Philomena's Miracle

‘Walle van der Tacx.’

‘Oh, Dutch, are you not?’ She held out a hand and he shook it gravely. ‘I stayed in Amsterdam for a few days with my father…’

‘I’m afraid I can’t claim to live there, my home is a mile or so from a small town called Ommen, twenty kilometres or so to the east of Zwolle and roughly a hundred and thirty from Amsterdam. I have a country practice there.’

‘Oh, you’re a doctor!’ The relief in her voice caused his firm mouth to twitch. ‘Well then, I’d like to come very much—but haven’t you anything better to do?’

The twitch came and went, but his blue eyes were kind. ‘I can think of nothing better. I’m hungry and I hope you are too; dining alone can be extremely dull.’

‘Haven’t you any friends here?’

‘Several, but none of them free this evening.’ His voice was casual and she believed him. ‘Shall we meet here in half an hour? We might try one of those restaurants in Soho.’

Philomena was halfway across the hall when she turned back. ‘Why me?’ she asked.

‘We did meet this morning,’ he reminded her. ‘Besides, you have a good reason to celebrate, haven’t you, and I hoped that would decide you to come.’

Such a sensible answer that she agreed happily.

The Nurses’ Home was noisy; a dozen or more of its inmates had passed their exams too and all of them were going out with boy-friends, fiancés or family. Philomena had her head in her cupboard, deciding what she would wear, when Jenny Pringle, one of her closer friends, drifted in with a mug of tea. Her hair was in rollers and her face heavily creamed in preparation for the evening’s festivities, but she put the mug down on the dressing table and sat herself down on the bed, prepared to gossip for a few minutes.

‘What are you doing, Philly?’ she asked cautiously, mindful of the fact that Philomena was probably not doing anything exciting like the rest of them.

‘Finding something to wear.’ Philomena’s muffled voice came from the depths of the cupboard, but she emerged a few moments later. ‘Tea,’ she exclaimed, ‘how nice. Do I look my poor best in this pink thing or the green?’

‘You’re going out!’ Jenny was genuinely delighted; they all liked Philly and most of them knew that her home life wasn’t as happy as it might have been, and besides, she hadn’t a boy-friend; she got taken out occasionally by one or other of the housemen, but sooner or later their eyes were caught by someone a great deal prettier than she was. ‘Who with?’

‘Doctor Walle van der Tacx.’

‘You’re joking!’ Jenny kicked off her slippers and tucked her feet under her. ‘A name like that!’

‘He’s Dutch.’ Philomena had decided on the green, nicely cut, simple and just right for her eyes. ‘I met him today in a lift, he’s hungry and doesn’t like eating his dinner alone, so he asked me if I’d go with him.’

Her friend looked at her in utter astonishment; it was so unlike Philly to go on a blind date. Of course she had been knocked off balance by reason of the final results, but even so, it didn’t seem like her at all.

‘Is he nice?’ asked Jenny anxiously.

‘I think so.’ Philomena added, ‘He lives at a place called Ommen,’ as though that proved that his credentials were beyond doubt. ‘Shall I wear my hair up or down?’

‘Down—you always look so severe with it piled up like that, and it’s pretty hair.’

‘I don’t think he’ll notice.’ Philomena was tearing out of her clothes, pausing to gulp tea as she did so. ‘There’d better be a bathroom free, he said half an hour.’

‘Where are you going to meet?’

‘The front hall.’ Philomena had snatched up a towel and was making for the bathroom. ‘He said something about Soho…’ She pattered away, unheeding of her friend’s: ‘But you don’t really know him!’

She was ready with five minutes to spare and as it hadn’t entered her head to keep him waiting, she went down to the front hall. He was waiting for her, leaning up against the Porter’s Lodge again, deep in conversation with Potter. He came to meet her at once with a cheerful: ‘There you are—punctual too, a rare thing in a woman.’

She was too shy to ask how he was so sure of this, and anyway there was no need for her to say anything much, for he swept her out of the main entrance on a steady gentle flow of small talk which saw them safely into the car standing in the forecourt, but on the point of getting in she stopped short. ‘A Maserati—one of the new ones—a Khamsin.’ She had stopped to look at one in a car showroom only a few days previously and had been shocked to see its price—almost eighteen thousand pounds! One could buy a house for that, or live comfortably for four or five years.

Her companion opened the door a little wider. ‘Easy to get around in,’ he told her in a placid matter-of-fact voice which made its price seem quite reasonable after all.

‘Do you travel a great deal?’ she asked him as he got in beside her.

‘Quite frequently—I have a sister living in the south of France.’ He swung the car neatly into the evening traffic. ‘Do you drive?’

She told him about the Mini. ‘I keep it at home, though, I’m not much good in London traffic.’

‘No? But surely it would be useful when you go home?’

Philomena looked out of the window, not really seeing the cars streaming along in the clear April evening. ‘I don’t go very often.’

He didn’t question her further but embarked on the kind of conversation which needed little reply on her part, but which nonetheless put her at her ease. ‘You said Soho,’ she reminded him presently as he turned up into Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘I’ve never been there—not for a meal, I mean.’

‘I thought we might go to Kettner’s.’ He had turned the car into Frith Street and then into Romilly Street and they had stopped before she could say anything. She had heard of the restaurant, of course, but the few evenings out she had enjoyed had ended at more homely places; young doctors tended to choose a steak bar or the Golden Egg, but this was something different; she was heartily glad that she had worn the green dress and taken pains with her face and hair.

They were shown to a table at once—presumably he had booked one while she was changing—and she sat back and looked around her with unconcealed pleasure. ‘What a super place!’ Her wide mouth curved in a lovely smile. ‘You’re very kind to bring me here.’

‘It is you who are kind to keep me company—and may I call you Philomena?’ He lifted a finger to the hovering waiter. ‘I shan’t ask you what you would like to drink—we’ll celebrate with champagne.’

And probably it was the champagne which gave Philomena the pleasant feeling that Doctor van der Tacx was an old friend, and when presently he suggested mildly that she might call him Walle, she agreed readily enough before getting down to the serious business of deciding what they should eat. In the end she took his advice, given in a casual almost unnoticed way, and chose paté maison, a magnificent dish of lobster, fried with herbs and then covered and set alight with cognac, and rounded these delights off with Vacherin.

‘That was sheer heaven,’ she assured her host over coffee, ‘I’ve never had such a gorgeous meal and in such a super place.’ She beamed at him widely. ‘I never thought I’d celebrate like this.’

He smiled back at her. ‘Perhaps you will have your celebrations next time you go home,’ and when she didn’t answer: ‘You live a long way away?’

A hundred and thirteen miles was nothing; three hours at the most and in a car such as his, much less; a loving family or a devoted boy-friend would have made light of it. She said reluctantly: ‘Not so very—my home’s at Wareham, in Dorset.’

His only comment was: ‘Ah, yes—a charming place, I’ve been sailing in those parts,’ and at her questioning look, he added blandly: ‘I was up at Cambridge for some years and I have friends in England—I spent a good deal of time with a fellow student who was mad on sailing.’ He laughed. ‘Lord, it makes one feel old!’

She hadn’t really thought about his age; his hair was fair and thick and silvering at the temples, but he had the kind of good looks which would be very much as they were now in twenty years’ time. ‘You’re not old,’ said Philomena. ‘I’m twenty-three.’

He dropped the heavy lids over his eyes to hide their sudden gleam of amusement. ‘And I am thirty-six.’

‘That’s not in the least old. I expect you’re at the height of your career and very content with your life and everything in the world to look forward to.’

‘Thank you, Philomena. Until now I have been more than content with my life, but now I’m not so sure.’ He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘You know you haven’t asked me if I’m married.’

The champagne had made her decidedly chatty. ‘Well, no, but I don’t think you are…’

‘Do tell why?’

‘Well, you’re not the kind of man who would—would ask the first girl you met to go out to dinner with him if you were married.’

‘You’re right of course, but too flattering. I don’t fancy that you know much about men.’

She poured more coffee. ‘No, I don’t. You see, I don’t go out a great deal with them—there are so many pretty girls in hospital, and of course the housemen go for them first.’ She gave him a rather appalled look; the champagne had certainly made ducks and drakes of her usual quiet matter-of-factness. If he paid her a compliment now about being pretty, she would hate him for it.