The Mistletoe Kiss

He went away then, leaving her wondering what on earth he had been talking about.

‘Of course, he’s foreign,’ reflected Emmy out loud. ‘And besides that he’s one of those clever people whose feet aren’t quite on the ground, always bothering about people’s insides.’

A muddled statement which nonetheless satisfied her.

Audrey, relieving her at eight o’clock the next morning, yawned widely and offered the information that she hated day duty, hated the hospital, hated having to work. ‘Lucky you,’ she observed. ‘All day to do nothing…’

‘I shall go to bed,’ said Emmy mildly, and took herself off home.

It was a slow business, with the buses crammed with people going to work, and then she had to stop at the shops at the end of the street and buy bread, eggs, bacon, food for Snoodles and more food for George. Once home, with the door firmly shut behind her, she put on the kettle, fed the animals and let George into the garden. Snoodles tailed him, warned not to go far.

She had her breakfast, tidied up, undressed and had a shower and, with George and Snoodles safely indoors, went to her bed. The teenager across the street hadn’t made a sound so far; hopefully he had a job or had gone off with his pals. If Mr Grant and Mrs Grimes kept quiet, she would have a good sleep… She had barely had time to form the thought before her eyes shut.

It was two o’clock when she was woken by a hideous mixture of sound: Mr Grant’s flute—played, from the sound of it, at an open window—Mrs Grimes bellowing at her husband in the background and, almost drowning these, the teenager enjoying a musical session.

Emmy turned over and buried her head in the pillow, but it was no use; she was wide awake now and likely to stay so. She got up and showered and dressed, had a cup of tea and a sandwich, made sure that Snoodles was asleep, put a lead on George’s collar and left the house.

She had several hours of leisure still; she boarded an almost empty bus and sat with George on her lap as it bore them away from Stepney, along Holborn and into the Marylebone Road. She got off here and crossed the street to Regent’s Park.

It was pleasant here, green and open with the strong scent of autumn in the air. Emmy walked briskly, with George trotting beside her.

‘We’ll come out each day,’ she promised him. ‘A pity the parks are all so far away, but a bus ride’s nice enough, isn’t it? And you shall have a good tea when we get home.’

The afternoon was sliding into dusk as they went back home. George gobbled his tea and curled up on his chair in the kitchen while Snoodles went out. Mrs Grimes had stopped shouting, but Mr Grant was still playing the flute, rivalling the din from across the street. Emmy ate her tea, stuffed things into her bag and went to work.

Audrey had had a busy day and was peevish. ‘I spent the whole of my two hours off looking for some decent tights—the shops around here are useless.’

‘There’s that shop in Commercial Road…’ began Emmy.

‘There?’ Audrey was scornful. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in anything from there.’ She took a last look at her face, added more lipstick and patted her blonde head. ‘I’m going out this evening. So long.’

Until almost midnight Emmy was kept busy. From time to time someone passing through from the entrance hall stopped for a word, and one of the porters brought her coffee around eleven o’clock with the news that there had been a pile-up down at the docks and the accident room was up to its eyes.

‘They phoned,’ said Emmy, ‘but didn’t say how bad it was—not to me, that is. I switched them straight through. I hope they’re not too bad.’

‘Couple of boys, an old lady, the drivers—one of them’s had a stroke.’

Soon she was busy again, with families phoning with anxious enquiries. She was eating her sandwiches in the early hours of the morning when Professor ter Mennolt’s voice, close to her ear, made her jump.

‘I am relieved to see that you are awake and alert, Ermentrude.’

She said, round the sandwich. ‘Well, of course I am. That’s not a nice thing to say, sir.’

‘What were you doing in a bus on the Marylebone Road when you should have been in bed asleep, recruiting strength for the night’s work?’

‘I was going to Regent’s Park with George. He had a good walk.’ She added crossly, ‘And you should try to sleep with someone playing the flute on one side of the house, Mrs Grimes shouting on the other and that wretched boy with his stereo across the street.’

The professor was leaning against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his beautifully tailored jacket. ‘I have misjudged you, Ermentrude. I am sorry. Ear plugs, perhaps?’ And, when she shook her head, ‘Could you not beg a bed from a friend? Or your mother have a word with the neighbours?’

‘Mother’s with Father,’ said Emmy, and took a bite of sandwich. ‘I can’t leave the house because of George and Snoodles.’

‘George?’

‘Our dog, and Snoodles is the cat.’

‘So you are alone in the house?’ He stared down at her. ‘You are not nervous?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You live close by?’

What a man for asking questions, thought Emmy, and wished he didn’t stare so. She stared back and said ‘Yes,’ and wished that he would go away; she found him unsettling. She remembered something. ‘I didn’t see you on the bus…’

He smiled. ‘I was in the car, waiting for the traffic lights.’

She turned to the switchboard, then, and put through two calls, and he watched her. She had pretty hands, nicely well-cared for, and though her hair was mouse-brown there seemed to be a great deal of it, piled neatly in a coil at the back of her head. Not in the least pretty, but with eyes like hers that didn’t matter.

He bade her goodnight, and went out to his car and forgot her, driving to his charming little house in Chelsea where Beaker, who ran it for him, would have left coffee and sandwiches for him in his study, his desk light on and a discreet lamp burning in the hall.

Although it was almost two o’clock he sat down to go through his letters and messages while he drank the coffee, hot and fragrant in the Thermos. There was a note, too, written in Beaker’s spidery hand: Juffrouw Anneliese van Moule had phoned at eight o’clock and again at ten. The professor frowned and glanced over to the answering machine. It showed the red light, and he went and switched it on.

In a moment a petulant voice, speaking in Dutch, wanted to know where he was. ‘Surely you should be home by ten o’clock in the evening. I asked you specially to be home, did I not? Well, I suppose I must forgive you and give you good news. I am coming to London in three days’ time—Friday. I shall stay at Brown’s Hotel, since you are unlikely to be home for most of the day, but I expect to be taken out in the evenings—and there will be time for us to discuss the future.

‘I wish to see your house; I think it will not do for us when we are married, for I shall live with you in London when you are working there, but I hope you will give up your work in England and live at Huis ter Mennolt—’

The professor switched off. Anneliese’s voice had sounded loud as well as peevish, and she was reiterating an argument they had had on several occasions. He had no intention of leaving his house; it was large enough. He had some friends to dine, but his entertaining was for those whom he knew well. Anneliese would wish to entertain on a grand scale, fill the house with acquaintances; he would return home each evening to a drawing room full of people he neither knew nor wished to know.

He reminded himself that she would be a most suitable wife; in Holland they had a similar circle of friends and acquaintances, and they liked the same things—the theatre, concerts, art exhibitions—and she was ambitious.

At first he had been amused and rather touched by that, until he had realised that her ambition wasn’t for his success in his profession but for a place in London society. She already had that in Holland, and she had been careful never to admit to him that that was her goal… He reminded himself that she was the woman he had chosen to marry and once she had understood that he had no intention of altering his way of life when they were married she would understand how he felt.

After all, when they were in Holland she could have all the social life she wanted; Huis ter Mennolt was vast, and there were servants enough and lovely gardens. While he was working she could entertain as many of her friends as she liked—give dinner parties if she wished, since the house was large enough to do that with ease. Here at the Chelsea house, though, with only Beaker and a daily woman to run the place, entertaining on such a scale would be out of the question. The house, roomy though it was, was too small.

He went to bed then, and, since he had a list the following day, he had no time to think about anything but his work.

He left the hospital soon after ten o’clock the next evening. Ermentrude was at her switchboard, her back towards him. He gave her a brief glance as he passed.

Anneliese had phoned again, Beaker informed him, but would leave no message. ‘And, since I needed some groceries, I switched on the answering machine, sir,’ he said, ‘since Mrs Thrupp, splendid cleaner though she is, is hardly up to answering the telephone.’

The professor went to his study and switched on the machine, and stood listening to Anneliese. Her voice was no longer petulant, but it was still loud. ‘My plane gets in at half past ten on Friday—Heathrow,’ she told him. ‘I’ll look out for you. Don’t keep me waiting, will you, Ruerd? Shall we dine at Brown’s? I shall be too tired to talk much, and I’ll stay for several days, anyway.’

He went to look at his appointments book on his desk. He would be free to meet her, although he would have to go back to his consulting rooms for a couple of hours before joining her at Brown’s Hotel.

He sat down at his desk, took his glasses from his breast pocket, put them on and picked up the pile of letters before him. He was aware that there was a lack of lover-like anticipation at the thought of seeing Anneliese. Probably because he hadn’t seen her for some weeks. Moreover, he had been absorbed in his patients. In about a month’s time he would be going back to Holland for a month or more; he would make a point of seeing as much of Anneliese as possible.

He ate his solitary dinner, and went back to his study to write a paper on spina bifida, an exercise which kept him engrossed until well after midnight.

Past the middle of the week already, thought Emmy with satisfaction, getting ready for bed the next morning—three more nights and she would have two days off. Her mother would be home too, until she rejoined her father later in the week, and then he would be working in and around London. Emmy heaved a tired, satisfied sigh and went to sleep until, inevitably, the strains of the flute woke her. It was no use lying there and hoping they would stop; she got up, had a cup of tea and took George for a walk.