To Have and to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Come on up and sit on the bed where I can look at you.’

  ‘Dr Connolly,’ Carmel said in mock severity, ‘you know that sitting on the bed is expressly forbidden.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Paul said. ‘And you know what? Since I have been on the other end, so to speak, I have come to realise that we have stupid rules that don’t make any sense. How can I tell you how grateful I am to you for saving my life so that you can see in my eyes that I mean every word from the bottom of my heart if you don’t sit on the bed?’

  Carmel waved her hand dismissively, but Paul caught hold of it and held it tight. ‘Don’t say it was nothing, please,’ he said. ‘The doctors gave it to me straight. If you hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t be here today.’

  Carmel was embarrassed by Paul’s humbleness and relieved to see his parents approach the bed. She got to her feet and extended her hand to greet them.

  ‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘We only met the once. You’d hardly remember me. You were rightly concerned about Paul then.’

  As she shook Carmel’s hand Emma noticed the easy way the girl used her son’s Christian name and she saw a light shining in her son’s eyes that had never been there before.

  ‘Please stay a little longer,’ Paul pleaded. ‘My parents too would like to thank you.’

  ‘I can only stay a minute or two,’ Carmel said. ‘You know there are only two allowed at the bedside and if Matron was to see me breaking yet another hospital rule, she really would haul me over the coals.’

  Emma knew she had much to thank this girl for because she had saved her son’s life, but she hoped Paul’s gratitude didn’t run to him fancying himself in love with her. She was just a nurse and not the right companion for Paul, even if she was a friend of her niece’s. Emma had set her sights for Paul a little higher than that. However, she knew she had to keep these thoughts to herself and so she thanked the girl.

  Carmel accepted her thanks graciously, although she had noticed Emma’s cold eyes and knew the woman was just going through the motions.

  Jeff was as different again. Always naturally effusive and swayed by a pretty face, he was busy pumping Carmel’s hand up and down as if he never intended to let it go, while he told her over and over how grateful he was.

  ‘We don’t know how to thank you. Indeed, we are all indebted to you,’ he went on. ‘When I think of how the outcome could have been so different…Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. If it hadn’t been for your intervention and with you knowing what to do as well…Lois has done nothing but sing your praises. You really are a remarkable and very brave young lady. And don’t you try and pass it off as if it was nothing,’ he said, wagging his finger at her in mock severity. ‘You were brave. Those doctors told me how it was—the dark entry you ventured into when you heard Paul groan, when many would have passed by, just kept on walking and told themselves it was none of their business. But you are made of sterner stuff. As I say, without you, this son of mine might not be lying in a hospital bed today, getting the best of treatment and being waited on hand and foot, and let me tell you—;’

  ‘Dad,’ Paul interjected, ‘you have told enough. You haven’t let Carmel get a word in edgeways and you have embarrassed the life out of her, so that her face is the colour of beetroot at the moment. Leave her alone now. I think she has established just how grateful you are.’

  Jeff took his son’s rebuke and said sheepishly, ‘I do get carried away. Sorry, lass.’

  The apology made Carmel feel worse. ‘Please don’t apologise,’ she said. ‘I do understand how you feel, but truly, anyone would have done what I did and I’m just thankful that Paul has made such a remarkable recovery. And now I must leave you, because out of the corner of my eye, I can see Matron making her way towards me with all guns blazing.’

  Paul knew she would get into trouble if she lingered further and so instead he said, ‘Will you come again?’ And when she hesitated he went on, ‘Please? Come tomorrow.’

  ‘All right then,’ Carmel said. ‘I am on days this week. I’ll come tomorrow evening. Now I really must dash. Lovely to meet you again,’ she said to Paul’s parents before beating a hasty retreat.

  ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ Lois said, when Carmel got back to their room.

  ‘I don’t suppose so. Now everyone has got their thanks out of the way, maybe I can have a normal sort of visit next time.’

  ‘And mop his fevered brow, like?’

  ‘Do you know you are just about the most aggravating person to know?’ Carmel said. She lobbed a pillow at Lois’s head and the two collapsed in giggles.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Carmel wasn’t the only one to visit Paul—in fact, he often had a plethora of visitors. His friends went usually in the morning, the rules relaxed somewhat with Paul being a doctor. His parents also went frequently and Paul told Carmel one evening that even his brother had made a flying visit from Paris. Lois wanted to see Paul too, of course, and her parents, and yet if he was asked, Paul would have requested they all stay home for it was Carmel’s visits he longed for. But of course he never said this.

  Carmel too looked forward to seeing Paul, taking joy in the fact that he was improving slowly. His mouth had been so damaged he had had to have his food puréed at first, and he was ecstatic the day the stitches were removed from his lip and he could start to enjoy normal food again. Other milestones were when they said he no longer needed the drips, and when the foam pads were removed and he was able to move his head from side to side. The bandage encircling his head was removed a little later and Carmel saw where his head had been shaved for the large wound to be stitched, although hair like soft down was already beginning to cover it.

  Just days after this, the nurses began propping him up in the bed, for short periods at first, but these would be extended. Paul couldn’t help but be excited about that and Carmel understood, knowing how frustrated he often was. She visited him every day and they talked about everything under the sun, but never about anything that mattered, the confines of the public ward, which Paul had now been moved to, making that impossible.

  Then one day, when Carmel had been visiting Paul for over five weeks, she found him propped up in the armchair by his bed, with a rug tucked around him. ‘I’ll try and get a wheelchair for when you come in tomorrow,’ he told her excitedly.

  Carmel was as pleased as he was, but she commented drily, ‘You are very sure of yourself, aren’t you? What makes you so certain I will visit tomorrow?’

  ‘Because I command it and you must do what a poor, sickly patient asks.’

  ‘Since when?’ Carmel asked with a smile and added sarcastically, ‘What hospital did you say you trained at?’

  ‘This one,’ Paul said. ‘But I’ll not be at it much longer. As soon as they discharge me, I am away out of this.’

  Carmel felt a stab of disappointment. ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Queen’s,’ he said.

  ‘Queen’s?’ Carmel repeated, puzzled for a moment, and then she cried out, ‘You have had your exam results?’

  Paul’s grin nearly split his face in two. ‘Yes, and I passed everything so I have accepted the post at Queen’s that they offered to me provisionally, dependent on my grades.’

  ‘Oh, Paul!’ Spontaneously Carmel threw her arms around him and felt the beat of her heart match his. She melted against him as he held her fast and wished the moment could go on and on.

  ‘Carmel, I—;’

  ‘Hush,’ Carmel said, putting a finger to his lips. ‘Not here and not now.’

  She pulled away reluctantly and wondered if her face was as flushed as Paul’s was. She knew soon she and Paul would have to talk seriously and this time she wouldn’t back out of it or try to dodge the issue.

  When Carmel went into the hospital the following evening, it was to see Paul sitting up in a wheelchair with a broad and triumphant grin on his face.

  ‘I had to fight for this,’ he said, pointing to the wheelchair. ‘But I won in the
end. I thought we might sit in the day room for a change.’

  The day room was at the end of the ward and usually virtually deserted as most patients were still unable to leave their beds. Without a word of protest, Carmel took hold of the handles of the wheelchair.

  She had never been in the room before and thought it a very unwelcoming place. The bare walls were a dull dirty beige colour, while the paintwork was dark brown, and rigid and uncompromising chairs were grouped before the wireless, or beside one of the tables, which had magazines and papers scattered across it.

  The drabness didn’t help Carmel’s mood or help her form the words she had to say if she and Paul were to move forward, have any sort of future together. She sat down beside him in one of the uncomfortable chairs, aware that her heart was hammering against her ribs and her mouth was so dry she wondered how she would be able to speak at all.

  Sensing her nervousness, Paul took up one of her hands, noting that it was clammy with sweat. His heart went out to her. ‘Go on, darling,’ he urged. ‘Nothing on God’s earth should cause you this much pain.’

  Carmel tried to swallow the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. Her eyes were full of trepidation, ‘Oh, Paul,’ she breathed.

  Paul gave her hand a squeeze and Carmel took a deep breath and slowly and hesitantly she told him of her family. She didn’t exaggerate, but nor did she pull any punches.

  Paul listened and said not a word. Inside he was raging that such things had happened to the girl he was beginning to realise meant more to him that life itself, but knew that wasn’t the way to deal with this problem, which Carmel saw as such an obstacle to her own happiness.

  So, when Carmel eventually drew to a close, Paul said, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Paul said. ‘You have let people who aren’t even here dictate to you. Because of your family and primarily because of your father, you were half prepared to say goodbye to me, weren’t you? I felt it and that is why I made that declaration that evening. It was done in desperation.’

  ‘But…I don’t know what you are talking about,’ Carmel cried. ‘I have told you how it is, how my father—;’

  ‘Stop, right there,’ Paul commanded. ‘You are talking of your father, not you. I am not interested in your father—in fact, after the way he has treated you, I would be hard-pressed to even be civil to the man—but what I think of your father bears no relation to how I think about you. You shouldn’t have to ask how that is, but I will tell you anyway.’ He looked deep into her eyes as he said, ‘I love you, Carmel, with every fibre of my being, and until the end of time, and I need to know how you feel about me.’

  Carmel, seeing the passion in Paul’s face and hearing it in his voice, knew if she rejected this man that she loved because of the actions of her father, he would have won and she would be miserable every day of her life. She was determined now, as she had never been before, that she wouldn’t let that happen. And so she said, ‘There are not enough words written to tell you how much I love you, but I’ll try. I love you, I love you, I love…’

  But her words were lost as Paul gave her a sudden tug and she fell against him. When their lips met, the words no longer mattered.

  They talked and talked, but now it was as if she was on another plain altogether, a wonderful place where only she and Paul existed. Now that she had at last admitted her deep love for him, she drank in everything: the timbre of his voice, the way he held his head, moved his hands, his beautiful smile that lit up his whole face, and the full and luscious lips she longed to kiss. When Paul lifted one of Carmel’s hands, which he still held, and kissed her fingers one by one, the tremors went all through her body.

  Paul smiled in satisfaction. Nothing mattered any more now that Carmel loved him as much as he loved her.

  ‘Carmel, forgive me for not getting down on one knee,’ he said, ‘but the sentiment is the same. You wondrous, beautiful and desirable girl, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Paul,’ Carmel cried. ‘Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes, but…’

  Paul knew what was disturbing Carmel. ‘When you have finished your training, of course. In the meantime I will get established at Queen’s and then I will decide whether I want to carry on there, move somewhere else, or possibly specialise.’

  ‘You wouldn’t fancy being a GP somewhere?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, certainly. Maybe when I am older and greyer, but for the moment I like hospital work. D’you mind that?’

  ‘Whatever you do is fine by me,’ Carmel said. ‘And I would go with you to Outer Mongolia, wherever that is, if you wished me to.’

  ‘I don’t think there will be a call for you to do that,’ Paul said with a grin. ‘I was thinking more about another area of Brum.’

  ‘Were you?’ Carmel said in mock disappointment. ‘What a boring man you are.’

  ‘I’ll give you boring, my girl, when I am out of this damn thing and on my two legs again,’ Paul said.

  ‘I can hardly wait,’ Carmel said, and at the seductiveness in her voice and the light of excitement dancing in her eyes, Paul felt as if his whole body was on fire.

  ‘Oh, Carmel, I do so love you.’

  Before Carmel was able to make any sort of reply, the bell denoting the end of visiting trilled out. Carmel looked at Paul bleakly. Never had time passed so quickly. ‘Oh, Paul.’

  ‘I know, my darling,’ he said. ‘But I won’t be in here for ever, never fear. Will you be able to come tomorrow?’

  ‘You just try and keep me away,’ Carmel said. ‘But for now I’d better take you back on to the ward.’

  ‘One more kiss before you do?’ Paul pleaded.

  Carmel kneeled on the floor beside the wheelchair and put her arms around Paul, and when their lips met it was as if a fire had been lit in both of them, and Carmel moaned in pleasure.

  Paul thought briefly of teasing her mouth open, but decided against it. He knew Carmel would have been untouched by any man and he would have to proceed slowly, or he could frighten her. Anyway, there was no rush. They had a whole lifetime before them.

  The news of the engagement of Paul Connolly and Carmel Duffy flew around the hospital and everyone, except perhaps Aileen Roberts and Matron, seemed pleased. Paul was no longer a student, but a qualified doctor and had never been under Matron’s jurisdiction anyway, but the situation was different for Carmel. When Matron sent for her, Carmel went with her heart quaking.

  ‘You know that fraternising with the doctors is expressly forbidden,’ Matron said. ‘And yet you must have disobeyed my instructions because no one gets engaged in five minutes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Matron,’ Carmel said. ‘I met Paul through Lois, who is his cousin. We were just friends at first. I didn’t intend this to happen at all.’

  ‘Does nursing not matter to you?’

  ‘Of course, Matron,’ Carmel said. ‘I wouldn’t dream of getting married before I qualified. Paul understands this perfectly.’

  Catherine Turner was disappointed with Carmel. She had had her marked down as a girl fully committed to her career, and now look. But there was nothing she could do about it. Once married, most husbands wanted their wives at home and most women wanted to care for their man, and it would be one more good nurse lost.

  Paul’s parents congratulated them both, though Carmel knew that only his father was sincerely pleased. Carmel hoped that in time Paul’s mother would accept her, for she certainly didn’t want to cause any sort of rift between them. He had made clear that he thought a lot of his parents. Carmel knew he owed them a lot, for they had supported him through medical school, and without their support it would have been a lot more difficult for him to have qualified as a doctor.

  Emma Connolly did think it was hard to hold resentment for a girl that might possibly have saved her son’s life, and doubtless Paul was grateful to her, but she thought a person could carry gratitude too far.
Surely Paul could see that he didn’t have to marry the girl.

  He had virtually been promised to Melissa Chisholm since birth, and she had all the right connections. Paul and she had had a thing going before medical school and finishing school separated them. Emma had thought that by the time he qualified, Paul would have sown all the wild oats he needed and be ready to settle down with Melissa. It would have happened that way if the nurse Carmel Duffy hadn’t happened along when she did, when Paul was sick and vulnerable. If Paul couldn’t see how unsuitable such a marriage was, Emma was certain the girl would when it was pointed out to her.

  She had mentioned her concerns to Jeff and really didn’t know why she bothered because as usual he couldn’t see a problem. ‘Paul’s happy enough,’ he said. ‘I can quite see why he’s attracted to Carmel, for she looks such a fragile little thing, though to be a nurse she must be very strong. Added to that, she is very easy on the eye, and a friend of our Lois’s. What more do you want? And you know if she was none of these things and still Paul’s choice, then that would be that.’

  ‘The girl will never fit in,’ Emma said through tight lips. ‘Surely you can see that?’

  ‘No I can’t,’ Jeff said. ‘Paul is no longer in short trousers, but a man of twenty-five and he must be let live his life without interference. Anyway, I reckon, he could go further and fare worse. Carmel is his choice and that, as far as I am concerned, is that.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was the last week of September and Paul was preparing to leave hospital after nearly ten weeks. His parents had planned a big celebration, both to welcome him home and also as a belated congratulations party for his exam successes.

  Carmel thought the party might be to announce his engagement too, but Paul explained his mother wanted no one to know yet, not until the ring was bought, and then she would put an announcement in The Times and have a proper engagement party. Carmel thought it odd, but decided in the end to go along with the plan. Maybe in the middle classes it was how things were done. How would she know?