She said simply, ‘Duckie, I hope not. I like George, and it won’t do him any good with me.’
I was uncomfortably certain she was right.
Peter was waiting to drive me home. He was annoyed by my delay, peeved to hear Roxanne was in Portugal with her father, as it was a place he had always wanted to visit and could never afford. I was relieved when he decided not to come up for coffee. It had been a heavy day and Peter’s bleatings after the patients’ and Dolly’s genuine problems had irritated instead of mildly amusing me. When I let myself in to our flat I was glad to be alone with my thoughts. Then I started thinking. That was not my favourite night of the year.
Mrs Desmond came up to see Dr Lincoln Browne on the following Wednesday afternoon. She arrived nearly as apprehensive about meeting Joss as about her check-up. ‘How can you be so sure we won’t run into him, dear?’
I explained Sir Hoadley had started his Wednesday theatre list at one p.m. for the last twenty years. It was then two. ‘They’re doing eleven this afternoon. The first two are bone-grafts and’ll take hours. They’ll be in the theatre till nearly seven.’
‘Eleven operations? In one afternoon?’
The number wasn’t exceptional, but to soothe her I blamed the heatwave.
She turned into an elderly woman when the consultant’s secretary ushered her in. Half an hour later she had shed twenty years. ‘Darling, such a relief! He wired me up to his machine, showed me the graph I didn’t understand at all, but he says my heart is splendid! Can I take you out to tea?’
Being due back in the A.U. in forty minutes, I took her to the Sisters’ dining-room. ‘Don’t worry. Even if the orthopaedic theatre goes mad and stops work, Joss won’t come in here. Our residents need a gun at their heads to come through that door.’
Mrs Desmond glanced at the few, mostly elderly Home Sisters, delicately consuming cucumber sandwiches at Miss Evans’s table. Miss Evans was not present. The Sisters were not talking and from the gravity of their expressions had unanimously agreed a little nourishment was in order as one always had to wait the hour before performing Last Offices.
‘Not that I’d mind seeing Joss now ‒’ Mrs Desmond hushed her voice in sympathy, ‘but he might. Even one’s unpossessive children can be extraordinarily so, at times. And no matter how well one knows them ‒ or thinks one does ‒ one can never be quite sure what will hurt them and what won’t ‒ or I can’t. So, as that nice man says no one has to be told anything, can we leave it between us? And, dearie, do advise me further. I’m sure I should pay someone something. His secretary said, no. Yet he saw me as a private patient!’
‘No. As the mother of one of the staff. Some of our pundits might have charged you. Not Lincoln Browne. It’s an old Martha’s tradition that the hospital looks after its own and he’s nuts on traditions. Wasn’t this so at Benedict’s?’
‘Mercifully, I never had occasion to find out. Can I write and thank him?’
‘Probably make his week if you do.’
She was puzzled. ‘Patients don’t thank specialists?’
‘Generally,’ I said, ‘and oddly, only when everything’s gone wrong. Then the pundits are inundated with letters from grateful relatives.’
‘Now I come to think of it, Joss once said that!’ She adjusted the set of her small (for her) cream boater. ‘I suppose you don’t see so much of him, now?’
I had not seen him since the night he left our flat. ‘Martha’s is a big place.’
The temperature went on rising. Saturday was the hottest day in London since the summer of ’59. That evening the flags on our terrace were still steaming, little bubbles of liquid tar were dotting the hospital yard, and the oil from the turning and parked ambulances gave it a surface like ice.
The A.U. was air-conditioned, but all day every cubicle, every bed, had been re-occupied as soon as it was emptied. It was well after ten when Stan Lawson limped into my office, flopped onto one chair, arranged another for his feet, and pushed his glasses up on his high forehead. ‘Cath,’ he said, ‘I know just how Canute felt. But he only had to deal with a mighty ocean of water.’ His long, thin, humorous face was made longer by the very short haircut he had acquired since we last worked together. Otherwise, we had picked up where we left off. ‘This is one of those times when I despair for the human race. When they aren’t trying to kill each other on the roads, they’re on the job with broken bottles, knives, razors, chair-legs. How many fights in so far?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Forty, last night. At this going we’ll top that by midnight.’
Peter had come in. He sat on a hard chair against the wall, leant back and closed his eyes. ‘Why can’t the sods live in peace?’
‘We’d be out of a job Friday and Saturday nights if they did.’ Stan loosened his tie, uncapped his pen. ‘Cath, remind me to write the brewers a note of thanks for keeping us off the dole queues.’ He read my first entry in the log. ‘Sylvia Mary Eccles, Mrs, 34 C. of E. What in the name of God did I do for Sylvia Mary?’
I passed him her accident card. ‘You told Mr Palmer to put five stitches in her left wrist.’
‘So I did! The cat jumped in from the garden, knocked the empty milk bottles into the sink, bust half the breakfast china and what her hubby said she wouldn’t like to tell me, doctor, she was sure. Sylvia Mary was damned lucky.’ He wrote as he spoke. ‘Another millimetre and she’d have sliced her radial artery ‒ and what would hubby have said then? Damned lucky to have a garden, this weather. Wish I had one.’
I said, ‘I didn’t know you liked gardening.’
‘Detest it! But if I had a garden I’d have a lawn. Then I could paddle my poor feet in the early morning dew.’ He glanced at Peter. ‘He asleep?’
‘I think so. Peter?’ Peter didn’t react. ‘Flat out.’
‘Some people have it easy.’ He wrote on. ‘Did I tell you I ran into Desmond and Miss Butler leaving for the country after lunch? She looks a new girl. Wouldn’t mind being down in Kent with them tonight.’
‘Should be cooler there. Ready to sign?’ The red light was flashing. ‘Oh, no!’
He took the red receiver from me. ‘You, Sister, are off! Unless this is a major, it’s going to Emergencies.’
I still heard Harry, the senior night porter, clearly. ‘Got a kicks in the face coming in for you, Mr Lawson. Male. Young. Five teeth gone. Query fractured jaw. What do you want me to do with him when he arrives?’
‘Harry, Sister is present so I will refrain from specifying more than ‒ keep him in Emergencies. I’ll be in.’
Peter had woken. ‘God, how I hate Saturday nights!’
I said, ‘This heat can’t last.’
‘Nothing,’ said Stan, ‘ever lasts. It may look that way, but in this life, my friends, it doesn’t. Not even these notes, Cath. We’ll finish ’em by midnight ‒ if we’re bloody lucky.’
It was exactly midnight when Harry got me a taxi. The taximan said, ‘Working the late shift, eh?’
I didn’t tell him the truth as he wouldn’t believe it. I didn’t hold that against him as there were some truths I did not want to face, myself. ‘Yes. Happens, sometimes.’
Chapter Nine
Roxanne was back from Portugal and spent three days modelling furs. By the third evening she looked as if she had been put through a mangle. ‘Those lights in this heat! If any man offers me a mink after this, I’ll strangle him with it!’
‘I wouldn’t.’ I kicked off my shoes, hung my legs over the arm of a chair and closed my eyes. ‘I’d flog it and use the lolly on getting this flat air-conditioned.’ I opened one eye. ‘I thought there was some knees-up your agent said you mustn’t miss tonight?’
‘That’s tomorrow. Got a light?’
I chucked her matches. ‘Who’re you going with?’
‘Joe.’
‘Doesn’t he always end up sloshed blind?’
‘Yes, but he can be darned amusing till he passes out, so long as he keeps off the subject of his ex
-wife. He knows I’ll take myself home when I’ve had enough. And drunk or sober,’ she added, he’s a very good photographer.’
There was a tremendous thunderstorm during the following afternoon. The A.U. had its quietest evening in weeks. Stan and I had finished the notes and were doing a newspaper crossword, when Peter put his head round the door and said he’d drive me home for a cup of Roxanne’s coffee. She made superb coffee.
I explained why she would be out. ‘Lift off?’
‘Don’t be so bloody silly! Of course not!’ He stomped on down the corridor.
Stan glanced up. ‘What’s got him?’
I shrugged. ‘Storm’s still in the air. I’m surprised more people haven’t been edgy during this heat.’
‘I’m not. To be edgy, one needs time in which to feel hard-done-by. No time, no edges, and no insomnia. Been sleeping like a log?’ I nodded. ‘Same here and I’ll bet throughout the A.U.’ He filled in another word. ‘Finland ‒ and it fits. Didn’t Peter go there last year?’
‘Forgotten ‒ no ‒ yes ‒ he sent me a postcard.’
‘Time he had another holiday. He got one fixed up?’
‘Dunno. What’s a voracious sea-bird? Nine, down.’
He blinked at me owlishly, a sign his quick brain was in action. ‘Cormorant.’ He reached for the green receiver as the green light flashed. ‘Probably me.’
It was. He wrote in ‘cormorant’ as he listened to a long spiel from Harry. ‘I’ll bet she is. Right, I’ll be in, now.’ He stood up, smiling. ‘We do get ’em!’
Two foreign seamen, each with a black eye, had walked unannounced into Emergencies and sat themselves in wheelchairs. ‘Seems they don’t understand English, Spanish, Maltese, Italian, French, German, or Polish. Harry’s been rounding up night orderlies as interpreters and the Night Super is out for his blood.’
I smiled. ‘You off to transfuse him?’
‘Harry’ll survive, but he’s not so sure about his young ladies. He’s got them lads under his eye, Mr Lawson, sir, as he doesn’t reckon much to the looks they’re giving his nurses and though that young Mr Smith’s doing his best, he’s only a slip of a lad as don’t need a shave more than once a fortnight and he reckons the senior night staff nurse is a bit worried, like. And seeing we’re quiet and I’m a married man, meself, he thought, did Harry, he’d best have a word with me.’ He polished and replaced his glasses. ‘Forgive me if I go and prevent multiple rape?’
‘Any time. Stan, might they be Norwegians?’
He blinked again. ‘That’s a thought.’
Peter was delighted Stan thought he needed a holiday. ‘Understanding chap, Stan. Sensitive.’
‘He should’ve been a physician.’
‘Come off it, Cath! All surgeons may just be bloody technicians but that doesn’t make them all insensitive butchers.’
I allowed he had a point and did not pursue mine as there were some things I preferred to keep to myself. I had been back long enough to realise Roxanne had been right about Peter. Even if he still bleated, he had grown up. He had never had, and probably never would have, Stan and Joss’s intuitive faculty of perception, but once he caught on he considered every facet of a situation with the plodding thoroughness that solves difficult diagnoses and great crimes. He was mildly enjoying anaesthetics, if not enough to want to specialize. Latterly, he had begun speculating about general practice. I told him I thought this the best idea he had ever had. Despite his occasional conviction he was unloved and unwanted, he was one of the few people I knew whom everyone liked. My father thought it more important for a G.P. to like, and be liked, by humanity, than to have a burning zeal to heal. ‘The most useful qualities are stamina and patience. If he’s got patience, his practice’ll flourish and his patients forgive him any number of mistaken diagnoses. Nine out of ten patients don’t come to surgery for a diagnosis, they come because they’ve got to talk to someone, or crack. Mind you, if you don’t listen, back they come with their ulcers, dermatitis, asthma, urticaria ‒ the lot!’ Peter was normally very patient, which was why he had just surprised Stan. His constitution was as strong as his build. I now thought him made for a G.P., though before I went to Canada I would have said he was far too immature. Recently, I had realized that could merely have been because the same applied to myself.
He was making coffee and I was doing my hair when Stan rang to ask if Peter had a Finnish phrase book.
‘We’ve decided our lecherous, black-eyed mariners may be Finns. If he can’t oblige, ask if he knows a good Finnish brush-off. The night staff nurse ‒ and Harry ‒ are on the verge of acute anxiety states.’
I called Peter. ‘Stan wants some Finnish four-letter words.’
‘Stan wants ‒ what?’ Peter charged in pushing his hand through his hair. Stan’s comments made him flop backwards onto my bed and shout with laughter. ‘Yes. In my room. Help yourself.’ He rang off and smiled up at me.
‘How much of that did you get?’
‘Only your bawdy splutters.’
‘Just as well, when Stan’s on form.’ He undid his tie.
‘That storm hasn’t made it any cooler.’
‘Still hanging around.’ My shoes were full of feet so I removed them. ‘I’ve never heard Stan on form.’
‘Nor will you.’ He stretched out his arms, contentedly.
‘Take more than Women’s Lib to crack our Stanley’s solid non-conformist upbringing.’ He raised his head. ‘Isn’t that your living-room door?’
I went out to investigate and forgot the comb in my hand till the sight of Joss following Roxanne in made me drop it. ‘Hi!’ I said weakly, and ran out of conversation.
Joss was in a dinner-jacket that had been cut by a good London tailor this year. Roxanne’s long blue-grey printed voile was edged with layers of lace. The dress had a very high lace collar, long graceful sleeves and could have been worn by her great-grandmother, had the skirt in front not been split from hem to thigh. The opening was edged with more lace and her tights matched the blue in the material. They could both have stepped out of one of Roxanne’s magazine photographs. I felt like Little Orphan Annie after a particularly tough stint with my begging bowl.
Roxanne was explaining her joy at recognizing a human face at the worst party of the year, when Peter ambled through my bedroom door slowly replacing his tie. Roxanne stopped in mid-sentence. ‘Didn’t see your car, Peter!’
Peter exchanged amiable waves with Joss. ‘Had to leave it round the corner. Joss rescued you from a fate worse than death? Bad champagne?’ He was watching her with such open hostility that I almost forgot Joss was watching us both. ‘How come you were there, Joss?’
‘I’ve been dining with my old boss from Benedict’s. He had to look in and asked me along to give him an excuse to get away, fast. I introduced him to Roxanne.’ He smiled at her. ‘That’s taken care of my next job.’
Roxanne blew him a kiss. ‘Why don’t we all have a drink?’
Joss said if it was all the same to her after all the bad champagne he’d as soon have some of the coffee they had just turned off.
‘My coffee!’ Peter slapped his forehead. ‘Had it boiled over?’
‘The plate was red-hot.’ From Roxanne’s tone, Peter was clearly trying to bankrupt us through our electricity bills and, failing that, to burn the house down. ‘I suppose we should be thankful it wasn’t gas.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Joss. ‘Isn’t gas cheaper?’
I was about to explain Stan’s call, but Peter had caught my eye. ‘If it had been gas,’ he remarked with uncharacteristic smoothness, ‘what a wonderful way to go.’
I thought of Dolly Jones for several reasons. ‘Let’s all have some coffee.’
Roxanne and Joss sat entwined on the sofa. Peter sat on the arm of my chair and when not playing with my hair, dutifully nibbled my ear. As Roxanne always looked especially good when she was angry and had to hide it, the only person I wasn’t sorry for was Joss. The atmosphere reminded me very much of
my first week in the A.U.
It eased, briefly, when Joss said he had seen Professor Ulvik and Mrs Alesund in Asden last weekend. The Professor’s slow progress was continuing and his daughter had asked for my private address. ‘She wants to see you again. All right my handing it out?’
‘Sure.’
Peter slid into the chair behind me, lifted me onto his lap and wrapped his arms round my waist. ‘Much more comfortable,’ he murmured as if we were alone.
Roxanne ignored us and nibbled Joss’s ear. I asked if the Norwegians intended claiming damages from the hire-car firm. Joss shook his head, which couldn’t have been easy as Roxanne had very good teeth.
‘Why not?’ demanded Peter. ‘Surely, the firm’ll be only too happy to settle out of court?’
‘They’ve offered. The Alesunds won’t touch it. She said her father’d blow all fuses at the mere suggestion, and they think he’s right.’ He was suddenly embarrassed. ‘They think they owe England too much.’
‘Good God! Why?’ Peter, Roxanne and I spoke together.
‘Something to do with the last World War.’ He looked directly at me for the first time since he came in. ‘Seems they’ve long memories in Norway.’
‘Rule Britannia.’ I met his eyes and nearly said that again when he had to look away first.
But for our landlady’s rule we would probably have sat there all night as very obviously neither man intended making the first move. At two minutes to twelve, Joss kissed Roxanne and Peter kissed me. They went down the top flight side by side and looking straight ahead.
I closed the door and leant against it. ‘If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s a jolly evening with chums.’
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