“But I can’t!” I cried. “I can’t just run back to Dickon to use him as – as a shoulder to cry on! Not after the way I treated him! I can’t!”
“You can, my dear, because it’s the one way you can make up to him for the way you hurt him. If you want to make him happy again, you’ll talk to him. He loves you very much, Avril.”
“I don’t deserve it,” I whispered, tears welling up in my eyes again.
“No, you don’t,” Chick agreed calmly. “But you might, one day. If you try.”
The switchboard buzzed again, and this time Chick made the connection quickly.
“Hello? – Hello? – Hel – Oh, Dickon! You made it –” She grinned at me, “Yes – she’s here –”
She held the headphones out to me, but I stood mesmerized, staring at her. With a soft growl of impatience, she thrust them on to my head, settling them over my ears.
Almost in a dream, I heard Dickon’s voice, tiny and disembodied, but achingly familiar and precious. The line crackled and pulsed, his voice receding and returning through the noise.
“Hello? Hello – Avril? Is that you, poppet? Avril?”
“Yes,” I whispered. Then, louder, “Dickon! I’m here – Dickon –”
“Are you all right, love? Are you?” His voice sounded absurdly anxious, even across the pulsing noises that assaulted my ears.
“I’m fine – fine.” I was laughing and crying at the same time, “I’m fine, Dickon – darling.” But I said that in a whisper.
His voice receded again, but I could just hear it.
“That’s my girl! Never gives in –” I lost his voice completely then, and for a while there was nothing but crackling on the line, and a woman’s voice saying, “Trying – reconnect you –”
Then the line cleared. “– Monday week. Avril – Tilbury. Can you be there? – meet me –”
“You’re coming back?” I was crying in good earnest now.
“Monday week – Tilbury.” His voice, tiny and distant, lost itself in a roar of static, and a woman’s voice cut in suddenly.
“The connection has been broken, caller, I am sorry. We shall try to reconnect you –” she said primly.
“We’ve quite finished, thank you,” I said, and suddenly, vividly, saw Dickon’s face as he stood in the ward late at night, a chart in his hand, his face hard and closed under the shaded light.
“Finished until Monday week,” I said foolishly.
“Could you repeat that, caller?”
But I didn’t answer. Chick’s hand came over my shoulder, and pulled the leads from the board. She took the headphones and hung them on their little hook. The silence of the Nurses’ home came flooding back as I stood bemused, nearly dropping with a new awareness of exhaustion.
Chick picked up my cases.
“Come on, honey. Time for bed. It’s nearly three o’clock, and we’re on duty in the morning. Aren’t we?”
She looked at me anxiously, her pretty round face creased into worried lines, uncertainty in her grey eyes for the first time.
I walked out of the little office, and across to the big entrance door. Across the garden, I could see the lights of the hospital winking through the trees, appearing and disappearing as the leaves of the trees moved fitfully in the night breeze. There was a mess for me to face if I did go back – I stood and stared out into the darkness for a long time.
Then I turned and came back to where Chick stood silhouetted against the switchboard.
“Yes,” I said softly, taking the cases from her. “We’re on duty in the morning.”
The corridors were quiet and still as we crept along them, past each silent door with its little white card on the centre panel. The familiar smells of talcum powder and polish, coffee and bathsalts, flowed over me like a thick warm blanket.
Outside the door of my room I stopped and fumbled in my bag. Then I slipped the little white card back into place. “Nurse Avril Gardner. Third Year. Day Duty.”
I pushed the door open and put the cases down inside.
Chick rubbed her face with weary hands.
“Good night, kid. See you at breakfast,” she said automatically.
“Yes,” I whispered. “See you at breakfast.”
Final Year Page 19
