I sat down again. ‘Do you do any boxing now?’
‘No. I need my hands; isn’t worth the risk to them, and I’m getting too old. I’ve settled for fishing.’
‘Which type?’
‘Preferably salmon.’
My father, an ardent fly fisherman, had taught my brothers and myself. I was not much good at casting, but I could talk fishing endlessly. We had a splendidly technical discussion on salmon in general and flies in particular. A discussion that was a revelation to me about something that had nothing to do with fish.
I had known Johnny over two years, but this was our first long conversation on a non-shop topic, and for the first time there was no verbal sparring. We talked, laughed, talked on. As that coffee had so clearly broken the ice, it was rather a pity I had not previously followed my instincts and thrown something at his head.
We discovered we had fished the same estuary of the same sea-loch in the western highlands of Scotland. We had both fallen in.
‘My father and the boys were furious with me. They bellowed to me to stop thrashing about as I’d disturb the fish, and left me to haul myself out. Chivalrous types, fishermen.’
He smiled. ‘Was this last year?’
‘Year before. We all got up to visit the grandparents together.’
‘Your mother’s family?’
‘Yes. How often do you get up there?’
‘Most years in September. Not this one.’ He slapped himself absently. ‘Where did I put those cigarettes?’
‘I think you left them on the dashboard shelf. Is the car locked?’ We were both on our feet. ‘Then as I’ve left my bag there, and want some exercise after all those sandwiches, I’ll get ’em, Mr Druro.’
The name slipped out from force of habit. I did not realize it had until he frowned. I was sorry. I had had enough of frozen atmospheres. So I was honest. ‘Sorry about that Mister, but, if you’ll forgive the corn, old habits die very hard with me.’
‘I know. And me.’
We were standing very close. His expression was suddenly bleak. If only for that moment his defences were down. Just as suddenly, I wanted to help him. I did not stop to work out why. That could come later. This moment might never come again.
‘Johnny, I’m awfully sorry about all this. For you, as well as me.’
‘Me?’ He put his hands in his pockets. ‘So you know? I never realized that.’
I said, ‘It only dawned on me very recently. I sort of knew subconsciously since one evening in London. You had driven her up and took her away from the party to look at the view from the library.’
‘So ‒ that’s ‒ it.’ He spun out the words.
‘That was when I first noticed you two together. Then I got to Mark and heard all the talk.’ He did not say anything, so I went on: ‘You’re a very good actor, Johnny. I don’t believe the annexe has guessed how you feel.’
‘That’s something,’ he said grimly.
‘Yes. Mind you, I have been a little surprised that no one else has caught on. She is so attractive.’
‘Sonia’s not attractive, Kirsty. She’s just plain beautiful.’ That, from him, told me all I needed to know about his situation.
‘In a way, her being beautiful makes it much easier for me to take what’s now happened. I should feel much worse if Richard had fallen in love with a plain girl without a wealthy, influential father.’
‘Dinsford’s not in medicine.’
‘No. But he’ll sit on enough boards and have enough of the right kind of friends to be very useful to an ambitious young doctor.’ And then, as it seemed that I could, I asked, ‘Was it her money that held you back?’
He took his time. ‘Money doesn’t really come into it as much as you might think. I’ll admit I should hate my wife to own more money than I could earn, but I hate still more the prospect of joining a queue for any woman. Particularly for a woman who quite patently is in love with another man.’ His shoulders were most uncharacteristically hunched. ‘That evening you mentioned ‒ in London ‒ was one I remember very well. I realized then I had reached the point of no return where’ ‒ he hesitated ‒ ‘she was concerned. I didn’t want that to happen. It just did.’
I said, ‘It seems it happened to me too.’ I forgot the cigarettes and my handbag and sat down again, thinking back to that night. Until I had spoken I had not realized what a crucial evening that had been. Richard had altered to me from then on, and subconsciously I had begun to drift away from him too. Which was why I was now nothing like as hurt as I would have expected to be.
Johnny came back with the things, sat by me, offered a cigarette. I refused absently, my mind being occupied with the discovery I had just made.
He yawned. ‘Has there been a lot of talk about my angle?’
‘Not all that much. Most of it was over, I gathered, before I got down. I heard from Phil Murrow. And I can tell you that she shares the general impression that you aren’t interested in anything but work.’
‘Is that a compliment?’ His smile was self-derisive. ‘Or am I right in suspecting it is the reverse?’
I smiled faintly. ‘A kind of compliment. It’s very right and proper for a hard-working registrar to give the impression of being a ‒ human.’
‘Thanks very much.’ He looked at me. ‘How did you see through the act?’
‘I have seen rather a lot of you lately. And I have two brothers. Even so, it took me some time to catch on.’
‘But your pals didn’t agree?’
‘Phil’s my only pal down here. The others in our Home are all much more senior. They don’t talk to me, yet. I did tell Phil. Like I said, she wasn’t impressed. I won’t discuss it any more. The grapevine,’ I added bitterly, ‘will go to town on this, but without my help.’
He lay back, dropped an arm over his face, swallowed a couple of yawns. ‘You don’t want to let that moronic grapevine worry you. Let the damn thing buzz. It always has’ ‒ from his voice he was nearly asleep ‒ ‘always will. So what?’
I did not answer, intentionally. I could see he was now having to force himself to stay awake, and I had had too many late mornings after heavy nights on duty not to appreciate what real agony that could be.
My silence worked. A few seconds later he sighed deeply, his arm slid away from his face, and the lighted cigarette slipped from the fingers of his other hand. I reached for it, stubbed it on the grass as he sighed again, shifted his position a little towards me, and was flat out.
I watched his unguarded face for a long time, comparing it with Dave’s sleeping face, and feeling a little amused at the unexpected insight I was getting into the Druro family’s sleeping expressions.
David was the better-looking of the two as far as regular good looks were concerned, but Johnny was the more interesting.
There was a slight kink in his nose and a scar at the corner of one eye that I had not noticed before. Obviously the results of his former prowess in the ring, or on the rugger field, or both. A great player of rough games was Johnny, which made the gentleness of his expression in sleep so strange. Considering this, I remembered my earlier thoughts on Johnny in bed, and corrected them slightly. A bulldozer, perhaps, but a very gentle bulldozer. I must, I thought, remember to tell Richard ‒ he’d be so amused to think I had begun to change my mind about Johnny.
The thought had framed itself out of the habit of months. Suddenly I realized it was one habit that had now to be broken, and exactly what to-day was going to mean. I was not heartbroken. I knew my earlier discovery that I had been only infatuated with Richard was right, but he had been a great friend as well as the most important man in my life, and the prospect of the immediate future without him was quite unbearably bleak.
The sun moved slowly down the sky. I was too restless to sit around and think any more. I draped the mackintosh over Johnny and took myself for a long walk. I waited until the sun touched the horizon, then went back. ‘Johnny! I think you should wake up.’ I shook his shoulder gently. �
��Time to go home.’
He blinked, shook his head to clear it, then raised himself on one elbow. ‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘Couple of hours. Maybe a bit more.’
He had noticed the mack. ‘You put this here?’
‘Yes. I’ve been taking a walk.’
‘You must be frozen. You should have woken me!’
‘Why? You needed the sleep. I needed time to think.’
‘Possibly. I still feel a complete layabout ‒’
‘Well, don’t.’ I cut him short. ‘Because I want to ask you a favour, and I can’t do that unless you stop this breast-beating. Will you drive me to Hilldown?’
‘Now? Of course. May one ask why?’
‘I want to go home. I can just make it tonight if I get the six-forty from Hilldown. I won’t bother about pyjamas and a toothbrush. My mum will provide.’
He fiddled with his tie. ‘How long are you going for?’
‘Only until tomorrow evening.’
‘Running away?’
I looked straight at him. ‘Yes.’
He said he did not blame me. ‘Let’s go.’
I wanted to get off, yet I lingered. ‘What’ll you do?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. What time did you say your train left?’ Which put me firmly in my place.
We were quiet on the drive to Hilldown, but the strain that had been present in the silence that morning was missing. At the station he found out about my return train for me. ‘You either have to travel mid-afternoon or very late.’
‘Have to be the afternoon. What time does it get in here?’
‘Five to six.’ He scowled at the board. ‘I had better meet you.’
‘You don’t want to do that!’
He said wanting did not come into it. ‘I’ve got to be in Hilldown tomorrow afternoon, and must be back at the hospital by half-six as I’ve got a man coming to see me. And as I dragged you out this morning, the least I can do is see you get back. Right?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
When I arrived home a few hours later my parents were just getting ready to go to bed. ‘Darling,’ said my mother, ‘this is the most lovely surprise ‒ but the shocks you give us, Kirsty! Father and I were only saying this morning that we always know what to expect from the boys, but where you are concerned anything can and generally does happen. How did you get to the station? Did that nice young man Richard give you a lift?’
‘He’s still in town. One of the registrars.’
My mother looked interested. ‘Really, darling? A nice registrar?’
I thought of Johnny scowling at the station; Johnny in the lane that morning; Johnny asleep that afternoon. ‘He has his points once you get to know him. How are the boys?’
My return train was five minutes late. Johnny was on the platform and radiating impatience. ‘Come on. I want to get back.’
I very nearly reminded him I had not asked him to meet me. ‘Have you been working to-day?’
‘No. I went home too. I got back to Hilldown after lunch to keep that date I told you about yesterday, and now I must get back to the annexe as that man who’s coming to see me is coming the hell of a long way, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.’ Young Charlie was on the evening shift at the lodge. He was leaning out of the window talking to Arthur Jennings, one of the Mark house-surgeons, as we drove in at the gate.
Johnny stopped; opened his window. ‘Hey, Charlie! Any messages for me?’
‘Couple, sir. You coming in or shall I fetch ’em out?’
Johnny informed me I would not mind waiting and went in. Arthur Jennings came over to me. ‘Hallo, Nurse Francis. Where are you from?’
‘Home. Johnny Druro gave me a lift back from Hilldown.’
He was in Richard’s year. Richard never liked him. He was a quiet, rather shy young man with an owlish face and slight stutter, and until we worked together in Mark I had shared Richard’s view that Arthur Jennings was a dead bore. Lately I had grown quite fond of him, and felt slightly guilty in doing so because of Richard. It was something to be free to form my own judgments. ‘How’s Mark? Busy weekend?’
‘Fairly. Sister’s been d-d-doing her nut all day ‒ and Nurse White said ‒’ but he could not finish, as Johnny was back.
‘Why does the S.S.O. want to see me, Arthur? What’s he doing in Cas? And if there’s a case on, what are you doing here?’ he demanded.
Arthur blinked. ‘No case in yet, but one’s expected. No one’s t-t-t-told me what. No one’ ‒ he looked from Johnny to me ‒ ‘ever t-t-tells me anything.’
Johnny was scowling again. ‘This is supposed to be my free weekend. If I have to work tonight ‒’ He groaned. ‘What the hell ‒ I’ll have to work.’ He drove us on to Casualty, drew up at the entrance. ‘If you wait a few moments while I see what gives I’ll run you up to the dispensary car-park.’
There was a little group of staff nurses on the ramp. They glanced at us incuriously, then curiously. They were all senior to me, but we knew each other well by sight from meals in the dining-room, or round and about the Home, and they all knew Johnny well.
He walked into Casualty, came out almost at once with Sister Cas. ‘Kirsty, Sister wants to know how long it took us to get up to the Pilgrims’ Way yesterday. Did you notice?’
‘Not accurately. I think about an hour.’
Sister Casualty was young, pretty, and married to one of the pathologists. She stayed talking picnics to me when Johnny went in again to see the S.S.O. The girls on the ramp went on with their conversation.
Sister said I had persuaded her to insist her husband took her up on Resting Hill next weekend. ‘Mind you, you were very lucky with the weather yesterday and to-day. It seems to have been pouring over most of the country. I expect,’ she added soberly, ‘that was how that car in which poor Nurse Murrow was travelling got into that skid and turned over. What a miracle no one was badly hurt. Matron says the car was wrecked.’
‘Nurse Murrow, Sister? Philippa Murrow? From the theatre? Is she badly hurt?’
‘My dear, I am sorry! I should have remembered she’s in your set and you could not have heard the news as you’ve been away to-day. But don’t worry. She’s only cracked a right clavicle and has a mild degree of shock. She should be back with us in a few weeks. And her companions in the car have equally minor injuries.’
‘Thank God it’s no worse.’ I was very shaken. ‘Where did this happen, Sister? Near here?’
‘No.’ She named a county hospital seventy miles away. ‘Nurse Murrow’ll probably only be warded a few days, and will then go home to Eire on sick leave. She’ll be back with us in no time, we all hope.’ She glanced across to the girls on the ramp. Her face froze into a formal little smile as she obviously acknowledged a greeting. ‘’Evening, Nurse Dinsford,’ she called; ‘you are a stranger.’
The group had grown since I last looked at it. Sonia, looking superbly elegant in a long navy staff nurse’s cloak, detached herself and came over to the car. ‘Not really a stranger, I hope, Sister. I did do seven months in the theatre here last year ‒ and then of course’ ‒ she glanced at me ‒ ‘I had that spell in Mark. And it is so nice to be back in the country.’
Sister Casualty accepted that with another cool smile. ‘Quite recovered from the sunstroke?’
‘Wonderfully, thanks. I was actually going to start work in the general theatre in town tomorrow, and then Matron rang me at home this morning and asked me to come straight down here. I was only too pleased to be fit and able to help out. Such bad luck on poor Nurse Murrow.’
‘Very,’ agreed Sister tersely. ‘Well, if you are on duty, Nurse, I mustn’t keep you. You’ll have heard we are now waiting for an emergency who will almost certainly have to go to the theatre.’ After that there was nothing Sonia could do but remove herself to the theatre. Sister Casualty might be young and pretty, but she was very much a Simeon’s sister, which was one of the reasons why I had made no attempt to join in her conversation wi
th Sonia. Another reason was Johnny. He had been standing just inside the Cas door for the last couple of minutes. His expression had tightened exactly as if someone had hit him in the face.
He joined us when Sonia disappeared into the theatre. ‘How right you were, Sister!’
‘You’re going to have to work! Oh, poor man! But it’s always the same at weekends. Unless you residents get right away you just get dragged in.’ Her smile was sympathetic and included me. ‘It’s too bad you got back so early.’
Johnny said, ‘No alternative. You remember the husband of that girl in Catherine we were talking about yesterday? Well, he’s driving all the way up from Exeter this afternoon and back again tonight, so I had to come in.’
He drove us the remaining few yards from Casualty to the car-park on the far side of the dispensary. ‘I’m very sorry about Phil Murrow.’
‘Yes. It’s tough on her. The S.S.O. tell you?’
He nodded, switched off the engine, removed the keys. ‘Better move. That man from Exeter may have arrived by now, or that emergency, or both.’
‘Yes. What is the emergency?’
‘A perforated G.U. A man. Fifty-ish. Coming from the other side of Hilldown and to us because Hilldown General is full. The S.S.O.’s going to do him. He wants me to stand in. I may as well. I’d as soon work as hang around.’
I thanked him for the lift, said I hoped he did not have to work too hard, and we went our separate ways. When I got back to my room in the Home and remembered how I had felt when I walked out of it yesterday, I could not believe yesterday was only a few hours away, or that I was the same girl. I felt like a ghost from a fast-fading past haunting a present that was still more shadowy.
Chapter Seven
A LETTER GOES ASTRAY
David Druro had been discharged, and there was a new patient in his bed in Mark on Monday morning. I was sorry he had gone, and at the same time very relieved. He would have asked far too many awkward questions.
Flowers from the Doctor Page 9
