She heard two days later—the letter was on the mat when she got up, and she took it to the kitchen and put on the kettle for their morning tea and opened it.
The job was hers—she was to present herself for work on the following Monday at eight-thirty sharp. She would have half an hour for her lunch, fifteen minutes for her coffee-break and tea in the afternoon, and work until five o’clock. She would be free on Saturdays and Sundays but once a month she would be required to work on Saturday, when she would be allowed the following Monday free. Her wages, compared to Grandfather’s pension, seemed like a fortune.
She took a cup of tea to her grandfather and told him the news.
‘I’m glad, my dear. It will certainly make life much easier for you—now you will be able to buy yourself some pretty clothes.’
It wasn’t much good telling him that pretty clothes weren’t any use unless she had somewhere to go in them, but she agreed cheerfully, while she did sums in her head: the gas bill, always a formidable problem with her grandfather to keep warm by the gas fire in their sitting-room—duvets for their beds, some new saucepans… She mustn’t get too ambitious, she told herself cautiously, and went off to get herself dressed.
She got up earlier than usual on Monday, tidied the flat, saw to her grandfather’s small wants, cautioned him to be careful while she was away, kissed him affectionately, and started off for the hospital.
She was a little early, but that didn’t matter, as it gave her time to find her way around to the cubbyhole where she was to change into the overall she was to wear, and peep into rooms and discover where the canteen was. A number of people worked at the path lab and they could get a meal cheaply enough as well as coffee and tea. People began to arrive and presently she was told to report to an office on the ground floor where she was given a list of duties she was to do by a brisk lady who made no attempt to disguise her low opinion of Eustacia’s job.
‘You will wear rubber gloves at all times and a protective apron when you are emptying discarded specimens. I hope you are strong.’
Eustacia hoped she was, too.
By the end of the first day she concluded that a good deal of her work comprised washing-up—glass containers, dishes, little pots, glass tubes and slides. There was the emptying of buckets, too, the distribution of clean laundry and the collecting of used overalls for the porters to bag, and a good deal of toing and froing, taking sheaves of papers, specimens and the post to wherever it was wanted. She was tired as she went home; there were, she supposed, pleasanter ways of earning a living, but never mind that, she was already looking forward to her pay-packet at the end of the week.
She had been there for three days when she came face to face with the man who had interviewed her. He stopped in front of her and asked, ‘Well, do you like your work?’
She decided that despite his cross face he wasn’t ill-disposed towards her. ‘I’m glad to have work,’ she told him pleasantly, ‘you have no idea how glad. Not all my work is—well, nice, but of course you know that already.’
He gave a rumble of laughter. ‘No one stays for long,’ he told her. ‘Plenty of applicants when the job falls vacant, but they don’t last…’
‘I have every intention of staying, provided my work is satisfactory.’ She smiled at him and he laughed again.
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘No. I don’t know anyone yet—only to say good morning and so on. I saw Miss Bennett when I came here—she told me what to do and so on—and I’ve really had no time to ask anyone.’
‘I’m in charge of this department, young lady; the name’s Professor Ladbroke. I’ll see that you get a list of those working here.’
He nodded and walked away. Oh, dear, thought Eustacia, I should have called him ‘sir’ and not said all that.
She lived in a state of near panic for the rest of the week, wondering if she would get the sack, but payday came and there was nothing in her envelope but money. She breathed a sigh of relief and vowed to mind her Ps and Qs in future.
No one took much notice of her; she went in and out of rooms peopled by quiet, white-coated forms peering through microscopes or doing mysterious things with tweezers and pipettes. She suspected that they didn’t even see her, and the greater part of her day was concerned with the cleansing of endless bowls and dishes. It was, she discovered, a lonely life, but towards the end of the second week one or two people wished her good morning and an austere man with a beard asked her if she found the work hard.
She told him no, adding cheerfully, ‘A bit off-putting sometimes, though!’ He looked surprised, and she wished that she hadn’t said anything at all.
By the end of the third week she felt as though she had been there for years—she was even liking her work. There actually was a certain pleasure in keeping things clean and being useful, in however humble a capacity, to a department full of silent, dedicated people, all so hard at work with their microscopes and pipettes and little glass dishes.
She was to work that Saturday; she walked home, shopping on her way, buying food which her grandfather could see to on his own, thankful that she didn’t have to look at every penny. In the morning she set out cheerfully for the hospital. There would be a skeleton staff in the path lab until midday, and after that she had been told to pass any urgent messages to whoever was on call that weekend. One of the porters would come on duty at six o’clock that evening and take over the phone when she went.
The department was quiet; she went around, changing linen, opening windows, making sure that there was a supply of tea and sugar and milk in the small kitchen, and then carefully filling the half-empty shelves with towels, soap, stationery and path lab forms and, lastly, making sure that there was enough of everything in the sterilisers. It took her until mid-morning, by which time the staff on duty had arrived and were busy dealing with whatever had been sent from the hospital. She made coffee for them all, had some herself and went to assemble fresh supplies of dishes and bowls on trays ready for sterilising. She was returning from carrying a load from one room to the next when she came face to face with a man.
She was a tall girl, but she had to look up to see his face. A handsome one it was too, with a commanding nose, drooping lids over blue eyes and a thin mouth. His hair was thick and fair and rather untidy, and he was wearing a long white coat—he was also very large.
He stopped in front of her. ‘Ah, splendid, get this checked at once, will you, and let me have the result? I’ll be in the main theatre. It’s urgent.’ He handed her a covered kidney dish. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No,’ said Eustacia. She spoke to his broad, retreating back.
He had said it was urgent; she bore the dish to Mr Brimshaw, who was crouching over something nasty in a tray. He waved her away as she reached him, but she stood her ground.
‘Someone—a large man in a white coat—gave me this and said he would be in the main theatre and that it was urgent.’
‘Then don’t stand there, girl, give it to me.’
As she went away he called after her. ‘Come back in ten minutes, and you can take it back.’
‘Such manners,’ muttered Eustacia as she went back to her dishes.
In exactly ten minutes she went back again to Mr Brimshaw just in time to prevent him from opening his mouth to bellow for her. He gave a grunt instead. ‘And look sharp about it,’ he cautioned her.
The theatre block wasn’t anywhere near the path lab; she nipped smartly in and out of lifts and along corridors and finally, since the lifts were already in use, up a flight of stairs. She hadn’t been to the theatre block before and she wasn’t sure how far inside the swing-doors she was allowed to go, a problem solved