‘Do you like your brother, Mrs Priestly?’ she said abruptly, and Sophie looked up at her consideringly.
‘He’s my brother,’ she said after a moment, and returned her attention to her bowl, to which she was now adding flour from a sifter, making clouds of white dust through which the sun slanted from the little window on the far side of the small kitchen. ‘Of course I love him.’
‘I didn’t ask you that,’ Charlie said, her own voice as controlled as she could make it. ‘I asked if you liked him.’
Sophie seemed to contemplate the question for a while, her hands still busy and then she said calmly, ‘Parts of him are very likeable. Parts are not and need changing. I’ve done my best since my mother died to watch over him, grown man though he was at the time. She was the only one who might have made him see how daft he can be and made him change. I’m still trying to teach him, but I’m not too good at it. I’m beginning to doubt I ever will manage it. But I have to go on trying.’
Charlie’s lip lifted at the corner in a small gesture of distaste. ‘I see. So you see him as someone who has to be cared for. Someone to be taught like a helpless child. Not a man in his own right -’
‘I would if he were a man. His brother George, now - he was a man before he reached seventeen. Grew up as fine and sensible as any could wish. But Brin - eldest son, d’you see, and a bit spoiled, I think. I’ve done my best, but there it is. He’s not grown up yet. He’ll have to be sooner or later. I’m hoping he can do it without too much hurt to himself or others - and he’ll not be helped by having operations on his face.’
‘I think he will,’ Charlie said levelly. ‘I’m his doctor. I have a training in these matters -’
And what do you know? You with no training at all? The question hung unspoken in the air between them and Sophie smiled at it.
‘Oh, I know I’m just a country woman, never did owt much but stay home and mind an ailing mother and an old dad and watch over my brothers and sisters. Didn’t even manage to stay married long, did I? But for all that, I’ve learned a little in my small world, Miss Lucas. And I’ve learned my brother’s ways and needs and -’
‘Learned your own!’ Charlie said and stood up, unable to control her anger any longer. ‘You’ve said it all, you know, even if you don’t realize it. You’ve never done anything but look after people, and now, with no husband - and I do of course offer my sympathies there, that was very sad - and your parents dead - what is there for you to do? You’ve got to find someone else to look after, and you’ve chosen Brin - and if keeping him in his mutilated state keeps him helpless, well that’s the way it’ll have to be. And never mind what Brin needs. It’s what you need you’re concerned about.’
‘I thought about that,’ Sophie said, amazingly, and smiled at Charlie. ‘Oh, I thought about that a lot. There, that’s the buns ready.’ She looked down in satisfaction at the tray of buns she had set ready for baking. ‘I’ll pop those in the oven and then I’ll make us a cup of tea.’
She turned to the oven and with a practised twist of her wrist set her baking tray on the top shelf and clicked it shut. She was smiling as she straightened her back and turned to look at Charlie again.
‘Oh, yes, I thought about that. Was I making him worse coming here to take care of him? Laid awake at night thinking of that, and talked to Letty - she’s my aunt - d’you know her? She’s a wise woman, is Letty. Knows more than she realizes, and I put a lot of store by what she says. And she says as I do. He’s got a potential, has Brin, but not till he finds out he can’t get by, all the time, on charm and smirks. He’s got to do some growing up like I said, and I’m going to teach him. I’ve plans for myself, one day, but I couldn’t live with my conscience if I left him to stew in his own juice, now, could I? No, Miss Lucas, believe me - I’m not holding the lad back for my own ends. My ends are different. But I have my responsibilities too and I can’t shirk them, now, can I?’
She spoke with such an air of sweet reason that for a moment Charlie was beguiled by her and she thought suddenly - Brin isn’t the only one in his family with charm. She’s got it too, and that thought hardened her mind against Sophie.
‘You wouldn’t be the first person to hide an ulterior motive behind apparently high-minded behaviour,’ she said. ‘The sort of people who maintain this-will-hurt-you-more-than-it-hurts-me, and I-have-to-be-cruel-to-be-kind and all the rest of those silly clichés - everyone that I’ve ever come across is seeking comfort for themselves in what they’re doing. I don’t see anything in you that makes me think you’re any different. Brin is an adult in every way. He knows what he wants and he has every right to do what he thinks is best for himself. He doesn’t have to defer to you in a matter that is, frankly, none of your concern.’
‘Oh, I’m sure I do look like a meddling old woman to you,’
Sophie said. ‘Though I’m not that old. Nearly forty, I grant you, but that’s not so old. I’ve plenty of good living to do yet.’ And a small smile hovered over the corners of her mouth for a moment and she looked down at the kettle she had just set on the stove top. ‘But I assure you I’m not. I’ve thought of every criticism of myself that you have and a good many more. And I know I’m right. Brin has to learn to stand on his own two feet - and encouraging his silly vanity over this scar isn’t going to help him do that, is it? He needs to be taught to be what he is, instead of daydreaming about what he can’t be.’
‘I can’t see any point in continuing this conversation any longer,’ Charlie said stiffly and stood up, collecting her bag and gloves together with slightly shaking fingers. If she didn’t control herself very carefully she would scream at this maddeningly calm woman like a fishwife. ‘I’ll talk to Brin myself. You needn’t worry yourself. I’ll arrange this operation and he’ll have it when he and I decide it’s right. One patient, one doctor, and no one else’s interference -’
‘I shall still interfere as much as I can,’ Sophie said and her voice was as calm still as if she were talking about the recipes she used for her baking. ‘I dare say I’ll not succeed, but I do have to try. I’d have hoped you’d see that, Miss Lucas. If you really care for him as much as you seem to.’ And she gave Charlie so shrewd a glance that Charlie felt her face get red, and was glad of the warmth of the July afternoon and the hot little kitchen to give her an excuse for it.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said shortly, not trusting herself to say more, and went, leaving the heat and the drifting smell of freshly baked buns and yeast and sugar and the round slightly sweating figure of Sophie to escape into the petrol-reeking heat of Earlham Street, but feeling she could at least breathe there. How dare that woman talk to her so, how dare she meddle so unashamedly in Brin’s affairs! It was appalling, outrageous, and as she went marching down towards Cambridge Circus she luxuriated in the fury that rose in her, fanning it with her thoughts, needing to express her anger with vigour.
Just wait till I see Brin, she thought. Just wait! I’ll tell him all she said, every word, alert him to the way she’s trying to take him over, run his life - oh, I’ll tell him -
She reached the Circus and stood uncertainly on the kerb, not knowing quite what to do. She looked at her watch and frowned; just three o’clock. Brin had told her when she had telephoned the rehearsal room that he couldn’t talk then; they were up to their ears and he’d try to talk later, he’d said hurriedly, and hung up, and that was why she had gone to the flat. She had expected perhaps to find Mrs Burroughs, the daily help, there, and had intended to leave a message for him and then go back to East Grinstead to finish her packing ready for her return to Nellie’s in a few days’ time, having spent the early part of the day at Nellie’s in discussions about the job she was to return to. Pleasant though it always was to see Brin, she had decided, the present heat wave that had clamped its evil smelly hand on London was more than she felt she could bear; it would be much cooler in West Sussex, that was for certain.
But now she knew she had to stay and see Brin, no matter how late
he got out of the rehearsal. The sooner she warned him of his sister’s dangerous attitudes, as she now regarded them as being, the better. He must send her packing, home-baked bread and all, that’s what he must do, she thought grimly, and went across the road towards that all too familiar Lyons’ teashop on the far side, to while away as much time as she could over stewed tea and leathery toast. Once again, just as she thought Brin’s problems were on the point of being solved, a new one reared its head. It really was getting more and more difficult having him for a patient, she thought, as she ordered her tea from the counter and went to sit at a grubby marble-topped table. If only he could be just a friend. Or something more.
But that was an outrageous thought, enough to get a doctor struck off, and not to be entertained. But it was an agreeable thought for all that, and it stayed with her all the time she sat in the stuffy teashop, refusing to leave her in peace, while she waited to go and see him.
19
The sky over Cambridge Circus was a rich deep blue by the time she emerged from the teashop. She had managed to stretch the eating of a limp salad and a toasted teacake so long that the waitresses had begun to stare at her with curiosity rather than disapproval, but at last she thought that Brin must surely have left rehearsal and made her way slowly back to Earlham Street.
There was a light in the sitting-room window of his flat and she stared up at the yellow square and for a moment her resolve failed. Suppose Sophie was still there? Suppose she had told him of their argument that afternoon, had managed to bring him round to her way of thinking? They were brother and sister, after all, and she was only an outsider; and for a moment her mind conjured up a vision of the two of them sitting side by side and staring at her with cold hostile eyes, Brin’s as remote and unfriendly as Sophie’s, and she wanted to turn and run away and forget all about the whole business. She wanted to help Brin, wanted to be with him, but was it worth all this obsessive anguish?
She tried to stand apart from herself for a moment. There in the darkening street with its smell of petrol and rotting fruit drifting over from Covent Garden market, and its exhausted gritty heat, she tried to be as cool and objective as a sensible trained woman should be, but that didn’t work. However hard she worked at being Miss Charlotte Hankin Lucas, MB, BS, she was still Charlie, standing and looking yearningly at the window of a man she cared about, and that realization made her feel such a fool that she moved sharply and hurried to the entrance to go running up the stairs to the front door of Brin’s flat, refusing to think any more about what she was doing. She just had to do it, and stop worrying. Just do it -
There was an appreciable delay after she rang the bell, and then she heard padding footsteps and the door opened a crack and an eye appeared in the space.
‘Who is it?’ Brin’s voice sounded irritable. ‘I’m in the bath, damn it -’
‘I’m sorry, Brin,’ she said, her confusion coming back in a great wave. ‘It’s me, Charlie. I wanted to tell you about the arrangements I’ve made for you -’
‘Charlie?’ he said and the eye seemed to brighten. ‘Oh, yes - great. Look, come on in - only let me get back to the bathroom first -’
The eye disappeared and after what seemed to her to be a reasonable pause she pushed open the door; but she had misjudged it because she just saw his bare back disappearing along the passageway towards the bathroom. It was only a fleeting movement, but it was long enough to etch his body’s shape into her mind; a long back and a narrow waist with a little damp curling hair between the hips over small tight buttocks which dimpled just above the swell of muscles outlined by the glint of water on the skin. Her mouth dried for a moment with embarrassment at the sight of him and she walked as quietly as she could into the living-room, not wanting him to know she had seen him.
Not, it appeared, that he would have cared anyway. By the time she had taken off her jacket and was sitting in as relaxed a pose as she could on the sofa with her bare sandalled feet stretched out under her rather crumpled cotton frock, he appeared in the doorway, rubbing his head with a towel. He was wearing only another towel tied round his waist and his skin shone damply golden in the lamplight. He smelled of good soap and bay rum and quite without volition her mouth spread in a smile of sheer pleasure as she looked at him.
‘Hello Charlie,’ he said rubbing away at his head so that his hair stood up in rather childlike damp spikes. ‘You didn’t say you were coming here when you phoned this afternoon.’
‘I didn’t know I was,’ she said, and looked away from him, suddenly feeling very shy. Absurdly shy. ‘I - I was at Nellie’s all morning and I meant to go back to East Grinstead after leaving a message here for you but -’ She swallowed, awkward again. ‘I thought I’d better stay and talk to you. After what happened here.’
‘After what happened where?’ he said lazily and came and sat on the sofa beside her. He too stretched out his legs and the golden hairs on the sun-browned skin glinted and she thought ridiculously - he looks like hot buttered toast.
‘Your sister,’ she said and then stopped, not sure how to put it. The last thing she wanted to do was sound like a whining child, telling tales; but he had to be told, somehow, and she stopped, trying to put the right words together in her head.
‘Sophie?’ Brin said and laughed. ‘Did she try to stuff you with freshly baked cakes and jam and heaven knows what else? I found a great pile of buns and new bread when I got in. It’s good stuff, I’ll give her that -’
‘She was baking them when I was here,’ Charlie said and then took a slightly shaky breath. ‘Look, Brin, I don’t want to - sound like a meddler or a grizzler, but I did worry about what she said.’
He turned his body so that he had one elbow up on the back of the sofa and could look down on her and again she avoided his gaze, keeping her eyes fixed on his legs. He smelled even better now as his skin dried and the scent of soap - was it sandalwood? - was released into the warm air. It really was quite stupid to be so embarrassed, and she a doctor who had seen more naked men than she could remember! But this, whispered her secret voice, isn’t just any naked man. This is Brin.
‘Bloody Sophie,’ Brin said, but there was no real rancour in his voice. ‘Nothing you could tell me about her could ever seem like meddling. Not compared with the way she meddles with me.’
‘That’s just it, Brin.’ She turned to him gratefully, able to look at his face now. ‘I wanted to leave a message for you with her. To tell you that I think I can get a bed for you very soon at Nellie’s and do your operation and she said -’
His face lit up and he leaned forwards and took her shoulders in his hands. ‘What did you say?’
‘I think - I can’t be absolutely sure, mind you, because beds are at a premium, what with wards being closed - but I think that I can put your operation on the list in the next couple of weeks -’
‘Charlie Lucas, I love you!’ he cried jubilantly and leaned forwards and kissed her roundly, his lips warm on hers and she was so startled she could only sit there, her eyes wide open. And then he was sitting upright again and gazing at her, his eyes looking as though someone had switched on a light behind them. ‘I knew you could arrange it if anyone could - oh, I just knew it! You really are the best thing that ever happened to me since that bloody bomb fell, do you know that? I can’t tell you how grateful I am -’
‘You don’t have to be grateful,’ she said a little huskily, still shaken by the way he had kissed her. ‘It’s what I’m for. A surgeon, remember? But you can’t be sure until I’ve done the op how it’ll turn out. Don’t be too excited yet, for God’s sake. You could be disappointed -’
‘I won’t be!’ he said jubilantly and threw himself back against the sofa, but now with one arm thrown casually across the back of it, just above her own shoulders. She could feel the warmth of him through the thin cotton of her frock as though he were radiating energy. And indeed his whole body seemed rigid with the excitement.
‘It’ll be a wonderful operation,’ he we
nt on and with the forefinger of his other hand traced the line of his scar from tip to lip. ‘It’ll be just wonderful. A simple hairline that’ll disappear beneath a bit of Leichner’s -’
‘Leichner’s?’ she said and he laughed and dropped his arm so that it was across her shoulders and hugged her close.
‘Greasepaint, my dear old ass, greasepaint! I thought everyone knew about that stuff.’
‘I’m not an actress,’ she said in a small voice, trying to pretend that the warm pressure of his arm on her back and shoulders was not making her breathless. ‘I know about operations - I don’t know anything about shows -’
Suddenly his arm tightened and she looked up at him, aware of a sharp change in his mood. ‘Damn it all to hell and back!’ he said loudly, staring across her head at the window beyond, his eyes wide. ‘Oh, God damn it all!’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘The show. I just wasn’t thinking. It happens on Saturday fortnight - that’s why it’s all getting so busy now. We’re coming to the end of it all and we’ve been running around like lunatics getting it all together - and if I’m not there - when do you want me to come into Nellie’s?’
‘As soon as I get a bed,’ she said promptly. ‘I’m pulling every string I’ve got and then a few - like I said, there are so few beds and every surgeon in the place is clamouring. I was hoping next Monday. I’ve booked the theatre, at least - that’s a step in the right direction.’
‘And if I can’t manage to be there on that day?’
She shook her head a little worriedly. ‘I’d just have to start the string pulling all over again.’ She looked at him, turning her head so that she could see him and at once her face flamed. He was really very close to her indeed. ‘But, look, don’t worry. If I can manage it once, I dare say I can again - and I can quite see you can’t let the show people down. It’d be a dreadful thing to do if they need you -’
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