A Small Slice of Summer

by Betty Neels

  He had laughed gently as he spoke. Letitia scowled at him and then had to change the scowl to a smile because the gipsy woman was coming towards them. She was followed by the rest of them, the old man and the boy and the young man, looking thinner and paler than they would normally be, but their eyes were bright and they seemed surprisingly fit. It didn’t seem possible that they could be capable of taking up their old life so soon after being ill. ‘Do you really feel all right?’ she wanted to know of the woman. ‘Shouldn’t you have stayed a little longer in hospital?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘But why, missy? It is not our kind of life, closed up between walls, and Jerry here, he missed his dog. We shall do very well. You’ll drink a cup of tea with us? We’re beholden to you both for your help—you and the kind gentleman here, and it won’t be forgotten.’

  She made an inviting gesture towards one of the caravans and Letitia, with a glance at Jason, started to walk towards it. She didn’t quite fancy tea, but she was too kindhearted to refuse hospitality when it was offered. They sat on an old bench outside the caravan, talking to the men—at least Jason did; Letitia got up after a minute or two and strolled across the grass with Jerry and the dog to give some sugar lumps to the horses, and when the tea came, she sat down on the caravan steps and drank it with the dog pressed close to her, hopeful that there might be more biscuits in her pocket, and the gipsy woman sat be-side her.

  She had, from time to time, stopped to talk to the gipsies when she had met them, but never for such a length of time as this. They were no fools, she quickly discovered, and it amused her to see Jason deep in conversation about trout fishing and obviously enjoying himself. It was when she refused a second cup of tea that the woman offered to tell her fortune for her. ‘Turn the cup three times, dearie,’ she advised Letitia, ‘and hold it upside down with your left hand.’

  ‘I don’t think…’ began Letitia, and caught Jason’s eye; he was still talking about trout, but he was listening to her too. She did as she had been told and the gipsy took the cup from her and fell to studying it.

  ‘A tall, fair man, dearie,’ she began, and Letitia saw that the men were all listening now. ‘Trouble and strife, but the life of a princess is waiting for you, for I see wealth and jewels and great happiness. Just as it should be for a kind young lady like you are.’

  Her dark eyes flickered over Letitia’s face. ‘You don’t believe me, but mark my words, missy, I’m one to tell the truth and that’s what I see in the tea-leaves.’ She cast the cup away from her and turned to Jason. ‘And you, kind gentleman, shall I tell you your fortune?’

  He answered her gravely: ‘There is no need, I think,’ and the woman nodded back at him.

  ‘You’re right, there is no need; I’ve told it all.’ A remark of which Letitia took little notice; it had been easy enough for the gipsy to talk about a tall fair man when there was one standing beside her, and one was always told about the money and jewels and happiness waiting to brighten one’s future. She didn’t believe a word of it, although she thanked the woman nicely as they prepared to go.

  They were half-way up the hill before she said: ‘I’m glad they’re all right.’

  Her companion tucked a hand under her elbow and because there wasn’t much room, pulled her closer. ‘You’re a nice girl,’ he remarked, ‘though I believe I’ve said that before.’

  ‘Yes, you have!’ she sounded quite savage. ‘I’m sick and tired of being called nice—everyone says it!’ She kicked at some nettles and when a briar tore her slacks she couldn’t have cared less.

  ‘Ah, yes—a bit monotonous, dear girl, but actually a compliment. A nice girl, from a man’s point of view at least, means one who is pleasant to have around, with a soft voice and gentle ways and no ideas about contradicting him each time he opens his mouth, a girl who doesn’t expect compliments with every second breath, or imagines that just because he is a man he’s wildly in love with her.’

  ‘She sounds like a hopeless prig,’ said Letitia coldly. They had come out on to the main track through the wood once more and had turned towards the rectory. Jason took his hand from her arm and flung an arm round her shoulders instead. ‘No, Letitia, never that, and just you remember that next time someone calls you a nice girl.’

  Especially the bit about imagining he was in love with her, she supposed sourly. Had that been a veiled hint? she wondered uneasily. Surely she hadn’t given herself away to him? She tried to think back to their previous meetings and became instantly confused; it was a relief when he continued in an ordinary voice: ‘Katrina has had a splendid time here, I can never be sufficiently grateful. As she is so much younger than the rest of us I sometimes wonder if she has enough young company.’

  ‘Well, we loved having her and I know Mother and Father will always welcome her if she likes to come again. Mother misses us all, I think. I don’t know what she’ll do when Paula leaves home.’

  ‘It is the same for my mother, but of course there will be grandchildren enough to keep her fully occupied.’

  ‘Your sisters have children?’

  ‘Oh, a mere handful as yet, but I daresay that between us we shall produce enough progeny to satisfy Mama.’

  She didn’t mean to ask, but: ‘You too—you’re going to be married?’

  He paused to look down at her, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘But of course, dear girl—we all come to it, you know. Can’t you see me in the role of father to a succession of children?’

  Letitia could, only too clearly; he would be a wonderful father. She speculated as to the girl whom he had chosen—that Wibecke someone or other, perhaps; it didn’t bear thinking of.

  They had left the trees behind them now and as they crossed the rough grass he began to talk about other things, trivalities which kept them occupied until they reached the rectory, where he was instantly claimed by the Rector. Going to bed that night, Letitia reflected that she had seen very little of him during the day; certainly he had made no attempt to seek her out, only he had come looking for that morning, and had that been so that he might tell her, in a casual way, that he was going to be married? It seemed very likely. She closed her eyes on the unhappy thought, and hardly slept at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THEY LEFT after lunch the next day, with a decidedly mopish Katrina sitting in the back, and Letitia, who felt that way herself, took great pains to make conversation, plodding in an uninspired way through such mundane topics as the weather, the charms of the countryside at that time of year, the amount of traffic on the road, and adding a few observations as to the kind of crossing they might expect, the prospects of fine weather in Holland and the pleasure of returning home. To all of which Katrina answered only briefly and Jason with a civility which she found so dampening that after a little while she too fell silent. It was, she felt, someone else’s turn. It was disconcerting when Jason, apparently reading her thoughts, said: ‘Katrina is silent because she is unhappy at leaving your home, but presently she will get over it, and I—I am silent because I find it pleasant to drive with you beside me, knowing that I don’t need to talk; that you won’t mind if you aren’t the centre of interest.’

  A speech which Letitia found to be unanswerable; he had made her sound like a chatty saint who hadn’t bothered much about her appearance; it also had the effect of drying her up completely, so that they sat in silence for quite some distance.

  ‘Perhaps I put that rather badly,’ Jason said at length, ‘but you see, I think of you as a friend and don’t always bother to choose my words.’ He made it worse by adding: ‘Are you sulking?’

  ‘No,’ she said forcefully, ‘I am not—I have no reason to sulk, have I, with compliments pouring down on me at such a fine rate!’ She gave a small, indignant snort and stared ahead of her, aware that he had cast a lightning glance at her, but he didn’t answer her, only after a minute or two suggested at his most placid that they might stop for tea.

  ‘How about Shaftesbury?’ he want
ed to know. ‘There must be a tea-room there.’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ said Letitia, mollified at the thought of tea. ‘It’s up by the walks…’

  ‘Which walks?’ asked Katrina. Apparently the idea of tea had cheered her up sufficiently for speech.

  ‘Well, the town’s on a hill, and there’s a walk along the ramparts, there’s a splendid view and sometimes local artists hang their paintings there, and you can look at them as you walk and buy one if you want to.’

  Katrina rested her chin on the back of Letitia’s seat, her voice wheedling. ‘Jason, please may we go to these walks if we hurry a little over our tea, and if I see a picture I like, will you buy it for me, then I will keep it always for a remembrance.’

  He agreed amiably to this suggestion, and now that Katrina was feeling more like her usual happy self, the conversation became quite lively, so that the time passed too quickly, at least from Letitia’s point of view.

  The tea-shop was of the olde-worlde persuasion and dispelled the last of Katrina’s low spirits. They took their tea in one of its small, low-ceilinged rooms and then walked to the ramparts close by. Letitia hadn’t exaggerated. The view was delightful and far-flung, the flowers bordering the walk were at their best, and sure enough, hung almost the whole length of the wall, were the paintings. Katrina skipped from one to the other, changing her mind every few seconds until Jason told her good-naturedly that there would be no time to buy anything at all if she didn’t make up her mind then and there. Finally she picked on a small watercolour of the town and they went along to the end of the walk to where a woman was sitting at a table, knitting. Jason had paid her and Letitia was turning away when Katrina exclaimed: ‘But Tishy must have a painting too—Jason, buy her one.’

  It didn’t sound right, put like that. Letitia was on the point of refusing on the grounds of not liking anything when Jason said blandly: ‘But of course—I’ve seen the very one, but it’s to be a surprise. I’m going to get it now, but you’re not to open it until you get back to the hospital.’

  It would have been churlish to have refused. She thanked him nicely and strolled with Katrina to the end of the walk while he retraced his steps. He caught up with them as they reached the main street, the picture under his arm, and Letitia spent the rest of their journey consumed with curiosity as to what it might be. Only after they had reached St Athel’s and they had wished each other good-bye, with almost tearful affection on Katrina’s part and careless friendliness on her brother’s, did Letitia climb the stairs to her room and once there, before unpacking or putting on the kettle for a cup of tea, open her package.

  The picture was a watercolour; she had seen it as they had walked along the line of paintings that after noon—a gentle painting of a small stream under the trees, with gipsies and a caravan beside it, not quite the same as the other, live gipsies, but sufficiently like to recall them vividly. For no reason at all she felt tears prick her eyes so that she had to sniff violently and blow her nose. She laid the picture down carefully on her bed and went to put on the kettle in the pantry at the end of the corridor. She met several of her friends on the way, which meant a pooling of tea, sugar and milk and much searching in cupboards for food, and when the ever-increasing number of young ladies had crowded into her room and one, inevitably, remarked on the picture, Letitia was able to say quite cheerfully that she had had it as a present, and no one had wanted to know who from; she had just been home and was presumably a gift from her family.

  When everyone had gone, she walked over to the hospital, to the engineer’s room in the basement, begged a nail from him and hammered it in with the heel of one of her winter boots. They weren’t really supposed to hang pictures in their rooms, but it was a rule which, over the years, had lapsed. It looked exactly right on the wall opposite her bed and it would be the first thing she saw when she woke each day.

  There was a heavy list in the morning and by the end of the first hour Letitia felt as though she hadn’t been away at all. The patients were fetched, anaesthetized, operated upon and handed over to her care with a speed which was too good to last. It was almost time for her to go to dinner when an elderly man, admitted as a casualty with a stab wound in the chest, collapsed a few minutes after she had received him from the scrub nurse. She went to work on him at once, calling to Mrs Mead to warn the theatre, so that Julius came immediately, wasting no words, but dealing with the crisis with silent speed, while Letitia, well versed in such urgent work, handed him instruments, turned cylinder taps on and off when he told her to, erected a second drip and took the patient’s blood pressure, it gave faint results presently and Julius said quietly: ‘Good—I think we’ve got him,’ and gave her a long list of instructions which she filed away neatly inside her sensible head.

  It was another hour before the man was fit to be transferred to the ITU, and by then dinner time had come and gone, and what was more, the afternoon list was looming. Letitia retired to the changing room and gobbled the sandwiches Mrs Mead had fetched for her, drank some scalding coffee and without stopping to do anything to her face or hair, got into her theatre dress again and bundled on the mob cap, and even though the afternoon held no surprises, she was very tired by the time the list was finished, and hungry too. But it was only five o’clock, there would be no supper for another two hours and she had nothing to eat in her room. She finished tidying the recovery room, poked her head round Theatre door to wish Sister good night, and went over to her room.

  She would have to go out to eat; there was a cheap little café just down the road where she could get a meal. She had a bath and changed into a cotton dress, then counted her money; she hadn’t a great deal, but egg and chips would do nicely and if she had a pot of tea and some bread and butter she wouldn’t need to go to supper. She did her face and hair in a hurry and went quickly down the stairs and through the hospital to the front entrance. The Head Porter, Nathaniel, was just taking over door duty and saluted her in the fatherly fashion he used towards the younger nurses.

  ‘Got a date, Staff?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Who—me? Heavens, no. I missed my dinner and I can’t wait for supper, Nathaniel. I’m going down to the Cosy Café for a meal.’

  She grinned at him and waved and went on her way, out into the busy street, packed with people going home from work, and grey and grimy despite the sunshine. The café wasn’t very full, and Fred, who owned it, greeted her with a friendly nod; over the years the nurses at St Athel’s had patronized him, and he knew most of them by sight. He came over to her table at once, wiped its plastic top and moved the pepper and salt an inch or two. ‘What’ll it be, luv?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Egg and chips, please, Fred, and some bread and butter and a pot of tea. I missed my dinner.’

  ‘And that’s a damned shame, ducks—won’t keep yer a mo’.’

  It was stuffy in the little place, its air laden with the smells of warm vinegar and fried food and washing up, but it was nice to sit down and anticipate her supper. When the tea came Letitia poured herself a cup and then began on the egg and chips, eating slowly to make them last, wondering if she would be extravagant and have another lot. She decided against it; she had to have new duty shoes before the end of the month, and it was Margo’s birthday in a week’s time, and she would need money for those. She sighed and nibbled a chip, telling herself that if she ate too much she might get fat; she became so engrossed in this possibility that she failed to hear the doorbell pinging as it was opened. Only when Jason sat down in the chair opposite hers did she look up to stare at him, her mouth, luckily empty of chips, half open. After a long moment she achieved a ‘Well…’ and smiled a little uncertainly because he was smiling his nice gentle smile even though he hadn’t spoken. When he did it was to ask: ‘Is that your tea or an early supper?’

  ‘Well, I missed dinner—we got held up, and the canteen doesn’t open until seven o’clock.’

  He leaned forward to study her plate. ‘Egg?’ he raised his eyebrows,
‘and chips? I’ll join you if I may, dear girl.’

  He didn’t wait for her to answer but lifted a hand to Fred, who advanced to their table. ‘Friend of yours, ducks?’ he wanted to know.

  Letitia smiled at him. ‘Oh, yes, Fred. A doctor who works at St Athel’s from time to time.’

  Fred treated his new customer to a narrow scrutiny which the doctor bore with good-natured fortitude, before saying: ‘OK, what’ll it be, doc?’

  ‘Egg—er—eggs and chips, I think, and tea.’ He glanced over to Letitia’s side of the table. ‘That is tea?’ His glance lingered on her empty plate. ‘I can’t eat alone. Letitia, could you manage another plateful and keep me company?’

  ‘Yes, I could, thank you.’ She answered promptly and with no beating around the bush.

  ‘And fresh tea for us both, perhaps?’ He sat back, quite at his ease, while Fred took away the used plates and probably as a concession to his customer’s calling, wiped the table down with extra care. When he had gone, Letitia said: ‘I thought you’d gone back to Holland—you said you were going last night.’

  He looked at her with lazy blue eyes. ‘So I did, but when we got to Dalmers Place, Georgina insisted on us staying the night, and I can’t get a reservation until tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh. How did you know I was here?’

  ‘Nathaniel told me.’ He smiled again and looked around him. The little place was filling rapidly with bus drivers and their mates, shabby down-at-heel men with the evening paper tucked under an arm, and the last of the shoppers stopping briefly for a cup of tea before going home to suburbia. ‘You should have let Karel know you were free and asked him to take you out to dinner,’ he observed mildly.