The Lonely One

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Of course – of course,’ she said. ‘Er – shall I make a cup of tea? I wasn’t going to go to tea in the dining-room – and I’m due back on duty at five – ’ She was talking just to make conversation now, as she looked covertly at Liz’s strained face.

  ‘Er – er – no thanks. I’m not really thirsty – ’ Liz came across the room to perch uncomfortably on the edge of the bed, and began to twist her fingers in her lap.

  ‘Look, Bridget – ’ she began. Then stopped.

  ‘Well?’

  Liz took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got a message for you – from Bobby.’

  Bridget stiffened. ‘Oh?’ she said politely, her face smooth, not wanting to let Liz see how she felt about Bobby.

  Liz leaned forward impulsively. ‘Oh, Bridget, please – don’t be angry. She knows she treated you badly – but she’s truly sorry – I think – and she wants to talk to you. She – she needs a friend, you know. Very much.’

  Bridget raised her eyebrows at that. ‘Oh, come off it, Liz. She doesn’t need me. What about you – and Judith?’

  ‘Judith!’ Liz put a world of scorn into the name. ‘Judith makes me sick. She won’t go near Bobby. Scared Matron’ll think she’s the same sort of person Bobby is, and terrified the old girl’ll tell her parents – and you know what her father’s like. Not that that’s any excuse. Because Judith is like Bobby. I mean, Judith – well, she’s been behaving just as Bobby did. The only difference is, she’s been lucky, and got away with it. It’s Bobby who – got caught.’

  ‘Hasn’t she even been to see Bobby in the sick bay?’

  ‘Not her! I tell you, Judith has dropped Bobby as though she never even met her! She’s going around the place as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, too bloody good to be true. And you can bet your bottom dollar she’ll go on that way. No, Bobby’s got no friend in Judith.’

  ‘What about you, then?’ Bridget said evenly. ‘Or are you scared to admit that you’re a friend of Bobby’s, too?’

  Liz flushed. ‘No! It’s not like that at all! I – I haven’t been as close to the others as I was before – before last Christmas, I mean. Ken – well, he and me – we were both so sick about what happened – I mean, we had no idea that you didn’t care for David Nestor. We thought you did – and that – oh, I don’t know. It’s funny, really. When – when you’re really in love with someone, you think every other couple is the same as you are. Ken and me, we both thought that you and David, and Bobby and Josh, and Judith and Clive were like us. In love, you see, and – and only wanting to be – together because you were in love. And when we realised that you – that Bobby had sort of engineered you into coming down that weekend, that you didn’t even know what she was up to, we felt sick. And since then, I just haven’t been so friendly. I mean – I didn’t drop them or anything – I’m not like that. I just haven’t been so friendly.’

  ‘And now, you don’t want to see Bobby at all,’ Bridget said flatly.

  ‘Oh, let me finish, Bridie, please!’ Liz said urgently. ‘It’s not that at all. Look, Ken has a new job – he goes to Scotland next month to a junior consultancy – it’s marvellous, really. I mean, we’ll be able to get married almost right away. And I’ve asked Matron to arrange for me to finish my training at the same hospital where Ken will be. They don’t mind married students there, Matron says, and she’ll – give me a good reference. So I won’t be here, you see. So, like I said, Bobby – needs a friend.’

  Bridget stood up, and began to prowl restlessly about the room. ‘Look, Liz. I know you mean well – but how can I just – just go and see Bobby as though nothing ever happened? I – I thought you three were such wonderful people – especially Bobby. You were everything I ever wanted to be – gay and relaxed and happy – you know? And I needed you all as friends so much. That was – why it all happened, really. I was so scared you’d not want me if I didn’t go along with you – with Bobby, really, though I thought you were all the same, I suppose. And then – then you – she let me down. It hurt. A lot. I’ve – got used to being on my own again, like I always was. It doesn’t matter so much any more. I don’t think I could bear to start again. Not after what’s happened.’ She stopped by Liz, then, and said earnestly, ‘Please, don’t think – that it’s a moral thing. That I – don’t approve of what Bobby did. I mean, I don’t – I think it’s – awful. Sickening. But I’m not the sort to turn my back on someone just because I think they’ve been stupid, and behaved badly. It’s just that I don’t think I could be a friend of hers again.’

  ‘Poor Bridget,’ Liz said softly. ‘I just didn’t know. That you were so – lonely. I thought you were reserved because you liked to be that way. You were – sweet and quiet, and I left it at that. I never thought very much about what went on behind people’s faces – not till I met Ken and – fell in love with him. I’ve grown up a bit since then. I’m sorry about it all, really I am, Bridie. If – if I’d known what Bobby was like, what she would do to you, I’d never have just sat by. But I didn’t know, truly I didn’t.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Bridget said.

  Liz smiled crookedly at that. ‘Well, that’s something. But about Bobby, Bridget. I see what you mean – but couldn’t you at least go and see her? She wants you to – and the least you could do is to tell her yourself how you feel.’

  There was a long pause, then Bridget said unwillingly, ‘All right. I’ll go and see her. But only to make it clear that I can’t just pick up again where I left off.’ Impulsively, she leaned over, and hugged Liz warmly.

  ‘And I’m awfully pleased about you and Ken, Liz, truly I am. I hope you’ll both be very happy, and – and have a marvellous life together up in your Scottish hospital.’

  Liz lit up at the thought of her bright future.

  ‘Isn’t it marvellous? I’m so lucky, Bridget, and I know it. Ken’s a wonderful person – ’

  She glowed as she thought of her Ken, then looked shrewdly at Bridget. ‘What about you, Bridie? I know now that you never cared for David, but isn’t there anyone else on the horizon for you? It’s so lovely to be in love – I sort of want to see everyone else as happy as I am.’

  ‘Me?’ Bridget managed a smile. ‘Oh, don’t think about me! I’m not the marrying sort, I suppose. I mean, when you all used to talk about meeting doctors here, and marrying one, I never really saw it as you all did – ’

  Liz made a face. ‘Don’t remind me about the way we used to talk. I – don’t think I meant it, really. I used to talk like the others did because it seemed the – smart thing to do. I didn’t set out to – to catch Ken, honestly I didn’t. It just happened.’

  Bridget laughed then. ‘I believe you,’ she said again, and Liz, too, laughed, and relaxed a little.

  They talked of casual things then, and when it was time for them both to go back on duty, they walked across the courtyard in companionable silence. At the door to the main block, where they parted, Bridget to return to Theatre, Liz to go back to the Gynae ward she was now working on, Liz said impulsively, ‘I’m sorry I’m going away, in one way. I mean, you and I could be real friends I think. Will you write to me?’

  ‘I will,’ Bridget promised, and smiled. ‘And knit things for your babies too.’

  Liz laughed. ‘Plenty of time for that,’ she said. ‘But I hope I have dozens some day.’ She sobered then. ‘Poor Bobby – ’

  ‘Yes – ’ Bridget said. ‘I suppose so. Poor Bobby – ’

  There were no cases that evening on Theatre, only a mass of clearing up from the day’s lists, and Bridget settled to the long tedious chores with a sigh. She had promised Liz she would go and see Bobby, and she would keep her promise. But she didn’t relish the idea of facing her one bit.

  ‘I’ll go tonight, after I get off duty,’ she told herself, as she industriously scrubbed instruments, and laid them in neat rows in the gleaming cupboards. ‘Better get it over with – ’

  When she went up to supper, an hour before she was due off duty,
she stopped at the porter’s lodge in the main hall to see if there were any letters. The only letters she ever got were the monthly, short, typewritten notes from Mr Lessiter, who wrote out of a sense of duty about his guardianship, notes which Bridget as dutifully answered. One of these letters was due, so Bridget thought she might as well go and see if it had arrived.

  It had, and she took it from the porter with a brief thanks, and turned to go, tucking it into her apron bib.

  But he called her back. ‘Nurse Preston! There’s something else for you – ’ He leered at her. ‘By hand, this one – ’ and he gave her a thick white envelope, with her name written across it in a firm hand.

  She stared at the envelope, and said wonderingly. ‘For me?’

  ‘You’re the only Preston we’ve got, ducks!’ the porter said. ‘It’s for you, all right – ’

  She tucked it into her apron with the other letter, and went on to supper with a faint frown on her face. Though she had no idea who the letter was from, not recognising the handwriting, she felt obscurely that this was something to be read in privacy, that it was somehow too important to read in public. So she hurried through her meal, and went back to the peace of the quiet theatres to perch on a tall stool in the sluice, out of Sister’s way, to slit the envelope in peace.

  ‘My dear Bridget,’ she read. ‘Since you flatly refuse to talk to me, this is about the only way I can communicate with you. For God’s sake, Tiddler, read this. Don’t just screw it up. That would be childish, wouldn’t it? And I don’t think you are as petty as that, even if you do refuse to talk to me.

  ‘In a way, it’s easier to write all this than to say it. When you stand and stare at me with those big, grey eyes of yours, all icy, I find myself almost at a loss for words – which is an extraordinary way for me to be. But that is the effect you have on me – if you didn’t, believe me, you wouldn’t be able to get away from me as you always do.

  ‘Tiddler, dear Tiddler. I’ve been trying to tell you for a long time that I care a great deal for you – I’ve watched you this past year or more, watched you with David, and since, on your own, and I have ached to know you better. There is something about you that makes me – I don’t know. I’ve certainly never felt about any other girl as I do about you. And that brings me to what I must say to you.

  ‘From the beginning, I’ve spent a lot of time with Bobby. I don’t for a moment intend to pretend otherwise. But I want you to know that she meant no more to me than any other girl has ever meant – someone who was – fun, if you like. You must try to understand, Tiddler. Ever since I was little more than a kid, I’ve liked girls. And they’ve liked me. Does that sound big-headed? I suppose it does. But there it is. I’ve slept around – my God, but that looks revolting in cold print! But it’s true. If a girl was willing, then I was too. But if you can understand this, it never meant anything to me more than a passing affair. Fun. Immoral, I suppose – but I’ve no great claims to being a great moralist. I’ve seen sex as – as an appetite like any other, one to be satisfied where and when I could.

  ‘But now, I feel very different. I don’t want any more of these grubby affairs. For the first time in my life, I’m in love. And now I’ve said it. I’m in love, with you, my own Tiddler, and somehow, I’ve got to make you see that, got to make you see me, if you possibly can, with new eyes. Try to forget that I was the man you knew, who carried on an affair with a friend of yours. Can you forgive that? Can you try to see me as a man who loves you very much indeed, and wants nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with you?

  ‘And to make sure the slate is clean, to help me more than you really, there’s something else I want you to know. This grim business about Bobby. I had no part in it – to put it bluntly, her pregnancy was not due to me. I know that. That night at Bobby’s place last Christmas finished things as far as I was concerned. I can still see your face that night, and I feel sick with anger whenever I remember it. You must believe this, Tiddler, you must.

  ‘Please, my own love, please, think about this. And talk to me about it. I love you. And even if you feel now that you can’t forgive me, please give me a chance. Talk to me. Let’s spend some time together. Give yourself a chance to get to know me. Then, if you can’t love me, I’ll try to accept the fact with the best grace I can muster. But somehow, I’m going to make you care for me as I care for you. I must. You’re the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. Josh.’

  She sat for a long time, after she had folded the letter and put it back into her apron bib. A long time, not thinking, just sitting staring at the tiled wall of the sluice.

  Then, she took a deep, shuddering breath, and dropping her head into her hands, wept bitterly. It was almost more than she could bear. That Josh should write as he had, that he loved her – nothing else mattered. The past, his and Bobby’s, was dead, and a bright, a glittering future stretched ahead of her. And she wept as though her heart would break, her mind whirling with the pain and the joy of it all.

  Chapter 12

  She went off duty at half past eight, leaving the theatres clean and quiet behind her, smiling so brilliantly in response to Theatre Sister’s ‘Goodnight’ that the lady told herself in surprise that young Preston looked positively beautiful tonight. And then sighed sharply as she remembered the days when she, too, had been able to look like that.

  Bridget stood undecided outside the big double doors for a moment. What she wanted to do was to go over to her room to re-read Josh’s letter, now sitting warmly inside her apron, feeling as heavy as if it were written on a clay tablet. But she had promised to go and see Bobby. And somehow she felt obscurely that until she had seen Bobby, made the break with the past complete, as it were, she could not really think properly about what Josh had written.

  So she straightened herself, took a deep breath, and walked purposefully along the corridor towards the doors that led to the little complex of private rooms that was the staff sick bay.

  There was a staff nurse on duty there, sitting writing a report in her little office, and she nodded in response to Bridget’s request to visit Nurse Aston.

  ‘All right. She’s much better – probably going convalescent in a week or so, and Matron said she could have visitors. Nip along – she’s in the end room on the right.’

  At the door, Bridget stood for a long moment, then took another deep breath, and tapped on the panels.

  ‘Come in,’ Bobby’s voice came muffled from the other side, and Bridget opened the door and went in, to close it behind her so that she could lean against it.

  Bobby was sitting up in bed, the only light in the room coming from the bulb above her head, a light that cocooned her in brightness, lighting her fair hair to a gleaming sheet of blondeness.

  When Bobby raised her head, Bridget gasped a little with shock. The beautiful round face, the sleek health that had always invested that face with a peach-like bloom, had gone. Her cheeks were thinner, her eyes so deeply shadowed in their sockets that they seemed to be violet in colour. Her temples were translucent, giving her face a mask-like look that aged her immeasurably.

  There was a long silence, while the two girls stared at each other. Then Bobby said huskily, ‘Hello, Bridget.’

  ‘Hello, Bobby.’ Bridget managed a narrow-lipped smile. ‘How are you?’

  Bobby stretched her arms above her head, letting the diaphanous sleeves of her blue nightdress fall back, so that Bridget could see that even her arms had become stick-like in their thinness. ‘As well as can be expected. Isn’t that what they always say?’ Bobby said, and dropped her hands on to the covers again. ‘It – it’s nice of you to come, Bridie, love.’

  Somehow, the familiar expression made Bridget want to cry. This girl was such a wreck of the old Bobby, so different, that to hear familiar words on her lips was eerie, somehow.

  ‘Liz – said you wanted to see me,’ she said baldly, sounding curt in her effort to control the rush of feeling Bobby’s greeting had roused in her.
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br />   ‘Come and sit down, Bridie,’ Bobby said. ‘There’s a chair over there.’

  Obediently, Bridget brought the chair, and came and sat beside the bed, folding her apron neatly on her lap for something to do – anything to avoid looking at Bobby.

  ‘Bridie – I – I owe you an apology. I’ve owed it to you for a very long time. And I – wanted to tell you so.’

  ‘Please – ’ Bridget began. ‘Please, Bobby, don’t – ’

  ‘But I must,’ Bobby said, almost fretfully. ‘I must. I treated you badly, Bridie, and I know it. I shouldn’t have – I shouldn’t have let you think that weekend was going to be anything other than what it was – ’

  Bridget bit her lip. ‘Well, I suppose I should have realised,’ she said slowly. ‘I – was a bit naive, to put it mildly.’

  ‘Honestly, Bridie – I didn’t know. I truly thought you liked David – I had no idea he’d turn so – nasty. If I had known – ’

  ‘Oh, Bobby, for God’s sake!’ Bridget was angry suddenly. ‘Don’t try and tell me that. I mean, if you really were surprised, as you suggest, when he – he got so nasty – you wouldn’t have told Josh to – leave us alone. And you did. That’s what hurt me most I think. I mean, David – David tried to – to – ’

  ‘To force you to sleep with him,’ Bobby said, watching Bridget as she said it.

  ‘Yes. And when Josh interfered, you told him to leave us alone – to let us sort it out for ourselves. And that – wasn’t kind, to put it at it’s mildest.’

  ‘I know – I know.’ Bobby began to pleat the sheet between her fingers. ‘I – I didn’t think.’

  ‘And you told me I’d ruined the weekend, remember? Ruined the weekend! You didn’t seem to care – care about what might have happened to me – ’

  ‘Please, Bridie, don’t,’ Bobby said. ‘I’m truly sorry, really I am. Can’t you forgive me? Can’t we be friends again?’