A Weekend in The Garden (The Jason Trilogy Book 2) Page 19

  ‘All that’s true. Unfortunately, as cottage hospitals in general are so small and ‒’

  ‘Equipped from the ark? Sure. I know. I still think it’ll be a great mistake to close them down and that’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it?’ He nodded slowly. ‘I can see you don’t agree. We’ll have to agree to differ on this. I think it downright crazy to close down going concerns that are not just hospitals but a part of local life, just because it’ll take a bit of money to drag them into the mid-twentieth century. Even a little can make an amazing difference.’ She looked straight at him. ‘After that shambles on the hill the night Mark died, they put up the traffic lights at the foot and top and the four sets at that worst black spot on the bypass.’ She raised a hand and dropped it onto the pebbles. ‘Did that to our road accident intake. Be better still once they open the new Oakden clearway. Someone did some thinking last year, and got cracking. But I don’t think they’re doing that kind of thinking about the cottage hospitals and instead of spending a little money in a lot of places, it’s a fortune on all the bigger and betters. I suppose Ruth’s told you the millions being spent on the new Martha’s. Seen the plans?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘What did you think of them?’

  ‘Very impressive. On paper.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘From your expression I take it you share Ruth’s stated opinion that the differences between the new and the old will be comparable to those between a new chain-store and Harrods.’

  She laughed. ‘Dear Ruth. I adore her. The world changes. Not Ruth. Did she tell you the modern student nurses aren’t what they were when she and I were in training?’

  He said pleasantly, ‘Amongst other items that included your rejection of a Martha’s job ‒ the proposal that you take over as Sister Theatre in this new Arumchester Hospital and ‒ er ‒ that you’re thinking of accepting a post in Johns Hopkins in Maryland to be nearer to your younger sister and her husband in Washington.’

  She looked at him for a few moments. ‘No.’

  He frowned. ‘I’m sorry. No ‒ they don’t live in Washington?’

  ‘Yes, they do. No, I am not thinking of working outside the U.K.’

  He studied her as if she were one of his patients. ‘Clearly, I misunderstood Ruth.’

  ‘I don’t expect so. I expect she sold you the idea as she’s sold on it. I told her about it one weekend last month. David had driven her down in his new car ‒ David Hartley ‒ he’s got an ex-girlfriend working in the San and thought he’d look her up.’ She smiled quickly. ‘Out of luck. She’s now going steady with the brother of one of our second-years with whom she’s become buddies. Nice solid lad called Tony Geraghty. Come over from Ireland to be a mid-student. Anyway, during that visit Ruth was driving me up the wall with her time to get weaving on the next move and press on regardless and why not come back to Martha’s and mainly to shut her up I told her my sister had written suggesting my moving across the Atlantic and that I was thinking about it. Ruth made up her mind it was just the job for me. You know Ruth. Once her mind’s made up, a Panzer Division wouldn’t shift her.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he conceded. ‘Well ‒ er ‒ I’m glad. The brain-drain has done enough draining.’

  Yes, she thought, watching him. Yes. She said, ‘Ruth’s problem’s always been that she’s got one skin too many ‒ and yours and mine that we’ve got one too few. I should’ve remembered that. I didn’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologize to me for anything, Catherine.’ He was very firm.

  ‘We’ll have to agree to differ on that one, George.’ She saw the pleasure the name gave him and was glad. She only remembered now that after Christmas when he had first used her Christian name she had used his nickname. ‘I prefer it too.’

  His eyes smiled. ‘Good.’

  ‘Up to the back teeth with “Mack”?’

  ‘Preferable to “Jock”. Not that I seriously gave a damn in Martha’s. The old firm could call me what they bloody liked ‒ and did.’ Momentarily his old grin transformed his face. ‘I imagine the same now applies in Edinburgh, but not in my hearing. In my somewhat limited new private life my few remaining old friends naturally use my own name. It’s odd having time for a private life. Not a great deal of time, but enough to notice the ‒ er ‒ oddness.’

  ‘You do like being back up there?’

  ‘I like my work very much. Of course, I was south a long time.’ He stared at the sea that was now releasing a broad swathe of sand beyond the pebbles. ‘Bound to take time,’ he said absently then heard himself and turned to her in concern, ‘Catherine, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have ‒’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she insisted gently, ‘it’s all right.’ She hesitated, concerned for his concern. ‘There’s not one thing you’ve to apologize to me for, George. Not one. I ‒ I know.’

  He sat very still, expressionless, but his eyes narrowed more. ‘You ‒ er ‒ do?’ She nodded. ‘Long?’

  ‘Longish.’

  ‘Christ.’ The distress broke through. ‘Christ. The last thing I wanted was to add to your burdens the thought ‒’

  ‘Stop! Please!’ She raised a hand. ‘Just listen, George. Listen. And think back. When you were at the bottom of the pit would that hellish hell have been made worse for you to know that somewhere in the blackness was a hand? A hand that made no demands and was pulling every possible string to help you behind the scenes?’

  ‘Possibly not, but ‒ how?’

  ‘Prof Chests. No!’ She answered his instinctive reaction. ‘He was right to tell me. It helped to know Mark’s old boss ‒ old chum ‒ was fighting for him, insisting on second, third, fourth and God knows how many opinions from chest pundits north and south of the border. Thank God, Mark never guessed you were responsible or knowing you so well he’d have guessed the truth. As he would had you suddenly turned up at the San in his last year. Prof Chests put all the pundits over as “useful textbook material, old chap, and do you mind?” He didn’t.’ She paused briefly. ‘That last day, knowing you’d find him so altered, though I knew you’d try to keep it under, because he knew you so well and you liked him, I was afraid. But ‒ but so grateful for your keeping up the pretence with me. I had to talk truth with the Prof and Dr Skinner. I couldn’t to anyone else. I knew you had to know, though it was a very top secret in London and Oakden. Had to stay secret. We all know hospital grapevines and ‒ and so did Mark.’ She stopped again for several seconds. ‘Your doing that locum was quite different. He was tremendously amused about it. Trust old Mack to rush down and hold the outback fort, he said. Made him shout with laughter. Honestly.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, ‘good. I had to come and not only because I wanted to see you both before I left England. Alex was in a spot and I was free. No alternative.’

  ‘None. For you.’ She leant back against the wall. ‘I’m not the only person who’s thanked God for it. The Sanders family and more than a few others that include that girl “Mary Jones”. Remember? Yes. You would. She’d been discharged when I got back. I had a letter from her about Mark ‒ and from so many other ex-patients ‒ it was incredibly touching ‒ but ‒ about her. She writes fairly often. Never gives me an address or her real name, so I can’t write back.’

  Slowly, the rigid lines of his face were softening. ‘All well?’

  ‘Yes and no. She’s fine, her job’s fine, she’d had a raise, but she’s still seeing her married boyfriend but hasn’t got pregnant again. Yet. But as people always follow their own patterns, I’m afraid it’ll happen again, but probably this time she’ll have the baby and give it away.’ The shadow of a long-hidden sadness was in her eyes. ‘Poor little unwanted baby.’

  ‘If unwanted by the mother, not by the thousands of married couples who can’t have children.’

  She looked at him gratefully. ‘I should’ve remembered that one. I was thinking with my emotions, not my brain.’

  ‘Understandably.’

  ‘I guess so.’ Again, she
watched the sea. ‘We wanted kids. But when we got engaged we’d to wait two years to marry as we couldn’t afford it on Mark’s £200 and my £30 then £40 a year and anyway as civvy nurses weren’t released by the Government till mid-’46 I had to finish training. As we’d both been moved to the country hospital then, didn’t matter too much. We had glorious fun. Mark’s £750 as an Assistant GP seemed a fortune ‒ it was ‒ we got married, moved out into the practice but as the only flat we could get was minute, three floors up in an old block with no garden, not even a back yard, we thought we should wait the two years he had to do as an Assistant before there was any hope of a Junior Partnership. He couldn’t afford to buy a practice. Neither of us had more than we earned. I managed to get part-time work in a local nursing home. 2/6d an hour came in very handy. So, we waited.’ She glanced back. ‘I expected you waited till the war ended?’

  ‘Amongst other reasons. In the event and in retrospect, academically, I think we were wise.’

  ‘Yes. Like us. Nurses don’t starve so long as they can work.’ She shrugged sadly. ‘God knows what I’d do if I had a child. I couldn’t afford to stay in nursing and it’s all I’m trained for. And yet, selfishly, I would love to feel there was someone around to remind the future that once there lived a man called Mark Jason.’ She saw his pain for her in his eyes. ‘It’s all right, George. I do know this happened to hundreds of thousands of other young men in our war, and millions in the Great War. I ‒ and you ‒ saw so many die and not just men. Women. Girls. Kids. You suffered, personally, then. Your wife. I ‒ I know things didn’t work out for you both, but you had loved her.’

  ‘Och, yes.’ He sighed deeply. ‘As I remembered and you saw, the night she was killed. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew it.’ His eyes looked inward. ‘It was uncanny, Catherine. On that night all those years ago, I saw the compassion and disturbing maturity in those beautiful eyes looking out of your heart-breakingly young face and though I’d no time for thought, found myself thinking, “how the devil does this kid Carter and only this kid now understand how I feel?” ’ For a few seconds he was silent. ‘Years later, Ruth provided the answer when she told me that pre-Martha’s you’d been engaged to some boy shot down in the RAF. I knew why that wee memory had lingered when I met you again in Martha’s theatre.’

  ‘Back ‒ back in ’48?’

  ‘And this is ’52.’ His brief smile was self-derisive. ‘Set in my ways. Too old to change or wish to change. Yes. For four years I’ve loved you as I never knew I could love a woman. Nothing could or will change that.’ His quiet voice vibrated with an unpredictable force. ‘Permanent syndrome. So I had to stay out of your way for this past year. You needed peace, not new emotional demands, and I know my limitations. You’ve been on my mind. But I had to keep away.’

  Momentarily, she was too moved for speech. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time and thought of his life in that same light. She said at last, ‘Yes. You had to. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I did need to be alone, and just work and otherwise exist until slowly the pieces you picked up began to start fitting together. It was only then I was able to start remembering not the sadness, but the glorious times Mark and I had together, and we had them glorious, plus, plus, plus. And then ‒ then I remembered what my father said long, long ago when that boy in the RAF was killed. Father said we were all on loan to the world and each other and that instead of “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away” he thought it should be “the Lord loaneth and the Lord taketh back” as that’s what really happens. Mark was a lovely lovely loan.’ Her shining eyes filled with tears but she didn’t turn her head. ‘Of course, I still miss him. And in another, quite different way, I’ve missed you. You’re another part of my life. That’s why I’m so sorry you’ve been hurt about this States business. I should’ve remembered Ruth was bound to tell you. She’d told me you were coming down to examine. I thought you’d probably come down to see me, but not about this bit. I’m sorry I forgot it and please don’t tell me again I needn’t apologize. I must. You belong in the part of my life that I love.’ She held out a hand. ‘Okay?’

  Whilst he had listened intently, slowly, his face had shed years. He moved closer to take her hand then sat by her, drew her arm through his and held onto her hand and said nothing until his head had managed to restrain his thudding heart. ‘Your apology is accepted with great gratitude. You’re right. The thought of your leaving for the States did me ‒ er ‒ no good. I’ve never been so relieved over an incorrect diagnosis. However ‒ er ‒ on the subject of leaving England ‒ have you ever thought of working in Scotland?’

  She looked at him gravely. ‘Not until today.’

  ‘I see. Would it help if I did some background research for you?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Right.’ He kept it out of his voice but couldn’t hide the flare of passionate joy in his guarded, vulnerable eyes. ‘Any specific ideas?’

  ‘Yes. Days, but not theatre or Admin. I’ve managed to take both in The Garden as my dogsbody job has let me see so much of the patients. I’ve never pretended from my first day as a VAD that I’d have lasted a week in nursing if it hadn’t been for the patients. They alone make nursing for me. I never meant to be a nurse. The war and Martha’s made me one, but it’s the patients that kept me one and I want to get back to the wards. I don’t mind stepping down a grade. The things I’ll do for England don’t include spending the rest of my professional life behind an Office Sister’s desk.’

  ‘Right.’ He was brisk. ‘Where in Scotland? Personally, I’d ‒ er ‒ suggest Edinburgh.’

  She smiled very sweetly. ‘If you can fix it, I’d like that. I’ve never been to Edinburgh.’

  He returned her smile, identically. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll fix it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said and without realizing it gave a little sigh and rested her head against his shoulder.

  He didn’t say more for a long time. He just sat looking down at her with the expression of a man whose head was finally at peace with his heart.

  ***

  MARRIAGES

  MACDONALD-JASON. On 7th January, 1953, in Edinburgh, GEORGE IAN MACDONALD to CATHERINE JANE JASON (nee CARTER).

  BIRTHS

  MACDONALD. On 23rd December, 1953, in the Royal Maternity Hospital, Edinburgh to CATHERINE (nee CARTER) and GEORGE, a son, JASON IAN.

  ***

  Book 3 in The Jason Trilogy, In an Edinburgh Drawing Room, is released by Corazon Books in autumn 2017.

  Look out for it on Amazon or join the newsletter list at www.lucillaandrews.com to be the first to know when it is available for pre-order.

  The Print Petticoat by Lucilla Andrews

  If you enjoyed One Night in London, you will also want to read The Print Petticoat by Lucilla Andrews. It’s the moving story of Nursery staff nurse Joanna Anthony in the Maternity Unit of St Gregory’s Hospital. Here is a preview of the first chapter.

  Chapter One

  The garden was all gold that year, and in the lane the may was out early. The name of the lane was White Rose Lane. It was a pretty name. It was a pretty place. There was no may in the garden ‒ I don’t know why. You did not notice that anything was missing in that spring. The sudden impact of cultivated yellow jolted the mind clear of criticism.

  The garden was built in terraces on the hillside. These terraces were now lined with golden crocuses, overhung with almond and backed up by the forsythia bushes which clustered like handfuls of surplus stars carelessly suspended a couple of feet above the earth. Lower down were the daffodils. The scent from the flowers drifted up towards the house and floated in at the open Nursery window where I was standing, and mingled with the faint, sickly-sweet mixture of Dettol and baby-powder which is inseparable from the mass production of the newly born.

  The baby in my arms spluttered peacefully. I patted its back, decided there was still some more wind in its stomach. This I knew was wishful thinking, but I wanted an
excuse to go on standing where I was and looking down at the garden. I could hear the creak of the swing in the orchard down by the lane. One of the students must be out there; no nurses were free this early. There had been a case in the night. It was probably the clerk who had done the delivery. From behind me, in the farthest corner of the Nursery, well screened from the open window, I could hear the occasional high-pitched whimper of the newest arrival. I wondered casually who had been the clerk on call, and if he knew how to give a baby its first bath. There were a new lot of midder-clerks down from London that week, and teaching them how to give a first bath was part of my job.

  The swing creaked rhythmically. It was by now the only sound in the air beside the gently amazed breathing of the new baby. The other thirty-five babies lay quiet in their pigeon-hole cots. Christine had gone to sleep in my arms, her head flopping over on my shoulder. I forgot I was holding her. I was thinking about the children who must have swung on that swing. The house had once been a normal house, full of grown-up children and their parents. There were memories of the children everywhere; in the carved initials on the swing; the broken bow and arrow in the greenhouse; the pets’ graveyard behind the Japanese garden. The Japanese garden could only have been thought up by a child. The small stream from the Wey had been dammed to produce a pond and miniature waterfall. There used to be goldfish in that pond, the gardener’s wife told me, and at times various unhappy, short-lived tadpoles. Now all that remained in the pond were the water-lilies. Water-lilies that opened slowly these spring mornings and looked as if they found it amusing to be surrounded by stunted trees, painted urns, and a carved red bridge at the corner of which was a small stone fish. The fish alone looked genuine and strangely out of place.