by Anne Weale
“Oh, what an old Blimp you are,” Carola said resignedly, taking off her blouse.
“Hm, when did this come on?” her father enquired, after examining the reddened scaly patch of skin which was marring the smoothness of her back.
“Several days ago. It only itched a little at first, but last night I nearly went scatty.”
“So I see. The scratching has made it worse. Is there anything that rubs against this spot—a metal clasp on one of your bras, for instance?”
“No, it’s too high up for that.” Carola twisted round to look at him. “I haven’t caught some ghastly skin disease, have I? Ringworm or something? Don’t people go bald with that?” she asked anxiously.
“Not bald. They sometimes lose patches of hair if the condition isn’t treated in good time.” Doctor Burney began to wash his hands. “Anyway, this is nothing like ringworm.”
“What is it, then? Can you cure it? I can’t model beach suits and evening things if my back looks repulsive.”
“Don’t worry, I expect we can deal with it. It looks to me like a touch of psoriasis.”
“Psoriasis!” Carola exclaimed. “That sounds ghastly. What is it?”
“It is a skin disease, but it isn’t contagious. I’ll give you some ointment to put on and it should clear up quite quickly. But you must try not to scratch, however much it itches. And the ointment tends to stain, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to fix a piece of lint over the place or it will mark your clothes.”
“But what causes it? Can it spread?” she asked, still looking alarmed.
“We aren’t very clear about the cause, but severe cases are not very common. It tends to come and go in certain people, sometimes for no detectable reason, sometimes as a result of worries and nervous tension.”
“But I haven’t any wor—” Carola stopped short. “Well, I’d better start putting on the ointment right away,” she said, after a fractional pause. “Can I have some now? Oh, darn it”—with an irritated wriggle—“it itches worse than chicken-pox.”
That evening, after Carola had washed up the supper things—protecting her hands with lashings of moisture cream and rubber gloves—she carried the coffee tray into the garden. Suzy was still out with friends, and Miss Burney had gone to evening service.
“Carola, I’ve been thinking over that training course you wanted to take,” her father said suddenly, after they had been sitting in silence for some time. “As you haven’t changed your mind about making a career of this modelling business, and you seem to be doing quite well at it at Whiteways, perhaps I ought to change my mind.”
Carola, who had stopped flipping through Harper’s Bazaar as soon as he said the word ‘training’, gave him an incredulous glance.
“Change your mind?” she repeated cautiously.
“Perhaps I am a bit of an old Blimp, as you put it,” her father said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I’ve been wrong to insist that you stayed at home until you were twenty-one.” He turned to study her. “Have you felt very bitter about my refusing to agree to your schemes?”
“Not bitter exactly. I’ve never understood why Rachel could leave home but I couldn’t.”
Doctor Burney began to fill his pipe, a yellowed old corn-cob which had been sent from America to join the amber-stemmed meerschaum and the Malta briar, two other favorites in his collection.
“I suppose the real reason was that you are so like your mother,” he said slowly. “I’ve tended to think of you as taking after her in temperament as well as looks, and Angela was never cut out for a competitive life. Actually, I suppose, it’s Rachel who is really most like her in character, even though both she and Suzy take after me physically—worse luck for ’em.”
“Yes, Rachel is rather like Mummy,” Carola said reflectively. “She likes looking after people, and doing homely things. I’m more selfish,” she added, in a low tone.
“Well, I daresay it hasn’t done you any harm to wait for what you want. We always appreciate things more when they are hard to come by,” her father said, zipping up his tobacco pouch. “Anyway, if you can find some reputable lodgings—a Y.W.C.A. hostel or somewhere—I think you might as well start at this Academy place in the autumn.”
Six months ago, or even less, Carola would have gone wild with delight. But now she said flatly, “Why have you changed your mind? Because of this beastly skin trouble?”
“That has something to do with it,” he admitted. “At least it has been a contributory factor in making me think over my original decision.”
Carola twisted the old-fashioned turquoise dress ring, found in a junk tray, so small that it would only fit on her little finger.
“I suppose the other contributory factor is Daniel Elliot,” she said, with an edge of defiance in her tone.
Her father raised his eyebrows. “Elliot? What has he to do with it?”
Carola looked slightly nonplussed. “Well ... Rachel doesn’t seem to approve of my seeing him. I thought you wouldn’t either.”
Doctor Burney crossed his legs and settled his shoulders more comfortable against the deck chair. “Is your ... friendship with Elliot the reason why you seem so extraordinarily unmoved at the prospect of going to London at last?” he enquired blandly.
“Perhaps,” Carola said nonchalantly.
But her father did not demand to know what she meant, or even reply. When she turned to look at him, he seemed to be absorbed in enjoyment of his pipe.
On Tuesday evening, after telephoning home to say that she would be out for the evening, Carola had tea in a cafe and then rode her scooter through the town to River Walk.
It had been a cool, overcast day, and as she reached the terrace of houses overlooking the Bran, it began to rain. Unless she wanted to get wet, there was no time to hover on the pavement, nerving herself. But, climbing the stairs to Peter’s flat on the top floor, she felt that she had been a fool to come, and hoped that he would be working tonight and she would be spared the embarrassment of having no plausible pretext for her visit.
Outside his door, she almost turned tail. Then the possibility that he might have seen her from the window and so be aware of her cowardice if she went away again made her muster her courage.
Still wondering which was the best of several rather feeble opening gambits, she pressed the bell.
There was no answering movement or voice, and after a very short wait she was relieved to be able to turn away. But, before she reached the staircase, she heard an odd shuffling noise from within the flat and she was pausing on the top step, wondering what it could be, when the door opened.
“Peter! What on earth ...?” Instinctively, without stopping to think about it, Carola ran back across the landing to where Peter was leaning heavily against the jamb.
“Carola—what are you doing here? No, you can’t come in.” He tried to shut the door in her face, but she was already over the threshold. “Go away,” he said harshly. “I’ve got a stinking cold. You’ll catch it.”
For a second she hesitated. His breath smelt strongly of whisky and it occurred to her that his appearance and manner might be the result of drinking heavily. But her doubt was only momentary. He wasn’t drunk—he was ill.
“Get back into bed,” she said briskly, shutting the door behind her. “Has your doctor seen you?”
“I haven’t got a doctor,” he snapped irritably. “Look, go away, will you?' The place is in a mess and I want to get some sleep.”
“Oh, don’t be so silly. I don’t mind the mess. You must have someone to sort you out,” Carola retorted firmly. “You haven’t got a cold, you ass. By the look of you, you’ve got a raging dose of ’flu.”
“I’ll be okay in the morning. Just leave me in peace, can’t you? I can’t stand being fussed over,” he began angrily. Then he closed his eyes and swayed suddenly, clutching at the wall for support.
Carola didn’t waste time reasoning with him. She could see his rumpled divan through the inner doorway and, putting her arm round his wais
t, she propelled him back to it. He had begun to shiver, yet his cheeks were unnaturally flushed under the dark growth of stubble, and he was sweating. She didn’t need a thermometer—and there wouldn’t be one in the flat, that was certain—to tell her that he was running an alarmingly high temperature.
Peter collapsed on the bed with a groan of relief. Judging from the roughness of his chin, he had not shaved for at least thirty-six hours, and his cotton pyjamas were crumped and damp with sweat. There was a large but empty aspirin bottle, another half-empty whisky bottle and several dirty glasses on the chair by the bed.
“Look, just go home and mind your own business. I’ll be okay. I’m not dying,” he muttered resentfully, trying to shove her away as she tucked the bedclothes over him.
Carola left, but she took his latch-key with her. There was a telephone kiosk just across the road, and ruffling quickly through the directory she found the number of a doctor who was a friend of her father, and who lived quite close by.
Doctor Adams was in the middle of his evening surgery when his receptionist put her through to him. Carola explained the situation, and he promised to call round after he had seen the last of his surgery patients—probably in about an hour’s time.
Back in the flat, she found that Peter had fallen asleep, but he was restless and still very hot.
After washing the dirty glasses and all the other used crockery she found in the tiny kitchenette—chipping her nail varnish and nicking a thumb on the razor-sharp edge of the bread knife—she carried the overflowing pedal-bin down to the big bins in the back garden. That done, she opened the sitting room windows, tidied most of the accumulated disorder, and sprayed the lightshade and ceiling with an aerosol fly-killer she had noticed. Then she rinsed out two nylon shirts, and found a plastic bucket in which to soak some socks and underwear.
Peter opened his eyes when she returned to the bedroom with a bowl of warm water, a face cloth and a towel.
“Are you still here? What’s all that for? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Carola—stop trying to play the ministering angel. Get out of here.”
“Don’t be a fool. I’m only going to wash your face and hands. It will make you feel better,” she said firmly.
He glared at her, and tried to struggle up and fend her off. But evidently he had a piercing headache as, on his elbows, he smothered a vicious curse and fell back on the pillows again.
Wishing she had some of Rachel’s expertize in home-nursing, Carola washed his face and hands and wondered if he had any clean pyjamas. She had just found some in an unopened parcel of laundry, when the doctor arrived.
“Yes, it’s influenza,” he said, when he came out of the bedroom after some minutes. “Lucky you popped in to see him. He’s having a nasty bout of it. I’ll give you a prescription, but the main thing is for him to keep warm, and take plenty of fluids.”
“But he lives alone. Oughtn’t he to have someone to look after him? Couldn’t you put him into hospital for a day or two?” Carola asked anxiously. “He looks really ill.”
“He feels it, I expect,” Doctor Adams said cheerfully. “There’s nothing like ’flu for making one feel wretched. No, I’m afraid I can’t get a hospital bed for him. They’re full up with cases as it is— people who are much worse off than this lad. You can keep an eye on him this evening, can’t you—and perhaps look in tomorrow morning? If he has a good night, he’ll probably feel much brighter by then. Ask the people downstairs to lend a hand. Neighbors are usually very good in an emergency. There’s a chemist’s round the corner which is open late tonight”—handing her the prescription sheet—“and I’ll look in again tomorrow.”
Carola decided to spend the night on the sofa in Peter’s sitting room. There had been no reply when she knocked at the flat below—perhaps the tenants were on holiday—and she felt that she couldn’t leave him alone, to throw off the bedclothes or stagger in search of a drink and get chilled, and perhaps collapse.
Telephoning home again, she wondered if she ought to say that she was staying the night with one of her girl friends. But when she told her father the truth, expecting him to raise objections or insist on some alternative arrangement, he only said, “Yes, I see. Peter Brooke? That’s the young fellow who was always ringing you up at one time, isn’t it? Well, you can’t very well leave him if he’s got it badly. Ring us first thing tomorrow. If he’s still very under the weather, I daresay Rachel would come over and help look after him.”
“Thanks, Dad. He really is pretty ill. I’m glad you understand,” Carola said gratefully.
“Let’s hope you don’t catch it from him. Goodnight, puss.” Her father rang off.
When Carola looked in on Peter the following morning, he was sleeping normally and no longer looked flushed and feverish. After drawing the curtains so that the early sun would not fall across his pillow and waken him, she went to have a bath. She was tired and rather stiff from a disturbed night on the lumpy sofa, but she felt curiously happy.
While she was having breakfast in the kitchen, she heard Peter going to the bathroom. When he came back and found her putting clean sheets on his bed, his jaw dropped.
“Feeling better?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes, much. Still a bit groggy, but at least I’ve stopped aching all over. When did you arrive?”
“I’ve been here since yesterday. Now don’t hang about in draughts or you’ll have a relapse. I’ll bring you a hot drink and then I must dash to work. And you must promise to stay in bed and keep warm. The doctor will be looking in during the morning, and I’ll be back to see if you fancy anything to eat at lunch time.” She plumped up the pillows, turned down the top sheet, and picked up the pile of soiled linen to carry it to the laundry basket in the kitchen.
Peter caught at her arm as she passed him. His hair was tousled, his chin another twelve hours rougher, and there were heavy shadows under his eyes. But he was looking at her in a way that made her heart lurch.
“Carola, I—”
“Back to bed!” she said severely.
On early closing day, Carola spent the afternoon at the flat. Peter was better now, but Doctor Adams had advised him not to return to work till the following Monday.
They had tea in the long walled garden which was shared by all the occupants of the house, and afterwards Carola insisted on washing up by herself.
“You’re still a bit rocky. You must take it easy until Monday,” she told him when he protested that women fussed too much.
He leaned against the kitchen table, watching her and laughing at her vexation when she dropped and broke a cup.
“Carola Burney—the compleat hussif,” he said teasingly.
“Even Mrs. Beeton must have broken something occasionally,” Carola said with dignity.
As she put the saucers in the cupboard, she heard him move. The next moment his hands were on her shoulders and he was turning her to face him.
“I don’t care if you smash every cup in the place,” he said huskily, before his arms tightened round her and his mouth pressed hungrily on hers.
When at last he let her go, they were both breathless and trembling. Carola leaned limply against the dresser, and Peter turned away and gripped the rim of the sink.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, in a low voice.
She stared at him. “What do you mean—you shouldn’t have done it?”
Without looking at her, he turned and went into the sitting room. When, bewildered, she followed, he was lighting a cigarette. His hand was shaking so that he had difficulty in striking a match.
“Peter, what’s the matter? What is it?”
He took a deep draw, then exhaled. “I ought not to have kissed you. It’s only made things more difficult,” he said tonelessly.
“But you wanted to kiss me—and I liked it,” she protested. She reached out a hand to his arm, but he moved sharply away, as if her touch might burn him.
“Look, Carola, I don’t quite know how to put this,�
� he said rapidly. “I’m very grateful for all you’ve done this last week, but let’s not fool ourselves. We—we attract each other, and because you’re basically a very sweet kid you’ve felt you had to look after me. You may even have enjoyed it—for these few days. But washing socks and steaming plaice isn’t really your line, not permanently. Don’t kid yourself that a natural feminine instinct to look after someone who’s ill and ... and a strong physical attraction amount to something world-shattering.”
There was a long silence while Peter stared fixedly at the carpet, and Carola at him. At first she seemed not to have heard what he was saying. Then, slowly, a flush of color crept up from her throat and her eyes began to glitter.
“I see,” she said at last, in an oddly hoarse voice. “Well, if that’s the way you feel ... Goodbye!” Snatching her jacket and bag from the top of the bookcase, she whirled out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ONE evening in early August, Rachel sat down to a quick snack supper before meeting Edward at the bus stop to go over to Branford where they had arranged to meet a colleague and his wife for a foursome to the repertory theatre.
The house seemed unnaturally quiet as Suzy was away at a Guide camp and Doctor Burney was spending the night in London. Carola was at a dance in Branford, and Aunt Florence was over at the Vicarage.
As she cleared the table, Rachel suddenly noticed that Bolster’s evening meal, put down an hour before, was still untouched. Puzzled—Bolster had many failings, but unpunctuality for meals was not one of them—she went outside to look for him. His dinner was put down at the same time every night, and usually he was already waiting for it, his tail thumping in eager anticipation. But tonight there was no sign of him, either in the back lane or on the green, and Rachel returned to the kitchen with a troubled frown wrinkling her forehead.
Trying to remember when she had last seen him, she took longer than usual to change her dress and do her face, and at twenty past six, the time she should have been at the bus stop, she was searching for another pair of nylons to replace the ones she had laddered by putting them on too hurriedly. At twenty-two minutes past six, the doorbell rang and she guessed that Edward had come to find out why she was late.
