She signed to the nurse who had come with her and they wheeled the trolley back to the Accident Room and presently the men joined her.
‘I’ve telephoned the boss,’ Bill told her—the boss was Mr Sedgley, tall and thin and stooping and wonderful with children. ‘She’s to go straight to theatre. OK, Serena?’
She was drawing a loose gown over the puny frame. She nodded and arranged a small blanket over the gown, then wrote out the baby’s identity on the plastic bracelet she slipped on its wrist. Which done, she sent for the porters and leaving the nurse in charge, went with the baby straight to theatre.
When she got back Bill was still there, so was Doctor van Amstel. There was a policeman with them too and Serena lifted her eyebrows at one of the student nurses, who disappeared, to appear with commendable speed carrying a tray of tea. ‘You too, Sister?’ she whispered. But Serena shook her head; she couldn’t drink tea until she had got the taste of the battered baby out of her mouth. She left the nurses to do the clearing up and went back to her office; the case would have to be entered in the day book and she still had the list of surgical requirements to tackle. She was half way through this when there was a tap on the door and Doctor van Amstel came in. He wasted no time. ‘You must be wondering why I am here and if Laurens is with me. I called to settle some bills and so forth and convey his thanks—he didn’t feel like coming himself. And I want to thank you for taking such good care of him and for cheering him up while he was here. He hates inaction, you know.’
She sat at her desk, looking at him and wishing he would go away. The baby had upset her—she was used to horrible and unpleasant sights, but this one had been so pointless and so cruel, and now on top of that this man had to come—why couldn’t it have been Laurens?
She said woodenly: ‘That’s quite all right. It must have been very dull for him, but he’ll soon be fit again, won’t he?’
He nodded. ‘A pity,’ he observed slowly, ‘that we shan’t meet again.’ His voice was casual, but his eyes, under their drooping lids, were not.
‘Oh, but I daresay we shall,’ Serena declared. ‘Laurens has asked me over to stay with his mother—I expect we shall see each other then.’ She glanced up at him as she spoke and was surprised to see, for a brief moment, fierce anger in his face; it had gone again so quickly that afterwards she decided that she had imagined it.
‘Indeed?’ his voice was placid. ‘That will be pleasant—when do you plan to come?’
‘I—don’t know. Laurens is going to telephone or write.’
‘Ah, yes, of course.’ He held out a hand. ‘I shall look forward to seeing you again, Miss Potts—or perhaps, since you are to—er—continue your friendship with Laurens, I may call you Serena, and you must learn to call me Gijs.’
He smiled and went to the door and then came back again to say in quite a different voice: ‘I’m sorry about the baby. I’m angry too.’
She nodded wordlessly, knowing that he meant what he said. He closed the door very quietly behind him and she listened to his unhurried footsteps retreating across the vast expanse of the Accident Room and wondered why she felt so lonely.
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