found her so irritating. And yet she knew for a fact that he had told the Senior Medical Officer that she was the best sister he had ever had to deal with. It was probably her fault, she mused, for she answered him back far too often.
She sighed, reached for the ‘phone and dialled the laundry. As usual she needed more linen and as usual she was going to have to wheedle it out of them.
Pat came in presently and they drank their coffee and filled in the rest of the off duty. ‘My weekend,’ said Pat happily, ‘I shall go home.’ She poured more coffee. ‘Is Dr Longman off for your weekend?’
Julia shook her head. ‘No, he’s going to Bristol—he’s applied for the registrar’s position there, and this Saturday seems to be the only day they can interview him.’
‘Would you like my weekend?’ asked Pat instantly, ‘then you could go with him.’
‘That’s sweet of you Pat, but he’ll be better on his own, besides what would I do there? I’d be by myself most of the time. He’ll go on to his home and spend Sunday there, and I’ll go home on my weekend; we can sort things out after that.’
The niggling thought that Nigel could have invited her to go to his parents’ home and joined her there popped into her head to be instantly ignored as petty childishness. ‘Now, how can we fit Nurse Wells in for that extra half day we owe her?’
Pat was quick to take the hint and obediently pored over the off duty; Sister Mitchell was a dear even if strict on the ward, but she tended to keep herself to herself even though she had any number of friends.
The morning wore on, much too rapidly for Julia. Mrs Collins, though still unconscious, was showing signs of improvement, but there was no news from the police. Julia went to her midday dinner with the problem still unsolved, which made her somewhat distraite during that meal.
‘The professor being tiresome?’ asked Fiona Sedgewick, who had Women’s Surgical. ‘I never met such a man for casting a blight 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.
