than a big deal at Queen Adelaide’s. All the wards are decorated and Father Christmas, played by a senior consultant in one of his sober moments, tours the children’s wards and grapples enthusiastically with any nurse he can get his hands on. “A time of grope and good cheer” is how Penny describes it and there are few male patients who don’t seem to have found a sprig of mistletoe. Mr Arkwright’s invitations to play “naughty nanas” take on a seasonal ring and everybody tells me what “tremendous fun” the staff lunch is going to be. Apparently the doctors and sisters serve the nurses and everybody pulls crackers and drinks wine. It sounds almost as exciting as being at home.
In fact, Christmas in a hospital is fun. There is always a great deal of work to do and time never hangs on your hands as it can do at home when you just sit around waiting for the next eating session.
I arrive for the staff lunch, late, exhausted and ravenously hungry and it is clear that most of my fellow nurses have benefited from a few drops of Christmas cheer during the course of the morning.
“Over here, Rosie, we’ve kept you a place.”
Penny has not gone home for Christmas, either. She is nuts about one of her patients and does not reckon that festive high jinks with Daddy would be much cop anyway: “His idea of Christmas is to go out and shoot something—preferably my mother, but he’ll have to settle for pheasants until he buys an elephant gun. I’ve laid every man in the parish under sixty apart from the vicar’s son and apparently he’s useless—his sister told me—so what is there to go home for? Anyway, staying here is the best Christmas present I can give them.”
I push in beside Penny and notice that Tom Richmond is giving Nurse Wilson’s lips the vacuum cleaner treatment under what looks like a human toe with an arrow through it. From the arrow hangs a sign saying “MISSILETOE”. Really! These medical school jokes go too far sometimes. That is the kind of thing that MacSweeney would think was funny. I look round and see him carving a huge turkey with Robert Fishlock. He does something very unnecessary with a sausage and winks at me. I know he is going to say “breast or leg” and leer at me when it comes to my turn.
“Did you hear about the great romance on your old ward?” asks Penny, arranging a paper hat on the back of her head so that her breasts are shown off to the best advantage in the process.
“Jim North and old Mr Chapman’s daughter. They’re going to get spliced. They wanted to haye the ceremony in the ward but Matron said, over her dead body. I thought it was quite a good idea, myself. I mean, they probably wouldn’t have been able to see each other over her dead body but—”
“Oh, do stop being such a fool and pass your plate up.” The girl on Penny’s right knocks her glass over and in the confusion the subject is changed. I feel a slight pang of envy when I think about Jim North and the Chapman girl. I did not fancy him myself but it means that there is one less male left in the pool of available talent. The numbers are being whittled away before my thighs—I mean, eyes.
“I thought we were getting champagne,” sniffs Penny, holding up one of the bottles on the table. “‘Portuguese Graves’. I think the body was still warm when it went into this one.”
“Do you think I could squeeze in between you when I’ve finished my duties?” Dishy Doctor Fishlock flashes his pearlies at us and distributes a couple of plates of turkey.
“Please do.” Penny turns on her breathless “come and get me” voice and I can practically see dotted lines building up between their eyes.
“What time have you got to be back on duty?” I ask Penny.
“Just as soon as I’ve gobbled this lot down and allowed Flashcock to lure me back to his pad for a cup of coffee we won’t have time to make.”
“You’re so cold blooded about it.” I don’t mean to sound jealous, it just comes out that way.
“Rubbish! My blood is as warm as this plonk. You’re the one with the deep frozen knickers.”
Further discussion is prevented by the arrival of Robert who settles in between us and proceeds to direct a non-stop stream of rabbit at my room-mate. This does not please me very much and I am not over-thrilled when Adam “Blackbeard” Quint’s enormous bulk settles down opposite me. “Would you like my belly on the table or underneath it?” he asks. He is not kidding either, because he has a paunch like a couple of sofa cushions shoved up his jumper. Penny says that she finds him “sexy in a revolting sort of way” and I wish she would prove it and leave me to chat up Doctor Fastcock—I mean Fishlock. Why do I keep making those silly mistakes? It would be so easy for someone to get the wrong idea.
“If this turkey is a typical example of our surgeons’ work I hope I never come under the knife.” Quint examines a scrap of meat on the end of his fork and smiles at me. He is an irritating man because nothing you say or do seems to affect him. He goes his own way. “Hey, boy.” The big, black Labrador that has been stretched out by one of the radiators pricks up its ears and sidles over to receive the meat.
“Who looks after him when you’re on duty?” I ask.
“My landlady. She likes dogs and she has a son who takes him for walks …”
He should take you as well, I think as I watch Quint’s belly half obscuring his plate. I can see hairs peeping out of the front of his shirt. So repulsive, I mean, I like hairy men but he is like an animal. I shudder to think of what he must look like without any clothes on.
“Have some more wine. It tastes like gnat’s piss but there’s nothing else.” Quint fills my glass to the brim before I can say anything and puts half a sausage in his mouth. “Cheers.”
I remove the piece of sausage from the front of my uniform and raise my glass. He is so uncouth but it is Christmas and I don’t want to be unkind.
On my right, Fatcock—I mean, Fishlock is telling Penny about this book where they had a dinner party and the man put blobs of cream on the girl’s breasts and licked them off. It does not take them long to get down to brass tacks, does it? Penny is saying that brandy butter would be even better. She does ask for trouble, that girl.
“I was thinking of going for a walk after lunch,” says Robert. “Would you like to come?”
“I’m not so sure about the walk,” says Penny. “But the rest of it sounds delicious.”
Robert takes a swig of wine and I can see his nostrils quivering. “Would you care to pull my cracker?” he drawls.
“Love to.”
They grapple under the table for a few minutes where there is a tired crack—I hasten to add that this comes from the cracker they have just pulled.
“What have you got?”
“Another hat.” Robert picks up the motto and starts reading: “What is eight inches long, two inches thick and has two balls?”
“A twin compartment, swivel lid pencil box.”
“That’s right. It could hardly be anything else, could it?”
“It could have been my cock if it had been a couple of inches longer,” says Quint crudely. “Anybody fancy any more turkey?”
“No, thank you,” I say coldly.
“Go on. You don’t look like a girl who has to worry about her figure.”
The blooming cheek of the man! He looks like an advertisement for Michelin tyres and he dares to talk about figures. By the time I have thought of something cutting enough to say, he has taken my plate and shambled off.
“I think he quite fancies you,” says Penny.
“I wouldn’t go for him if he was the last man on earth,” I say furiously.
“You wouldn’t get the chance, darling. I’d be standing over him with a shotgun. How much longer do we have to stay here, Robert?”
“The consultants will carry