The Principal Nursing Officer of Thessa General was in her office. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Anthony, this is always happening! We’ll expect you when we see you and if it means the steamer, the airline will look after you in the interval. Luckily Staff Nurse Manson’ll not be delayed as she’s booked a steamer berth for this evening. You may well see her at Dalry in the forenoon. Many thanks for calling. Goodbye for just now.’
The girl with unhappy eyes was alone at the mirrors when I went along to freshen up. She eyed my reflection, nervously. ‘I ‒ I suppose this is another example of “if you’ve time to spare go by air”.’
‘In a way.’ I combed my shoulder-length hair. I only wore it up under a cap. ‘But nice to know the pilots won’t take chances. Like my father says ‒ I don’t want to be flown by the world’s bravest pilot ‒ just the oldest!’
‘I must tell my mother that! She loves travelling. I’ve often toured up here with Mother. She loves driving. I’ve just been telling my ‒ my friend of the many little jokes Mother and I’ve had about Scotch mists.’ She smiled with her lips. ‘He’s not very used to Scotland and I’m afraid he ‒ he gets a bit impatient. He’s a very active person ‒ likes to get things done. Did you come up by train?’
‘Air.’ I hadn’t seen her on the flight. ‘You drove?’
‘Overnight sleeper. Going to Thessa or one of the other islands?’
‘Thessa. You?’
‘We’re going on to another island. Visiting friends.’
‘How nice.’
‘I hope so.’ She looked me over. ‘Between school and college?’
I laughed, ‘No! But thanks, thanks very much as I’m nearly twenty-six.’
‘You’re not! You’re so small ‒ I’m sorry ‒ that sounds rude and wasn’t meant to ‒ I must go ‒’ she backed to the door, ‘my friend said the bar should be open and to meet him ‒ I suppose you didn’t notice ‒ ?’
‘Back down this corridor and on the right just before the lounge. It had opened when I came by.’
She shot off obviously regretting having spoken to someone so near her own age, but as obviously she had had to talk to someone other than her friend, I wondered what spiel she had sold Mother to get away. I was sorry for her, but annoyed, as I didn’t want to have to feel sorry for people until I got back into uniform. I could accept the impossibility of nursing properly without becoming involved with the patients and I enjoyed my job, but in my private life I now preferred detachment. I studied my reflection and wondered why I so often received unwanted confidences from total strangers. The pattern was always the same. Once they’d unburdened, the confiders regretted it as much as myself. I constantly longed to cry, ‘Stop! You don’t really want to tell me this and I don’t want to hear it!’ I never had as I lacked the courage.
The lounge had had a general post as another flight had arrived from, and another had left for, the south. The opening of the bar had whittled down the standing groups, but I couldn’t see a seat until a hairy line made room for me on a middle bench. Several hands offered cigarette packets and then accepted my being a non-smoker with equable shrugs. ‘Have to die of something else, won’t you, darling?’
Most of them had the scars of recent hand injuries and three had lost the tip of a finger. They stopped reading to show me their scars and chill my blood with such pleasure it would’ve been unkind to admit to being a trained nurse. ‘You got to watch yourself all the time on them rigs, darling! Not dangerous? You must be joking! Now you take this fella as starts with me. Had us both on his course first, didn’t they, then? Survival course, they calls it. Had us bashing up and down in the lifeboat, in and out the rubber dinghy, fetching the dummy out the drink, nipping up and down them ropes ‒ the derricks ‒ the lot! Then what? First week out and this fella comes off a derrick and busts both legs ‒ and he was lucky! Remember old Terry?’
They all remembered old Terry and his foreman. ‘Proper ‒ proper basket, he was, darling! Right, he says after Terry come off, right then, busters! Now you’ve seen what happens, just you lot remember next time one of you comes off to pick up your cards on the drop down as you’ll not be needed here no more after we’ve scraped you off the deck!’
A large blond young man who had worked in a Hampshire bank up to last year, said, ‘It isn’t all blood and muck, but it can be bloody mucky. There’re compensations.’
‘The money?’
‘It’s not bad, but should be better. We need good money as most of us have to travel the hell of a distance to get home for our rest days. All of us here are from England. There aren’t enough locals for the jobs. The Scots chaps who come off with us mostly keep their cars up here and drive straight home from the choppers.’
‘Have many of you done very different jobs first?’
About half the shaggy heads nodded and the ex-bank clerk pushed back hair longer than mine. ‘This is one of the things that makes it interesting. In our crew we’ve a chap with a first in Modern Lang, from Sussex, an Aberdonian who taught Eng. Lit. ten years, two farmers from the Borders, a Glaswegian with a Master’s Certificate and ‒’ he jerked a thumb, ‘us. On the job we all get along pretty well. We have to or go nutters.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘First time up here? Have you any idea what’s actually going on?’
‘Oil bringing big business?’
‘Oil bringing the birth of a second industrial revolution! This is the biggest thing since that lid blew off the kettle. Ten years from now all roads in Western Europe’ll lead to Aberdeen. Wait and see!’
His chums laughed. ‘The way old Henry reads it, darling, couple of years from now and anytime you want to borrow five grand, just ask us! You don’t say!’ Their boarding call was announced. ‘Going on to Thessa? You are joking! See you when we get back from rest days ‒ or can you swim?’
I opened my book but didn’t read. I stared at the pages and found myself listening to the inaudible roar of the non-existent tidal wave that I sensed was idling this way from one hundred or more miles off-shore. I didn’t sense it for long. Just for a few seconds, but during those seconds the roar genuinely deafened me. I was still thinking about it and wondering if I should sometime have a chat with a psychiatrist when the Englishman reappeared and asked if I would care for a coffee or a drink.
‘Coffee, please. Black, without.’
‘Fine.’ He left his briefcase and umbrella on the seat by me and at the counter queued beside the long Highlander. He came back with cheese rolls as well as coffee. ‘I thought we should postpone the discovery of our whitened bones.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the Highlander who was now drinking coffee against a wall. ‘Seems McPeck of that Ilk has just chatted up Thessa. A very slight improvement this last half-hour.’
‘Good.’ I looked at him with more interest. ‘Son Of Gregory’s a laird?’
He looked at me in the same way. ‘He didn’t pay for that gear out of a crofting or teaching income and he’s not an oilman with those hands. He must fish in gloves.’
‘And only at night. Many big landowners up here?’
‘Not all that many, but those that own land own the hell of a lot.’ He sipped coffee. ‘I envy the Scots their splendid hereditary titles. I’d fancy being Harding of that Ilk, or Harding of Harding. Just ‒ Rod Harding.’
‘Charlotte Anthony.’
‘Hi.’ He raised his plastic mug. ‘And having heard your call ‒ you’re a nurse?’
‘Yes. You oil?’
‘That’s me.’ He went on to tell me the name of his British company and a fair amount of his specific job as a seismologist. He appeared to spend more time on swamps than on rigs. ‘On cute little houseboats surrounded by my little machines. Very cosy.’
‘Sounds it. Where’d you find all these swamps?’
‘Malaya, Nigeria, Madagascar. That was my last spot. I think I liked it best.’
‘Why?’
He thought it over. ‘Probably, as they seemed to like us best. Not everyone loves us.’ He glanced back ag
ain. ‘McPeck doesn’t.’
‘Because of the oil? Or the Sons of Blimp?’
He smiled. ‘Bit off, that bastard! Probably the combination. My boss says if there’s one thing his fellow Scots cherish more than football ‒ not soccer up here ‒ it’s their traditional dislike of the English. He didn’t like it at all when I reminded him loving to loathe old enemies isn’t a Scottish prerogative. I’ve yet to hear my father or grandfather refer to the Germans as anything but the Hun.’
‘My father’s the same. Where are you from?’
‘Sussex. You?’
‘London.’
‘Where’d you train?’
‘Martha’s.’
He stood up, bowed, sat again. ‘My sister told me the form. She trained in Sussex before she left to marry. Classiest joint in the nursing world, she says. Snob’s hospital.’
‘That’s us. I suppose you don’t know anything about Thessa General?’
He looked at me over his glasses rather oddly. ‘Not much. I’ve known guys who were treated there. Nice little place, they said. How long’ll you be there?’
‘Month. How long’ll you be on Thessa?’
He shrugged. ‘Could be a week, a month or I could be back by the weekend. Depends how things work out.’ He had another look round and his gaze rested on the sugar-pink now flanked by stetsons. ‘Yukon Lil’s struck it,’ he murmured as if thinking aloud.
‘No, no, she’s Klondyke Annie!’
He swung back to me, ‘You think?’
We stared at each other, then began to laugh. When we stopped, we worked on my movie script.
‘How’s this, Charlotte ‒ Annie gives you a job in her saloon kitchen ‒’
‘I want to be one of her girls. I fancy black fish-net tights ‒’
‘You’ll have to do without ’em. With your big eyes and shape you’re a natural for the sweet innocent kid with nothing between her ears who has to take the job to pay her brother’s way through college ‒’
‘He’s gonna be a Great Doctor?’
‘What else? And your old man’s lost all through his gold-fever ‒’
‘But meantime back at the ranch makes a big strike which he doesn’t recognize, the sheriff does ‒’
‘And falsifies the claim.’
‘Jolly good! You the bent sheriff?’
‘Can’t be, as I’m blind without my glasses and couldn’t handle the punch-ups.’ He glanced round. ‘We’ll use McPeck. I’ll be the bent lawyer. We’ll all be bent as hell, apart from you and dear old Dad and you’ll both get your heads blown off in the last reel.’
‘Nice family picture ‒ but we haven’t used my Bogart. Did you spot him?’
‘God, yes. He was having a drink with Son of Blimp and his woman when I last looked in. Why hasn’t she the sense to wear a ring?’
‘Too honest, I’d say.’
He shrugged. ‘How can she fancy the bastard? She’s not bad looking.’
I could guess, but hedged. ‘Think he fancies her?’
‘Not as much as he fancies himself. Probably he’s just allergic to sleeping alone and they do say in this far north, incoming guys have either to settle for celibacy, camp followers or bring up their own women.’
I took another look around and discovered I appeared to be the only young woman travelling on my own. The other handful around my age were either with husbands and small children or obvious honeymooners. Four very young teenage girls travelling home to the Shetlands were now sitting by the elderly women. The kids fell about giggling whenever a man looked their way, but not one moved from the safety of their group. ‘Is Mother Courage much of a problem up here?’
‘She’s not encouraged, but I gather she keeps popping up. And wouldn’t she, with all that black gold in them thar depths!’
‘She wouldn’t if there were no takers.’
‘That’s for sure. Let’s have some more coffee.’
I watched his back at the counter. He had good shoulders and his hair had been cut by an expert. It looked very nice. Then I noticed the Highlander was watching him as closely as myself, but through half-closed eyes that now looked glazed with either fatigue, alcohol or a prematurely taken anti-travel-sickness tablet. I wondered why he didn’t sit down, as from the way he was wilting against the wall, it was only a question of time before he fell down. But he was still standing there when eventually we were able to board. This was at three o’clock and the sun had come out. He took a seat across the aisle from ours and the steward checking seat-belts, recognized him. ‘Over again, Mr Moray? And hoping for better fishing this time?’
‘Indeed, Gordon. Do you think we’ll be able to land on Thessa this afternoon?’
‘It will be no surprise to me if once we reach the islands we have to divert.’
A minute or so later, the pilot’s voice warned us all to expect this. ‘The present improvement in the weather over the islands does justify our going out to take a look in the hope that the improvement will be maintained. But as it can deteriorate with great speed, I must repeat that it is by no means certain that we will be able to land at Thessa airport.’
Rod Harding took off his glasses, the Highlander folded his arms and went to sleep, and I kicked off my slip-ons, though we were not yet over the sea. The rows of granite buildings below shrunk to match-boxes, the fields to bright green patch-work, and lying across the length of the open countryside was a dotted, terracotta ribbon. ‘Oil pipes, Rod?’
He replaced his glasses, peered forward and nodded. ‘Waiting to be connected and buried six feet down. And when it starts to flow, won’t our European chums love us!’
‘What happens when it runs out?’
‘No one can answer that as no one yet knows how much is there. On present evidence the Shetlands seem to be sitting slap in the middle of a great bloody oil pool ‒ and there seems more than a drop or two off the North East and North West of the Scottish mainland. Not to mention the odd drop off Cornwall. But pro tem, the big stuff’s round Shetland. If Thessa’s not yet a boom-town, any moment now!’
‘Thessa’s an island not a town ‒ isn’t it?’
‘Thessa Town is the one town on the Isle of Thessa. Here’s the coast. Look at that line of ships! Tankers and rig supply-vessels.’
‘Sorry.’ I turned away from the window. ‘I won’t. I’ve got a sort of hang up about looking down on water.’
‘Can’t say I like it all that much. Crazy really. Probably much safer to come down in the sea than on land.’
‘Probably.’ I polished my reading glasses with tremendous care.
He hitched down his for another close-up, and asked quietly, ‘Are you all right? I know they don’t serve any drinks on this flight, but they’ve surely got some brandy somewhere.’
‘I don’t want any, thanks. I’ll stop looking green in a minute. Just plain cowardice.’
His smile was kind. ‘I used to go green at school every time one sod of a housemaster hove in sight ‒ until I grew bigger than he was.’ He went on talking about his school until I stopped feeling sick and joined in with horror tales of my boarding-school. ‘My God, Charlotte! Sounds even worse than my sister’s. You mean they actually censored everything you read?’
‘I’ll say. When I was taking “O”s, my mum sent me a paperback written by one of her school chums ‒ nothing stronger than Eric ‒’
‘Eric?’
‘Or “Little by Little”. Bother, said Eric. It was the lad’s first oath! And our senior Matron took it out of my dressing table without asking me, to see if it was suitable ‒ blimey! Look at that!’
A thick grey curtain had suddenly appeared ahead and right across the entire sky and sea. Within seconds we were enveloped in the soaking, impenetrable cloud. The steward started re-checking the seat belts we had been asked not to remove, the plane started swaying, jerking, bouncing and the murmurs of conversation started to fade into a strained silence. The hostess stood by the rear door smiling brightly. The steward returned slowly fro
m a visit to the flight deck smiling with all his teeth. He had a lot of teeth. ‘Merely a wee deterioration in the weather,’ he repeated every few seats.
Rod smiled at me. ‘Don’t know about your hang up, but I’m already soaked to me string vest. Now what?’
The intercom had crackled to life. The pilot’s voice was as soothing as that of a good physician giving anxious relatives a death sentence. ‘We will be over Thessa airport in five minutes and make one run in. If we over-shoot, we will divert either to Kirkwall, or to Dalry.’
No one spoke at all as we slid downwards through the dripping, opaque, grey mass. Rod dropped one hand over mine on the seat arm, took off his glasses with the other, the Highlander opened his eyes then reclosed them, and the steward and hostess belted themselves in behind us, and before they noticed my backward glance, stopped smiling and looked gloriously bored. I could have hugged both and in consequence was able to breathe out before we felt the nose lifting again. The silence was shattered by one of the two middle-aged German women sitting a few seats ahead. ‘So! Return we must!’
Then again the pilot’s soothing voice, ‘As visibility is equally poor over the Orkneys, we will now return to the mainland.’
Rod mopped his face. ‘This’ll give my boss his coronary, but I ain’t complaining.’
‘Nor me.’
The atmosphere amongst the passengers had altered quite dramatically. The strain had vanished and been replaced by an almost euphoric mixture of relief, triumph and the untroubled certainty that our lives were in the hands of a pilot we trusted. It even stopped me worrying about myself, and I then found I was very worried about Thessa General.
In Storm and In Calm Page 2
