A Little Moonlight

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 the treatments they needed.

Serena’s pencil flew over the pages, occasionally faltering at some long-winded word which escaped her knowledge. All the same, when Dr ter Feulen asked her between patients, ‘You are getting all this down, Miss Proudfoot?’ she said composedly,

‘Yes, thank you, sir.’

When the clinic was over she would ask the registrar about the words she hadn’t managed to get down.

It was almost two o’clock when the last patient went away and Sister and one of the nurses started clearing up. Dr ter Feulen and his registrar got to their feet and started for the door. Serena stayed where she was, praying silently that they would part company, so that she could get the registrar on his own, but instead of that Dr ter Feulen paused in the doorway, then walked back to her.

‘Well, what didn’t you get down?’

It annoyed her that he took it for granted that she hadn’t been able to cope. She reeled off several words she had been unable to spell and added with some spirit, ‘I’ve done my best, sir, but please remember that I’m not Miss Payne.’

She saw the registrar’s face out of the corner of her eye. Shocked horror were the only words to describe it, and then she heard Sister’s hissed breath. It struck her that she wasn’t at all suitable to work for a leading consultant in a famous teaching hospital. She didn’t stand in suitable awe of him, so it was perhaps a good thing that Miss Payne would be back shortly and she could return to her typing agency and be given a job in a warehouse or a factory, typing invoices against a background of uninhibited voices.

‘The words?’ asked Dr ter Feulen. ‘Kindly repeat them.’

She did, and with a brief nod he went away, leaving her to gather up her notebook and pencil and go to the canteen. Midday dinner was long over. She had some soup and a roll and a pot of tea, and then hurried back to her desk. She had enough work to keep her busy until the evening.

She hadn’t finished when the other typists went home at half-past five. A nearby church clock had struck six when the phone rang. ‘Bring your work down to the consultants’ room when it is finished, Miss Proudfoot.’

He hung up before she could so much as breathe a ‘yes, sir’.

Half an hour later, dressed in her outdoor things, she knocked on the door and was bidden to enter. He was sitting at the table, writing, but rather to her surprise he got up as she went in.

‘Ah, thank you, Miss Proudfoot.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I trust your evening has not been spoiled.’

Serena assured him that it hadn’t. ‘I hardly ever go out in the evening,’ she told him chattily, disposed to be friendly since he was still working himself. Speaking her thought out loud, she added, ‘Well, you’re not as tired as you were last night—you were asleep, you know, and snoring just a little. Had you had a busy day?’

He regarded her with some surprise. ‘Yes, I had. Tell me, Miss Proudfoot, do you take an interest in everyone you meet?’

‘Well, yes, most people.’ She saw him frown. ‘You think I’m being nosy and I suppose I ought to treat you with respect—you are a senior consultant. I must try and remember that while I’m here.’

‘It might be as well! Goodnight, Miss Proudfoot, and thank you.’

‘Goodnight, sir. I should go home and have an early night if you can—you look tired, almost as tired as you did yesterday.’

She closed the door quietly as she went out and forgot him while she racked her brains for a suitable meal to cook when she got home; something quick, but it would have to be tempting because of her mother’s poor appetite …

Dr ter Feulen resumed his seat but made no attempt to continue his writing. He sat looking at nothing in particular, and presently he smiled.

Mrs Proudfoot was out of sorts when Serena got home. ‘Really, darling,’ she began as soon as Serena put her head round the sitting-room door, ‘this is too bad; I’ve been alone all day!’

Serena kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘You went out for a meal?’

‘Well, yes, but that’s not the point. I’m really not well enough to be left alone for hours on end.’ Her mother’s pretty face puckered like a child’s and Serena made haste to say,

‘Well, as far as I know, I’ll be home on time tomorrow, and the day after is Saturday.’

Her mother brightened. ‘Ah, yes, I’ve asked one or two people in for the evening, so we might have a rubber or two of bridge. If you’d make some of those dear little savoury biscuits we could have coffee …’

‘Yes, of course, and now how about an omelette? And could we eat it in the kitchen? It’s a bit late and I’ve had quite a busy day.’

Mrs Proudfoot sighed. ‘Well, just this once, although I do deplore this slovenly way of eating in the kitchen.’

Saturday morning was always set aside for shopping. Mrs Proudfoot liked to go into Richmond and have coffee at one or other of the smart cafés, and then after a leisurely stroll around the boutiques and dress shops she would visit an art gallery or have more coffee with acquaintances while Serena did the household shopping.

Serena, a laden basket on one arm, examining cauliflowers at the greengrocer’s, failed to see Dr ter Feulen, driving his Bentley Turbo RLWB down the busy street. But he saw her, and although he didn’t slacken speed he had ample time to note the shopping basket.

Three people came in that evening to play bridge, Mrs Pratt from the residential hotel near the river, Mr Twill who owned an antique shop in Richmond and Mr King, a retired civil servant who had spent a good deal of his life in foreign parts and never tired of talking of them. The four of them settled down to play, and Serena busied herself with drinks and presently went away to make coffee and arrange the savoury biscuits and some sandwiches on plates. It had never been suggested that she should play, and, since she was hopeless at the game, she accepted this as reasonable, and if sometimes she wished that her Saturday evenings were a little more entertaining she never voiced the thought.

Presently she settled down in a chair by the window, ready with a polite reply if any of the players spoke to her while she knitted a mohair cardigan for her mother; the fine wool made her sneeze and covered everything in fairylike threads. While she knitted she allowed her thoughts to stray. Since her teens she had known that she had no looks to speak of, and that had made her shy with people of her own age. Moreover, she had never mastered the airy, amusing chatter which her friends seemed to have acquired without any effort. She had friends, but somehow the pleasant social life they enjoyed had passed her by, largely because her mother had so often hindered her from taking part in it—never with obvious intention, but the sight of her mother with a woebegone face, pleading with her not to take any notice of the migraine which she was suffering, but to go out and enjoy herself; or a sad face bravely smiling at the prospect of a lonely evening, had had their effect over the years. Serena stayed at home or, if her mother went to a cinema or theatre, went with her. That couldn’t stop her dreaming—impossible dreams, she was the first to admit, in which some handsome man would meet her and fall instantly in love and marry her. He would have a charming home and money enough so that if she wanted new clothes—fashionable ones, not the sober, hard-wearing ones she bought now—she could walk into a boutique and indulge her choice, and there would be children, nice cuddly babies, and someone to help in the house.

She was aroused from these pleasant thoughts by her mother’s voice. ‘Darling, we would all love some more coffee and some more of those dear little sandwiches you make so nicely.’

The evening ended, Serena tidied up, saw her mother to bed and went to her own room. It was a lovely night. Ready for bed, swathed in her dressing-gown, she opened her window wide and looked up at the sky. It was bright with stars and the light of the enormous moon creeping slowly above the housetops.

She addressed the moon softly. ‘It’s funny to think that you’re shining down on all kinds of people. It would be nice to know who else is looking at you this very minute.’