Nurse in the Sun

by Claire Rayner

  She had just finished the tray and had set the trolley as ready as she could when the desk telephone rang.

  “Good morning!” a little voice clacked in response to her cheerful “Digame”. “I thought you’d be pretty miserable this morning, but you sound great! I mean, after last night - you looked pretty sick - ”

  “Good morning, Biff. No, I’m fine. I was a bit tired last night, I admit, and I’m sorry I shot off like that. It was really very kind of you to have come to see me, and to ask me to go out, and I owe you an apology. I really behaved very childishly.”

  “The hell with that!” the little voice said indignantly. “If anyone behaved badly it’s that lousy sonofa - that guy you’re working for. If I ever saw or heard a slob in action, it’s that piece of - of - ”

  “Hey, Biff!” Isabel said, amused. “There’s no need to be so very annoyed with him! I can’t pretend I’m exactly his greatest admirer this morning, but all the same, I did make a fool of myself. The man offered me the use of his car and I was daft enough to think - well, I was tired, and one way and another - ”

  “Listen, honey, I don’t care if you did make a mistake - which frankly I doubt. I mean, I reckon the guy did ask you out and got hit in the eye when I turned up and got back at you real vicious - but what I mean is, even if he did only offer you his lousy car and lousier chauffeur, if he’d been any kind of a real man he’d not have behaved like - I mean, in his shoes, I’d never have said anything so lousy! I’d have said - this is my date, and you go play in someone else’s yard - and I’d have taken you off around the town and given you a real good time - ”

  “I’m sure you would, Biff. And thank you. You really are very kind, and very nice, and already I feel much better about it all. Really, I’ve been very lucky! Yesterday you talked me out of my flying nerves, and this morning you smooth my ruffled feathers! Not that they’re ruffled, I assure you. I’d got over the whole thing anyway. I’ve usually more sense than to get myself into a great state over sillinesses! But thanks for the thought - and thanks for phoning so early! I had to get up at seven, because I have to start clinic at eight thirty, but you didn’t have to!”

  He chuckled richly. “Indeed I did! I’m a working type too, remember! Today I have to go over to Andraitx to see about a site there. But look, Isabel - can it be Isabel now, by the way? Or shall I stick with Miss Cameron?”

  She laughed too, “Isabel, of course.”

  “Okay, Isabel. Listen, what time are you free today? Apart from midday, I mean. This whole damned Island grinds to a halt from one till four - tonight is what I’m asking about.”

  “I finish at seven thirty,” she said. “But - ”

  “No buts. This time I don’t get done in the eye. Tonight you’re my date - okay? We’ll eat someplace interesting, and maybe we’ll get to see some Flamenco. I’ll pick you up there at around eight. Can you be ready?”

  “Thank you, Biff. I can be ready; and I’ll look forward to it.”

  “That’ll show him!” she thought obscurely as she hung up. And knew she was being ridiculous, for how could it? She would hardly be likely to march up to him and say “I’m going out with Biff tonight, so Yah sucks, boo!” would she? Really, she was getting positively paranoid about this man Garcia. He piqued her, and hurt her sense of amour propre, that’s what it was, she told herself. Rather like when a new surgeon came to the Royal, and tried to impose his will on her. She had always made it clear that her theatres were run her way, and that she was at least the equal of the men who worked there. No one was going to make sturdy, independent Sister Cameron into a mere lackey, a handmaiden of Aesculapius, and everyone might as well know it.

  She looked at her watch, annoyed with herself for letting her thoughts run away with her so. Eight forty, and no sign of any patients. For a moment she felt real anxiety. Suppose there turned out to be hardly any patients ever? After all, a hotel wasn’t like a hospital with something always going on in the illness field! Maybe she’d have nothing to do apart from dealing with the odd cuts and bruises; the summer suddenly seemed to yawn in front of her, workless, empty and interminable.

  She hurried to the door, planning on going up to the foyer to ask Jaime Mendoza whether everyone knew she was on duty, ready to start work, and stopped short as she reached the little waiting room.

  It was quite full, with several people leaning against the walls and sharing the available chairs, and beyond them she could see several more in the corridor outside. And she smiled broadly, a smile of pure relief, and said “Good morning - ah - Buenos Dias!” and there was a soft chorus of response.

  They were all staff, every one of them, and they filed in in order, to present her with assorted bumps and bruises and half healed cuts and grazes. As she treated each one, carefully noting names and departments - kitchens, gardens, boiler rooms - she knew she was under surveillance. Clearly the word had gone out and everyone who could was coming to see the new enfermera, to assess her capabilities and decide whether or not they would patronize her clinic again.

  There was a lull in the demand for her care at around ten, as she sent off, suitably bandaged, the last of the patients who had arrived with the eight thirty rush, and then, half an hour later, another batch of staff arrived and she breathed a sigh of real relief. Clearly, she was approved; her first patients had gone back to their departments and reported favourably, and sent their friends and colleagues along. And from ten thirty until almost twelve thirty she dealt with a steady stream of patients, while learning a number of Spanish words she hadn’t met before.

  “Tiritas - ” one chambermaid said, showing her a roll of sticky plaster, and “El unguento, por favor?” asked another showing her the rows of pots of ointments in one of the cabinets. She strapped a strained ankle, while the owner of it spelled out “El tobillo - ” and lanced a boil in a finger and was told it was “El furunculo di dedo - ” And when she repeated the words, her patients nodded and beamed their approval, and altogether made her feel she was doing very well.

  At a quarter to one, she telephoned Jaime Mendoza, who was so full of chatter that she could hardly get a word in edgeways; but at length she managed to explain what she wanted.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll be so busy every day,” she said. “This morning all the staff wanted to have a look at the clinic, I think. But I don’t want to keep the waiting room full of people all the time - ”

  “Oh, no, certainly not - this is bad, I agree very bad,” Jaime said fussily. “When they should be working it is not good they come and sit and waste your time, no?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m not complaining about that!” Isabel said hastily. “Though I realize I’ll not be too popular with some of the senior people if half their staff are hanging round my clinic most of the morning! I just didn’t want the waiting room crowded because it’s so uncomfortable for them. It’s not designed to hold more than half a dozen folk, after all! So would you send a notice round asking people to make appointments when things aren’t urgent? If they phone me here in the afternoons I can fix an appointment for the next day, you see.”

  “But of course - an idea of great sense, that. I arrange it at once. Now, Isabella, it is nearly time for el almuerzo - for lunch, yes? And if you will come to the desk on your way up, I am happy if you go in with me. I wait for you in ten minutes, si?”

  She tidied the clinic and put the instruments in the sterilizer ready for the afternoon, and locked up carefully before going up to meet Jaime Mendoza. “I’ll have to make it clear I don’t want to take lunch with him every day,” she thought, as she made her way up through the hotel to the foyer. “Quite apart from the fact that he needs discouraging, I’d be bored out of mind - ”

  But once more, she need not have worried. When Jaime led her into the restaurant, bustling in front of her and delivering scolding remarks on all sides as they passed less exalted members of the staff than themselves, she found that a double table had been set in the place she had sat at for te
a and dinner the day before.

  “At lunch, all the staff members that use the restaurant sit together, you see? This way we are a team, verdad?”

  He sat himself at the head of the table, after carefully leading Isabel to the seat on his right, and beaming round at the group, introduced her.

  “Señorita Cameron, here is Señora Lupez, our house-keeper.”

  A heavy woman of about forty five, wearing a severe black dress that didn’t at all suit a very round smiling face, nodded at her.

  “Consuelo - ah, you have met, yes?” Consuelo and Isabel smiled at each other. “Ricardo Fernandez, who is our - the man who looks after the money, the books, you understand - ”

  “Accountant?” said Isabel.

  “Ah, of course - accountant - ” Jaime said, and Señor Fernandez bobbed his narrow head, and returned his attention to the roll and butter he was eating. “And here also is Pepe Delgado, who is our - er - ”

  “I am the public relations, Mees Cameron.” Pepe was a small neatly dressed and rather round faced boy - and Isabel saw him at once as a boy rather than a man even though he was clearly a year or two older than herself; there was something very fresh and eager about him. “And I speak, of course, considerable English, so you have problems I am happy to - ”

  “There will be no need,” Jaime said a little grandly. “I am here for this purpose. Now, we eat, si? Carlos, you bring to us the wine at once, and then we start with the meal.”

  She enjoyed it all; the chatter of the other people at the table, even Jaime’s constant flow of talk giving her pleasure, and the good food and the fruit juice she chose instead of wine. The others were amused at her English refusal to drink wine in the middle of a working day, and Pepe assured her solemnly that before she returned to “ - that cold island of the North” that she would be accustomed to filling her veins with the “sunshine from a bottle” that was Spanish wine. “He must be good at his job” Isabel thought with a spark of amusement, “He even talks like an advertisement - ”

  Lunch over, Consuelo suggested that they go together to swim in the pool, and Isabel delightedly agreed. She collected her swimsuit from her room and met Consuelo in the foyer at two o’clock.

  “Perhaps I show you more of the hotel before we swim?” Consuelo suggested. “Or have you seen all?”

  Isabel said she would love to see the rest of the hotel and had certainly not seen all, and spent half an hour following Consuelo from one splendid and charming room to another. There were card rooms and games rooms, and writing rooms and television rooms; and a hairdresser’s shop and bookshop and delightful little boutiques on the floor two levels below the one where her clinic was.

  “It is because we are built on the side of the cliff, you see?” Consuelo explained. “The street level at the front is four above the lowest floor we have - and then we have two more terraces below. It is very beautiful, yes?”

  “Very,” Isabel said, a little weakly.

  “We are lucky to work here, yes?” Consuelo went on happily. “So good a hotel, so kind a man to work for - I am very happy. He owns all this, and is still so good to his staff - ” she waved an expressive hand around the room they were in, a wide lounge with a wooden floor - unusual where nearly every floor was of marble - and an elegantly fitted bar curving along one side. “You like this room? It is for the dancing - every night, when the summer is here, we open this wall - you see? It is all shutters - and then the room is open to the sea and the sky, and we have music, and we dance and it is very, very beautiful.”

  “Very beautiful,” Isabel said, and then added a little sharply, “You make so much fuss about your Señor Garcia - he sounds more like a saint than an ordinary man. Personally, I don’t find him all that marvellous - ” and then could have bitten her tongue off, for Consuelo looked so upset.

  “But he is of the kindest, I promise you!” she cried. “Why do you say this?”

  “Ach, I’m sorry, Consuelo. Take no notice,” Isabel said. “It’s just that he never seems to smile or be - well, ordinarily friendly! Never says a word more than he must.”

  “You prefer Jaime Mendoza?” Consuelo said, looking out of the corner of her eyes at Isabel, and Isabel laughed and said, “Heavens, no! He never stops talking! Maybe you’re right at that.” And they both laughed, and went off together to swim in the pool in good humour with each other.

  There was no one there but themselves for the first half hour or so, and they stretched themselves out luxuriously on the long mattresses and dozed a little in the sun. Isabel could feel it stroking her skin, as she lay there with her arms thrown out and her eyes closed, and let it creep into her muscles, softening them into relaxation and peace. “A great life, this,” she thought sleepily. “I could really develop quite a taste for it -”

  “Well, there you are! I’ve been calling all over the hotel for you!”

  Isabel opened her eyes, and blinked into the sun, and then screwing her lids against the brightness squinted upwards. Mrs. Connaught was standing above her, looking down with a cool stare that seemed to take in Isabel’s simple black swimsuit and compare it very unfavourably with the white suede one she was herself wearing.

  Isabel sat up, and reached for her towelling robe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was wanted. I was in my clinic until one, of course. You could have found me there if you’d come down.”

  “I’m not about to come to any clinic, thank you! Not when all the kitchen maids and porters are cluttering the place, as I understand they were this morning!”

  “Cluttering?” Isabel was standing now, and tied the girdle of her robe with a sharp tug. “Nobody was cluttering anything. I only had patients there. And only for as long as was necessary for their care. I assure you you wouldn’t have had to wait for very long.”

  “I’m not interested in waiting at all!” Mrs. Connaught said. “You will come to my room this afternoon at four thirty, and deal with the matter then.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Connaught,” Isabel said, and her face was white with controlled anger. “At four thirty I must be in the clinic. My instructions are to remain there to look after any person who comes needing my care, although of course I will see people in their rooms in an emergency. Do you have an emergency, Mrs. Connaught?”

  The woman had turned away, but now she looked round and came back. Isabel was suddenly aware of three or four other guests sitting about on the swimming pool terrace, of Consuelo’s anxious white face staring up at them both from her mattress and felt a twinge of fear. After all, this wasn’t a hospital but an hotel, and maybe the guests did have a right to treat her like any other member of the staff. But then she saw the sneer curled round Mrs. Connaught’s lips and firmed her own. To hell with her! She was not going to be bullied by such a one!

  “That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?” Mrs. Connaught said coldly. “If I call you and say I want to see you in my room, then I want to see you in my room. So, be there at four thirty, d’you understand?” and she marched away towards the bar, her white clad hips swinging above her sunbrowned legs, leaving Isabel standing staring after her with her mouth set mulishly.

  “Oh, Isabel, I hope you will go, yes?” Consuelo said anxiously. “I know she is a very hard woman - everyone says she is very hard, but - she is the friend of Señor Garcia, and there is always trouble if she is upset. You will go to her at four thirty?”

  Isabel bent to pick up her beach bag. “Go to her?” she said in a clear voice that could be heard across the whole terrace. “Go to her? I’m damned if I do. And she and Señor Garcia can do what they like about it!”

  6

  As the clock crept round from four to four fifteen her intent was high. She was not going to go to Vanda Connaught’s room to deal with whatever imagined ill the woman had, and that was all about it.

  But as four fifteen became four twenty and then four twentyfive her resolve wavered a little. After all, what was she here for? She was being highly paid and comfortably maintained in excha
nge for providing medical services for the hotel’s guests and staff. To expect from guests who were paying big bills the sort of politeness and appreciation that English patients offered in English hospitals - with their long tradition of Lady Bountiful charitableness that demanded grovelling gratitude - was hardly justified. And, what was more, a rather unpleasant sidelight on her own attitudes, she told herself sternly.

  But then she remembered the cool and calculated insolence of the woman’s tone, the deliberate attempt to belittle her in others’ eyes, and hardened her resolve again. Her objection was not to going to the woman to treat her tuppeny ha’penny complaint or whatever it was, but to being spoken to so abominably. She would not go, and she snapped the lid of the sterilizer closed over the forceps she had used on the single patient from the gardening staff who had come to her afternoon clinic session and began to plan in her mind exactly what she would say to Señor Garcia about his precious guest. Certainly a plan was needed, she thought. He’d be turning up shortly for his own dressing, surely, and she wanted to be ready for him.

  The phone rang sharply on her desk and she hurried across to answer it.

  “Señorita Enfermera - si? Señorita - oiga? - Señorita?” a voice gabbled as she picked it up.

  “Si - what’s the matter? - er - qué hay?”

  At once the voice broke into a stream of excited Spanish, and she had to hold the phone away from her ear and shout to make herself heard.

  “Haga el favor de hablar más despacio - please speak more slowly.”

  The voice gasped, stopped and then started again.

  “Señorita - ha habido un accidente - entiende -”

  “An accident - yes, I understand - where?”