Robert is quite right about the standing up bit. Everybody around me seems to be well away. Thank goodness poor Labby is not here to see the way her fiancé is behaving with Nurse Wilson. I would not have thought she was like that. Still waters run deep, obviously. And look at Sister Bradley with Shameless. I always thought there was something a bit funny about her. The way he is fiddling with the berries on her holly suggests that they might know each other a bit better than the average doctor and sister in the hospital. Of course, if she pins it there she is asking for trouble.
“Here you are. The turkey was finished so I brought you some Christmas pudding. Do you like it flambé?”
Quint dumps a large helping of flaming pudding in front of me.
“It’s a bit large,” I say.
“Then leave it for a few minutes, it will have burnt away to nothing.”
“I thought you said the consultants were going to carry the pudding round the room?” says Penny.
“Probably the plate was too hot or they cut themselves during the last operation,” says Quint, spraying us with beard-shredded Christmas pudding.
“Or they didn’t want to run the gauntlet of that lot,” Robert nods towards a group of housemen armed with roast potatoes and sprouts who are shouting and booing.
“Oh what fun,” squeals Penny. “Just like Dublin.”
In a few moments it is more like Belfast as a hail of missiles fills the air and people start taking shelter under the tables. I would expect the senior staff to go spare but I see Mr Hockey, one of the top surgeons, hurling rolls with the best of them while Matron is carefully filling her glass below table level.
“I’d love to stay for Matron’s speech,” murmurs Penny into my ear, “but Robert thinks it will be safer at his place. See you.” She gives me a broad wink and the dirty duo scamper towards the door. It’s all right for some, I think bitterly. Of course, I don’t envy them the sex. That isn’t my scene anyway. But I would like a little companionship—especially at Christmas time. At the moment I have nothing except the uncouth Quint, who eats like an extra in an Elizabethan banquet scene. I look across the table and even he seems to have disappeared. The dying embers of his Christmas pudding are extinguished by a direct hit from a dollop of mashed potato. He must be cowering under the table.
“Fellow Adelaideans.” The old geezer sitting next to Matron is trying to make himself heard by banging a bottle on the table. Unfortunately the one he has chosen still has quite a lot of wine in it. “Fellow Adelaideans. We’ve all had a lot of fun and I’m glad to see that your healthy high spirits don’t diminish with the years. But now it’s time to be serious for a minute—” He ducks just in time as a piece of Christmas pudding spatters harmlessly against the wall behind him. There is a shout of “Let the stupid old fart finish what he’s saying.” This is acknowledged with a gracious nod from the head table and a few seconds later Matron rises to her feet still brushing the Graves from her bemedalled bosom. At the same instant I become aware of something rubbing against my knee. What is happening below the table? Is that crude brute, Quint, trying some clumsy pass? I am feeling about as Christmassy as a pair of punctured water wings and in no mood for high jinks. I am fed up with octogenarians molesting me and being exposed to every time I go down the street. Now is the time to take a stand!
An opportunity is not slow to present itself. As Matron starts droning on about the debt we owe to Christian ideals and the kitchen staff I feel something firm, moist and hairy pressing between my legs. This is too much! Quint has chosen the wrong moment to force his unwelcome attentions on me. Gritting my teeth, I draw back a foot and lash out with all my might.
The yelp that follows is impressive, as is the way the table rises a couple of feet into the air. Those Labradors are strong—especially when you kick one of them in the balls. I spring back so fast that the bench I am sitting on collapses and Boy seizes the table cloth and pulls everything on to the floor for twenty feet. It is only the return of his master from the toilet that prevents him from mauling one of the senior consultants who is trying to climb onto a serving trolley.
“Why the hell did you do that?” snarls Quint, when some kind of order has been restored and it is explained to him what happened.
“I thought he was you,” I mutter.
Quint’s laugh is short and insulting. “You flatter yourself, don’t you, woman? You must live in some kind of fantasy world if you honestly believe I’d be likely to make a pass at you.”
It is at that moment that I decide I hate Adam Quint more than any other living thing in the world. There is nothing more infuriating than being spurned by a man you would not touch with a bargepole.
After Christmas everybody is in a filthy mood and good cheer is spread thinner than the marge on the dining hall bread. The patients all behave like kids who have been told that they can’t have any more sweets and the medical staff are liverish and hungover.
In the circumstances, the Eastwood Tennis Club New Year’s Eve Ball suddenly looms like Cinderella’s big night and this is probably one of the reasons why it is such a disaster. That and the fact that Geoffrey does not tell me it is fancy dress—and the fact that nobody realises I am not wearing fancy dress. When the secretary’s wife compliments me on my Carmen Miranda costume I could kill her. The live band is not a success—in fact it is arguable whether some of them are alive and it is the worst possible night for the central heating to break down. I had not realised that we were going with Geoffrey’s mother and father and Mrs Wilkes keeps looking at me and pursing her mouth. When I ask for a vodka and orange I think her lips are going to disappear for good. “Are you sure that’s not too strong, dear?” she says.
“Don’t worry, Mumsie,” says Geoffrey cheerfully. “Rosie drinks like a fish.”
Mrs Wilkes smiles like she believes it and I wish I had a cigar to light up. Why does he have to call her Mumsie? It makes me want to throw up.
“Care to take a turn round the floor?” says Mr W. rising to his feet. “I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”
Probably going to ask me if my intentions are honourable, I think to myself as Dadsie draws me to him like a life jacket and sets off on an energetic quickstep—the band are playing a waltz but I am not fussy as long as I can keep my feet out of the way; it would help if we danced in the same direction as everyone else, though.
“It’s my feet,” says Mr W. “You see I get this strange twitching sensation every time I go on the escalator.” I stifle a groan with difficulty. Once people know you are a nurse they start asking all the questions they would never have the cheek to ask a doctor unless they were one of his patients.
“I haven’t got on to feet yet,” I say, wishing I could say the same for the bloke who has just given me flat toes. “You’d better see a doctor.”
Over Dad’s shoulder I can see Mumsie watching us as if she expects me to start coaxing the old man’s cock out at any minute. I know she does not think I am good enough to whiten Geoffrey’s tennis shoes but I wish she would not make it so obvious. If she knew about her precious son and Natalie maybe she would not continue to think that the sun shone through the slit in his Y-fronts. Little Madam said a few typically unnecessary things when I mentioned I was going out with Geoffrey. I suppose it must have been jealousy but there was no need for her to repeat the lies told by those horrible ton-up boys. She should never have seen Ted again, let alone believed all that rubbish about me loving every moment of my horrible ordeal in mum’s bedroom. Just shows you what family loyalty means when you have a rotten little slut for a sister.
“How’s your mother keeping?” says Mrs Wilkes when I hobble back to the table.
“How is she keeping what?” I say. I don’t like her, you see. Mrs W. gives a tinkling laugh like a piano going over the edge of a cliff. “I meant, of course, is she well? I never seem to see her these days.”
Nor will you, I