‘Aren’t you finished yet, Michael?’ asked Sister Langtry, voice not quite normal, though the rest of her seemed so, even her eyes.
Michael picked up the butter knife. ‘Nearly, Sis.’
Luce left his side, gave Sister Langtry a wickedly gleeful look as he passed her, and went out. The forgotten cigarette lay on the floor, tendrils and paper moving in a little wind.
Taking a deep breath, Sister Langtry walked into the room, not aware that she was wiping the palms of her hands against her dress, up and down, up and down. She stood where she could see Michael in profile as he began to cut the buttered bread into small segments and pile them on a plate.
‘What was all that about?’ she asked.
‘Nothing.’ He sounded unconcerned.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure, Sis!’
‘He wasn’t… trying to get at you, was he?’
Michael turned away to make the tea; the kettle on the spirit stove was boiling fiercely, adding its steam to an atmosphere already laden. Oh, God, why wouldn’t people leave him alone? ‘Trying to get at me?’ he repeated, hoping simple obtuseness would deflect her.
She tried desperately to marshal her thoughts and her emotions into some sort of disciplined order, aware that she had rarely been so upset, so thrown off balance. ‘Look, Michael,’ she said, speaking without a tremor, ‘I’m a big girl now, and I don’t like being made to feel like a little girl again. Why do you persist in treating me as if whatever you’ve got on your mind is too much for me to cope with? I’ll ask you again—was Luce making some sort of advance to you? Was he?’
Michael tipped a great bubbling stream of water between the kettle and the waiting empty teapot. ‘No, Sis, honestly he wasn’t. He was just doing a Luce.’ A faint smile turned up the corner of his mouth; he put the kettle down on the stove, turned out the flame, and swung round to face her fully. ‘It’s very simple. Luce was just trying to find a way to get under my skin. That’s how he put it himself. But he can’t. I’ve met men like Luce before. No matter how I’m provoked, I’m never going to lose control of myself again.’ One hand closed into a fist. ‘I can’t! I’m afraid of what I might do.’
There was something about him; funny, Luce had used those words, too. Her gaze fixed on his bare shoulder to one side of the fair hair on his chest, not sure if the skin was pearled with sweat or steam. Suddenly she was terrified to meet his eyes, felt light-headed and empty-bellied, as helpless and inadequate as a girl in the grip of her first crush on some remote adult figure.
The color drained from her face, and she swayed. He moved quickly, sure she was going to faint, and put his arm about her waist, supporting her with sufficient strength to remove all sensation of weight from her feet. Nothing else could she feel save his arm and side and shoulder, until, horrified, she felt something surge within herself that squeezed the flesh of her nipples into tight hard tingling ridges and swelled her breasts painfully.
‘Oh, God, no!’ she cried, wrenching herself away, and turning it like lightning into a protest against Luce by pounding her fist softly on the counter. ‘He’s a menace!’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘He would destroy anything just to watch it twitch.’
She was not the only one so affected; Michael’s hand when he lifted it to brush the sweat from his face shook, and he half turned away from her, forcing himself to take easy breaths, not trusting himself to look at her.
‘There’s only one way to deal with Luce,’ he said, ‘and that’s not to let him get under your skin.’
‘What he needs is six months on a pick and shovel!’
‘I could do with that myself. All of us in X could,’ he said gently, and found the strength to pick up the tray. ‘Come on, Sis. You’ll feel better after a cuppa.’
She managed a travesty of a smile and looked at him, not knowing whether to be ashamed or exalted, and searching his face for something to reassure her. But save for the eyes it was quite impersonal, and the eyes gave nothing away except a high degree of emotional excitement, for the pupils were dilated. Which could as well have been because of Luce.
There was no sign of Luce in the ward, nor on the verandah. The card-players abandoned their game somewhat thankfully at sight of the teapot, for its advent had been expected for some time.
‘The more I sweat, the more tea I drink,’ said Neil, draining his mug at a gulp, then holding it out for more.
‘Salt tablet time for you, my friend,’ said Sister Langtry, trying to get the correct degree of cheerfulness and detachment back into her voice.
Neil glanced at her quickly; so did the others.
‘Is anything wrong, Sis?’ asked Nugget anxiously.
She smiled, shook her head. ‘A slight attack of the Luces. Where is he?’
‘I have a feeling he took himself off in the direction of the beach.’
‘Before one o’clock? That doesn’t sound like Luce.’
Nugget grinned, his likeness to a small rodent enhanced by the appearance of two prominent upper incisors. ‘Did I say he was going swimming? And did I say which beach? He just went for a walk, and if he happens to meet a nice young lady—well, they stop and talk, that’s all.’
Michael sighed audibly, smiling at Sister Langtry as if to say, See, I told you there was nothing to worry about, and stretched back on the seat as he lifted his arms to put his hands behind his head, the heavily developed pectorals tightening, the hair in his armpits flattened and glistening darkly with sweat.
She felt her color going again, and managed with a huge effort to put her cup down in its saucer without spilling tea. This is ridiculous! she thought, fighting back stubbornly. I am not a schoolgirl! I’m a grown and an experienced woman!
Neil stiffened, reached out his hand to close it over hers reassuringly. ‘Here, steady on! What’s the matter, Sis? A touch of fever?’
She stood up perfectly. ‘I think it must be. Can you manage if I go off early? Or would you rather I asked Matron for a relief until after lunch?’
Neil accompanied her into the ward while the others sat on at the table looking worried, Michael included.
‘For God’s sake don’t inflict a relief on us!’ Neil begged. ‘We’ll go right round the bend if you do. Will you be all right by yourself? It might be better if I walk you to your quarters.’
‘No, Neil, truly. I doubt if it’s anything more than that I just don’t feel myself today. The weather, perhaps. It promised to be so cool and dry earlier, but now it feels like a soup tureen. An afternoon’s rest should put me right.’ She parted the fly-curtain and smiled at him over her shoulder. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’
‘Only if you feel better, Sis. If you don’t, don’t worry, and no relief, please. The place is as quiet as the grave.’
3
Sister Langtry’s room was one of a bank of ten similar rooms constructed in typical Base Fifteen style, side by side in a row and fronted by a wide verandah, the whole rickety structure standing ten feet above the ground on piles. For four months she had been the block’s only inhabitant, an indication not of antisociality on her part, but of a mature woman’s starvation for privacy. Since joining the army in 1940 she had shared accommodation, four to a small tent during her casualty clearing station days. When she had first come to Base Fifteen it had seemed like a paradise, though she had been obliged to share her room, the same she still occupied, and the block had vibrated shrilly with the sounds of women living far too close to each other. Little wonder then that as the nursing staff shrank those left on it put as much space between each other as they could, and wallowed in the luxury of being alone.
Sister Langtry let herself into her room and crossed immediately to the bureau, opened its top drawer and withdrew a bottle of Nembutal grains one and a half. There was a carafe of boiled water lidded with a cheap glass tumbler on top of the bureau; taking the glass off, she poured a little water into it, and swallowed the tablet before she could change her mind. The eyes looking back at her from the corroded depths of the little mirror on the wall above the bureau were dark-ringed and blank; she willed them to remain that way until the Nembutal took effect.
