Turn Us Again (6 page)

“Yes, absolutely! Can I get you a drink?”

Anne thought he'd better get her a stiff one, to make up for his dancing.

He lumbered in the direction of the bar, happy to be released from the torture of his inadequacy on the dance floor.

Anne was planning to knock back the drink and find a more suitable dancing partner, but the shaggy student sat down opposite her.

“It has been precisely three weeks since I first saw you. You were looking in a shop window, and your profile riveted me — your round forehead and strong Greek nose, straight as though God had used a ruler to create it.

Hear my soul speak:

The very instant that I saw you, did

My heart fly to your service
.

“I let you pass on, and rushed to occupy the spot where your feet had been. I looked in the same shop window, trying to guess what had caught your attention. Was it this?”

He fished a box out of his breast pocket and placed it open on the table. It contained a pair of silver earrings.

“They are beautiful,” Anne said, smiling at the intensity of this strange young man.

“Are they? Are they?” he asked, leaning forward as though he would knock his forehead against hers.

“They are,” she answered, thinking he could not have afforded the earrings she had really been looking at through the shop window.

He was satisfied and retreated a little. “Then I saw you here and realized the whole world was in love with you. This should have been obvious, but I was stupid, stupid!” And he delivered such a blow to his forehead that Anne grabbed his hand. He kissed her knuckle.

“That night, I beseeched God to make you ugly so that I alone would love you!”

“God forbid,” Anne murmured.

“Other men might find you beautiful, but I am not like other men! I sense a beautiful soul behind your transient beauty. I, also, possess a beautiful soul underneath my wretched ugliness. In the final reckoning surely it is our souls that matter.”

Anne watched his full lips, mesmerized. Surely the strange way he talked was affectation, but he was so very earnest.

“Would you accept an invitation for tea in my rooms?”

“I don't even know your name.”

“Samuel. Samuel Golden.”

He offered his arm as they walked along the street. “The joy that you have given me by agreeing to come! Yet I was sure it would happen like this.”

“You had no reason to be sure. Something nasty happened to me last night and I might easily have refused to come.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, nothing. A man tried to take liberties.”

“Who was it? I'll make him yearn for liberty.”

“It doesn't matter who it was.”

A little winding staircase led to his rooms in the university, which were filled with the usual heavy leather furniture. Samuel raced about in excitement, cooking some steaks that had apparently been sitting in readiness on a hot plate plugged into an electrical outlet in the bathroom.

“Did you know you were going to invite me back here, or did you just happen to have steak in your rooms?”

“I always eat in my rooms. I did sample the wares at the Hall when I first arrived but found there was too much meat around me and not enough on my plate.”

Anne smiled. “Aren't you rationed?”

“You can have all my rations.”

Anne stared curiously around the room, noting the messy piles of books strewn across the heavy desk, paper and pens in disarray. There was a little black skullcap perched like a hat on the lamp.

“Are you Jewish?”

Samuel shot her an indecipherable look through the bathroom door. “Yes.”

He re-entered the room with two plates and two glasses — a large gin and steak for him, a small gin and steak for Anne.

He stared at her for a moment before giving her the plate.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely, and more temperate.

He talked while they ate, propounding the differences between the Augustinian view of mankind and the Rousseauist.

“Augustinians believe that mankind is essentially weak and draw the reader's attention to the evils of the material world. The Rousseauist, on the other hand, believes that man is fundamentally good, and brings home to us the health and wholeness of the real being.”

Anne listened. She had never met anybody who spoke with such passion and energy, and wondered whether it was a Jewish characteristic, differentiating them from their undemonstrative English counterparts. As he relaxed into his second gin and tonic, his stilted speech normalized and he spoke with fiery inhibition. Could this man guide her own poor fumblings towards a deeper understanding of life?

Suddenly, Samuel ceased his intellectual musings and got up, coming close to Anne and putting his arm around her. She moved to the other side of the table, but he lumbered after her. It was a hysterical repetition of yesterday's farce, except that there had been no lead-up to this onslaught at all. From Augustus to sex.

“What on earth do you think you are doing?”

“I am pursuing you around the coffee table and the remains of our steak dinner.”

“I understood that bit. Why?”

“To kiss you.”

“That's not going to happen,” she said, smiling at the ludicrousness of the situation.

“Eventually it will, according to my experienced friend.”

The simplicity of this remark disarmed Anne. “Someone advised you to behave like this?” she laughed.

Samuel looked perplexed, and a little pleased at the same time. “According to my trusted friend Philip, the physical relations between man and woman resemble a primal hunt. I am prepared to go round and round the coffee table ad infinitum, but I'd be grateful if we could pretend I've caught you, because there's a severe stitch in my side.”

“Let's pretend you have, and forget the whole thing. Who is this Philip, filling you with such rubbish?”

Samuel looked sheepish. “Perhaps it works better for him, because he's more athletic.”

“Chasing women around the coffee table isn't good advice. I have to go now.”

He gave her a stricken look.

“Don't worry, I'm not angry. We'll see each other again, won't we?”

He grasped the hand she held out to him, then brought it gently to his lips.

An important figure has entered my life
, she wrote in her diary.
Am I not a desert waiting for the rain? Have I perhaps found it? I have been warm all night because I spent the evening with him. It was so glorious, how I revelled in it! I know that we will again be together. We will laugh and his brow will be furrowed and he will gesticulate and I will listen and smoke and smile. Then he will tell me how beautiful I am and try to make love to me — this I know
.

THREE

I
lay the manuscript on the bedcovers and look at the ceiling. My shoulders and neck ache, and I realize that I've been tense the whole time, attacked by a gamut of feelings: terror the manuscript was going to be awful, relief that it wasn't too bad, wincing at the weaker lines — how pompous and stilted my father sounds!

More than anything, amazement that my mother wrote this. My
mother
!

Obviously, this is a story about my mother's life. I had heard all about the formidable grandmothers in their starched gowns and their attitudes about sex, and I knew she'd been a nurse at Cambridge, though the flirting and pill-popping were a shock. I realize I am judging anxiously all the time I am reading. Her self-knowledge surprises me, her diary embarrasses me, especially lines like, “Am I not a desert waiting for the rain?” Like for fuck's sake, who are you trying to impress?
I imagine my mother imagining others reading this, wanting them to see her in a certain way. I just hate shit like that. I feel like I'm standing at the check-out of a grocery store, and she's spouting this rubbish to the stunned girl behind the counter. Then the pomposity of my father's voice — he does have a stilted way of speaking, but the effort to capture this on paper irritates me.

Still. The main feeling is one of incredulity. I am reading a manuscript about my mother's life. And my father's. Just a little more, even if I regret it tomorrow.

Matron cornered Anne just as she was emerging from the tearoom.

“Nurse Anne! I'd like a word with you! Please come to my office.”

Anne sat in the hard upright chair, feeling annoyed. The caustic Matron had interrupted a daydream about the shaggy student.

“You have been in the operating theatre most afternoons for the past few weeks.”

“Yes Matron.”

“Under the operating table, to be precise, gathering and counting the swabs.”

“A very necessary part of the process.”

“Yes. And the most boring part as well. I asked the ward sister why she gave a bright nurse like you such a menial job all the time, and she said you had asked to do it. Why?”

Compliments weren't usually forthcoming from Matron, so it was pleasant to hear that she thought her bright. Anne's natural warmth overcame her irritation, and she leaned forward in her chair.

“I know I have to do a bit of everything while I'm in training, but I don't like the atmosphere in the operating room. It's so stressful, and I can't get used to watching the doctor cutting people open.”

“You must get used to it. How will you succeed as a nurse in the real world if you shudder at a bit of blood?

“I have no objection to blood or feces or saliva or any of it. I just don't like seeing people cut open. And that's just the scheduled operations. The emergencies are worse. This won't affect my career because I plan to specialize as a midwife.”

“In six weeks time you will be a qualified RN, and you can choose whatever path you feel is right for you. However, right now you're in training and you must be able to cope with any situation. I am switching you to Casualty tomorrow.”

Anne spoke with barely contained passion. “Why must I do something I hate for the last six weeks of training — something that will be useless to me afterwards?”

“Nothing is useless. Not the math or history you learned at school, though you may not use it today, nor the knowledge that you will acquire in Casualty. This meeting is over.”

“I beg you to reconsider.”

“That's enough, Nurse Anne,” Matron said in a warning voice.

Anne rushed to her room in a passion of anger and threw herself beside Louise, who was lying on her bed reading a book. “I've been put in Casualty,” Anne sobbed.

There was a brief silence; Anne remembered the red jumper.

Louise sighed and put down the book.

“That won't be so bad. You've only got a few weeks left. Maybe you won't have to deal with anything too unpleasant.”

Anne sat up and hugged Louise, delirious with joy that she was speaking to her again.

“I'm sorry about your jumper. You can borrow my clothes whenever you like.”

“It's OK. I washed it and it doesn't look so bad.” Louise smiled at her, this impulsive friend with her violent feelings of happiness and despair, her capacity for deviousness.

Nobody took her under their wing in Casualty. Anne hung about all morning, hating the feeling of incompetence. Whenever anybody asked her to do something, she would jump to do it, then stand around again. Everybody else seemed busy. Finally she spotted a nurse folding some bandages; a nice, stationary job that she could help with. As she approached, recognition brought relief. Nurse Jane also frequented Dorothy's.

“Are you folding bandages? Can I help?”

“Hello Smithie. I don't need any help, thanks.”

“Just let me bloody help,” Anne hissed, picking up a bandage. “I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing.”

“Well, you haven't been here long. Just keep your eyes and ears open and you'll learn.”

“There's nothing I need to learn from here. I just feel uncomfortable. I'll be training for midwifery in a few weeks. Matron is ruining the end of my training for no reason. Just … because she can.”

“That's a shame. Matron is a right bitch, and once she's got it in for you…”

Anne shot a look at Jane. She sometimes had the feeling that the other nurses tried to rile her up to see how she would react. “I don't think she has it in for me. As a matter of fact she gave me some compliments.”

“Oh, just like her, buttering you up with one hand and stabbing you in the back with the other. I know you have guts, Smithie, why don't you refuse to work here?”

A doctor appeared and motioned for Jane to follow him.

“The bandages are all folded. Can't he use my help as well?” pleaded Anne.

“Stop worrying about not doing anything. Just enjoy it, you lucky thing!”

Anne pretended to fold, anger mounting at this wasted morning. She began concocting conversations in her head. ‘I am learning a lot in Casualty, Matron. They could do with some training on how to train student nurses.' Anne glanced at the clock. Time wasn't moving. ‘I can't bear six weeks of this. Even if they did need my help, I am useless here. It's like giving somebody who is scared of cats a job as a lion trainer. I could even do harm, and if I agree to that without voicing the truth then I am as bad as Matron. Maybe Jane is right. Matron has made a mistake, and I should tell her. It's the principle of the thing. How can wrongs be righted if we are all cowards?'

“What on earth are you doing?” A nurse looked at her hands, unfolding and refolding the bandages.

“I'm sorry. I'm new here, and I'm not sure what I should be doing.”

“So you're standing there wasting time while we rush about over-worked? My God, the people training to be nurses these days! Have you heard of opening your eyes and trying to be useful?”

“Excuse me…”

“I don't have time to listen to your excuses. See that long line of women with babies? They are here to circumcise their boys. Look after them.”

For a minute Anne couldn't breathe. Anger beat so strong she felt as though she was going to be sick. The injustice. She fought down the urge to cry, taking deep breaths. The huge line of women and babies were waiting. She approached the first woman, smiling with trepidation.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” the woman asked in a petulant voice.

“Not much longer now.” Anne wanted to scream ‘I have no idea. Nothing is explained in this dreadful ward, everything is confusion and turmoil. Far from adding to my experience, it's an exercise in bloody futility.'

“How much longer?” whined a chorus of voices. “Tell us what's going on!”

Anne turned and walked straight to Matron's office. She knocked on the open door, the peremptory knock of someone who has justice on her side.

Matron looked up. “Aren't you supposed to be working?”

“I am, but nobody at Casualty seems to know what I should be doing. It is the most badly run, disorganized department I have ever worked in. They sent me to look after a line of women waiting to circumcise their babies, without any explanation of what I might do for them. They are…” Anne's flow of anxious talk faltered under the disapproving eyes of Matron.

“Get back to work. How dare you leave in the middle of the day?”

“You don't understand…”

“I beg your pardon. You are a student nurse, you are there to learn. The fact that you don't know how to look after waiting patients just proves how much you have to learn. Return to work immediately or this will be your last day of training.”

“What?” Anne couldn't believe it. Matron had told her she was bright!

“You heard me,” said Matron, and shut the door in Anne's face.

Tears erupted. Anne clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs and ran out the door of the hospital down to the river. She lay on the bank and cried until her stomach hurt, imagining Matron finding her and feeling remorse. Begging her forgiveness. Then she imagined Sam gathering her up, horrified at her pain and swearing vengeance.

Then anger came. Anne scrambled to her feet and began to march along the river defiantly.

‘So she can chuck me out like that after years of excellent work, can she? One rotten morning, one small disagreement, and my dedication and qualities are thrown away. It's unbelievable — she shouldn't be Matron. If I can't speak out when I see injustice then what type of establishment is it? “How dare you leave in the middle of the day?” Anne mimicked Matron's voice, “Obey me or this will be your last day of training.” The train station loomed ahead, and Anne was overwhelmed with a desire to see her mother. It took exactly ten minutes to slip into her room and change, shoving a few things into a bag quietly, so as not to wake Louise.

‘You'll be sorry you kicked me out,' she thought as she boarded the train for Newcastle.

Anne's parents lived in a row house, in a long line of identical houses. Upon entering, one faced a flight of steps flanked by a long dark corridor. Doors off this corridor led to the drawing room and the dining room, with the kitchen at the end. The interior always smelled of cabbage and potatoes.

Anne's father, Eddie, bellowed out in joy when he saw her, bounding down the steps, followed by their black spaniel Pippa. He enveloped her in a warm embrace while Pippa leapt up and down in an excess of passion. Her mother came out from the kitchen, lifting her cheek up for a kiss, undemonstrative and contained as usual. Looking so tired, always so tired.

A plate of bread and butter and the inevitable pot of tea were brought into the drawing room, where special guests were served. Anne wanted to get the main issue off her chest, so she could begin to enjoy such indulgences.

“I walked out of Casualty this morning. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, and it was unbearable standing around, waiting to see if anything awful would come through the door. There are often terrible accidents in Casualty!”

“Oh it must be hard, you poor lass,” said her dad, who sympathized with any human weakness. “I couldn't do a job like that myself.”

“What do you mean you ‘walked out'?” asked her mother.

“I mean I walked out,” said Anne irritably. “I just left.”

“What will happen now?”

“I'll probably be booted out. I don't know!”

“Oh come on, Mary,” said her dad, watching the clouds cross his daughter's smooth brow. “She's just come home. Let her get a bit of tea into her.”

After they had finished Eddie went to the pub, as he did every evening, slinking out of the house with a guilty expression. Sometimes he came back after a drink or two, looking pleased with himself and strutting around the house in an ‘aren't-I-a-good-boy' fashion. Sometimes he wouldn't come back for hours. Today was a ‘good boy' day, in honour of Anne's return.

Mary did not refer to the subject of Anne's walk-out again, but Anne was aware of her worried expression. She went to bed early that night, dashing off a quick note of explanation to Louise, and then settling down with a notebook, which would have to suffice till she returned to the hospital for her diary.

I have left the hospital due to the intolerable treatment of Matron. Am I a dog, to crawl back for another kick? Am I a coward? There was just one course of action open to me, unless I am to bow my head and say:

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the communists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a trade unionist.