Ring O' Roses

by Lucilla Andrews

  Miss Evans offered me an armchair, a cup of coffee and profound apologies for having to make a request she normally tried to avoid. Then she asked me to add my holiday onto my weekend. ‘It won’t be too short notice? You’re sure? My dear girl, that is a relief! I’ll tell you why.’

  Naomi Butler had called on her that afternoon and asked to be released from her contract for purely domestic reasons. Miss Evans did not say what these were and etiquette prevented my asking. ‘In the circumstances, naturally, I agreed, though I am exceedingly sorry to lose such an excellent nurse. Inevitably, this leaves me with a staff problem and is why I want your holiday over, immediately.’ She refilled our cups. ‘Nurse Chalmers leaves to marry her parson in November. In December, Nurse White takes her new post in Australia. Had you not already told me you want to return to the wards, I would now be offering you a permanent contract as Sister Accidents. Nurse Jones is not yet sufficiently experienced, but I would say, possibly by January? You agree? Good! So does Miss Mackenzie. And you’re willing to remain in the Accident Unit until then? Thank you. Now ‒ what are your views on your present fourth-years?’

  Having given them, I said, ‘Though still a third, Nurse Fisher is exceptionally good.’

  ‘That pretty little thing? Is she, indeed! I’ll bear this in mind when her training ends.’ She made a note in the large diary on the coffee table, then glanced up with a wry smile. ‘I suppose she’s not engaged to young Mr Palmer, as that could be a complication, later. According to Mr Roth, once that young man has his Fellowship, he could make a good future J. and S.A.O. I’ve nothing against inter-staff ‒ what shall I call ’em? ‒ good friendships, and wouldn’t have a hope of stopping them if I had, but I will never knowingly allow an engaged pair, any more than husband and wife, to work in the same department. It isn’t fair to impose the inevitable strain on either ‒ and, above all, unless they have rare self-control, it must affect the quality of their work. Consequently, without wishing to pry into my nurses’ private lives, I do like to know who is going steady with whom.’ My expression amused her. ‘Running a large hospital is a complex occupation, and particularly a teaching hospital. The overwhelming majority of my staff are under thirty and ‒ to begin with ‒ single. With our inter-hospital marriage rate, I often wonder if I’m running a hospital or the most successful marriage bureau in London. Do you mind telling me ‒ are those two children thinking of an engagement?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard, Miss Evans. I wouldn’t even have said they were going steady.’ I was fascinated by this latest insight into the life of a high-powered hospital administrator. ‘They’re both ‒ well ‒’

  ‘Playing the field?’ she queried briskly. ‘Good. Good. At their age that’s a sign of maturity. I’ve long observed it’s invariably my most immature children who leap into marriage in their first or second years. Sadly, more often than not, inside of five years they want to leap out again. But I’ve kept you long enough! Enjoy your break, and I have to say, you look ready for it, my dear. Let’s hope you return refreshed and not to another ’flu epidemic. Dr Gray tells me the odd case is still appearing around the country.’ She saw me to the door. ‘I will announce this news after I’ve spoken to Mr Lawson and Nurse Chalmers over the weekend. For the present ‒ I think we’ve just decided you need more than a weekend’s rest. Have a good time ‒ and thank you very much!’

  No one in the A.U. had time to ask questions when I got back. It was also Mrs Lawson’s birthday. At ten, George Charlesworth and I pushed Stan off and got on with the notes. Peter was on call. He said he would be in to say goodbye, but had not returned when I was ready to go. George said he would explain. ‘He’ll miss you. One does ‒ miss people.’

  Dolly’s holiday ended tomorrow. She had only returned temporarily for the ball. Suddenly I not only felt very sorry, but a new respect for George. Even after working with him and Dolly, I had not guessed their one-sided relationship until Peter told me. Obviously, Miss Evans had not heard, and only Peter and Dolly had mentioned it to me. I wondered if unselfishness failed to make news because it was unspectacular, or so rare that nine out of ten people didn’t believe it when they saw it. Then I wondered how long it would take Dolly to believe it, or if her early background was going to leave her a permanent emotional cripple. That left me feeling so dispirited when I got back to the flat that I was very glad Roxanne was out at a party. I wept over my packing as I had not wept in ages and when I let the little woman in me have her head, I never had cared for an audience.

  Roxanne was free next morning and only woke about ten minutes before I left. ‘Say that again, Cathy! What domestic issues?’

  ‘God alone knows!’

  She unwound a few dozen curlers. ‘You are fierce! All this hard work. Very bad for the soul. A jolly jaunt is just what you need ‒’

  ‘Jolly? Prof. Ulvik’s four years off eighty and St Peter held those gates open for about a fortnight.’

  ‘Joss said it was a damned close-run thing and the only two people who thought he’d make it were the old boy himself, and you. Joss says he’s good value. So’s Joss. And he keeps his hands to himself. I wouldn’t mind an orge in Norge with him, even if his heart is in the Highlands.’

  ‘Edinburgh is in Midlothian. The Lowlands.’

  She laughed. ‘Never mind, dear. With any luck you’ll hit a Force Ten gale and all be revoltingly sick before the ship goes down.’ My taxi had arrived. ‘Any last message for your next-of-kin?’

  I smiled reluctantly. ‘Yes. Peter’s interview for this Leeds job is now this Monday. I forgot to wish him luck. Ring him for me and don’t be surprised if he sounds incoherent. Interviews and exams always reduce him to a pea-green jelly.’

  The Alesunds had hired a chauffeur-driven car to take us from Asden General to the ship’s berth at Newcastle. The Professor was escorted down the front steps of the hospital and into the car by the Matron, Assistant Matron, a registrar, houseman, two sisters, and a posse of nurses. Though on elbow crutches, he towered over everyone present and his white, blue-veined hands looked far too frail to lift a walking-stick, much less support him. He did allow his ward sister to lift his plastered leg into the back of the car while a nurse held his crutches. All other offers of help were dismissed with polite firmness. ‘Many thanks. I manage!’

  ‘Don’t crack that plaster before you get home, Professor! See you in Bergen!’

  Joss was in front. He turned round to us as we drove off waving like royalty. ‘Invited them all to stay, sir?’

  ‘Yoss, of course, of course!’ The old man’s face was as white as his hair and withered by illness as well as age. His very blue eyes seemed to belong to another man. They were vivid with intelligence and humour and were decades younger than the face from which they looked on the world. ‘One of the few advantages of becoming a monument ‒ and to become one it is necessary to pass three score years and ten ‒ is that one can encourage pretty women to visit the monument in his home, without causing offence to any.’ He studied me, thoughtfully. ‘So. You are Miss Catherine Maitland? How do you do, Miss Catherine Maitland?’

  We had already shaken hands. We did so again. ‘How do you do, Professor?’

  ‘Ah, ha!’ He clapped his hands. ‘I love the English! A pretty girl helps to save my life ‒ I break my old bones ‒ I am in hospital many weeks ‒ but do we discuss this? No, no, no! We ask each other how we do, and neither must give the answer. Not on! That is the correct idiom, now? And, is it ‒ on ‒ to presume to call you Cathy? As Yoss?’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘That terrible English J! Not for my aged Norwegian tongue, or I would do ‒ as the good sister frequently assured me ‒ myself a great mischief.’

  He slept some of the long drive. Awake, he did not talk a great deal, but when he did he was very amusing. And astute. ‘So, Cathy? You are surprised at such levity from the aged Professor? I tell you something! The Norwegian is the Scandinavian Irishman. Did you ever meet the Irishman too old to enjoy a good joke in good company? Now I have
made the poor child blush! Yoss, discuss the weather! In moments of embarrassment the English always discuss the weather. This I have observed many times in many years.’

  I changed my mind about Arne Alesund’s remark before the ship was out of the Tyne. The Professor treated newly scrubbed decks, polished floors, stairs and companionways as trivial hazards to be ignored. After Joss had saved him from slipping for the third time by taking his weight whilst I collected the dropped crutches, I said quietly, ‘He needs more muscle-power than I’ve got.’

  Joss looked at me, hard. ‘If you’re feeling sick, ask the stewardess for those pills she’s doling out.’

  We had three single cabins in a row. The Professor was in the middle. He rested after we sailed, but refused dinner in bed. ‘I have eaten too many meals alone. Tonight, I give a little party.’

  I caught Joss’s eye and shook my head, doubtfully. He gave me an ugly look in return and when we left to freshen up told me to stop being a bloody wet blanket. ‘So he’s putting the pressure on himself. How in hell would he’ve survived what he just has, if he hadn’t? He’s going home, not improbably for the last time, and he wants to celebrate. Sulk as much as you like on the way back, but tonight we’re going to bloody celebrate. Or are you feeling sick? You’re a filthy colour.’

  I reminded him I was never sea-sick and had not spent the last week on holiday. ‘Or have you forgotten what the A.U. can be like?’

  ‘No. Nor one hideous moment I spent in the damned Unit!’ He went into his cabin and closed the door. He hadn’t called it ‘the Unit’ since Butler left it. I wished I hadn’t noticed, and then, as pointlessly, that the last rush had not left me so extraordinarily tired.

  Dinner was a nightmarish thought as I wasn’t hungry, but when it came, I enjoyed it. The Professor was in tremendous form and the food and wine were excellent. ‘Now, another toast. Skål, Cathy! No, no, Yoss, not so! When you say “skål” you must look into the eyes of the one you toast whilst you finish your drink. I watch you! Better! I think now I will retire and you must join the dancing, eh?’

  We did not argue then, or later, when he was settled for the night. I said, ‘Joss, I’m too sleepy.’

  ‘You look it. ’Night.’

  I slept ten hours which probably accounted for my waking with such a headache. Despite dark glasses, the glare hurt my eyes. I turned my back on the sea and the Professor lowered his newspaper. He was lying in a cane deckchair against the sun-deck bulkhead behind us. ‘Is the North Sea often this calm in late September, Professor?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, all month she rages and roars. The North Sea, as every sea, being as unpredictable as woman is to man.’ He threw aside his rug as the ship altered speed to turn into the fjord. ‘Stavanger! Good. I join you. And this afternoon ‒ Bergen.’

  We steadied him between us at the rail as we glided into the blue mirror of the fjord and the mountains curved behind us, shutting out the sea. As we neared the green arm of the harbour, a small fleet of fishing boats chugged by seawards, and countless little black and white ferries pottered around us like water beetles. ‘Buses,’ said the Professor. ‘You go by road. We go by water.’

  The tiny white wooden box houses with red, green, blue and grey roofs covering the steep slopes surrounding the harbour stopped looking like toys. We were close enough to see the colours of the curtains and in practically every window, rows of potted plants blooming in contented domestic jungles.

  ‘Good!’ The old man’s sigh was contented as the engines stopped. ‘Now, no delay as there is little time. I’ll stay in my cabin whilst you two go ashore.’ He waved aside our instant objections. ‘So you will see Stavanger on your return? I will tell you something! No man can foresee or promise tomorrow. Tomorrow is either a hope or a dream. Today, and only today, we live. Today, a new land is waiting for you. But life does not wait, happiness does not wait, and nor, alas, does youth, or this ship! You have only two hours. Off! Off!’

  Ten minutes later Joss knocked on my door with our landing passes. He raised his eyebrows at my coat. ‘Chilly?’

  I had just taken my temperature and a couple of anti-cold tablets. I did not feel strong enough for the truth, or another crack about wet blankets. ‘Thought I might need it ashore after this central heating. Shouldn’t we look in on the Prof, to say we’re off?

  ‘I’ve just told him and our stewardess.’ He walked off leaving me to trail after him like an Arab wife. He did wait at the foot of the gangway. ‘What do you want to do? Drift? Or make for anywhere special?’

  I wanted to lie down and die. ‘Drift. You?’

  He had a look round. ‘Same.’ He smiled. ‘Not another country. Another world. These are docks!’

  I pushed up my dark glasses for a better look and thought of the grime and noise in the docks round Martha’s. The little harbour was busy, but the quiet and the cleanliness were as soothing as they were incredible to our alien eyes. We drifted at first in a rather tense silence, and then in a kind of dream, stopping and moving on, without words.

  We stopped some time to watch the water slapping like oil against the little boats tied up to the edge. Boats piled with green vegetables, potatoes, fresh fruit, baskets and baskets of crabs.

  I jumped back. ‘Joss, those crabs! They’re walking out!’

  He laughed. A long thin fisherman in a yellow jersey, jeans and red pom-pom hat waved at us. ‘You wish to buy my crabs? Best crabs,’ he said in English, ‘only from me!’

  ‘Not today, thanks!’ We waved and moved on.

  A little way on, a small boy was fishing with a bit of herring fixed to a bent pin on a piece of string. ‘God,’ muttered Joss, ‘this takes me back. The hours I fished the dykes at home and hardly ever caught anything ‒ which reminds me. Mother says it’s a long time since you were down for a weekend. I explained you wouldn’t have one for a couple of weeks but if you can make that one it’ll suit her, as Dan’ll be away and I’ll be back on the job. Plenty of room.’

  It was an ideal moment for explaining about my holiday. I did not take it. I might have done, had the previous moments not been so tranquil. I said I would write to his mother, simply must see the fishmarket and charged across the cobbles with the eagerness of the many housewives choosing with experienced eyes the live fish from the open tanks. ‘Ever seen so many fish?’ I was talking to myself. Joss did not reappear until I reached a sealskin slippers stall several minutes later. ‘Come and see what I’ve found, Cathy.’

  He took me across the road to the small and glorious mosaic of colour that was the flower-market. He vanished again between the banks of bronze, orange, yellow and white chrysanthemums and I ambled past the azaleas and cyclamen to the roses. Roses red, pink, yellow, near-mauve, and all exquisitely scented. The long-stemmed yellow tea-roses reminded me of my father’s pleasure when he took a First at the county show with either the identical or a very similar variety. I touched one unthinkingly as I tried to recall the name. The stout lady behind the stall lifted it from the bunch. ‘You wish?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Joss’s voice answered. I glanced round and he thrust a huge bunch of chrysanthemums at me. ‘For Nina. Prof says she fancies them.’ He paid for the rose. ‘What are these called? Didn’t your father get his First with them?’

  ‘Yes. And couldn’t have been more thrilled if he’d won the pools. I can’t remember the name. Isn’t that awful?’

  ‘You were only about eleven.’ He retrieved the chrysanthemums and held on to the rose. ‘I had a chat with my old mum about you and L.B. Both very sweet, she said.’ He looked round the flowers, then offered me the rose. ‘Couldn’t find an olive branch. In lieu of ‒ from me to you.’ He flushed slightly. ‘Dead sloppy I am this morning. All this foreign travel is disorientating for an English lad.’

  I wanted to cry, gently. So I laughed. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘My pleasure! Now, for God’s sake, woman, move, or we’ll miss the bloody ship!’

  We made it within minutes of their unhitchi
ng the gangway. Our gallop had done strange things to my legs, but I put the rose in water before I registered the fact. Later, I wrapped it in wet tissues and zipped it in my sponge-bag. I felt remarkably like a deprived Victorian maiden and not only because I hadn’t with me an album in which to press it.

  It was evening, not afternoon, when we sailed into the Professor’s home port. The towering outlines of the seven mountains of Bergen merged gently into the slowly darkening sky. The fir forests on the lower slopes were black, not green, velvet and the snow above tree level gleamed whitely in the light from the already high three-quarter moon. The water in the fjord could have been navy blue silk and as our ship moved towards her berth, she split the water with the sound of tearing silk. There were only a few stars in the sky, but the land blazed with millions stretching upwards from the harbour to what appeared to be half-way up the mountains. ‘If we have one thing in Norway,’ said the Professor, ‘we have water. So, cheap electricity. So, we leave our lights on. Electricity is much cheaper than the new switches.’

  He was again at the rail between us, but this time when the engines stopped, he did not say a word. Joss and I kept quiet. The expression on the old man’s face said all that needed to be said. No aged and frail professor, but a tough old Viking, had sailed safely home.

  The Alesunds, their son, the Professor’s elder widowed daughter, her two teenagers, Arne’s brother with his wife and sub-teen sons were all waiting. The reunion was affectionate, dignified and infinitely moving. Very little was said as we drove in four cars to the Alesunds’ house. The Professor had lived with them since his wife’s death some years ago.

  The front door was open. The two little girls in dressing-gowns were waiting in the hall with Arne’s parents. By unspoken consent, everyone stood aside to let the Professor walk alone through the front door, and then, with a tidal wave of emotion, the entire family engulfed him.