Nurse in the Sun

by Claire Rayner

  Further Titles by Claire Rayner from Severn House

  CHILDREN’S WARD

  COTTAGE HOSPITAL

  THE DOCTORS OF DOWNLANDS

  THE FINAL YEAR

  THE LONELY ONE

  THE PRIVATE WING

  NURSE IN

  THE SUN

  Claire Rayner

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-051-6

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

  Isle of Man

  IM2 4NR

  United Kingdom

  Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672

  email: info@mpassociates.co.uk

  This revised edition first published in Great Britain 1994

  Copyright © 1972, 1994, 2010 by Claire Rayner.

  All rights reserved. The moral rights of the author to be

  identified as author of this work have been asserted by her

  in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Rayner, Claire

  Nurse in the Sun

  I. Title

  823.914 [F]

  e-ISBN 978-1-84982-051-6

  All situations in this publication are fictitious and

  any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  e-ISBN 978 1 84982 043 1

  Love is

  a time of enchantment:

  in it all days are fair and all fields

  green. Youth is blest by it,

  old age made benign: the eyes of love see

  roses blooming in December,

  and sunshine through rain. Verily

  is the time of true-love

  a time of enchantment - and

  Oh! how eager is woman

  to be bewitched!

  1

  The plane banked steeply, so that the wing rose high on one side to cut the sky with a sharp silvery line, and the fear that had thickened her throat when they took off but which had momentarily settled came bubbling up again. She turned her head to look out of the window beside her, but that was worse, for there below her - so very far below! - was a lurching patchwork of brownish green fields, the cluster of glass-gleaming black and red roofed buildings that was Gatwick airport, the crawling ants of cars on the grey ribbons of road, and this time she closed her eyes, and let her hands convulsively grip the buckle of her safety belt.

  “There’s no need to worry, you know,” a deep voice murmured in her left ear. “Like, it’s not going to fall out of the sky, or anything like that. We’re turning south, that’s all - on account of that’s where we have to go, and the pilot had to use a cross runway because of the wind. But he’ll start his real climb in a moment or so, and then we’ll be right up over the clouds there and you won’t be one bit scared. In fact, you feel better already, don’t you?”

  She had snapped her eyes open the moment he began to speak, staring at him. A wide face with a very square jaw, heavily freckled across the cheeks, brightly blue eyes under close-cut fair hair. Very American, she thought briefly, even before her mind registered the soft accent.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said, and knew her voice sounded stiff and unfriendly.

  “Well, now, there’s no need to be ashamed of it! Tell you the truth, I reckon everybody, but everybody is scared of planes. Trouble is hardly anyone ever has the nerve to admit it. Now, me, I’ve been flying so many years now, I really am used to it.” He settled back even more comfortably in his seat, his head resting against the back, but his eyes turned sideways to watch her. “All the same, I get that scary feeling when they take off - and I’ll tell you something else. I like it. It makes it more interesting. It’s the same feeling kids get on a roller coaster, I guess - and that’s what makes it great. The first time you fly - well, yes, that’s not so great, but I promise you you’ll like it all a lot better on the way back. I mean - take this flight now. We’re way over those clouds already, and you never noticed us get there, hmm?”

  She turned her head to look out of her window again, and there below her - but not too far below this time - was a great bubbling curling expanse of white, with tinges of grey and pink where the sun shadowed it into curving patterns.

  “Looks like cottage cheese, doesn’t it?” he said and his voice sounded even more relaxed. “Real appetizing.”

  “Er - yes. Very pretty,” she said. “And - er - thank you.”

  “Oh, it was a pleasure. I’ve talked a lot of people up in my time.” He grinned widely, and his face creased into a map of friendliness. “Now, let me complete the therapy and buy you a drink when that little air hostess lady gets to us. I’d recommend champagne - ”

  “Oh - no, no thank you - ” she said, suddenly embarrassed. Ye Gods, her mind whispered at her. Not five minutes out of sight of home and you’re letting strange Americans offer you champagne! “I’ll not bother you. Very kind, but- ”

  “Should I have suggested whisky, then?” he smiled even more widely if that were possible. “As a good Scot, perhaps you find the idea of champagne a bit too soft and southern?”

  “Not at all!” she said, and knew the stiffness had come back to her voice. “I’d just rather not have a drink at all, thanks all the same.”

  “Now, you’re offended!” he said, quite unabashed. “Because I spotted you were a Scot? Notice I didn’t say Scotch - I know better than that. A Scot or Scottish, isn’t that the right way to say it? Mustn’t say Scotch, on account that’s the name of the stuff you drink. Ah, now, be friendly! Let me buy you a drink, just for company’s sake. We’re going to be here side by side for another hour or more - you can’t expect me to sit here like an Englishman, all tight and stiff, now can you?”

  He unbuckled his belt, and turned towards her, holding out one hand.

  “Let me introduce myself properly. I’m Bartholomew Squires, Biff to my friends, hailing from Buffalo, New York, on my way to Palma on business. I’m with a property development firm - we’re building flats out there in Majorca for middle-aged middle-Western widow ladies to retire to on the proceeds of their husband’s heart attacks. Now, it’s your turn,” and he held his head to one side, and smiled his broad very white-toothed smile again.

  She hesitated for a moment, feeling all the tension of the past weeks building up in her. I don’t want to get involved again - But then her native good sense reared up, and the little voice in the corner of her mind hissed at her “Don’t be so daft, girl! He’s just a friendly man from a friendly country - you don’t have to get involved”, and she put her own hand out and they shook hands a little solemnly.

  “I’m Isabel Cameron. From a little clachan - village - not far from Glasgow. I’m on my way to Palma to a job. How do you do.”

  “How do you do,” he said gravely. “And what sort of job, or would you rather not say?”

  “A - oh - a hotel job.”

  “A hotel job! Well, that’s original, I guess. Who doesn’t work in the tourist business in the Balearics? Mind, you don’t look like a chambermaid or a barmaid or a - ?”

  She laughed then. “You really like to know, don’t you? Very American of you. All right, I’m not going to be a barmaid or a chambermaid - and you probably know perfectly well that they don’t employ foreigners for jobs like that! - I’m a nurse. I’m going to be the resident nurse at a hotel just outside Palma. Looking after t
he residents and their children, and that sort of thing.”

  “A nurse? Well, now that really is something! Let me tell you all about my symptoms - ” and he laughed aloud at the alarmed look that leapt into her face. “Isn’t that what they all say?”

  “Yes, that’s what they all say.” She smiled herself then. “And I usually shut them up by telling them to get undressed so that I can examine them.”

  “Oh, I like that! That’s a beautiful ploy - ah, now, here’s our nice hostess! Now, good morning to you. What sort of offerings has that portable bar of yours got?”

  Isabel turned her head to look out of the window again, leaving him to his bantering chatter with the girl in the yellow uniform, gazing down at the clouds below her. The sky was an agonizing blue in the vivid sunshine and she was grateful for the dark glasses she had put on before she left the hotel that morning. She’d put them on then to hide the state of her eyes; they had been red-rimmed and a little swollen, which wasn’t very surprising. You can’t cry half the night and not look like a smashed pudding, she had thought bitterly.

  She was aware for a moment of the voices beside her, the chatter about champagne and duty free cigars, and then pushed the sound away. She shouldn’t have let this wretched American beguile her as he had; she’d made up her mind, right from the start, that she was going to stay locked up inside herself for the whole of the summer. This job was to be therapy, and she was going to do nothing but work. No friendships, no involvements with anybody, especially not with personable men. She’d had enough, and there were wounds to be healed before she would risk any such thing again. And already, here was a man buying her a drink. Oh, damn, damn, damn, she thought, and shook her head slightly in irritation.

  “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, of course.”

  She started, and looked at him, and he was smiling at her.

  “I can see you’ve a lot to think about, and I’ll quite understand if you prefer to be quiet.”

  “That’s very obliging of you,” she said a little tartly. “If a bit surprising. You went to a lot of trouble to start me talking, and now you - ”

  “You’ve a very speaking sort of face, you know,” he said. “Even behind those great brown goggles. I could see you were scared when we took off, so I talked to you to get you over it. Now I can see you’re - what’s the word? -oh, a bit hungup, I guess. So - ” he shrugged. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Not all Americans are pushy louts, you know.”

  She reddened a little. “I wasn’t thinking any such thing. But-”

  “But you’d rather be quiet. So, okay! - ah, here’s our drinks. Now, try this - ”

  The hostess put a small green bottle with a silver foil wrapper round its neck in front of her, and very carefully Biff Squires poured its contents into the plastic beaker that came with it, and then poured his own.

  “Salud!” he murmured, raising his glass.

  “What? Oh - slanjy va!” and she let herself relax again for a moment.

  “There’s a phrase! Is that the Scottish equivalent of Cheers, prosit, and the rest of it?”

  “It is,” she gulped some of the champagne and it tasted fresh and crisp and she enjoyed the sting of the bubbles against her tongue. “Thank you. This is very nice.”

  “Very nice,” he said solemnly, and for a while they sat and sipped, as she looked out of the window at the so-slowly moving clouds, now parting into thinner shreds to reveal a faintly wrinkled bluish greyness very far below.

  “That’s the English Channel,” Biff said after a while. “Not long now before we get over France, and then there’ll be the Pyrenees. That’s a glorious sight when the sky is clear - you’ll like that - ”

  She was beginning to relax more and more, as the bubbles of the champagne slid away from her tongue to warm her belly and then spread to her arms and legs. She felt her shoulders soften, and the muscles of her neck and face lost some of their tightness, and without thinking she pulled off the sunglasses, which were heavy on her nose, to lean back against her seat, feeling better than she had for days.

  “Now, that’s more like it,” he said softly. “With eyes as green as yours it’s a sin and a crime to hide them.”

  She turned her head on the squabs of the seat to look at him a little owlishly.

  “ - and they go very well with that hair of yours. I thought it was the Irish that went in for green eyes and curly red hair, not the Scots.”

  “Mr. Squires,” she said, and her voice was crisp and clear in her own ears. “I am most appreciative of your kindness. I was scared when we took off, and I suppose I do feel better now you’ve made me drink this. But that does not give you the right to make personal remarks, even though they’re meant to be complimentary. So if you want to talk, just keep off the - the - chatting-up stuff, all right?”

  “Whoa? That’s me flattened to a pumpkin pie,” he said, looking a little startled. “Okay, Isabel - or would you prefer Miss Cameron? - I’ll watch myself. And I do apologize.”

  “There’s no need,” she said, a little pompously, and turned her head away to the window again.

  But she couldn’t stay so reserved for very long. The planeful of people was now much noisier, as the holiday making families settled down to talk to each other of hotels and plans for trips and the children began to bustle up and down the narrow central aisle to investigate the lavatories, and the hostesses served little plastic trays of sandwiches and cake and coffee. Almost before she realized it, they were talking again, as he told her of his plans for the next few months.

  “I’m lucky to have been sent on this particular job,” he said. “The old man usually sends me on domestic work - you know, Florida, California, and the rest of it. But our Spanish expert went sick, and this Majorcan job had to be done, so here I am! He had to let me go, seeing I was the only one left who spoke Spanish. I majored in languages at College, so he couldn’t argue!”

  “The old man? Your boss?” she murmured, not really very interested. The combination of champagne and the warmth of the sun coming through the windows was making her very sleepy. And she had slept so little the night before -

  “Er - you could call him that.” He looked at her a little sharply, and opened his mouth as though to say more but then closed it, and they sat in silence for a while.

  “Look!” he said suddenly, and she opened her eyes, which had closed in response to the sleepiness that was filling her, and she followed his pointing finger to the window. And then caught her breath with the glory of what she saw.

  Great soaring brown peaks were thrusting through the shreds of cotton wool clouds to outline themselves against the intense blue of the sky, their tips shrouded in froths of blindingly white snow. From each iced peak runnels of white ran down, bubbling softly into crevasses and out to ledges before thinning out again as they disappeared further down into the softer greenness of the lower slopes. The plane seemed to be standing still with just the edge of the wing she could see in front of her trembling slightly; but the mountains seemed to move with an awesome majestic slowness, creeping past the sunlit window like a private army provided for her review. She craned her head a little to see further and there, far, far ahead of the plane, peak after peak unfolded icing sugar dusted tips in the crisp light to march away and gradually disappear into the far haze of the horizon. And she found her eyes filled with tears and her throat tight as she stared and stared, trying to print the images permanently onto her memory.

  “It is extraordinary, isn’t it?” Biff said softly. “It made me want to cry the first time I saw it. People are so unimportant, aren’t they, when you look at the Pyrenees?”

  She nodded, unwilling to speak, and then leaned back in her seat to close her eyes again, ashamed of the tears that stood in them, afraid they would spill over and make her look a fool in front of this man.

  He seemed to be aware of her need for silence, and said nothing, though she was very conscious of the warmth of his square body be
side her, and found it oddly comforting.

  “You mustn’t,” she thought. “You mustn’t get involved, you mustn’t need anyone ever again. You can’t. You’re tired, and you’re over-excited and that damned champagne - remember you mustn’t - you mustn’t - ”

  The sounds around her pulsed heavily, the buzzing of the engines, the voices of excited passengers pointing out the view to each other, the high shrill voices of the children; and then the pulsing thickened and spread to fill her whole body and she knew she was falling asleep, and let it happen.

  But she dreamed again, not the same dream exactly, for now the mountains were part of it. She was climbing with agonizing slowness, each foot feeling dead and heavy as she tried to lift it, and far ahead and above her she could see him, Jason, his hands in his pockets and his white coat flying behind him as he leapt easily from peak to peak; never quite out of sight, sometimes seeming closer as she tried to catch him. She called him, hopelessly, and he turned and waved cheerfully and then leapt on and again she called, making her mouth shape his name. “Jay! - Jay - wait for me! Please don’t make me go away - Jay - ”

  And then, suddenly, she was awake, to find Biff’s hand on her shoulder, and an anxious expression that looked oddly incongruous on his wide freckled face.

  “What’s the matter?” she said stupidly. “What - ”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” he said softly. “You were thrashing about a bit, you know? And calling out, so I - well - ” he looked over his shoulder and she saw the air hostess leaning across to look worriedly at her. “I thought you’d rather I woke you before you - before too many people noticed.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and shook her head a little to clear it. “I’m sorry - I was dreaming - ”

  “Not to worry,” he said, and leaned back in his seat again, and the air hostess asked her if she wanted anything and went away when Isabel shook her head, and after a moment or two she said awkwardly, “That was - I’m sorry about that. I do dream a little - loudly - sometimes, I’m told.”