and her companions had gone in turn to their cups of tea and, since there was nothing much to do, she had been left to deal with the telephone or any enquiries while they went to tidy themselves up so that, promptly at five o’clock, they could leave to catch their buses. Mrs Drew lived in Clapham and Mrs Pearce had a long journey each day to and from Leyton, and since Sarah had a room within ten minutes’ walk of the hospital it had been taken for granted for some time now that she would be the last to leave. She cleared up, put things ready for the morning and went back to her desk to scan the appointments book. It was quiet now; the nurses had gone and so had the doctors, all but Professor Nauta, who had returned half an hour previously and gone to his consulting-room, pausing just long enough to tell her that on no account was he to be disturbed. She had just stopped herself in time from enquiring what she should do in case of fire or emergency. Leave him to burn to a crisp, neglect to inform him of some dire happening? He would never forgive her. She had murmured politely at his cross face and gone back to her work. And now, in five minutes or so, she would be free to go home.
The wide swing-doors, thrust open by a firm hand, caused her to look up in surprise. She eyed the elderly lady who was advancing towards her with a purposeful air, and said politely, ‘I expect you’ve missed your way? This isn’t a ward—just the outpatients’ clinics. If you will tell me which ward you want, I’ll show you the way.’
The visitor stood on the other side of the desk studying her. She was a handsome woman, and dressed with an elegance which whispered money discreetly. She put her handbag down on the desk and spoke. She had a clear, rather high voice and an air of expecting others to do as she wished. ‘I wish to see Professor Nauta; perhaps you would be kind enough to tell him.’
Sarah eyed her thoughtfully. ‘The Professor left instructions that on no account was he to be disturbed. I’m sorry—perhaps I could make an appointment for you?’
‘Just let him know that I wish to see him…’ She smiled suddenly and her whole face lit up with a faintly mischievous look.
Sarah lifted the receiver and buzzed the Professor’s room. ‘A lady is here,’ she told him. ‘She wishes to see you, sir.’
He said something explosive in what she took to be Dutch; it sounded forceful and very rude. ‘Good God, girl, didn’t I tell you that I wasn’t to be disturbed?’
‘Indeed you did, sir.’ She was suddenly annoyed—she was, after all, only doing what had been asked of her by this rather compelling lady, and if he wanted to use bad language he wasn’t going to be allowed to use it to her. ‘You should watch your language,’ she told him tartly, and was instantly appalled. She would get the sack…
‘Tell him that I am his mother,’ suggested the lady.
‘Your mother wishes to see you, sir,’ said Sarah, and thumped the receiver back without waiting for a reply.
The Professor, for all his size and bulk, could move swiftly and silently; he was looming over Sarah’s desk before she could regain her habitual serenity.
Not that he had anything to say to her. A very rude, arrogant man, considered Sarah, watching him greet his parent with every appearance of delight, then escort her to his consulting-room without saying a word to herself. When Mrs Drew and Mrs Pearce returned within minutes, she got her things and left with them. Normally, she would have told whoever was on duty in the Lodge that the Professor was still there, but just for once she wasn’t going to do that. Let him be locked in or want her for something; her hours were nine to five, on paper at least, and it was already ten minutes past the hour.
She walked back to her bedsitting-room, still put out. His mother could have said at once who she was and saved a good deal of unpleasantness. Now Sarah had been rude to a consultant and, if he chose to do so, he could get her fired. She walked briskly down the respectable, dull street of terraced houses and let herself into the end one, went up the shabby stairs, bare of carpet, and unlocked the door of her bedsit.
It was quite a large room, papered in a dreary green, its paintwork a useful dark brown, its low window opening on to a decrepit balcony with a corrugated roof. It was because of the balcony that Sarah stayed there; Charles, the cat she had befriended as a kitten, regarded it as his own and she had gone to a good deal of trouble to make it a home for him: there was grass growing in a pot at one end, a basket lined with old blanket, water and food, even a ball for him to toy with when he got bored. When she was home he joined her in the room, sat beside her while she ate her meals and slept on her feet. He came to meet her now and, as usual, she told him of her day’s doings as she took off her things, hung them behind the curtain in one corner, and started to get their supper.
The room was furnished, after a fashion: there was a divan bed, a table, two chairs, a down-at-heel easy chair drawn up to a gas fire, some shelves along one wall and a small gas stove beside a sink. Sarah had done what she could to improve it with a cheerful bedspread, cushions and a cheap rug on the floor, flowers, even when she had to go without something in order to buy them, and a pretty reading-lamp. All the same, it was a far cry from her home in Kent. It was several years since she had left it and she was still homesick for the nice old house and the quiet country round it. But she had known long before she’d left home that she would have to go; her stepmother had never liked her, and when her father had died she had made it plain to Sarah that she had no longer been welcome in her home. That had been five years ago and Sarah, twenty-eight years old, thought it unlikely that she would ever go home again.
Nor for that matter, did she think that anything exciting would happen to her. She was in a rut, earning just enough to live on, knowing few people, too shy to join a club of any sort and painfully aware that the girls in other rooms of the house regarded her as rather dull—even if willing enough to lend tea and sugar and listen, upon occasion, to one of their highly coloured lamentations of a love-affair gone wrong. She was aware too that they pitied her for her lack of boyfriends and pretty clothes. She dressed nicely but always with an eye to long-lasting fashion, so that no one bothered to look at her twice.
As she pottered round the room, she talked to Charles. ‘In a nasty temper, he was,’ she pointed out as she scooped his supper into a saucer. ‘I wonder what he’s like at home? If he has a home… I just can’t imagine anyone wanting to marry him. He’s to be pitied… I wonder why his mother wanted to see him? It must have been something urgent.’
Charles, his furry face buried in his supper, took no notice. ‘I’d quite like to know,’ said Sarah to his uninterested back.
* * *
THE PROFESSOR CLOSED the door gently after his parent, offered her the chair behind his desk, then stood leaning back against the door, his hands in his pockets. ‘Nice to see you, my dear. Something’s worrying you?’ He smiled as he spoke so that his stern expression became all at once attractive.
His mother settled herself comfortably. ‘Who is that girl at the desk?’
His smile widened; his mother, a charming woman, had a mind which leapt from here to there, sometimes without obvious reason. ‘The receptionist and clerk, one of three. Miss Sarah Fletcher.’
‘She told you to mind your language…’
‘So she did. I could get her sacked for that.’
‘But you won’t?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Your grandmother would like her.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that why you have come over to see me, Mama?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, dear. Your father and I have talked about it and we decided that I should come and talk to you about her. She will be coming out of hospital in ten days’ time; there’s nothing more to be done for her, as you know, but she absolutely refuses to have a nurse—she says she has seen all the nurses she ever wishes to see. On the other hand, there must be someone to be with her… I wondered if you know of anyone? You see, your father feels that she has every right to do whatever she likes now that she has so short a time to live.’ She paused. ‘It struck me, just now waiting for you, that the young woman at the desk