‘Hm. I thought as much.’
By this stage, all I wanted was to escape into the fresh air, away from this stuffy office and this awful woman.
‘I’d still like to be a nurse,’ I said feebly.
The matron pursed her lips and consulted a sheet of paper on the desk in front of her. I recognized the school’s headed writing paper, and my heart sank.
‘Your head teacher doesn’t seem to think you are particularly suited to the job of nursing, and I’m inclined to agree with her.’ She rose from her chair, indicating my dismissal. ‘You will be hearing from us in due course.’
I escaped into the sunny street outside, seething with anger; anger at myself, anger at that horrible woman, but most of all anger at Miss Carrington who, for reasons best known to herself, seemed hell-bent on sabotaging any chances I might have of (to use her own words) ‘making something of myself’.
For my second interview, I was better prepared. I read everything about nursing I could lay my hands on, from the life of Florence Nightingale (who turned out to be more pioneering battleaxe than ministering angel) to the present day, garnering in the process enough information to fill a fairly hefty manual.
But the second matron appeared to be no more impressed than the first.
‘Miss Fitzpatrick, you seem to have swallowed an encyclopaedia,’ she observed. ‘Just tell me what it is about nursing that appeals to you.’
I was ready for this, too.
‘I’d like to be at the cutting edge of modern hospital care. I’d like to contribute to the standard of that care, and make a difference,’ I spouted recklessly, aware that I sounded more like a government white paper than a candidate at an interview, but somehow unable to stop. ‘I’d like to —’
‘Hold on, Miss Fitzpatrick.’ The matron held up her hand, sparing my further efforts. ‘I simply want to know what it is you think you have to offer us. Personal qualities, for example. What personal qualities do you have which might make you a suitable applicant?’
‘I think I’m kind,’ I said desperately.
‘That’s certainly a start.’
‘And — and my sister died.’ I burst into tears.
I have no idea what made me say that, but perhaps I detected beneath that starched bosom and stern expression a hint of the sympathy I still craved. The matron didn’t look in the least surprised at my outburst, but I detected a softening of her features as she leant forward and handed me a spotless handkerchief.
‘Tell me about it,’ she said.
I started talking, and once I’d started, I found I couldn’t stop. I told her about Octavia, about the terrible day when she had died and about leaving boarding school. I told her about Mum and our unusual family set-up, and I told her about the pressures I had received from school and the real reasons I had applied to be a nurse. I was sure I’d scuppered any chances I might have, but I no longer cared. I was carried along on a tide of words and emotion, and by the time I’d finished, I felt better than I had in a long time.
There was a long pause.
‘I see.’ The matron straightened the papers on her desk, and looked at me over her spectacles.
‘Miss Fitzpatrick, do you think you are ready to be a nurse, even if it is what you want? Do you think you can deal with the problems of others when you have recently had so many of your own?’
‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.’
‘Well, do. Do think about it. Nurses have a great deal to cope with. They see people in pain, people dying, and they can’t always make everything better. They have to be strong. Not hard-hearted, but emotionally tough. I think at the moment you are too fragile to take on a job which will drain you both physically and mentally.’
‘So that’s — it,’ I said, feeling more disappointed than I would have imagined.
‘Not necessarily.’ She smiled at me. ‘I like you, Miss Fitzpatrick. You are sensitive and honest and intelligent, and it may surprise you to know that I think that, given the right circumstances, you might be a good nurse. But not yet. Not for a while.’ She paused, as though assessing my reaction. ‘Take your A levels — you’re going to need them, even for nursing — and come and see me again, and we’ll have another talk.’
‘But the waiting list is so long,’ I wailed. ‘It’ll be years, even if you decide to accept me.’
‘I have ways of opening doors,’ she said, ‘to the right candidates. I can’t promise we’ll take you next year, but if things have settled down at home, and you’re feeling stronger, well, we’ll see. That’s all I can say at the moment. I’d like to give you a chance, but I can’t make any promises. Fair enough?’
‘Fair enough.’ I summoned up a smile. ‘And thank you.’
‘Oh, Cass! You’ve been crying! What’s that dreadful woman done, to make you cry?’ Mum, who had travelled up with me for the interview, was waiting for me outside the door.
‘Mum, you haven’t even met her. She’s actually rather nice,’ I said.
‘Poor Cass,’ Mum appeared not to have heard me. ‘Doesn’t she want you?’
‘Perhaps. But not yet.’
We proceeded to walk together back down the corridor.
‘Not yet? What can she be thinking of?’ cried Mum. ‘The woman must be mad.’ She sniffed. ‘Anyway, there are plenty of other jobs you can do. You don’t need to be a nurse. Just look at them,’ she added, as we passed a group of nurses. ‘Look at them, with their black-stockinged stalks of legs and their smug little nurse faces! I think you’re well out of it, myself.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly changed your tune.’ I couldn’t help laughing. Mistress of the volte face, Mum could execute a speedier change of direction than anyone I knew. ‘And you haven’t let me explain. She was actually very kind, but she thinks I need more time. She’s prepared to see me again next year. I think she’s probably right,’ I added. ‘And I’d like to come here. It feels — right.’
‘Oh.’ Mum’s anger subsided as quickly as it had arisen, but I felt sorry for her, for I knew she was disappointed, for herself as well as for me. She had been looking forward to telling people about my new vocation, and now she would have to wait.
As we took our seats on the train for the journey home, I gave Mum an edited account of my interview, and she seemed to accept it.
‘You could try somewhere else, Cass,’ she said. ‘There are plenty of other hospitals.’
‘I know. But I like St Martha’s, it’s one of the best and it’s in London.’ (I had set my heart on London.) ‘And the matron was right. Perhaps I do need a bit more time. I could even have changed my mind again by next year.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Don’t look so sad, Mum. I’ll get a job sooner or later, and I promise I’ll do my very best to make sure it’s one which requires a uniform!’
‘Am I that pathetic?’ Mum asked.
‘No. Not pathetic at all. I know you want the best for me, and you’ve never tried to push me. You’re the best sort of mother to have.’
‘Are you sure?’
I thought of my peers, many of whom were threatened or bribed into getting the best grades; whose parents’ aim seemed equally divided between trying to relive their lives through their children and boasting about the academic achievements of their brilliant offspring. And then I thought of Mum, who had praised and encouraged me every step of the way, however good or lowly my achievements, and whose unconditional pride in me had come to mean so much.
I gave her a hug.
‘Quite sure,’ I told her.
As our train drew out of the station, and we passed the terraces of grim, sooty houses with their defiant lines of bright washing flapping in their cluttered back gardens, my spirits lifted. A woman picked up a screaming child and carried him indoors, a black and white cat sat washing itself in a patch of sunlight, an old man filled a bucket from a heap of coal.
I was determined that one day — one day quite soon — I would be back.
Twenty-five
I was by now nearly eighteen, an age at which clothes and make-up and, above all, boys might be expected to feature prominently in my life, but while I certainly liked nice clothes, and even occasionally wore make-up, my interest in the opposite sex remained non-existent.
Not so my classmates, whose conversation was now dominated by the fascinating subject of who was going out with whom, what they had been up to and, most pressing of all, whether or not they had gone the whole way. One girl who had certainly gone the whole way was the hapless Pamela Adams, who started to put on a suspicious amount of weight, was observed by our PE teacher, interviewed (with her parents) by Miss Carrington, and left in tears. We never saw Pamela again. The Sixties may well have been swinging, but not yet for us, and certainly not in our school.
My only experience of boys my own age (apart from Lucas and his friends, and my disastrous encounter with Alex) had been the challenging ordeal of a term of ballroom dancing classes, in the lower sixth form, with the boys from the Grammar School. These were entirely voluntary, taking place after school, and I was persuaded by my friends (and much against my better judgement) to give them a try.
The classes would commence with a ritual that could have been a precursor of the car boot sale, with a touch of the cattle market thrown in. The girls huddled self-consciously on one side of the school hall, while the boys regarded them critically from the other. Then the more streetwise of the boys would swoop, carrying off the beautiful, the confident and the downright sexy for a faltering hour of quicksteps and waltzes, with more than a smattering of flirtation thrown in, while the luckless remainder would trail across and pick up the remnants: the shy, the plump, the spotty or the downright plain.
I don’t think that I was unattractive. Photographs of me at that age show a serious-looking girl with wide-apart eyes, a ponytail of dark hair and a nice if hesitant smile. I was reasonably slim, had as much bosom as I felt I needed, and my legs, as I recall, were quite respectable. But I was always one of the last to be chosen, and the humiliation stayed with me for a long time.
I wasn’t normally shy. In our household, where people came and went and strangers were often entertained as a matter of course, I had long been accustomed to meeting — and getting on with — new people. But this was different. Here, I was being judged according to a whole new set of criteria, and the experience was disconcerting, to say the least.
Oh, the agony of standing there waiting, of undergoing the scrutiny of the equally wretched also-rans among our male counterparts, and praying the desperate prayer of the wallflower: don’t let me be chosen last. Oh, please don’t let me be the last!
Thanks to the presence of a short fat girl named Alice, and an equally unfortunate classmate with a squint and a speech impediment, I never was the very last, but on more than one occasion, I came dangerously close.
‘Why do we do this?’ I whispered to Alice on one occasion, as we stood together awaiting our fate.
Alice shook her head miserably.
‘My mother wanted me to come,’ she said. ‘She says it will give me confidence.’
‘And has it?’ I asked curiously, wondering what sort of mother Alice must have. At least my mother had had nothing to do with my own decision.
Alice shook her head.
‘I hate it,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t want to let Mum down. Besides,’ she added, ‘she collects me late on Tuesdays because of my sister’s violin lesson, and there’s nothing else to do.’
I could think of plenty of other things to do, which begged the question of why wasn’t I doing any of them, but I think there must have been something in me that was refusing to be beaten. I’d signed up for the dancing, not the boys, and I wasn’t going to give up simply because of a few minutes of blushing discomfort.
In fact I felt I could have enjoyed the classes, given the right partner, but that partner rarely came my way, and so I had to put up with fumbling fingers and equally fumbling apologies as we made our uncertain way round the dance floor. By the end of the hour, I don’t know which were more bruised; my feelings or my feet.
After half-term, however, I was picked by a boy who if not good-looking was certainly quite pleasant, and what was more, he could dance. We both learnt fast, and after two sessions we were selected to show the rest of the class our tango. Miss Mason (PE teacher turned dance instructor) was obviously impressed.
‘Very good, Cass. Excellent — er, what’s your name?’
‘Daniel, Miss.’
‘Yes. Well done, Daniel.’
My friends were also impressed, but not so Daniel’s colleagues. He had to put up with their mincing imitations all the way home, he later told me, and acquired the new nickname of ‘Dancing Danny’.
‘I don’t mind, though,’ he said, as we waltzed carefully round the room. ‘It’s worth it, to — to dance with you.’
‘Thank you.’ I was trying to concentrate on the music (one-two-three, one-two-three).
‘Can I — could I walk you home?’
‘But I only live ten minutes away.’ The point of being walked home completely passed me by. Whatever did he want to walk me home for, especially as he lived in the opposite direction?
‘I — I like you,’ Daniel said lamely, as we swept round a corner (one-two-three).
‘Oh. OK, then.’
Daniel smiled and blushed and we got out of step. Whatever was the matter with him? I thought crossly, as I tried to put things to rights (one-two-three). We were here to dance, not to have this kind of silly conversation.
For the next three weeks, Daniel walked me home, but I found our walks awkward and uncomfortable, since without the dancing, it appeared that we had little to say to each other. I soon realized that Daniel’s interest in me went beyond my prowess as a dance partner, and on several occasions he tried to take my hand (I solved this problem by thrusting my hands into my pockets, pleading cold fingers and chilblains).
‘How do you tell a boy you don’t like him?’ I asked Mum, our willing source of information on such subjects.
‘Oh, Cass! Have you got a boyfriend? How sweet!’
‘No,’ I explained patiently. ‘I haven’t got a boyfriend and I don’t want one. That’s the whole point.’
‘Well.’ Mum sat down on her bed. ‘What’s he said to you?’
‘Nothing really. He just walks me home after dancing and tries to hold hands.’
‘And you really don’t like him?’
‘He’s OK I suppose.’
‘Good-looking?’
‘Not bad.’
‘Well then.’
‘What do you mean, well then?’
‘When I was your age, I always used to think that any boyfriend was better than none,’ Mum said. ‘Someone to go out with, do things with. You know.’
‘No. I don’t know.’ I was beginning to get cross. I had my own friends to go out with. I didn’t need a boy in order to have fun. ‘And I don’t suppose you ever had to go out with anyone you didn’t fancy, did you?’
‘Well, no. That’s true.’ Mum’s face took on a dreamy expression. ‘I was rather lucky, as it happens.’
‘And you liked boys.’
‘Oh, I certainly liked boys.’
‘Well, I don’t like boys. I’ve never liked boys. I probably never shall.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Cass!’
But I couldn’t see that there was anything ridiculous about the way I felt. Since I certainly didn’t want to get married and had never been especially keen on the idea of having children, there didn’t seem to be any need for me to have anything to do with men at all, other than on a casual basis. I had always rather liked the idea of a future where I had a place of my own; a small flat or cottage somewhere, with my own things in it; a place where everything stayed where I had put it, any guests came by invitation (my invitation), and when the phone rang, I would know it was for me.
It wasn’t that I disliked men. I was fond of Call Me Bill, and had
formed comfortable relationships with some of our Lodgers. Many of the men who passed through our house — friends, visitors, and what Mum liked to call her Special Friends — were pleasant enough. But I didn’t want a man of my own. In my experience, if you excluded Call Me Bill and the gay Lodger, men were on the whole poor helpless creatures, who forgot birthdays and couldn’t find their socks.
In the end, Mum was of little help when it came to the question of how to discourage Dancing Danny, so I withdrew from the dancing classes pleading a sprained ankle (the ankle also got me out of games, so something good had come out of the experience, even though I had to remember to hobble for three weeks).
Nearly a year later, I was still as indifferent to boys as I had ever been, and if I felt the occasional stirrings of interest when confronted by a nice smile or an appraising pair of eyes, I quickly stifled them. As for Mum, she wisely let me be. I know now that she hoped I would train as a nurse and go on to fall in love with a doctor, and reasoned that if I were to get involved with someone while I was still at school, neither of these eventualities might take place.
Twenty-six
August 1965
My final school year passed uneventfully. I did just enough work to gain the A levels required by the nursing school while ensuring that they fell comfortably short of the standard I would need to gain a place at a decent university. And to my delight, after a further interview and some uncomfortably searching questions from the matron, I was offered a place at St Martha’s for the following November. Matron said that while she was still concerned that I might find the whole experience harder than I imagined, she thought that I’d matured since she had last seen me, and had ‘managed to come to terms with the family bereavement’.
I had once heard Dr Mackenzie tell Mum that the pain of bereavement never goes away, but that over time, it changes from a wound into a scar. This seemed and still seems to me the best description of a pain which is in many ways beyond description; a mental pain which is also physical, tearing at the solar plexus, the very centre of one’s body. I remember during those first months after Octavia’s death Mum doubling up over her own pain, clutching it to her, almost nursing it, curling herself round it and rocking it as though it had a soul of its own.
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