The Final Touch

by Betty Neels

  ‘I am just about to take Zuster Pearson round the department,’ said Hoofdzuster Kingsma, ‘but perhaps you wish to see a patient?’

  The pair of them switched to speaking in Dutch then, which gave Charity time to look at him properly, something she had never quite achieved. She had, she remembered been too upset about Cor…

  He was older than she had first thought, nearer forty than thirty, and undeniably good-looking… He turned his head suddenly and gave her a kind smile; his eyes were very blue, even more so than Hoofdzuster’s, half hidden under heavy lids. He said in English, ‘Sister will report on you in a week’s time. If you are not happy with us, don’t be afraid to say so, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t settle in nicely.’

  He nodded in an absent-minded way and went off, leaving Hoofdzuster Kingsma to guide her round the department. It took quite a time, what with being introduced to the other nurses—and there was no lack of staff—and meeting the patients. There was a small ward for children, all four cots occupied; three of them had been scalded. ‘Hot coffee,’ explained Sister, ‘boiling water from the cooking-stove, and this one climbed into a bath—her mother had filled it with scalding water and gone to answer the telephone—and this one…’ she paused by a little boy of seven or eight years ‘…is to have a skin graft. He was here for four months last year; now the professor is going to repair the damage. His back is a mass of scar tissue—he will need several grafts over the next few years.’

  She led the way to a large airy room where four women sat in comfortable chairs, knitting and sewing. ‘All for grafts,’ said Sister. ‘Do you know anything about grafting?’

  ‘Not very much, Sister. There’s the Thiersch method, isn’t there? Small pieces of skin bound on to the raw area? And Reverdin’s method—I’ve not seen that one—strips of skin taken from an arm or a thigh…’

  ‘That is right, we see both those here, and also the professor works a great deal with pedicles—he has had some splendid results.’

  There was a men’s ward with six beds and another ward with women patients and two six-wards, both occupied. There was a splendidly equipped intensive care unit too. Charity followed the Hoofdzuster back to her office, reflecting that while she was on duty she was unlikely to have a moment in which to allow her thoughts to wander, and when she did get off duty she would probably be too tired to do more than climb into her bed. She found that she welcomed the thought; she would have no chance to mope over Cor and since the burns unit was in a separate wing of the hospital she wasn’t likely to meet him either.

  She sat down in front of Hoofdzuster Kingsma’s desk and paid strict attention to what she was saying. ‘Now, as for the patients who come to us with burns, there is much to be done for them, and on admission the professor or his registrar will be present. There is shock and much pain and loss of fluid, of that you will already know—yes? And its treatment? Good. Morphia is given intravenously—the professor himself orders exactly what he wishes done.’

  Charity spent the next few days getting to know her way around. She saw little or nothing of Mr van der Brons for the simple reason that she worked only on the wards where patients were either waiting for skin grafts or were being treated for comparatively minor burns. True, he came on to these wards, but most of his day was spent in Theatre or doing the dressings of his most badly injured patients, for these he liked to attend to himself.

  It was at the end of her first week, with the prospect of a free day ahead of her, that she came face to face with him on her way off duty. He stood in front of her with the air of a man who had all day at his disposal. ‘Ah, going off duty? Do you like your work here?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes, very much—it’s different…’

  ‘Indeed it is. Have you done any Theatre work?’

  ‘Not very much. Only three months’ staffing. I enjoyed it.’

  ‘Then very soon you shall come into Theatre. Are you off duty now?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. We will spend the evening together and you shall tell me what you think of the unit.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Twenty minutes? I’ll be in the forecourt.’

  Charity grabbed at common sense as the prospect of an evening spent in his company threatened to swamp it. ‘That’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m not sure…’

  ‘Why not? I don’t bite. There is no time to discuss things while we are both working. We can do so at our leisure.’

  Put like that it sounded completely sensible; moreover, she could think of no reasonable excuse.

  She said in her quiet way, ‘Well, thank you. I’ll—I’ll go and change.’

  She went past him and then stopped. ‘Nowhere too grand,’ she begged him. ‘I haven’t the right clothes.’

  He assured her in a placid manner that the restaurant he had in mind required no dressing up.

  She showered and changed into a soft grey jersey dress which, while well cut and in the best of taste, did nothing for her, topped it with her winter coat, dug her feet into her best shoes—quite unsuitable for the Dutch winter weather—found gloves and handbag, and went down to the entrance, telling herself as she went that she must have lost her good sense. Mr van der Brons could have found out all he wanted to know about her reactions to working at the hospital without the bother of taking her out for the evening. She made her way to the entrance, worrying as to whether she was wearing the right clothes. Cor had never happened to take her anywhere where clothes mattered, but she had the strong feeling that the professor was an entirely different kettle of fish.

  She had worried unnecessarily; she was stuffed neatly into the Rolls and driven through the city to the Bodega Keijzer, opposite the Concertgebow, for the professor had a very shrewd idea of what she was thinking about behind her quiet face. The food there was excellent and the atmosphere was pleasantly warm and friendly, just the thing to put her at her ease, and the grey dress was exactly right… Charity relaxed, which was what he had intended, drank the sherry he ordered for her and conned the menu.

  ‘I’m famished,’ observed Mr van der Brons. ‘The groentensoup is delicious; shall we have that to start with? And the fish here is good—I can recommend the zeetong—sole…’

  Charity, disarmed by the friendly informal atmosphere, agreed happily and applied herself to her soup and the easygoing conversation of her companion. They had eaten their soup and sole and she was halfway through a towering ice-cream swathed in whipped cream before Mr van der Brons asked her if she was happy.

  She paused in conveying a spoonful of ice to her mouth. ‘Me? Yes, thank you. I do like the burns unit; it’s—it’s worthwhile, if you see what I mean.’

  The professor, whose life work it was, saw what she meant. ‘Not working you too hard?’ he wanted to know pleasantly.

  ‘No. It’s nice to be so busy that there’s no time to think about anything else.’

  She blushed a little, for she hadn’t meant to say that; it was a relief when he took no notice. He would have forgotten about Cor by now.

  She swallowed the next spoonful of ice-cream very suddenly when he asked. ‘And young van Kamp?’

  He expected an answer, she could see that. ‘I never see him,’ she told him, but she couldn’t quite keep the regret out of her voice.

  He said kindly, ‘You have only to ask me if you should at any time wish to be transferred back to a medical ward.’

  She said hastily, ‘No, that would be a mistake—he might think that I was… He’s taking out that very pretty nurse from the general theatre.’

  ‘Ah, yes. She is a charmer, isn’t she? Will you have another ice? No? Coffee, then… Do you hear from your stepsister?’

  ‘I had a card from Portugal, she’s modelling there for Harper’s and Queen magazine.’

  ‘It is to be hoped that she will get an assignme
nt to Amsterdam, then you would be able to spend some time with her.’

  ‘It would be nice to see her.’ She looked down at her plate. ‘But I bore her and I can quite see why. She is really beautiful.’ She sighed unconsciously. ‘And she wears the loveliest clothes.’

  She didn’t enlarge upon that; somehow she felt that her companion didn’t mind about clothes, though without saying a word he had given her the impression that he had found the grey dress quite acceptable.

  She gave another little sigh, this time of pure pleasure; Mr van der Brons was an undemanding and restful companion. With Cor she had had to exert herself to be lively and appreciative of his remarks; with her companion there was no need to be either. Indeed, their small talk was easy and their silences were comfortable and there was no need to break them; she was quite at ease with him.

  They sat over their meal for a long time until she glanced at her watch and exclaimed at the lateness of the hour.

  ‘You have a day off tomorrow,’ he pointed out. When she nodded without speaking, he asked, ‘What do you intend to do with it? A week tomorrow I’m going to Leiden…’

  He was sitting back in his chair, a cup of coffee before him. ‘I am lecturing there. I’ll give you a lift there, only you will have to be outside by half-past eight.’ He smiled suddenly so that she found herself smiling back, when in actual fact she had intended refusing coldly, for he had sounded arbitrary.

  She said hesitantly, ‘Well…’ Of course he would be used to his sisters; she imagined that an elder brother might adopt a tone of voice like that when addressing them; perhaps he thought of her in the same category. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said in a little rush.

  He took her back to the hospital presently, bade her a pleasant goodnight at the entrance and waited until she had disappeared down the corridor on her way to the nurses’ residence before getting back into his car and driving himself home.

  He was letting himself into one of the beautiful seventeenth-century red brick town houses overlooking the Herengracht when he was met in his hall by a small neat man of middle years who addressed him with the civil familiarity of an old servant and a decided cockney accent.

  ‘Evening, Jolly,’ said the professor.

  ‘Good evening to you, sir—me and Mrs J. were getting that worried. As nice a dinner as I ever seen all ready to serve and you not ’ome.’

  He took his master’s coat and laid it carefully over an arm. ‘Rang the ’ospital, I did, and they said as you ’ad gone hours earlier.’

  ‘On a friendly impulse I took someone out to dinner, Jolly. I had no intention of doing so, but she looked very lonely. English, Jolly.’

  ‘Ah, a tourist, sir?’

  ‘No, a nurse at the hospital. So I will come to the kitchen and apologise to Mrs Jolly and beg you to eat the dinner she had so kindly cooked for me.’

  ‘Well, as to that, sir…’ Jolly bustled ahead and opened the narrow door at the back of the hall and they descended a few steps to the kitchen, an extremely cosy place even if semi-basement; warm and well lit with a vast Aga along one wall and an open dresser filled with china along another. There were Windsor chairs on either side of the Aga, each occupied by a cat, and sprawled before the fire was a large shaggy dog who heaved himself up and pranced to meet the professor. He stayed quietly by him while he made his excuses to his housekeeper, speaking Dutch this time to the plump little woman before going back to the hall and into his study, the dog close on his heels. Here he sat down at his desk and, despite the papers waiting for his attention, did nothing at all for quite a while but sat deep in thought.

  Presently he stirred. ‘I am almost forty years old,’ he addressed the dog, who looked intelligent and wagged his tail. ‘Would you consider, Samson, that I am middle-aged? Past the first flush of youth? Becoming set in my ways?’

  Samson rumbled gently in a negative fashion and the professor said, ‘Oh, good, I value your opinion, Samson.’ He pulled the papers towards him and applied himself to them. ‘She has a day off tomorrow,’ he went on, ‘but I shall see her after that…’

  He saw her the next day under rather trying circumstances.

  Charity had gone out early; it was a cold clear day, frosty, with a blue sky and a hint of snow to come. Since she wasn’t going to Leiden until next week she had her day planned; she intended to follow the Singel Gracht, the outermost gracht of the inner city, from one end to the other, and when she had done that she would spend an hour or two in a museum and treat herself to a meal in a coffee shop. She had planned to buy some new clothes but somehow she felt restless and a day spent walking and getting to know Amsterdam suited her mood.

  She kept to the Singel for some time and then just past the Leidse Plein she crossed over to the Lijnbaans Gracht; she was approaching the Jordaan now, its streets named after flowers and plants, for Jordaan was a corruption of Jardin. Presently she wandered down one of them to become happily lost in a maze of narrow streets lined with small old houses, threaded with narrow canals. She was almost at the end of one such street when she saw smoke billowing from the upper window of a gabled house, bent with age, seemingly held upright by its neighbours. There was no one about, since it was that time in the morning when even the most hardworking of housewives stopped for her cup of coffee. Charity raced down the street and banged on the house door, yelling, ‘Fire,’ at the top of her voice. No one appeared to hear, understandably, for somewhere close by there was a radio blaring pop music.

  No one came to the door; she thumped again, still shouting, and then tried the handle. The door opened and she plunged inside. The smoke was rolling down the narrow ladder-like staircase leading from the tiny hall but there were no flames yet. She looked into the room downstairs, cast an urgent eye into the tiny kitchen behind it, tore a towel from a hook on the wall, splashed water over it, and, holding it to her face, began to climb the stairs.

  They led to one room under the roof, with a small window at each end, furnished with a large bed, a chest of drawers, a chair or two and a cot under the back window, all of them shrouded in thick smoke. There was a baby in the cot and, lying by an overturned oil stove, there was a toddler, clothes alight, screaming in terror and pain. Charity snatched a blanket off the bed, flung it over the child and rolled it away from the stove, which was now beginning to blaze fiercely. Very soon the whole place would be in flames and already the smoke was beginning to choke her. She hardly noticed the pain as she slapped out the flames on the child’s clothing; even through her thick gloves she felt the sting of fire. She picked the child up, laid it gently in the cot and went to the window and took a deep breath. This time her screams for help were heard; kindly people from the surrounding houses came running into the street and moments later feet pounded up the stairs and two young men came blundering through the smoke.

  Charity wasted no time in talk; she thrust the child into a pair of arms, snatched the baby from the cot and gave it to his companion. ‘Quick,’ she shouted at them, quite forgetting that she wasn’t speaking their language, ‘get out…’

  It was a situation where words were unnecessary; they disappeared down the stairs and she tumbled down after them, her teeth chattering with fright. Outside a small crowd had gathered. ‘Ambulance,’ said Charity, and then began desperate attempts at Dutch. ‘Ziekenwagen,’ she said urgently. ‘Doctor, Ziekenhuis,’ and, stumped for the words, ‘Fire Brigade.’ While she shouted all this she was taking a look at the children. The baby was a nasty bluish white but untouched by the fire. Charity gave it to a competent motherly-looking woman standing by. It was alive but it would need urgent treatment. As for the toddler, a little girl, she was severely burned but mercifully unconscious. Someone spoke to her but she couldn’t understand a word, all she could do was repeat ‘Ziekenhuis’ loudly and then, hopefully, ’Politie.’

  They arrived just as she was repeating an
other despairing cry for speedy help. A small car with two thickset, reassuringly calm policemen inside. Everyone spoke at once, but, calmly, Charity, terrified that the children would die unless they were helped quickly, cut through the din.

  ‘The hospital,’ she bawled at them, ‘and do be quick, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘English?’ asked one of the policemen. ‘The ambulance comes, also the fire engine…’ As he spoke the ambulance arrived and, hard on its heels, the fire engine. The house was well alight by now but Charity could think only of the small creatures being loaded carefully into the ambulance. It drove away quickly and one of the policemen went around telling everyone in the small crowd to move along please—in Dutch, of course, but there was no mistaking it. She stood, rather at a loss, feeling a bit sick from the smoke and her fright and was rather surprised when the two men who had carried the children to safety, and had been talking to the policemen, came and shook her hand. The Dutch, she discovered, liked to shake hands a lot. She smiled and winced as hers were gripped and the scorched flesh under her gloves throbbed. Nothing much, she told herself, just the backs of her hands—not even her fingers—as one of the policemen came over to her.

  ‘You will tell me, please, how this happened?’

  It was a relief that he spoke English and understood it too. She gave him a businesslike account. ‘And these two young men were so quick,’ she finished. ‘I hope that someone thanks them.’

  ‘They will be thanked, miss. And you? You are OK? You were also quick. I wish for your name, please. You are a tourist?’

  ‘No, I work here…’ She told him of her job at the hospital. ‘It’s my day off.’

  ‘You wish to go there now?’ He smiled in a fatherly fashion. ‘You are dirty from the smoke and your coat is a little burnt.’

  It seemed the sensible thing to do. ‘Well, yes, I expect I’d better.’