The Convenient Wife. Betty Neels

fine in the morning; her arm was sore and stiff, but her headache had gone. She ate the breakfast brought to her and then got up and trailed around in her dressing-gown, sharing elevenses with those of her firm friends who were off duty, watching TV, and doing her nails. Her hands were scratched and grazed, and she was surprised to find that there were bruises on her person, most of them, luckily, out of sight. Her face was scratched as well, and she spent some time rubbing in a cream guaranteed to give instant beauty, offered to her by the generous Caroline. It made very little difference to her ordinary features, and since she had a lovely complexion already it did little good, although it did a lot for her ego.

      She went on duty the next morning, and since the ward was still extremely busy there was plenty for her to do, even with one hand: TPRs, adjusting drips, feeding patients, helping the hard-pressed staff nurses with dressings. The day passed very quickly, and although she was late off duty it was still not quite six o’clock when she left the ward.

      Her arm was aching now, and she thought thankfully of her bed. She would go to first supper and then get between the sheets. The thought sent her hurrying down the stone staircase and into the main corridor which ran from end to end of the hospital. She was almost at its end when Professor ter Laan-Luitinga turned the corner, walking slowly, a sheaf of papers under one arm, and deep in thought. So deep, she just hoped that he wouldn’t see her.

      It wasn’t until he had passed her that she was brought to a halt by his voice.

      ‘Nurse—wait.’

      She turned reluctantly, but stayed where she was.

      ‘Where have I seen you before?’ His eyes lighted on the wide strapping on her arm. ‘Good lord, who would have thought it?’

      A remark which she took in good part; she must have been unrecognisable in Casualty. ‘Well, I’m clean now,’ she pointed out matter-of-factly, and added a hasty, ‘sir’.

      His alarming eyebrows drew together. ‘Why are you on duty?’

      ‘Well, the ward’s awfully busy, and there aren’t enough of us to go round.’ She smiled at him re-assuringly. ‘But we can manage. I’m sure you have plenty to worry you, too. I hope that boy is going to do—’

      ‘Yes, eventually.’

      ‘Oh, good. I expect you are very tired,’ she added kindly, ‘operating and all that. I dare say you could do with a good sleep.’

      He stared down at her over his commanding nose. ‘When I need advice, Nurse, I will ask you for it.’

      His astounded stare at her ‘Oh, good,’ reminded her to add ‘sir’ again.

      He turned on his heel, and then paused. ‘Your name, Nurse?’

      ‘Forbes, Venetia Forbes.’ She added, ‘I’m not supposed to speak to consultants—I’m only just second year, you see.’

      ‘Pray accept my apologies for making it necessary for you to address me, Nurse Forbes.’

      She gave him another smile. ‘Well, of course, I will. I think it’s very handsome of you to say that. I mean, you don’t even need to notice me…’

      ‘I am relieved to hear that.’ He gave her a frowning nod and walked away.

      She watched his vast person disappearing down the corridor until he turned a corner. ‘Very testy,’ she declared to the emptiness around her. ‘I dare say he’d rather be in Holland—perhaps he’s got a wife and children there. Poor fellow.’

      The poor fellow, discussing with his registrar the finer points of the craniotomy he was to perform on the following morning, paused suddenly to ask, ‘Do you know of a Nurse Forbes, Arthur?’

      If Arthur Miles was surprised, he concealed it nicely. ‘Venetia Forbes? First or second year nurse on the men’s surgical. You stitched her arm in Cas; a glass splinter, if you remember, sir.’

      ‘I remember.’

      ‘Nice little thing, by all accounts. On the plain side, but you must have seen that. Liked by everyone; no wiles, and a bit shy, though she can be remarkably plain-spoken.’

      ‘Indeed?’ The professor lost all interest. ‘Now, I thought I’d try that new drill…’

      Venetia had gone on her way to the nurses’ home, to gossip with her friends until it was time for supper, and then retire to her room to drink tea with those of them who weren’t going out for the evening. Almost all her friends had some kind of love-affair in progress and, since she made a good listener, she knew the ins and outs of them all, but if she felt that she was missing romance she never said so. To anyone who asked her she replied that she was quite happy to visit her granny on her days off, and in her off-duty to visit the art galleries and museums easily reached by bus. They made a nice change from the dull streets encircling the hospital in the east end of London; they didn’t cost much, either.

      She always went to her grandmother’s house on her days off. A small, red brick cottage in a row of similar ones, tucked away behind the opulent avenues of Hampstead, it had been home for her for the last five or six years, ever since her mother and father had been killed in a car accident. She had no brothers or sisters, and, for that matter, no uncles or aunts, either. Save for a cousin of her father’s whom she had never met, and who lived somewhere in Yorkshire, she and her grandmother were without kith and kin. Her grandmother hadn’t always lived there; when Venetia was very small she had gone with her mother and father to visit her grandparents at a nice old house on the edge of a Sussex village, but when her grandfather had died a good deal of his income had died with him, and her grandmother had moved to the little house she now lived in to be near Venetia’s parents, who lived in a pleasant house on the other side of the Heath. It wasn’t until after their deaths that she discovered that the house had been rented, and what money there was was barely enough to feed and clothe her. All the same, her grandmother had insisted that she should continue at school until she had her A levels. She was eighteen by then, and, although she had been offered a place at one of the lesser universities, she had got a paid job instead as a receptionist to a team of doctors and then, almost two years ago, she had persuaded her grandmother to let her train as a nurse.

      She had had no regrets; she enjoyed her work and, being a friendly soul, had no trouble in making friends. The patients liked her, too, for she was patient and good-tempered and most sympathetic without being sentimental. The pay wasn’t very much, for she had to pay board and lodging to the hospital, but there was enough over to buy clothes and help out her grandmother’s small income. And it would get better—in a little over a year she would be trained, with more freedom, more money and a chance to work where she fancied.

      It was three days later that she met the professor again. She had raced off duty at five o’clock, changed into a sweater and skirt, brushed her hair and tied it back, packed what she would need for a couple of days into a big shoulder-bag, dragged on her jacket and sped down to the entrance. The rush hour was on and she would have to get into a queue for a bus, but she would still be home in time for supper.

      She was half-way across the vast expanse of the entrance hall when she saw the professor making for the door from the other side—the side sacred to consultants, the hospital secretary’s office and the boardroom. He was going fast, and if she slowed her steps there would be no need to encounter him—on the other hand, if she just hurried more she might slip through the door ahead of him. The quicker she got to the bus stop the better the chance of getting on a bus at this hour of day.

      As it turned out they arrived at the door together, and to her annoyance he opened it for her and then stood so that she couldn’t get past him.

      ‘Ah, Nurse Forbes. You have had the stitches out?’

      ‘Thank you, yes, sir. You stitched it beautifully; there’ll be almost no scar.’

      His firm mouth twitched. ‘I do my best. Why are you dancing around like that? Are you in a hurry?’

      She had indeed been edging round him. ‘I’m going to catch a bus.’

      ‘Where