked at me and I looked at Dr Jones in a peculiar way.

  Mrs Delahay flew over from New York on Friday. A positively jaunty Mr Delahay gave me the news as I was leaving the Wing that afternoon. ‘Off for the week-end? Have a great time! Thank you so much for suggesting to Mr Renner that Mrs Delahay join me.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ I said, ‘But though I’m delighted, this isn’t my doing. First I’ve heard of it.’

  He smiled gravely. ‘Maybe so, but since I have the privilege of Mr Renner’s confidence, I must repeat ‒ thank you so much.’

  I was pleased and amused. Mr Renner had spent most of that day furiously complaining over Dr Lincoln Browne’s continued refusal to allow him a telephone in his cubicle. L.B. had been pleased. ‘When a patient starts grumbling, he’s on the mend.’

  The days were lengthening out. The setting sun had a faint warmth, the starlings were chattering wildly in the still bare plane trees, there was a hint of spring in the air, and I was having another of my restless turns. I changed into an old sweater and slacks, had the sitting-room in chaos and was slapping polish everywhere when the phone rang. ‘Oh, God! Not Alistair back early! ‘I exclaimed aloud, then decided it was Dr Jones. An hour ago he had informed Mrs Oliver’s corridor monitor he was free from noon tomorrow and wasn’t it a hideous bore when one’s parents decided to retire to Northumberland and one wanted to get right away but couldn’t face the drag of the drive. Belatedly, I had recognised if not an opening gambit, that he was lonely. As he had never shown any sign of interest in me till the last few days, I guessed he had just broken off with some girl, was looking around for a gap-filler and I happened to be there. Him and Alistair ‒ but the phone was still ringing.

  ‘Anne? Good evening. George Farler.’

  I flopped on to my bed not having expected this until after the Saturday morning sick-staff clinic tomorrow. ‘Hi, George. How’s the leg?’

  ‘Good as new, thanks. Just had the plaster off in William and Mary. Sister’s kindly lent me her office. I believe you’re off this week-end. Is there any chance,’ he went on briskly, ‘you’re free tomorrow afternoon, can spare an odd hour whilst I make some preliminary sketches, and then come out to tea with Ruth and myself? Ruth’s come down with me. You remember Ruth Hawkins?’

  I said I did.

  He said she was looking forward to seeing me again.

  I grimaced at the ceiling. ‘Sweet of her. I shall do the same.’

  ‘You can fit this in? Good.’

  I hadn’t forgotten Alistair, but as I had no idea when he would show up and this sitting had to be got over, I asked what time to expect them.

  ‘Three, suit? Thanks ‒ oh ‒ hold on ‒’ he talked to someone his end. ‘You there, Anne? Sister says would you take her milk in tomorrow before the birds get it as she’s on till midnight and’ll sleep late.’

  ‘I will. Thanks for ringing.’

  ‘No trouble.’

  No trouble and very sensible. The one sure way of stifling gossip was to make it public property from the start.

  I had barely put it down when the phone rang again.

  ‘Tom Jones, here. I ‒ er ‒ just wondered if you’d anything on for tomorrow night, and if not would care to have a meal, take in a show, or something, with me?’

  ‘Thanks, Tom, but
I’m afraid I’m pretty booked up over the week-end.’

  ‘A very merry widow. Some other time, perhaps?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said between my teeth as I was too angry to say anything else.

  Slapping on more polish I wondered if I was so angry because the tag was untrue, unfair, or simply as I was oversensitive about my manless state. Then I thought over the last week and decided all that ailed me was that I was in the wrong trade. Maybe I should ask Alistair to pull a string and get me my own agony column. Send your problems to Aunty Anne. Borrow her shoulder, her doorstep, her face.

  I looked at my face in the mirror and wished quite violently that I hadn’t asked the Grants to have me over New Year’s week-end. Suddenly my life was full of men who belonged to other women, even if I didn’t know two of their names. Other women’s men never had interested me. My own, or nothing, thanks very much.

  I slapped on some more polish.

  Chapter Seven

  I put off thinking about that sitting until I got back into uniform the following afternoon and then nearly skewered my head with my cap pin. I was drinking my third cup of coffee when Alistair arrived at two-thirty. I was so grateful for the interruption I could almost have fallen on the neck of Dr Jones. ‘Come on in and have some coffee!’

  He kissed me. ‘You’re not off-duty?’

  ‘Yes. Come into the kitchen and I’ll explain.’

  In the clearer kitchen light I saw his face. ‘Alistair, have you had any sleep at all since we last met?’

  ‘Much too much.’

  ‘Then why’ve you lost more weight?’

  ‘It’s all this clean living.’ He leant against the draining board. ‘Since chucking smoking I’ve lost my taste for sex and whisky. Not even one wee dram on the flight. I’ll not dare show my face in El Vino’s.’

  ‘My poor man you are in a bad way. What you need is a holiday.’

  ‘Everyone keeps giving me that advice. I’d it non-stop from George last week. I’d a couple of free days owing, flew over to the Mackenzies and spent them just sitting around blethering with George. He south yet?’

  ‘Yes, and why I’m in uniform.’ I explained the rest.

  The light was very good and, for whatever cause, he was sufficiently tired for his reactions to have slowed. If not, probably I would have missed the momentary and unmistakeable joy in his eyes when I said George was bringing Ruth.

  He looked out of the window. ‘What’s Ruth doing south?’

  I looked at his averted head with an astonishment that was mostly directed at my own stupidity for missing the obvious because it was so obvious. ‘Don’t know. You didn’t hear about this last week in Edinburgh?’

  His voice and manner changed as he faced me. ‘The one you’ve in mind doesn’t happen to be one of my many vices, Anne.’

  I took an extra breath. ‘Well, bully for you, dear, if not for me, as I’m not sure which vice I’m supposed to have in mind.’

  He was very stiff. ‘Surely, that’s obvious.’

  I liked him, so I was honest. ‘I’m sorry, but all that’s now obvious to me is, A, that I’ve dropped a massive clanger, B, you’ve taken great umbrage, and, C, that it’s your bad luck to fancy your cousin’s beloved.’

  ‘No such thing ‒’

  ‘You don’t fancy her?’

  He went white. ‘That’s long over. It’s months since we last broke off ‒’

  ‘Last?’

  ‘If you must know,’ he said with dignity, ‘and I assumed earlier you’d somehow heard, Ruth and I have twice called off the bans.’

  I needed that extra breath. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘well ‒ I’m not sure what to say except ‒ I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was for the best. We’re not suited,’ he intoned as if he needed to repeat it three times a day after meals for the full benefit. ‘We happily go our separate ways.’

  I glanced at his face and thought of Ruth’s antipathy towards us both in Edinburgh. The kettle was boiling. I made the coffee. ‘Help yourself to milk and sugar.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He twisted his cup. ‘You’re not offended?’

  I smiled. ‘God, no! Why should I be? I guessed from the start there was some good reason why you’re unattached. All I didn’t know till just now, was her name.’

  He said quietly, ‘There’s a wee bit more you don’t know, and in fairness to all I think you should. There’s nothing between Ruth and George. Never has been.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! Just great friends since they were students. It was George who introduced us and twice did his best to patch things up. He’s fond of her and she of him. No more to it than that. Haven’t you men friends about whom you feel very fond but would regard anything more as little short of incest?’

  I thought of Joe, Andy Norris, and a row of other Martha’s men I had known and liked for years. ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’ He was very anxious I should be.

  ‘Yes. Makes sense’. My door bell below was ringing. ‘That’s probably them.’

  ‘I’ll go down for you.’

  I had about a minute and no time for my own problems. My mind jerked from New Year’s Eve, to the Grants’ flat, the drive down with George, the frequency of Ruth’s London visits and how often they seemed to coincide with Alistair’s.

  I had to stop thinking as they had arrived. George’s wooden expression and the sketching block under his arm would have upset me more had I not been so startled by Ruth’s altered appearance. She looked as if she had been left out in the rain to fade and even her glorious hair was dimmed, lifeless.

  The atmosphere would have shattered any axe. In desperation I offered chairs and more coffee.

  Alistair turned proprietary. ‘Shall I make it, Anne? I know my way round your kitchen. Cosy wee flat, isn’t this?’

  In a voice of doom Ruth said it was the duplicate of George’s, and as he had just stood her a gorgeous lunch, though she hated to be rude, frankly, she couldn’t swallow another drop of coffee. Being hostess, I kept my ‘You and me, dear,’ to myself. ‘How about you, George?’

  He was at the window. ‘Not for me, thanks, and as this light’s so good, and won’t last, could we get started fairly soon? All right, Anne?’ He took my answer for granted and chucked his car keys to Alistair. ‘Do something for me whilst you’re hanging around. Run Ruth over to Benedict’s for the thicker coat she wants for tonight. She was going to drive herself, as she knows I want her out of the way, but she’s got a crashing headache. My car’s below and I want you both out. Sitting for a portrait’s unnerving enough unless one’s a professional model, without an audience. Isn’t that so, Anne?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Alistair put the keys in his pocket and said nothing.

  Ruth pouted, ‘If anything enchants me about the arty-crafty, it’s their social charm when giving, or about to give, birth. At least, George doesn’t turn violent. I should warn you, Anne, interrupt Alistair at his typewriter and you take your life in your hands.’

  George reminded her painting was his hobby not his living.

  ‘Of course, Ruth,’ Alistair informed me, ‘is patience personified when unwittingly disturbed on the job.’

  ‘If someone doesn’t shift my car smartly,’ said George, ‘it’ll be towed away. Give us at least an hour.’ He practically pushed them out, shut my front door, returned and apologized for his arbitrary behaviour. ‘It was either that or waste the light whilst they go the full fifteen rounds.’

  ‘Just what I was thinking.’

  ‘Really?’ His glance was clinical. ‘May I shift the furniture a little?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  He looked around as if playing pelmanism. ‘Where do you usually sit?’

  ‘The sofa with my feet up. Does it matter.’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’ He moved it to face the window. ‘I’m glad you got into uniform. I meant to ask that yesterday. There.’ He backed. ‘Just sit comfortably.’

&n
bsp; ‘And you’ll begin,’ I echoed automatically, being too preoccupied for self-consciousness or properly to notice how he had tensed since the others left. ‘I’m sorry about Ruth’s headache. Migraine?’

  ‘Migraine type rather than the genuine article. She’s been under a lot of pressure lately in and out of hospital. This week’s holiday should help her ease up.’ He balanced the block and a collection of charcoal pencils on the windowsill. ‘Alistair looks ready for his ten days. Has he got ’em?’

  ‘A holiday? He didn’t say.’

  ‘Mayn’t be fixed.’

  I remembered Alistair’s ambiguity on the subject. ‘Or he’s not yet sure how he wants to use it.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  It seemed another moment for truth. I told him of the conversation I’d just had with Alistair. ‘I thought Ruth was your girl friend.’

  He was amused. ‘You and Martha’s. No.’

  I smiled back. ‘Occupational hazard.’

  ‘Maybe we should all ask for danger money?’

  ‘Might be an idea.’ My mind returned to the others. ‘Extraordinary coincidence both here today.’

  ‘It would be, were it only coincidence.’

  ‘You? More patching up?’

  ‘Yep. With the singular lack of success ‒’ he dodged about making a frame with his upheld hands, ‒ ‘you saw.’

  ‘So you knew Alistair’d be here?’

  ‘I didn’t know. Guessed.’

  I didn’t have to ask how he had also guessed this wouldn’t upset me, personally, as he had spent two days chatting to Alistair last week. My brother, Dave, and other men, had always said young men alone talked women as much, if not more, than women alone talked men. It was a safe bet George now knew of everything I had ever said to, or done with, Alistair. ‘George, what went wrong ‒ really wrong ‒ between them?’

  ‘First, Alistair messed things up.’ He backed to the window and began to sketch, rapidly. ‘He was fool enough to tell her he expected she’d chuck medicine once they started a family and made it worse by saying he’d have no objection to her returning part-time once the kids were at school. Yes.’ He had to keep watching me to read my reaction, correctly. ‘She nearly took him apart, with reason. She got Benedict’s Gold for Medicine, has Membership and is working for her M.D., which she’ll get. She’s consultant calibre. To be fair to Alistair ‒’ he crumpled the sketch, shoved it in his pocket and began again ‒ ‘his attitude wasn’t so much conceit as blind ignorance plus ingrained habit. Lots of girls still use their jobs as pre-marital fillers-in and he’d never been involved with one that didn’t and is a Scot. Family-orientated race, the Scots. Scotswomen, in general, tend to put their family first whether or not they work outside, and despite the personal sacrifice that can involve. Whether or not that’s justified, only they can answer. Probably, once married, Ruth could’ve done as she wished, but she’s too honest for pretence and understandably too aware of her own worth to consider she need pretend. Back came the decanters.’