Ring O' Roses

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Joss. Did you mind?’

  ‘Mind?’ He winced visibly. ‘Cathy, have you an amnesial blank over Ruth’s wedding day? Or ‒’ he jerked his head at the toy cupboard ‘‒ have you just shoved it out of sight?’

  ‘No, but ‒’

  ‘So you remember what I said to you?’ His tone was much calmer than my altered heart rhythm. ‘Just didn’t believe it?’

  ‘Joss, I ‒’

  ‘Yes, or no?’

  ‘Well ‒ yes ‒ at first. Not after.’

  ‘Why not? Come on! Naomi?’

  ‘Yes, but not just her.’ I needed a long breath. ‘You weren’t exactly forthcoming that first morning in the A.U.’

  ‘Did you expect me to be? Having heard ad nauseam Cathy Maitland was returning from Canada to Peter Anthony’s waiting arms, I walk in and ‒ surprise, surprise ‒ clinch just breaking up. What was I supposed to do? Tap him on the shoulder and say, mate, you don’t know what you missed on Saturday night? As I didn’t ‒ you just wrote me off?’

  ‘No ‒ oh, hell, Joss! I thought ‒ well ‒ after the wedding, the soft lights, sweet music ‒ you know what I mean!’

  ‘Do I?’ He flushed, darkly. ‘You’re damned right, I do! As the Prof would say, Cathy, I will tell you something! I never thought my ego could take more of a bashing than you gave it that afternoon here before that smash, but I was so wrong!’

  ‘Listen, please, listen! I know that wasn’t fair ‒’

  ‘On the something contrary, since you thought I was having it on with one woman and making passionate passes at another, your reaction was fair bloody comment! Twenty-four years!’ He slapped the table with one hand. ‘You’ve had twenty-four years to add me up and that’s what you figure? Thanks very much!’

  ‘Joss, cool it! You don’t have to be hurt ‒’

  ‘Don’t have to be? God Almighty!’ Suddenly, the lid came off. ‘You stupid, insensitive little bitch, what do you think I’m made of? Expect me to enjoy being thought not merely a liar, but a lecherous bastard so short on small talk and self-preservation that I tell all my dates I bloody love ’em and kiss ’em as I’ve kissed you, as a variation on chatting ’em up about the weather? And wouldn’t let the fact that the woman I’m supposed to be hitched to is some place else or ill, stop me? Right little sex-maniac, am I?’ He slammed the table with both hands. ‘Am I? Then it’s bloody lucky for you I’ve been off-colour this last weekend and specifically these last twenty-four hours. Right next door and all I had to do was walk in and there you’d be in another of those prim little nighties you fancy ‒ which, incidentally, are a damn sight more seductive than anything you can see through. And did I mind having to keep my hands off? For your information, Cathy, I minded like bloody hell! As I minded having to watch you and Peter in and out of the A.U.! And having to walk out on you that night after the wedding. Have you forgotten your set-up then?’ He only gave me time to shake my head. ‘So you’ve remembered you were punch-drunk from the flight, homecoming, and the champagne. Did you realize your resistance was so low you could probably have been had for the taking? God only knows why you think I didn’t. By your reckoning, no time’d suit me better than the time when circumstances have already obligingly lowered the girl’s defences ‒’

  ‘This isn’t true ‒’

  ‘Stuff that hypocritical docility! It was tough enough to take when I thought you were using it as a civilized way of holding me off, for Peter’s sake! It’s a damned effective defence, as only a sadist fancies swiping that other cheek! I never thought I was a sadist, but right now, I wouldn’t bet on it! Did I mind?’ He caught his breath. ‘Yes! So bloody much that though you’ve had ’flu and I’m still fool enough to love you ‒ nothing ‒ nothing would give me greater pleasure than to clout you now into the middle of next week! Take my advice and stay that side of the table till I’ve cooled off!’

  I was flattened against the door by shock and joy. I had to lick my lips to speak. ‘Is it all right if I get something from my room?’

  ‘Better still, stay there! You’ll be safe! As I’ve told you, we sex-maniacs can go off-colour!’

  I didn’t risk smiling. Not yet. I opened the door, then spun round. ‘You won’t vanish in your car?’

  ‘I’m not that much of a fool. If I got behind a wheel at this moment I’d be in five pieces before I was a mile out of the village.’ He saw my grimace. ‘I warned you, Cathy.’

  ‘Yes.’ I met his angry, hurt, and infinitely vulnerable, eyes. ‘Back in a moment.’ I rushed into my room, flung open my dressing-case, and then went very slowly back to the schoolroom with my sponge-bag. He had not moved. I stood at the other end of the table. ‘By ‒ er ‒ a strange coincidence I just happen to have an olive branch in here.’ I flicked the sponge-bag to him. ‘As I love it quite disproportionately, I’d rather you didn’t shove it down with my back teeth, but won’t hold it against you if you do. But if you laugh,’ I added quietly, ‘I shall probably kill you with my bare hands.’

  For a second time I could have offered him a ticking bomb. Then he picked up and unzipped the bag and emptied the contents into the palm of his left hand. He stared at the dead rose and soggy brown tissues for about thirty seconds. At last, he looked over to me with an expression that held more than a hint of a resemblance to the Professor’s as we sailed into Bergen. ‘Have you got an album in which to press this, Cathy?’ he asked unsteadily.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can I give you one?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  His face tensed, but not with anger. ‘What kind do you want?’

  ‘Huge and white with gilt edges ‒’ my voice was uneven ‘‒ and ‒ and a red velvet heart and lots of lovely slushy flowers on the cover.’

  The tension vanished. ‘It’ll bore the kids ‒ but the grandchildren’ll love it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Did you? When?’

  ‘Well, actually, it’s been in one of those cupboards since Ruth’s wedding.’ I smiled shyly. ‘I ‒ sort of took it out for a better look while you were pounding me to a jelly.’

  ‘Pounding didn’t worry you?’

  ‘Shook me, but I knew you wouldn’t clout me. You’ve threatened to clout Ruth and me, long as I can remember, but you never would and we knew it. That’s why I only beat it under this table when you wouldn’t let me eat the bobbles. Had you been Paul or Danny, I’d have beat it fast for one of the parents. That’s why ‒’ I spread my hands ‘‒ this weekend I thought ‒ just old Joss doing his usual big-hearted stuff. And not knowing how it was with you and Naomi ‒ hell ‒ she was your type and ‒ and only last week she got the weight of the cake right!’

  ‘She did.’ His eyes smiled wonderfully. ‘Made a nice extra wedding present. She’d brought Ian down to meet the parents for the afternoon.’

  ‘You didn’t put that on your postcard!’

  ‘It didn’t seem a good idea, quite apart from the fact that she didn’t want it publicized, as I suspected the Alesunds and the Prof were determined to throw us together. To each his own defence mechanism.’ He swung himself over the table as he used to as a boy and landed beside me. He did not touch me. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling ill at Stavanger? And on holiday? Not to lumber me?’

  ‘Yes.’ I touched his tie. ‘Do you really have to leave tonight?’

  ‘No.’ He held my hand against his thudding chest. ‘I can see the man any time this next week. The job he’s offering is good and has a flat, rather like Stan’s, thrown in. Can we talk about it, later?’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  We smiled the same smiles. He said, ‘I don’t have to be in Scotland. Didn’t have to be in Malta. It was just somewhere to go when they shoved this holiday at me to get the books straight ‒ out of range.’

  ‘Of me ‒ and Peter?’

  ‘Yep.’ He patted my flattened hand. ‘You can feel what you do to me. And you, my darling, have done it since Ruth’s wedding. Absurd state of affairs
. Touch you and my rate goes up around one hundred and sixty, stat. Do you wonder working with you in the A.U. nearly turned me into an old man? As for this weekend ‒’ he drew me into his arms and buried his face in my hair. ‘I gathered around the house that Olaf and wife had offered to fetch the Prof by sea, but our trio weren’t having any.’ He tightened his arms. ‘Nor were we.’

  I kissed his chin. ‘The Prof would say, very English.’

  ‘Speaking frankly, darling, no wonder the world thinks us mad.’ He raised his head to look into my face. ‘Know something, Cathy? I adore you.’

  ‘Know something, Joss? I do, you.’

  He kissed me then as if it were years, not months, since Ruth’s wedding and we had to make up for all the missing years. And then we heard his mother calling from the hall. ‘Children! I’m back! Where are you?’

  He gave a kind of stifled yelp that was a mixture of happiness, laughter and impatience and suddenly lifted me high in his arms. ‘Up here aboard the lugger!’ he yelled back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The last Thursday of the year was our last working day in Martha’s. We fixed to stay that night in town as the Lawsons were giving us a farewell party and we would drive down to the vicarage on Friday morning. Joss was spending Friday night with Ruth’s in-laws as our wedding was on Saturday. I was marrying from the vicarage and the Vicar’s brother was giving me away as he had Ruth.

  The Alesunds were flying over. Professor Ulvik bombarded us with cables. ‘Did I not say we would have a great celebration?’

  Mrs Frayling wrote: ‘How very kind of you to invite us. Yes, indeed, we remember you both …’

  Miss Evans said, ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear! But ‒ how delightful!’

  Being not only Thursday, but the day before New Year’s Eve, we had one of the quietest as well as coldest afternoons of the winter in the A.U. The party was due to start at seven; Stan, Peter, Dave Palmer and I were off at six. Joss finished in the Orthopaedic Unit at five-forty-five. Apart from Naomi, her husband and Roxanne, all the other guests were from Martha’s. ‘Going to bankrupt me,’ said Stan, ‘so the next happy couple from the A.U. gets seen off on canteen coffee.’

  George, Dolly, Henty, now an official staff nurse, Hamish Geddes and an R.A. on loan from the General Theatres were staying on to run the department with the student nurses and medics. Our two newish staff nurses were off that day to be back to support Dolly over what, in all probability, would be one of the heaviest weekends of the year. Miss Evans had firmly dismissed my tentative offer to alter the date. ‘Miss Mackenzie is as satisfied as I am that Miss Jones will manage ‒ and Miss Mackenzie is on for the weekend.’

  Everyone, including the S.S.O., had co-operated over the Lawsons’ party. Peter’s replacement joined us at five. By half-past, we were empty.

  Stan surveyed the staff-packed Receiving Room. ‘Anyone for hockey? We can play it seven-a-side.’ He smiled at me. ‘You’ll not know yourself with real work to do when you get to your new medical ward across the river, Sister.’

  ‘Ever-so-dear sir, spare us the reminder of such treachery! A betrayal, no less!’ Dave swept imaginary tears from his eyes. ‘To think we took the man to our bosom ‒ cherished him ‒ nay ‒ revered him ‒ and what does he do? Swipes our Sister!’ He waved at the wall clock. ‘Twenty minutes from now and lost, but lost to us for ever ‒ oh, woe!’ The red light was flashing. ‘Turn that off! I want to go to a jolly party!’

  We all watched the new fourth-year’s expression as she wrote swiftly, and at length. Stan murmured, ‘Looks as if party’s coming to us, lad. But, jolly?’

  The accident was less than a mile away. A heavy commercial van had skidded onto a pavement, into a rush-hour bus queue and crashed on into a shop window. The driver was killed outright. Thirty-four people were injured, fifteen seriously.

  Stan rang his wife while we waited for the first ambulance. It arrived at ten to six. It was twenty to eleven before we were empty again.

  Stan crumpled his limp mask into a paper ball. ‘And we needed seven-a-side.’ He beckoned Peter and Dave. ‘You two get off.’ And when they said they would rather wait for us to finish the notes, ‘Any more ruddy mutiny and I’ll pull rank, change the rota, and there’ll be no early half-days Saturday for either of you. You’ve your lovely lass waiting, Peter, and this’ll be toughest on her seeing she’s not in the trade, though it’ll teach her what to expect once you’re wed. Best get over before she changes her mind. You too, young Dave. Out from under my feet! Feet!’ He fell into a chair. ‘I can stand the blood, the muck, the ruin of me social life, and a diet of bridge rolls and sausages on sticks for the next month ‒ but I can’t stand me fallen arches!’ He propped an elbow on the desk and smiled, wearily. ‘I’d chuck you out, Cath, if I thought I’d get away with it.’ He picked up a ’phone. ‘Harry? S.A.O. Orthopaedic Theatre finished yet? On the last chap now? Which one’s that? Him? No. He’ll not take long. Thanks.’

  George helped with the notes. Hamish Geddes and the medic students helped Dolly and Henty with the cleaning, clearing and re-stocking as the student nurses had had to be sent off, protesting. The place was straight by half-past eleven and Dolly stayed on and came in with fresh tea and some rather stale biscuits as we finished. ‘Sorry, but these are all we’ve got in our tin.’

  Joss knocked on the open office door. ‘May I come in?’ Stan offered him a saucerless cup. ‘Make yourself at home! You’re one of the family.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Joss smiled at me as he sat down. He looked as weary as the other men, but there was no weariness in his smile. ‘All go, ain’t it?’

  ‘If there’s one thing I can’t abide,’ said Stan, ‘it’s a dull moment. Repair shop packed it in for the night?’

  ‘Quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘How’d they make out?’

  ‘They should all do,’ said Joss slowly, ‘but some’ll take a bit of time. How was it here?’

  I said, ‘Bit nasty.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Stan, ‘but could’ve been nastier. We packed ’em all off breathing, which is more than I thought we’d do when some came in.’

  George said, ‘And tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘Brace up, lad,’ said Stan kindly. ‘Comes round every year. So this time next year when you’ve got my job you’ll know what to expect.’ George went purple. ‘Didn’t you know you were in the running for it?’

  I looked at Dolly looking at her cup. ‘Actually,’ muttered George, ‘one ‒ hoped.’

  ‘Dead sensible,’ said Joss and Stan nodded.

  I did not say anything as Miss Mackenzie was in the doorway. I stood up, quickly. ‘I’m sorry we’re so late, Sister. We are just going.’ The others had risen. ‘Er ‒ would you like a cup of tea?’

  From her expression I was offering her whisky. ‘At this hour ‒ yes ‒ I think I would, thank you, Sister.’

  Dolly fetched a cup and saucer. I gave Miss Mackenzie my chair, Stan gave me his and sat on the desk when we all sat down again. He asked, ‘Emergencies quiet, Miss Mackenzie?’

  ‘Just now, Mr Lawson. Quite a busy night all round. I only stepped in to say goodbye to Sister and’ ‒ she was smiling ‒ ‘Mr Desmond. St Martha’s will miss you both.’

  I had never been so glad Joss was a Benedict’s man, and had not been brainwashed by her as a student. He said the right things for us both whilst the rest of us exchanged shocked glances. He did blush like a schoolboy when, with a return to her habitual gravity, Miss Mackenzie said she had heard the patients in the Orthopaedic Unit had circumnavigated the rule forbidding members of the staff to accept presents. ‘A specially printed outsize card bearing the crest of St Martha’s which they have all signed, I believe?’

  Joss fingered his collar. ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘A card can scarcely be termed a present, but I would suggest few presents could give greater satisfaction.’ She looked at us all. ‘One misses the personal touch in departmental work.’

  Stan agree
d. ‘One doesn’t like to be impersonal, but often they’ve moved on before there’s time to remember the names on the labels.’

  I said, ‘Last time; in Canada; and here; it still feels funny not having patients to say goodbye to.’

  Miss Mackenzie said, ‘I’ve no doubt. But I know Mr Desmond will agree that had you not moved them on, there would be a great many less names on his card.’

  Joss nodded. ‘You couldn’t be more right, Sister. We repair them in the Orthopaedic Unit, but this is where the lives are saved.’

  She turned to Stan. ‘How many have you saved, Mr Lawson? This last year? This last six months? Can you count?’ Stan shook his head. ‘No,’ she added crisply, ‘it would need an accountant to give the figure from the numbers you deal with.’ And then she said, ‘In an Accident Unit you can’t hear the voices of your recovering patients, but if you stop and think for a wee while, you should hear the voices of the living who, but for your work, would be dead. A pleasing sound.’ She pushed back her chair and we all stood up. ‘If you’ll kindly give me your keys, Sister, I’ll lock up with Sister Jones.’ Dolly’s expression made Martha’s history by evoking Miss Mackenzie’s second smile in half an hour. ‘It is after midnight, Sister Jones. You have taken over.’ She accepted the keys, shook my hand and then Joss’s. ‘Bring your wife over to see us when you return to St Benedict’s, and take Sister home, now. It’s been a long day.’

  I collected my cloak and the dressing-case with my things for the party from the changing-room. Joss took the case, we said another round of goodbyes and walked slowly down the A.U. corridor, into Emergencies hall by the staff door, and out of the main entrance. We did not speak and he did not reach for my hand until I slung on my cloak and we crossed the hospital yard. ‘Do you mind leaving too much, darling?’