Flowers from the Doctor

by Lucilla Andrews

  Richard was still grumbling when we left the annexe. Sitting alone in the back of his car, I watched his sulky expression in the driving-mirror, and wandered how I had ever thought him so wonderful. He was very good-looking, could be charming, but he could also act up like a spoilt child.

  I had chosen to sit in the back instead of by Richard, as they had suggested, because of Sonia. There had been no option to my accepting this lift, as David could prove, so there seemed little even she could make of it, but after that letter nonsense ‒ and it had proved anything but nonsense ‒ I was not leaving anything to chance.

  David was very quiet at first, and left the conversation to Richard and myself. He sat sideways, mostly looking rather thoughtfully back at me. The conversation could not have made entertaining listening. Richard sulked when not grumbling, and, as his attitude to nurses having responsibilities had always annoyed me, that time I did not attempt to hide my feelings. ‘Don’t be a moron, Richard!’ I snapped after a long moan from him on ‘why Sonia, why not Nurse This or That’ lines. ‘Sonia’s a very good theatre staff nurse. Very good theatre nurses take time to train. You can’t just haul in any newly qualified house-surgeon or dresser and say, “Set a trolley for a nephrectomy” ‒ or ‒ “Relay for an end-to-end anastomosis, stat.” God help the patient and the rest of the theatre staff if anyone tried it!’

  David laughed. ‘Which, if I may say it, cuts you neatly down to size, Richard.’

  It was a very mild evening for late January. The sky was low, driving pleasant, until we began to climb the first ridge of the Downs. The by-pass there ran up and down for ten miles.

  Richard had been driving fast. The thickening air slowed him. ‘Damn this bloody mist! It’s going to hold us up a lot. Those clouds are getting lower.’

  ‘Hang on.’ David opened his window, stuck his head out. ‘How right you are! The flipping things are going to come down on our heads. If they are as thick as they look we’ll walk it faster.’ He smiled back at me. ‘Sorry about this, Kirsty. I’m beginning to have doubts we’ll have time for that dinner.’

  I told him not to worry, as I was never hungry before parties.

  Personally, I did not mind how late we arrived at the dance. The thought of eating food unwillingly paid for by Johnny was giving me indigestion already.

  Two miles on we were down to walking speed. We had then gone a third of the Downs road, had to climb considerably higher before we started down the last hill. Richard muttered under his breath, stopped the car. ‘I’ve lost the edge. Dave, get out and guide.’

  ‘Sure.’ Dave’s large figure vanished in the cotton-wool cloud. Then he was back. ‘Keep your lights full on, Richard. I nearly lost you myself.’

  Richard was not amused. ‘Find the edge?’

  ‘I did. Don’t let it bother you, chum, but you’re on the wrong side of the road. Get her going. We’ll ease her over.’

  It took fifteen minutes to travel fifteen feet. Then we crawled on upwards again, with David walking by us, one hand on the car, guiding us by feeling the grass verge under his feet.

  ‘Hold it!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘Crisis!’ Again he disappeared into the mist. It seemed ages before he returned and got in. ‘Cigarette, all? I think you may need ’em. I have news for you. I was on grass ‒ and so are you. I don’t know where we are, or where the road is. I fear we are in for a long, long wait. Let us be patient, my friends.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Richard was really angry. ‘We can find the bloody road.’

  ‘Then you find it, chum. If you are better at this guiding racket than I am,’ said David amicably, ‘you walk, and I’ll drive the lady. In the meantime, I’m going to stay and talk to her.’ He waited until we were alone. ‘Kirsty, I am sorry about this.’

  ‘Not your fault, Dave. No one can help the elements. Maybe a wind’ll get up. If not we’ll just have to wait. I’ve been in mists like this in Scotland. Staying put is the only thing to do.’

  He reached back, patted my hand. ‘Thanks, pal.’

  Even Richard had to agree we had no alternative to sitting it out when he got back. ‘This is just about all I needed! I’ve never had to waste so much time.’

  ‘And think of the two good tickets we’re wasting,’ Dave reminded him. ‘Good for the soul, no doubt.’

  Richard refused to be consoled, and went on muttering peevishly. It was interesting to contrast his attitude to Dave’s amused acceptance of the inevitable, and then, as Johnny was never far from my mind these days, I wondered how he would take it. I was certain exactly as Dave. Johnny had a hideously quick temper, but he never sulked, and was too adult to get annoyed with something like the weather.

  As evening turned to night the damp air turned really cold.

  There were no rugs and the car heater was not working. Neither was the fault of David or myself. Richard acted as if we were responsible for both and our predicament. ‘Not even enough room to stretch out and try for some sleep.’

  ‘There’s more leg room at the back. Why not move round?’ suggested David.

  I had another idea. ‘You come back, Dave, and leave Richard the whole front seat.’

  ‘If that’s all right with you? And you, Richard?’

  Richard said he could not care less. I could, because of Sonia. ‘Come on, Dave.’

  Richard grunted to himself, then stretched out along the seat and ignored us. This seemed to worry David. It did not worry me at all. If Richard wanted to sulk he could go ahead, while I thanked heaven fasting for having got over my infatuation for him, and for his not loving me. If he had been in love with me, and asked me to marry him last summer, I would not have hesitated, and would then have had to spend the rest of my life coaxing him out of his ill-humour. If something like the weather could upset him now, I thought, thinking back to Johnny, heaven only knew how he, Richard, would take the normal set-backs of married life. God help Sonia! Unless she liked men who behaved like spoilt boys. Personally I preferred them grown-up, like David was grown-up despite his age. He had taken a lot of trouble to organize tonight, and his sensible reaction to what was after all only a minor inconvenience made me like him more than ever.

  We talked for hours. Time passed more quickly than I would have guessed. No wind got up. The night was as thick as ever when I dropped off to sleep around midnight.

  I woke first. The mist was still there, but the first morning light was beginning to filter through. I was stiff but very warm. David was practically sitting on top of me, and, having somehow removed his duffle-coat during the night and draped it over both of us, had made sure cold would not wake me.

  He was a little embarrassed when I thanked him. ‘Shucks, Kirsty. Wasn’t big of me at all. What would Big Brother say if I let you get pneumonia?’

  ‘What’s that?’ That roused Richard. ‘Johnny got strong views on Kirsty getting pneumonia? Don’t tell me you and he are buddies after all this time, Kirsty?’

  David answered for me. ‘Isn’t Kirsty the staff nurse in his cherished Mark?’ he asked, as if that explained everything ‒ which, of course, it did.

  On the drive back they agreed I should go straight to Matron’s Office when I reached the hospital. ‘No point in wasting time ringing up. Show yourself in person,’ advised David, ‘and they’ll see you are all in one piece.’

  Richard’s ill-humour had worn off in sleep. ‘I’ll tell my boss all. They’ll all understand.’

  ‘Yes.’ I looked thankfully at David. Matron’s Office was not bothering me, as I had a simple and true explanation for being out all night. But his presence was going to make all the difference to any grapevine buzz.

  David’s digs were about a mile from Simeon’s. We had to pass them, so we dropped him on the way.

  ‘I’ll have a bath and get this beard off, then meet you in the canteen about eleven, Kirsty. All right?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Then we must fix up this date that’s still owing.’

  I said, ‘I’m afraid fate�
�s against it.’

  ‘Then fate will have to deal with one D. Druro.’ He slapped Richard’s shoulder. ‘Thanks for the lift, chum.’

  We drove on to the hospital. Instead of parking in his usual spot, Richard drove close up to the Surgical Block, jerked a thumb at the new scaffolding round the old wing of the Medical School. ‘You’ve heard that’s got to come down?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Something wrong with the foundations. Relic from the War. We are going to have a fine new lecture wing.’ He got out, holding my unused suitcase, as eight chimed on the main hospital clock in Casualty yard. ‘So we made it at last.’ He smiled his old really delightful smile. ‘My God, what a night, eh!’

  ‘I’ll say.’ I smiled back. I did not have to be in love with him to be pleased he had stopped sulking. ‘I’m sorry you had such a wreck of a day yesterday. Thanks for bringing us back safely.’

  We walked slowly towards a side-entrance of the block. I looked up at Lister windows, thinking how much had happened to change me since I worked there. Johnny was at one of the windows.

  Richard was watching the workmen climbing into their position on the scaffolding to start their day’s work. ‘Having no head for heights, I never can understand how those chaps stick their job.’

  I made some answer, looked up at Lister again. Johnny had gone.

  The main ground-floor corridor connected all the blocks. When we reached it Richard handed me my case, went in the other direction to his room. I walked right towards Matron’s Office two blocks along. Then Johnny came three at a time down the last flight of the Surgical Block stairs, and was standing in front of me.

  ‘So you’ve arrived?’ It was the first obvious remark I had ever heard him make. ‘Up from the annexe for the dance? Or didn’t you realize it was last night?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. We got held up on the way ‒’

  ‘Obviously. Unless you were walking.’ He looked at my suitcase. ‘Just going along to the Office to explain?’

  ‘Yes. I thought I should do that first. It’s quite straightforward.’

  ‘I’ll bet it is!’ He cut me short again. ‘I’ll bet you’ve a cast-iron explanation. With your talent for talking your way out of things, how could it be anything else? Of course,’ he added drily, ‘it must be a help to have no inhibitions about trivial matters like pride, or busting up someone else’s engagement. Yet I must say I would have thought even you would have drawn the line at spending the night with Bartney, and then walking blatantly into your own hospital with him at this hour of the morning, to make quite sure everyone knows what has happened.’

  I had not had much sleep. It was a long time since I had had a meal. His expression at the window just now, sudden appearance, and the controlled fury in his ultra-quiet voice had me dazed.

  ‘Johnny, you’ve got this all wrong. You don’t understand ‒’

  ‘You’re dead right I don’t! And I don’t want to! You’re not worth it, Kirsty! Well? What happened? Did you run out of petrol? Or was it a puncture?’

  As always in an emotional crisis, my brain worked slowly. ‘You knew I was coming up with Richard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who told you? Sonia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  What had happened to him was then obvious. Sonia had ‘forgotten’ to mention David for reasons that I was far too muddled to work out yet, but must tie up with that letter business. As David had intentionally kept quiet about his hitch with Richard, quite possibly no one yet knew where he had been last night. That could and would all be put right. What could not was the thought that Johnny thought me capable of acting as he suspected.

  I stopped feeling dazed and saw red.

  ‘Maybe I am not worth understanding,’ I hit back, ‘but at least I try not to jump to scurrilous conclusions about people until I’ve heard both sides of a story. I’ve been trying to explain. You won’t let me. And now I’m damned if I’ll bother! Your good opinion of me never has ‒ never will ‒ interest me. I’ve stood a lot from you, Mr Druro, sir,’ I went on furiously, ‘only because I’ve had to! Just as I’ve had to say “Yes, Mr Druro, no, Mr Druro, anything you say, Mr Flaming Druro”!’ And in the middle of the main ground-floor corridor I put down my suitcase and dropped him a curtsey. At that early hour both day and night staff were on duty; the night staff did not really begin to trickle off until around twenty-past eight, after the report. Not that I remembered the time. I would not at that moment have cared if Matron and the Dean had walked by. ‘I have to take you on duty. I am not on duty now. And as you once reminded me yourself, you are only a ruddy registrar. As a surgeon’ ‒ I looked him over ‒ ‘you’re good. As a man you are the most bad-mannered, bad-tempered, self-opinionated, pigheaded, domineering individual I have ever had the misfortune to meet! And that’s all I have to say to you ‒ apart from suggesting that next time, before you go round making despicable insinuations about people, you had better get your facts right. In this case, get them from your brother Dave.’

  ‘Dave?’ The colour really had drained from his face. Even his lips were bluish-white. ‘What’s he got to do with this? His lot told me he went home yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Then that’s something else that was told you wrong. Ask him yourself. He’s coming up this morning. I’ve said all I intend saying to you, Johnny Druro, unless I have to on duty. So will you please get the hell out of my way and let me get on to the Office?’ He moved aside slowly, looking as dazed as I had felt previously. I went on fast, and did not look back.

  Chapter Ten

  WARNING CALL ‒ CASUALTY SCARLET

  The Assistant Matron was perfectly sweet. ‘So the three of you were stranded all night, Nurse Francis. How unfortunate! What a good thing you had the sense to wait it out! We had no fog here, but I heard on the weather forecast this morning that there had been thick mist on high ground. Go and have a good breakfast and then a hot bath.’

  Back in the Home, Home Sister wanted my story all over again. Then my set arrived and demanded a repeat. I was with some of the girls when David rang me after breakfast.

  ‘Angel, the worst has happened! I can’t keep our canteen date. There’s a path drive I clean forgot and must attend. Are you very cross?’

  I said I was not at all cross. I was not surprised, either.

  He said I had not heard all. That was something else that did not surprise me. ‘I’ve got to play a rough game this afternoon, and won’t be free until sevenish. Any good?’

  I invented an urgent reason for getting home directly after lunch.

  He groaned. ‘Round 3, or is it 4, to Fate.’

  ‘Afraid so. You ringing from the hospital?’

  As I guessed, he was. He did not mention seeing Johnny, which he would certainly have done under normal circumstances, and if they had not yet met I was sure he would have told me so. He just apologized again, said he hoped to see me one of these fine days at the annexe, and rang off.

  I quite understood why. He did like me, but he was very fond of Johnny, and now I had declared open war on his brother he had no alternative but to drop me. It would have been different perhaps had he been at all in love with me. Then he might have thought our friendship worth a family row. But he was no more smitten by me than I was by him.

  Like most people with quick tempers, once I got the explosion over I stopped being angry and was hideously ashamed of what I had said. I was ashamed now, yet I knew that, given the same opportunity, I would be just as angry and say the same things over again.

  I realized exactly why I had been so furious with him, and dimly why Sonia had flung those various spanners in the works, but I could not follow why Johnny had been so angry with me. If he was interested in me ‒ why in heaven’s name hadn’t he done something about it? He had had endless opportunities at the annexe.

  The problem made me so preoccupied at home that my mother decided I must be ill, and insisted on taking my temperature.

  When that proved normal she d
emanded to know if I was being overworked in Mark Ward, and if so, why I did not go straight to Matron and ask for a transfer.

  ‘Mum, I love Mark! Honestly,’ I protested, trying to decide which would be worse ‒ Monday at the annexe with Johnny back from loan after Saturday morning or Monday at the annexe without Johnny.

  I went out for a long walk alone on Sunday morning. My mother was at our garden gate when I got back.

  ‘Matron telephoned, Kirsty. You are to ring her at once.’

  I stared at her, and thought, This is something to do with Johnny. I don’t know how. But it is.

  Matron said, ‘I am extremely sorry to disturb your weekend, Nurse Francis, but I was anxious to catch you before you left for the annexe. Will you come straight back here this evening, please? You will not be surprised at my having to recall you, as I am sure you have heard how busy we are. Sister Mark has kindly agreed to spare you for a few weeks. Home Sister Annexe will pack your belongings and send them up on the hospital van tomorrow. Home Sister here has arranged a temporary room for you in the Sisters’ Home. Will you go straight there tonight, and report to Sister Casualty first thing in the morning?’

  I said, ‘Yes, Matron; thank you, Matron,’ while working out Johnny’s annexe appointment. He had been there ‒ how long? Ten months. He must take his holiday before his year ended, and would most probably now take the last four weeks of his year. Which meant there was a good chance we might not meet up at the annexe again.

  It was hard to see just how he had pulled this particular string, and certainly Simeon’s proper was having a staff crisis, but I knew enough about hospitals to know it was not impossible for Johnny to be behind this. A word in an S.S.O.’s ear, perhaps? Those things happened.

  ‘Good news, darling?’ called my mother.

  ‘Oh ‒ yes ‒ I think it is.’ She would be pleased, also Johnny. Two out of three was not a bad percentage.