and do what we ask of you.’
He gave a weak snort. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Evening. Are you in any pain, Commander Frost?’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t feel a thing—feel most peculiar, too.’
‘One always does. Will you close your eyes and sleep for a little while?’
‘You’ll be here?’
‘Yes—not all night, of course, but for a while yet.’
He nodded. ‘Just like my Lucy,’ he muttered, and closed his eyes.
Mr Dale came half an hour later and Doctor van der Tacx with him. They looked at Philomena’s carefully maintained observation chart, took a pulse she hadn’t been able to get for several minutes, asked a few complicated questions of her in quiet voices and bent over their patient. Presently they straightened up again and Mr Dale said in a perfectly ordinary voice: ‘You’ll be here for a while, Philly? I’ll speak to someone and see if I can get a nurse to take over presently until you come back on duty in the morning.’
They were all watching their patient, aware that although his eyes were shut, he could hear them quite well. ‘That suits me very well, sir,’ said Philomena matter-of-factly. ‘Is there anything special for the morning?’
A question Mr Dale answered rather more elaborately than he needed to; they all knew that Commander Frost wasn’t going to be there in the morning, and when he had finished and wished her goodnight he said goodnight to his patient too, adding that he would see him in the morning when he would probably be feeling a good deal better.
After the two men had gone, Philomena sat down again and took the Commander’s hand in hers, and he opened his eyes and smiled at her and then winked. She winked back. ‘You old fraud,’ she said, ‘you were listening. Listeners never hear any good of themselves.’
He gave a tiny cackle of laughter. ‘Only when they’re meant to. Don’t let my hand go, Philly.’
And she didn’t, she held it, feeling the warmth leaving it as he slipped deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, until she knew that it didn’t matter any more whether she held it or not.
It was almost eleven o’clock when she finally left the ward; she had done what she had to do in a composed manner, bidden the night staff goodbye and left quietly. Only when she was in the dim silent passage and going down the staircase did the tears begin to fall. By the time she had reached the ground floor and the empty echoing entrance hall she was sobbing silently in real earnest, impatiently smearing the tears over her tired cheeks as she went. At least it was so late that there would be no one about.
She was wrong of course. She hadn’t seen him standing quietly at the side of the bottom step of the staircase; she walked right into him and only then stopped to lift a woebegone face and say: ‘Oh, so sorry,’ and then: ‘Oh, it’s you…’
‘Yes. When did you last eat?’
It seemed a strange question, coming out of the blue like that, but she answered obediently: ‘I had a cup of tea…’
‘I said eat, Philly.’
‘Well…’ She sucked in her breath like a child and thought. ‘I couldn’t go to dinner—I couldn’t leave the ward, you see, no trained staff…and at supper time I— I was with the Commander.’ Two large tears rolled down her cheeks and she added: ‘So sorry,’ and wiped them away with the back of her hand.
His ‘Come along,’ was firm and kindly and she made no protest as they went through the main door. His car was close by, he opened the door and stuffed her gently into the seat, then got in beside her and drove out into the almost deserted streets. He didn’t go far; the neighbourhood was a shabby one, full of Victorian houses converted into flats and bedsitters, with a pub on every corner and a fish and chip shop every few hundred yards. He pulled up outside one of these and turned to look at her. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten something,’ he said placidly, ‘and you can have it here.’
She spoke in a tired little voice. ‘You’re very kind, but I don’t think I could manage…’
She felt his arm, large and comforting, gently drawing her head down on to his shoulder. ‘There, there, my pretty,’ he said in a comforting voice, and she thought: He must be blind or hasn’t looked at me; she was only too well aware that when she cried she looked a quite pitiful object, with a red nose, puffy eyelids and an unhappy tendency to hiccough. Her giggle was watery. ‘I’m not, you know—I look an absolute fright when I howl.’
He took her chin in one hand and turned her face deliberately to the light. ‘A pretty face is a poor substitute for compassion and loving kindness—you’ll do very well as you are.’ He took his arm away and opened the door. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
He was back in less than that, two newspaper-wrapped, fragrant-smelling parcels balanced in one hand. In the car once more, he unwrapped one and set it carefully on her lap. ‘I’m not quite sure which fish it is, but chips are chips anywhere in the world. Eat up, there’s a good girl.’ He unwrapped his own supper, and the sight of him, sitting back comfortably eating it with his fingers as though he did it every day of his life, somehow made everything seem normal again. Philomena tried a chip and found it good. Before long she had polished off her impromptu supper and her white face wasn’t white any more, even though it was still blotchy from her crying.
The doctor ate the last chip and licked a large finger. ‘It was better this way, you know,’ he remarked. ‘The Commander would have lived for only a short time without operation and so deeply drugged that he wouldn’t have known what was happening. When that was pointed out to him he swore some very naval oaths and insisted upon operation. I think he was right, too.’ He took the empty paper from her lap and rolled it up neatly. ‘He liked you, Philomena.’
She felt much better; it was a relief to talk too. ‘Yes, I think he did. My father was a bit peppery too…’
She found herself talking, still sad about the Commander, but able to talk about him, and presently she was telling the doctor about her father too. She hadn’t talked about him for a long time; her stepmother and sisters spoke of him seldom, not because they hadn’t loved him in their own fashion, but because his death had spoiled the pleasant tenor of their lives. The doctor listened, interpolating a remark now and again as though he were interested, and gradually she began to feel better, almost cheerful again. It was the fish and chip shop shutting its doors which roused her to think of the time, and when she saw that it was midnight she gave a gasp of horror. ‘The time! Why didn’t you say something—you must be longing for your bed instead of sitting here listening to me boring on about someone you never met…’
‘I’ve not been bored and I’m certainly not tired, indeed I’ve enjoyed your company.’
‘You couldn’t have,’ burst out Philomena. ‘Just look at me!’
Which he did, taking his time about it. ‘I’m looking,’ he said at length, ‘and I like what I see.’
She could think of nothing to say to that as he started the car and drove back to the hospital, saying nothing much himself. He wished her a quiet goodnight at its entrance and made no reference to meeting her again. As she got ready for bed she thought it very unlikely that she would see him—he had been more than kind for the second time within
