by Betty Neels
Rachel drove back after tea; Melville wouldn’t be free until half-past eight and she had plenty of time. It was a blustery evening and there was little traffic, even on the motorway. She parked the Fiat and made her way to her room where she changed into a dark brown suit and a crêpe blouse and exchanged her sensible low-heeled shoes for high heels. Melville liked well-dressed women; indeed, he didn’t care for her job since, as he explained to her in his well modulated voice, it necessitated her wearing the most outlandish clothes.
‘Well, I’d look a fool tripping round the theatre in high heels and a smart hat,’ Rachel had pointed out reasonably, not really believing him.
She had ten minutes to spare; she nipped along to the little pantry the sisters shared in their corridor and found Lucy making tea. Melville had said drinks, which probably meant nothing but bits and pieces to eat with them and she had had no supper. ‘Mother gave me a fruit cake,’ she said. ‘Bring that pot of tea with you and have a slice.’
Lucy followed her back to her room and kicked the door shut. ‘Going out? It’s a beastly night but I suppose Melville will see you don’t get cold and wet. I like the shoes—new, aren’t they?’
Rachel agreed guiltily. Since she had started going out with Melville she had spent more on clothes than she could afford, and they were the kind of clothes she wouldn’t normally have bought. Her taste ran to tweed suits and simply cut jersey dresses with an occasional splurge on something glamorous for the hospital ball or some special occasion.
She drank her tea and gobbled up her cake. ‘I must fly…’ She took a last look in the mirror and Lucy said laughingly, ‘Do him good to be kept waiting, and you needn’t bother to prink; you look good in an old sack.’
Rachel gave her jacket a tug. ‘I’m getting fat,’ she worried. ‘It doesn’t notice because I’m tall, but it will—Melville doesn’t like fat girls.’
‘You’re not fat.’ Lucy picked up the teapot, preparatory to departing to her own room. ‘Just generously curved. There is a difference. Have fun, love.’
Melville’s car wasn’t in the forecourt. Rachel peered round hoping to see him and then took a backward step back into the entrance hall. Her heel landed on something yielding and she turned sharply to find herself face to face with Professor van Teule’s solid front.
She said guiltily, ‘I’m so sorry—have I hurt you badly? I had no idea…’
He glanced down at his elegantly shod foot. ‘I scarcely noticed.’ He eyed her deliberately. ‘You’re very smart. Going out for the evening? If he’s not here you’d better come inside—you’ll catch a cold standing here.’
She obeyed his matter-of-fact advice, and, when he enquired if she had had a pleasant weekend, said that yes, she had. ‘But over too soon—it always is.’ She glanced at his placid face. ‘Is there a case in theatre? You’re here…’
‘There was. I’m on my way home.’
She hardly heard him. Melville’s Porsche had stopped outside and he was opening the entrance door and coming towards them. She half glanced at the Professor, a polite goodbye on her tongue, only he wasn’t going away; he stood, completely at ease, watching Melville who caught her hand and cried, ‘Darling, I’m late. Do forgive me—I got caught up at the studio. You know how it is.’
She said hello and added almost crossly, ‘This is Professor van Teule—I work for him. Professor, this is Melville Grant—he’s in television.’
‘How very interesting,’ observed the Professor. ‘How do you do, Mr Grant.’ He didn’t shake hands, only smiled in a sleepy way and patted Rachel on a shoulder. ‘Don’t let me keep you from your free evening.’
He went on standing there, so that after a minute Rachel murmured a goodbye and went to the door with Melville at her heels.
It shouldn’t have been like that, she thought peevishly—he should have walked away instead of seeing them off the premises like a benevolent uncle.
Melville opened the car door for her with something of a flourish. He gave a quick glance behind him as he did so to see if the Professor was watching. He was.
‘Sleepy kind of chap, Professor What’s-his-name. Don’t know that I’d care to have him nod off over my appendix or whatever.’
Womanlike, Rachel sprang at once to the defence of the man who had annoyed her. ‘You couldn’t have a better surgeon,’ she declared roundly, ‘and he’s far too busy to do appendicectomies—he specialises in complicated abdominal surgery and he’s marvellous with severe internal injuries; even when it seems hopeless, he…’
Melville drove out of the forecourt. ‘My dear girl, spare me the gruesome details, I beg you. Tell me, did you have a happy time with your family? I can see that it did you good, you’re more beautiful than ever.’
Something any girl would like to hear and, to a girl in love, doubly welcome. ‘Lovely, but far too short.’
He had turned the car in the direction of the West End. ‘I thought we might have a drink…’ He named a fashionable club. ‘I had dinner with the producer and you will have had a meal, of course.’
Rachel had her mouth open to say that she hadn’t but she had no chance to speak, for he went on, ‘There’s a party next week—you simply must come, darling. Buy yourself something eye-catching; everyone who’s anyone will be there.’
She thought guiltily of the dresses she had bought in the last few months, worn a few times and then pushed to the back of the wardrobe because Melville had hinted, oh, so nicely, that to be seen more than a couple of times in the same dress just wasn’t on. She said quietly, ‘I’ll have no chance to go shopping and I’ll be too whacked to go to any parties.’ She turned to smile at him. ‘You’ll have to find another girl, Melville.’
She had meant it as a joke; his easy, ‘It looks as though I’ll have to,’ took her by uneasy surprise. She spent the next minute or two mentally reviewing the next week’s lists and the off-duty rota. It was take-in week, too; there was no way in which she could alter the unalterable schedule.
‘Well, let’s worry about it later,’ said Melville and parked the car.
The club was brightly lit and very full. It was also elegantly furnished. They were ushered to a table a little to one side and Melville at once began to point out the well-known people around them. When a waiter came he turned to Rachel. ‘You need bucking up, darling. How about vodka?’
She could hardly mention her empty stomach. Instead she murmured that it gave her a headache and could she have a long cold drink?
Melville shrugged in tolerant good humour. ‘Of course, my sweet. What shall it be?’
‘Tonic with lemon and ice, please.’ She sat back and looked around her. The suit she was wearing had no chance against the ultra-chic women there, but that didn’t worry her overmuch, just as long as Melville liked what she wore.
Their drinks came and with them a dish of crudités, some salted nuts and potato straws. None of them filling, but better than nothing. She nibbled a few carrot sticks and crunched a potato straw while Melville turned his head to wave to an acquaintance. He turned back presently and began on a long and amusing story about the production he was working on. He was handsome and entertaining and paid her extravagant compliments which she never quite believed. Not that that mattered, for he was in love with her; he had told her so many times. One day he would ask her to marry him and she was sure she would say yes. Her eyes shone at the thought so that Melville paused in what he was saying; she really was a remarkably pretty girl, although she was proving disappointingly stubborn about taking more time off. ‘Let’s go somewhere and dance?’ he suggested.
She said with real regret, ‘Oh, Melville, I can’t. We start work at eight o’clock tomorrow morning and I’ll have to be on duty before then.’
He frowned and then laughed and caught her hand. ‘You really are the most ridiculous girl I’ve ever met. I could get you a part in my next production, or find you some modelling work, but you choose to spend your days in your revolting operating theatre.’
‘I don’t want to do anything else. It’s not revolting, either.’
He picked up her hand and kissed it. ‘You dear creature, so earnest. Tell you what, I’ll pick you up tomorrow evening when you’re off duty and we’ll go somewhere and have a meal.’
‘It’s take-in week. I might get held up, but I’d love that. Somewhere where I won’t need to dress up, Melville.’
‘The nearest Lyons,’ he assured her laughingly. ‘And now, before you say it, you want to get back, don’t you? Duty calls and so on.’
They took some time to get out of the club; Melville stopped so many times to greet people he knew. Rachel felt very proud of him. Sometimes, but not always, he introduced her with a casual, ‘Meet Rachel,’ and she smiled at faces which showed no interest in her and listened politely to what they had to say, although none of it made much sense to her.
At the hospital he leaned over and opened her door and then kissed her. ‘I won’t get out, darling,’ he told her. ‘I must go back to the office and work for a while.’
She was instantly worried. ‘Oh, not because you took me out?’ she wanted to know. ‘Now you’ll have to stay up late working…’
‘I’d stay up all night for you, darling.’ He smiled as he closed the door and with a wave shot away.
Rachel went to her room, made a pot of tea, ate the rest of the cake and put her uniform ready for the morning. Lying in a hot bath she mulled over her evening; it had been delightful, of course, because Melville had been with her, but hunger had taken the gilt off the gingerbread. It was a pity, she mused, that she was in love with a man who didn’t always remember to ask her if she were hungry, while there were several young men on the medical staff who would have whisked her off to the nearest café for a meal at her merest hint… She frowned. It was strange that, whereas she would have no hesitation in telling any one of them that she was hungry, she found herself unable to tell Melville.
She got into bed, meaning to lie and think about him. He was very good-looking, she reflected sleepily, not tall but always so beautifully turned out. He wore his dark hair rather long and his voice was soft and his speech clipped. On the edge of sleep, she found herself comparing it with Professor van Teule’s deep slow tones—not a bit alike, the two of them; the professor was twice the size for a start…
The Professor walked into the theatre at exactly eight o’clock and Rachel, however easygoing his manner was, had taken care to have everything ready. Sidney, the theatre technician, was standing ready, her nurses were positioned where they would be most required, Dr Carr and his patient were there, the latter already nicely under, and she herself stood, relaxed with her trolleys around her. He bade everyone good morning and she watched his casual glance taking everything in; he expected perfection and she took care that he got it. George and Billy had taken up their places and the Professor waited quietly while they arranged sterile sheets round the patient before putting out a hand for a scalpel.
It would be a lengthy operation—a gastroduodenostomy—but since most of the Professor’s work was major surgery, involving all the clap-trap modern methods could devise, Rachel went placidly ahead with what was required of her, by no means disturbed by the paraphernalia around her. She sent the nurses in turn to their coffee, and then Norah, and when at last the Professor stood back from the table, she nodded to the nurse nearest the door to warn Dolly that coffee would be a welcome break.
The patient borne carefully away, the other men followed the Professor and Rachel stripped off her gown and gloves, made sure that Norah was laying up for the next case, and went along to her office. There was no room for them all, but somehow they fitted themselves in and left her chair empty. She poured the coffee and handed round the biscuit tin and, since the Professor had already had his, handed him the patient’s notes when he asked for them. He sat hunched up on the radiator, writing up the details of the operation, while the others discussed where they hoped to go for their holidays.
‘What about you, Rachel?’ asked Dr Carr.
George grinned across at her. ‘Oh, our Rachel will be on her honeymoon—somewhere exotic.’
She coloured at that although she answered matter-of-factly, ‘Chance is a fine thing—I can’t very well have a honeymoon without a husband.’
She was aware that the Professor had stopped writing and was looking at her but she didn’t look at him. Although she had to when he asked casually, ‘Did you have a pleasant evening, Rachel?’
The look was grateful; it gave the conversation a turn in a different direction. She didn’t mind being teased in the least—three brothers had inured her to that—but somehow she was shy of talking about Melville.
‘Lovely,’ she told him. ‘We went to a club—I’ve forgotten its name—and it was full of beautiful models and the kind of people you see on the TV.’ She put down her mug. ‘I’ll see if they are ready for you, sir.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re behind time. George, I may have to leave the last case to you, but I’ll be in this evening.’ He got to his feet and went unhurriedly to scrub.
The morning wore on. The nurses went in turn to their dinners and two of them went off duty. Norah, back from her own dinner, was laying up in the second theatre for the afternoon list, a short one—dentals—which she would take and then go off duty for the evening. Rachel had intended taking an afternoon off, but as the hands of the clock crept towards two, she resigned herself to much less than that. The Professor had changed his mind and decided to do that last case himself—a good thing as it turned out for it presented complications which he hadn’t expected. When at last the patient had been wheeled away it was half-past two.
‘Sorry about this, Rachel,’ he said. ‘You’ve missed your dinner. Do you suppose they would send up sandwiches for us both? I’ve an appointment in less than an hour and so can’t spare the time for a meal.’
George and Billy had already left. Rachel left two student nurses to start clearing up, went to have a word with Norah, waiting for her first patient, then went along to phone the canteen. She found the Professor putting down the receiver. ‘I thought they might be a good deal quicker if I rang—you don’t mind?’
She was pinning her cap on to her wealth of hair. ‘Not a bit—they’ll fall over themselves to get here. Dolly’s making coffee.’
Five minutes later they were sitting opposite each other at the desk eating roast beef sandwiches with the added niceties of horseradish sauce and pickles, some wedges of cheese and, for the Professor, a bottle of beer.
‘Well,’ said Rachel, happily sinking her teeth into the beef, ‘is this what you get when you ask for sandwiches? I get two cheese left over from the day before and a nasty snort down the phone as well.’
‘That won’t do at all. You’re no sylph-like girl to exist on snacks; I’ll look into it. Did you have a splendid supper last night?’
His voice was quiet but he glanced at her with intentness. There was something about his calm placidity which invited confidences.
‘Crudités. Melville thought I’d had supper and he’d had dinner anyway.’
‘My dear girl, surely you could have hinted…’
She considered this. ‘Not really. It was so—so…’ She was at a loss for a word.
He said smoothly, ‘The surroundings were not conducive to a plate of steak and kidney pudding?’
‘That’s exactly it. Anyway, I eat too much.’
His inspection of her person was frank and impersonal. ‘You’re a big girl and you use up a lot of energy; it would be hard for you to eat too much.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Rachel and took another sandwich.
The Professor passed her the pickles. ‘You’re on until eight o’clock? Let us pray for no emergencies.’
Perhaps he didn’t pray hard enough. Just as Rachel was closing the last of her books preparatory to sending the junior nurse off duty before going herself, the phone rang.
It was Lucy. ‘Rachel, there’s a gunshot wound
coming in and coming up to you as soon as we can manage it. Abdominal and chest. George is here now and intends to ring Professor van Teule. Have you got a nurse on?’
‘Little Saunders; Sidney Carter’s on call, I’ll give him a ring.’ It sounded like a case where the theatre technician might be needed.
She went about the task of getting the theatre ready with Nurse Saunders, keen as mustard but easily put off by anything she didn’t quite understand, trotting obediently to and fro.
Rachel was checking the special instruments that might be needed when the phone went again. The Professor, coming through the theatre corridor doors, answered it. A moment later, he put his head round the theatre door.
‘For you, Rachel. Melville, I believe.’
‘Oh, I can’t…’ she began, and then said, ‘I’d better, I suppose.’
Melville was downstairs, phoning from the porter’s lodge, something strictly not allowed. ‘Put on your prettiest dress, darling,’ he begged her, ‘we’re going to a party. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’
‘Melville, I can’t possibly. I’m on duty and there’s an emergency case coming up any minute.’
‘Well, hand over your revolting tools to someone else, dear girl. This is some party.’
She said tartly, ‘You’ll have to find somebody else, Melville. I’m on duty.’
‘It’s gone eight o’clock. You told me that you were off duty then.’
‘Well, I am usually, but not when there’s an emergency.’
His voice sounded cold and faintly sneering. ‘Darling, aren’t you just the weeniest bit too good to be true?’
He hung up, leaving her shaking with unhappy rage, and the Professor, who had been standing in the doorway, unashamedly listening, took the receiver from her and replaced it.
‘Is there anyone we can get to take over from you?’ he asked and his voice was very kind. ‘Night sister? Norah?’
