LITMIR.BIZ

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Nothing dramatic happened; the old ladies were dressed, given their meals, their medicines, bathed, chatted to whenever there was time to spare, and then prepared for bed once more. It was visiting time after dinner, but only a handful of people came. After the eager rush of visitors who had invaded the ward Gemma had had in London, she felt sad, even after six months, that the very people who needed visitors seldom had them. True, some of the old ladies had no family at all, but there were plenty who had who could surely have come more often than they did. Millbury House was some miles from Salisbury, but there was a bus service of sorts, and anyway, most people had cars these days.

      She made a point of walking round the wards while the visitors were there so that anyone who wanted to inquire about Granny or Auntie could do so, but they seldom did. When the last of them had gone she went to her office and started the Kardex so that Sally would only have the last few details to fill in later on, and it was while she was doing this that she was interrupted by the house doctor, a young man called Charlie Briggs. They discussed the patients one by one over a cup of tea, and because he didn’t like her overmuch, he disagreed with everything she had to say; he almost always did. When she had first arrived at the hospital he had heralded her appearance with delight. ‘Thank God,’ he had said, ‘someone under forty at last—now perhaps life will be fun!’ He had eyed her at such length that she had coloured faintly and then disliked him forever when he exclaimed: ‘Oh, lord—I do believe you’re good as well as plain.’

      They had to meet, of course, but only during the course of their work. She had often thought wryly that it was just her luck to work with a man who didn’t like her at all—a young man, not married, he might have fallen for her, who knew? they might have married… She had laughed at herself for having the absurd notion, but the laughter had been wistful.

      She was tired by the time she was ready to cycle home just before six o’clock. Phil would be home, so would the boys, but Mandy wouldn’t leave the library for another half an hour. She wheeled her bike round to the shed at the back of the house, called a hullo to the boys as she passed the sitting room where they were doing their homework, and went to the kitchen. Phil would be upstairs in her room, deep in her school books, but she had left a tray of tea ready on the kitchen table for Gemma. She drank it slowly, sitting in the Windsor chair with Giddy, the family cat purring on her lap, before starting on the supper. The boys had peeled the potatoes and seen to the vegetables and she had made a steak and kidney pie the evening before; she went and got it from the fridge now and put it into the oven before going to the cupboard to see what she could serve for a pudding. She had the off duty to puzzle out, too, she remembered; she had brought it home with her and could have a shot at it while the supper cooked. She fished the book out of her cardigan pocket and sat down at the table, conscious that she didn’t want to do it at all; she wanted to sit in a chair and do nothing—well, perhaps not quite nothing. It would be nice to have time to sit and think; she didn’t admit to herself that what she wanted to think about was the professor next door.

      She wasn’t on duty until eleven o’clock the next morning; she saw everyone out of the house, raced through the housework and then pedalled through the bright sunshine to Millbury House, wishing with all her heart that she could stay out of doors. By the time she got off duty that evening it would be eight o’clock—dusk and chilly.

      Her day was long and filled with little troubles. At the end of it she wheeled her bike through the open gate, stowed it for the night and went into the house through the kitchen door. There was a cold supper laid out for her on the kitchen table and coffee bubbling gently on the stove. She sniffed appreciatively and went on through the kitchen and down the passage to the sitting room where she found the boys bent so zealously over their books that she instantly suspected them of watching the TV until they had heard her come in. She grinned at them, said: ‘Don’t you dare until you’ve finished your lessons,’ and went across to the drawing room. Phil would be upstairs, working, but Mandy would be there. She was, looking cool and incredibly pretty, and lounging opposite her was Professor Dieperink van Berhuys.

      They both turned to look at her as she went in, and the thought crossed her mind that they were a perfectly matched couple, Mandy with her gay little face and curly hair and he with his placid good looks.

      Mandy came dancing to her, bubbling over with high spirits, full of the news that the professor had happened to be outside the library when she had left it and had driven her home. She cast him a laughing glance as she spoke, and he, standing with his magnificent head almost touching the ceiling, smiled back at her, murmuring that it had been a pleasure and that now he really should go, for Doctor Gibbons would be wondering what had become of him.

      Gemma said all the right things and watched him walk out of the room with Mandy. They didn’t shut the door and she heard them talking in the hall and then go into the sitting room where there was an instant babble of talk and laughter. It made her feel suddenly lonely, which was absurd; how could she possibly be lonely with five brothers and sisters, besides the twenty-eight old ladies with whom she passed her days? Perhaps lonely wasn’t the right word. She went back to the kitchen and sat down to eat her solitary supper, and presently she was joined by everyone else, crowding round the table to tell her about their particular day, eating a packet of biscuits between them while they did so. She wasn’t all that much older, she thought, looking round at them all, but sometimes she felt just as though she was the mother of the family.

      They went to bed one by one, leaving her and Mandy to wash the mugs and sweep up the crumbs and lay the breakfast for the morning, and all the while they were doing it, Mandy talked about the professor.

      ‘He’s almost forty,’ she told Gemma, ‘but he doesn’t look it, does he? He’s not married either, but his sister is—he’s got two, the youngest one is as old as Phil, then there’s a brother in his late twenties and another one who’s in medical school, he’s twenty-one.’ She added thoughtfully: ‘You’d think he’d be married, wouldn’t you?’

      Gemma wiped out the sink and put the cloth tidily away. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘with so many brothers and sisters, perhaps he can’t afford to.’

      ‘His mother and father are still alive.’ Mandy perched on a corner of the table. ‘He’s got a simply super car…’

      ‘Perhaps he hired it.’

      ‘No, it’s his, it’s got a Dutch number plate.’ She smiled suddenly and brilliantly. ‘He said I was a very pretty girl.’

      Gemma pushed back her hair with a weary little gesture. ‘And so you are, darling,’ she agreed. ‘We’re a smashing lot of good-lookers except for me.’

      ‘We all think you’re lovely,’ said her sister fervently, ‘and depend on it, someone will come along and think the same.’

      Gemma ate a biscuit. ‘Then he’d better look sharp about it,’ she observed cheerfully. ‘All this waiting around doesn’t do my nerves any good.’

      They giggled together as they went up to bed, but presently, in her own room, Gemma sat down on the old stool in front of her dressing table and took a long look at her reflection. It didn’t reassure her in the least.

      She was persuading old Mrs Thomas to toddle across to the day room when she heard Doctor Gibbons arrive for his round the next day. He came regularly, for several of the patients had been his for years and he still came to see them. Gemma rotated her companion carefully and sat her down in a convenient chair and looked down the ward. Doctor Gibbons always had a chat with Mrs Thomas; she had no family left now and to her confused old mind he had taken the place of a long-dead son.

      The doctor wasn’t alone, his Dutch guest was with him, strolling along between the beds, saying good morning as he passed the elderlies while at the same time listening politely to Matron, sailing along a pace or two behind Doctor Gibbons doing the honours. Matron was a nice old thing, with mild blue eyes, a ready chuckle and a cosy figure. Gemma could see that the professor had her eating out of his hand.

      The party reached her, exchanged greetings and settled down to the confused questions and answers which took the place of conversation with Mrs Thomas, leaving Gemma free to do something else. She went reluctantly,

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