Highland Interlude
Page 14
I smiled faintly. ‘Not the coach. Special delivery.’
Gordon had been as shocked by the extravagance, but much more delighted. ‘Ach, what it is to have money to burn to impress a bonnie lassie!’ said Dr MacAlistair gravely. ‘Now, about your discharge on Saturday ‒’ and he went on to tell me I could be up and dressed from midday tomorrow and all day Friday. ‘We can’t pitch you out before you’ve got the feel of your clothes again and taken some fresh air. It’d be different if we were sending you home a few miles in a hospital car. I take it you’re still determined to make the long road and rail journey straight off?’
‘I’d rather do that.’ He was regarding me in silence. ‘Is it too stupid?’
‘If I thought that I’d keep you in another week. I’d prefer you to build up more strength first, as all that travelling’s bound to tire you, but if your mind’s set on returning to England, at your present stage it’ll do you less harm to let you go. A restless mind is not conducive to total recovery. But don’t look so stricken, lassie. Naturally, you’re anxious to get back to your own circle.’ He looked at the roses. ‘I hear Mr MacDonald’s up to his ears with his takeover bid in London.’
‘It seems to be giving him problems. Actually, he should now be either in Washington or nearly there.’
As Mr Cameron had been on the switchboard when Archie called and I had not mentioned this to anyone else, Dr MacAlistair was surprised. ‘When’ll he be back?’
‘He’s not sure. Perhaps in a few weeks. Perhaps not.’
‘So.’ He hunched his heavy shoulders, dropped his chin on his chest, and studied me clinically and kindly. ‘These wealthy Americans think less of crossing the Atlantic in a jet than I think of driving to Inverness. They must find the world an odd wee place.’
‘Exhaustingly odd.’
‘To my way of thinking, too. I prefer to stay put, to take my time with places as well as people. I’d say that was a sign of approaching old age, had I not always been the same and produced our two youngest laddies with the same outlook. The eldest and Isobel have the opposite temperament. They have to see over the next hill. Do you?’
‘The hill, yes. I like seeing new places, doing new things, and generally I make up my mind in a hurry, but about things, not people. I like to take my time about people. I don’t always manage that, but I do try to stand back before I get too involved in case I don’t really want to be involved.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Again he looked at the roses. ‘There are many worse maxims for a young lass to follow, and particularly one who’s to fend for herself.’ He slapped my shoulder. ‘You should’ve been born north of the Border, lassie. You’ll do, but, this won’t, as I’ve a job of work to do! It’s a hard life for a hard-working man with my feet,’ he growled, and stomped off.
The evening dragged on. Next morning was as bad. A lifetime passed before I was able to get dressed, in clothes over a size too big, which vastly improved my morale.
Craig enthusiastically produced a tape-measure. ‘Twenty-two, and if you breathe in more I’m sure I can make it twenty-one!’
‘Lay off!’ I breathed out. ‘Want me to look like a pouter pigeon?’
‘Think the man’s been born who’d object?’
‘Yes. Old MacAlistair. His blood-pressure’ll shoot if he catches me trying to constrict my breathing apparatus.’
‘But think what it’ll do to Archie MacDonald’s blood-pressure when you get to London!’
I surveyed myself sideways in the small mirror she had brought in. ‘As you were off yesterday, I haven’t had a chance to tell you ‒’
Her reaction to my news amused me. She was livid. ‘The sod! To fly out on you just when you’ll need him!’
‘Don’t blame the poor man. Business is business. He doesn’t owe me anything.’
‘Elizabeth, are you out of your wee mind? After the fuss he’s made of you and about you ever since you came in here there’s hardly a body in Gairlie not convinced he’s spoken for you. If he hasn’t I’d say it was high time he did!’
‘Oh, God!’ I groaned. ‘Here we go, back a couple of centuries. Really, Craig, I thought you’d more sense. What about your Ian? Your Tam? Your Alec? Have all three spoken for you, and if so, how in hell are you managing to keep them from each other’s throats?’
‘They’re different! They’re laddies I’ve known most of my life, and none of them can afford a wife yet any more than I’ve a wish to be a wife yet. Archie MacDonald can afford a harem!’
‘Have a heart, love. From the little I know of him his business leaves him hardly enough time to deal with one woman, much less a couple of dozen. Though he talked a lot about being glad to get away from it all, there’s obviously nothing he enjoys more than making bigger and better automobile deals. What’s so wrong with that? I thought of all races you Scots like people to take their work seriously.’
‘Maybe. But also their personal responsibilities.’
‘I’m not Archie’s.’
‘You really mean that?’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘look. We met on holiday, we clicked, I got ill, he sent me flowers and candies. To send those to a woman to any American male I’ve ever met is as natural as breathing. For a time he thought I was his dolly baby. Illness makes people emotional, he’s an emotional type; so he got emotional, plus, plus. But he’s no fool. Once he got right away he began sorting things out. He now knows what happened to him up here.’
‘And what about what happened to you?’
‘Do stop making like the avenging angel. Nothing’s happened to me! Oh, sure, I was gone on him for a while, but I was through that before he left here, and he knew it. And if you say “Is tha’ a fact?” I’ll start chucking things!’
‘Don’t you dare when I’ve tidied your room! Talking of rooms, what about his reservation at the hotel and all the fishing tackle he left behind? I’d a date with Ian last night. He’d have told me had Davie MacDonald had any instructions to cancel the room and forward the tackle.’ We looked at each other, and the same thought passed through both our minds.
She said, ‘You could find out by ringing his London hotel.’
‘And shock the living daylights out of poor Gordon? Anyway, I honestly think he’s now in Washington.’
‘And forgotten his tackle? A fisherman?’
I shrugged as Sister arrived to see I was sufficiently wrapped up. ‘Just round the hospital, and that’s your lot.’
I had thought my legs back to normal after my ward exercise. They felt very odd in the open air. I walked round the small building, exchanged waves, and collected a couple of wolf-whistles on passing the male wards, peered into the minute Casualty Department, went twice round the exterior of the dolls’-size theatre block. I was wondering if I had the energy to cross the helicopter landing strip when Craig came out of a side-door. ‘Mrs Valentine is on the line. She’d like a chat with you. Do you want me to find you?’
‘Hell!’ I had to think of Dougal’s angle. ‘I guess I’ll have to be polite.’
‘Och, why bother? You certainly owe her nothing. I’ll get rid of her for you. She’s that rude to nurses it’ll be a pleasure!’
‘No. I’d a hunch this was something I’d have to get over before leaving Gairlie. May as well face it now.’
‘I still don’t see why.’
We went indoors. I said, ‘Because her intended has been very good to me.’
‘Is that a fact?’
Scotland was leaving its mark on me, too. ‘Och, away, don’t be so bloody thick, Craig! You know it is!’
The portable was back in my room, and Maury was back in her old gushing routine. She just wished ‒ how she wished ‒ she could get in to see me, but she simply hadn’t one teensy-weensy moment between rushing to and fro from Inverness and all the tedious business that selling a house involved. But she had promised darling Dougal to keep an eye on me in his absence, and she was not going to get a wink’s sleep if I didn’t reassure her in person.
I reassured h
er. ‘What’s this about selling a house?’
‘Dougal hasn’t told you? Darling, he’s advised me to sell my house up the glen. I mean, as he says, who wants two houses?’
‘Who, indeed?’ I was only surprised by the new intensity of my own dislike at the thought of her moving into Achnagairl House. ‘I hope you’re getting a good price.’
‘Dougal says it’s very fair. It’s some friend of his who has made the offer and he’s dealing with most of it for me. I’m such a helpless sort of female. He’s such a comfort to me.’
‘I’m sure he is.’
There was a faint silence. As there was a limit to how saintly I was prepared to be for Dougal, I left her to break it.
‘Elizabeth, I just have to tell you how terribly ‒ how desperately upset I’ve been about your illness. I just thought we’d nip down for more cigas ‒ of course, I didn’t like to disturb you as you were asleep, and I never dreamed the weather would change, and poor little Robin was so keen to explore. I’m just so impulsive ‒ I suppose that’s because I’ve always been so artistic ‒ and sometimes I ‒ well, I suppose you could say I fly off the handle. But, as Dougal says, don’t we all on some occasions say and do things we don’t mean ‒ if you see what I mean?’
I saw among other things that Dougal must have put the fear of God in her to produce that apology. I told her I quite understood, we all had our human frailties, all was forgiven and forgotten, and every cloud had a silver lining, as I had grown so attached to Gairlie Hospital. She enchanted by replying it was an ill wind and she was SO happy to hear me sound so happy. ‘You really are better? When exactly do you leave us? And how is Archie MacDonald?’
I said Archie and I were fine, and I was leaving on Saturday. Having then had a surfeit, I invented a medical round as an excuse to ring off.
‘Isn’t that typical of hospitals! They just give me the shudders. But I did force myself to visit you, and some wretched girl wouldn’t let me. Dougal said she had to say no.’
‘He was right, but thanks for trying.’
‘He’s always right. What would I do without him?’
I could have told her. ‘Lucky you don’t have to.’
‘How sweet of you to say that, darling!’
I pulled a face, which was childish, but some relief.
There was a general post in Women’s Medical that afternoon. During rest-hour an elderly woman was admitted in coma after a cerebral haemorrhage. Thirty minutes later Mrs Burns was re-admitted in a collapsed condition after a severe haematemesis. It was Sister’s half-day, but as she had not gone when the elderly woman arrived, she was still working behind one set of drawn curtains when Mrs Spearn and I took round the tea-trolley. Craig was running her feet off between the other set of drawn curtains and bed-patients.
Mrs Burns’s voice was weak, apologetic, and audible to the entire ward. ‘Aye, I ken well, Doctor, you said no alcohol ‒ but it was just the one wee dram ‒ or maybe it was more than the one ‒ but I’d had words with my man ‒ and I’m awful sick with this diet!’
‘No doubt you are, woman,’ said Dr MacAlistair, not ungently, ‘but it’s a sight better than being awful sick with the blood the way you’ve been this day. Will you stay quiet now! How do you expect a man to get this wee needle into your vein and put back some of the blood you’ve lost if you keep thrashing about?’
Sister whisked the used transfusion trolley into the sluice later, and had to leave it uncleared, to rush back as Mrs Burns started vomiting again. Mrs Spearn and I looked at the trolley as we returned with our own from the ward kitchen to start second cups. I said, ‘Think Sister’ll create if I clear that?’
‘Maybe. But you’ll know how to do it, and she’s that busy.’
I rinsed the various dishes and instruments, helped myself to a mask, and pushed the trolley on to the sterilization room. Dr MacAlistair passed the door as I swung over the large wooden-and-glass timer. ‘So! A new nurse on the staff? Make yourself too useful, and I’ll be changing my mind about your leaving us tomorrow.’
‘How’s Mrs Burns, Doctor?’
He said dourly, ‘As well as any gastric patient with a chronic ulcer can be after downing half a pint of good whisky. She’s a strong woman. Had she as strong a will we could cure her.’
Craig cannoned out of the ward as he disappeared. ‘Elizabeth, can you make me a kaolin poultice for Miss Henderson?’
‘Sure. How big?’
‘Four by two.’
The kaolin lived in the stock cupboard in the duty-room. Sister was at her desk. She said I could do the poultice and no more. ‘You’re not on the staff yet. I’m not letting you wear yourself out.’
‘I’m not tired, Sister.’
‘And I wasn’t born yesterday, lass.’
Craig was looking for me when I went to find her to say the poultice was ready and sitting between kidney dishes on the lid of the bowl sterilizer. ‘The Professor’s waiting on you in your room.’
I was sorry for the stroke patient, Mrs Burns, and the hard-working staff, but I had really enjoyed being busy again, and the thought that Dougal was back. Until that moment, I had not properly realized how much I had been looking forward to his return. I bounced into my room. ‘Hallo! Sorry to keep you waiting. How did it go?’
‘Well, thank you. I’ve not had a chance to see Hamish MacAlistair, but I don’t need him to tell me you’ve maintained your improvement. You look a different girl.’
‘I feel it, thanks.’ I jerked a thumb. ‘Poor things, they’re all hectic in the ward. Sister’s just chucked me out, but do they need help!’ I sat down, hoping he would do the same. He looked extraordinarily travel-weary. ‘Did you get to Martha’s?’
‘Yes. I saw your Matron and Joe.’ He gave me a civil message from Matron and a letter from Joe, which I put aside to read later. ‘I’ve booked your sleeper for tomorrow night. I’ll call for you at one o’clock. That’ll allow time for hold-ups on the road or by the weather. The forecast isn’t too good, and the glass is dropping, but even if we’ve snow they’ll keep the main road to Glasgow open after any fall short of a blizzard.’
‘Snow? This late in the year?’
‘Not late for the Highlands.’ He was still standing and beside my roses. ‘Though high summer here.’
‘Aren’t they lovely?’
‘Very.’
I told him about Mrs Burns. ‘Poor woman ‒ but can you imagine anyone being so foolish?’
‘Is there a limit to human folly? I wouldn’t have said so.’
I opened my mouth to tell him about Archie and changed my mind. He was more than travel-weary. He had done enough hospital visiting, and now I was having to stand on the professional sidelines myself I realized just how frustrating his many visits must have been for him. I told him Maury had rung me.
‘So she told me.’
‘I thought, very sweet of her,’ I lied.
He bowed.
I said, ‘It was sweet of Robin to come.’ He said nothing, so I took a chance. ‘I’m grateful to both, but shouldn’t I also thank you?’
‘If you wish.’ He sounded tired and more than slightly bored. ‘It’s unnecessary, but if that’s what you want to do you do it.’ He backed to the door. ‘Before I left home I asked Mrs Pringle to pack the possessions you left in my house. I’ll bring your suitcase with me tomorrow. I expect Mrs Pringle’ll be in later, or early tomorrow, to say goodbye to you.’
‘Thank you.’
I felt deflated after he had gone. I thought of all the questions I had wanted to ask him about the job here. The more I thought of that, the more I liked it ‒ just so long as it did not entail seeing anything of Maury Valentine. But to rule her out would automatically rule out Dougal. Would that matter, even though at present Dougal and Gairlie were practically synonymous terms in my mind? I thought over the last forty-eight hours, then didn’t know what to think, and opened Joe’s letter as a kind of counter-irritant.
I proved just that. Joe wrote:
A. I asked a gurrl to do a man’s job. (He never heard of female emancipation?)
B. I neglected to inform him you had once had pleurisy. (What in hell did he expect me to do? Send up your bloody medical-history sheet? How was I to know he was going to nip you up the bloody airy mountain? Or that you would be fool enough to risk your neck for that silly bugger Robin?)
C. You’d made no mention (quote) of getting so much as a postcard or pressed flower from me. Why not? I told him. Ergo, D, E, and F are unrepeatable.
Liz, my love, for Christ’s sake don’t risk your bloody neck again, or you’ll be risking mine. Never known the old boy so steamed-up. Still, thanks a lot, and I’m dead sorry to hear the latest turn-up, though hellish bucked to hear from certain post-blast dark hints that all may not be black as night when your lamp goes out. The best of British with this well-heeled Yank. I may join the Brain Drain yet. Always liked the Yanks. Remember Della-Lou from Texas? On second thoughts, forget her, as I am now dating Daisy Dawson in the face of stiff opposition. She says my hair is too long. Tell me if it is when you stop off en route for darkest Hove.
My love,
Joe
I closed my eyes to concentrate. Clearly Craig had not been exaggerating about the local attitude on Archie and myself. I wished I had straightened Dougal out just now, then realized it was probably better that I had not. Until he had me off his back, with his way-out sense of duty he might have felt he had to reach for a shot-gun. Or would he use a dirk?
‘Asleep, Elizabeth?’ One Mrs Sinclair, from Women’s Surgical, had put her head round the door. She was being discharged that evening, and we exchanged addresses, promises, and goodbyes. She asked me to say goodbye for her to Women’s Medical, as she did not like to intrude with the ward so busy. ‘Your turn tomorrow!’