A Kiss for Julie

‘I must confess that you are not quite what I would have wished for and I believe that you hold the same opinion of me. If you find it difficult to work for me, then by all means ask for a transfer. Your work is highly regarded; there should be no difficulty in that. On the other hand, if you are prepared to put up with my lack of the social graces, I dare say we may rub along quite nicely.’

He smiled then, and she caught her breath, for he looked quite different—a man she would like to know, to be friends with. She said steadily, ‘I would prefer to stay if you will allow that. You see, you’re not a bit like Professor Smythe, but I’m sure once I’ve got used to you you’ll find me satisfactory.’ She added, ‘What don’t you like about me?’

‘Did I say that I disliked you? Indeed I did not; I meant that you were not quite the secretary I would have employed had I been given the choice.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re too young—and several other...’ He paused. ‘Shall we let it rest?’ He stood up and held out a hand. ‘Shall we shake on it?’

She shook hands and thought what a strange conversation they were having.

He was back behind his desk, turning over the papers before him.

‘This case of agranulocytosis—Mrs Briggs has had typhoid and has been treated with chloramphenicol, the cause of her condition. I should like to see any old notes if she has been a patient previously. From her present notes you have seen that she remembers being here on two occasions but she can’t remember when. Is that a hopeless task?’

‘Probably. I’ll let you have them as soon as possible. The path lab from the Royal Central phoned; they would like to speak to you when you are free.’

‘Ah, yes. There’s a patient there. Get hold of them and put them through to me, will you, Miss Beckworth?’

‘I’m going to hunt for those notes,’ she told him. ‘I shall be in the records office until I find them.’

‘Very well.’ He didn’t look up from his writing and she went to her own office, dialled the Royal Central and presently put the call through to his office. There was nothing on her desk that needed urgent attention, so she went through the hospital and down into the basement and, after a few words with the fussy woman in charge of the patients’ records, set to work.

It was a difficult task but not entirely hopeless. Mrs Briggs was forty years old; her recollections of her previous visits were vague but positive. Say, anything between five and ten years ago... It was tiresome work and dusty and the fussy woman or her assistant should have given her a hand, although in all fairness she had to admit that they were being kept busy enough.

She longed for a cup of tea, and a glance at her watch told her that her teabreak was long past. Was she supposed to stay until the notes were found or could she go home at half-past five? she wondered.

It was almost five o’clock when her luck turned and, looking rather less than her pristine self, she went back to the professor’s office.

He was on the telephone as she went in; she laid the folders down on his desk and, since he nodded without looking up, she went to her office and sat down at her own desk. While she had been away someone had tossed a variety of paperwork onto it. ‘No tea,’ muttered Julie, ‘and this lot to polish off before I go home, and much thanks shall I get for it—’

‘Ah, no, Miss Beckworth,’ said the professor from somewhere behind her. ‘Do not be so hard on me. You have found the notes, for which I thank you, and a dusty job it was too from the look of you.’

She turned round indignantly at that and he went on smoothly, ‘A pot of tea would help, wouldn’t it? And most of the stuff on your desk can wait until the morning.’

He leaned across her and picked up the phone. ‘The canteen number?’ he asked her, and when she gave it ordered with pleasant courtesy, and with a certainty that no one would object, a tray of tea for two and a plate of buttered toast.

She was very conscious of the vast size of him. She wondered, idiotically, if he had played rugger in his youth. Well, she conceded, he wasn’t all that old—thirty-five, at the most forty... He had straightened up, towering over her, his gaze intent, almost as though he had read her thoughts and was amused by them. She looked at the clock and said in a brisk voice, ‘I can get a good deal of this done this afternoon, sir. I’m quite willing to stay on for a while.’

‘I said that tomorrow morning would do.’ His voice was mild but dared her to argue. ‘We will have our tea and you will leave at your usual time.’

She said ‘Very well, sir’ in a meek voice, although she didn’t feel meek. Who did he think he was? Professor or no professor, she had no wish to be ordered about.

‘You’ll get used to me in time,’ he observed, just as though she had voiced the thought out loud. ‘Here is the tea.’

The canteen server put the tray down on his desk; none of the canteen staff was particularly friendly with those who took their meals there; indeed, at times one wondered if they grudged handing over the plates of food, and the girl who had come in was not one of Julie’s favourites—handing out, as she did, ill nature with meat and two veg. Now, miraculously, she was actually smiling. Not at Julie, of course, and when he thanked her politely she muttered, ‘No trouble, sir; any time. I can always pop along with something.’

The professor sat down behind his desk. ‘Come and pour out,’ he suggested, ‘and let us mull over tomorrow’s schedule.’ He handed her the toast and bit hugely into his. ‘What an obliging girl.’

‘Huh,’ said Julie. ‘She practically throws our dinners at us. But then, of course, you’re a man.’

‘Er—yes; presumably you think that makes a difference?’

‘Of course it does.’ Perhaps she wasn’t being quite polite; she added ‘sir’.

They had little to say to each other; indeed, he made a couple of phone calls while he polished off the toast, and when they had had second cups he said, ‘Off you go, Miss Beckworth; I’ll see you in the morning.’

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN Julie got home they were all waiting to hear how she had got on.

‘At least he didn’t keep you late,’ observed her mother. ‘Is he nice?’ By which she meant was he good-looking, young and liable to fall in love with Julie?

‘Abrupt, immersed in his work, likes things done at once, very nice with his patients—’

‘Old?’ Mrs Beckworth tried hard to sound casual.

‘Getting on for forty, perhaps thirty-five; it’s hard to tell.’ Julie took pity on her mother. ‘He’s very good-looking, very large, and I imagine the nurses are all agog.’

‘Not married?’ asked her mother hopefully.

‘I don’t know, Mother, and I doubt if I ever shall; he’s not chatty.’

‘Sounds OK to me,’ said Luscombe, ‘even if he’s foreign.’

Esme had joined the inquisition. ‘He’s Dutch; does he talk with a funny accent?’

‘No accent at all—well, yes, perhaps you can hear that he’s not English, but only because he speaks it so well, if you see what I mean.’

‘A gent?’ said Luscombe.

‘Well, yes, and frightfully clever, I believe. I dare say that once we’ve got used to each other we shall get on very well.’

‘What do you call him?’ asked Esme.

‘Professor or sir...’

‘What does he call you?’

‘Miss Beckworth.’

Esme hooted with laughter. ‘Julie, that makes you sound like an elderly spinster. I bet he wears glasses...’

‘As a matter of fact he does—for reading.’

‘He sounds pretty stuffy,’ said Esme. ‘Can we have tea now that Julie’s home?’

‘On the table in two ticks,’ said Luscombe, and went back to the kitchen to fetch the macaroni cheese—for tea for the Beckworths was that unfashionable meal, high tea—a mixture of supper and tea taken at the hour of half past six, starting with a cooked dish, going on to bread and butter and cheese or sandwiches, jam and scones, and accompanied by a large pot of tea.