Hannah

Her friend’s large blue eyes popped alarmingly. ‘But it can’t be! He’s fat and middle-aged and…’

‘Well, I thought that’s how he’d be—like that Dutch character we saw in that film a couple of weeks ago, remember? And I’d got heartily sick of him, anyway: Uncle Valentijn this and Uncle Valentijn that, day after day.’ Hannah shifted her tray and prepared to move on. ‘You know how it is, Louise.’

Louise giggled. ‘Is he staying?’

‘How should I know? He said “Good morning” and “May I” and the rest of the time they spoke Dutch. He didn’t even look at me—I mean, not to see me, you know. People don’t. I wish I had fair hair and blue eyes and a figure.’

Hannah spoke without a trace of envy for the girl with her, who had all those things.

‘You’re very nice as you are, love,’ declared Louise. ‘Have you had coffee? I haven’t either, we’ll pop down as soon as we’ve cleared up, shall we? There’s nothing due until half past ten.’

‘I’m famished,’ observed Hannah. ‘If only I didn’t get so hungry then I’d diet.’ She looked down at her small well-rounded figure and sighed, then muttered under her breath, ‘Here comes the Honourable!’

Sister Thorne, the younger daughter of a viscount, no less, bore down upon them in a purposeful fashion which they had learnt to be very wary of. She was a large woman with a booming voice, constantly issuing orders and making sure that no member of her staff had time to do more than draw breath between one task and the next. She didn’t look in the least like a member of the aristocracy, thought Hannah, watching her approach; she should have been as willowy and pretty as Louise, instead of which she was stout with a face like a well-bred horse, used no make-up and strained back her greying hair in an unbecoming bun. She was a splendid nurse, though, and made no bones about staying on duty when she should have been off if there was something on the ward she wasn’t quite happy about. She expected her nurses to do the same, of course, and they did so without complaining, although whereas Sister Thorne, however late she was, was whisked away in some chauffeur-driven car to wherever it was she spent her evenings, the nurses had to run for a bus and spend the evening soothing their boy-friends’ tempers because they’d missed the big picture at the local cinema.

She halted in front of Hannah now. ‘You should have tidied away by now, Staff Nurse. I expect my nurses—my trained nurses—to set an example to the students. You’ve just left Baby van Eysink? I shall visit there next, I believe Doctor van Bertes is there, is he not? He will wish to see the notes of his niece’s case. Be good enough to go to my office and fetch them and bring them to me there.’

She glanced at Louise, standing uneasily, wanting to go but not wishing to appear to be running away. ‘Your cap is crooked, Staff Nurse, and you are wearing excessive make-up.’ She sailed away and Hannah, with an expressive look at her friend, sped in the opposite direction, to shed her load in the dressings room and repair to the office and fetch the notes.

Sister Thorne and Uncle Valentijn were standing facing each other when she knocked and went into her patient’s room, and she had the impression that they had been arguing. Well, she amended to herself, not arguing, neither of them were the type to do that, issuing statements perhaps and not agreeing in a well-bred way. Hannah handed her superior the notes and made for the door, to be arrested by the visitor’s smooth: ‘One moment, Staff Nurse Lang.’ He gestured politely at Sister Thorne, who nodded graciously.

‘I hear from both my niece and from Sister Thorne that it is largely through your efforts and patience that my godson is thriving. I—we are deeply indebted to you.’

Hannah, taken by surprise, blushed fiercely, mumbled that it hadn’t been anything really and poised herself for flight. As she went she saw the look Uncle Valentijn gave her—amused, mocking and tinged with the indifference which she had detected in his voice. A horrible man, she decided, nipping down the corridor, far, far worse than the Uncle Valentijn she had built up from her fertile imagination.

She was off duty at five o’clock, with two free days to follow, and she didn’t see him again before she went off duty, half an hour late, because Baby Paul took twice as long as usual to finish his bottle.

‘A pity you’re off duty,’ observed his mother. ‘Uncle Valentijn will be back this evening—and you have days off too, haven’t you?’ She frowned. ‘I do not like it when you are not here, Hannah, because Paul is sometimes not good, but of course you need your free time—I expect you have much fun.’

Hannah wrapped the baby neatly into a gossamer shawl and popped him into his cot. She said soberly: ‘It’s nice to have a change.’ She bade her patient goodbye and fifteen minutes later, clad in a pleated skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, her small waist encircled by a wide belt, she went through the hospital doors into the dusty warmth of a London summer’s evening. As she crossed the busy street, she didn’t see Uncle Valentijn, sitting at the wheel of a powerful Bristol motor car, waiting to turn it into the forecourt of the hospital. He watched her with casual interest; an unassuming girl, he considered, but presenting a pleasing enough appearance. She should be walking down a country lane, he thought suddenly, not battling her way through London streets. The traffic lights changed and he swept into the hospital grounds, dismissing her from his mind.

Hannah joined the tail of a bus queue, waiting patiently while she allowed her thoughts to wander over the day behind her. She was glad that little Paul was perking up at last; it had been touch and go with him ever since his birth, but now it looked as though he was going to make it; another month or two of care and he would have caught up with his weight. She would miss him, and his mother too, for that matter. Mevrouw van Eysink was only a couple of years older than she was and although they came from quite different backgrounds they got on well.

She climbed on to her bus and was swept through the rather dingy streets, over the river and into still more streets, not dingy now but tired-looking backwaters, each row of Victorian houses looking exactly like the next. Hannah got off presently, walked down a side street and turned into another one leading from it. The houses here were just the same as all the others—shabby genteel was the expression, she decided, going down their length to the end of the row. Some of them were still occupied by only one family, but the rest had been converted in a ramshackle way into flats. From the outside they didn’t look so bad, but the builders had skimped the paint and plaster inside and used cheap wood for the doors and windows, so that nothing quite fitted any more. She turned into number thirty-six and started up the staircase the four flats shared.

She and her mother lived on the third floor, sandwiched between an old lady who walked with a stick whose every tap could be clearly heard by those beneath her, and a young couple who were ardent disciples of pop music, so that Hannah’s mother never ceased to complain in her plaintive way about the noise. But despite Hannah’s frequent suggestions that they should find somewhere else to live, both quieter and cheaper, she always refused. ‘This is a good address,’ she argued, ‘and surely you don’t grudge me that refinement? After all, your dear father was a rural dean and heaven alone knows how I have to scrape and screw on my miserable pension and the sacrifices I’m forced to make.’

Hannah, hearing it all for the hundredth time, had always agreed quietly and forborne to mention that a large portion of her own salary went to bolster up that pension. Her mother had never been able to cope with money; when her husband had been alive he had given her a generous allowance—too generous, as it turned out, for on his death it was discovered that he had been digging into his slender capital in order to pay it, and now, five years later, his widow still considered that she should have the same amount to spend upon herself. And Hannah had said nothing; her mother was still a pretty woman, a fact which her mother frequently pointed out to her, adding the invariable rider that she could never understand how it was that she had such a very ordinary daughter. She always said it laughingly, making a little joke out of it, but to Hannah, very conscious of her ordinary face and small, slightly plump person, it was not a joke.

Her mother’s voice, high and girlish and slightly complaining, greeted her as she opened their flat door.

‘Hannah? You’re late, darling. I’m afraid I haven’t done anything about supper yet; this warm weather has brought on one of my wretched headaches…’

Hannah went through the narrow hall into the sitting room. Her mother was lying on a rather shabby sofa, one beautifully kept hand to her forehead. ‘Don’t bang the door,’ she added sharply, and Hannah said, ‘No, Mother. I’m sorry you’ve got a bad head. I’ll get supper presently.’

She gave a small soundless sigh as she said it; she was tired and hot and hungry, and just for a moment she allowed her thoughts to dwell on life as it had been five years ago. She had been nineteen then, living at home and helping her father as well as coping with the major share of the housekeeping in the nice old house where they had lived. There had been a lot to do and plenty of time in which to do it and leisure to ride the elderly cob her father kept in the field beyond the house, or cycle round the lanes. She drove her father too and helped the old crotchety man who ruled the garden, and as though that wasn’t enough, she cooked most of their meals, so expertly that guests would compliment Mrs Lang on her cook, to be answered by a charming smile and a murmured: ‘Oh, we manage very well between us,’ which left them with the strong and erroneous impression that she had spent hours in the kitchen turning out the delicacies on the table. Which wasn’t true, of course, but Hannah never let on; her mother was selfish and dreadfully lazy, but she loved her, despite the rather tepid affection her parent accorded her.

Hannah stooped to kiss her mother and then went into the small kitchen to put on the kettle; she had missed her tea and if she was to get their supper she simply had to have five minutes’ peace and quiet first. She took the tray into the sitting room and sat it on the little table in the window, then sat herself down on a high-backed chair beside it.

‘Been busy?’ asked Mrs Lang idly.

‘Oh, about the same as usual.’ Hannah knew that her mother had very little interest in her work, indeed, she shuddered away from illness. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mother?’

Her mother accepted a cup with a wan smile. ‘Dear child, what a comfort you are—it’s selfish of me, but I’m glad that you have no plans to marry.’ Mrs Lang sipped her tea and took a quick questioning look at Hannah. ‘You haven’t, have you? I don’t suppose you get much chance to meet young men…only doctors and students.’

‘They seldom marry nurses, Mother. They can’t afford to.’

‘Oh, well, I daresay you’ll meet some nice man one day.’ Mrs Lang added with complete insincerity: ‘I do hope so.’ After a pause she added: ‘And poor little me will have to look after myself.’

‘I don’t suppose I’ll get married,’ said Hannah gruffly, ‘so you don’t need to worry. What would you like for supper?’

And presently she went into the kitchen and made a soufflé and salad, and all the while she was doing that she wondered what it would be like to be married and pretty like Mevrouw Eysink, lovingly spoilt and petted and the proud mother of a little baby like Paul, not to mention a devoted husband rushing over each weekend with armfuls of gifts…

‘Roses,’ said Hannah, gazing unseeingly at the view of chimney pots from the kitchen window, ‘hand-made chocs and diamonds…’

‘What did you say, dear?’ called her mother from the sitting room.

‘Supper’s ready, Mother.’

Hannah spent her days off in the usual way, slowly developed over the five years during which they had lived in London. At first they had made a point of going somewhere—an art gallery, a film they wanted to see, or a concert, but gradually things altered. Mrs Lang began to complain that she found the housework too much for her, even though Hannah did most of it in her off duty, and then, just for a little while, there had been the young man from the hospital pharmacy, who had taken Hannah out on several occasions. She hadn’t wanted to take him home, but she finally gave in to her mother’s request to meet him, and then sat and listened to her mother destroying, in the nicest possible way, the tentative friendship she and the young man had formed.

Not that her mother lied; she merely made it appear that Hannah was a dedicated nurse and moreover had promised her father when he died that she would live with her mother and look after her. Mrs Lang, without actually saying so, had led him to believe that she was suffering from something vague and incurable which necessitated constant loving attention. The young man hadn’t given up immediately; he asked Hannah out once more and she had accepted. But when she had mentioned it to her mother that lady said without a moment’s hesitation that she had invited several people to dinner on that particular evening and had relied upon Hannah to cook the meal. She had dissolved into easy tears, murmuring that she supposed that she was of no account any more and Hannah must certainly go out if she wished; the invitations could be cancelled. ‘The first dinner party I’d planned for months,’ she had finished plaintively. And the soft-hearted Hannah had hugged her and declared that she didn’t mind if she didn’t go out and she’d love to cook the dinner for their guests.

The young man didn’t ask her out again; they still smiled and nodded at each other when they met in the hospital, but that was all. It hadn’t been quite the romance Hannah had dreamed of, but it had been pleasant enough while it lasted, and somehow after that the little outings were discontinued. Her mother liked to watch TV in the evenings and do her embroidery or knit, and on the one or two occasions that Hannah had met friends from the hospital and gone to a cinema, she had been gently chided for leaving her parent by herself. So nowadays she turned the flat out, did the week’s shopping and the washing and escaped thankfully to the library, where she spent a long time choosing books.

Very occasionally she went shopping for herself, but by the time their living expenses were paid and her mother had deducted her allowance from her pension, there wasn’t much money over. Hannah, who loved clothes, had to make do with things in the sales and the multiple stores, but she had a splendid dress sense and a nose for a bargain and contrived to be in the fashion even if the clothes she bought were cheap.

There would be more money soon, she thought as, her days off over once more, she started back to the hospital. She had been offered a relief Sister’s post in a couple of months’ time, and she was going to accept it. It would mean leaving the baby unit which she loved, but she had to get a Sister’s post as soon as she could, and one couldn’t quarrel with one’s bread and butter. Perhaps later on, when Sister Thorne retired…Ten years’ time—it seemed an age away; she would be thirty-four and settled into a rut from whence there was no escape—perhaps by then she would apply for her job.

She turned in at the entrance to the hospital, looking up at its mid-Victorian pile with an affectionate eye. It was a frankly hideous building, red brick and a mass of unnecessary turrets and balconies, high narrow windows which took the strength of an ox to open and shut and dreadfully out-of-date departments, yet she had a very soft spot for it. When, in a few years’ time, St Egberts was moved to the magnificent new buildings across the river and already half completed, she would regret going. It had stood for hundreds of years where it now was, dominating the narrow city streets and rows of smoke-grimed houses, and it would never be quite the same again.

She had chosen to go back after supper. She could have stayed at home for another night and got up early and gone on duty in the morning, but it was always such a rush. She pushed open the main doors and crossed the entrance hall. Just as she was turning into one of the dark passages leading from it she was hailed by old Michael, the Head Porter.

‘Message for you, Staff Nurse—Mevrouw van Eysink wants you to go to her room as soon as you come in.’ He grinned at her. ‘Very important, she said.’

Hannah had gone to poke her head through the small window in the lodge. ‘Me? Why? Have I done something awful, Michael?’

‘Don’t ask me, love. She sounded excited like and said I was to be sure and keep an eye open in case you came back this evening. Her hubby’s with her.’

Hannah frowned. ‘I can’t think of anything…’ she began. ‘I suppose I’d better go.’

She altered course, taking another passage which led her to the lifts. She wasn’t supposed to use them, but there was no one about. She gained the Prem. Unit and slid inside the doors and peered cautiously round the office door. Louise was there, writing: the night nurses would already be busy settling their small patients for the first part of the night, making up feeds and handing out cocoa and sleeping pills to the mothers.

‘You’re late,’ whispered Hannah.

Louise raised her pretty head. ‘Hullo—Sister went off late and left me a mass of stuff to finish and of course we had an emergency in. I’m almost finished, though. I say, your Mevrouw van Eysink wants to see you.’

‘That’s why I’m here. Is something awful wrong?’