When May Follows

He was staring down the ward, for the moment forgetful of his beer. ‘Big chap,’ he added, and Katrina’s head, before she could stop it, shot round to take a look. Professor Baron van Tellerinck, no less, coming round to take a look down the ward with unhurried calm. He wished her good afternoon gravely, and just as gravely greeted Mr Crewe, who said rudely: “ullo—’oo are you?’

‘A colleague of Sir Benjamin,’ the Professor told him equably, ‘and as I have business with Sister I’m sure you will do as you are asked and sit in your chair and—er—keep quiet.’

And much to Katrina’s astonishment, Mr Crewe meekly threw back the bedclothes and got into the dressing gown one of the nurses was holding.

‘You wished to see a patient?’ asked Katrina, at her most professional.

‘Please. Sir Benjamin can’t get away from theatre at present, he asked me if I would check up on Mr Miles.’

She liked him for that; so many surgeons came on to the ward and asked: ‘Sister, I’d like to see that gastric ulcer you admitted,’ or: ‘How is that lacerated hand doing?’ for all the world as if the ward beds were occupied by various portions of anatomy and not people.

‘He’s coming along nicely,’ she observed, quite forgetting to be stiff. ‘His BPs down and he’s eating well. We’ve had him out of bed for a little while this morning.’

The Professor spent five minutes or so with the patient, expressed himself satisfied with his progress, wished him a polite good day, and started up the ward towards the office. ‘If I might just write up the notes?’ he enquired, and when she opened the door and then turned to go: ‘Please stay, Sister.’

So she stayed, waiting silently while he scrawled on the chart, added his initials and then got to his feet. ‘Doing anything this evening?’ he asked her.

‘Me?’ she was so surprised that she had no words for a moment. ‘I’m off at five o’clock,’ she added stupidly.

‘Yes, I know that,’ and when her eyes looked a question, ‘I looked in the off duty book on my way in,’ he explained blandly, and waited for her to answer.

‘Well…’ she paused. ‘It’s very kind of you, but I’m not sure…’

He interrupted her: ‘That’s why it would be a good idea if we got to know each other,’ he observed placidly. A remark which left her totally bewildered, and before she could answer: ‘There’s a rather nice place in Ebury Street we might go to—a bistro, perhaps you know of it?’

She shook her head, still trying to think of something to say.

‘La Poule au Pot, although you might prefer to go somewhere else?’

She found herself saying just as meekly as Mr Crewe had acted: ‘It sounds very nice. Is it a dressy place?’

He smiled, ‘No, I think not,’ and watched her, still smiling while one corner of her brain was turning over her wardrobe for a suitable dress. ‘I’m sure you’re thinking that you’ll have nothing to wear, women always do, don’t they? I’m equally sure that you have. Shall we say seven o’clock at the entrance.’

He smiled again as he left the office, leaving Katrina to wonder if she had actually said that she would go out with him. She didn’t think that she had, but it was a little too late for that now.

She got off duty late; it had been that sort of a day, and her nerves were jangling with a desire to allow her ill humour to have full rein, instead of having to present a calm good-tempered face to patients and nurses alike. But a leisurely bath did her a power of good, by the time she had found a dress to her liking—a sapphire blue silk jersey, very simply cut—done her hair in a low roll round her head in an Edwardian hair-style, and got into a pair of high-heeled black patent shoes, she felt quite herself again. She picked up a velvet jacket and took a last look at herself in the mirror. For some reason she wanted to look nice this evening; she had told herself that it was because she didn’t like the Professor, which to her at least made sense in a roundabout way, and at least, she told herself as she started downstairs, she could wear high-heeled shoes without being in danger of towering over her escort.

She was ten minutes late, but he was waiting for her with no sign of impatience, only smiled gently as he glanced at her from hooded eyes.

‘Ah, the wardrobe wasn’t quite empty, I see.’

Katrina found herself smiling too and uttered her thought out loud without thinking. ‘You have no idea how nice it is to go out with someone who’s taller than I—even in low heels I loom over most people.’

He glanced down at her elegant feet on their three-inch heels. ‘I have the same difficulty, only in reverse; I find it so tiresome to bend double each time I want to mutter sweet nothings into my companion’s ear.’

‘Well, you won’t need to worry about that,’ declared Katrina sharply.

‘Oh, I wasn’t,’ he told her silkily as he opened the car door. ‘I need only bend my head to you, Kate.’

She peeped at him to see if he was laughing, but he looked quite serious and she frowned; it was a remark which she found difficult to answer, so she said nothing, but got into the car, to be instantly lulled by its comfort as they edged into the evening traffic, and her feeling of pleasure increased as they went along; it was decidedly pleasant to be driven in a shining black Bentley towards a good meal. Moreover, the Professor was laying himself out to be pleasant, talking about nothing much in an amusing manner; she almost liked him.

She wondered later, as she got ready for bed, what exactly she had expected of their evening, but whatever it was, it hadn’t happened. Her host had been charming in a coolly friendly way and they had talked… She stopped to remember what they had talked about—everything under the sun, and yet she knew nothing about him, for he had taken care not to tell her anything and when she had asked from which part of Holland he came, he had said merely that his family came from the north—Friesland, but he lived within striking distance of Leiden. Whether he was married or no, she had no idea, and although it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask just that, she had stopped herself just in time. She had, she reflected as she brushed her hair, absolutely no reason for wishing to know.

The restaurant had been charming, cosy and warm, with blazing fires at either end of the quite small room and soft candlelight to eat their dinner by. And the food had been delicious; smoked salmon, noisettes d’agneau Beauharnais with artichoke hearts and pommes de terre Berny, followed by a purée of sweet chestnuts with whipped cream. Katrina smacked her lips at the thought of them and jumped into bed. They had sat over their meal and it was past midnight now, but the evening had flown and when she had said goodbye to him at the hospital entrance, she had felt regret that it couldn’t last longer. Perhaps, she mused sleepily, she rather liked him after all. ‘Such a pity,’ she muttered, ‘because I’ll never know now; he didn’t say he wanted to see me again. I expect he was being polite because he knows Uncle Ben.’

If the Professor was being polite then he was carrying it to excess. He accompanied Uncle Ben on his round the next day and when Katrina escorted them to the ward door and took a formal leavetaking of them, he asked her, with Uncle Ben looking on, if she would care to go to the theatre with him that evening.

Katrina’s mouth was forming ‘No,’ even as her heart sang ‘Yes,’ but she had no chance to utter, for Uncle Ben said at once: ‘What a splendid idea—just what you need, Kate, after a hard day’s grind.’ He asked the Professor: ‘What’s on?’

‘I’ve got tickets for The King and I.’ The hooded eyes were on Katrina’s face. ‘That is, if Kate would like to see it?’

A show she had wanted to see more than anything else, but how could he possibly know that?

‘Going all tarted up?’ enquired Uncle Ben with interest.

‘Er—I thought we might have supper and perhaps dance afterwards.’

My almost new organza, thought Katrina wildly, and those satin sandals. Aloud she said: ‘Well, I don’t know…’

‘Rubbish,’ said Uncle Ben stoutly. ‘You know you like dancing, Kate.’

The two of them stared at her without saying anything more, so that in sheer self-defence she said: ‘Well, it would be nice…thank you.’

‘Half past seven at the entrance,’ said the Professor briskly. ‘We’ll just have time for a drink and a bite to eat before the theatre.’

She asked meekly: ‘And am I to come all tarted up?’

‘Oh, definitely—that’s if you feel like it…’ He was laughing at her again, although his face was bland.

‘Well, that’s settled, then,’ declared Uncle Ben. ‘Raf, there’s that woman I want you to see—the accident that came in during the night…’

Katrina excused herself and left them deep in some surgical problem. She had problems of her own; it was so much simpler to either like or dislike someone, but with the Professor she was unable to make up her mind. Most of the time, she had to admit, she liked him very much, but every now and then he annoyed her excessively. She went back into the ward and found to her annoyance that Jack Bentall had come in through the balcony doors and was doing a round with Julie. He had, he explained carefully, one or two things to write up for Mr Knowles and could he use her office for a few minutes, and as Julie left them: ‘You haven’t forgotten that we’re going out tomorrow evening?’ he asked her, looking quite revoltingly smug. She had, but she was too kind-hearted to say so.

He was disposed to linger, hinting at the delights of their evening out so that she had to draw his attention to several jobs awaiting her. He had looked at her like a small spoilt boy and said grumpily: ‘Oh, well, don’t let me keep you…’

She wished with all her heart that she had refused his invitation in the first place. She had been a fool, but there was no help for it, she would go, but for the last time, she promised herself, and then forgot all about him, going from one patient to the next, adjusting drips, checking dressings, making sure that BPs had been taken on time.

She was a little absentminded at dinner time and her friends wanted to know why, and when she shook her head and denied it, Joan Cox from Women’s Surgical said vigorously: ‘I bet our Kate’s got herself a date with that super man who’s doing the rounds with Sir Benjamin,’ and the entire table gave a howl of laughter when Katrina went a delicate pink.

‘Didn’t I say so?’ cried Joan triumphantly, and then thoughtfully: ‘You went out yesterday evening too.’

‘Well, yes, I did—just to a bistro…’

‘And is it to be a bistro tonight?’ several voices chorused.

‘The King and I.’ Katrina poured tea from the large pot just put on the table.

‘And dinner afterwards, I expect, and a spot of dancing?’