Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions. Rosie DixonЧитать онлайн книгу.
clash. Funny how Ali McGraw never does that.
“Crazy,” says Fishlock, gazing into my eyes until I can feel them going soggy at the edges. “You make me feel all fingers and thumbs. You’re like a feather dancing in the sunlight.”
What a fantastic bloke! Nobody has ever talked to me like that outside my imagination and there you have to knock before you can come in.
“My name’s Robert Fishlock,” he purrs. “Do you think you’re going to be fit enough to have a little drink with me, this evening?”
“Oh, Doctor Flashcock! I’d—” I break off in horror when I realize what I have said. Penny called him that and it must have stuck in my mind. Robert’s eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling. “My name’s Rosie Dixon,” I say hurriedly. “And I’d love to if I get finished in time and Sister Tutor doesn’t need us, and—”
“Splendid,” drawls Dreamboat, patting my wrist again. “Why don’t you come round to Bedside Manor. It’s only just round the corner from The Virgins’ Retreat.”
“That’s where you live, is it?”
“In congenial squalor. Twenty-three Prendergast Villas. Eight till late—anytime you can make it.” He turns on that hundred watt smile and my heart turns to toasted cheese.
“Keep your pecker up. The first few weeks are always the worst.” He brushes his index finger along my lip and stands up. “I’d better be going. There’s a chronic polycythaemia with multiple scattered thrombi that I want to keep an eye on.”
“I hope it’s all right,” I say.
“I think he’ll come through.” One more smile and I am left alone with my labels. But what a difference in the way I feel! I amaze Sister by finishing the labels without a single mistake and skim round the ward with the teas as if on wings. Mr Arkwright has a trolley across his bed and I find that by seizing this, putting his tea on it and pushing it towards him I can avoid actual bodily contact. Mr Sunshine leans back against his propped-up pillows and watches me like an aged lion waiting for a schoolgirl to stick her hand through the bars of the cage.
When I come off duty I am tired but happy. I helped to take the temperatures and Staff Wood called me “Nurse Dixon” instead of just plain “Nurse.” Sister Bradley has not learned my name yet but it is early days.
When I get back to the room, Penny is lying stretched out on the bed still wearing her uniform.
“How did it go?” I say.
“Ghastly! I feel absolutely shattered. I never knew human beings could go to the lavatory so often. Some of them don’t seem to be fitted with washers. It goes in one end and straight out the other.”
“What are the other nurses like?” I am cheered to find that Penny and I seem to have shared the same experience.
“Pretty frightful. Trying to boss you around the whole time. The place is like a women’s prison. I can’t stand being told what to do by a woman.”
“I suppose they have to have a system.” Since Doctor Fishlock appeared I am feeling far more favourably disposed towards everybody.
“Did you say ‘system’ or ‘cistern’?” Penny holds up a hand in front of her face. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this crap clean from my hand?”
“Um-yes,” I say nervously. Penny does talk in a very funny way sometimes. “Are you going to have any supper?”
“I couldn’t face it. I’m not going anywhere unless Mark rings. I don’t suppose that pin-pricked little freak downstairs would pass on a message if he had one. Do you know, he actually had the cheek to wink at me this morning. I’m surprised his eyeball didn’t fall out under the strain.”
“I’m going out tonight,” I say, trying to sound very offhand about it. “You’ll never guess who with.”
“Doctor Flashcock?”
“How did you know that?”
“He was asking me questions about you last night. It was obvious that he had a yen for you.”
“You never told me.”
“Oh, didn’t I? Well, there was no point in raising your hopes, was there? I hope you’ve taken your pill to-day.”
“I’m not going to bed with him!” I say firmly. “We’re just having a drink.”
“I don’t see why you have to be so terribly coy,” sighs Penny. “It happens all the time, you know.”
“I wouldn’t go to bed with a boy on the first day,” I say indignantly.
“Not unless you were really in love—yes, I know. I had a friend like you once. She used to believe that she was a virgin until she had ten orgasms in one evening. She never got further than eight.”
“I’m not like that.”
“What are you like, then? You’re not a virgin?”
It is such a difficult question to answer, isn’t it? I suppose technically I am not a virgin but that is such a soulless way of looking at it. In my mind I have never consciously done anything to lose my virginity.
“Yes and no,” I say.
Penny groans. “Thank God I’m too tired to argue with you. I can tell you that it’s going to be more ‘yes’ than ‘no’ before the evening is over.” She dangles her arms over the edge of the bed and closes her eyes.
I am slightly disappointed that she seems so relaxed about me going out with Robert but, then, she seems so relaxed about lots of things. Whatever I do I must get away from her because she is making me feel so tired. Every time she yawns, I yawn and when I lie down on the bed for an instant I can hardly get up again.
It is a hospital rule that the nurses eat the same food as the patients and when I look at what appear to be teeth marks on my piece of gristly beef I wonder if someone is applying the instruction literally. The pros, or probationers, all sit at the same table and it is noticeable that there is much less conversation amongst us than at the tables occupied by the more senior nurses. Senior inmates also seem to have much heartier appetites. Perhaps they have got used to the food.
There is no sign of Robert and I am glad that I don’t have to exchange any words with him before our date. I rest my head on my hand and gaze across the room. Gosh, but I do feel tired.
“Wake up, Nurse.”
I jerk my eyes open to find that the table is half empty and that someone is collecting the plates. I must have dropped off to sleep. I scuttle away feeling embarrassed and return to The Virgins’ Retreat. Penny is now fast asleep and I am able to get ready in peace. I never like having to make myself up with somebody else around and it used to be agony at home with Natalie always trying to make funny remarks. I wonder how she is, little baggage. Probably rifling my drawers to see if I have left any make-up behind. Well, she will be unlucky. I took great care to bring everything with me. I have sent Mum and Dad a postcard showing the statue on the lawn outside the hospital and I hope Dad will not get the wrong idea. It features a man wearing a bowler hat brim and wings and his willy wonker is very much to the fore. I believe there were a lot of complaints when it first went up—I mean, when the statue first went up, of course.
I pop a few drops of ‘Passion’s Plaything’ behind my ears—just to cheer myself up, of course—and close the door softly on Penny’s snores. My bath I took before supper just in case I came up in a red flush. It was my neck I was worried about, naturally. I need not have bothered because the water was colder than an eskimo’s jolly lolly. Probably just as well otherwise I would have fallen asleep in it.
G.B.H. peers at me through his peep-hole as I go out and I shudder to think of Penny being forced to submit to him. I am certain she must have exaggerated as usual. I would rather have been dragged before Matron by white horses than let him so much as touch