At the End of the Day. Betty Neels
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on anyone unlucky enough to be near him.’
‘I pity his wife,’ observed Mary Chapman, who had Children’s, ‘that’s if he can keep one long enough…’
‘Is he married?’
‘Shouldn’t think so, but what a waste, all those good looks and lolly and he has just got himself a new Rolls Royce.’
Someone giggled. ‘Perhaps that’s why he is so irritable—I mean, they cost a good deal, don’t they?’
Julia got up. ‘Well, whatever it is, he’d better cheer up before he comes this afternoon.’
The professor hadn’t exactly done that when he came on to the ward an hour or so later; he was, however, scrupulously polite, listening with grave attention to what Julia had to report and at the end of a lengthy examination of Mrs Collins, politely refusing her offer of tea, watching her from under heavy lids, and then thanking her just as politely so that she looked at him with surprised face. He returned the look with a bland stare of his own before, surrounded by the lesser fry of his profession, he left the ward.
‘Well,’ observed Julia to the pile of notes on her desk, ‘what’s come over him, in heaven’s name?’
She was off duty after tea and half an hour later was back at her flat. Nigel was off duty too and she had planned supper for them both; they would be able to talk at their ease. She thrust a macaroni cheese into her tiny oven and frowned as she did so. Nigel would want to talk about getting married and she felt a curious reluctance to listen to him. He had the future so tidily arranged that somehow the magic was missing. Not that she had the least idea of what magic she expected. They had been more or less engaged for a year or more; he was entirely suitable for a husband too, he would be kind and patient and considerate and they would have enough to live on… Her mother and father liked him and with reservations she got on well enough with his parents; perhaps she wanted too much. Certainly she had been put out when he had told her that he was going to Bristol and hadn’t suggested that she should go with him, they saw little enough of each other.
She mixed a salad, did her hair again and sat down to wait.
She heard his deliberate step on the stairs presently and went to open the door, suddenly anxious that the evening should be a success. He kissed her too quickly and said: ‘Sorry I’m a bit late—I got caught up on Children’s. God, I’ll be glad to get away from St Anne’s. Keep your fingers crossed for me, Julia, and pray that I’ll get that job at Bristol.’
She made a soothing rejoinder, poured him a beer and sat down opposite him. ‘Bad day?’ she asked.
‘Lord yes, you can say that again. Professor van der Wagema may be a brilliant physician but he’s a cold fish. Good with the patients, mind you and funnily enough, the children like him, but talk about a loner…’
‘Perhaps he is overworked,’ offered Julia idly.
‘Not him, he works for two and it makes no difference at all. Wonder what he is like away from St Anne’s. No one’s ever seen him. Crusty old devil.’ He grinned at her. ‘Something smells good?’
‘It’s ready, I’ll dish up.’
They spent a pleasant enough evening discussing rather vaguely, their future. ‘We ought to start looking for somewhere to live, if I get this job,’ said Nigel, ‘Somewhere close to the hospital of course, but we can go home for weekends when I’m free.’ He frowned thoughtfully, ‘A flat, I suppose, at least to start with, probably the hospital will have something for us.’
‘It would be nicer to live away from your work,’ said Julia.
She was a country girl, born and brought up in a small village a few miles from Salisbury and she had never taken to London or the city, and Bristol as far as she could make out, was going to be another London on a smaller scale.
‘We shouldn’t have much rent to pay. I’ll get settled in and you can give up this job here; the place will be furnished so we won’t have that bother.’
Julia stifled a sigh; furnishing her own home didn’t seem to her to be a bother, but perhaps it would only be for a few months, while they looked round for something better. A house with a garden… She allowed her thoughts to wander; the garden at home would be looking gorgeous, full of dahlias and chrysanths and the virginia creeper just turning—she would go home on her next weekend; Nigel would be working anyway.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Nigel.
‘A garden—the garden at home. It’ll be nice to see it.’
‘Oh, can’t you change your weekend to fit in with me?’
‘No—I’d already promised Pat Down. We’ll have to try to get things sorted out later on.’
He didn’t seem to mind overmuch; Julia found that provoking.
She took care to climb the stairs soberly the next morning but there was no professor to sneer at her, he came not half an hour later, though. She had taken the report, given the student nurses the gist of it and was sitting at her desk, looking without much pleasure at the view of chimney pots and tired looking trees, all she could see by sitting sideways and craning her neck. She was remembering Nigel’s sedate plans for their future and his even more sedate kiss when he left soon after supper.
There must be something wrong with her, she thought a little desperately, not to appreciate a good kind man such as Nigel and of course she loved him…
‘Well, well,’ observed the professor nastily from the half open door. ‘Nothing better to do than sit and stare? The devil finds work for idle hands to do.’
Julia’s splendid bosom swelled with indignation. ‘Well, really…whatever will you say next?’
‘Good morning might be appropriate!’
She glared up at him; his eyes looked black they were so dark and to make matters worse he was amused.
She rose from her chair with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Good morning, Professor,’ she said coldly. ‘You wish to see Mrs Collins? She is still unconscious, but there are signs…’ She gave him chapter and verse and at his nod, led the way into the ward, asking Pat in a low voice to get Dr Reed and sending the nurse with Mrs Collins away—a very new student nurse, who stared at the professor as though he were Prince Charming and sidled away reluctantly.
‘Is that girl competent?’ rasped the professor.
Julia shot him an affronted look. ‘Nurse has been training for six months, so of course she is by no means competent, but she is sensible and understands exactly what she has to do. She has the makings of a good nurse.’ She drew an annoyed breath, ‘Sir’.
She could have saved her breath for he didn’t appear to be listening.
Dr Reed joined them then and they went through the slow precise tests and examination. The professor was studying the chart and Julia was straightening the bed clothes when she said quietly, ‘Mrs Collins’ eyelids are moving.’
So they began all over again. The woman was still unconscious but this time her pupils reacted to the professor’s torch. He straightened his vast person and stood looking down at her. ‘Now we are getting somewhere. Reed, let’s have a further lot of tests.’ He looked across at Julia and smiled and she blinked at its charm.
He was back again later in the morning to do his biweekly round, once more coldly polite. He didn’t smile once and after the round, in her office, he was bitingly sarcastic about a mislaid page of notes. They weren’t in the least important, for the patient was going home in the morning and they had probably got put in the file in the wrong order. It annoyed Julia but it hardly merited his caustic remarks about carelessness. She accompanied him to the ward doors and went back to her office and found the page almost at once. She put it neatly in to its place and said crossly, ‘Tiresome little man…’
‘Tiresome I may be,’ said the