Kitabı oku: «Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions»

CONTENTS

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 1

“Don’t forget to water the plants, dear.”

“No, Mum.”

“Not too much water. You don’t have to drown them.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Make sure you close all the windows and lock everything up when you go out.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Don’t forget to let the cat out.”

“No, Dad.”

“And don’t let Natalie stay up too late watching television. She’s still growing, you know.”

“Yes, Mum.”

Mum picks up her gloves and handbag and looks round the room.

“I’m certain there was something else I wanted to say.”

“There’ll always be something else you want to say,” says Dad, wearily. “Hurry up, Mary, or we’ll miss the train.”

“You’ll be good girls, won’t you?” says Mum. “Oh, dear. I wish I wasn’t going, now.”

“What do you mean, ‘now’?” says Dad. “I never wanted to go and stay with your sister in the first place. It’s bad enough having her here, but at least I can suffer in my own home.”

“Have a lovely time, Mum,” says Natalie. “You too. Dad. I hope the weather stays nice for you.”

“It never has done yet,” sniffs Dad. “Every time we go there it’s ‘Oh dear, what a pity. If only you’d been able to come last week. The sun shone from dawn till dusk.’ I don’t believe it ever stops raining.”

“Don’t listen to your father,” says Mum patiently. “He loves it when he gets there.”

“If he gets there. If you don’t get a move on we’re going to miss that train.”

“You’re the one who’s doing all the talking, dear.”

“You should have got a taxi,” says Natalie.

“I’m not made of money, my girl,” says Dad. “The train fare alone comes to over five quid.”

“I’ll give you a hand with the bag, Mum.” Unless I do something to get them out of the house they will be here all night.

Mum still looks worried. “I wish I could remember what it was I was going to say.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll think of something. Goodbye, Rosie.”

“Goodbye, Dad. Have a nice time.”

I open the front door and everyone gets in each other’s way. Eventually we finish saying goodbye and Natalie whistles through her teeth and leans back against the door. “Do you really think that—” She stops as I press my finger against my lips. Instead of dying away the sound of footsteps is getting louder. There is a moment’s silence and then the door bell rings. Hardly has the first note sounded than I fling open the door. “Here’s your handbag, Mum.”

“Oh yes. How silly of me. What I really came back for was to remind you about the rhubarb. I couldn’t get it all in the fridge so I put it on top of the cupboard. You won’t forget it, will you?”

“No, Mum.”

Mum shakes her head. “I know there’s something else. I’ll probably think of it on the train.”

“There isn’t going to be a bleeding train,” yodels Dad.

“I’ll drop you a postcard.” Mum waves hurriedly and follows Dad down the street. I hear him shout “There you are, we just missed one”, before they disappear from sight.

“I don’t dare say anything,” says Natalie as we close the door. “What time is the train supposed to go?”

“Half past four.”

“So we won’t know whether they got it until about half past five. I won’t be able to live through the tension. Can I borrow one of your ciggies?”

She does not wait for me to reply but dives into my handbag.

“What do you mean ‘borrow’? You never give anything back. Anyway, you know Mum doesn’t like you smoking.”

“What she doesn’t know isn’t going to worry her. Lots of girls at school smoke much more than I do.”

“Well, borrow their fags, then. They can obviously afford it.”

Natalie lights up and blows a big cloud of smoke at the flies on the ceiling. “Free! Isn’t that fantastic? Six whole days of bachelor girl living. When are we going to have the orgy?” Some girls might be joking. With Natalie you never know. She is three years younger than me but I wonder about her sometimes. There can’t be many fifteen-year-old girls who have grown out of three bras.

“You know what Mum said,” I warn. “No parties.”

“I wasn’t talking about a party, was I? Come on, Rosie. Don’t say you’re going to turn into a recording of Mum’s voice the minute the door is closed.”

“Do use an ashtray,” I tell her.

“What did I tell you? I do wish you could listen to yourself sometimes. You want to get a job as a school teacher. You’re wasting your time down at the tech.”

“You worry about me when you’ve got your ‘O’ levels, Lolita.” It is fast occurring to me that a week with Raquel Welchlet could well result in a few frayed nerve ends.

“Brains aren’t everything,” says my gay, fun-loving little sister. “I want to be a model, anyway.”

I watch her experimenting with the buttons on her stretch cotton blouse to see how many she can undo before her navel appears and understand why Mum and Dad worry about us so much. “Models aren’t idiots,” I say.

“I’m not an idiot,” says Natalie. “I’m a fire sign, that’s all. Outward going and uninhibited.”

“I don’t believe in horoscopes,” I tell her. “Scorpios never do.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” A sense of humour is not one of Natalie’s strong points. “Seriously though.” She buttons up the reasons why she was voted the most popular girl in her class—there were more boys than girls. “We ought to have a party to repay all the hospitality we’ve received. You could invite all your friends from the tennis club.” The way she says “tennis club” she makes it sound like “geriatrics anonymous”.

“I wish you wouldn’t go on about the tennis club. I just like watching tennis, that’s all.”

“And your lover, Geoffrey.” Natalie wags a finger at me. “Oh yes. I know all about the two of you looking for lost balls in the long grass.”

“What do you expect us to do, leave them there?”

“This was after the club dance.”

“Oh ‘Natalie’ I wish you could get it into your thick head that Geoffrey Wilkes and I are not lovers.” I hope I sound convincing because I would like to be persuaded myself. Somebody must have put something in the fruit cup that night, because when we went behind the privet I began to feel quite weak at the knees. Maybe it was the night air. There had been a terrible fug in the clubhouse. Geoffrey started kissing me and trying to put his hand up my skirt and I remember wishing that he was that aggressive on the tennis court. Perhaps that is why I gave him the teeniest bit of encouragement. Silly, really, but I just wanted to know what it felt like. It was not until I saw my panties hanging out of his jacket pocket that I realised what was happening. We were lying behind the roller and he was making the most incredible grunting noises. I was kissing him more to keep him quiet than for any other reason. He was behaving terribly badly because he was taking advantage of me. The fruit cup was quite harmless on the previous occasions I had been to the club. His fingers were running riot in my reception area and I was in such a state that I did not know where they ended and his pork banana began. I should have been paying more attention but I was so frightened that someone might come—I mean approach, of course. I was just getting rather worried when he suddenly rolled off me and was sick behind the roller. It was terribly embarrassing and I felt quite ill myself as I hurried back to the club house. I don’t think anything had happened—I mean to me, of course—but it was a very nasty experience. When Geoffrey came in five minutes later, the colour of a dead cabbage leaf, with my panties still hanging out of his pocket I could have died. Everybody was so rude and I am not surprised that Natalie heard about it. It just shows how careful you have got to be.

“That’s not what I heard. You gave him your knicks to blow his nose on, did you?”

I ignore this tasteless remark and become engrossed in the TV Times. It is unhealthy the way Natalie harps on about sex the whole time.

“Ooh! look. They’ve got a repeat of Casualty Ward.”

“What? Now? Smashing,” Natalie drops her fag into her tea cup and follows me into the front room. I wish I had kept my mouth shut because I would much rather curl up with Edward Chancellor by myself. He is the sexy star of the show Doctor Eradlik.

“Haven’t you got any homework to do?” I snap.

“They don’t give us homework.”

“Well, they should. When I was your age I was—” I start to think about more important things as dreamboat’s face looms up on the screen. Some people think he is too pretty, but when he looks straight at the camera like that I feel my tongue creeping out of my mouth and running nervously along my upper lip—at least, I think it is nerves.

“Her skin may be black but her kidney is the same colour as a white girl’s.”

“Doctor Eradlik! You don’t mean—!”

“Yes, Sandy. There’s no time for prejudice when a man is dying.”

“Would you like to have a spade’s kidney?” says Natalie thoughtfully.

“Ssssh!”

“I don’t think I would myself. I’ve nothing against them but—”

“Shut up!” I hiss.

Eradlik stops tapping his folded stethoscope against the palm of his hand and looks at his watch. ‘If Gruntstone doesn’t give his consent to the operation in the next five minutes, it’s going to be too late.’

“That bigot will never give his consent to anything that involves his son having a black girl’s kidney. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You look beautiful when you’re mad, Nurse Timkins. Your eyes blaze like all those stars out there.”

“You mustn’t kiss me, Doctor. I’m supposed to be sterilised.”

“I couldn’t believe that lips so sweet and pure could ever bear the stigma of stapyhylococci.”

Dream Snogger is just about to put his beautiful mouth to work when the telephone rings. I don’t mean the telly telephone but the one in our hall. I wait hopefully for Natalie to answer it but I am wasting my time. God help him if it is some adenoidal little pimple factory wanting to know if my kid sister is going to the youth club—or Teen Scene as the new vicar now calls it. I try and catch her eye as I stalk past but she is staring at the screen with her thumb in her mouth and her skirt up to her panties.

“Don’t scratch yourself like that,” I say primly.

“Why not? I’ve got an itch.”

“It’s not nice.” I pick up the telephone. “Hello!” My voice is meant to sound about as welcoming as Moshe Dayan being invited to judge the Miss Egypt Beauty Contest. There is a pip, pip, pip and the line goes dead. I return to the front room.

“That was Mum,” I say.

“What did she want?”

“She hasn’t got through yet. What’s happened?”

“They can’t wait any longer so he’s doing an emergency operation without the father’s consent.”

“And using the black girl’s kidney?”

“I think so. Do you smell anything?”

“Only that awful perfume of yours. You don’t wear that at school, do you?”

“Of course not. I don’t want to enslave them.”

“Smells like something burning. You didn’t leave anything on in the kitchen, did you?”

Natalie shakes her head. “No.”

“Well, don’t just sit there. Go and have a look.”

“Why me?”

“Because I just answered the telephone.”

Natalie nods towards the telly. “It’s better if you go because I know what’s happening and I can tell you. If I go—”

“Oh, stay there and mind you don’t scratch another hole in yourself!”

“Charming!”

I make tracks for the kitchen and the smell of burning gets worse with every step. Don’t say the rhubarb has caught fire. I glance at the dials on the cooker and wrench open the oven door. Crikey! I haven’t seen so much smoke since Dad borrowed an indoor barbecue set. I grab a couple of wet tea towels and drop the burnt offering in the sink where it sizzles merrily. It looks as if it might once have been a steak and kidney pud. In the hall the telephone rings.

“Telephone!” shouts Natalie helpfully. I make a quick list of the ten ways I would most like to kill her and snatch up the receiver. Pip, pip, pip, pip …

“I’ve found the steak and kidney pud, Mum,” I speak the second the pips stop.

“I’ve no time to talk now, dear,” says Mum. “Listen carefully. There’s a steak and kidney pud in the oven which should have come out half an hour ago.”

“I found it, Mum.”

“You must take it out immediately.”

“I have done, Mum.”

“Do you understand, dear? I can’t talk because the train is just about to go and your father is shouting at me. There’s a steak and—”

There is a muffled squawk and a noise that could be Dad yelling something I am grateful I cannot understand.

“Hello? Mum?” I can still hear station noises in the background and I imagine that Mum must have left the phone dangling as Dad dragged her away. I am about to hang up when I hear a sound like someone breathing and a voice full of eastern promise purrs from the receiver.

“Hullo, how are you?” says a man’s voice.

“Hello,” I say. On the spur of the moment it is difficult to think of anything else to say.

“Dear lady, how happy I am to be speaking to you. You do not know me but I am of strong build and reaching towards the upper limits of those considerably in excess of five feet tall. I am only recently arrived in your country and would be most happy if you would go out with me. I have had many happy reports of the friendly disposition of the ladies of London and I would like to put them to the test.” His voice drones on and I have half a mind to call Natalie.

“I’m sorry but I’m married,” I say. I mean, there is no need to be unkind, is there?

“I eat husbands for breakfast!” insists the voice at the other end of the line. “My ardour is unquenchable. I am a lion! By the holy waters of the Ganges I will—”

I put down the receiver with a shaking hand. I know that there are some funny people about but why do they always have to pick on me? Only the other day the middle aged man sitting opposite me in the tube whipped open his mac to reveal something that looked like a small garden gnome weathered by a million years of non-stop rain. By the time I had opened my eyes he had got out at Clapham North.

That was not an isolated incident. Strange men are always rubbing themselves against me on public transport—and some of them are not so strange either. I thought the fellow with the bowler hat who had his umbrella jammed against my reception area was unaware of what he was doing—until I saw that he did not have an umbrella. Why does it always have to be me? I know girls who spend their whole lives waiting for a man to flash himself at them. I only have to look at a man below a line drawn at right angles to the top of his zipper and I have an evens chance of copping an eyeful of crotch insulation. I have the same effect on men’s willies as a summer shower on a lawn full of thirsty worms.

“I didn’t know you were married,” says Natalie as I come through the door. “Geoffrey put you in the family way, did he?”

“I was getting rid of another crank,” I say.

“You mean Mum?” asks Natalie.

“Her as well. She put a pie in the oven for us.”

“And Geoffrey put a bun in the oven for you. It’s our lucky day, isn’t it?”

“Do stop going on about Geoffrey. I just watch him play tennis sometimes, that’s all.”

“And soak up the ritzy atmosphere at Eastwood Tennis Club. Was that Mum’s pud we smelt?”

“Yes. Steak and kidney.”

Natalie pulls a face. “I wouldn’t have been able to eat it anyway. Doctor Dish has just whipped out that black bird’s kidney.”

“Is she all right?”

“She is at the moment, but she’s not going to last, is she?”

“Why not?”

“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? If you’re black you never last long on this programme. Specially if you’ve been going out with a white fellow. It saves all the embarrassment. See? She’s going to snuff it. The little white light has stopped bleeping.”

“I’ve seen them come back after the little white light has stopped bleeping.”

“Not black ones, you haven’t. Anyway, it’s two weeks since somebody kicked the bucket so we’re due for a spot of the deathbeds. It makes the whole thing more realistic, doesn’t it? You watch.”

Natalie’s blood is colder than an eskimo’s inside leg measurement and I can’t remember her crying since Mum put her David Cassidy T-shirt in the washing machine—he came out looking like Wee Georgie Wood.

On the screen, emotions are running higher than the interest rate on a hire purchase agreement. Doctor Eradlik is gazing into the camera as usual and behind him a brash young voice can be heard.

‘Sure. I feel great, doc. How’s Dawn?’ An expression of refined pain flashes across Eradlik’s beautiful face. ‘What’s the matter, Doc? Is something wrong? Doc—’

The voice breaks off in mid-speech even before Eradlik has swung round. ‘You’re not going to find this very easy, Sonny. I’m not finding it very easy myself. You see, Dawn gave you much more than just her kidney.’

‘You mean—?’

‘Yes, Sonny. She gave you her life.’

“Just like I said,” interrupts Natalie.

“Ssssh!” Natalie has no soul. Lots of body but no soul. Sonny is reacting badly to the news so Eradlik puts his hand on his shoulder and gazes into the camera again. ‘We found out after the operation that only one of her kidneys was working.’

‘You mean—?’

‘That’s right. The one she gave to you.’

‘So she knew?’

‘Yes, Sonny. She knew. But she also knew that you didn’t know, and knowing that gave her the strength to know herself.’ The camera moves from Eradlik’s face to the sobbing Sonny and then outside to a shot of the sun rising over a hill.

“I like the end bit best, when he walks down the long corridor and the girl is waiting for him with the sports car,” says Natalie. “The music is nice, too.”

I pat the tears out of my eyes with a Kleenex and prepare to wrestle with Mum’s burnt dish.

“You know, I think I’d really like to be a nurse,” I say. “I really would.”

CHAPTER 2

“I hope nothing goes wrong,” I say.

“Of course nothing will go wrong,” says Natalie. “It’s only a little party.”

It is the day before Mum and Dad are due to come home and much against my better judgement I have been nagged into giving a party with Natalie. The way news of us being on our own has rocketed round the neighbourhood you would think we were a couple of queen bees who had put up a notice saying “Come and get it!” outside the entrance to the hive.

“Don’t you think those trousers are a bit tight?” I say.

“Yes,” says Natalie. “That’s the idea. They’re supposed to be figure-hugging.”

“Figure-hugging? They’re squeezing your body to death. I don’t know how you get into them.”

“You spray them on and wait for them to dry. Don’t be a spoilsport, Rosie. Relax and have a good time.”

“I’m not going to relax until everyone has gone home. You know what Mum said. No parties. She’d go mad if she knew that bunch of refugees from Easy Rider was coming round here tonight.”

“It’s not really a party, more a sorry.”

“You mean a soiree, don’t you? It’ll be a sorry when Dad finds out about it.”

“Why should he find out about it?”

“Because the neighbours are going to tell him, stupid. Mrs Wilson has already got tennis elbow from pulling aside the curtains every time someone comes to the front door.”

“Maybe we should ask her?”

“You must be joking. She’d spend all the time in a corner taking down evidence. The last party she went to was to celebrate the shooting down of the first Zeppelin.”

“What was that?”

“You don’t know anything, do you? It was a German airship used in the first world war.”

“Oh, you mean a giant French letter that carried passengers.”

“Yes. It didn’t carry as many passengers as a real French letter, though.”

“Does Geoffrey use French letters?”

“Why do you suddenly ask that? I don’t know.”

Natalie looks concerned. “Well, you should do. You don’t want to end up in the family way, do you? That would really upset Mum and Dad.”

“What I meant was—Oh, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to discuss my sex life with you, Natalie. You take some of your own advice and watch out tonight.”

I mean it, too. The way the local boys look at Natalie you would think she was a bag of warm aniseed balls thrown over the wall of Battersea Dogs’ Home. At least there is one good thing about those trousers—I can’t see any one getting them off in a hurry.

“What time is Geoffrey coming to make the punch?” Natalie starts to shiver with make-believe ecstasy. “Oh! To think that humble little me is actually going to drink the same punch as they serve down at the tennis club. Will it taste the same without the silver bowl?”

“Depends whether you still have your teeth when you try it,” I say.

Further unpleasantness is prevented by the door bell ringing.

“That’ll be him,” says Natalie. “Lod Raver himself. I can’t wait to see those hairy wrists stirring in the mandarin oranges.”

I restrain myself and open the front door. It is Geoffrey. He is wearing his tennis club blazer as I was frightened he might be. He is about as trendy as cardboard spats.

“Hello Geoff.” Natalie puts on her big smile and Geoffrey beams. She is so two-faced that I could kill her. Even Mum and Dad don’t know what she is really like.

“I’m not too early, am I?” says Geoffrey. He has not looked at me yet. It is just as well that I don’t fancy him.

“Of course not,” simpers my adorable little sister. “In fact, Rosie was getting all screwed up waiting for you. You must excuse me, I’ve got to put my face on.”

“Take care which one you choose,” I hiss, hoping that the venom does not seep through my teeth.

“Fantastic looking bird, your sister,” says Geoffrey admiringly as Natalie disappears up the stairs. “Definitely ladies doubles champion, eh?”

“Are my breasts sagging down to my knees?” I say. “Am I repulsive or just invisible?”

“What are you getting so worked up about?” says Geoffrey. “I only said that your sister was attractive.”

“What about me? You haven’t addressed a word to me yet.”

“You know I think you’re attractive.”

“Not unless you tell me I don’t.”

“But I have told you. I’ve proved it as well.”

Eastwood Tennis Club’s most persistent lobber tries to hoist his hand up my skirt.

“Stop it! You’re here to make the punch.” I push him away from me and am slightly annoyed by the way he gives up so easily. “What have you got in that bag?”

“All the ingredients for an unforgettable evening.”

“Not the stuff we had the night you made such a fool of yourself?”

“I don’t remember you grumbling when we were out by that roller.”

“I wasn’t myself then.”

“Well, whoever you were, you had a damn good time, I can tell you!”

“I’ll leave you to get on with it.” I extend an ear in the direction of the front door. “The rest of the mob will be arriving at any minute.” I pop into the hall and, sure enough, some egg head silhouettes appear against the frosted glass. I open the door as the first finger crashes against the bell push and find myself looking at three greasers in studded leathers and crash helmets. They make the average hell’s angel look like a refugee from Andy Pandy Cleans Up Toytown.’

“Is this where Natalie lives?” says the one with a fringe that looks as if it has been used to sponge some oil from a bicycle chain.

“Yes,” I say. It is a reply I think about a lot in the following weeks. It could so easily have been no.

“I’m Ted and she invited me to her party. These are my mates, Nutter and Flash.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“How do’s.”

All three of them are now behind me.

“Where can we put our helmets?” says Ted. “We don’t want some bleeder pissing in them.”

“I don’t think that’s very likely,” I say haughtily. “Put them down by the hallstand. Shall I take your bottles?’

Ted looks at Nutter who looks at Flash before all three of them look back at me. ‘We haven’t got any bottles, luv. Natalie said there wasn’t going to be any bovver. I’ve got my flick knife but I’m hanging on to it.”

“I don’t think you quite understand,” I say patiently. “You’re supposed to bring your own drink. Didn’t Natalie say it was a bottle party?”

“I can’t remember. No, I don’t think so.”

“I expect it slipped her mind.” I withdraw to the foot of the stairs. “I’ll tell her you’re here, Ted. You and your friends.”

“Ta, luv.”

“Look, Ted, there’s a geezer in there got some booze.”

“You’re right, Flash. Hey, mate, you don’t want to pour that on top of a load of orange peel. That’s wasting it.”

“Yeh. That’s good gin you’ve got there.”

As I reach the top of the stairs I can hear Geoffrey making spluttering noises. “Natalie!” I shout, bursting into the bathroom. “Oh, Natalie! Do you know—crikey!”

Natalie’s eyelids have been extended towards her temples so that she looks like bride of Batman. Each eyelash is a stamen thick with mascara.

“Don’t start on me, for gawd’s sake!” she says, reading my expression. “It’s my party as well, you know.”

“I’ll talk to you about the ‘as well’ later,” I say. “At the moment there’s three ton-up merchants down there threatening to smash up your party before it’s even started.”

Natalie goes to the window. “Oh yes. That’s a bit naughty of them, leaving their bikes on Mrs Wilson’s front lawn, isn’t it?”

“What!” By the time I have checked that Junior Fun-lover is not joking she has left the room.

I rush downstairs and find Flash helping himself from the half empty gin bottle while Ted embraces my sister. I use the term embrace in order to avoid embarrassing my more sensitive readers.

“Who are these people?” hisses Geoffrey. “They’ve drunk nearly everything I was going to put in the punch.”

“They’re friends of Natalie’s,” I whisper. “Watch them like a hawk.”

Talking of watching, the one called Nutter is leering at me as if someone has just told him that I have his photograph pinned up over my bed. “Wanna dance?” he says.

“There isn’t any music,” explains Geoffrey.

“Well, don’t just stand there with that lemon in your hand. Hum ‘The Blue Danube’.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snaps Geoffrey. He can be very rude to line judges.

“Don’t you call me ridiculous, mate,” says Nutter, menacingly. “I’m not wearing a poofy blazer.”

“I’ll put something on,” I say, hurriedly.

“I’d rather you took something off, luv.” Nutter winks at Flash who laughs slowly like treacle flowing down a plug hole. He is obviously the ugly, silent type.

“What about the punch?” hisses Geoffrey. “It’s pure fruit juice at the moment.”

“We’ll have to borrow some of Dad’s booze and put it back later.”

“Where is it?”

“I hid it to be on the safe side. It’s in the—” I break off as Ted walks past me drinking from a bottle of scotch. I know it is Dad’s because of the biro marks on the side. “Cheers,” sings out Ted, nodding to us. “Going to have some music? That’s nice.”

“—In the bread bin in the kitchen,” I continue. “You’d better move fast before there’s nothing left.”

“Hurry up with the music, Rosie. People want to dance.” Natalie takes a swig of Ted’s bottle and drapes herself over him like ivy. At that moment I think I could probably kill her in about fifteen seconds. I put a record on and go out as the front door bell rings again.

An hour later, I am feeling slightly better. A lot more people have come and not all of them look as if they would take the gas meter home with them for the loose change.

Geoffrey has put a bottle of sherry and half a bottle of egg flip—Flash washed his hair with the other half, I think—in the punch and it has certainly given it body. Not that it was short in this department after I added the tin of Russian Salad. I think this might have been a mistake because a rumour went round that someone had been sick in the bowl. Still, it did help make it last a bit longer. What with Dad’s booze and all the odds and ends we have picked from the larder the party is going to cost a fortune. Despite that, I will have no regrets if nothing disastrous happens. Geoffrey gets very worked up every time I dance with Flash or Nutter but I keep explaining to him that Hells Angels do dance like that and I am prepared to put up with it if it saves the family home. Nutter is quite attractive in a greasy sort of way, rather like Elvis with slightly more hip twitching. Of course he is not my type but silly Geoffrey does not seem to understand this. I have just removed Nutter’s hand from my behind for the umpteenth time when Geoffrey pushes between us.

“I’m going to have to have it out with you if you’re not careful,” he snaps.

“I’ve been trying to have it out with her, but she doesn’t want to know,” says Nutter wittily. “Still, the night is young. Why don’t you push off back to Butlins and make the most of it?”

“Boys, please!” I say. As you can imagine, the thought of these two brute male hunks battling to the death over me is too horrible for words. I am about to say more when Natalie appears at my side. This is good news in some respects as I thought she was permanently attached to Ted’s side.

“Mrs Wilson is at the door,” she says.

“Oh my God! What does she want?”

“You.”

“Got a bit of aggro, have you?” says Nutter helpfully. “Want me to put the nut on someone? I’ll get the boys. Ted—”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” I say hurriedly. I take off for the door and there is Mrs W. bristling like an electric hedgehog. “You’ve got to do something about the noise,” she shouts. “I don’t know what you’re doing in there.” She peers past me into the interior and I see Ted and Natalie scampering up the stairs. The studs on Ted’s back spell “Ted” and a V sign.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I say. “I’ll try and get them to quieten down a bit. It’s somebody’s birthday, you see.”

“I can’t see what that has to do with it. Some of us have to work in the morning, you know.”

“Of course.” I try and close the door. I don’t want to leave Ted and Natalie alone upstairs for a second longer than I have to. As I glance over my shoulder I see Flash and Nutter leaving a film of grease on the bannisters.

“Don’t try and slam the door in my face, miss! The noise isn’t the main reason why I came. Have you seen my front lawn?” I glance over the hedge and my heart sinks. The glistening handlebars of the bikes remind me of a reindeer round-up. There must be stands at Earls Court that have fewer bikes on them.

“I’m terribly sorry. I’ll get them off at once.”

“If you don’t, I’m going to ring the police. The whole thing is quite disgraceful. Your parents aren’t here, are they?”

“They’ll be back tomorrow,” I simper.

“Humpf!” Mrs Wilson takes another look past me just as one of Geoffrey’s friends pushes out of the front door and is sick all over Mum’s petunias. Oh dear. How very unfortunate. Mrs Wilson stalks down the garden path still muttering and I shoot back into the house. The first thing I see is Geoffrey holding his dripping nose over the rubber plant in the hall. He can be very thoughtful sometimes.

“Did one of them hit you?” I say. “Oh dear, I am sorry. Can you try and get everyone to make less noise? The woman next door is threatening to call the police.”

Geoffrey says something to the effect that she can’t call the police soon enough as far as he is concerned but I laugh it off and make a run for the stairs. I have a vision of Ted trying to tug Natalie’s trousers off while Flash and Nutter wander around helping themselves to the flying ducks.

I dash into Natalie’s room and find to my relief that it is empty. Perhaps she is in the toilet. Somebody must be because there are half a dozen people waiting outside.

“I think Jim’s passed out,” says one of them. He puts his eye to the keyhole.

“Can you see him?”

“No. His head’s in the way. HEY JIM!!”

“Don’t shout like that!” I yell. “One of the neighbours has threatened to call the police.”

“She should call the fire brigade,” says one of the onlookers.

“Get him out but don’t make a noise.” I am beginning to feel that things are getting on top of me. Where are Natalie and those terrible greasers? Surely they couldn’t be in—? No. It is too horrible to think about. I throw open the door of Mum and Dad’s bedroom and—

“Hello, darling. What took you so long?”

At first I think it is just Ted and Flash on the bed and then I see Natalie lying between them—naked!! Nutter is hopping round the room trying to take off a boot.

“Get off that bed,” I shout before remembering to lower my voice. “This is my mother’s bedroom.”

“That’s why we’re playing mummies and daddies,” says Ted.

“Nineteen seventies style,” says Nutter.

“Yeah,” says Flash.

“Don’t be a spoilsport,” says Natalie. “Don’t take any notice of her. She’s jealous because she hasn’t got anyone.”

“Get off that bed,” I hiss. “You’re drunk and you’ve no idea what you’re doing.” I grab her by the arm and haul her to her feet. “Get out. I’ll handle this.”

“You can handle this and all,’ says Nutter who has now got his boot off. I tear my eyes away from the enormous love truncheon rearing up like a fascist salute and bundle Natalie towards the door. She loses no time bursting into tears. “You hate me, don’t you?” she sobs. “You never want me to have any fun.”

I grab Mum’s dressing gown from the hook on the door and shove it into her arms as I push her out into the corridor. I should be getting some kind of medal for the efforts I am making.

“And now you three can get your clothes on, get downstairs, and get your bikes off Mrs Wilson’s lawn.”

“Who’s she?”

“Must be the old tart next door,” says Ted. “She looking for trouble, is she?”

“I’m looking for trouble,” I say. “If you don’t get out of here immediately, I’m going to ring for the police.”

If I had expected my audience to bash their heads together in a mad rush for the door I would be disappointed.

“You know what your trouble is, darling?” says Ted. “You’re too tense.”

“Up tight is what he means,” says Nutter, folding his arms round me. “You want to relax more.”

“Let me go!” I say. It is awful because I can feel his thing pressing against my tummy. I try to struggle but he is terribly strong. Hairy, too.

“She needs a little relieving massage,” says Ted. “Bring her over here.” He stretches out an arm and pulls me down onto the bed.

“You touch me and I’ll scream,” I warn him.

“And disturb all the neighbours? You don’t want to do that.”

He runs his hand over my stomach and I notice that he has incredibly hairy wrists. On some men I find that quite sexy.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I say.

“Massage,” says Ted.

“Yeah,” says Flash. Of the three I like him the least. Not, of course, that I would pay for any of the others to go to charm school.

“You’re getting the counterpane filthy,” I say.

“For you, Princess, I’ll take it off. Now. Why don’t you do something like that?” Before I can say anything he has put his hand up my skirt and is pulling at my tights and panties. “I like these long skirts, don’t you, Nutter?”

“Yeh, they keep your neck warm.”

I am in big trouble. If I start screaming, all the neighbours will hear and Mrs Wilson will call the police. There is also Natalie to consider. By lying here and letting them do these awful things to me I am protecting her. It is terrible but—

“Help me peel her,” says Ted.

“Yeah,” says Flash.

Their crude hands force down my skirt while by word and gesture I try to convey my revulsion.

“Bet you’re feeling better already,” says Nutter as he kneels across me and starts popping open the buttons of my silk blouse. They are covered in fabric and I can just see the problems I am going to have getting the grease stains out. Nutter is half naked and in a matter of minutes the person wearing most on the bed is Flash. He has on a grey string vest which might one day have been white. Clothes are littered all over the room and I can see my lovely plaid skirt lying in a crumbled heap on the floor. I am so distressed that I can hardly find the strength to push Ted away. His disgustingly lithe, muscle-packed body looms over mine and he begins to gnaw one of my nipples as if it is a wad of chewing tobacco. On all sides, pussy-pummellers menace me like loaded weapons.

“Right, darling,” says Ted. “Cop this.”

“If you’re going to do that,” I say to Flash, “take your boots off the pillowcase.”

Honestly, the things I have to go through for my sister.

CHAPTER 3

It was awful getting raped. I mean—not so much getting raped as all the embarrassment it caused. Especially with Geoffrey. It was a pity that he had to come barging in to say that the police were in the hall just as Nutter was—perhaps I had better not say what Nutter was doing. I don’t really like to think about it myself.

As you can imagine, I was in a terrible state. I mean, after all I had gone through, to find that the police were downstairs was really too much. And so sneaky, too. I thought they were supposed to ring bells and all that kind of thing. At least Natalie had been spared. This thought was some comfort to me in the trying days to come.

I will always remember the expression on Geoffrey’s face as he slumped back against Mum’s dressing table and watched Nutter and Flash trying to put on the same pair of pants—I think they were mine in any case.

“Don’t just stand there, Geoffrey,” I have to tell him. “Come and help straighten this counterpane.”

“You swines!” He can be so emotional sometimes it is quite embarrassing. He hurls himself at Ted and collects another punch on the nose as the hideous trio make a bolt for the stairs.

“Geoffrey, please! If you’re going to start bleeding all over everything again you might as well go downstairs.” I mean, as if I did not have enough problems.

Geoffrey is practically wringing his hands. “Did they—? Did you—? Were you—?”

“It’s no good crying over spilt milt—I mean, milk,” I say, fluffing up the pillows. “Pull yourself together, Geoffrey. It’s not the end of the world. Anyway I don’t see what you’re getting so agitated about. I had to put up with all the unpleasantness.”

For a moment I think he is going to burst into tears. It is a shame really because I am only trying to be level-headed like Nurse Dubotaki on the Dr Eradlik show. Just “picking up the pieces” as she would put it.

Downstairs there are more policemen than you would find in a raid on a strip club and by the time they leave, the front garden is churned up worse than Mrs Wilson’s lawn—rotten old bag! Apparently some of the neighbours reported a man trying to crawl through the toilet window while the rest of the calls were just about the noise. Anyway, six police cars turn up which is considered a local record. They are very unhappy about Jim Whats-his-name? in the toilet because they think he has been trying to flush acid round the bend. When they break the door down they discover otherwise. Very unpleasant it is too. The bloke who got jammed in the window is not very happy either because somebody pulled his trousers down and put boot polish all over his bottom. Some people do have a funny sense of humour, don’t they?

By the time the last police dog has finished savaging the front room cushions and Natalie and I are left alone it is three o’clock in the morning and the house looks as if it has been used to store hurricanes.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” I say. “That was a nice party, wasn’t it? The house wrecked and the neighbours already forming a queue to complain to Mum and Dad. Have you seen Mrs Wilson’s lawn? It looks as if it’s been used for a ploughing match.”

“Just our luck that it had to rain,” sighs Natalie.

“Our luck?” I laugh hollowly. “I must have been round the bend to let you throw this party. Where do you meet some of the people you invited? That Ted creature, for instance. He attacked me, you know.”

“Why? Wouldn’t you let him out?”

“I’m serious, Natalie. I was subjected to a physical assault by all three of them.”

“If you mean raped, why don’t you say so?”

“It’s not a word I like to use out loud.” She is very free with her language is Natalie. I can feel myself blushing.

“Why didn’t you tell the police?”

“How could I? You know the scandal would break Mum’s heart. I couldn’t do that to her.”

“Not. But you could snitch my boyfriend.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Natalie.” It is amazing how people can react against you when you’ve tried to do your best, isn’t it?”

“I’m not being ridiculous. You’re just a lousy hypocrite. You fancied him yourself.”

For a moment I am speechless. How could she imagine me falling for that gib, hairy, muscley, over-developed sex maniac? The whole idea is too ridiculous for words.

“If you must know, I did it—I mean, I submitted in order to protect you,” I say.

At these words the ungrateful little baggage has the cheek to laugh in my face. It is almost too much. There was me, bending over backwards to spare her the crude physical indignities that were inflicted on my body and she has the impertinence to suggest that I was doing it for my own gratification. At that moment only the forbearance gained by watching the Dr Eradlik programme prevents me from saying something I might one day regret.

“Balls!” Junior Foul Mouth loses no time in continuing her unjustified attack. “You don’t fool me! You pretend to be all goody-goody, but underneath you’re sex-mad. Well, big sister, I have news for you. While you were stealing my boy friends I was moving in on yours.”

“What are you talking about?” I say—having a nasty idea that I know very well what she is talking about.

“Geoffrey made passionate love to me in Dad’s shed,” she says, slowly removing a cobweb from her jumper as if to prove it.

“Don’t be ridiculous. He was terribly upset when he heard what had happened to me.”

“He wasn’t worrying when he was with me. He’s very sexy when he gets his blazer off, isn’t he?”

“He actually made love to you?” I ask. I mean, I just can’t believe it. Not Geoffrey.

“And how. Dad’s vice fell off the work bench.”

More destruction! It really is too bad. And, even more difficult to bear, is the physical betrayal involved. My own sister and the boy whose net I have adjusted at the Eastwood Tennis Club. If blood is thicker than water in our family then no wonder Mum’s porridge tastes like consommé. I know that men are hypocrites but how could he have made so much fuss about my sacrifice after misbehaving with Miss Rentapussy? Even Doctor Eradlik does not have to contend with this kind of treachery in his unflagging fight to make Mount Vista Hospital a better place to die in.

“I can’t bring myself to use words low enough to describe your behaviour,” I say with dignity.

“Hoity-toity,” sneers Natalie.

“In order to avoid more bloodshed I think it would be a good idea if we started cleaning opposite ends of the house,” I say with commendable self control. “May I suggest that you tackle the so appropriately named tool shed—if it is still standing?”

Mum and Dad are due back on the Sunday afternoon and Natalie and I hardly exchange more than a few words up to that time. However, I do see Mrs Wilson. I am standing in one of the dustbins trying to force the rubbish down and make room for some more bottles. She takes one look at me, over the fence, shrugs, and says “That’s the best place for both of you.”

By the time I have opened my mouth she has gone inside her house and slammed the back door. There is obviously little point in expecting any sympathy there.

“Do you think we ought to go to the station?” I ask Natalie.

“And get a train out of the country?”

“No, stupid. Meet Mum and Dad.”

“You can never be certain what train they’ll catch. We don’t want to miss them and find them having a long chat with Mrs W. when we get back.”

“True. We’d better stay here, then. Do you think the place looks all right?”

“It’s difficult to say. I know where all the stains and scuff marks are, so I notice them more easily than the average person might.”

“I hope you’re right. The trouble is that Mum isn’t the average person. After six days away she and Dad are going to come through that door like they’ve got to find six deliberate mistakes in sixty seconds.”

For once Natalie and I share a common emotion. It is expressed in a shiver of terror.

It is half past four when Mum and Dad pause at the gate and look at the garden as if they can’t believe their eyes. I remember the time because a film called A Farewell To Arms had just ended and I am still brushing away the tears. It is about this nurse who falls in love with a soldier at the front. You know—where the fighting is. They make love in his hospital bed and she gets pregnant and dies in childbirth just as they are going to cross over into Switzerland and safety. It is so sad that I cried buckets. The bloke was Rock Hudson and it really made me feel what a wonderful job nurses do.

While I am trying to compose myself, Natalie rushes to the front door and throws it open. “Hello, Mumsie!” she cries. “Did you have a lovely time?”

“Quite nice, thank you, dear,” says Mum.

Dad is still gazing thunderstruck at the garden. “Where are all the flowers?” he says.

“The milkman’s horse got up on the pavement, Dad.”

“He got it out of retirement, did he? He’s had a van for five years.”

“Vandals,” I say. “There’s been an awful lot of trouble while you’ve been away. Look what they did to Mrs Wilson’s lawn.”

“Blimey. I thought it was an open cast coal mine. You told the police, have you?”

“They know all about it,” says Natalie truthfully. “What was the weather like, Dad?”

Dad carries the suitcases into the house. “Diabolical. The worst we’ve ever had there—the worst we will ever have there. I’m not going back. Holiday? It was more like six days in a prisoner of war camp.”

“Where’s my coat?” says Mum, looking at the hallstand.

I am just thinking that it must have been nicked and wondering what to say when the telephone rings. I know instinctively who it must be, but before I can move Dad picks up the receiver.

“Hello? Oh, hello Mrs Wilson.” He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Mrs Wilson. Stupid old bag. What on earth can she want?”

“I’m going upstairs,” says Mum.

Ten minutes later Natalie and I are in the front room with Dad who now knows what Mrs Wilson wanted. He has turned a strange blue colour and his hands are shaking. “Now listen, you two,” he says. “I’m going to—”

At that moment Mum comes in. She, too, is looking strained and holding something in her hand. “I was doing the unpacking and I noticed these stuffed down the end of our bed,” she says. “Whose are they?”

She is dangling a pair of bright yellow men’s underpants which, with a shiver of distaste, I remember covering Flash’s vulgarly large private parts. Natalie bursts into tears.

“Were people using our bedroom?” snarls Dad.

“Oh Rosie, why did I ever listen to you?” sobs my deceitful little sister.

“Right. You go outside with your mother. I want to speak to Rosie.” They are hardly out of the room before Dad lets fly. “What you’ve done is a bloody disgrace! You’ve disobeyed your mother and you’ve blackened our name amongst the neighbours—I understand you’ve even had the police round here. The house is like a pigsty and I shudder to think what went on.”

“Dad—”

“Shut up! When I want your interruptions I’ll ask for them.

“What I am most disturbed about is the effect your behaviour is having on your sister. She is at a very formative age and the kind of carryings on you go in for could be a blooming disaster as far as her moral standards are concerned.”

“Dad—!”

“Shut up!!! You must realise that, being older than her, you have to set some kind of example. Supposing she starts imitating your behaviour?”

“It’s not fair, Dad. I always get the blame for everything. Just because she’s younger than I am you seem to think that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Well, I’ve got news for you—”

“And I’ve got news for you, my girl. I want you out of this house just as soon as you can find a job to support you. I think you’re a bad influence on your sister and it’s much better if the two of you are kept apart.”

For ten seconds after he had finished speaking I am on the point of telling my father a few home truths about my sweet little sister; and then my mind soars up to a higher plane. I see Doctor Eradlik walking down a long white corridor, a look of stoical self-sacrifice etched across his beautiful features. I see Jennifer Jones approaching Rock Hudson’s bed. I have arrived at a decision.

“Very well, Dad,” I say calmly. “I can tell you what I’m going to do, now. I’m going to be a nurse.”

Three and a half weeks later I have been summoned to an interview with the matron of Queen Adelaide’s and Dad and the family are just beginning to understand that I meant what I said.

Dad, particularly, finds it difficult to believe that any hospital would be prepared to consider me. He has an idea that nurses are somewhat like nuns and unlikely to be accepted if they have so much as caught a glimpse of an unpeeled banana. He also reckons that you have to be of noble birth and watch BBC 2 as well as have it.

“You’re not going to tell me that all those black nurses are princesses,” says Mum.

“I don’t know so much,” says Dad. “A lot of those blackies you see on the telly are better dressed than white people.”

“You don’t watch those,’ says Natalie. “You watch the ones with the bare titties doing the conga.”

“Natalie! Watch your language, please!” Mum looks horrified.

“We all know where she gets that from, don’t we?” Dad fixes me with his beady eye and I would like to bash him over the nut with Natalie.

Raquel Welchlet is the one who continued to be most surprised by the way I stick to my resolve.

“I never reckoned you were serious,” she says. “I thought you were just doing it for effect. Like when you read that book about air hostesses.”

“Air stewardesses,” I hiss. “Hostesses are people who work in nightclubs.”

“Those stewardesses spent all their time in night clubs if that book was anything to go by.”

“Well, nurses don’t spend all their time in night clubs so you needn’t start fretting about my eyesight.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to stick it even if they do accept you. They work terribly hard, you know.”

“But it must be rewarding, mustn’t it?”

“The pay’s lousy from what I can make out.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Natalie is about as sensitive as a clay tuning fork. “I meant that it must be satisfying to nurse people back to health.”

Natalie sniffs and shakes her head. “I don’t like sick people.”

“It’s people like you that give being healthy a bad name,” I tell her.

Mum is merely realistic. “Do what you like, dear, but make sure you don’t catch anything.”

Queen Adelaide’s is a big disappointment after Mount Vista on the Doctor Eradlik show. It is a huge hospital but it looks as if it was carved out of charcoal and then had a giant vacuum cleaner bag emptied over it. What I at first imagine to be its grounds turn out to be the public park next door. As I go through the swing doors two nurses are coming out. They are wearing red cloaks with blue linings and talking in upper class voices.

“Stupid little bitch thought your sternum was what you sat on,” says the first.

“Oh no!” The second one’s voice screeches into the air like a rocket. Dad would love them.

Just inside the door is a pigeon hole behind which sits a pigeon wearing glasses. She coos softly to herself when I say that I have an appointment with matron and shuffles through a pile of papers.

“Rose Dixon?” She rises up slightly and leans forward as if she is wishing to confirm that I have brought the lower half of my body with me. Apparently satisfied, she sinks back and gives me totally unmemorable directions of which I can recall no more than that I have to go to the third floor. I am frightened to ask her to say it all again unless I immediately give the impression of being hopelessly stupid—just like the girl the two nurses were talking about. Who knows? The directions might be part of some cunning test to check on my memory.

I get into the lift and, for some reason that I will never understand, press the button marked four. I immediately press three but the lift glides contemptuously past my destination and stops at the fourth floor. The doors slide open and I am faced by an old man in a wheelchair and a nurse who is escorting him. He is wearing a dressing gown and seems half asleep. The nurse has no sooner pushed her patient into the lift than she slaps her hand to her forehead.

“Jesus, but it’s a fool that I am. I’ve gone and left his records in the ward. Hang on here for a moment, will you?”

Before I can say anything she has disappeared down the corridor. My presence on the fourth floor must suggest to her that I am a member of the hospital staff.

She has pressed the “door open” button but no sooner has she padded off than the patient’s eyes open a quarter of an inch, rather like those of the crocodiles you see in all those nature films on the telly. I am probably being very unkind comparing him to a crocodile because he looks quite a sweet old man. He is smiling at me now.

“She’ll be back in a minute,” I say comfortingly. It is all rather nice because I feel like a nurse already.

“Get your knicks off!”

Before I can be certain that I am hearing aright the old man has pressed the button marked B for Basement and the doors are closing.

“Please! We must wait,” I yelp.

“We’ll go down to the boiler room and stimulate each other on the coke,” says the sprightly greybeard. “You don’t mind a few pink patches on your bum, do you?”

“I’ve got to see Matron!” The lift sinks below the third floor.

“Don’t waste your time. She’s the ugliest woman in the hospital.” He suddenly propels his chair across the lift and pins me against the wall. “Come here! I want to take handfuls of you.”

He is a man of his word, too. When I come to think about it he must be both the oldest and the dirtiest man that I have ever met.

“Stop doing that!” I squeal, thinking that his sense of direction has not faltered over the years. “You must pull yourself together!”

“Up guards and at ’em! I’m eighty-four and I could show you young girls a thing or two.” He whips open his dressing gown and once again proves his point. I must say that though it distresses me to look at his equipment it is certainly more ramrod than shamrod. The door slides open and I catch a glimpse of an amazed man in shirt-sleeves leaning on a shovel. Hurriedly I press the button for the fourth floor.

“You were in the army, were you?” I humour the wizened octogenarian.

“The Gold Coast. That’s where you get them. Big, wobbling titties wanging against your belly. That’s the stuff to give the troops, eh?”

“It’s very nice,” I say appeasingly. “But don’t you think you ought to put it away now?”

“I know just where to put it away. It won’t keep, you know. They don’t.”

What a very lively old man, I think to myself. I bet he has more than a glass of Lucozade for elevenses.

“You’ve got a firm bosom, my dear.”

“Thank you. Can I have it back now?” For a senior citizen he certainly has very strong fingers. I can hardly prise them off my sweater.

The doors slide open on the fourth floor and there is an astonished nurse blinking at us.

“What happened to you, Mr Arkwright?”

Greybeard shrinks into his wheelchair and half closes his eyes.

“She tried to elope with me, Nurse Finnegan.”

“He went mad the minute you disappeared,” I say lowering my voice discreetly. “He started mauling me and suggested we made love in the boiler room.”

Nurse Finnegan looks at me in a way that might be described as strange.

“She pressed the button, Nurse.”

“You wicked old man.” I round on him so fiercely that Mr Arkwright sinks even lower into his chair. Nurse Finnegan is looking at me suspiciously.

“You don’t nurse here, do you?”

I give her the famous Rosie Dixon smile. “Not yet. I’ve come to see Matron.”

“What were you doing on the fourth floor?”

“I pressed the wrong button.”

“Don’t leave her with me, Nurse Finnegan,” croaks Arkwright pathetically.

“Hasn’t he done this before?” I whisper.

“They call him Mr Sunshine,” says Nurse Finnegan gazing at me with obvious suspicion.

“Bengers Food,” murmurs Mr Arkwright, closing his eyes.

Nurse Finnegan does not let me out of her sight until she sees me knocking on Matron’s door. I can’t blame her in the circumstances but I wish there was some way of repaying that horrible old man. I am still thinking about my harrowing experience when an upper class voice rings out from the other side of the door. “En-ta!”

I go in and find myself in the presence of a woman who makes Hattie Jacques look like Twiggy’s kid sister. She is sitting behind an antique desk signing papers.

“Miss Dixon?” She does not look up.

“That’s right.”

“My staff address me as matron.”

For a moment I think she is supplying me with some interesting information for my scrap book. Then I cotton on. “Yes, Matron.”

“That’s better. Now, where have you been? I was told you were coming up and then you disappeared for ten minutes.”

“I got lost, Matron.”

“Lost?” Matron looks up at last. “Good gracious. When I look at you I would find it easier to believe that you had been assaulted.”

“Well, actually—” And then I stop myself. Even if she believes that I was attacked by a sex-mad geriatric she will probably think I egged him on. Either way it is not going to make a very good impression.

“Actually, what?”

Matron has enough hair on her upper lip to clog a moustache cup and when she moves, the starch in her uniform crackles like an icy pond breaking up—at least, I imagine it is in her uniform.

“Nothing,” I say.

Matron gazes down her nose towards a bosom that looks like a ruckle in a barrage balloon. “I think I should make it absolutely clear at the onset that I am a stickler for smart turn-out. The discipline required to make sure that one is a credit to oneself and the hospital carries over into one’s attitude to one’s job and inspires confidence in the patients. By arriving here as if you have just been dragged through a hedge backwards you have not taken that first step towards reassuring me that you have the right attitude of mind to become a nurse.”

“I’m afraid my appearance is due to my confusion at losing my way,” I grovel.

Matron gazes up towards the ceiling and sighs. “No matter. The golden days are past. We must be thankful for what we can get.”

“Amen,” I don’t know why I say it. It is just that she drones on in such a way as that I imagine I must be in church.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Granted.”

“What?! !”

“I mean, granted, Matron.”

Matron shudders and her moustache quivers as if a strong wind has just run through it. “I have a horrible suspicion that you are trying to mock me, Miss – er Dixon.”

“Oh no, Matron.” What is the old bag on about?

“Tell me, Miss Dixon.” Crackle, crackle goes Matron’s uniform. “Does your family have a nursing background?”

“I think my father had his tonsils out.”

“No, Miss Dixon.” Something seems to be causing Matron pain. Maybe her cap is on too tight. “What I meant was do you have any relations who have worked in the medical profession?”

“My Aunt Gladys used to work in Boots during the war.”

Matron’s eyes are now tightly closed. “Fascinating. It says on your curriculum vitae that you have one ‘A’ level. What is that?”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Matron. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what ‘A’ level you’ve got?”

“Oh, I see. I thought you meant what does curriculum vimto mean. I’ve got geography.”

“Geography.” Matron shrugs. “It could have been woodwork, I suppose.”

“Not really,” I say, hoping I don’t appear too pushy. “We didn’t do woodwork after ‘O’ levels.”

Matron closes her eyes again. “Of course.” She shudders and then addresses me in a firm brisk voice. “Now, Miss Dixon, I don’t have to tell you that nursing is a hard, arduous profession. You have to dig deep and conscientiously to find jewels. Many girls—” she shakes her head sadly “—just can’t take it.” She looks at me expectantly and I can see that she is hoping that I will speak up and show her that I am not the wilting type.

“I know what I’m letting myself in for,” I say.

Matron nods. “Sometimes it’s a good idea if a gel faces up to the facts right at the onset and realises that she isn’t cut out for the life. Long hours … mental and physical strain … the requirement to study while you work… .” Her voice dies away and she smiles sympathetically. It is the first time I can remember her smiling.

“That’s what everybody says to me,” I tell her.

“Y-e-s.” Matron speaks slowly and thoughtfully. “That’s never worried you? I mean, you think you would be able to cope all right?”

“I’m no stranger to stress,” I tell her. “I used to work on the check-out at Tescos. Of course it was Saturdays only because—”

“We have what we call a four weeks trial period at Queen Adelaide’s.” Matron obviously takes in what you say to her very quickly. “It’s a safety precaution on both sides. During that time a nurse is able to see if she likes the life and—” Matron pauses dramatically “—we are able to see if we like her. Should we find that we are suited to each other, training proceeds, with preliminary examinations after one year and the majority of our gels becoming fully qualified State Registered Nurses after three years.”

I give her my cool, efficient nod and tuck my blouse back into the top of my skirt—ooh! I would like to take away that old man’s false teeth and feed him toast. Matron crackles and gives me another smile. “You’re not intimidated?”

I think hard for a minute and then shake my head. “I don’t think so. I’ve had a polio jab, though.”

Poor Matron. There is no doubt that she is in pain. Probably some tummy upset due to all the strains and stresses of the job. “We will be writing to you in due course. Thank you for coming to see me and for expressing your willingness to indulge in life’s noblest work.”

For a moment I think she is going to stand up but she just crackles and goes back to signing papers. The interview is presumably over. Short and sweet. It could have been worse. I win another brisk nod when I fall over a chair and then hobble out into the corridor. There is no sign of Mr Arkwright but I go down by the stairs, just in case.

CHAPTER 4

I will always remember the day the letter arrived saying that I have been accepted for training at Queen Adelaide’s because it coincided with the headlines in the paper reading “Shortage of Nurses reaches epidemic proportions.”

“What’s that bit underlined in red?” says Dad, who is studying every word of the letter as if he cannot believe his eyes.

“That’s the safe period, Dad.”

“The safe period!?”

“A trial period while we see if we’re suited to each other,” I explain.

Dad looks less worried. “I was going to say, I’m not all that struck on safe periods.” He looks at Mum in a funny way. Mum avoids his eyes.

“That’s wonderful news, dear,” she says. “Queen Adelaide’s is a lovely hospital. I remember my Aunty Maud dying there. It was the happiest time of her life.”

Dad looks me up and down and a worried expression slowly spreads across his face. “You look after what you’ve got,” he says.

Dad need not worry. I have no intention of allowing my new found freedom to tempt me into loose habits. His belief that I have low moral standards must come from some Freudian backwater of the mind up which I would not like to propel myself without a paddle.

It has always been my intention to present my future husband with the precious gift of my virginity upon our wedding day. An old fashioned idea, you may think, but one that I take very seriously. Perhaps I hear you say: Yes, but what about Geoffrey and the ton-up boys? Well, I don’t think anything really happened with Geoffrey. Certainly, I can’t remember it and that is what it is all about, isn’t it? I mean, virginity is a state of mind, isn’t it? Take the ton-up boys who took me, for example. I suppose that technically they all had sexual intercourse with me but it was completely against my will. While the thick banks of muscle were thudding against my quivering pelvis my eyes were tightly closed. You can’t say, that in a situation like that, I lost my virginity. I was just moving it swiftly to one side in order to save my sister from the horrible experience and my mother from the shame.

Not, of course, that I am a prude. I have indulged in my share of heavy petting. In fact, I think that Dad’s attitude to me may have been shaped by the time he found me in the front room with Terry Miller. I was much younger then and at the age when you do things without really thinking, or rather, you do things because you think everyone else is doing them. I was amazed the way Dad flew off the handle. He would still have thrown Terry’s Y-fronts on the fire if the poor bloke had been wearing them.

What disturbs me most is my capacity to arouse strong sexual feelings in the most unlikely people. A few more patients like Mr Arkwright and things could be very embarrassing. I can’t understand what it is about me. I am just a normal 38-22-36 inch blonde, five foot eight-and-a-half inches tall. I don’t receive a lot of letters of complaint about my body but I am not that different to other girls. It must be some kind of chemistry. I am like a piece of litmus paper. When certain men look at me they start to turn red.

My farewell to Mum, Dad and Natalie is spared from becoming too emotional an occasion by the discovery of Mum’s rhubarb on top of the kitchen cupboard shortly before I leave. In the five weeks that it has been there it has undergone some interesting changes and I doubt if Queen Adelaide’s has many less pleasant sights in store for me.

In typical fashion Natalie blames me and in typical fashion I tell her what she can do with the rhubarb. Dad sides with her and Mum says it is both our faults, which is true. What really makes me choked is the way that I have behaved in exactly the same forgetful fashion that I would expect from Mum. I always feel slightly superior to her when she gets dithery and yet I have to go and do a thing like that.

“At least you won’t have to heat it up,” I say. “That fur will keep it warm, no trouble.”

Natalie pretends to be disgusted and it is all I can do to stop myself from giving her a slap. That girl would take the salute at a march past of flashers without batting an eyelid so she has nothing to act up about.

All in all—and nearly free for all—I am glad when the taxi comes. Dad reckons that this is sheer extravagance but I tell him that I want to arrive at the hospital as a student nurse, not a patient. Lugging a heavy suitcase from one end of London to another is not my idea of gentle exercise.

Despite the fact that I tell Dad that he is a mean old sod I watch the meter like a hawk. I don’t think I look out of the window once. I will traffic lights to turn green and make little jerking movements to help ease us through the traffic. The driver is the young chatty type and I should be warned.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you going in for?” he says, drumming his fingers on the side of the cab.

“I’m going to be a nurse.” As it turns out I should have said rabies.

“Oh.” Immediately he sounds much more cheerful. “Wonderful bunch of girls, nurses. I think they do a fantastic job.”

“Yes,” I say. The meter has now clocked up 85p. Since the journey started the value of the pound has probably passed it travelling in the opposite direction.

“I’ve been out with quite a few nurses. They always like a bit of fun. Know what I mean?”

“Yes.” Honestly, it is ridiculous the way this meter goes on. The digits on a petrol pump travel slower.

“I expect you’re just the same?”

“Yes.” And what are all those extras? This bloke would obviously charge you 3p for your hand bag.

“A bit of slap and tickle never did anyone any harm. That’s what I say. I mean, you’re a mug if you think different these days, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I break my concentration to dart a quick glance out of the window. We must be nearly there now. Yes, that’s the park.

“Do you fancy a bit of a giggle this evening?”

One pound 25p! I could have gone to Brighton for the day with that.

“I said do you fancy coming out with me?”

“Yes—I mean, what did you say?”

“Gordon Bennett! Your ears don’t see very far, do they?”

At last the cab has stopped but the meter is still running.

“How much is that?” I say hurriedly.

The driver opens his door, swears at the bloke he nearly knocks off a bicycle, and slowly walks round to where my cases are strapped.

“Nothing, if you’re a good girl,” he says. Before I can say “turn the meter off” he has opened the door and is pushing me back into my seat. “How about a ride for a ride?”

“Do you mind!” I say forcefully. “Let me out of this cab. And turn that meter off! We’re not going anywhere.”

“We can soon change that.” Without further ado the horrible herbert hoists his horny hand up my skirt. How unpleasant. And totally uncalled for. With my luck I could have had this experience on the tube for a fraction of the money.

“How dare you!” Mary Peters could not fail to be impressed by the speed and grace with which I jab my elbow in the direction of Ben Hur’s action man kit.

“What’s the matter, darling? Why are you suddenly playing hard to get?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go!” This time my aim is better and I am rewarded with a gold medal groan as my excitable fellow passenger cops a bunch of fives in the nether regions. From the noise he is making it sounds as if I have made them the “never” regions.

I do not hang around to see if I can put on a spring but escape onto the pavement, fast.

I am struggling with my cases when a huge, roly-poly bear of a man with a beard and an untidy mane of black hair appears at my side.

“Is this driver free?” he asks.

“Very,” I snap.

“Where is he?” The man has a deep voice that sounds like Clement Freud selling dog food or the Liberal Party but I have left my portable tape recorder at home.

“He’s sitting in the back—correction, lying in the back,” I say.

“How very odd.” The man looks from me to the driver and then back to me again. “Is he all right?”

“I hope not,” I say.

It is not in my nature to be unkind to anyone but with everyone else making stands I feel that I might as well make one too. Black beard stares at me thoughtfully and opens the cab door.

“Aren’t you going to help the lady?”

“Aaaaaaaargh!” says the driver.

“He’s already tried,” I say tartly. “Excuse me.” I tug my skirt into shape and trudge off with my cases. Thank goodness this unsavoury incident took place outside the nurses home and not the main hospital. I wonder who the man with the beard was. He had very piercing eyes.

It is not until I hear the taxi pulling away that I realise I have not paid any fare. Oh dear. Still, I expect I will be able to live with myself.

Inside the entrance to the nurses home is an office and inside the office is a small man wearing a brown house coat. He is smoking a brown cigarette which looks as if it grows out of his brown mouth.

“Yes?” he says when I have cleared my throat a couple of times.

“My name is Dixon. I’m a new nurse.”

“Oh yeah.” The man drags himself out of his chair and rises slowly to his feet in a series of harrowing wheezes. “My back,” he explains.

“You should see a doctor,” I say sunnily.

The man winces. “I seen enough bleeding doctors in this job, don’t you worry. Now, what did you say your name was? Nixon?”

“Dixon.”

“That’s right.” The man rocks on his feet as a long shudder passes through his body. When you look at him you feel that he must have bought up most of the stomach powders in South West London—brought up quite a few of them too.

“Dixon R. You’re sharing with Green P. in 5C.”

“Thanks very M,” I say. “I hope we don’t land in the soup.”

“Yerwhat?”

“Green Pea,” I say merrily. “It’s a kind of soup, isn’t it?”

The man looks at me as if I am round the bend. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Nothing at all,” I say wearily. “Which floor is 5C on?”

“The fifth. The lift is out of order and you’ll have to carry your own bags up. I can’t risk my back. I’ve done too much of it.” He could only be referring to carrying bags.

“You’re the porter are you, Mr—?”

“Greaves.”

“Spelt G-R-I-E-V-E-S?”

“E-A,” says Mr G warily. “You’re not trying to be funny, are you?”

I shake my head and begin to drag my bags towards the stairs. Greaves watches me as if he thinks I am going to start snapping off lengths of bannister rail and hide them in my knickers.

There is a telephone in the hall and a small, dark girl is twisting the flex into knots as I go past. I cannot help overhearing what she is saying because she has a loud voice and I am listening very hard.

“Oh yes, darling. Yes please, I’d love it, love it, love it.” I wonder if the flex was coiled before she started the call.

“Oh God, I wish you would be here now. I crave you. Capital K: Crave!” Something tells me she is not talking to her local rent assessment officer—still, you never know these days. “All right snooky-pooky, until this evening. Give my love to the Red Baron.” I wonder who the red baron could be? Of course it might be—no, it couldn’t. I have been living with Natalie too long. I must try and stop thinking about things like that.

The voice dies away with the first bend in the stairs and I day dream about how nice it will be when I too have been here a few months and settled down with a nice boyfriend. I know that my first weeks are going to be spent with a Sister Tutor but after that I will go on one of the wards as a junior. Provided I like it of course. It is very sensible of them to give you the option to leave after a month. As Matron said, I expect that there are a lot of girls who are not really suited to the life.

By the time I get to the fifth floor I am exhausted. I don’t know it then but it is the best introduction to being a nurse that I could possibly have had. It is not tender, compassionate hands that keep a hospital functioning but the nurses’ feet driving round the wards at a rate that would make the average marathon runner trade in his gym shoes.

5A, 5B, 5C. It would have to be right at the end of the corridor. I knock on the door. No answer. I adjust my ‘pleased to meet you’ smile, just in case, and turn the knob. The room has not featured in any of the Homes And Gardens I have leafed through at the dentist but it looks comfortable enough with two single beds, a large cupboard and a dressing table-cum-chest-of-drawers. The bed nearest the window has two expensive looking cases on it—you know, genuine imitation pigskin—and one of them carries a label saying Penelope Green. I hope this bird is not going to be hopelessly toffee-nosed and tweedy. I would have fancied someone a bit more with-it myself.

I have just taken my jacket off when the door bursts open and the girl who was on the telephone in the hall rockets into the room.

“Christ,” she says. “Those bloody stairs could give you a miscarriage before you fell. I’m Green P. What super boobs you’ve got.”

The words come out like an explosion in a sugar puff factory and I almost duck.

“Um—Rosie Dixon,” I say. “We’re sharing a room, aren’t we?”

“If that dwarf genitaled bronchitic in reception is to be believed we are. My name is Penelope but most people call me Penny, or ‘you’, or something like that. I say, you don’t have a dutch cap, do you? I think mine has perished.”

“I’m on the pill,” I stammer. Of course this is only a precautionary measure. Just think how awful it would have been being raped by those three greasers if there had been a danger of getting in the family way?

“It doesn’t matter,” says Penny breezily. “It would probably have been too big anyway.” Before I can thank her for the compliment she continues. “You’re so lucky being on the pill. I’m not brainy enough. I keep getting the days mixed up or losing them. I had a boyfriend once who took half a dozen to cure a headache.”

Penny speaks in this posh voice but she is certainly not stuck-up—well, you know what I mean. I nod weakly and wish I did not feel so inadequate.

“It’s my first night in London for months,” sighs Penny. “I have this boyfriend who is absolutely out of this world. I met him at the Badminton Horse Trials. My God, but I envied his mount every inch of that cross-country course.”

“Yes,” I say thinking that this girl makes sister Natalie seem like an apprentice nun.

“I couldn’t take my thighs off him. Do you know what I mean?”

I nod weakly. “We’re not going to be allowed out on our first night, are we?” I say.

“Oh Jodhpurs! They can stuff that for a start. They haven’t built the nurses home yet that can hold Penny Green. Nothing is going to keep me from Mark’s comely withers this eve.”

Full marks for persistence, I think to myself. “That was him on the telephone, was it?”

Penny nods her head as if tossing a nose bag in the air to get the last ounce of hay. “Every time I hear his voice I practically have to put on a new pair of knicks. Nudity doesn’t worry you, does it?”

I don’t have a chance to say either way before she starts peeling off her clothes. She really has a very attractive body. Small but beautifully marked, as I once heard someone say to Geoffrey. I don’t know what they were talking about.

“What time have we got to be somewhere?” asks Penny.

“Eighteen hundred hours in lecture room B.”

“I can’t expect him to wear a nosebag, can I?” Penny has both hands under her breasts and is pushing them up in the air as she divides her attention between the mirror and my own front bumpers. “You make me feel flat-chested,” she complains.

“I suppose there’s always coypu interrupted,” I say. I mean, I want to show her that I am not hopelessly inexperienced when it comes to the art of love. I have read my share of articles in the Sunday Mirror.

“What?”

“Coypu interrupted,” I say, pleased that I know about something she doesn’t. “It’s when the man pulls out his thing just before—”

“Oh! You mean coitus interruptus? I thought you were talking about those big things like otters that make holes in river banks.”

“Oh no. Not them!” What is she talking about? I wish I had never started all this.

“No I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” says my room mate. “Mark’s never pulled up before a jump yet.”

“Spiffing,” I say.

Penny abandons her breasts and starts to pull on a sweater. “I suppose there’ll be some awful jaw and then we’ll be told to turn in with a mug of Horlicks. Well, I’m getting out. There must be a window open somewhere. If not I’ll give G.B.H. the glad eye until he lets me out.”

“G.B.H.?”

“Grievous Bodily Harm. That’s what they call him. He’s halfway to the knackers yard, isn’t he?”

“You mean Mr Greaves?”

“Exactly. Mr Greaves. It’s good to know that he’s sleeping in the same building, isn’t it? Makes one feel more secure somehow. Should Oliver Reed attempt to break in, help is at hand.”

She breezes off to spend a penny and I find that she has taken all the top drawers and most of the wardrobe. She is like Natalie with refinement. Fancy me thinking that she had probably been here for years. The upper classes are like that. They always make you feel that they own everything. Of course, most of them do.

I manage to stow most of my things away and when Penny comes back we join the progression of anxious looking girls that is beginning to drift towards the ground floor.

“What made you want to be a nurse?” I ask.

“Nothing on earth. It was my father’s idea. I had to agree, to make him pay for my last abortion.”

“Oh.” Penny is very good at stopping you in your tracks.

“What about you?”

This is not an easy one. There are so many different reasons and I don’t want Penny to get the wrong impression about me. In fact, I don’t know what impression of me I do want her to get. “It seemed a good idea at the time,” I say.

“Like my abortion,” agrees Penny.

“That was Mark, was it?” I say, my romantic mind imagining the distress it must have caused them both.

“You never know, these days, do you?” says my new friend. “It could have been at the Dublin Horse Show. It wasn’t all pelting each other with bridge rolls, you know.”

I nod understandingly. You never think the upper classes are capable, do you? But they are obviously at it like knives the minute they have had their teeth braces removed.

“Isn’t your father worried about sending you away from home?” I ask.

“He wouldn’t care if I shacked up with the Harlem Globetrotters as long as I didn’t do it on the doorstep. He also thinks I’m going to see the light and turn over a new leaf once I get a starched apron on. Daddy is awfully silly like that.”

Just like my Dad, I think to myself.

Our trip to the lecture room has three main purposes. Firstly, to meet Sister Tutor—her real identity is masked like that of an all-in wrestler—secondly, to learn how to put on our uniform, and thirdly, to be introduced to the mysteries of bed-making.

Sister Tutor gives an opening address which makes John Wayne haranguing a bunch of marines before they go over the top sound like Sooty reminding Big Ears to save milk bottle tops. She is a tall, thin woman with a kind of blotchy skin you usually find stretched over a rice pudding. I do not think she smiles once the whole time she talks to us. The uniform is straightforward with starched cap, collar, and cuffs that clip on like handcuffs and are removed when we get down to work. The minute we have finished—on go the cuffs. “They’re to remind us that the place is a bloody prison,” whispers Penny. Apparently, walking round the hospital without your cuffs is only slightly less frowned on than getting into bed with the patients.

Where Sister Tutor really comes into her own is in the matter of making beds. Her eyes glisten like those of a Seventh Day Adventist who has just had the door shut on his foot and phrases like “mitred corners” and “draw sheets” drop from her lips coated in drool. A bed and bedding have been provided on the stage of the lecture room, and Sister Tutor puts us all through our paces before we are allowed to go back to our rooms with the suggestion that we should do some more practising on our own beds.

“I didn’t find that too exhausting,” says Penny.

“Not surprising considering you volunteered to be the patient,” I tell her. Honestly, this girl is going to take some watching.

“It was wonderful practice,” murmurs Penny. “All that bottom raising while they whipped the draw sheets in and out.”

“You’re not still thinking of going out, are you?” I say. “It’s half past nine already.”

“I don’t care if it’s two o’clock in the morning. I need a good—”

“Nurse Green?” G.B.H. stops us at the foot of the stairs. “There was a telephone message for you. It’s the last I’ll ever take. I’m not an answering service, you know.”

“Stand sideways.” Penny pretends to survey G.B.H. critically. “No, you’re not, are you? It must have been the light.”

“Young man said he was sorry but he had to go on guard duty at Buck House and couldn’t make it tonight.”

“Oh FFFFFFarthingales! How absolutely sick making.”

“That was Mark, was it?” I ask.

“Yes. Off to look after Big L and Philip.” She reads my perplexed expression. “Oft to Buckingham P. to look after the Queen of E. and Pip the Greek. Mark is in the Cold-streams.”

I feel a bit uncomfortable when she talks about the royal family like that but I am impressed. Standing in front of one of those sentry boxes with a corgi pointing out my trouser seam to the tourists would not be my cup of tea but there is no doubt that it carries a lot of responsibility.

“Oh dear. You’ll have to help me with my mitred corners.”

“No way! I’m not going to stay here the whole evening. Let’s go and have a drink.”

“I lock the door at eleven,” says G.B.H. cheerfully.

“Ridiculous!” sniffs Penny. “My needs were better catered for at my boarding school. I had this exotic French mistress who had the most enormous crush on me. She used to invite me into her room and give me creme de menthe out of her tooth mug. She got the sack because matron sneaked on her. Matron was in love with me too. Have you ever thought about becoming a lesbian, Rosie?”

G.B.H. is awaiting my answer with interest so I give a gay little laugh—maybe gay is the wrong word—and shake my head vigorously. “No. Never.”

“Me neither. Of course I used to stroke Mademoiselle Cheyssial’s feet when she asked me to but that was only for the booze. We never got down to something you’d read about in the Sunday Times.”

“No,” I say uneasily. G.B.H. is staring at Penny as if she had just come in through the skylight and said “take me to your leader.” I find that the look in his eyes makes me feel uncomfortable. “Maybe it would be a good idea to get a breath of fresh air,” I say.

Half an hour later I am beginning to think that it was the worst idea I ever had. I hardly ever go into pubs and in the area around Queen Adelaide’s they don’t serve a lot of cucumber sandwiches, I can tell you. Penny rabbits on in her upper class voice and we get some very old fashioned glances.

“Don’t you think we should have gone in the saloon bar?” I murmur.

“Good Heavens, no. It’ll be full of ghastly middle class people drinking port and lemon. I like it here with the pools of ale and the whippets.”

I can’t see any whippets and the man next to me is sipping a Babycham but I don’t say anything.

“Daddy says working class people are the salt of the earth,” says Penny, polishing off her second double scotch of the evening. “It’s the middle class who cause all the trouble. God, I need a man.”

If only she didn’t have such a loud voice! Even the old bloke in the corner drops his double six as he chokes over his beer.

“We’d better be getting back, hadn’t we?” I say nervously. Penny rapes an Irish navvy with her eyes and shakes her head.

“What’s the hurry? There’s certain to be a window we can climb through. I think this place could warm up in a minute.” She sticks a cigarette in her mouth and looks around hopefully.

Another twenty minutes and I am talking about The Black and White Minstrel Show to the Irish navvy’s mate who is talking to me about taking a little stroll: “Just a breath of fresh air to bring some colour to the cheeks of your arse,” he husks whimsically. Penny and the fellow with McAlpine stamped across his donkey jacket have been outside for fifteen minutes now.

“I think we must be going in a minute,” I say, primly removing the Paddy’s friendly hand from my thigh.

“It’s not taking after your friend you are, I’m thinking,” he says, disappointment and stout drowning his voice. “You haven’t touched a drop of your Guinness.”

“I’m certain my friend will drink it when she comes back,” I say glancing nervously at my watch. Ten to eleven! We are going to be locked out unless she gets her skates on. I finish picking another beer mat to pieces and glance towards the door. Thank God! There she is, her slim boyish figure dwarfed by the giant hulk of the Irish navvy following her. The mick stumbles as he comes through the door. I notice that his eyes are glassy and that he is feeling his way towards the table along the backs of chairs. Too much to drink, I suppose.

“Did you find one that was open?” I say as he slumps down opposite me. They went out to look for a fish and chip shop. For a moment the man looks puzzled, and then he gives an understanding nod. “No, they were all closed.” He stretches out a shaking hand for the Guinness but Penny gets there first.

“Hands off, Patrick,” she says. “That was thirsty work.”

She tilts back the glass until only a few sad riverlets of froth are left running down its empty sides.

“I don’t know where she puts it all,” I say.

The big mick laughs hollowly. “Sure, and you can say that again,” he says. “Twenty years I’ve been handling a pneumatic drill and I’ve never known anything like it.”

I don’t know what he is talking about so I smile politely and look at Penny. “We really ought to be going. It’s nearly eleven, you know.”

Penny waves a hand dismissively. “Don’t keep on about it. It’s so boring. I’m starving anyway. I want to go and eat. Patrick’s going to take us to a fab little café he knows, aren’t you, Paddy?”

“But Penny, it’s our first night,” I squeak.

“Jesus!” says Patrick.

The trouble with Penny is that once she has got an idea into her head, there is nothing you can do to shift it. She is also very good at making you feel wet if you disagree with her. All this means that the party moves on to the Green Clover Café where Patrick falls asleep with his head on the table and my mick goes off to help Penny mend the lock on the toilet door. It must have been stiff because he is sweating like a pig when he comes back.

“Penny! We’ve got to go,” I hiss.

Penny considers my bloke who seems on the point of drifting off alongside his mate and nods. “Yes, these two have had it, haven’t they? I wonder if there’s any chance of getting into Buck House. I feel like—”

“No!” I yelp, feeling it is time I put my foot down. “We’ve got to get back.”

“All right, all right, you don’t have to shout. I hope you’re not always such a stick in the mud.” She waves at the balding man behind the counter who is cleaning his nails with a fork. “Waiter, can you call us a taxi.”

“You’re a taxi, madam,” he says.

“That joke’s as bad as the food and only slightly older,” snaps Penny.

“Hoity-toity,” says the café owner.

“Up yours!” shouts Penny.

“Do you think we ought to leave something for the meal?” I say hurriedly indicating the sleeping micks.

“A ton of bicarbonate of soda would be preferable,” sniffs Penny. “No, I think they would be most offended. Let’s leave them to their dreams.”

I unclamp Patrick’s sleeping hand from my thigh and stand up.

“I hope we see you again, duchess,” says the owner as he opens the door with a flourish.

“I think it’s very likely,” says Penny. “I’m a public health inspector and if I survive the meal I’ll be back to take samples.”

I am sorry to have to report that a few very unfortunate things are said after that but, luckily, I am so busy scouring the streets for a taxi that I don’t hear most of them. When a cab shows up it is only because the driver lives in the next street and it requires all Penny’s powers of persuasion and another ten minutes before he agrees to take us back to the nurses home. What they were haggling about in that doorway I will never know. I am only grateful that it is not the dreadful sex maniac who brought me to the hospital in the first place. Every time I see a taxi I expect the driver to leap out and demand one pound forty.

“Is he going to take us?” I ask as Penny sinks into the seat beside me.

“Yes and no.” Penny straightens her skirt as the driver staggers into the cab. What does she mean? I wish she would make herself clearer.

“How are we going to get in?” I ask her once the cab starts moving.

“Ring the front door bell and say we got stuck in a traffic jam.”

“They don’t have traffic jams at one o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh, all right, fuss pot. We’ll climb in. I suppose it will remind me of the pantie raids back at the dear old coll.”

“The boys used to raid you, did they?” I ask.

“Silly girl! We used to raid them. I had a tuck box full of Y-fronts. Some of them put up a pretty good fight though.” Her eyes glint with relish. It certainly seems a lot different to Park Road Comprehensive. What exciting lives some people lead.

When we get back to the nurses home there is less action than at a geriatrics’ jitterbugging contest and I begin to get really worried. There are no lights and the place looks like Dartmoor during a power cut. To add to our problems there is an argument about the fare and I leave Penny to deal with it while I try to find a window we can climb in by. I came back just as she is getting out of the back of the taxi and smoothing down her skirt.

“Did you get it straightened out?” I ask her.

“Eventually,” she says. “I hope we’re going to find it easier to get in than some people I can think of.”

I don’t know what she is talking about so I say goodnight to the driver, who seems to have passed out on the back seat, and lead the way round the side of the building. Most of the windows have bars but there is one that is unprotected and open.

“Fancy having to climb in to this crummy place,” sniffs Penny. “It’s like weevils having to crawl back into a cheese. Give me a leg up.”

With a neat display of the Olga Korbuts, she pulls herself onto the window ledge and flips open the catch. “I’ll get in and help you up.”

I acknowledge her whisper and look around me in the darkness. What a way to spend my first night at Queen Adelaide’s. If we do get to our room without being discovered we will have to be up in a few hours’ time.

“Hurry up. It’s somebody’s bedroom.” Penny is leaning out of the window and I take her hand and scramble up the wall, laddering my tights. If I am honest with myself I have to admit that I have not enjoyed this evening very much. I would have been much better off staying at home and practising mitreing my corners.

“Are you O.K.? Good. Let’s get out of here.” Penny turns to refasten the window and I make tracks for the door. My fingers have just closed around the handle when I glance towards the bed. There is not much light in the room but just enough to see—oh my God!—G.B.H. turns in his sleep and suddenly opens his eyes. I tear open the door.

“Oy! You!”

I shoot into the corridor and automatically close the door behind me as I come face to face with one of my fellow student nurses wearing a dressing gown. I see her eyes widen as they examine my dishevelled person and then pass on to the sign on the door behind me: “Mr Greaves—Porter”.

I hope she does not think—no, she couldn’t. Still, some people are very good at jumping to conclusions. It would be so unfair if there was any unjustified scandal about me. I would hate my nursing career to start under a cloud.

“I was just complaining about a leaking tap,” I explain. “It was awful. I couldn’t sleep a wink.”

“Yes,” says the girl looking at me strangely.

I walk beside her to the foot of the stairs and let myself into the lift. I have been there for three minutes before I remember that it does not work. There is no sign of Penny and I imagine that she is explaining to G.B.H. what happened. Maybe I had better go and back her up. I let myself out of the lift and walk back down the corridor. I can hear no sound of voices from outside the Porter’s door and only a rhythmic creaking of what sounds like bed springs. Good. G.B.H. must have gone back to bed—if he ever bothered to leave it—and Penny must have gone upstairs while I was in the lift. Poor girl, she must be as ready for bed as I am.

CHAPTER 5

Penny is not in the room when I get upstairs and I imagine that she must have gone to the toilet. I want to find out what G.B.H. said but I am so exhausted that I fall asleep the moment I tumble into bed. The next thing I know, the alarm clock is scrambling my brains and I discover that it is six o’clock. Penny’s fingers are still clutching at air on the bedside table.

“Cancel this morning, will you?” she groans. “I am feeling distinctly fragile. That fourth pint of Guinness was definitely a mistake.”

“What happened with G.B.H.?” I ask. “Is he going to report us?”

“I think I have more grounds for reporting him,” yawns Penny.

“Why? What did he do?” I can imagine G.B.H. waking up, thinking that he is faced with a couple of burglars and—

“Virtually nothing. Snivelling little gnat-testicled creep. He couldn’t satisfy an over-sexed elf who went off like a tin of pre-war snoek.”

“Penny! You didn’t—he didn’t—”

“Oh, don’t be so wet. It was the only way of shutting him up, wasn’t it? I didn’t notice you hanging around to explain that we were collecting for the Salvation Army.”

“I came back,” I say indignantly.

“It’s more than he did,” sniffs Penny. “He makes love like someone rubbing a pencil mark off a sheet of tissue paper.”

The very thought of being touched by Mr Greaves makes me feel sick and I am relieved that he is not in his office when we go to breakfast. This meal is served in the main hospital dining room and it gives me a chance to survey some of the medical talent on display. There is only one real hunk of Eradlik material to be seen and I am not on the brink of tears when I notice him gazing at me moodily over the rim of his coffee mug. Not to be outdone, I return his piercing glance and slowly raise my own cup to my lips without taking my eyes away from his. Unfortunately, I have forgotten to remove my teaspoon. By the time my eye has stopped watering I find that Penny has moved in and is sitting down beside Doctor Dish and fluttering her eyelashes as if trying to pick up speed for take-off. She is certainly hot stuff with the fellows, this girl. In fact, once or twice during the previous evening I thought that her behaviour was a bit over-friendly. Still, I must not be too unkind. It is probably that I am not used to upper class high spirits.

The breakfast itself is not a great success, unless you like hunks of bread cut thicker than platform shoes and fish cakes that taste as if they have been made from whale blubber. Not that I am worrying about food too much. I am nervous about what the day has in store and dog tired. If I was at home I would still be in bed. I feel a mixture of home sickness and resentment that I ever had to leave.

Our first job after breakfast is to draw kit and and our second to satisfy Sister Tutor that we can wear it without looking like reject waitresses.

“It’s a cap, not a tiara, Dixon,” she snaps at me. “And you, Green. Yours looks as if it was put round a cake before it went in the oven.”

“Rotten old bag,” hisses Penny. “Obviously aching for a couple of yards of steaming tonk.” All the other nurses look round and I wish she had not addressed the remark to me. I see the girl who was outside G.B.H.’s room giving me an odd look and I smile sweetly. The girl turns away hurriedly. Oh, dear.

When I first put on my uniform I feel as self-conscious as a shaven armpit in a French convent but soon, looking round me, I feel almost comforted by the knowledge that most of the patients will not be able to tell the difference between me and a S.R.N. until I give them an enema. That day seems a long way away as Sister Tutor gives us a lecture on the structure of the hospital—everyone except the woman who dishes out library books is senior to us—and moves smartly on to the structure of the human body with the aid of a couple of skeletons. “Norman and Henry Bones, the boy detectives,” says Penny. “I’ve been out with Henry. He’s a disastrous poke as you can see.” I turn redder than Ted Heath being caught fiddling with his organ during choir practice every time Penny opens her mouth but she is certainly the liveliest of my fellow trainees. Further evidence of her speed off the mark is given to me when I lie flat on my bed after an exhausting day and watch her giving her eyes the full Mata Hari treatment—or matted houri as seems more appropriate in her case.

“Mark?” I ask.

“No. He deserves a period of rejection after standing me up for the Royal Family. I’m having a drink with Robert Fishlock, that dishy houseman we were both ogling this morning.”

“Great,” I say, spelling the g-r-a-t-e in my imagination.

“Where’s he taking you to?”

“His flat. Intimate, don’t you think?”

Quite possibly, I must. Still, I expect Penny can handle herself—as a last extreme.

When my flat-mate has gone out I settle down with one of the medical books I have been forced to buy but I am so tired that I can hardly look at photographs without falling asleep. Some of those bushmen are quite extraordinary, aren’t they? No wonder his wife is smiling.

Penny returns just as I am about to turn off the light.

“Did you have a nice time?” I hear myself saying.

Penny examines her neck in the mirror and shivers. “Out of this world,” she croons. “I believed that things like that only happened in dreams I was ashamed of thinking about when I woke up. I feel like a piano that’s just been played by Artur Rubinstein. All my keys are glowing.” She pops open the buttons of her blouse and touches her breasts as if bringing back memories. Crikey! I wonder if you can get Dr Fishlock on the National Health.

“Did you er-um?” I murmur tactfully.

“You mean, did he introduce his love truncheon to my spasm chasm?” says Penny cheerfully. “You bet he did. You don’t have to help this stallion to clap hooves under a mare’s belly.”

“How nice,” I say, patting my hair nervously. She is so outspoken, isn’t she?

“‘Nice’ is too small a word for what happened in that flat,” snorts Penny. “We tore up the Kama Sutra and wrote a new book. Suddenly The Perfumed Garden seemed like A Guide to Compost Growing.”

I try to control my excitement. Penny Green sounds like a girl who has been around a bit in her time and if she reckons that Dr Fishlock is sexy then I am very interested. Not of course that I want to get involved in any sexual shenanigans. It is just that I would like to be able to resist someone who was supposed to be very attractive. You have to stick your big toe in before you know whether the bath water is cold. I also feel slightly choked that Penny got to Doctor Dish before me. He did make eyes at me first and if I had not had my accident with the spoon—who knows? It would probably have been me resisting his passionate advances.

Penny is still rambling on when I fall asleep and it is just as well that I do get some shuteye because the following day we are introduced to life on the wards.

“Everard Hornbeam, and don’t get in everybody’s way,” says Sister Tutor looking me up and down as if she expects to find that my uniform is on back to front. All the wards in the hospital have names like that and seem to be called after famous surgeons or benefactors who gave money after the hospital had disposed of a troublesome mother in law.

When I get to Everard Hornbeam, Sister Bradley nods at me briskly and passes me on to Staff Nurse Wood who steers me towards Nurse Wilson who smiles fleetingly and gives me into the charge of Junior Martin who I later find has been on the ward for three weeks. Nurse Martin hands me a bed pan and directs me to the sluice.

In the hours that follow I get to know the sluice pretty well and I begin to suspect that the patients’ cornflakes were laced with syrup of figs in expectation of my arrival. I also discover that I have about as much status as a pork chop at a bar mitzvah. So much for my illusions about being on the same footing as the rest of the nurses once I was wearing a uniform. Nobody is fooled for an instant. I am on a men’s ward and I can see the patients nudging each other and winking as they make remarks about me. It is all very embarrassing and I suddenly become very conscious of my body. Every time I bend down my breasts and bottom seem to be lunging out all over the place and I can hardly walk down the ward without tripping over my feet.

All the other nurses move around as if programmed by computer and when not bearing full bedpans and bottles in one direction and empty ones in another I hover by their sides like a humming bird waiting its turn at a flower. In all respects I am totally useless and left in no doubt of this fact: “Nurse. Carry on with this dressing, will you? No, you can’t do that, can you?”—“Nurse. Test the diabetic specimens. Damn. You can’t do that, can you?” When Staff Wood comes up beside me and says “Come on, Nurse. Don’t hang about. Try and find something to do,” I nearly burst into tears.

Fortunately there are a number of tasks to be performed which require no medical knowledge and not all of them are directly connected with bowel movement. Preparing and taking round “elevenses” is one such job and it gives me my first real chance to get to know the patients. Their favourite tipple is marked up on a board in the kitchen and it is with a start of recognition that I see the name Arkwright. Could it be the famous Groper Arkwright who shared my lift when I came for my interview with Matron? I do remember an old man curled up asleep at the end of the ward.

In an even more worried state of mind I set off pushing my trolley and trying to smile sweetly. “Mr Evans? Cocoa, isn’t it? Would you like some sugar?”

“Yes please, Nurse. Three.”

My spoon is poised over the mug when Staff Wood snatches it away. “Mr Evans is not allowed sugar,” she says coldly. “Get a grip on yourself.”

I blush scarlet and wish I could get a grip on Staff Wood’s wind pipe. Why does everybody have to be so unpleasant? It soon becomes clear to me that most of the patients would be quite happy to kill themselves for a spoonful of sugar and that nearly all of them are treating themselves for their own versions of the ailments.

An exception to this rule is Mr Buchanan in the third bed down. He has already given up the ghost. When I approach him he beckons me closer and addresses me in a confidential whisper that can be heard four beds away. “Don’t bother with me, lass. You give your time to those it can still benefit. Just let me be and I’ll try not to be too much trouble. I’ve had a good innings and I can’t grumble.” He squeezes my hand and a tear glistens in his eye. It is all very affecting.

“Has he got a chance?” I whisper to Nurse Wilson as I push my trolley on to the next bed.

“Who? Mr Buchanan? He’s being discharged next week.”

How strange, I think. It was never like this on the Doctor Eradlik programme.

The next bed contains Mr Arkwright who still appears to be sleeping soundly. I have half a mind to tiptoe past but it occurs to me that I have got to come into contact with him sooner or later so it might as well be now. Taking the steaming mixture of malt, milk, eggs and added vitamins that I have been reading about on the tin I advance to the side of the bed. He probably won’t recognise me anyhow.

“Mr Arkwright,” I croon. “Wakey, wakey.”

Immediately, a scrawny arm shoots out and claw-like fingers sink into the soft flesh at the top of my thigh. “I want to play naughty nanas with you,” husks a familiar voice.

“Mr Arkwright! Please!”

“Come on, my little chickabee. Pull the screens round and hop aboard the love train.”

“Oops!” I don’t want to pour steaming Ovaltine all over the dirty old sod, but it is not surprising that I lose my balance when he tries to shove a couple of gnarled fingers up passion alley.

“Nurse! What have you done? Are you all right, Mr Arkwright?”

It is the first time that I have heard Staff Wood say anything nice to anyone and I realise that “Mr Sunshine” is a male version of what Natalie is going to be like in about seventy years time. What a revolting thought.

“Don’t just stand there, Nurse. Can’t you see that Mr Arkwright is in pain?” For one wonderful moment I think she is going to tell me to shoot him, but in the end I have to strip the old swine’s bed and change his pyjamas. Since this manoeuvre is performed behind screens there are ample opportunities for Mr Sunshine to demonstrate that his reflexes are as quick as ever and few of them are missed. When I limp away with a pile of sodden bedding my bottom is black and blue.

“Is he always like that?” I murmur to Nurse Martin.

Nurse Martin, having been on the ward for three whole weeks, looks surprised that I should have the barefaced cheek to address her unprompted. “Always like what?” she says haughtily.

“Grabbing and mauling,” I say.

Nurse Martin makes a convincing job of looking amazed.

“‘Grabbing and mauling?’ Why, he’s a sweet old man. They call him—”

“Don’t tell me,” I say. “‘Mr Sunshine.’ O.K., it must be me.”

“It certainly must,” snaps Nurse Martin. She looks at me as if I have still got a bat’s leg sticking out of the corner of my mouth.

The next face from the past I bump into belongs to the bearded character who took my cab. He is dressed in a white coat and is skimming through a patient’s notes as if trying to produce a picture.

“If you don’t get out of bed soon I’m going to have to kick your fat arse off it,” he bellows. “We need that bed for someone who’s ill. I want to hear that you’re feeling much better when I come round tomorrow, right?”

There is a mumble of assent from the bed and the doctor turns to find himself face to face with me.

“Why, if it isn’t Kung Fu,” he says. “You want to be more careful with those karate chops, I practically had to give that cabby the kiss of life before I could get up to town.”

He runs his fingers through his mop of dark hair and goes on to the next bed. “You’re not still here? I thought I discharged you yesterday. You stick around here much longer and we’ll have to start charging you rent.”

Blackbeard’s bedside manner differs considerably from that practised by Doctor Eradlik and I think how coarse he is. Definitely not like most of the young doctors I have noticed at Queen Adelaide’s. They tend to be rather smooth and wear striped ties underneath their white coats. Blackbeard’s white coat makes its owner look as if he helps out in a fish-and-chip shop on his evenings off. I am very surprised to find that he is some kind of doctor.

After the Arkwright botch-up Sister Bradley must decide that I am totally useless because she gives me the job of re-doing the labels that cover most of the surfaces of the sluice, linen-room and kitchen. These are neatly printed in biro and protected by sellotape which is now beginning to peel and turn yellow with age.

Halfway through the afternoon I have to copy out “No unlabelled specimens will be left standing” four times before I get it right and it occurs to me that I am becoming more exhausted than a blackleg in a prostitutes’ strike. I can hardly keep my eyes open.

“Hi, there.” The voice is upper class but deep and warm. I look up and my heart skips a couple of beats as I see Doctor Fishlock smiling down at me. “I wondered where I was going to find you.” He says it like he has been looking since puberty.

“Hello,” I simper, “I’m doing the labels.” He would have to have his eyes closed not to know that, but I never find it easy to chat to dishy men. I always imagine that they must be thinking what a fool I am. Of course, while I am thinking that, I am behaving like a fool and they soon become perfectly entitled to their opinion.

“How’s it going?” Doctor Fishlock pulls up a chair and settles down on the other side of the table. “I know just how tough these first days can be.”

I warm to him immediately because that is just the kind of kind, considerate thing that Doctor Eradlik would have said. He even stretches out an arm and pats the back of my hand. Surely this can’t be the man that Penny was talking about? He seems too gentle, too refined for those acts of wild animal passion. Sometimes I think her excitable imagination gets the better of the truth.

“It’s not too bad,” I say. “No worse than I expected.”

“That’s the girl.” Robert’s eyes glow like the embers of a cherished fire. You see how my imagination is calling him Robert already. There is something about the man that makes me feel I have known him all my life—well, not all my life. I don’t want to sound unhealthy about it. “I have the feeling that this isn’t the first job you’ve done. There’s a poise, a style about you that makes me certain that I’ve seen you somewhere before. Weren’t you on the cover of Vogue?” I cut through the oilcloth that covers the table and drop my sellotape on the floor. We both dive down to pick it up and our heads clash. Funny how Ali McGraw never does that.

“Crazy,” says Fishlock, gazing into my eyes until I can feel them going soggy at the edges. “You make me feel all fingers and thumbs. You’re like a feather dancing in the sunlight.”

What a fantastic bloke! Nobody has ever talked to me like that outside my imagination and there you have to knock before you can come in.

“My name’s Robert Fishlock,” he purrs. “Do you think you’re going to be fit enough to have a little drink with me, this evening?”

“Oh, Doctor Flashcock! I’d—” I break off in horror when I realize what I have said. Penny called him that and it must have stuck in my mind. Robert’s eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling. “My name’s Rosie Dixon,” I say hurriedly. “And I’d love to if I get finished in time and Sister Tutor doesn’t need us, and—”

“Splendid,” drawls Dreamboat, patting my wrist again. “Why don’t you come round to Bedside Manor. It’s only just round the corner from The Virgins’ Retreat.”

“That’s where you live, is it?”

“In congenial squalor. Twenty-three Prendergast Villas. Eight till late—anytime you can make it.” He turns on that hundred watt smile and my heart turns to toasted cheese.

“Keep your pecker up. The first few weeks are always the worst.” He brushes his index finger along my lip and stands up. “I’d better be going. There’s a chronic polycythaemia with multiple scattered thrombi that I want to keep an eye on.”

“I hope it’s all right,” I say.

“I think he’ll come through.” One more smile and I am left alone with my labels. But what a difference in the way I feel! I amaze Sister by finishing the labels without a single mistake and skim round the ward with the teas as if on wings. Mr Arkwright has a trolley across his bed and I find that by seizing this, putting his tea on it and pushing it towards him I can avoid actual bodily contact. Mr Sunshine leans back against his propped-up pillows and watches me like an aged lion waiting for a schoolgirl to stick her hand through the bars of the cage.

When I come off duty I am tired but happy. I helped to take the temperatures and Staff Wood called me “Nurse Dixon” instead of just plain “Nurse.” Sister Bradley has not learned my name yet but it is early days.

When I get back to the room, Penny is lying stretched out on the bed still wearing her uniform.

“How did it go?” I say.

“Ghastly! I feel absolutely shattered. I never knew human beings could go to the lavatory so often. Some of them don’t seem to be fitted with washers. It goes in one end and straight out the other.”

“What are the other nurses like?” I am cheered to find that Penny and I seem to have shared the same experience.

“Pretty frightful. Trying to boss you around the whole time. The place is like a women’s prison. I can’t stand being told what to do by a woman.”

“I suppose they have to have a system.” Since Doctor Fishlock appeared I am feeling far more favourably disposed towards everybody.

“Did you say ‘system’ or ‘cistern’?” Penny holds up a hand in front of her face. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this crap clean from my hand?”

“Um-yes,” I say nervously. Penny does talk in a very funny way sometimes. “Are you going to have any supper?”

“I couldn’t face it. I’m not going anywhere unless Mark rings. I don’t suppose that pin-pricked little freak downstairs would pass on a message if he had one. Do you know, he actually had the cheek to wink at me this morning. I’m surprised his eyeball didn’t fall out under the strain.”

“I’m going out tonight,” I say, trying to sound very offhand about it. “You’ll never guess who with.”

“Doctor Flashcock?”

“How did you know that?”

“He was asking me questions about you last night. It was obvious that he had a yen for you.”

“You never told me.”

“Oh, didn’t I? Well, there was no point in raising your hopes, was there? I hope you’ve taken your pill to-day.”

“I’m not going to bed with him!” I say firmly. “We’re just having a drink.”

“I don’t see why you have to be so terribly coy,” sighs Penny. “It happens all the time, you know.”

“I wouldn’t go to bed with a boy on the first day,” I say indignantly.

“Not unless you were really in love—yes, I know. I had a friend like you once. She used to believe that she was a virgin until she had ten orgasms in one evening. She never got further than eight.”

“I’m not like that.”

“What are you like, then? You’re not a virgin?”

It is such a difficult question to answer, isn’t it? I suppose technically I am not a virgin but that is such a soulless way of looking at it. In my mind I have never consciously done anything to lose my virginity.

“Yes and no,” I say.

Penny groans. “Thank God I’m too tired to argue with you. I can tell you that it’s going to be more ‘yes’ than ‘no’ before the evening is over.” She dangles her arms over the edge of the bed and closes her eyes.

I am slightly disappointed that she seems so relaxed about me going out with Robert but, then, she seems so relaxed about lots of things. Whatever I do I must get away from her because she is making me feel so tired. Every time she yawns, I yawn and when I lie down on the bed for an instant I can hardly get up again.

It is a hospital rule that the nurses eat the same food as the patients and when I look at what appear to be teeth marks on my piece of gristly beef I wonder if someone is applying the instruction literally. The pros, or probationers, all sit at the same table and it is noticeable that there is much less conversation amongst us than at the tables occupied by the more senior nurses. Senior inmates also seem to have much heartier appetites. Perhaps they have got used to the food.

There is no sign of Robert and I am glad that I don’t have to exchange any words with him before our date. I rest my head on my hand and gaze across the room. Gosh, but I do feel tired.

“Wake up, Nurse.”

I jerk my eyes open to find that the table is half empty and that someone is collecting the plates. I must have dropped off to sleep. I scuttle away feeling embarrassed and return to The Virgins’ Retreat. Penny is now fast asleep and I am able to get ready in peace. I never like having to make myself up with somebody else around and it used to be agony at home with Natalie always trying to make funny remarks. I wonder how she is, little baggage. Probably rifling my drawers to see if I have left any make-up behind. Well, she will be unlucky. I took great care to bring everything with me. I have sent Mum and Dad a postcard showing the statue on the lawn outside the hospital and I hope Dad will not get the wrong idea. It features a man wearing a bowler hat brim and wings and his willy wonker is very much to the fore. I believe there were a lot of complaints when it first went up—I mean, when the statue first went up, of course.

I pop a few drops of ‘Passion’s Plaything’ behind my ears—just to cheer myself up, of course—and close the door softly on Penny’s snores. My bath I took before supper just in case I came up in a red flush. It was my neck I was worried about, naturally. I need not have bothered because the water was colder than an eskimo’s jolly lolly. Probably just as well otherwise I would have fallen asleep in it.

G.B.H. peers at me through his peep-hole as I go out and I shudder to think of Penny being forced to submit to him. I am certain she must have exaggerated as usual. I would rather have been dragged before Matron by white horses than let him so much as touch me.

23 Prendergast Villas is a semi-detached house in a street facing the common and my finger trembles as I press the door bell. I do hope my lipstick has not started matting. A shadow swims up behind the stained glass and the door opens.

“Rosie. How super to see you.”

Robert is wearing a green velvet smoking jacket with gold piping and a white frilly shirt. He looks as if he is about to compere Come Dancing.

“I hope I’m not too early,” I simper.

“You could never be too early. Are you going to wear that jacket or shall I take it?”

“Um, well, it is nice and warm, perhaps I can take it off.”

Careful, Dixon. You’re yawning already. Robert slides my jacket from my shoulders and, holds it up to the light.

“It’s beautiful,” he says. “What is it? Worth?”

“About four pounds,” I say. “I got it at C & A. It’s not real.”

It is only then that I realise he did not say “What’s it worth?” Oh dear.

“Amazing.” Robert looks faintly disturbed. “Come upstairs and have a drink. I’ve mixed us a teeny-weeny dry martini.”

He leads the way upstairs and I am impressed at how well furnished the place is. Lots of cream coloured carpet and white walls. Not like our semi where everything is scuffed brown and the shiniest thing is the threadbare hair-cord on the stairs.

“Is this all yours?” I ask.

“I own it but I share with a chappie in advertising—you know, we take the hippocratic oath, they take the hypocritic oath.” He looks at me expectantly and I am quick to smother a yawn and try to smile. I can never remember being so tired. Maybe it is because the house is so warm.

Robert steps to one side at the top of the stairs and waves me into a room containing comfortable leather backed chairs and a sofa. There is a sheepskin rug in front of the roaring fire and on the walls coloured drawings of people fox hunting. “Sit down and I’ll get you that drink. I know just how tired you can feel when you’re not used to it.”

He pokes the fire as if he has a grudge against it and I notice a hairy wrist protruding from his frilly white cuff. How sexy! I can see why Penny responded.

“Tell me if it’s not right.”

He hands me a small glass which has an olive on a stick protruding from it and I wonder what to do with the olive.

“I’m certain it’s lovely,” I say.

In fact, the first sip tastes like cough medicine and I can hardly swallow it. The only Martini I can remember having was red but I am certain that Doctor Fishlock knows what he is doing.

“Bung ho!”

“Cheers.”

It is very difficult to keep the olive in the glass when one is drinking and I look carefully to see what Robert is doing with his. He does not have one.

“If you don’t like olives you can always chuck it in the fire.”

“Oh no. I think they’re delicious.” I sink my teeth into the firm flesh and— “Ouch!”

“The stones are a damn nuisance, aren’t they?” sympathises Robert. “Now tell me. Where do you come from?”

“Woodford,” I say. Actually it is Chingford but I think Woodford sounds better.

“Oh. Winnie’s old seat.”

I try a small laugh but Robert is swift to realise that I have no idea what he is talking about. “Winston Churchill. It used to be his seat when he was in the House of Commons. Do you know the Wrights?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I used to play squash with the eldest son. I think they lived at Woodford. It’s on the way to Epping, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s er-um very nice.”

We nod enthusiastically and it is clear that we both think that Woodford is a very nice place. I stare into the glowing heart of the fire and realise that I am tipping my drink onto the rug. I expect that by this time Robert’s love truncheon was racing in and out of Penny’s spasm chasm like an express train with hiccups. Not, of course, that I am envious. Oh dear me, no. I am far too tired for one thing. Apart from my natural reluctance to get stuck into the pudding before I have had my soup.

Robert takes my empty glass and smiles at me. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say, wondering what he is talking about and wishing I didn’t drink so fast when I was so nervous.

“I’ve invited you round here because I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve seen in ages and here we are talking about Woodford.”

I wonder how Penny got round here. She was obviously best at something. This sofa is so comfortable that I don’t think I will ever be able to get out of it. If only I could stretch out and go to sleep.

“You look gorgeous when you half close your eyes like that.” Stick around, Doll, I think to myself. You could go out of your mind when you get the full treatment. I look down and find there is another drink in my hand. It must be strong to taste like that. I could get drunk on the olives.

“I’m afraid I’m not saying very much,” I say. Good old Dixon! Slow on chat but strong on honesty.

“Don’t worry your beautiful head about it,” purrs Robert, “it’s a delight just to sit here and feast my eyes on you.”

“You are nice,” I say. I hope he likes the inside of girls’ mouths because he gets a perfect view of mine as I release my forty-fifth yawn of the evening.

“You poor girl. I can see you’re exhausted. Let me try something.”

The words “no” and “not yet” are framed on my lips but it is my temples that he caresses lightly. “Massage,” he murmurs. “Tell me if it helps.”

“Uuuhm. That’s nice.” It is too.

“Close your eyes.” Never has a request been easier to comply with. My peepers are jammed shut faster than a spinster’s legs at a Congolese bachelor party. “Tell me if it feels better.”

“Uuuuhm.”

“Put your feet up on the sofa. Here, let me.” My legs are gently lifted onto the settee and the delicious pressure on my breasts continues—my breasts? Oh well, I suppose he knows what he is doing. The room is so warm that I can barely keep awake. And talking of “barely”, don’t I feel supple fingers tweaking my naked flesh? If I was not certain that I would never allow such a thing to happen 1 would swear that my nipples had been exposed.

“That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Uuuuuuuuhhhhmm.”

Amazing the tricks that your imagination can play when you are practically asleep. I can actually hear the sound of clothing being removed. I stretch out my hand and feel—oh, yes. Now I know I must be dreaming.

“Is that nice?” murmurs Robert from somewhere inches deep in my subconscious.

“Uuuuuuuuhhhmm!” I murmur. “Absolutely uuuuu uuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm ! ! ! !”

CHAPTER 6

I must have been very tired because it is twenty to eleven before I wake up again. I hardly have time to thank Robert for his hospitality and the comfortable settee before I am racing back to the nurses home. Whatever happens I must get there before the door is locked. The thought of having to endure what Penny went through is too horrible to dwell on.

“Your friend still out?” G.B.H.’s ugly mug settles into an expectant leer as he leaps towards the door.

“She had an early night,” I say, savouring the look of misery that spreads across the dirty old devil’s face.

To my surprise, Penny is awake when I pant into our room. She looks me up and down and smiles. “Is that display of exhaustion solely as a result of climbing up the stairs?”

I smile sheepishly. “You probably won’t believe this but I fell asleep.”

“I find that very easy to believe. After the tonk-bonking I took from that white spade I felt pretty tired myself.”

I shake my head and start getting ready for bed. “You don’t understand, Penny. I fell asleep before anything happened. I must have been completely exhausted.”

Penny continues to smile and gazes pointedly at my panties. “Interesting. How come your knickers are on inside out?”

“What?”

“When you went out they said ‘Chase me Charley, I’m the last bus home’ or something like that. I noticed particularly. Now they say ‘YADSENDEW’.”

What is she talking about? “Yadsendew”? I don’t have any Chinese panties. I have the ones with the days of the week on them that Geoffrey gave me but— then it dawns on me: ‘yadsendew’ is Wednesday spelt backwards. Oh dear, I do have my panties on inside out. How could that have happened? I must have gone to the loo in my sleep—I mean, I must have gone to the toilet and forgotten all about it because I was so sleepy.

“Oh yes,” I say casually. “I expect it happened while I was spending a penny.”

Penny looked puzzled. “Do you usually take your knickers off when you spend a penny?”

“It depends on what kind of mood I’m in,” I say. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.”

Penny shakes her head. “Thank you, and goodnight. I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Penny turns her back on me and burrows into the pillows and I finish undressing and get into bed. It is as I am switching off the lamp that an unpleasant thought occurs to me. Is it possible that I could have been tampered with while I was asleep? I hardly like to think about it but the opportunity was there for someone unscrupulous enough to take it. Robert seemed such a gentleman but he had made love to Penny the previous evening. Perhaps he thought I was the same kind of girl. We did not have a lot of time to talk to each other.

Anyhow, it can’t be helped and the main thing is that if anything happened it did so without my knowledge or consent. My virtue is still intact. Cheered by this thought, I fall into a deep and contented sleep.

In the following days we divide our time between ward service and attending lectures.

The lectures include such subjects as Anatomy, Hygiene, Nursing and Physiology and I soon realise that any State Registered Nurse must know as much about sewage and activated sludge as the average plumber. Certainly a knowledge of sewers would be a help when looking into the minds of some of the patients on Everard Hornbeam but I would have expected this to be covered under the heading of psychology. Our nursing lectures take the form of winding hundreds of miles of bandages round each other and Sister. Tutor goes spare when we successfully lash one of the class to a chair so that she cannot move.

Some of the girls take it very seriously but Penny breezes through as if she does not have a care in the world—which of course she hasn’t. She calls us “The Bistoury Kids” and when asked by Sister Tutor why she is late for a lecture says that she got stuck in the service lift. She is also completely nuts. When S.T.—this is Penny’s name for Sister Tutor and stands for—well, you can guess what it stands for—starts talking about cells, Penny says “Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a minute living organism consisting of a nucleus and protoplasm enclosed in a stroma or envelope.” She is mad, I tell you. Stark raving mad. Despite all the technical knowledge I am being exposed to, I still spend my time on Everard Hornbeam preparing diabetic feeds and checking the linen cupboard. I have yet to pluck a patient from the brink of death in typical Doctor Eradlik fashion. Mr Arkwright continues to try and play “naughty nanas” with me and I make tactful inquiries concerning his longevity. I am told that he is as well as can be expected which does not help very much.

Taking Mr Arkwright’s pulse is always a problem unless you hold both wrists at once and this can prove confusing. I can also think of places other than his mouth in which I would like to stick a thermometer. Not that he is a bad old stick and it is nice to know that someone fancies you. I am very choked that Doctor Flash—I mean, Fishlock does not follow up our first meeting. He is probably frightened that I am going to fall asleep again. If only I had not been so tired. He does not keep in touch with Penny either and she says that he only makes a play for pros. I am a bit unhappy about this until I realise that she means probationers.

My favourite times on the ward are visiting hours, both because they provide a breathing space and because I like matching the crowds milling outside the wards to the patients they have come to visit. Sister Bradley hates visiting hours because they make her ward untidy. I feel that she would like to be dashing around with a tin of furniture polish removing each scuff mark as it occurs.

At five to six you can stand in the ward and see the faces pressed against the glass potholes in the closed doors like gold fish waiting for ants eggs. Sticky babies are being held up and tiny hands wave aimlessly.

“Stand by for the stampede” says Nurse Wilson, grimly.

“Spittoon mugs away, please, Mr Chapman,” says Nurse Martin sweetly.

“Will somebody please wipe this locker. It’s got orange juice all over it,” says Sister, severely. “Sit up straight, Mr Homer. You don’t want your daughter to think there’s something wrong with you, do you?”

“Bless the lord for sparing me for this day,” says Mr Buchanan who is being discharged on Monday. “It just proves that faith can move mountains.”

“So can Senokot,” says Staff Wood who is not big on sentiment.

“Have a wine gum, Nurse,” whispers Mr Evans. “They’re not habit forming.”

“You are naughty, Mr Evans. You know you’re not allowed sweets.” I do not have time to say any more before Sister looks at her watch and nods at Staff Wood. Staff Wood raises an eyebrow to Nurse Wilson and Nurse Wilson inclines her head towards Nurse Martin. Now comes Nurse Martin’s biggest moment of the day. “Open the doors, Nurse,” she says to me.

There is a ripple of excitement and I step forward and release the bolt. Nurse Wilson has suggested running a book on the first three patients to be touched by a relative but I think you would need a camera to separate them. They come through the door like the Grand National field and I am nearly squashed against the wall.

Mr Chapman is a thin old man whose skin is stretched over his bones like paper over the fuselage of a model aeroplane and I am surprised to see him approached by a big-busted beauty wearing a suit that looks as if it was borrowed from her kid sister.

I had thought that she must be the property of Jim North the ward wit. Jim is the youngest patient on the ward by ten years and spends his time combing his hair and making scandalous jokes. Nurse Wilson is rumoured to be bonkers about an Indian houseman called Singh and Jim is determined to squeeze every last ounce of amusement out of the situation. “Do you know what Nurse Wilson’s favourite song is?” He says. “‘Singh went the strings of my heart.’ She can’t help singhing it everywhere she goes. Do you get it? ‘Singhing it.’” Mr Chapman usually nods slowly and reaches for his head phones.

Jim once confided to me that he had an audition for Opportunity Knocks. “It was won by a soprano from Leeds with big tits” he says. “Opportunity Knockers, that’s what I called her.”

Mr Chapman’s visitor turns out to be his daughter who is a dancer. Nobody ever finds out what kind and when Nurse Martin suggests ballet, Staff Wood sniffs and says that she thinks it is bally unlikely. It is the first joke that any one can remember her making.

Jim North has to make do with his Mum and Dad and a younger sister who brings a bunch of grapes every time she comes and leaves with a bag full of pips. I don’t think Jim ever has one of them.

Sweet-toothed Mr Evans always has too many visitors round his bed and all of them are passing him boxes of Maltesers and bars of chocolate. Whether they do it because they love him or they want to kill him, I don’t know.

Mr Buchanan only has one visitor. An enormous woman who seems to surround him as she sits beside his bed and listens to him twittering on. “Funny how it’s going to be Guy Fawkes night, soon. I never thought I’d be spared to see another firework. I remember when I had that turn on the Summer Bank Holiday. I said to myself, Ernest, I said—”

“I’ll bring your suit in on Monday morning.” The woman’s voice does not contain a hint of enthusiasm. I think she believes, like the rest of us, that Mr Buchanan is going to live for ever.

Whether he does or not I never begin to find out because he is discharged on Monday as planned. He insists on shaking hands with everyone and winces at every squeeze. “Never thought I’d go out of here on my pins,” he says. “Still, I expect they need the beds. When you get to my age you can’t expect people to have a lot of time for you. It’s all youth these days, isn’t it? I just hope I won’t be back here too soon, getting under everyone’s feet.”

“So do I,” mutters Staff Wood. “He won’t last long if he gets under mine.” Staff Wood has very large feet and I know what she means.

My month’s probation is up almost before I have realised it and when I am told that Matron wants to see me, I wonder what she can want.

“Well, Nixon,” she says when I knock timidly and obey her bark to go in. “Reports I have received suggest that you are a willing gel. Not exactly one of the brightest stars in the infirmament—” she pauses and looks at me hopefully. What does she expect me to do? “—but no matter, there’s plenty of time. Sign here.”

She pushes a piece of paper towards me and I suddenly realise that I am on the permanent staff. Now it is a month’s notice on either side. I am so chuffed at having been accepted that I sign without seriously considering whether or not I want to continue.

CHAPTER 7

“Brewer’s droop,” says Penny. “Nobody spiked his drink. He was too sloshed that’s all. You felt all right, didn’t you?”

“I felt fine,” I say. “But I didn’t drink as much as him.”

“Exactly. It’s rotten luck but it happens all the time. You tried the kiss of life, did you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, blushing.

“I was afraid you mightn’t.” Penny shakes her head. “I won’t go into details, I might shock you,” she sighs. “Really, I think it’s a rotten job being a man. I wouldn’t have it if you paid me. I mean, you’ve always got to come up to scratch, haven’t you? If you’re a woman you can just lie there and make a shopping list on the ceiling but a man has got to deliver the goods. If he’s drunk too much or he’s worried about the dry rot in the attic that can present the most tremendous problems. And the poor things are starved of orgasms, you know. Two or three an hour if they’re lucky—and if you’re lucky too. I go off like a fire cracker and ‘Emancipated Woman’ says that a healthy woman can have up to twenty orgasms in a minute.”

“How do they know?” I ask. “I mean, if what you say about men is true a normal woman would get through about a hundred and twenty men in ten minutes.”

“I don’t know how they worked it out,” says Penny. “I think it was a controlled experiment in the States. They fastened electrodes to a couple and told them to make love. Everything was recorded on a seismograph or something like that.”

“I don’t like the idea of that.”

“No, it must take away a bit of the glamour, mustn’t it?”

“I never knew any of this,” I say. “I mean, about orgasms and all that.”

“It’s done more harm than good if you ask me,” sniffs Penny. “A lot of men are getting very worried. It’s bad enough when they get tiddly but when they start worrying about whether they’re going to come up to scratch, that’s even worse. Some of them get so nervous they have a drink to calm themselves down and then they’re twice as badly off. In the old days they used to get on with it without a care in the world and at least you could get something out of them. Now they’re all reading Cosmopolitan and having nervous breakdowns. The only men it’s worth going out with are illiterates—or horsemen like Mark. He never reads anything except Horse and Hound, and they haven’t got on to sex yet—at least, not for humans.”

Poor Jake, I think to myself. I never realised he had so many problems. I wish I could help him with some of them but when he dropped me at the nurses home he said that he did not think he would be able to face me again. I told him to try and keep his pecker up but he started sobbing again and drove off so fast he nearly hit an ambulance.

If the course of true love is not running smoothly for me, there are others who are more fortunate. Old Mr Chapman’s sexy daughter and Jim North the ward wit seem to have struck up an understanding which began when Sonia, that is the daughter’s name, filled up Jim’s stricken fruit bowl with some grapes her old man did not fancy. From this small beginning true love blossoms until Sonia spends more time turning round and talking to Jim than she does rabbiting to her Dad. Not that he notices a lot of difference, poor old devil. He talked to an oxygen cylinder for half an hour on Monday night.

Daily contact with this breathtaking romance is denied me because I find that my name has gone up on the board for night duty. I have been dreading this moment because I fancy staying up all night less than featuring in a marathon dance contest with General Amin. It is not only staying up all night but having to sleep during the day. I can only sleep during the day if I am supposed to be working. Five minutes from Sister Tutor on how to fix up a saline drip for a perforated ulcer and I am drifting off like it is a bedtime story. But, put me in a room with sunlight streaming through the transparent curtains and tell me to sleep and I find it impossible to shut my eyes.

It is not only the daylight. Although there are special rooms provided for Night Nurses to sleep in undisturbed these are always situated above the spot where navvies test their pneumatic drills, maids practise to be the first female town crier and the plumbing makes a noise like a depth charge attack on a submarine.

On the day I am supposed to be preparing to go on night duty, I wish I had gone to a piano smashing festival rather than try and get some sleep.

I am on night duty with a nurse called Cilla Bias and it is not until I see her name written down that I wake up to the fact that her parents could have chosen better. She is far more experienced than me—and has also done a lot more nursing. We are on Fanny Utting which as the name suggests is a women’s ward.

One good thing about nights is that most of the patients have the decency to sleep and you have the chance to write to your Mum and Dad or knit a pair of woolly bedsocks. For the first few nights Cilla chatters on about her life and loves and I try and keep my eyes open. There is a period at about three o’clock every morning when my body feels as if it is leaking away through the floor boards. I don’t think I will ever be closer to death until I am in a coffin. After that the system seems to pick up a bit and soon one is plunged into a whirlwind of activity as one prepares to hand over the patients to the day nurses.

Once one goes on night duty one has joined the enemy. Everything that goes wrong is blamed on the night nurses. All those warning labels I copied out for Sister Bradley were intended to be read by night nurses who would otherwise plunge the whole system into chaos. Every broken thermometer or cracked teacup is blamed on the night nurses. The day sister who takes over from us practically runs into the sluice as if she expects to find the place knee deep in vulture droppings.

Cilla and I are alone on the ward and expected to shout for help if something serious crops up. There is a night sister who is attached to a number of wards and our one reminds me of the ladies in that Wagner music you hear on Two Way Family Favourites—The Ride Of The Val Doonicans or whatever it is. She is a big lady and though she tries to be stealthy her size ten beetle crushers can be heard a couple of wards away. In full flight she looks like a How the West Was Won wagon carried away by the wind.

There are also a number of house surgeons who apportion their presence according to the needs of the patients under their control—e.g. they go to the wards where the nurses are prettiest and provide tea and biscuits. Cilla has a number of admirers and when they are not hurriedly taking their feet off the table in the middle of the ward as night sister crashes into view, she goes and visits them.

Nurse Cilla Bias—or Labby as I find she is called—is no prude when it comes to chucking out details of her love affairs and confides to me that she has indulged in what she calls ‘a stand up quickie’ in one of the private patients’ rooms—when it was unoccupied, I hasten to add. The fortunate recipient of her favours appears to be a houseman called Tom Richmond who plays for the hospital rugby team. He weighs about three tons and I can see why Labby does not want him on top of her—I wonder if she would have been the way she is if she had been called Enid Bias?

The hospital is mad keen on rugby and brain surgeons are second class citizens compared to the likes of Tom Richmond. Medical students are selected more for the size of their muscles than their grey matter and the senior surgeons are more interested in Queen Adelaide’s carrying off the inter-hospital knock-out cup than performing the first underwater heart transplant.

Cilla says that she used to think it was called the knock-out cup because it went to the hospital that knocked out most of the opposition. She says that there is blood everywhere and that before the game everybody parades mascots and pelts each other with bags of soot. It seems pretty daft to me but Cilla says that it is ‘absolutely soopah!’

When Cilla and Tom Richmond start staring into each other’s eyes across the patients’ records I feel about as welcome as honeymoon cystitis and slink away to check the diabetic specimens or perform some other totally unriveting chore. It is even worse when Cilla slips away on one of her little visits because I find it very spooky when I am alone. The only light comes from above the table in the middle of the ward and shines in from the corridor and it is easy to confuse the figures turning in their sleep with somebody moving amongst the beds. Often I have been nearly asleep and woken with a start convinced that there is someone coming towards me. A cold chill will make me turn round quickly to discover—nothing.

Once, when Cilla comes tip-toeing back from one of her trips and rests her hand on my shoulder I nearly jump out of my skin.

Two patients who do not sleep all through the night are Mrs Tiger and Mrs Black. Mrs Black is white and Mrs Tiger is black as Christmas Eve in the coal shed. Mrs Tiger has a bed at the end of the ward by the French windows and Mrs Black sleeps next to her—or rather she does not sleep next to her. Mrs Tiger is a very restless sleeper and mumbles and talks all through the night. To hear her going on sometimes you would think there was actually someone there with her.

“I can’t stand it,” complains Mrs Black, who must be about eighty and not exactly Bamber Gascoyne when it comes to getting it together. “It’s all Black Magic, you know.”

“Giving her an upset tummy, you mean?” I say. “I didn’t think she was allowed chocolates anyway. I’ll tell—”

“No, no, no, silly girl. I mean witchcraft. She’s talking to the spirits of her ancestors. Sometimes they answer her back.”

“Can’t you tell her to talk more quietly?”

“She can’t do anything about it. She’s not in control. She says she’s been taken over.”

“I’ll see if we can give her a tablet,” I say soothingly. “Now you must try and get some sleep.”

“I hope the man doesn’t come tonight.”

“She talks about a man, does she?” I say tucking in the sheets.

“She talks to a man. I saw him once, at the end of the bed.”

Poor old thing, I think to myself. Definitely going soft in the nut. “I’ll give you a tablet, too,” I say.

The next evening, when we come on duty, Sister Belter, the day sister, is bristling like a jelly pincushion. “I don’t know what you two were up to last night,” she says. “But I don’t expect my nurses to have to clear up your litter.”

I don’t know what she is talking about. Perhaps Cilla left a tea cup unwashed. I can see Cilla looking at me and thinking the same thing.

“Bones under the beds,” says Sister Belter. It sounds like the title of a detective story.

“Bones?”

“Chicken bones.” Sister looks us up and down disdainfully.

“I suppose those large frames need some filling.” Sister Belter is a small pinched woman and whoever pinched her could take her back again without any fear of prosecution from me.

“It must have been one of the patients having a midnight snack,” says Cilla. “It wasn’t us.”

“Surely, if you were doing your jobs properly you would be aware of a patient munching chicken. Anyway, the patients all denied that they had eaten anything.”

‘Where did you find the bones, sister?” I ask.

“Underneath Mrs Tiger’s bed. What’s so funny, Nurse?”

“I was just thinking about tigers and bones,” I say trying to keep a straight face.

“I don’t find it a laughing matter, and neither will you if I find any more litter tomorrow morning.”

“I hope she cuts herself shaving,” mutters Cilla as Sister flounces off. “You didn’t have any chicken, did you?” Labby returned flushed and glowing from an hour with Doctor Richmond the previous night and so was not in the best position to keep abreast of all my movements.

“Of course not! I’d hardly be likely to bung the remains under the bed, would I? Sister must be nuts.”

Labby settles down to tell me what happened in the maids’ room on the third floor and I soon forget about chicken bones.

“Aren’t you frightened of someone coming in?” I ask.

Labby giggles. “I was last night. The floor polisher was still plugged in and Tom stood on the control. He said I nearly ruptured him when I jumped in the air. For a moment I thought that great whirring noise was him.”

“How sexy,” I say. “What happened?”

“I had to turn the light on in the end. Tom’s trousers were round his ankles so he couldn’t move and the cleaner knocked him on the floor. The buffing pads ripped his Y-fronts to pieces, so you can see what a good job it was that he was somewhere else at the time. I kicked over half the brooms in the place before I found the light.”

What a boring life I lead, I think to myself. Sometimes I wish I could be footloose and fancy free like some of the other girls in the hospital. Staying up all night would be so much easier if I thought that someone cared for me. At the moment I feel like the female lead’s best friend in an American musical.

It comes as no surprise when Labby asks if I would be an “absolute sweetie” and hold the fort while she pops off to share a few stolen moments with Tom Richmond. Sometimes I wonder who suffers most from their relationship, the patients or the rugby team.

She gets a call at about two in the morning and pads off eagerly leaving me to the gloom and the stirring bodies. I try to read a book but I can’t take in the words and decide to make a tour of the ward.

Mrs Tiger’s mumbling can be heard three beds away. “Oh man, oh man, oh man. Take it away.” She pants as if in a fever. “Take it away!”

Her eyes are closed but her hands are moving down the bedclothes as if pushing something from her. It is all rather spooky and a bit kinky.

I can see Mrs Black’s eye glinting so I go over to her and ask if she is all right. Her back is turned towards Mrs Tiger’s bed and she nods very gently as if not wanting to draw attention to herself. “Always the same. Always talking, they are.”

I imagine that the “they” refers to all the Mrs Tigers in the world but Mrs Black’s next words make me change my mind. “He was here again last night. All the mumbo jumbo. I don’t like it. This is a women’s ward. Why should he come out of visiting hours?”

I should have done something about those pills, I think to myself. I wonder if I dare give her something without consulting anybody?

“It’s very trying,” I say. “But you must try and get some sleep.”

“I’m not going to sleep until the man’s been.”

“There’s no man, Mrs Black. You probably saw one of the house surgeons doing his rounds.”

“We don’t have any blackies. Black as your hat, this one. Scraping away with his sticks.”

Her voice dwindles away but the eye that I can see remains defiantly open. There is no point in talking further so I go back to the circle of light in the middle of the ward. How menacing it suddenly seems. An undefended camp surrounded by darkness. I wonder what the sticks were that Mrs Black was talking about. I can’t think of— and then it comes to me. Bones are like sticks.

I look down the ward and wish that Labby would come back. Even Night Sister would be a welcome visitor at the moment. I feel angry that I should be left alone to shoulder all the responsibility, but most of all I feel afraid.

From where I am sitting I can see Mrs Tiger thrashing in her bed and as I watch, the curtains over the French windows seem to have picked up the motion. I must be dreaming because—no, it can’t be. For an instant I think I can make out a figure standing at the bottom of Mrs Tiger’s bed. I close my eyes and when I open them the figure has gone. The curtains are still moving, though. Funny, because the windows can’t be open although that is what it looks like.

Without really wanting to I leave the imagined safety of the light and walk down the ward. A cold draught meets my face and I can see that the curtains are moving. It must be the wind—unless there is someone standing behind them. The latter thought does nothing to make me quicken my pace and it is in something approaching a panic that I stick out a hand and press the rippling fabric. The French windows are open.

Holding my breath, I go out onto the balcony. It is raining and I can see the drops picked out in the street lamp opposite. There is no sign of anyone. The windows must have been left open when the day nurses went off duty, although it is strange that I did not notice anything when I was talking to Mrs Black.

Feeling relieved and a little foolish, I shut the windows and draw the curtains tight. Mrs Tiger has stopped thrashing about and appears to be sleeping peacefully. She is lying on her back with her hands outside the sheets and resting on her lap.

I turn to go back to my table when my foot strikes something. I know what it is before I look down. A bone. One of a pair lying crossed at the foot of the bed. At the moment my foot touches it Mrs Tiger cries out and begins to stir. I pick up the bones and immediately her movements become more pronounced. The bones look exactly like the ones Sister waved under our noses. I don’t like touching them and drop them on the end of the bed. Immediately Mrs Tiger’s movements become less jerky and her mood calmer. It is as if her actions are governed by the position of the bones and that to interfere with them is to cause her discomfort. Her hands are still moving restlessly up and down her body so I take the bones and my courage in both hands and return the thin splinters to their original position on the floor.

Immediately Mrs Tiger sinks back like a deflated balloon and her hands stop moving. I breath a sigh of relief and see that Mrs Black is watching me.

“Did you see him?” she hisses. “He shouldn’t be here. I don’t want no blackie putting spells on me when I’m sleeping. It’s not nice.”

“I didn’t see anybody,” I lie. “Try and get some sleep. Mrs Tiger is quiet as a mouse.’

“It’s not right, he should come at the same time as the other visitors.”

I leave her muttering about the loopholes in the National Health Service and return to my table just as a ruffled Labby hurries into sight.

“Rosie, guess what happened?” she trills.

“Tom caught his prick in the driving band of a vacuum cleaner?”

I know it is not a very nice thing to say but I am feeling rather overwrought and eager to release tension.

“He asked me to marry him!”

“That’s fabulous but you ought to hear what happened while you were away.”

“I said yes, I thought about waiting until he got a registrar’s job but—”

“Mrs Tiger is being treated by black magic.”

“I didn’t think she was allowed chocolates. What is it? Some new kind of—”

“I’ve been through all that,” I shriek “I mean voodoo, obiah—that kind of black magic. There’s a witch doctor who slips into the hospital and leaves crossed chicken bones at the end of Mrs Tiger’s bed.”

Labby takes a step backwards and puts a hand on my forehead. “Have you been at the brandy again?” Her expression becomes menacing. “Or are you just trying to upstage my greatest moment?”

“Come and see for yourself,” I beg her. “I think it’s smashing about you and Tom and I hope you’ll be very happy,” I give her a kiss on the cheek. “Now come and see these bones. They’re just like the ones Sister found.”

Labby pads along behind me and I can tell that she thinks I am mad or playing a joke. “There you are.”

Labby stares at them sceptically. “I suppose I get an electric shock when I pick them up?”

“You won’t,” I say.

“Well, whatever they are, we can’t leave them there. Sister will go off her teeny rocker.”

Before I can stop her Labby bends down and picks up the bones. Immediately Mrs Tiger gives a yelp and rises up in bed as if hauled by a rope. Labby is so shocked that she drops the bones on the floor and I hurriedly rearrange them in a crossed position. Mrs Tiger sinks back onto her bed.

“Now do you believe me?” I say.

“It’s uncanny,” says Labby. “You’re sure you’re not joking?”

“Don’t be daft. How could I be?”

“I’ll fetch Tom. He’ll know what to do.”

Labby’s faith is touching but Doctor Richmond is reputed to be as thick as a lorryload of sanitary towels and I do not reckon that he is the man to deal with a problem of this delicacy.

“Don’t do that,” I say. “I know exactly what to do: leave the bones where they are.”

“What’s Sister going to say tomorrow morning?”

Labby has a point. I can see the cold light of dawn getting even colder when I start explaining to Sister about rustling curtains and the black man that nutty Mrs Black has seen. Sister will chuck the bones straight into the trash can—probably followed by us. And tomorrow night—Stop! I don’t want to think about it. The witch doctor, or whatever he is, will probably get fed up with people messing around with his chicken bones and turn Labby and me into frogs. Tom is not going to like that—I am not going to like it much, either.

Luckily I have a great idea. “We’ll put them under the floorboards,” I say.

Labby looks from me to the bones to Mrs Tiger and back to me again. “And I thought this was going to be the happiest night of my life,” she says. “You certainly know how to spoil things, don’t you?”

This is a very unkind thing to say but I control myself with difficulty and go and get a teaspoon to prise up the floorboards. Somebody has got to keep cool in this situation.

Ten minutes later I have learned something very useful about hospital cutlery: it is absolutely useless for prising up floorboards. If anyone doubts me I have a collection of mangled knives, forks and spoons to prove it.

“Sister is going to go mad when she sees this lot,” groans Libby. “Let me go and find Tom.”

“Hang on a minute. There must be something we can use.”

Luckily we find a screwdriver that must have been left behind by one of the electricians and, with a crack like my nerves snapping, the floorboard eventually springs into the air.

“Is there room down there?”

“Yes, quick, give me the bones.”

“I don’t want to touch them.”

At that point I say something very unpleasant to Nurse Bias and snatch up the bones. It is as if they are attached to the strings of a puppet because Mrs Tiger immediately starts twitching and groaning. I don’t waste any time but arrange them neatly on a pile of mouse droppings and prepare to replace the board. As I look up I see to my horror that a twenty foot shadow is approaching faSt The shadow is being thrown by Night Sister.

I have already worked out what she is going to say before she looms above me.

“And what do you think you’re doing, Nurse Dixon?”

“I dropped my ring down a crack in the floor, Sister.” I am not usually very good in emergencies and it just shows what a couple of months of hospital life has done for my reflexes.

“You’re not supposed to be wearing jewellery, Nurse.”

“I know, Sister, but I have a great sentimental attachment for this piece. I carry it everywhere with me.”

“Not very securely, obviously.”

“Yes, Sister,” I say meekly. It is always a good idea to give those in authority the opportunity for a sarcastic joke because they can never resist it and it makes them feel much better.

“They were burying the voodoo bones,” pipes up Mrs Black helpfully.

Labby is swift to tap her head and smile sympathetically. “Quite ga ga,” she says.

“Probably as a result of being kept up all night by you two,” sniffs Night Sister. “Hurry up and put that floorboard back and get on with your duties. I don’t know what Sister Belter is going to say when she sees that cutlery.”

Fortunately, Sister Belter never does see the cutlery. Labby and I spend the rest of our spell of duty taking it in turns to race round the hospital replacing individual items so that half the wards end up with a battered memento of the night’s activities.

As regards to Mrs Tiger, she never gives any more trouble and is discharged two weeks later. “Amazing, quite amazing,” I overhear one of the consultants saying. “I never thought she was going to pull through.”

Of course, I am not saying that the chicken bones had anything to do with it but it makes you think doesn’t it?

With Mrs Tiger gone, Mrs Black is entitled to the favoured corner position and I am interested to see what the bones will do for her. The trouble is that she positively refuses to budge.

“I’ll die before I move into that bed,” she says.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens.