‘I ‒ I haven’t thought out that one, Sister.’
‘You have, lassie. You mayn’t be aware of it, but you have, as your immediate reaction showed. If ever you’ve doubts about your true thoughts take a good look at your own actions. They’ll tell you best of all the way your thoughts and your heart lie. Now, think. Why’d you, as an individual, save the mother first?’
I said, ‘She might have other children?’
‘Very probably.’
‘Or more later.’
‘Aye.’
‘And ‒ her death could destroy a family.’
‘That’s a fact. The death of a bairn can be a terrible grief, but the death of a healthy young mother can be a terrible grief with many a tragic consequence. And you’ll have to live with the knowledge of those consequences. Turn this over in your mind. There’s no easy way out. Let’s away out ourselves! I could do with a good cup of tea before we start out again!’
I remembered my first impression with despair as well as shame when I watched her jog-trotting away from my train the following afternoon. Despair that my conventionally brainwashed and blinkered mind had so instantly seized on her shapeless uniform and roughened complexion, and ignored the lines of her face and the expression in her eyes. I thought of her face as the train speeded up, and then of the faces of other women in their late fifties, friends of my parents or mothers of my friends. They were women with husbands, children, often grandchildren, apparently comfortable homes, apparently fulfilled lives. None of their faces had Miss Robertson’s serenity, and she was the first woman in that age-group I had ever known to radiate not just content, but happiness. I found that as thought-provoking as the many professional problems she had intentionally planted in my mind.
I did not see the guard on my outward journey on that train, and, whilst I had enjoyed his company, I was grateful for my first period of thinking time since I had left Edinburgh. Tea never kept me awake, and after the massive suppers Miss Robertson termed ‘wee snacks’ every night I had been asleep before turning over twice.
Last week Robbie had taken me to a hospital party. Hospital parties generally went well, and that one had, but by mutual consent we had left early. Robbie said, ‘I used to think there was nothing to touch a good party.’
‘Me too. Outgrown it, I guess.’
‘Just how I feel.’
It had still been early when he took me home, and we both agreed there was nothing like an occasional early night. He expected to be free this evening, and had asked me to ring him if I was back in time and felt like a date. There would be time, but I wouldn’t ring him. I didn’t think he would mind, though he might try very hard to persuade himself he did. He gave himself a tough time, did Robbie. He had to keep telling himself exactly what he wanted, to make dead sure he stifled any heretical thought to the contrary. He should, I reflected, have worked a few days with Miss Robertson: ‘Take a good look at your own actions’.
I had believed him when he had said he’d been visiting me and not Catriona. I still believed he wanted to believe that. Catriona was another matter, and, possibly as we were the same sex, much easier for me to fathom. Whatever had happened in Glasgow, her opting for Caithness proved, if only to me, that she had decided to do something tangible about her second thoughts. I had not known this when I last saw Robbie, and wondered how he would react. Then I started wondering how I would get on in Inverness, and, beautiful though the place sounded, why I had been so eager to take that particular leap into the unknown. There were a few Edinburgh vacancies going, and as I had done so much city nursing one more year before turning rural would not make much difference.
Miss Robertson had left her mark. I had wanted to move out to avoid drifting into a marriage with Robbie that neither of us fundamentally wanted, but might well have settled for had we seen too much more of each other and too little of other people.
Miss Robertson and John. I was still such a coward that I flatly refused to let myself think of Charles. When he came unasked into my thoughts I threw him out, consciously. I was very glad he was so rich, as that helped. King Cophetua never had been my favourite character, and I fancied myself as the beggar-maid still less.
The train slowed to run into Edinburgh. The Castle was pale sepia on a green, sepia, and grey rock. The old city was celebrating high summer in one of its pink moods, and the sky, for the moment, was a clear and gentle blue. From the dampness of the near-by buildings and the puddles in the station-yard it had rained heavily in the last half-hour. I caught myself smiling foolishly at a puddle and thinking, even more foolishly, ‘Good, I’m home’.
I walked the whole way back to try and walk that off. I dwelt intentionally on the more obvious differences ‒ the staggering number of banks and bookshops, the far greater number of physically small men than in any comparable southern English crowd, the occasional drunk reeling between friends or against a wall, alone. I could not remember when I had last seen a drunk in the West End of London at this hour on a week-day ‒ but I could remember the sad, ageless young meths-drinkers round Covent Garden, morning, afternoon, and evening.
I stopped looking, merely to absorb the varying greys that so entranced me, the constantly changing sky, the jostling crowds, amiably ignoring alike the traffic cops, the little red men in the traffic-lights, the wild gaiety of the rush-hour traffic. The clatter of hurrying footsteps on stone flags seemed clearer than the noise of the traffic. To me the sound of London was a mechanical roar, the sound of Edinburgh, human footsteps.
I thought of Beethoven and how impossible it was now going to be for me to disassociate his Seventh from the view from the North Bridge ‒ and Charles. Then I turned the last corner, and he came out of our front door. He had seen me, so I couldn’t run. We walked equally slowly towards each other. ‘Back from your journey into the interior? Let’s have that case. No taxis at the station?’ His manner was as pleasant and as polite as I would have expected. And very sensible. This was our first meeting since I realized the calculated risk he had taken on my behalf and what it must have cost a man of his temperament to so publicize his supposed personal emotions. I suspected he would rather be burnt at the stake than have me thank him, though if at the stake he would undoubtedly politely offer me a match to get the bonfire going. That would be sensible too. If there’s no alternative to burning, the sooner the better.
‘I felt like walking.’ I held on to my things, assured him they were not heavy, told him a little about Miss Robertson, noticed his eyes were back to normal, but did not ask about the right one. Once a debt has been paid, who wants to remember it?
He held open the front door. ‘If you’re sure I can’t help you up with those? As I have to go out, I’ll get on. Good luck again for next week.’
I went up the first flight quickly, and then on very slowly. I wished to God he hadn’t chosen this specific moment to go out for the evening. I didn’t have to see him to remember what he looked like ‒ and just now I’d even thought his short hair looked cute. Hell, I thought, hell, hell, hell! Were it not bound to involve me in an unwanted date I’d ring Robbie to thank him. Inverness was just what I needed as John o’ Groats was out. Or could I try for a last-minute switch to the Outer Hebrides? Take up nursing and see the world. Fall in love with the wrong men and see Scotland. I couldn’t be seriously in love with him? I couldn’t be that much of a fool? It must be a passing infatuation. I breathed carefully. I could only hope it would pass on, soon.
Catriona was back and having a bath. Gemmie had gone home for the night and her last day off before her wedding. There was a little pile of post for me on the hall table. I read my mother’s postcard and the note from Robbie saying he was working this evening before opening the thick envelope addressed to me in a handwriting I did not recognize. It had an Edinburgh postmark.
It was a letter from Mrs Brown. Archie had died in his sleep the first night I was away. She was giving up their flat and moving in with the married brother who had lent them his van
for their Cornish honeymoon. She was changing jobs, though her boss had offered her a raise.
She wrote: ‘My Archie planned all this and made me promise to follow his wishes. He said, then he would not feel he had failed me in everything. As if my Archie failed me in any way, Nurse Hurst. He said, if he passed away whilst you were still up here, I must write this to you as he knew I would not find it easy to speak these words, but you would be concerned for my welfare. He greatly appreciated your kindness, and so do I. He said you would not wish to be thanked, but would I be sure to remember him to you kindly.’
Catriona came out of the bathroom. ‘How was ‒ Alix! What’s wrong?’
I was sitting on the hall chair. I mopped my eyes with the back of my hand and gave her the letter. Her hand shook as she lowered it. ‘How could she find the courage to write this?’
‘She’s got tremendous guts, and these few months ‒ God, has she needed them! So had he. Poor Archie!’ I put away the letter. ‘I hope that poor girl gets a good rest before she starts any new job. I’ve never heard her complain, or even act as if she’d cause for complaint, but lately she’s looked ready to drop.’
‘Didn’t you say he seemed better again, just before I went away? Do you think he suddenly realized it was too much for her and just let go?’
I thought of Archie’s hollow face and blazingly aware blue eyes. ‘Won’t be on the death certificate, but, yes.’
Dr MacDonald said it in other words. ‘He was a brave laddie. The time had come, so he went in peace.’
Chapter Fourteen
Mrs Duncan waited in her car outside headquarters. ‘Nervous?’
‘Hollow!’
‘Great! Confidence in any candidate the night before an exam is a very disturbing symptom!’
Sandra, Catriona, and I walked home together. The place was swarming with sailors from some ship in at Rosyth. Their uniforms and cap-ribbons were foreign and their colouring was Scandinavian. Several posses made politely determined efforts to pick us up.
Sandra snorted. ‘Bloody Huns! My Dad’d go spare if he could see this lot!’
‘They’re not German,’ explained Catriona. ‘They’re Norwegian.’
Sandra was unimpressed and uninterested. ‘All after the same thing! Industrial injuries come under the National Insurance Act, don’t they? Or do they?’
We decorated our sitting-room with the good-luck cards, silver-paper horseshoes, and white heather loaded upon us by our patients. Gemmie and I were in the middle of a blazing row over the iron when Catriona stormed in with the bread-knife. ‘Some vandal has wrecked this edge! I can’t get a decent point on my pencil!’
‘That’s out for cutting our throats, then! You can have the iron first, Alix! I’m going to have a bubble-bath and read a lovely slushy story for the next two hours.’ Gemmie retreated to the bathroom, and shortly after Catriona to Aunt Elspeth. I had just finished unnecessarily ironing my freshly laundered best uniform dress and apron when Bassy arrived. ‘It’s my night off. I’ve borrowed Hamish’s car to run Melly home to Dunfermline. How about you girls coming along for the ride?’
I banged on the bathroom door. ‘Coming, Gem?’
‘Ta, love, no! The hero’s just told the heroine she’s too pure to be sullied by his touch. He’s a lovely lad! I’m not out this bath till he sorts that one.’
I couldn’t be bothered to change. I put on my old grey school mac which I still kept as it was the one outer garment I possessed long enough to cover a uniform dress skirt. ‘I didn’t know Hamish had a car, Bassy.’
‘He only got her last week. Wonderful old bird! Cost him all of thirty quid.’
When Charles drove up twenty minutes later Melly and I were getting our breath back on the pavement and Bassy was inside the old car’s bonnet. Charles seemed to hesitate, then drove past the side-turning to the parking-lot and drew up ahead. He came towards us. ‘Having trouble?’
‘May the Lord preserve us,’ muttered Melly. ‘With two men on the job we’ll be here all night.’
Bassy emerged streaked with oil. ‘I don’t know what ails her. Starter’s working, lights are working, so it can’t be the battery. She got us up here like a dream. Then she stopped.’
Charles dived into the bonnet. ‘What did she sound like when she stopped? Normal?’
‘Yes ‒ no! She did give a sort of splutter.’
‘That could be the petrol-pump.’ They had both disappeared. ‘Yes, I think that’s it.’
Melly stopped tying her hair in knots under her chin. ‘Isn’t that a long job if you know what you’re doing and have the right tools?’
Bassy popped up, scowling. ‘Hamish is washing up till midnight. I can’t abandon his old bird here. Sorry, but you’ll have to get yourself back to Dunfermline, and as Alix has waited four months to see the not-so-new bridge she’ll have to wait a little longer.’
Charles glanced my way as if he had only then realized I was there. ‘You’ve not seen the new Forth Road Bridge?’
‘Isn’t it disgraceful?’ Melly answered. ‘And just the job for her this evening when she’s utterly disorientated with exam-nerves.’
I said, ‘Actually, I should be working.’
‘You won’t remember a thing you do tonight!’ Three voices shouted me down. Charles added, ‘Can I run you all over?’ He was addressing Bassy. ‘And then bring you back here with your sister? Your car can stay round the corner for the night.’
Melly said firmly, ‘How very kind of you, Dr Linsey! Thank you.’
Bassy gave me a cursory glance, wiped his hands on his pants, and closed the bonnet. ‘Yes, thanks very much. If we can just shove the old bird out of the light ‒ come on, women! Get shoving some more!’
Charles said, ‘Surely you and I can manage her alone?’
‘Fair enough. Give the girls a break as they’ve been shoving up and down for the last fifteen minutes.’
Melly backed to lean against the wall of the house. ‘If there’s one spectacle I enjoy in this man’s world,’ she murmured, ‘it’s the sight of intelligent men resorting to brute force to prove their virility to the little women. You think they’ll do themselves a mischief?’
‘Doubt it. Too young for coronaries, too thin and in too good shape for slipped discs or herniae.’
She turned her serious goggled gaze on me. ‘You can formulate that on observation alone?’
‘Not all that hard when you know what you’re looking for.’ Charles was back in the heirloom tweeds. It was a relief to discover I still thought it a terrible suit, even if it did not worry me nearly as much as my old school mac.
On the outward drive I sat in the front with him. Melly and Bassy entwined themselves in the back and nibbled each other’s ears without interrupting the flow of exam-nerve horror stories and university ‘in’ talk they were swapping with Charles. They didn’t bother to include me in the conversation, and after three civil attempts he gave up.
I didn’t bother to listen. This was an unexpected bonus, and even if I later regretted it I wanted to watch him without distraction. What had happened to me now was like a dam bursting. I suspected the pressure had begun to build up imperceptibly from the night Mrs Thompson died. Certainly I hadn’t been aware of it that night in his flat, but with his eye injury the first crack had let the first trickle through. I recognized disturbingly well so many of my present emotions, but one great difference did puzzle me. From first to last being with John had left me literally breathless. With Charles I breathed more easily.
The Forth was calm and slowly darkening. The lights on the new bridge glowed palely and the old bridge was a series of deep-red curves painted against the blue-mauve sky. On our return, on both land sides the lights were coming on. The twilight softened green grass, green trees, dark water, and white houses into a gentle pastel world lit with land-based yellow stars. The colours had the haunting quality of colours in a dream.
I said, ‘I’m glad I’ve seen this.’
‘Quite pleasant
in this light,’ said Charles.
We said goodbye in the hall. I hoped I had remembered to thank him for the drive. I wasn’t sure, and only realized he had wanted to shake hands when I saw his hand go down.
Bassy’s manners were in better shape. ‘Thanks a lot for this. I’ll get the old bird shifted in the morning. See you around.’
Charles smiled his polite smile. ‘I hope so, if only on opposite sides of the barricades.’
Bassy saw me up, but did not come in. ‘Tell the girls the usual from me, and tell Gem I’ve fixed a spot for Wilf’s car and he can have his pick of the other three beds. See you at the farewell rave. And, Alix ‒’
‘Yes?’
‘There are some things a guy can’t help. You don’t have to love MacGalahad for it, but do you have to spit in his eye?’ He did not wait for an answer, which was as well since I hadn’t one.
The starch in our best uniforms crackled ominously as we waited for the practical. The three-hour paper stretched unto eternity.
‘You may now read your papers, Nurses.’
It seemed ten minutes later: ‘Last five minutes, Nurses.’ And then, ‘Stop writing, please, Nurses. Thank you.’
Gemmie had insisted on our farewell party originally, against the combined opposition of our entire set. But for her determination our last day would have been even more unbearable than it was. We had all finished work, were leaving the following morning, meeting briefly at Gemmie’s wedding on Saturday before scattering to our separate lives. The girls from downstairs came up to help us with the party preparations, and the mutual strain of awaiting results and the coming break-up transformed us into a slightly hysterical and passionately devoted band of sisters.
Sandra and I took over the kitchen, and as we turned out sausage rolls, cheese straws, and vol-au-vents, we commiserated with each other on the hideous reception awaiting us when we returned to our training hospitals as jobless Scottish rejects.
Edinburgh Excursion Page 17
