“Women get so disappointed when they find that they can’t—that we can’t—that it’s impossible.”
“Because of the—”
“Size. That’s right,” Jake nods sadly. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? I remember a girl called Ondine. I was crazy about her. We were practically engaged. We went down to Henley for the weekend—there was nothing cheap or dirty about it.”
“Of course not,” I say.
“She took one look at it and ran out of the room screaming. We had to check out of the hotel immediately. I mean, they don’t like that kind of thing at Henley.”
“I’ve heard it’s very stuffy,” I say.
“She sobbed all the way back to London. I dropped her off at Putney Bridge and never saw her again.”
“How terrible,” I say.
“It happens to me all the time. Oh! Why? Why? Why did it have to be me?” He throws back his head and stares at the ceiling as if hoping to read the answer to his problem. Poor man.
“Calm yourself,” I say. “There must be some girls with whom you’re compatible.”
“A few,” he sighs. “I have enjoyed moments of breathtaking ecstasy—quite, quite, unbelievable. But they are few and far between. This ravenous brute dozing between my thighs usually sees to that.” He stretches out a hand and squeezes my arm: “You probably think it unforgivable of me to talk to you like this after I’ve asked you out. But we live in the seventies and I think that we have to face up to the implications of sexual freedom. Who knows what may happen when we get to know each other better? I think it only fair to tell you now that we will probably be denied a relationship in the richest, fullest meaning of the word.”
“Thank you,” I say sincerely. “Thank you.” There may be a few tears at the back of my eyes, I am not certain.
“I suppose, now I’ve said that, you probably don’t want to come out with me?”
“Jake,” I say firmly. “I’d be proud to come out with you.”
“You’re supposed to be giving a blanket bath, not gossiping,” snaps Staff Wood who has glided up behind us undetected. “Finish what you’re doing and help Nurse Martin with the teas.”
After that conversation I do not reply to Geoffrey’s letter. He suddenly seems a much smaller person than Jake. Deceiving me behind my back with my own sister. Jake was totally frank and honest with me about his problem.
I consider chatting the whole thing over with Penny and then decide against it. Her excitable nature is liable to inflate things out of all proportion. Jake’s problem is something I will have to handle by myself.
To my relief Jake improves rapidly and X-rays reveal that there are no complications.
“Have you heard the wonderful news?” he says to me one morning after I have come back on duty after a half day off. “I’m getting out on Thursday. That great, shaggy sawbones said I was going to be stronger than when I came in.”
“Oh, Doctor Quint,” I say—for this is indeed Blackbeard’s name.
Something in my tone must suggest that I rate Dr Quint a couple of heart beats behind Dr Barnard.
“What’s the matter with him—” says Jake suspiciously.
“Nothing,” I say. “He’s supposed to be one of the best doctors in the hospital.” It would be nice to be lying for ethical purposes but in fact Blackbeard does have a first class reputation. Even Sister Bradley approves and she would fault sunlight for picking out specs of duSt I wish I could like him but he is such a scruffy bloke. Even the patients on the Doctor Eradlik Show were smarter than that.
“Anyway, I’m out on Thursday, love. And on Friday I’d like you to have dinner with me. Can do?”
“I’d love to,” I say, looking round nervously to see who is listening. “I’ll be off a bit late, though.”
“No sweat. I’ll pick you up outside the nurses home. There’s a nice little trat I’d like to take you to.”
“I’m supposed to be back by eleven,” I say. “I mean, I don’t want to sound ungrateful but are we going to have time to eat as well? Anyway, what is ‘a trat’?”
“Don’t worry, beautiful. Jakey knows how to look after the Cinderella people.” He snaps his fingers a couple of times and I think how cool he is. All that and a—no I won’t think about it. That is not why I am going out with him, anyway. It does not even figure amongst the first five reasons. There’s his good looks, his charm, his star appeal, his, his— what shall I wear? Something sophisticated but not too revealing. I wonder if Penny has anything? I don’t think I’m going to feel sophisticated in anything I’ve worn before. Revealing maybe but only in the sense of being shown up. Of course, I could buy something, but on my nurse’s pay I would be pushed to open a budget account at Milletts.
In the end I borrow one of Penny’s long plaid skirts and team it up with a white lace blouse. Since all my white bras are in the wash I am faced with the difficult decision of wearing a black bra or nothing. Normally I would have plumped for any colour of bra rather than nothing but I recall how Natalie looked when she ‘borrowed’ my ‘coal black mammary’—as she called it—to wear under her see-through T-shirt and I decide that it is better to reveal myself in the natural rather than the supernatural. At half-past eight I am ready to repel boarders and at eighty-thirty-five I learn that Jake Fletcher is without—I mean, outside the building, not declustered. G.B.H. sucks in his breath sharply as I scuttle past him and I sense that my outfit has won one fan.
I don’t know much about cars but the heap of gleaming metal nestling against the kerb makes me glad that a couple of my fellow nurses are standing by admiringly as I slide into it. Jake kisses me on the cheek and we rocket away as if separated from the nurses home by an explosion. Jake is wearing those gloves that don’t have any back and as I watch the muscles rippling on his hairy wrists when he changes gear I come up in goose pimples.
“Is this yours?” I ask him.
“No, it’s the gear lever,” he says.
“I meant the car,” I say, moving my legs slightly.
“No. It belongs to a friend. I’m thinking of getting one, though. Do you like it?”
“It’s fantastic. What is it?”
“It’s a Citroen Maserati. I had to drive one in a little epic I made.”
I think hard and then it comes to me. “Clunk Click. You were the bloke who was flung through the windscreen?”
Jake looks slightly hurt. “It was Firelop tyres actually,” he says.
“I know. When the hands come out of the tyres and start grabbing the road. My Dad likes that one. You’ve been in them all, haven’t you? Have you ever done a proper film?”
An expression of pain darts across Jake’s face and he wrenches the wheel viciously as we drift round a corner. “Let’s talk about it later, sweetie,” he says. “I hope you’re going to like this place we’re going to.”
In fact I love the place. It is called the Bisto something, I think—probably because of the brown sauce they serve with everything. It has a very continental atmosphere and the menu is written on a piece of slate with most of it rubbed off. Jake orders a carafe of red wine which he says is very unpretentious and sticks match sticks in the candle wax which is dripping all over the table. I can see that there is something on his mind. “It’s the same old trouble,” he says.
“What is?”
“The movie business. You were talking about it earlier. You know what it’s like?”
“Of course,” I lie.
“You