‘Debbie—what’s yours? You aren’t on the staff, are you? Have you come here to brush up your technique or something?’
‘Or something?’ He smiled a little. ‘And my name is van der Eisler.’
‘Foreign,’ said Debbie. ‘You wouldn’t know it except you’re on the large side. Got friends here?’
‘Er, yes, I have.’
Olivia, feverishly seeking Mrs Eliza Brown’s notes, clutched them thankfully and took them to him. He took them from her with a brief nod. ‘I mustn’t keep you from your work,’ he observed. He sounded as though he had already dismissed them from his thoughts.
As he closed the door behind him Debbie said, ‘Olivia, why did you hide? Isn’t he great? A pity you found the notes just as I was going to suggest that he might like me to show him round the town.’
Olivia said sharply, ‘You wouldn’t, Debbie—he might be someone fearfully important.’
‘Him? If he were, he wouldn’t come down to this hole, would he? He’d send a nurse. I think he rather liked me.’
‘Why not? You’re pretty and amusing, and you can look small and helpless at the drop of a hat…’
‘Yes, I know, but you’re not just pretty, Olivia, you’re beautiful. Even if you are—well, amply curved.’
Olivia laughed then. ‘Yes, I know, and as strong as a horse. Even if I were to faint there wouldn’t be anyone strong enough to pick me up off the floor.’
‘He could—strong enough to carry a grand piano upstairs without a single puff…’
‘I’m not a grand piano!’ laughed Olivia. ‘Look, we’d better get on, it’s almost time for our dinner-break.’
They went to the canteen in turn and Debbie, going first, came back with disquieting news. ‘You know that girl who works in the secretary’s office?’
‘Mary Gates,’ said Olivia. ‘What’s happened to her—got engaged?’
‘No, no. She told me something she’d overheard. There’s not enough money—they are planning to make redundancies—one’s going to have to do the work of two. Olivia, supposing it’s me who goes? Whatever shall I do? With Dad out of work, Mother’s part-time job barely pays the rent.’
Olivia said matter-of-factly, ‘Well, we don’t know anything yet, do we? They could have been talking about another hospital—and I don’t see how they could get rid of one of us.’
‘Well, I do. You’re too nice, Olivia. Do you suppose these people who sit around talking over super food and drink care a damn if they cut back on jobs, just as long as they can save some money for some pet scheme or other? We aren’t people to them, just stat-stat…’
‘Statistics,’ supplied Olivia. ‘Debbie, don’t worry. If—and I say it’s a big if—one of us is given the sack it will be me; they have to pay me more because I’m older. You’re not yet twenty-one so you earn less.’
Debbie looked relieved and then asked, ‘But what will you do?’
‘Oh, I can turn my hand to anything,’ said Olivia airily, and took herself off to the canteen. She shared a table with two clerks from Admissions, older than herself, competent, hard-working ladies both.
‘There’s a nasty rumour going round,’ one of them said to Olivia as she sat down. ‘They’re cutting down, starting with the domestics and then us.’
‘Is it just a rumour or for real?’
‘We’re to get letters tomorrow, warning us, and at the end of next week we shall get notes in our pay envelopes if we’re to be made redundant.’
Olivia pushed shepherd’s pie and two veg around the plate. Something would have to be done about Debbie. Her own wages would be missed at home, but they wouldn’t starve and they had a roof over their heads whereas Debbie’s family would be in sore straits. She ate prunes and custard, drank the strong tea, and went along to the secretary’s office.
He wasn’t there, but his PA was—a nice girl, who Olivia knew slightly. ‘I want you to help me,’ said Olivia in a no-nonsense voice.
She was listened to without interruption, then the PA said, ‘I’ll do my best—shall I say that you’ve got another job lined up? The hospital manager will be delighted; he’s going to be very unpopular.’
Olivia went back to her work, and spent the rest of the day doing her best to reassure Debbie.
It was pay-day in the morning and, sure enough, everyone had a letter in their pay-packet, setting out the need to retrench, cut costs and improve hospital services.
‘How will they do that if there aren’t enough of us to go round?’ demanded Debbie. ‘I shan’t dare tell my mum.’
‘Not until next week,’ cautioned Olivia. ‘You haven’t got the sack yet.’
The next week crawled to its end and Olivia opened her pay packet to find a note advising her that she had been given a week’s notice. Although she had been fairly sure that she would be the one to go, it was still a blow—mitigated to a certain extent by Debbie’s relief. ‘Though how I’ll manage on my own, I don’t know,’ she told Olivia. ‘I’m always filing things wrong.’
‘No, you aren’t. Besides, you’ll be extra careful now.’
‘What about you? Have you got a job to go to?’
‘Not yet, but we can manage quite well until I find something else. Look, Debbie, we’ve got next week—let’s check the shelves together so that everything is OK before I go.’
She hadn’t told her mother yet; that could wait until she had actually left. Thank heaven, she reflected, that it’s spring. We can economise on the heating if only we can get Grandmother to co-operate, and not go round the flat turning on lights that aren’t needed and switching on the electric fires and then forgetting them. It was, after all, her flat—something of which she reminded them constantly.
They worked like beavers during the next week, and although Olivia was glad that she need no longer work in the dreary underground room she was sorry to leave Debbie. She put a brave face on it, however, assured her that she had her eye on several likely jobs, collected her pay-packet for the last time and went home. The bus was as usual crowded, so she stood, not noticing her feet being trodden on, or the elderly lady with the sharp elbows which kept catching her in the ribs. She was regretting leaving without seeing that nice man who had been so friendly. Doubtless back in Holland by now, she thought, and forgotten all about us.
She waited until they had had their supper before she told her mother and grandmother that she had lost her job. Her mother was instantly sympathetic. ‘Of course you’ll find something else much nicer,’ she said, ‘and until you do we can manage quite well…’
Her grandmother wasn’t as easy to placate. ‘Well, what do you expect?’ she wanted to know. ‘You’re not really trained for anything, and quite right too. No gel should have to go out to work—not people of our background…’ Mrs Fitzgibbon, connected by marriage to the elderly baronet and his family who never took any notice of her, was inclined to give herself airs.
‘All the same,’ she went on, ‘of course you must find something else at once. I, for one, have no intention of living in penury; heaven knows I have sacrificed a great deal so that both of you should have a home and comfort.’ She stared at her granddaughter with beady eyes. ‘Well, Olivia, perhaps that young man of yours will marry you now.’
‘Perhaps he will,’ said Olivia brightly, thinking to herself that perhaps