The Print Petticoat

by Lucilla Andrews

  I smiled. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re pursuing me? Beth and I have been wondering. We thought you were being a brother to us both.’

  ‘Me! A fraternal type.’ He buried his face in his hands. When he looked up his eyes laughed. ‘God, what a comedown. To think of all the liquor I’m wasting. Really, Joa ‒ you deserve to be left to the mercy of Richard.’

  ‘To hell with Richard!’ I said, and almost meant it.

  ‘To hell with him indeed. Have another drink!’

  He refilled our glasses, got up, handed me mine. Then he sat down on the sofa beside me. I smiled. It reminded me of Allan last night.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ said Marcus. As had happened once before with him, since I did not mind how he took it, I told him.

  ‘Allan was here last night,’ I said. ‘Sitting right there, on the sofa. Only he hadn’t any gin. We just drank coffee.’

  ‘Did he need any gin?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘honestly, I’d say he does all right without it.’

  Marcus twisted his glass. ‘So he does all right.’ He looked up. ‘For a quiet girl, Joanna, you certainly move around. Do you like being made love to?’ He shot out the last question.

  ‘How do you mean me to answer that?’

  ‘Honestly ‒ if you don’t mind. It’s interesting.’

  I thought about it. ‘Depends on the man. If I like him and he does it nicely.’

  Marcus shouted with laughter. ‘Darling! What ‒ or how ‒ does one make love nicely?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ I said. ‘No manhandling, nothing below the waist. I cannot bear roving hands.’

  He put down his glass. ‘You’ve always had a fixation about hands, Joa. Remember the dirty looks you gave mine at Elmhall. Shall I dispose of them this way?’ He turned to smile at me as he put them in his pockets.

  ‘Marcus, you are a lunatic,’ I smiled back. ‘No, one thing I must say for you. You don’t touch at random.’

  ‘Only kiss?’

  ‘That was hardly a kiss? More an irritated peck.’

  ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘this is the end. Now I peck! No,’ he said more seriously, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever touched you.’ He reached for my glass. ‘Have another.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I don’t like this orange-juice.’

  ‘Well, for Pete’s sake, woman! Drink it neat.’

  I stood up. ‘I don’t fancy getting tight in my own house, so thank you, no.’ And I went out and redid my hair.

  When I came back Marcus said did I want to go out to supper, or should we eat in?

  ‘I haven’t the energy to go out. The drink has finished me. I expect we’ve got something in the kitchen.’

  ‘You stay where you are,’ said Marcus, ‘leave it to Uncle. I haven’t done anything all day and I like cooking.’

  One thing about the Navy ‒ it does make men handy about the house. I waited for him to produce supper and thought that one day Marcus would make someone a good husband. The gin had taken the edge off Richard. I could think of husbands without wincing. Putting up my hair had hurt my shoulder. It was aching badly. When Marcus came back with the supper, I told him about it. I expected us to have a good laugh over my rheumatics. To my surprise he was suddenly serious.

  ‘Have you lost any weight lately?’

  ‘A bit. I always do in summer. It gets too hot to eat.’

  ‘What’s “a bit”?’

  ‘Stone.’

  He was very serious. ‘Do you always lose that much?’

  ‘Not always. This has been a rather hectic summer.’

  He was still dead serious. ‘Shouldn’t be as much as that.’

  ‘No, Marcus,’ I laughed. ‘I haven’t got tubercle. And it’s not carcinoma. I’m too young. If it were I would be dead already.’

  All medical students and student nurses are obsessed by those two diseases. Once they pass that fixation they never worry about illness again.

  ‘Sit up, Joanna,’ he said. He stood in front of me and put both hands on my shoulders. ‘Take a deep breath.’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Marcus,’ I said. ‘The scrambled eggs will have congealed.’

  ‘Stop being a bloody little heroine, Joanna. Sit still and breathe.’

  I did as he said.

  ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘your left shoulder seems slow to me. You ought to come up to Gregory’s and be screened.’

  ‘Rubbish. I’m only tired. I’ve only taken off what I put on at Elmhall. Midder always makes people fat.’

  He was not listening. ‘Your skin is too bloody good, Joa.’

  ‘Marcus,’ I said. ‘Do stop being a bore and saying bloody. I don’t mind the word, but I’m dead sick of my health. I’ve been tested. Years ago. It’s just rheumatism.’

  He saw I was getting annoyed, so he moved away, pushed up the table, and we ate the cold scrambled eggs.

  ‘I’ll just remind you,’ he said, pouring the coffee, ‘that Chesty always finishes his tubercle lectures by saying, “The Brompton Chest Hospital, gentlemen, is kept full by people who thought it was a touch of rheumatism, Doctor.” Anyway, I’m just a poor bastard of a medical student, so how should I know?’

  He asked me if I had told Allan or Richard. I said no. ‘Much as I appreciate your confidence, sweetie ‒ I do think this is one time you ought to confide in one of your big doctors. Are you going to marry Allan, by the way?’

  Again I said no.

  ‘Have you told him?’

  ‘Of course. It just never penetrates.’

  He nodded. ‘I know. That’s the worst of these manly men. Bloody ‒ sorry! Very thick-skinned. He just pats the little woman on the hand and says, there, there, Allan knows best!’ I smiled, ‘Aren’t you a manly man, Marcus?’

  He shuddered. ‘So help me! Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘Your height. The Navy. Your mania for Rugby football.’

  He grinned, and his eyes nearly disappeared. ‘Darling, you do have the damnedest ideas. How could I help the first two? Surely you realize I only play rugger as a way of being sure of a house job.’

  ‘Doesn’t everybody at Gregory’s?’

  ‘Naturally. How to be a successful young doctor! “And what were you in the fifteen at school, son? Fine! Then of course we have a vacancy for you, Mr Ormorod!”.’

  The rest of the evening I lay back listening to him talk. I laughed a lot. Marcus was always amusing, I wondered why it was I never really liked him. It was probably the quality of insincerity he carried around. Just at the end, he was quiet for a few minutes. I looked up. He was watching me again ‒ with the odd expression he had worn when I said I was full of unrequited love. He closed his face as he saw me looking at him. It was an extraordinary sensation. As if he had shut a door between us.

  ‘Time I went.’ He stood up. I began to move off the sofa. He pushed me gently back. ‘No. Stay there.’

  I looked up at his incredible height as he stood over me. I held out my hand.

  ‘Thank you very much, Marcus,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I was rude earlier. It was sweet of you to come.’

  He did not take my hand. It hung in mid-air. Then I put it down myself. As if it did not belong to me.

  Marcus stood still, looking down, saying nothing. I could not like him, but I could see his attraction. I was suddenly sorry for Mary Dursley, Jill Grant, and the nameless others.

  ‘Marcus, dear,’ I said, ‘say something if only goodbye.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘I’ll say something, Joanna,’ he said, and he used a voice I never heard him use before.

  ‘I will complain, yet praise,

  I will bewail, approve,

  And all my sowre sweet days,

  I will lament and love.’

  He wound his scarf slowly round his neck as he spoke. My eyes followed the folds of black, maroon, and green of his University’s Medical Society’s colours as my brain registered the words he had spoken and the strangeness that he should speak them.

  H
e bent down and kissed my mouth gently, slowly.

  ‘So now you know,’ he said conversationally as he straightened. ‘Goodnight, Joanna.’

  Chapter Eleven

  An Evening Alone

  One of The Havenne porters tapped gently at the open duty-room door with his foot. I looked up from the report I was writing. The porter stood in the doorway, a large, silver-painted florist’s basket, filled with orange gladioli, in each hand.

  ‘Sister off, Nurse Anthony?’

  I said she was. The flowers were for the new patient in my suite. I signed for them. ‘I’ll take them along. She’s mine.’

  ‘Don’t envy you, Nurse! She’s a caution an’ all. Saw her downstairs! Coming up now.’

  Her name was Ida. She arrived on the Floor a few minutes later. She was followed by three more baskets of gladioli (red), two extra porters carrying luggage, her maid, and a gentleman with a black felt-hat, who squeezed my arm and said he was sure I would look after his little Ida good, eh?

  I nearly asked him how was business in the barrow world. Then I remember the rent of my rooms and that business in the barrow world must have been very good indeed.

  Ida had come in to have a ganglion removed from her wrist. We got rid of the porters, maid, and husband. She asked if she had to get into bed.

  ‘Going to be ever so lonely, duck ‒ all on me own.’

  I said the anaesthetist would be along shortly. ‘He’ll want to look at your chest,’ I said, ‘before giving you an anaesthetic tomorrow.’

  ‘Gawd!’ said Ida. ‘Should I ’ave a nightie, ducks?’

  I said it was usual.

  ‘I’ll ’ave to get some, dear. Never wear ’em, see. Can’t see no reason for ’em. Still ‒ I’ll get my Bertie to bring ’em in, if you think it’s a good idea.’

  She told me she never wore pants either.

  ‘I mean, dear, I can’t bear to be all cluttered up like!’

  I filled in the Admission Book.

  ‘How do you spell the end of your name, Mrs Steinhyfer? Ph or F?’

  Ida painted her face, smeared mascara to her eyebrows in alarm.

  ‘Strewth, duckie. Don’t call me Mrs Steinhyfer! That’s me ’usband’s name.’

  I waited whilst she slapped on cold cream and removed the mascara.

  ‘I don’t use that name, duckie,’ she explained. ‘Never could bring meself to it. I mean I never liked ’im enough to use ’is name. Called meself Mrs Stein when I lived with ’im. That wasn’t long, neither!’ She thought for a moment. ‘’Course,’ she went on, ‘I could call meself Mrs Thacks ‒ that’s Bertie ‒ but I’m not really that yet. No. Tell you what! You call me Miss Bone. That’s me maiden name, see. Make me feel like a virgin again ‒ without no pain.’

  She closed her beauty-box with a snap, flapped her eyelashes, now improved by her handiwork to half an inch in length, and beamed.

  ‘There’s me slap on for the evening. For your ‒ what’s ’is name ‒ the chest bloke. My Bertie’ll be back soon, too. Am I okay, dearie?’

  I said truthfully that she looked terrific. She beamed again.

  ‘Thank you dear. Tell you the truth I do think I look a bit of all right.’ She tilted her fantastic head to one side. ‘You know, ducks ‒ if you don’t mind my saying it ‒ you could do with a bit of colour yourself. Ever such a lovely face you’ve got, dear ‒ all gentle-like ‒ all right for a nurse, but it wants a bit of paint! Still’ ‒ she shrugged ‒ ‘I expect you tart yourself up when you’re out of all that starched stuff?’ She was still looking me over critically. ‘Bit thin ‒ aren’t you, dear? Want to get a few more curves ‒ they like ’em curved! Still ‒ doesn’t seem right you being shut up in a place like this. Every one sick and groaning about. You want to get out ‒ ’ave fun. Ever you want to change your job,’ she finished kindly, ‘you let me know. I could use you in my line!’

  I had a sudden wonderful vision of Ida and myself lolling among red plush, gilt, and many, many mirrors. Preferably in Buenos Aires. Be very hot, all that plush. Ida burst my dream with the hideous news that her line was in the wholesale fur business; the business, an even bigger disappointment, was owned by her Bertie.

  Bertie came back to tea and all but got into bed himself. Ida and he sat entwined whilst Ida said they had been talking about me, they had, and Bertie had something to say to me.

  Bertie leered amicably and said the little lady was always right, but he also knew a smasher when he saw one and he knew I was going to take good care of his little Ida. Ever so.

  ‘And if you’re wanting anything in my line, Nurse ‒ wholesale fur ‒ that’s me. Well, you just tell my little lady, and her and me’ll see you get it.’

  I smiled politely and said my ‒ by now ‒ oft-repeated piece about no tips.

  ‘No tips,’ said Ida horrified, ‘don’t be so silly, ducks! You want to take what you can get in this life and ’ang on to it, dear! Isn’t that right, Bertie?’

  Bertie said his little lady was always right. Ever so.

  I told Beth about Ida that night at supper.

  ‘Joa ‒ they might sell you a mink coat for a song!’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘That at least I’ve learnt in The Havenne. The people that begin by offering handsome presents end up by leaving without bothering to say good-bye. And that’s not quite the reflection on my nursing it might at first appear!’

  I was unfair to Ida. She did say good-bye. Or rather, as she finally left The Havenne one evening after 6 p.m. when I had gone off duty, she asked Hilda, the maid, to say good-bye to me for her. Ida made me laugh so much during her ten days as my patient that I felt like giving her a handsome present myself.

  Sister came into the suite the morning after Ida had gone. Hilda and I were busy spring cleaning. The air was heavy with Chanel. Sister sniffed.

  ‘That Ida,’ she said, ‘there’s a baggage for you! And no better than she should be. What with her Mrs Stein ‒ my Bertie ‒ daft ‒ all daft! I wonder Sir Thomas puts up with such flibbertigibbets!’

  My shoulder was hurting badly at that moment, otherwise I should probably have laughed outright.

  With Ida gone, I had only one patient left, and as I was leaving myself in a few days the Floor Sister said I might as well take things easily, lass.

  Mr Franklin was English, a dramatist and film-scenario writer. He was a quiet, good-looking man in the late fifties. He suffered from having an over-large gastric ulcer, which caused him constant pain and occasional collapse when the ulcer bled. It was only in the latter circumstance that he could be induced to seek any form of medical aid. His dislike of the medical profession, his abhorrence of all forms of treatment, was beaten only by his hatred of nurses in any shape or form. He hated the entire profession. He had been admitted to The Havenne once before, when he had been Nurse Shanahan’s patient.

  Sister came into the nurses’ sitting-room one afternoon after lunch.

  ‘Mr Franklin’s coming back, Nurse Shanahan!’

  For the first time I saw Nurse Shanahan genuine in her distress.

  ‘Honest to God, Sister! It’s not true.’ The patches of rouge on her face were drowned by a purple flush that covered her face and neck from the dyed roots of her black hair, to the line of her white plastic dog-collar.

  ‘Aye,’ said Sister non-committally, ‘he’s coming back,’ she turned to where I stood.

  ‘Ye’d better ’ave a go at lad, Nurse Anthony. Or it’ll be a great day for the Irish!’

  ‘Honest to God,’ said Nurse Shanahan again after Sister had gone. ‘Honest to God, Anthony, I’m glad you’ve got that bastard.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked. ‘I know his name ‒ is it the Franklin?’ They said Honest to God it was. ‘Well, then ‒ he looks all right in photos, why is he so damned awful? And what’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Haematem,’ said Nurse Haddy, who had joined us for tea from the East End. ‘And he’s all right as far as that goes. He’s a good patient. Takes his m
ilk and doesn’t kick about diet. It’s just that he hates nurses!’

  ‘But why?’ If I was going to nurse this monster I wanted to find some chink of light, some weakness I could exploit. Patients have to be managed. The best way is through their own strength. You find what’s strong ‒ humour, toleration, capacity for pain ‒ hang on to that, you work in accord, and everything is splendid. Very occasionally you have to deal in reverse; it’s more difficult, but it can be done.

  Nurse Haddy sniffed. ‘He hates being mothered. He even complained Shanahan hung over him like a wet-nurse.’

  ‘Honest to God!’ I said.

  Quite unruffled by my surprise, Nurse Shanahan nodded, ‘You’ve no conception, Anthony! Not at all!’

  ‘He thinks we all talk too much ‒ yattety ‒ yattety ‒ yattety ‒ and’ ‒ Nurse Haddy had an inspiration ‒ ‘and he thinks we all want to go on the films. Dead scared he was that we’d ask him for a film-test.’

  ‘Did anyone?’ I asked.

  ‘Not a word,’ said Nurse Shanahan, ‘and who would want to work with men around like himself? Not at all.’

  Mr Franklin came in at tea-time. He appeared polite, quiet, and rather gloomy. As he had been bleeding internally for the past fourteen hours, none of this behaviour seemed out of place. However, having been warned by the girls, I decided to omit my patter and just stick to essentials.

  Mr Franklin and I exchanged not more than a half a dozen sentences that evening, and two of those sentences were ‘Good evening,’ and ‘Goodnight, I am going off duty.’

  The next day I carried out the same formula. I decided not to inquire after his health. In my nursing career several patients had told me how maddening they found the constant ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Better?’

  After four days of dead silence Mr Franklin looked up from his daily paper one morning as I brought in his 11 a.m. Milk. ‘What is your name, Nurse?’

  I told him.

  ‘You’re not Irish,’ he said.

  I said ‘No.’ He waited. I still said nothing. I smiled from across the room to show there was no ill-feeling but that I just was not the chatty type.

  ‘English?’ he suggested, and I agreed.