At the End of the Day. Betty Neels

brilliance as they sat down. ‘Pity you two don’t get on,’ he observed cheerfully, ‘although he has a great opinion of you as a nurse. Told me the ward wouldn’t be the same without you.’

      ‘Well,’ said Julia reasonably, ‘he’ll just have to get used to that, won’t he? Pat will step into my shoes when I leave.’

      She broke off to study the menu; since this was by way of being a celebration she chose rather lavishly and sipped the iced Dubonnet she had asked for. ‘You always have sherry,’ commented Nigel.

      ‘I want something different this evening. After all, we’re celebrating, aren’t we?’

      He beamed at her. ‘Rather. I start at the beginning of November, that gives them time to get another man to replace me. We could get married next summer.’

      ‘Next summer?’ The surprise in her voice made him look up. ‘But that’s months away. Why can’t we have a quiet wedding this autumn—it’s almost October already Nigel. Why do we have to wait?’

      He smiled and took her hand on the table. ‘Look, darling, it’s good sense to wait a bit; I can save up a little and so can you and I can work my way in before you come—I’ll know a few people by then and you won’t be lonely.’

      ‘But I won’t be lonely with you,’ she protested.

      ‘I’ll be working hard all day, most days,’ he pointed out patiently. ‘Mother thought it a very good idea. I can go home for my weekends when I get them so I shan’t get bored.’

      ‘And me?’ asked Julia, forgetting her grammar in the urgency to make him see sense. ‘What about me?’

      ‘Well you can come down to Mother’s—you’ll be due some leave again soon, won’t you?’

      It wasn’t at all what she’d planned; it seemed to her that their future was being taken out of their hands and arranged by his mother, but it was no good rushing her fences, she would have to think of something…

      ‘I dare say that would be a good idea,’ she said quietly and was rewarded by his contented smile.

      They didn’t talk any more about their future that evening; Nigel still had a lot to tell her about his new job, it took up the whole of dinner, and he was still explaining the layout of the hospital in Bristol when he stopped the car outside her little flat.

      ‘Coming up for coffee?’ asked Julia, and added, ‘I’ve got a kitten, he’s called Wellington.’

      ‘You’ll have to find him a home when you come down to Bristol,’ said Nigel. ‘They don’t allow cats or dogs.’

      The resentment which had been smouldering just below the surface all the evening gave her eyes an emerald glint. ‘Oh, indeed? In that case we’ll have to find somewhere else to live. I’ll not give him away.’

      Nigel laughed tolerantly. ‘You’ll change your mind, darling—you can hardly turn your back on a flat with all mod cons for the sake of a cat.’

      ‘No?’ She put her head through the window and he kissed her. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, Nigel. See you around. I’m going home this weekend.’

      He hadn’t said he would come in for coffee and just at that moment she didn’t particularly want him to. She was being silly about Wellington, but he could at least have sympathised and tried to think of a way out. The kitten came to meet her as she opened her door and she picked him up and wandered restlessly round her room while he arranged himself round her neck, purring into her ear. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told him, ‘I’ll not part with you.’

      In bed later, common sense came to her rescue; she had been edgy all the evening, they had got off to a bad start, from her point of view at least, with the professor making an unwelcome third at their meeting, and Nigel’s mother and her tiresome plans… No, it went back further than that; she had been put out because Nigel had gone off to Bristol on his own when she could so easily have gone with him if only he’d asked her in time. It’ll be all right tomorrow, she promised herself and slept on the thought.

      She didn’t see Nigel at all during the next day; he would be operating for most of the day and she was kept busy with a couple of admissions and lengthy sessions with Mrs Collins’ niece, who, although kind hearted and sensible, quite obviously didn’t want the bother of arranging her aunt’s future.

      ‘It won’t be for some time yet,’ Julia pointed out reasonably, ‘Mrs Collins isn’t fit to move and won’t be for several weeks. We don’t expect you to make a home for her, the social worker attached to the hospital is willing to find out about some sort of accommodation for her, not too far from you, if possible. What we really want to get straight is if you could deal with her possessions and pay up her landlady and so on? Social Security will help you financially…’

      It was a relief to have things settled at last; she told Dick Reed when he came on the ward later and went with him to see the two new patients. Chest cases both of them. He spent some time examining them, wrote up their notes, expressed the opinion that they would do well enough until the professor’s round on Thursday, and then went away again.

      Julia, who loved her work, decided that evening that she needed a holiday, she was getting stale and vaguely discontented; not like her at all. There had been tentative plans for her to go to Portugal with Fiona and Mary, sometime in October, but she didn’t think that was what she wanted. Home would be the best place—a week or ten days pottering round with her mother, riding in the mornings, going to the rather staid dinner parties their elderly friends gave from time to time and spending days with friends of her own age who she so seldom saw nowadays. She thought about it all the next day, discussed it with Fiona and Mary and quite made up her mind. It only remained for her to tell Nigel and she could do that when they next spent an evening together; if he could manage it, he could spend a weekend…

      Her plans buoyed her up all the next day and even the wet early morning dreariness of Thursday morning couldn’t depress her. She prepared for the professor’s round with more than usual briskness and greeted him cheerfully. His response, as usual, was coolly polite but she hardly noticed that. The round went well even if it was rather protracted and presently he and Dick Reed drank their coffee while they discussed their patient’s conditions, adding instructions to those Julia already had, handing her endless signed forms for her to fill in. They had just finished when Dick Reed was called away to an admission in Casualty. The professor made no move from the radiator where he was sitting. ‘Let me know if you want me, Dick,’ he advised and when the door had closed behind his Registrar: ‘You look tired, Julia, you need a holiday.’

      She looked up from the notes she was tidying on the desk. ‘Well, I’m going to have one,’ she told him with satisfaction. ‘I’m going home for ten days in a couple of weeks’ time.’

      ‘And where is home?’ The question was so idly put that she answered without thought. ‘Near Salisbury—along the Chalke Valley—it’s a small village. Stratford Bissett…’

      ‘A delightful name. Your father lives there?’

      ‘Yes, he’s a retired schoolmaster, at least not quite retired, he takes boys in their holidays for cramming and visits two prep schools each week.’ She suddenly realised that she was giving away a whole lot of information to someone who couldn’t be in the least interested, and came to an abrupt halt.

      Her companion didn’t seem to notice, he went on, almost lazily. ‘You have brothers and sisters?’

      She reflected that they had known each other for more than three—almost four—years and never once had he evinced any interest in her as a person. She said ‘Yes,’ and that was all.

      He couldn’t have been all that interested; he got up after a few moments, reminded her that he would be taking a teaching round the next afternoon and went away.

      He was at his most remote when he arrived on the ward the following day accompanied by half a dozen students. And two can play at that game, she decided,