A Winter Love Story

It was furnished sparsely, with a desk and chair, two other chairs along one wall, and a great many shelves stuffed with paper files. The woman behind the desk had a narrow, pale face, a straight haircut in an unbecoming bob and small dark eyes. She looked up as Claudia went in, pursing her mouth and frowning a little.

‘Miss Ramsay? It’s too late for you to do much for the rest of the day. I’ll get someone to show you your room and take you to where you will be working. But if you will draw up a chair I will explain your schedule to you.’

Not a very good start, reflected Claudia, but perhaps the poor soul was tired.

Her duties were many and varied and rather vague. She would work from seven o’clock until three in the afternoon three days a week, and her free day would follow that duty, and for the other three days the hours would be three o’clock in the afternoon until ten o’clock at night.

‘The off duty is arranged so that you are free from three o’clock before your day off, and not on duty until three o’clock on the day following.’

Two nights at home, thought Claudia, and felt cheered by the thought.

She asked politely, ‘Am I to call you Matron?’

‘Miss Norton,’ she was told, in a manner which implied that she should have known that without being told. She was dismissed into the care of a small woman with a kind face and a bright smile, who told her that her name was Nurse Symes.

‘You’re on duty in the morning,’ she told her. ‘Ward B—that’s on the other wing. First floor, thirty beds. Sister Clark is in charge there.’

She paused, and Claudia said encouragingly, ‘And…?’

‘She’s terribly overworked, you know—we can’t get the staff. She doesn’t mean half she says.’

‘Tell me, what exactly do I do? General assistant covers a lot of ground, and Miss Norton was a bit vague.’

‘Well, dear, there aren’t many trained nurses, so you do anything that’s needed.’

They got into the lift at the back of the hall and stepped out on the top floor, went through a door with ‘Private’ on it and started down another corridor lined with doors.

‘Here we are,’ said Nurse Symes. ‘Quite a nice room, and the bathrooms are at the end. There’s a little kitchen too, if you want to make tea.’

The room was small, with a bed, a small easy chair, a bedside table and a clothes cupboard. It was very clean and there was a view of chimneypots from its window. There was a washbasin on one corner, and a small mirror over the wide shelf which served as a dressing table. A few cushions and photos and a vase of flowers, thought Claudia with resolute cheerfulness, and it would be quite pretty.

‘We’ll go to the linen room and get you some dresses. You’ll get three, but of course you’ll wear a plastic apron when you’re on duty.’

The dresses—a useful mud-brown—duly chosen and taken to her room, they began a tour of the hospital. It was surprisingly large, with old-fashioned wards with beds on either side and tables with pot plants down the centre. The wards were full, and most of the patients were sitting in chairs by their beds, watching television if they were near enough to the two sets at either end of the wards.

Most of them appeared to be asleep; one or two had visitors. Claudia could see only one or two nurses, but there were several young women shrouded in plastic pinnys, carrying trays, mops and buckets and helping those patients who chose to trundle around with their walking aids.

It wasn’t quite what she had expected, but it was too early to have an opinion, and first impressions weren’t always the right ones.

It was Cork who folded the Telegraph at the appropriate page and silently pointed out the notice of the forthcoming marriage between George Willis and Doreen Ramsay to Professor Tait-Bullen as he ate his breakfast.

He read it in an absent-minded fashion, and then read it again.

‘Interesting,’ he observed, and then, ‘I wonder what will happen to the daughter? Staying on at the Colonel’s house, I suppose.’

He thought no more about it until that evening when, urged by some niggling doubt at the back of his mind, he phoned Dr Willis. His congratulations were sincere. ‘You will be marrying shortly?’

‘In four days’ time. Mrs Ramsay is here with me, so are Mrs Pratt and Tombs. Jennie, their maid, went to the Manor to a new job this morning.’ George added drily, ‘They were turned out by the new owner.’

The professor asked sharply, ‘And the daughter— Claudia?’

‘Fortunately she found a job at Southampton, in a hospital there—geriatrics. Didn’t like the look of the place, but they wanted someone at once.’

‘You mean to tell me that this man turned them all out? Is he no relation?’

‘A cousin of sorts.’

‘Extraordinary.’ The professor had a fleeting memory of a lovely girl with red hair and decided that he wanted to know more. ‘I’m going to Bristol in a couple of days. May I call in and wish you both well?’

‘We’d be delighted. And if you can come to the wedding we should very much like that.’

Mr Tait-Bullen put down the receiver and sat back in his chair. With a little careful planning there was no reason why he shouldn’t go to the wedding.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE end of her first day at the hospital Claudia knew exactly what a general assistant was: a maker of beds, carrier of trays, bedpans, and bags of bed linen. And when she wasn’t doing this she was getting the old and infirm in and out of bed, finding slippers, spectacles, dentures, feeding those who were no longer able to help themselves and trotting the more spry of the ladies to the loo.

It was non-stop work, and, going off duty soon after three o’clock, she was thankful that she was free until seven o’clock the next morning and that by some miracle she would have her day off on the day following that. The whole day, she thoughtful joyfully, and not on duty until the afternoon after that. She got into her outdoor clothes and hurried out to the nearest phone box.

Her mother and George were to be married in three days’ time; she would be able to go to the wedding, although she would have to leave Little Planting directly after the ceremony. The bus service between Romsey and Southampton was frequent; it was just a question of getting from Romsey to Little Planting and back again.

She would be met, declared her mother; any of their friends in the village would be glad to collect her. ‘Phone me tomorrow and let me know what time the bus gets to Romsey. And don’t worry about getting back to Southampton, there’ll be someone to give you a lift. You’re happy there, Claudia?’

‘Yes,’ said Claudia, ‘I’m sure I shall be happy.’ She was so convincing that her mother observed happily to George that Claudia sounded perfectly content, and wasn’t it lucky that she should be free for the wedding?

Claudia went back to the hospital and had a cup of tea with some of the other girls, then went to her room, kicked off her shoes and curled up on the bed. Her feet ached and she was tired. It had been a hard day’s work, but it wasn’t only that; she felt sad and lonely and uncertain of the future. She was prepared to stay in this job for as long as it took to save enough money for her to train in something which would allow her more freedom. Enough money for her to have nice clothes, and a holiday. A career girl.

It would have to be something to do with computers, shorthand and typing and a knowledge of the business world. A receptionist, mused Claudia, a nine-to-five job with free weekends so that she could go and stay with her mother and George from time to time. And, of course, a nicely furnished flat, and friends to entertain and to be entertained by. She might even meet a man who would fall in love with her and marry her…

Mr Tait-Bullen’s handsome features imposed themselves upon her wishful thinking, but she brushed them away. One didn’t cry for the moon, and she was never likely to meet him again. Even if she did, she wasn’t sure if he had noticed her as a woman. She wondered what he was really like behind that impersonal, impassive face. Probably quite nice…

A thump on the door brought her back to reality, and when she called, ‘Come in,’ a girl opened the door. One of those on the afternoon shift.

‘Oh, good, you’re here. The other two are out and Sister sent me. Mrs Legge—that’s the one with the Zimmer walker—fell over and she’s broken a leg and an arm. She’ll have to go to the City General with a nurse, and that only leaves Sister and me and we’re up to our eyes. Could you come back on duty for an hour or two, just until someone can be found to take over?’