A Little Moonlight. Betty Neels
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but you have no idea how unhappy I am when I think of all the things you’re missing … dances and theatres and trips abroad. You might have been married by now—you’re twenty-five …’
Mrs Proudfoot eyed her daughter with a look of resignation; how she had come to have this serious, rather plain girl who made no push to get herself a husband was something she couldn’t understand. She had been considered quite pretty as a girl, and even now in her fifties she was still that, or so she told herself. That a good deal of the pension went on cosmetics and hairdressers and pretty clothes was something she never dwelt on. Serena had an allowance from her salary—not a big one, it was true, but then at her age she didn’t need expensive creams and lotions, and since she worked in some dreary office for five days out of the seven, she didn’t need many clothes. Mrs Proudfoot, a good-natured woman as long as she had her own way, said kindly, ‘I saw such a pretty blouse today, just right for you, darling, it would cheer up your skirts.’ She picked up her book. ‘I won’t keep you gossiping, or we’ll never get supper.’
Serena went into the kitchen, peeled potatoes for the cottage pie, minced yesterday’s joint and, while the potatoes cooked, made pastry for the tart. She was tired, too tired to summon the energy to point out to her mother that she had had a long and exhausting day and a slow bus ride home, standing all the way. Besides, she loved her mother and quite understood that after years of being spoilt by her husband, she was quite unable to alter her way of life.
She made her pastry and thought about Dr ter Feulen. A very ill-tempered man, she reflected, possibly overworked, but there had been no need for him to have been quite so rude. He had looked very tired, sleeping in his chair. She wondered what his home life was like. With no wife he probably lived in a service flat and cooked lonely meals for himself, and that was why he had been so terse. She put the tart in the oven with the pie and went across the hall to set the table for their supper. It made a lot of extra work, fetching the cloth and napkins and cutlery and the crystal glasses her mother insisted on using, but as she had pointed out many times, standards had to be kept up at all costs. Serena, who ate a hasty breakfast in the small kitchen before she left for work, would have been quite happy to have eaten her supper there too.
They ate their supper presently while Mrs Proudfoot reminisced gently about earlier days. ‘We had old Sadie then,’ she reminded Serena. ‘Such a pity she decided to retire, she kept the house so well—if only my health were better!’ She sighed, and Serena asked sympathetically,
‘Have you had a bad day, Mother?’
‘My dear child, I seldom have a good one. Just the effort to go shopping and get myself a morsel to eat during the day exhausts me.’ Mrs Proudfoot contrived to look as though she were bravely combating ill health without complaint. ‘I’ll have a morsel more of that pie, darling, I’ve eaten almost nothing all day.’
It was hard to believe. She was plump and still pretty in her fifties, dressed with taste and at some expense and not lacking the attention of the hairdresser and the beauty salon, both of which took up a good deal of her empty days. While her husband had been alive there had been a nanny for Serena and someone to run the house, and as she was good-naturedly indolent by nature, it had never entered her head to alter her way of living. From time to time she deplored the fact that Serena had inherited none of her good looks, but it hadn’t entered her head to do anything about it. Serena had uncomplainingly taken a course of shorthand and typing and found herself a job so that there was enough money for her mother to continue to live more or less as she had always done. If, now and again, she wished for something more from life than she was getting, she stifled the thought.
‘I shall be late home tomorrow too,’ she told her mother. ‘This doctor whose work I’m doing warned me this evening.’
Mrs Proudfoot dismissed him with a wave of the hand. ‘How perfectly horrid of him! You should have told him that you’re needed at home in the evenings—that you have a mother in poor health.’
‘Yes—well, if I did, Mother, he would probably tell someone to get another typist until his usual one gets back from sick leave. The next job might be even more awkward …’
Mrs Proudfoot sighed. ‘Ah, well, I suppose I must manage. Perhaps I’ll go to that little restaurant in Albert Street and have a light meal.’ She added hastily, ‘You could make yourself an omelette when you get in?’
Serena said, without rancour, ‘Yes, Mother,’ and went to fetch the coffee.
The following morning passed very much as usual—letters and reports and accounts. Judging by the number of the latter, Serena guessed that Dr ter Feulen had a large practice. While she typed she mused; a doctor’s life would never be dull; anti-social hours, short nights perhaps, interrupted meals and tiresome patients. Very hard on their wives … She paused to think about that, but they wouldn’t be dull either, because no two days would be the same, unlike her own days which were, to say the least, monotonous.
She went to the canteen for her coffee with two of the other medical typists and then, mindful of Dr ter Feulen’s warning, went back to her desk. There were still a few odds and ends to clear up and she wanted to be ready for the mass of work he had predicted.
She had been sitting for perhaps five minutes, her desk tidied, her hands poised over the first short report, when the phone at the other end of the room rang.
Mrs Dunn, the senior and the least hard-working of the typists, picked it up, listened and put it down again. ‘Miss Proudfoot, you’re to go to OPD, and take your notebook with you. And look sharp, Dr ter Feulen doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
Serena finished the report, laid it neatly on her desk, took her time getting notebook and pencil and got up without haste.
‘Do hurry, Miss Proudfoot!’ hissed Mrs Dunn. ‘Dr ter Feulen mustn’t be kept waiting; I’ve told you that already.’
‘Yes, Mrs Dunn.’ Serena, still without haste, began the tortuous journey through the hospital to the Outpatient Department. Dr ter Feulen had had ample time to warn her that she would be wanted in OPD, and if he thought she would come running the moment he wanted her, he must think again!
He was in his consulting-room, looking at X-rays with his registrar, and Serena paused inside the door to ask, ‘You sent for me, sir?’
He looked over his shoulder. ‘Ah, Miss Proudfoot, you will be good enough to take notes of the patients, together with their names and case sheet numbers, get them typed out and let me have them this evening.’
‘If I can get them finished by then,’ observed Serena matter-of-factly. ‘It depends on how many patients there are, doesn’t it?’
‘In that case it will be necessary for you to remain until you have finished, will it not?’ He raised thick eyebrows. ‘I believe I warned you that you might have to work late today.’
‘So you did,’ said Serena cheerfully. ‘Is this where I’m to work?’
The eyebrows stayed up, and judging by the look on the registrar’s face she wasn’t behaving as Miss Payne would have done. ‘Yes, this is the place. Be good enough to sit on that chair over there. If you are uncertain about anything you are to say so at once. I doubt if you have the same high standards of medical knowledge as Miss Payne has.’
‘Well, no, I don’t suppose I have, but then she’s been at it for twenty years, hasn’t she?’ She gave him a friendly smile. ‘I dare say I’ll be as good in twenty years’ time.’
Outpatients Sister came in then and Serena settled on to her hard chair, pencil poised, looking efficient, while her thoughts wandered. It seemed to her that Dr ter Feulen was a crusty bachelor, much in need of a wife and children to bring out the softer side of his nature; he must have one buried away somewhere under that bitingly cold manner.
Surprisingly it came to light during the morning’s session. It was a different man sitting at the desk now, listening patiently to his patients, women of all ages, reassuring them that they hadn’t got cancer, examining them at length and laying before them