Edinburgh Excursion

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Nurse, you’re that wet!’ Mrs Richards looked ready to dry me with her floral apron. ‘And you not accustomed to our weather. Away with you into my kitchen to dry, or you’ll be as poorly as my man!’

  ‘It does rain quite often in England, Mrs Richards.’ I removed coat, hat, and boots, and changed into the spare shoes I carried in a plastic bag. ‘How is he this morning?’

  ‘He’d a better night and his cough’s easier, but he’s awful low in his spirits.’ She watched me dry my face with a tissue. ‘He’ll be better for seeing you. He’s taken a liking to you, Nurse. Did you not know that?’

  I was disproportionately touched, as my morale had taken more of a beating than I realized at the time, on Friday. ‘Your husband is such a good patient, he’s a pleasure to nurse, but I thought he might just be as patient with nurses as he is with illness.’

  Her eyes creased affectionately. ‘My Tom’s no man to complain, but if he doesn’t like a body, that body knows it well! Not that I’m complaining. He’s been a good man to me. Always the money regular, never once has he raised his hand to the bairns ‒ or myself, and though he’s aye had an eye for a bonnie lassie, no trouble that way, you’ll understand. And what man doesn’t appreciate a bonnie lassie, eh?’ She took me into the bedroom. ‘Here’s your English nurse to help you forget the rain, Tom.’

  ‘It’s not the rain that’s on my mind, woman! It’s my work!’ Mr Richards glowered at me. ‘Did you get a bit damp in that wee drop just now?’

  ‘Just a bit, Mr Richards.’

  He did not talk again until I was closing my nursing-bag. ‘Had you a word with the doctor, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes. He said he’d spoken to you last night.’

  ‘Aye.’ He gazed at the rain pelting down the window-pane. ‘You’ll be aware I’ve to work up top when I return?’ I sat on the end of his bed, as there was no other seat and a standing listener carries such an aura of impatience. ‘You’re going to miss working underground?’

  ‘A man gets used to working with his mates. It’s a hard life below, but it’s been my life and I’ve no wish to change. I’ve a good record, Nurse. All these years and not the one bad accident. I know my trade.’ He held out his hands. ‘These are the marks of my trade, and I’m proud of them!’ Then he realized what he had said and flushed like a guilty schoolboy. ‘You’ll think me blethering like a woman!’

  ‘No, Mr Richards, I don’t. I think you’ve every reason to be proud of those scars. I think you miners are amongst the really brave in this world. Most people can be brave under sudden pressure, but to keep it up every time you go on shift throughout your working-life takes the most tremendous guts.’

  He scowled hideously. ‘It’s but a job!’

  ‘Sure, but a very brave man’s job. No use your denying that, Mr Richards, as your hands give it away. But if you do work up top, won’t you be able to do a lot of good, whatever you’re actually doing? As with your record and experience, the old hands’ll listen to you, and you’ll have so much to teach the new lads.’

  ‘Maybe. If the laddies’ll heed me.’ He smiled very faintly. ‘I’d not in my day. Mind, the wife’ll not be sorry, nor my daughter, Mary. She’s living next door and has her man working at the face. Aye, mining’s hard on the women.’ He sighed. ‘The doctor says I’ve no choice, so small use greetin’.’

  In the kitchen Mrs Richards was trying to take a splinter out of her finger. I did it for her with the very fine forceps that were my own property and lived permanently in my dress pocket along with matches for immediate sterilization if there was no other means available. ‘Had he a wee chat with you, Nurse? That’s good. Watch yourself on that bike! There’s another drop of rain falling.’ The downpour lasted all day, drenching the rows of old grey and new orange-pink houses and flats; swirling off roof gutters, turning the endless flights of steps and steep closes and wynds into fast-running mountain streams. That evening I told Catriona I understood why the first city fathers had built Edinburgh high on the side of hills. ‘Any lower and it’d be washed away.’

  ‘Has today changed your mind about Edinburgh’s charms?’

  ‘Who minds a wee drop of rain? Even though somehow much wetter than any other rain?’

  A girl in another set now had Sandra’s former area and, as occasionally happened, a suddenly overloaded list. I was given three of her patients.

  One was a Mrs Graham, a widow with a varicose ulcer on her right leg. She lived alone in her own detached bungalow. On my first visit I complimented her on the magnificent roses in her front garden.

  ‘That’s my son, Nurse. He tends my garden and my daughter, my home. My children know their duty. I saw to that when they were young.’ She was white-haired, with good eyes, a neat nose, and small, tight mouth. ‘Both bring their families to visit me once a week. As I’ve told them many a time, now their father’s passed away, I’d be lost without them.’ She showed me photos of her four grandchildren. ‘Not married yet, I see, Nurse. Still, you’re young, but youth doesn’t last. Don’t wait too long. All this talk of careers is all very well, but careers are for the men. A woman’s place is in the home.’

  I reminded myself I was her guest and didn’t ask how she would get her leg dressed if all women felt as she did. I talked of Gemmie’s wedding. Mrs Graham was nearly as interested as my favourite arthritic, old Mrs Hunter.

  Trousseau-making was occupying most of our evenings.

  Mrs Hunter took a vast and personal pleasure in every stitch, and now barely mentioned her neighbours’ affairs during her blanket-baths. ‘That’ll be the third dress cut since last week ‒ aye, the water’s fine ‒ but what of the going-away coat? The lassie’ll need that.’

  ‘We did the coat last weekend. I had the whole weekend off. The lining isn’t quite finished, but that’s all. Other hand, please, my dear.’

  ‘It was you that cut it out?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve a system. I cut after the bride has pinned, and then the third nurse collects up and sorts the pieces ‒ careful!’ I moved the basin out of range just in time. ‘Tonight we have nervous breakdowns. Tonight’s the wedding-dress.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Her old eyes lit up. ‘What style has the lassie chosen? What material? And what’ll she wear on her head?’

  We were still thrashing out wedding-veils when her bed was done, her hair re-plaited, her many newspaper cuttings of unknown brides replaced in her plastic shopping-bag, and her crochet-needle working at the double. ‘Could you maybe send me a wee snap later, Nurse?’

  ‘With pleasure. I’ll write and tell you every detail. Comfortable?’

  ‘I’d like that, fine. And I’m fine, just now.’ She stopped crocheting. ‘Nurse, I’ve a wish to speak my mind. You’ll no take offence?’

  ‘Of course not.’ I smiled, but braced myself inwardly. ‘What is it, Mrs Hunter?’

  ‘Lassie, you’ve a talent for this nursing work. Have you no thought to go into a hospital to learn to be a real nurse?’

  I blushed. ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Hunter. That’s quite a thought, and one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.’

  She moved her crippled arm awkwardly and patted my hand. ‘You’re welcome, lassie. You’ll be telling about the wedding-dress the next time, eh? I’ll be waiting on that. Nylon lace? Aye, that’ll be bonnie! Could you maybe bring me a wee bittie? You will?’ She could have been fifty years younger from her enchanted smile. ‘That’ll be grand!’

  Mrs Duncan was back from holiday. I met her coming away from headquarters when I returned early that afternoon for a lecture. ‘All under control, Miss Hurst?’

  ‘I think so, thanks.’

  ‘As it should be.’ She studied me keenly. ‘You’re looking a trifle peaky, but this third month can be tiring with the theoretical pressure building up and the practical side increasing as you’re more experienced. And all this dressmaking can’t be leaving you much rest off duty. Not that I disapprove of the young being kept hard at it! We all know what they
say about Satan making work for idle hands,’ she added with a smile, but uncharacteristically, as she was not given to cliches. ‘Yet in my experience Satan is more concerned to set idle tongues wagging at both ends. Personally, few things annoy me more than tittle-tattle, though naturally I pay no attention to it, and nor does any sensible body. But this blethering’ll make you late for your lecture! Cheerio!’

  She was a kind, wise, and experienced woman. She hadn’t said all that for nothing. I went in with the feeling of something like ice in my stomach.

  A children’s officer was lecturing another set as well as ours on the Children’s Act, the schools’ health service, and her work in general. She was very good. I forgot Mrs Duncan until I noticed the odd glances I was collecting from some of the girls. Catriona was concentrating on her notes, but I caught Gemmie’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Instead of her usual wink, she replied with a positively reassuring smile.

  I used the wedding-dress as an excuse for my silence when the three of us walked home. During the cutting-out Gemmie was reduced to breathless grunts and Catriona mangled her hands about a yard from the sitting-room table until the dress was cut, pinned, and tacked. She then carried it away like the holy grail to her bedroom to try on over a long white evening slip. Gemmie collapsed on the sofa. ‘I’ve sweated off six pounds! Thanks, love. Do the same for you some time. Hey ‒ I tell you Miss Bruce says she’ll recommend me for Glasgow if I pass? And have you heard there’s a district vacancy coming up in Caithness? Suit you?’

  ‘If I hadn’t a yen for the one going in Inverness.’ I sorted aside enough scraps of material for the buttons we were getting professionally covered. ‘Can I have this spare bit for one of my old girls?’

  ‘Help yourself.’ She got off the sofa and began folding away the pieces of pattern Catriona had been too fraught to touch. ‘You don’t fancy Caithness? What’s up between you and Robbie, then?’

  I looked at her. ‘Nothing. Why?’

  She was avoiding my eye. ‘Just that he’s not been round lately.’

  ‘Lots of women having lots of babies.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Reckon you’re right.’

  ‘Do you?’ She looked at me then. She looked upset. ‘Gem, what’s going on?’ She didn’t answer, so I told her what Mrs Duncan had said. ‘You been hearing idle tongues?’

  She hesitated, and normally she weighed in like a force-ten gale. ‘You know me, Alix. My mam says I was born leaning on fence chatting up the neighbours. Get to hear all the muck that way, but that doesn’t mean you’ve to pass it on.’

  ‘Give, Gem,’ I said tensely, ‘give!’

  ‘I don’t fancy this.’ She looked round and lowered her voice, though the door was shut and we were alone. ‘Reckon I’ll have to tell you, as Catriona’ll not do the job, and, any road, she’s likely not heard. She never chats. But the girls are saying ‒ and not just our lot ‒ that you fancy our Charlie.’

  ‘Do I?’ There was clearly more. ‘And?’

  ‘They’re saying you used to chase him round on district and chat him up, and that’s why you’ve chucked Robbie.’ She jerked a thumb up. ‘They’re saying that’s why you got yourself up there, but Charlie doesn’t fancy you and slung you out on your ear, and that’s why Bassy blew his top. I’ve tried to stop ’em ‒ I’ve blown my top more times than I’ve had Sunday dinners ‒ but I’ve got to say as it’s still all round the shop. They just shut up when I come along. And you know the set that’s coming after us isn’t coming here? We’ve all known that from start, as the new place’ll be ready for them, time they arrive. But now they’re making out Charlie’s refused to have any more nurses as tenants ‒ that’s what comes when muck starts piling up. Just gets muckier. I’m sorry, love.’ She was very red and very miserable. ‘I’ve told ’em all it’s a right load of bloody codswallop and just hoped you’d not hear.’

  I was too angry for speech. I sat down.

  ‘Girls! How’s this?’

  Catriona looked breathtakingly lovely, and the perfect fit of her slip made the barely hanging-together dress seem almost finished. Momentarily even I forgot what had gone before. ‘Don’t you dare marry in anything but white lace, Catriona! Ideal with your hair!’

  Gemmie walked round Catriona congratulating me. ‘You’re in the wrong trade, Alix! Your cutting’s got real class! Get the fall of that skirt! Hey ‒ you reckon a flower up here?’

  ‘Hold still, Catriona.’ I gathered lace scraps into a flower and pinned it on top of her head. ‘A short veil from something like this, Gem?’

  ‘I want to see! Let’s go back to the hall mirror,’ insisted Catriona.

  The front-door bell rang about five minutes later. Gemmie was nearest and opened the door without looking round. As I was standing at an angle to face both door and mirror, I caught Robbie’s immediate and unguarded expression as he saw Catriona, and hers in the mirror.

  Robbie recovered first. ‘Getting married, Catriona?’

  Gemmie spun round. ‘Great daft ha’porth! As if we’d let any lad see her in that dress if she were! Give us the lad’s-eye view, Robbie! Reckon my Wilf’ll fancy it?’

  ‘It’s beautiful, Gemmie. Beautiful.’ Robbie sat on the one hall chair as if it were a choice between that and the floor. ‘Been a tough day,’ he remarked to no-one in particular.

  Catriona said, ‘Every pin is now sticking straight into me. I’ll get this off.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand. You watch my lovely, lovely dress …’ Gemmie disappeared with her.

  I watched Robbie still breathing as if he had run up the stairs. ‘Want some coffee, Robbie?’

  ‘I’ve just eaten, thanks, and can see you girls are busy. I only dropped over for a few minutes to remind you what I look like. How’s life?’

  ‘Full of little surprises. Really not stopping? Then come out here.’ On the landing I fixed the door-lock, closed the door, checked over the landing, above and below. He had followed me reluctantly. ‘Is this something new, or a hangover from Glasgow?’

  ‘It isn’t what you think, Alix.’

  ‘I don’t know what I think. I do know seeing her in that dress threw you like a kick from a horse.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He took a long time to ask simply, ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘If this has just happened ‒ and these things do just happen ‒ no, I don’t think I mind.’ I looked up at him. ‘But I like Catriona, even if her right touch of the Emily Posts sometimes has me wanting to scream. So if you’ve been using me to get at her I mind like hell!’

  He turned very angry. ‘Not that at all!’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘The only girl I’ve been trying to get at in this flat is you! Is it my fault you’re sharing with her? Or that the after-effects of some hangovers take longer than others to get out of the system? And if you’re about to object to that, just let me remind you of yourself! Do you think I enjoy waiting in the queue for you to get over this John?’

  That jolted me into the realization that I had wholly forgotten John. I did not tell him so. ‘You had an affair with her?’

  ‘We did not!’ He was ready to throttle me. ‘I asked her to have me. She turned me down ‒ flat! That was bad enough, but the way she did it was worse! It takes top-class breeding and impeccable manners to be capable of the ultimate in rudeness,’ he said savagely, ‘and Catriona Ferguson has both qualities!’

  I glanced up the stairs behind him. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Here’s some more truth! No gurrrl gets the opportunity to slap me down in that way twice! I’d not have her now if she handed herself to me gift-wrapped ‒ and I’d take great pleasure in telling her so! If that does me no credit in your eyes, that’s just too bad, as that’s the man I am! I have my pride.’

  ‘So does she. She’s never breathed a word about this. It was her face that gave me the picture just now.’

  ‘Then see it clear. That was shame on her face. Not that she’s cause to be ashamed of our relationship ‒ or what her maiden aunt
, if she had one, would consider cause!’

  ‘I see.’

  He said, ‘I hope you do. This is the first and last time I’ll be exhibiting my scars for your benefit. Two-year-old scars. When can I see you again?’ He glanced up the stairs. ‘Or have I lost my place in the queue?’

  ‘Oh, God!’ I rubbed my eyes, but that didn’t make it look better. ‘You’ve heard too?’

  ‘You know what hospital grapevines are like. As I do too, anything I catch goes through one ear and out the other.’ He flushed almost guiltily. ‘You know my views on Charlie Linsey.’

  ‘Do I? Or do I,’ I asked deliberately, ‘only know some?’

  ‘You’ve had all I care to give you. If you’ve since filled in some gaps for yourself, that’s your business and his business, not mine! When I can see you again is mine. When?’

  ‘Sure you still want to?’

  ‘Don’t be such a bloody wee daftie! What am I doing here, now?’ He reached for me with both hands and kissed me firmly. ‘Nothing like a shot of adrenalin to cure a hangover.’

  Catriona was alone in the sitting-room when I got in. I straightened my hair, and asked if she had heard of the vacancy going in Caithness. ‘Take your fancy? It’s not for me. I want Inverness unless I can fix one in the Outer Hebrides. You haven’t heard if one’s going there?’

  She dropped her lecture notes. ‘Why the Outer Hebrides?’

  I picked up her pad. ‘Just a sudden urge to do my own thing far, far away.’

  She accepted the pad absently. ‘I know just how you feel, Alix.’

  As I was out for a man’s blood, that time she very probably did.

  Chapter Ten

  Mrs Graham had attended the same varicose-vein clinic for three years and had the same G.P. for the last twenty-eight. She rated her doctor just one step below the Almighty, and her son-in-law, a physicist, two steps down. ‘His mother was English and second cousin to an Earl. Such a nice family ‒ very nice people. One can’t deny that makes a difference, Nurse. Of course, he attended a nice public school.’