she bought good shoes. Plain court shoes with not too high heels, kept beautifully polished.
From his desk the professor watched her go, aware that he had annoyed her and irritated by it. He hoped that her prickly manner would soften, totally unaware that it was he who was making it prickly. He didn’t waste time thinking about her; he put the notes he had been making in his pocket and took himself off to Women’s Medical.
He had a number of patients there; a rare case of aplastic anaemia—the only treatment of which was frequent blood transfusions, two young women with leukaemia, an older woman with Hodgkin’s disease and two cases of polycythaemia. To each he gave his full attention, taking twice as long as Sister had expected, dictating to Julie as he went in a quiet, unhurried voice.
She, wrestling with long words like agranulocytosis and lymphosarcoma, could see that the patients liked him. So did Sister, her annoyance at the length of the round giving way to her obvious pleasure in his company. It was a pity that he didn’t appear to show any pleasure in hers; his attention was focused on his patients; he had few words to say to her and those he had were of a purely professional kind.
As for Julie, he dictated to her at length, over one shoulder, never once looking to see if she knew what he was talking about. Luckily, she did; Professor Smythe had been a good deal slower but the words he had used had been just as long. She had taken care over the years to have a medical directory handy when she was typing up notes, although from time to time she had asked him to explain a word or a medical term to her and he had done so readily.
She thought that it would be unlikely for Professor van der Driesma to do that. Nor would he invite her to share his coffee-break while he told her about his grandchildren... He was too young for grandchildren, of course, but probably he had children. Pretty little girls, handsome little boys, a beautiful wife.
She became aware that he had stopped speaking and looked up. He was staring at her so coldly that she had a moment’s fright that she had missed something he had said. If she had, she would get it from Sister later. She shut her notebook with a snap and he said, ‘I’d like those notes as soon as you can get them typed, Miss Beckworth.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said Julie, and promised herself silently that she would have her coffee first.
Which she did, prudently not spending too much time doing so; somehow the professor struck her as a man not given to wasting time in Sister’s office chatting over coffee and a tin of biscuits. She was right; she was halfway through the first batch of notes when he returned.
‘I shall be in the path lab if I’m wanted,’ he told her, and went away again.
Julie applied herself to her work. It was all going to be quite different, she thought regretfully; life would never be the same again.
The professor stayed away for a long time; she finished her notes, placed them on his desk and took herself off to the canteen for her midday meal. She shared her table with two other secretaries and one of the receptionists, all of them agog to know about the new professor.
‘What’s he like?’ asked the receptionist, young and pretty and aware of it.
‘Well, I don’t really know, do I?’ said Julie reasonably. ‘I mean, I’ve only seen him for a few minutes this morning and on the ward round.’ She added cautiously, ‘He seems very nice.’
‘You’ll miss Professor Smythe,’ said one of the secretaries, middle-aged and placid. ‘He was an old dear...’
The receptionist laughed, ‘Well, this one certainly isn’t that. He’s got more than his fair share of good looks too. Hope he comes to my desk one day!’
Julie thought that unlikely, but she didn’t say so. She ate her cold meat, potatoes, lettuce leaf and half a tomato, followed this wholesome but dull fare with prunes and custard and went back to her little office. She would make herself tea; Professor Smythe had installed an electric kettle and she kept a teapot and mugs in the bottom drawer of one of the filing cabinets—sugar too, and tiny plastic pots of milk.
Professor van der Driesma was sitting at his desk. He looked up as she went in. ‘You have been to your lunch?’ he asked smoothly. ‘Perhaps you would let me know when you will be absent from the office.’
Julie glowered; never mind if he was a highly important member of the medical profession, there was such a thing as pleasant manners between colleagues. ‘If you had been here to tell, I would have told you,’ she pointed out in a chilly voice. ‘And it’s not lunch, it’s midday dinner.’
He sat back in his chair, watching her. Presently he said, coldly polite, ‘Miss Beckworth, shall we begin as we intend to go on? I am aware that I am a poor substitute for Professor Smythe; nevertheless, we have inherited each other whether we wish it or not. Shall we endeavour to make the best of things?
‘I must confess that you are not quite what I would have wished for and I believe that you hold the same opinion of me. If you find it difficult to work for me, then by all means ask for a transfer. Your work is highly regarded; there should be no difficulty in that. On the other hand, if you are prepared to put up with my lack of the social graces, I dare say we may rub along quite nicely.’
He smiled then, and she caught her breath, for he looked quite different—a man she would like to know, to be friends with. She said steadily, ‘I would prefer to stay if you will allow that. You see, you’re not a bit like Professor Smythe, but I’m sure once I’ve got used to you you’ll find me satisfactory.’ She added, ‘What don’t you like about me?’
‘Did I say that I disliked you? Indeed I did not; I meant that you were not quite the secretary I would have employed had I been given the choice.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re too young—and several other...’ He paused. ‘Shall we let it rest?’ He stood up and held out a hand. ‘Shall we shake on it?’
She shook hands and thought what a strange conversation they were having.
He was back behind his desk, turning over the papers before him.
‘This case of agranulocytosis—Mrs Briggs has had typhoid and has been treated with chloramphenicol, the cause of her condition. I should like to see any old notes if she has been a patient previously. From her present notes you have seen that she remembers being here on two occasions but she can’t remember when. Is that a hopeless task?’
‘Probably. I’ll let you have them as soon as possible. The path lab from the Royal Central phoned; they would like to speak to you when you are free.’
‘Ah, yes. There’s a patient there. Get hold of them and put them through to me, will you, Miss Beckworth?’
‘I’m going to hunt for those notes,’ she told him. ‘I shall be in the records office until I find them.’
‘Very well.’ He didn’t look up from his writing and she went to her own office, dialled the Royal Central and presently put the call through to his office. There was nothing on her desk that needed urgent attention, so she went through the hospital and down into the basement and, after a few words with the fussy woman in charge of the patients’ records, set to work.
It was a difficult task but not entirely hopeless. Mrs Briggs was forty years old; her recollections of her previous visits were vague but positive. Say, anything between five and ten years ago... It was tiresome work and dusty and the fussy woman or her assistant should have given her a hand, although in all fairness she had to admit that they were being kept busy enough.
She longed for a cup of tea, and a glance at her watch told her that her teabreak was long past. Was she supposed to stay until the notes were found or could she go home at half-past five? she wondered.
It was almost five o’clock when her luck turned and, looking rather less than her pristine self, she went back to the professor’s office.
He was on the telephone as she went in; she laid the folders down on his desk and, since he nodded without looking