Sun and Candlelight. Betty Neels
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your dinner, you’re mistaken—and you found someone easily enough to pick you up, didn’t you?’
‘Hardly that,’ said Mr van Diederijk. He had come quietly through the curtains and was standing just behind them both. ‘I don’t make a habit of picking up young women, nor, for that matter, do I leave them to pay for their own dinner.’ His voice was quiet, but—there was a sharp edge to it so that Alethea judged it prudent not to say anything at all and Nick, trying to bluster his way out of an awkward situation, said too quickly: ‘This is hardly the time or the place…’
‘Too true, I’m glad you realise that,’ agreed Mr van Diederijk equably.
‘Who are you?’ began Nick, and stopped as Sir Walter slid his bulk round the curtains in his turn.
‘My dear chap,’ he boomed cheerfully, ‘nice of you to come along. This leg—if you can call it that at the moment—it seems to me that you’re just the man to consult. A classic example of the kind of thing you excel in, I believe—wiring, I should imagine, and then intensive osteopathy to the femur to prevent muscle contraction—am I right?’
The question was rhetorical; Sir Walter was very well aware that he was right. Alethea said nothing, Nick muttered some answer or other and Mr van Diederijk agreed placidly.
‘Yes, well, in that case, since we are agreed and you happen to be here I’d be delighted to have the benefit of your skill. A pity that you and that brother of yours don’t have a clinic over here, but I daresay you get all the work you can cope with.’
‘Indeed, we do. I shall be delighted to give any assistance I can.’
‘Good, good. Sister, we’ll have him in theatre in half an hour, please. Have you written him up, Penrose? Yes? Very well, check on that boy I’ve just done in theatre, will you—and I shall want you for this case. Sister, is there anything worrying you or can you cope?’
‘Mr Cord’s plaster has had to come off—it’s being replastered now—I got Mr Timms to see to it. Mr Briggs is… I’ve sent for his wife. The boy you operated upon during the night is satisfactory—there’s nothing else, sir.’
‘Good girl. Lean heavily on Timms if you need help and if that’s not enough, give the theatre a ring.’
‘Yes, sir. Would you like coffee?’
‘Yes. Mr van Diederijk will too, won’t you, Sarre?’
The big man inclined his head gravely. ‘We are not delaying Sister?’
‘Me?’ she smiled at him, forgetting her rather pale unmade-up face and screwed-up hair. ‘No, not at all. Mary, our ward maid, will have the tray ready, she’s marvellous.’
She led the way down the ward and into her office, saw the two gentlemen served and then excused herself. The boy had to be got ready for theatre and over and above that, the routine work of the ward mustn’t be halted.
When she went back to her office presently for an identity bracelet the two men had gone and presently the porters came and Alethea, sending her most senior student nurse with him, despatched the patient to theatre, before turning her attention to the work waiting for her. She had the time now to wonder at the sudden and unexpected appearance of Doctor van Diederijk; had he taken up an appointment at Theobald’s? She frowned and shook her head as she adjusted the weights on Tommy Lister’s pinned and plated leg, suspended from its Balkan Beam. No; she would certainly have heard about that, and yet he knew Sir Walter. Staying with him, perhaps? Over in England for some seminar or other? Now she considered the matter, he looked well-established, as it were, self-assured in a quiet way, and wearing the beautifully tailored garments which proclaimed taste and money, however discreetly. Perhaps he was someone important in his own country—and hadn’t Sir Walter said something about a clinic and a brother? She let out a great sigh of frustrated curiosity and Tommy, who had been watching her face, asked: “Ere, Sister, wot’s got inter yer? Yer look real narked.’
‘Me? Go on with you, Tommy. Who’s coming to see you this afternoon?’
‘Me mum. When am I goin’ ’ome, then, Sister?’
‘Not just yet—I can’t bear to part with you.’ She laughed at him then, patted his thin shoulder, told him to be a good boy, and went on her way. He shouldn’t have been in the ward at all, but Children’s was full, as usual, and there was no point in trying to move him there even if there was a bed free, the business of moving him and his paraphernalia would have been just too much. Besides, the men liked him, he had a sharp cockney wit and he was always cheerful.
The day wore on. The boys who had been admitted during the night were picking up slowly; the patient of that morning had come back from ITU only half an hour since, still poorly, and his mother, fortified with cups of tea in Alethea’s office, had been able to sit with him for a few minutes. The boy had made a brave show for that short time before, his anxious parent gone, Alethea gave him an injection to send him back into the sleep he needed so badly.
The ward was settling down into its early evening routine and she was due off duty when Nick came again. He had been down already to check Sir Walter’s patients, but beyond giving him any information he had asked for, they had nothing to say to each other, but this time, after a quick look at his charges, he didn’t leave the ward but followed her into the office where she was writing the bare bones of the report, so that Sue, due on in ten minutes or so, would have a little more time to get finished before the night staff appeared. She sat down at her desk and picked up her pen and gave him an enquiring look.
He hadn’t bothered to shut the door and he was in a bad temper. ‘Look here,’ he began, ‘I still want to know how you came to pick up that fellow.’
She eyed him calmly although her heart was thumping enough to choke her, and despised herself for longing for him to smile just once and say that everything was all right again, that he hadn’t meant a word he had said…
‘I didn’t. He saw you leave and I suppose he guessed that I might not have had enough to pay the bill—and I hadn’t—you might have thought of that. I don’t know what I should have done if he hadn’t helped me.’ She paused. ‘Nick—do we have to quarrel…’ She hadn’t meant her voice to sound so anxious; she caught at the tatters of her pride and was glad of it when he snapped: ‘Quarrel? I’m not quarrelling, I’ve other things to do than waste time on a prissy girl like you…’
‘I cannot agree wholly with you,’ remarked Mr van Diederijk from the open door. ‘Indeed, if there were the time, I would suggest most strongly that you should eat your words, but it is true that you are wasting your time, Mr—er—Penrose; they are looking for you in the Accident Room, I believe.’ He glanced at Nick’s bleep which he had switched off and now switched on again with a muttered grumble, not looking at anyone. And when he turned to go out of the door, Mr van Diederijk made no effort to move. ‘A quick apology to Sister?’ he suggested with a smile which Alethea, watching fascinated, could only describe as sunny, and Nick, furious, turned again and mumbled something at her before brushing past the other man. When he had gone there was silence for a few moments; Alethea was fighting to regain her calm and her companion seemed happy enough just to stand there, looking at the various notices pinned on the walls.
Presently Mr van Diederijk asked gently: ‘Off duty, Sister?’
She wanted to pick up her pen, but her hand was shaking. All the same she achieved a very creditable: ‘In about ten minutes or so, sir.’
‘Then may I beg you to take pity on me and come out to dinner?’ He sighed loudly. ‘London can be a lonely place for a foreigner.’
She was in no state to care what she did or where she went; she supposed that she might just as well go out with him as spend the evening in her room, which was what she had intended to do. All the same, she was too nice a girl to make use of him. ‘You might enjoy yourself better on your own, I’m not very good company,’ she pointed out.
He shrugged huge shoulders. ‘We don’t need to talk unless we want