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day after tomorrow, I believe, Sister?’
Sarah said yes, she was, and had he fetched the cat.
‘Not yet,’ he answered seriously. ‘I wonder if you would do me the favour of coming with me to Mrs Brown’s—er—home? It seems to me to be a good idea if we were to take her to Richmond with the cat; she could meet my housekeeper and then go on to hospital. If you were there too … I believe that you are free on Saturday mornings?’
She was always free on Saturday mornings—she wondered why he asked, because after all these years he must surely know. But she had nothing to do; it would fill the hours before she came on duty after dinner. She replied:
‘Yes, certainly, sir. Shall I meet you there?’ She thought a moment. ‘Mrs Brown lives in Phipps Street, doesn’t she?’
The doctor nodded. ‘Yes. But I will fetch you from the Home. Would eleven o’clock suit you?’
He waited only long enough for her to murmur a rather surprised Yes before he went, calling a brief goodnight over his shoulder.
She went to the front door of the Home exactly on the hour on Saturday morning to find him waiting. The Iso Grigo looked sleek and powerful, and it was very comfortable. Dr van Elven got out and walked round and opened the door for her—something Steven had seldom done. Her spirits lifted a little, to drop to her shoes as the car slid to the gate and purred to a halt to allow Steven’s Mini to pass them, going the other way. She had a glimpse of his face, gazing at her with a stunned surprise, then he had passed them and they themselves were out in the street. She remembered then that it was Steven’s habit to play squash each Saturday and that he invariably returned at eleven. She wondered if the man beside her knew that, and decided that he didn’t, but her flattened ego lifted a little—the small incident would give Steven something to think about.
She felt all of a sudden more cheerful and was able to utter a few pointless remarks about the weather, to which Dr van Elven made courteous replies in a casual voice. He was so relaxed himself that she began to relax too and even to feel pleased that she had dressed with such care. She had read once, a long time ago, when such advice seemed laughingly improbable, that it was of the utmost importance for a girl who had been jilted to take the greatest pains with her appearance. Well, she had. She had put on her new tweed suit—a rather dashing outfit in tobacco brown—and complemented it with brown calf shoes and handbag. She felt pleased that she had taken such sound advice, and pondered the advisability of getting a new hat until, obedient to the doctor’s request, she peered out of the window to look for number 169. Phipps Street was endless, edged with smoke-grimed Victorian houses, the variety of whose curtains bore testimony to the number of people they sheltered; the pavements were crowded with children playing, housewives hurrying along with loaded baskets, and old men leaning against walls, doing nothing at all. Sarah said on a sigh, ‘How drab it all is—how can they live here?’
The doctor eased the car past a coal cart. ‘And yet you choose to work here.’
‘Yes. But I go home three or four times a year—I can escape.’ She broke off to point out the house they were making for, and he brought the car to halt between a milk float and an ice-cream van with a smooth action which earned her admiration. They had barely set foot upon the pavement before a small crowd had collected. The doctor smiled lightly at the curious faces around them and applied himself to the elderly knocker upon the front door. Several faces from various windows peered out, and after a good look, the windows were opened. The nearest framed a large man with a belligerent eye. ‘‘Oo d’yer want?’ he enquired without enthusiasm.
Dr van Elven said simply, ‘Mrs Brown.’
‘Ah,’ said the man, and disappeared, to reappear a moment later at the door. ‘You’ll be the doctor,’ he remarked importantly. ‘Second floor back. Mind the stairs, there’s a bit of rail missing.’ He stared at them both and then stood back to let them pass him into the small dark hall. ‘I’ll keep an eye on that there car,’ he offered.
‘Thank you.’ The doctor had produced some cigarettes from a pocket of his well-cut tweed suit and offered them silently. The man took one, said, ‘Ta’ and waved a muscled arm behind him. ‘Up there.’
They mounted the stairs with a certain amount of caution, the doctor restraining her with a hand on her shoulder. She remembering the missing rail. They were on the first landing when Sarah said:
‘You don’t smoke cigarettes—only a pipe.’
He paused, a step ahead of her, and smiled over his shoulder.
‘How—er—observant of you. They’re useful to carry around in these parts; they smooth the way, I find.’
They went on climbing and she wondered why he talked as if he was in the habit of frequenting similar houses in similar streets. Most unlikely, she decided, when he lived in Richmond and had rooms in Harley Street and a large private practice to boot.
The second landing was smaller, darker, and smelled. The doctor’s splendid nose flared fastidiously, but he said nothing. Sarah had wrinkled her own small nose too; it gave her the air of a rather choosy angel. The doctor glanced at her briefly, and then, as though unable to help himself, he looked again before he knocked on the door before them.
They entered in answer to Mrs Brown’s voice, and found themselves in a small room, depressingly painted in tones of spinach green and margarine, and furnished with a bed, table and chairs which were much too big for it. Mrs Brown was sitting in one of the chairs and when she attempted to get up, said breathily, ‘Well, well, this is nice and no mistake. I ain’t ‘ad visitors for I dunno ‘ow long.’ She beamed at them both. ‘‘Ow about a nice cuppa?’
Rather to Sarah’s surprise, the doctor said that yes, he could just do with one, and drew forward an uncomfortable chair and invited her to sit in it. The twinkle in his eye was kindly but so pronounced that she said hastily, ‘May I get the tea while you and Mrs Brown talk?’ and left him to lower himself cautiously on to the chair, which creaked in protest under his not inconsiderable weight.
Making the tea was quite a complicated business, for it involved going out on to the landing and filling the kettle from the tap there, which presumably everyone adjacent to it shared, and setting it on the solitary gas ring in a corner of the room. She found teapot, cups and sugar, and was hunting for the milk when Mrs Brown broke off her conversation to say:
‘In a tin, Sister dear, under the shelf. I can’t get down to the milkman all that easy, and tinned milk makes a good cuppa tea, I always says.’
The tea was rich and brown and syrupy. Sarah sat in the chair which the doctor had vacated and inquired for Timmy.
Mrs Brown put down her cup. ‘Bless ‘im, ‘e knows I’m going.’ Her elderly voice shook and Sarah made haste to say kindly, ‘Only for a week or so, Mrs Brown, and you’ll soon feel so much better.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Mrs Brown replied darkly. ‘I wouldn’t go to no ‘ospital for no one but Doc ‘ere.’ She drew a wheezy breath. ‘Timmy, come on out ter yer mum!’
Timmy came from under the bed—an elderly, lean cat with battle-scarred ears and magnificent whiskers. He climbed into the old lady’s lap, butted her gently with his bullet head, and purred.
‘Nice, ain’t ‘e?’ his owner asked. ‘Pals, we are—don’t know as ‘ow I wants ter go …’
Dr van Elven turned from his contemplation of the neigh-bouring chimney pots. His voice was gentle.
‘Mrs Brown, if you will consent to go to hospital now, and stay for two weeks, there will be no chance of you waking up one morning and not feeling well enough to get out of bed. You remember I explained that to you. What would happen to Timmy then? Surely it is better to know that he is safe and cared for now than run the risk of not being able to look after him?’ He picked up her coat from the bed. ‘Shall we go? You will be able to see where he will be and who will be looking after him.’
He sounded persuasive and kind and