tacking ‘yes, sir’ on to the end of every sentence would make them an instant crony.
Apart from Catherine, he couldn’t remember anyone who had spoken to him as directly as this girl in a long time.
He forced himself to be pleasant. ‘It was good of you to give up your weekend to rearrange my office, but I would have preferred it if you’d consulted me first. . .’
‘I will in future,’ Poppy butted in eagerly.
Fergus sighed. She was like an exuberant young puppy, completely unsquashable. He rearranged the softer expression which had crept over his features and looked down at her sternly.
‘In future, however, you will not bring your boyfriend into my office, not without my permission.’
‘But he’s not my. . .’ she protested, but he shook his head.
‘I’m not interested in your private life, as I hope you’ll be uninterested in mine. And, now if you’ll excuse me, I have an article to write. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.’
Weakly she nodded, leaning against the wall of the corridor as she watched him walk away, unsure whether to cheer or howl.
POPPY arrived punctually at her typewriter at nine o’clock on Monday morning to find the office empty, and she stood in the centre of the room rather uncertainly, unsure of what to do next—she didn’t dare try to alter anything else, not without the permission of Grumpy! And she had decided not to introduce the kettle or any plants until she had a better idea of just how long she would be staying!
One thing was for sure—his office looked a million times better—more spacious and less cluttered. And what was it they said? A tidy room means a tidy mind—maybe the quality of his articles would improve, and then he’d be forever in her debt!
She was bent over her desk, flicking dust off the electric typewriter and ineffectually moving pieces of paper around for something to do, when the door flew open with a crash and she looked up, startled, expecting to see Dr Browne; instead she was confronted by the sight of a girl of about sixteen, her eyes red from crying, her hair flying wildly around her face, and some poorly applied foundation attempting to cover what Poppy could see were angry red spots on her face.
‘Where is he?’ the girl demanded, on a note that sounded as though it could become a sob without very much provocation.
Poppy smiled encouragingly. ‘You mean Dr Browne? I’m expecting him in any time now. Won’t you take a seat?’
The girl flopped into the chair Poppy had indicated, and with trembling hands started fumbling around in her handbag. She pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and had extracted and lit one, exhaling deeply, before Poppy could stop her. The familiar acrid smell of the smoke assailed Poppy’s nostrils and she was filled with a wave of nausea.
She spoke as politely as possible. ‘This is a hospital, you know. I don’t think it’s a very good idea if you smoke, do you?’
The girl stared at her belligerently. ‘I don’t think a lot of things are a good idea—like the fact that I resemble Frankenstein’s monster with this face of mine, but there’s not a lot I can do about it.’ She took another deep drag of the cigarette.
Poppy coughed. The room was filling up with smoke and she couldn’t bear it, and neither, she was pretty sure, would Dr Browne.
‘Please put it out,’ she requested firmly.
The girl’s bottom lip jutted out. ‘Why should I?’
‘Because my uncle died of lung cancer through smoking, and I’d hate to think that you might do the same.’ Her voice shook a little as she said it.
The girl looked up at her, distraught, her eyes filling with tears, and she held the cigarette out helplessly towards Poppy, bursting into noisy, childlike sobs.
Poppy took the cigarette and swiftly ran it under the tap of the sink in the corner, before dropping it in the waste-paper bin. She pulled out a paper handkerchief from her handbag and handed it to the crying girl.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the girl sobbed. ‘I’m a horrible person. But it’s not how he said it would be—he’s got no idea!’
Poppy tried without success to make some kind of sense of the garbled sentence. ‘Who?’ she asked.
‘Fergus,’ sobbed the girl again. ‘He doesn’t know what it’s really like.’
Fergus! It seemed strange for this wild young thing with the hurt young face to be on first-name terms with old Grumpy. Poppy wished she had had the courage of her convictions and had brought the wretched kettle in—at least then she could have made this poor child a cup of strong, sweet tea. Instead she handed her another hanky and smiled softly.
‘Doesn’t know what what’s really like?’ she probed gently.
‘College!’ The word came out in a sniffly sob.
‘You mean you’ve just started college?’ Poppy guessed.
‘Yes. We thought it would be good if I did my “A” levels there—people would be more mature than they were at school. Some hopes! I’ve had to put up with cruel teasing for years at school, and we thought it would be different at college—but it isn’t.’
By now Poppy was utterly confused. ‘Teasing about what?’
The girl stared at her with a hard, cold face. ‘This!’ She pointed to the livid spots on her face. ‘It’s called acne—don’t tell me you didn’t notice?’ she asked disbelievingly.
‘I did notice, yes,’ replied Poppy truthfully. ‘But it wasn’t the first thing I noticed—the first thing I noticed was how sad you looked.’
‘If people flinched every time you came near them, you’d look sad,’ the girl retaliated. ‘If boys didn’t want to kiss you, for fear of what they’d “catch”—you’d look sad too.’ A bitter look crossed her face. ‘Oh, what’s the point? You’d never understand in a million years—no one can help, not even Fergus, unless he’s got a magic wand which could give me a new skin.’ She got up from the chair, dejection written in the slump of her shoulders. ‘Tell him I called, won’t you?’ She started for the door.
Poppy rose to her feet, feeling utterly helpless. ‘I don’t even know your name?’ she queried.
‘It’s Virginia—Virginia Barker.’
‘Do stay and see him, Virginia,’ Poppy pleaded. ‘Now that you’ve come all this way, and you’re upset—stay here and let me get you some coffee.’
But it was no use, Virginia had lifted her chin and was gone. Poppy sat in impotent silence. There had been such raw anger in the girl. Surely something could be done to help her?
The door opened again and there stood Dr Browne, a briefcase under one arm and a stack of papers under the other. He nodded at her, without the welcoming smile she would have wished for.
‘All right?’ he asked tersely.
Poppy arranged three pens in a straight line and looked up.
‘Actually, no,’ she told him calmly. ‘A patient of yours has just been in here, sobbing and in a terrible state. A girl called Virginia Barker, saying that things are no better at college, that she’s being teased there too.’
He put the papers on to his desk. ‘Ah, yes—young Ginny. Why wouldn’t she wait?’
‘Because she was so upset, I told you. She said that no one could help her—she seemed rather desperate.’
He was removing his tweed jacket and hanging it over the back of his chair, to reveal a mauve and yellow plaid