I was tying my shoelace when Paul came racing back. ‘Gran’pa, Mum says as she thinks she’s banged the back door and she’s come out without the key. Have you got yours?’
‘Oh, dear ‒ oh, dear!’ Grandpa shook his head. He looked very cold himself now that he had been without his jacket for several minutes.
‘Please go.’ I balanced myself on one foot. ‘They need you, and I promise you I’ll be all right. I’m warming up already,’ I added untruthfully. ‘All I’ve got to do is run back home and have a hot bath.’
‘I don’t like it. You come on after us ‒ unless you’re sure you live close. Right, Miss? Ta! I’m much obliged. Much obliged.’
When I had my shoes on, I squeezed my skirt yet again, buttoned my mackintosh right up, tightened the belt to keep out the wind, then fumbled in my pocket to see if I had brought a comb. Fortunately I had: a comb and a spare handkerchief. I dried my face with the handkerchief, scrubbing it hard, then attacked my hair in the same fashion before combing it. I was only about twenty minutes’ brisk walk from the hospital, I judged, and if I walked as fast as possible, and used the back streets as before, it was unlikely that I would be seen by anyone I knew, or attract attention from casual passers-by.
I was shivering violently again when I began walking. The wind seemed colder than ever. I had left the docks behind now and raced on past the warehouses and shops, keeping my eyes on the pavement. I passed the Italian restaurant swiftly with a feeling of relief that had nothing to do with my previous thoughts. Only ten minutes more and I would be in the shadow of the hospital. And then I stopped as I heard Tom’s voice call my name. ‘Sue! Wait! I’m coming across to you.’
He came over the narrow road in a couple of strides. He was looking very spruce in his fine examination suit. He held a paper bag that smelt of coffee under one arm, and under the other a yard-long loaf of French bread that contrasted oddly with his man-about-town appearance. ‘What are you doing round here?’ he asked with a smile. Then the smile dropped from his face as he noticed my hair. ‘How have you managed to get so wet? It hasn’t rained? And you look blue with cold.’
I laughed. It was not a successful laugh as my teeth were chattering again. ‘I’ve just walked into a bit of an accident. In the dock.’
‘You walked into the dock?’ He sounded incredulous, which was not unreasonable. ‘In this weather? Are you serious? But your mack is dry. And so are your shoes.’ Then he noticed the drips that were falling from my dress and forming a pool round my feet. ‘What have you been up to this time, Sue?’
My chattering teeth would not let me talk properly. ‘It’s a long story. I must get home and change, Tom. I’ll tell you later.’
He took my elbow. ‘You can’t go back to the Home like this. If you do any more walking in this wind you’ll get pneumonia. You must come back to our flat. It’s just round the corner.’ He propelled me along the pavement as he spoke. ‘Mrs. Jenkins is in. She’s our landlady. She’ll fix you up. You must dry off at once.’
‘But I’m nearly home. I can dry there.’
He ignored my protest. ‘You are coming with me, Sue. I’m not asking you about this,’ he added gently, ‘I’m telling you. Don’t waste your breath trying to explain what happened. There’ll be plenty of time for all that later. The one thing to do is to get you dry.’
After that I said no more. I felt peculiar as well as cold. My head felt heavy and light at the same time. I could not stop shivering, and it was a genuine relief to be told what to do and not to have to think for myself.
When we reached the house in which the men had their flat, Tom called, ‘Mrs. Jenkins! S.O.S.!’ as soon as he unlocked his front door.
A middle-aged woman with a lined face, grey hair and a pleasant expression bustled instantly out of one of the rooms on the ground floor, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Whatever’s the matter, Mr. Dillon? I thought you had gone to your exam. Hadn’t you better hurry? You mustn’t be late.’
‘I won’t be late,’ he said quickly, avoiding the anxious glance I had shot at him. ‘Mrs. Jenkins, we need your help.’ He told her that I had had an accident and fallen in the dock. It was not quite accurate, but I felt too weak to explain. ‘I have to leave Miss Fraser with you as my viva is so near,’ he ended. ‘We’ve got a good fire in our sitting-room, and the bath water is boiling in our flat. If you like, put Miss Fraser in our flat. The door is still open. None of the others will be in to disturb you. Mr. Jonathan is away, and the other two will be at the hospital until five. Use anything of mine you may need, Mrs. Jenkins ‒ rugs, dressing-gown, anything.’ He put the coffee and bread on the hall table. ‘Do you mind if I leave this here, too? I had better push off.’
Kind Mrs. Jenkins clucked like a motherly hen. ‘That’ll be all right, Mr. Dillon. You leave everything to me. I’ll see to your young lady for you.’
Mrs. Jenkins wasted no time. ‘I’ll run the bath and let you have some towels, Miss, and you can get nice and warm right away. Let me have your clothes.’ She clucked anxiously over the state of my dress once I removed my mackintosh. ‘It is in a state! I ought to give it a rinse through for you.’
I was able to dissuade her with the explanation that I intended sending it to the laundry just as soon as I got back to the Home. She insisted on removing everything I had worn for a little while. ‘I’ll dry them round my boiler downstairs, Miss. I’ve brought you up some of my Linda’s things. You’re much her size, dear, so I expect you’ll be quite comfortable.’
When she came back with an assortment of her daughter’s clothes, which included a scarlet sweater and thick woollen slacks, I could have hugged her with gratitude.
‘Is Linda out at work?’ I asked as I combed my steam-damp hair and felt gloriously warm for the first time for what seemed to me hours.
‘She’s at school, dear. Only fifteen still and doing ever so nicely, the teacher says. Now I’ll just fetch you up that cup of tea and you come and sit by the young gentlemen’s fire.’
I obeyed her, again gratefully, and thought I would be able to make my explanation over the tea. But when Mrs. Jenkins came up again she had on a coat and hat. ‘I brought you a little tray up, dear. Just you help yourself and make yourself at home. No one will disturb you. I’ve just got to slip out to the shops as it’s early-closing today. I’ll leave the front door on the latch as you’re here. I’ve put all your things to dry down in my kitchen, and I reckon they’ll be ready when I get back.’
It was very peaceful in that sitting-room. It was a fairly large room with a very masculine air; the walls were lined with medical books, the table, desk and most of the hard chairs were piled high with them. The four easy-chairs were covered in well-worn brown leather, the long sofa pulled close to the fire sagged comfortably at one end as if someone had dropped into it a little too heavily. The fire was making me sleepy. I curled up in my chair, watched the fire and thought about little Teddy. My eyelids drooped lazily. But I did not sleep long. About fifteen minutes later the front door of the house slammed and woke me with a start. For a moment I could not think where I was; then I heard footsteps on the stairs and remembered that Mrs. Jenkins was due back from shopping. I jumped out of my chair and went to the flat door. ‘Hallo!’ I called. ‘Did you get to the shops in time? I’ve just had a splendid nap and feel much better.’
But as I reached the door I saw that it was not Mrs. Jenkins after all. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I apologised to the young man in the neat dark suit and stiff white collar who was coming up the stairs. ‘I thought you were Mrs. Jenkins.’ His face was vaguely familiar. I guessed I had seen him with Tom in Casualty. ‘I expect you’ve come for Tom? Is your viva this morning, too?’ He took his time to answer, and raised both eyebrows at my question, as if I had been impertinent.
‘I’ve finished my exams, and I was not calling on Dillon,’ he drawled in a cool manner. ‘I believe he has his own final viva at this hour.’ He looked me over from the top of my now dry hair, to my feet, and raised his
eyebrows again. I did not doubt that I presented a somewhat odd appearance in Linda’s scarlet sweater, navy slacks, and Mrs. Jenkins’s carpet slippers, but I felt it would have been more polite had he not made this seem so obvious. ‘I suppose you are staying in the flat?’ he said.
I was too surprised to be embarrassed yet. ‘Oh, no! I’m just visiting. Everyone is out, and Mrs. Jenkins made me some tea, and ‒ well, I was just getting warm.’
‘I must apologise for disturbing you,’ he said smoothly. ‘Did you say everyone is out? I rather wanted to see Mark Jonathan.’
‘He’s out. I mean away. He has gone home for a holiday. He went yesterday.’
‘Indeed?’ His tone was openly incredulous. His eyes rested on my face. ‘Aren’t you one of our nurses?’
‘Yes. I’m Susan Fraser.’
‘Of course,’ he drawled. ‘Susan Fraser. That would explain it.’
‘Explain what?’ I stiffened. ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit dumb, Mr. ‒’
‘Illingworth. Stephen Illingworth.’
I thought, You would be. I said, ‘How do you do?’
He looked round in answer. He looked down the stairs, then over my head to the open flat door. He was very like his cousin, Nurse Illingworth, I realised, now I knew of their relationship, and it was his resemblance to her that had made him seem vaguely familiar. ‘I suppose I couldn’t come in and wait?’ he said.
‘Please do.’ I stood aside. ‘Tom said he would be back fairly soon. He’ll be able to tell more about Mark than I. I expect Tom has his address.’
‘You’re sure I won’t be disturbing you, Miss Fraser?’ He was almost offensively polite now.
‘You won’t be disturbing me at all,’ I reported firmly. ‘I was just leaving, in any case. There’s a fire in the sitting-room.’ I went back to that room with him and collected the tray Mrs. Jenkins had brought for me. ‘So you can wait in the warm.’
He said I was being most kind. ‘If Jonathan ‒ that is to say, Dillon, returns, have you any message?’
‘No, thank you, Mr. Illingworth.’
He smiled quizzically. ‘Do I even mention that we have met?’
I stared at him. ‘Naturally. How else could you have got in?’ I could not understand what he was getting at; but as I realised that my curt ‘no, thank you,’ had been a mistake for some reason that I could not yet fathom, I added, ‘Well, perhaps you might just say, “Thank you” to Tom for me, and tell him Mrs. Jenkins has been wonderful.’
‘Thank you ‒ and Mrs. Jenkins has been wonderful. I’ll do that. Rest assured, Miss Fraser.’
I thanked him again, smiled what I hoped was a civil goodbye, and went down to the kitchen to look for my clothes, feeling thoroughly ruffled. It was stupid of me to have allowed myself to be annoyed by his mannerisms. I ought to be sufficiently used to Nurse Illingworth to realise that he probably could not help his affected drawl or superior attitude. I certainly could not follow why he had been so clearly incredulous of my saying Mark was away on holiday. Why shouldn’t he be away on holiday?
Mrs. Jenkins did not return before I left her kitchen, so having washed up the crockery I had used and laid Linda’s clothes in a neat pile on the kitchen chair, I found an old envelope in my mackintosh pocket and a stub of pencil on the dresser and wrote her a little note of thanks. I added a line at the end, asking her to thank Mr. Dillon for me also. I would have liked to have waited to see both her and Tom to give my thanks in person, but did not want to linger, not only because of Mr. Illingworth’s supercilious presence in the flat upstairs, but because time was passing and I had to be at twelve-thirty lunch and on duty at one. I left the note on top of Linda’s clothes and let myself quietly out of the house.
It was bitter outside; the wind seemed even colder than when Tom had brought me in, and I raced back to the hospital. It was probably the pace that tired me, for I was very tired when I reached the Home, and my legs felt strangely heavy. A queer little pain arrived from nowhere and shot round the back of my chest. I decided the pain was due to muscular strain after my swim. When I was in a clean, dry uniform, my legs felt less heavy, but that funny little pain still lingered.
Joseph Ward was as busy as I had anticipated that afternoon. I struggled from cot to cot, too busy to have time to wonder why my head was so hot, my hands so cold, or why not only my legs, but every bone in my body seemed to be aching separately. I saw little of Nurse Illingworth when she came on at five, but later, when all the children who had been operated upon that afternoon had come round from their anaesthetics and gone to sleep again, Nurse Ellis told Illingworth and me to make stock at the centre table while she went to senior supper. I was so glad to be able to sit down that I positively welcomed the idea of making stock with Illingworth. We sat in silence for several minutes, rolling cotton-wool, cutting gauze swabs. As we sat there, I was vaguely conscious of the many glances with which Illingworth was favouring me, but I felt too ill to pay any attention to them.
She put down the scissors and went round to look at all the children. When she sat down again, she said, ‘These scissors are getting hopeless. They’ll have to be sharpened before we use them again. Have you got yours handy, Fraser? I’ve left mine in my room.’
‘Use mine, Nurse.’ I reached automatically for my bib pocket. My pen was there, not my scissors. I tried my other pockets, then shook my head and wished I had not, as that made it ache more. ‘I must have left mine in my room, too, Nurse. I changed in rather a hurry this morning. I expect they’re still on my dressing-table.’
Her raised eyebrows reminded me instantly of her cousin. ‘Might you not have left them in Mark Jonathan’s flat this morning?’ She smiled thinly. ‘I hear you are quite at home there. I expect you think you’re rather clever to have made so many student friends so soon in your training? It must be amusing, having somewhere to go and make tea and curl up by the fire. But why don’t you wear your slacks about the Home? I’ve never seen you in them. Do you think Home Sister wouldn’t approve?’ She waited, but as I said nothing, she went on in the same even tone, ‘Home Sister is very good about our wearing what we like off duty, although naturally there are some things she probably wouldn’t approve of. I doubt if Matron would either.’ She smiled again. ‘Actually, my cousin said he was a little surprised to find one of our nurses making herself so at home in a student’s flat. If you’ll forgive my telling you, Fraser, you ought to be more discreet. Things get around. If you go on behaving as you do ‒ well, there’s bound to be talk.’
I said slowly, ‘I expect you’re right. Although why anyone should be interested in the fact that I got rather wet this morning, and was offered a fire by Tom Dillon, who had to go to his viva, and hot tea and a change of clothes by his landlady, I can’t imagine. Her name is Mrs. Jenkins. I borrowed her teenage daughter’s clothes. Then she went out shopping. I was waiting for her to come back when your cousin arrived. I was quite alone. And that’s all.’ I kept my eyes on her. ‘Why should Matron object to that?’
She smiled artificially. ‘When you put it like that, of course she wouldn’t object. But don’t you think it looked peculiar?’
‘Not unless someone had a peculiar mind,’ I replied quietly.
She coloured. ‘Really, Fraser, I see no need for you to get on a high horse. You may think you can talk your way out of anything, but I think I should warn you that my cousin Stephen said he thought the Dean would take a pretty dim view of not only your conduct, but the men concerned. I know three of them are still only students, and students are allowed a lot of rope, but Tom Dillon scarcely qualifies as a student. Didn’t you say it was he who said you could use the premises? That’s rather strange for Tom Dillon, isn’t it? He’s not that kind of person, one would have thought.’
I had not been angry about myself; but was furious that she should talk like this about Tom. ‘What kind of a person?’ I demanded hotly.
She shrugged. ‘Come now, Fraser! You don’t have to act dumb with me. You know quite well what
I mean.’
I opened my mouth to answer her still more sternly, and was prevented by Nurse Ellis’s return. After that we had no further opportunity for conversation, and for the remainder of that evening on duty I was too distressed to care whether I felt ill or not. I was desperately worried for Tom. I realised exactly what she was insinuating. Any breath of scandal now might upset Tom’s chances of getting a post for which he had worked for years, and which he so deserved.
I felt really ill with anxiety as I walked wearily to supper. I could not eat at all; I toyed with my food and left my plate almost untouched. Chapel seemed to last much longer than usual; normally I felt soothed for the night after Chapel, but that night I was too distressed to be calmed. I went back to my room, avoiding my set. I wanted to be alone to think how I could prevent this malicious little bit of gossip from getting to the hospital grapevine. I must prevent it, even if it meant going to Matron herself. Then I remembered Home Sister’s relationship to Tom. The recollection illuminated my mind like a ray of sunlight on a grey day. That was the answer. I must just go down to Home Sister now and tell her everything that had happened this morning.
I took off my cap, tidied my hair and replaced my cap quickly. As I put down my comb I looked casually for my scissors. They were not on my dressing-table. They must have been in the pocket of that other dress this morning, and I had obviously lost them for good. I was sorry about this; they were good scissors, and I was fond of them; my father had given them to me.
My door was flung open. Jill and Agatha burst in, followed by Sally. They looked pink in the face and about to explode with anger. Sally closed the door quickly. ‘Sue!’ Jill seized my arm. ‘Sue! What have you been up to? Chalmers has just been holding forth in the sitting-room. She’s got hold of some crazy story about you in Mark Jonathan’s flat, and she says ‒’
I waved them down. ‘It’s all right, girls. Relax. She’s got it all wrong.’
The Fair Wind: A moving 1950s hospital romance (The Anniversary Collection Book 6) Page 11
