The Quiet Wards

by Lucilla Andrews

  He wandered off, shaking his head on the follies of spot diagnosing. I could guess that he was longing to call a pathologist, fever specialist, and possibly the Consultant Paediatrician as well. I did not say anything else. He would find out for himself that Dr Cutler was seldom, if ever, mistaken in a diagnosis. He was not this time. Harry, I heard later, had a mild temperature that evening, and then his throat settled again with as little reason as it had flared. Children’s throats do these things.

  That afternoon I went down to Kent. Ann and her husband welcomed me warmly, her children were sweet, and I enjoyed my stay with them and the opportunity it gave me to meet again my old friends in the village. While I was there I had a note from Matron telling me I could have two more days added to my holiday, to compensate for the off-duty I had missed in Out-Patients. I was due back on duty on the following Monday night.

  Although I was pleased in a way to return to my past, I was happiest when I was alone. I did a lot of walking over the windswept marsh that curled inland along that part of the coast and lay lonely and treeless, haunted by the ghost of the lost sea. It was odd being back on my home ground, odd and reassuring. I felt complete for the first time in months. I knew who I was and where I belonged. I did not have to explain my presence ‒ everyone in a village knows about everyone else ‒ and it was perfectly natural that I, Gill Snow, should be staying with Ann Black. My friends asked a few questions, ‘Did I like nursing? Wasn’t it terribly hard work?’ But these were merely opening gambits to give them the excuse to tell me how the church roof had broken again, and something had to be done for the organ fund.

  Something had always had to be done about the organ fund.

  And had I heard about the Parish Council meeting? There had been the most terrible scene about the bell-ringers.

  My father had been on that Council, and I never knew him to return from a meeting in which there had not been a terrible scene. My mother’s first question was ‘What was it this time, Bill?’ And I had to hear about the harvest. ‘Imagine, Gill, a whole field of clover seed wasted in all that rain! The stuff wouldn’t dry, and with so much turning the seeds fell out. Six hundred quid went up in a bonfire! Remember that happening to your father in ’46?’

  And the local hunt was having trouble. The Master was a good type, they said, ‘But M.F.H.s these days are not what they were. No discipline in the field.’

  I wondered when M.F.H.s had been what they were.

  It was all very pleasant and soothing, and if only I could have stopped thinking of John I should have been very happy. I never thought at all about Carol, the drugs, Peter, or the mess that had resulted from her one night in Robert. If she had not done that I wondered if she might not have done something with perhaps even more serious consequences. I never cared for the word ‘hate’ and was slow to use it even now. I could not understand how she could bother to dislike me so much; I was not important to her. Perhaps it was work, and the shock of her parents’ death, that had temporarily unbalanced her. What she had done was not normal, and abnormal people are ill people; that I had learnt in my training. I thought all this out when I was still in the hospital, and now I was home I did not bother with it again.

  What did bother me was the prospect of a future without John. Try as I could, and I tried hard, I could not see anything else for myself. I avoided thinking of that Saturday night in Christian. His defences were down because he was tired. I was just the available pair of ears. I would probably see a lot of him when I went back. Night Seniors do see a lot of the men ‒ that’s one of the minor attractions of night duty; not merely from the obvious point of view, but because the men, being doctors, know a lot more than we do, and most of them are keen on their jobs, and like to talk shop, and their conversation makes interesting and instructive listening. But when I left Christian I would be near the end of my training and, having done so much surgery lately, would almost certainly finish in one of the medical wards. I would have to be content with Dr Cutler, a nice little man and a clever physician. I was not at all content.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A STRANGER ON THE MARSHES

  Saturday night was dreadful. I went to bed early, hoping to sleep long before 1 a.m. I did not sleep; I lay and cursed myself for being so weak-minded, Matron for giving me these extra two nights, and the country outside my window for being so quiet. There was nothing to distract my mind, which was behaving in the usual way for the small dark hours. I married John to Frances Mack, Peter to Carol, Lisa to Tom; I had every girl in the place married and saw myself carrying my lonely lamp through the years until, arthritic and ailing, I ended up as a Home Sister in some provincial hospital that was too small and insignificant to afford a lift in the Nurses’ Home. I got really excited at the thought of their expecting me to drag my old legs up the stairs, and was composing an irate letter to an unborn hospital committee when I finally fell asleep.

  When I got back from church next morning I found Ann had packed me a picnic lunch. ‘I remembered our passion for picnicking in mid-winter, Gill. I thought you might like to spend your last day shivering in the open air!’

  ‘It’s a lovely day.’ I was delighted with the prospect. ‘I think it’s a splendid idea.’

  She looked doubtfully at the window. ‘At least it’s not raining yet. Where’ll you go?’

  I hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I think I’ll walk over our ‒ I mean the Frand’s ‒ land towards the sea. I’ll probably eat in a net-house. There’ll still be a few birds to look at.’

  I had avoided this specific part of the marsh since I returned, but now it looked so normal that at times I felt my father was walking with me. I saw his straight back, the old tweed hat he always wore, the leather patches on his jacket, and his mud-spattered boots, the insignia of a working farmer.

  I did not feel morbid or sad; I knew that his shadow would walk that marsh until the sea came back. He had dug, pumped, and farmed those acres for forty-two years, from the time he left school and joined his father when he was seventeen. I was the fifth generation to be born in the stone house that crouched on its knees against the wind. The fifth and the last; and, as we were a family that went in for only children, when my father died the farm was sold. There had been little profit from the sale, but what there was was sitting in the local bank until I was twenty-five.

  I stood and looked at the house, then turned towards the sea. There might be another family living there, but it was unchanged; the out-houses were painted in black and white as we had kept them, and the swinging fox over the oast-house was the one my grandfather had put there.

  The land beneath my feet altered; it grew firmer, there was less soil, and then miles of pebbled green rock; the pools through which I splashed were pools of salt water. The wind was rising as I reached the sea, it tore open the tight faces of a solitary carpet of sea-pinks, and the big gulls screamed over my head.

  I had no watch, but took my time from the pale sun. I ate my lunch in one of the ruined net-houses that were dotted at irregular intervals on the low rocks. After lunch I climbed on to the sea-wall.

  The wind was worse up there; it tore into my lungs and stifled my breathing. The wall was being strengthened against the spring flooding. There were no men working there today, as it was Sunday, but they had left their bricks and sandbags in neat mounds. I took shelter against one of these and got my breath.

  When I could breathe normally I looked round. I could see inland for miles, while behind me the urgent sea reached to the sea-wall, and demanded its lost entry. The noise was overpowering, and the sandbags against which I leaned vibrated. I relaxed and listened, and my body swayed slightly with the movement of the sandbags.

  Something that was not a bird moved from one of the far net-houses. I looked again and saw a man walking across the rocks far off on my right. I watched him out of disinterested curiosity, wondering if he was one of the Frands, or a local birdwatcher spending a Sunday with a cine-camera. The marsh in all seasons was a bird-wat
cher’s paradise.

  He stopped at a second net-house, stooped, and went in. Then he came out, straightened after the low doorway, and took off his hat. I could not see his face from this distance, but at his next movement I jerked away from the sandbags. He was pushing one hand through his hair, and even from this distance I could see his hair was black. I ignored all possibilities that this might be a stranger ‒ that the world is full of men who tug at their hair in moments of stress. I moved from my shelter and yelled; the wind was with me, and although he could not have heard what I said, he caught the sound of a voice. He turned my way, raised a hand in a slow wave, then came towards me.

  I half jumped, half climbed, from the wall, then slipped and skidded across the wet rocks, not stopping to wonder why and if he had come to find me. All I wanted was to reach him, and until I did that I would fight nothing but the wind.

  Suddenly he was in front of me, and he was looking at me as no man had ever looked at me. He said, ‘Your friend, Mrs Black, told me that I would find you somewhere here.’ His voice was slightly breathless, as if he too had been battling on that seawall. ‘I hope you don’t object to my asking her?’

  I said I did not object.

  He held his hat in one of his hands; his hands hung heavily at his sides. ‘I found the house quite easily, and Mrs Black was kind enough to ask me to wait with them until you returned; but I explained that I hadn’t very much time, so she suggested that I came over the marsh to look for you.’

  I felt dazed. ‘That was nice of her.’

  He said, ‘She seems a very charming person.’ He did not take his eyes from my face. ‘I hope’ ‒ it was then that I saw he was actually, and incredibly, nervous ‒ ‘I hope you don’t mind my coming down like this? I heard in town that you were having an extra couple of nights off, and I did so want to talk to you. Somehow I have never been able to manage that in town ‒ so I came. Do you mind?’

  I said, ‘No.’

  The wind from the sea hurled itself between us, and five plovers rose in a black and white cloud over our heads. He watched the birds, and then looked round the marsh and over towards the sea-wall. ‘We seem to be standing on the edge of the world’ ‒ he smiled slightly ‒ ‘but this is your world. It’s not very easy to talk here ‒ is there anywhere we can go ‒ one of those stone huts?’

  I said sedately, ‘Yes, we can go into a net-house. We’ll be out of the wind in one of them, and it’ll be less noisy than if we take shelter against the sea-wall.’ I walked away as formally as if I was leading him up a ward. I had to be formal; it was my last defence.

  There was some hay in the corner of the net-house, left by a thoughtful shepherd for stray sheep. It was musty but fairly dry. I sat down in silence, and he sat a yard or so away, leaning against the rough-stone wall. The building had a low roof and no windows, and the light tilted through the open doorway.

  I wanted so much to say something brilliant and kind; I could not say a single word. I stared at him dumbly and waited for him to go on, or for myself to wake up.

  He said at last, ‘I have always felt in town that if you listened to me it was because you thought you had to listen to me. And had I asked you out I would not have been sure whether you had not come out with me for the same reason. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The other night in Christian’ ‒ his voice was very deep ‒ ‘I told you that at times I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t mind your knowing that, and I don’t mind your knowing how much I have missed you this last week, and how I can’t stand this much longer.’ He picked up a piece of hay and methodically tucked it through the band of his hat, then took another piece and then another. ‘I have’ ‒ he twisted the hat and began on the other side ‒ ‘reached the point of no return where you are concerned. So I thought I had better come down and see you about it.’

  ‘Where ‒ I ‒ am ‒ concerned?’

  He looked at me. ‘Yes.’

  I said carefully, ‘Do I concern you?’

  He nodded. ‘Didn’t you know?’ He answered himself. ‘How could you? And why should you bother to know? It was not important to you.’

  I seemed incapable of doing anything but echo his words.

  ‘Not important to me?’

  He picked up another handful of straw and began sorting suitable pieces for his hat decorating.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had this upset over Kier,’ he said gently. ‘I didn’t mean to remind you of it ‒ but now I am. Of course, what I felt about you has been unimportant to you ‒ you have never been interested in any other man.’ He dropped his hat as if it was hot. ‘Perhaps I should not have come.’ He looked round at me. ‘No perhaps about it. I’ll’ ‒ he heaved himself on to his knees ‒ ‘I’ll push off and leave you to your walk.’

  I suddenly realised that I did not have to accept his going; that we were not in the hospital; that the barriers were down even though he was using his usual words.

  I said sharply, ‘No. Don’t push off.’

  He was standing, and bent nearly double because of that low ceiling. ‘You want me to stay?’

  ‘Yes.’ I held out a hand. ‘Please.’

  He took my hand and dropped down on to the hay.

  ‘Why?’

  I said, ‘Why have you come here today? Why today?’

  He put my hand down on the straw as if it was a package and leant back against the wall.

  He said, ‘This visit is two years over-due. I have wanted to talk to you, to be alone with you, since I walked into Peter and Paul when I got back to the general side as S.S.O., and saw you rushing round with the lunch trays.’ He looked round at me. ‘I did not know your name ‒ I discovered it very shortly ‒ at the same time I discovered that you and Kier were considered inseparable. Hospital etiquette,’ he said dryly, ‘works both ways. You wouldn’t even drink a cup of coffee with me the other night; how could I pester a second-year nurse, sixteen years younger than myself? You may not have wanted that coffee, but I have very much wanted to do more than that with you, for a long time.’ Still he did not take his eyes from my face. ‘A very long time,’ he repeated. ‘And why I chose today is that somehow I have seen so much more of you lately ‒ Robert ‒ O.P.s ‒ and then there was last Saturday night in Christian. And seeing so much more of you only accentuated how much I was missing. I know you are still upset over Kier, I saw how stricken you looked that night after I found you standing on the fire-escape outside Susan ‒ but I had to move in, now, before you left Joe’s for good, or met someone else. That is why I came today. And now,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ve said what I came to say ‒ would you like me to go?’

  I said, ‘Don’t go.’

  He did not answer. He sat very still.

  ‘That night outside Susan,’ I told him, ‘it wasn’t Peter that was wrong. I did feel stricken, but he wasn’t the cause.’

  He said, ‘Did Carol Ash tell you she had taken that morphia?’

  I stared at him. ‘How on earth did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t. I just worked it out. Remember my once telling you I thought it had been pinched intentionally?’ I nodded. ‘Well, I felt she was the most likely person.’

  ‘But ‒ she was supposed to be my greatest friend. Everyone knew that.’

  He said, ‘I knew it too. I also,’ he said deliberately, ‘knew her father. He was once a patient of mine. He was a clever man ‒ too clever. And he was quite ruthless when he wanted anything. His daughter always struck me as being very like him. Quite natural. And that was the kind of thing Ashton Ash would have done to someone who had something he wanted.’ He was silent, then he added, ‘He was a very bad patient.’

  ‘I never knew he was a patient of yours. Carol never told me.’

  ‘She may well not have known. This was some years ago, just after the war. I was R.S.O. in one of the provincial places. She and you were school children then. He came into the Private Wing.’ He frowned, ‘How did you find out?’

  I hesitated,
and he guessed why immediately.

  ‘My good child, you don’t seriously think I’m going to turn into an avenging angel? Don’t tell me if you don’t want to ‒ but I won’t do anything about it if you do. That’s how you want it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. No point in raking it up.’

  He said mildly, ‘And of course you wouldn’t have left it lying about to be swiped a second time.’

  I smiled slightly. ‘No one’ll swipe it now. It’s in the Thames ‒ or wherever it is the bath water drains into.’

  He smiled back. ‘I thought you were supposed to have learned hygiene? Since when has the Thames been a public drain?’ Then his voice and his expression changed. ‘You’ve had a rotten time over all this,’ he said softly. ‘And I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Kier.’

  He looked so miserable that I ceased to feel shy.

  ‘It doesn’t bother me any more.’ I looked at him. ‘Nothing bothers me, if you are there.’

  ‘Do you mean that, Gill?’ He was incredulous.

  I nodded. And then I was in his arms, and he was kissing my face, my lips, my hair. I ceased to worry about the things I still did not understand; I forgot everything but the strange and wonderful security that I felt in his arms ‒ the wonder of being there at all.

  In a little while he raised his head, but he did not let me go. ‘This isn’t just a reaction, dearest? A rebound from Kier? I’m happy to have you on any terms, but you wouldn’t be happy that way. You can’t marry a man’ ‒ his lips twisted ‒ ‘for his bed-side manner, my dear.’

  His words reminded me not of Peter but of Frances Mack. I moved away and he let go of me instantly.

  He said, ‘Kier is still in the way?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t been in the way for quite a while. Honestly. ‘But ‒’ I stopped. Old habits die very hard with me, and it was not easy to break the habit of years and ask him to explain his behaviour.

  ‘But what?’ He smiled rather wearily. ‘I don’t bite. Never have ‒ gave it up years ago. What’s worrying you?’