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Specialist In Love
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘How old do you think I am?’
Poppy sighed. ‘If you knew how many times I’d heard that! I’d say you were about thirty.’
‘Excellent! You’re a year out—I’m thirty-one.’
‘I’m good on ages,’ she said smugly, remembering the countless times that crêpe-lined faces had been thrust over the counter towards her at Maxwells with a plea for a foundation to hide the blemishes, usually accompanied by the lie that ‘I’m only just forty’.
She blinked after her little reverie to find him tapping one long finger on the side of the desk. He wore no gold band and she found herself wondering whether or not he was married. Pity the poor woman who found herself saddled with Dr Browne!
‘So, Miss Henderson, beneath that marshamallow appearance of yours beats a heart of steel, does it?’
She looked at him indignantly. ‘Marshmallow? What’s that supposed to mean?’
By now he definitely looked as though he was enjoying himself. ‘All that pale, fluffy hair—and all that muck you’ve got plastered around your eyes. And that sticky-looking stuff on your mouth—you look just like a sugar-coated piece of confectionery!’
There was a long pause.
Well. She could tell him what he could do with his typewriter and head for the door. Or could she? Hadn’t Miss Webb told her that this was the only job she had? And Miss Webb was a good friend of her tutor; she had gone to her highly recommended. No other agency would touch her, with such little experience. And she did need the job. She had left Maxwells now, and it might have been boring but at least it had paid very well. How else was she going to find the rent?
She dropped her handbag over the back of the nearest chair with a fluid movement. She needed the job, and he needed a secretary. She would work for the obnoxious man, but she was going to take Miss Webb’s advice literally—and damn the consequences!
She gave him the benefit of a sweetly innocent smile. ‘If I look like a sugar-coated piece of confectionery, Dr Browne, then your shirt looks like the crumpled-up bit of wrapper from it! And now, if we’ve finished our little chat, perhaps we could get on with some work?’
He opened his mouth, and shut it again. How wonderful to see him looking so nonplussed!
‘You’ll have to do it without me,’ he said carelessly. ‘I’m off to a meeting now. Perhaps you’d like to tidy up a bit?’
The way he said it suggested that she was little more than a skivvy, and Poppy gritted her teeth, but said nothing.
‘I’ll be in early Monday morning, so I’ll show you the ropes then. That is, if you’re coming back on Monday?’
Put like that, it sounded like a challenge. There was nothing more she would have liked than to have told him she was never going to set foot in his dark, untidy mausoleum of an office again, but she was not going to give him that pleasure. That was what was known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Dr Browne,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be back.’
She bent over her handbag as if she’d found something tremendously important in it, and didn’t look at him once as he strode out of the room.
CHAPTER TWO
AFTER he had disappeared, Poppy heaved a huge sigh of relief and sat back in one of the chairs to survey the contents of his office more closely. Thank heavens she had worn her leggings! There was dust everywhere—generated, no doubt, by the heaps of books. She picked up the book he had been reading and regarded it with interest. It was entitled Diagnostic Dermatology and was indeed written by the man for whom she now worked.
The book was new, the dust cover shiny, and the whole volume had that delicious smell which all new books have. Poppy loved books. She lived for them. And books had taught her almost everything she knew. When you’d missed chunks of your education because teachers would never stay in the remote part of the country you’d grown up in, you quickly realised that there was a lot of catching up to do!
On the inside of the dust cover there was a short piece about the author. It told her that Fergus C. Browne—she wondered idly what the ‘C’ stood for—had been educated at Cambridge and then at King’s College Hospital. That, as well as being one of the youngest consultant dermatologists in the country, he had also written papers on infectious diseases, and the psychological effects of having a chronic skin condition diagnosed.
Poppy frowned. It was a pity he didn’t apply some psychological reasoning to the way he treated his staff—or, better still, use a bit of common sense. What was it going to be like working for such a capricious individual? Were they going to be engaged in running verbal battles all day long? Would he continue to be so incredibly rude about the way she looked?
She gave a long sigh. Better stop being so pensive and get on with the job. She wouldn’t put it past him to come breezing back in here after an hour, just to check what she had accomplished in his absence!
But how to go about tidying up his disgusting den? She didn’t want him accusing her of misplacing all his books, but clearly she couldn’t set up an efficient workplace if she had to keep stepping over haphazardly sited piles.
In the centre of the room was an enormous, old-fashioned fireplace, with a large recess on either side. The two spaces were just crying out for bookshelves. She scrabbled around on his desk and eventually found an unused notepad and Biro, and began to make a list.
In her rather rounded script, she wrote:
1. Have bookshelves erected ASAP!!!
2. Phone library re. most effective way of classifying books.
3. Buy a plant!
The hospital telephonist gave her the number of the maintenance department, and Poppy had to bite back a giggle when she remembered how she’d mistaken the illustrious Dr Browne for one of them. Thank goodness she hadn’t blurted that out!
A bored voice answered the phone and informed her that there was no one in the department who could help at that time, but if she left her number then they would get back to her later that afternoon, and with that Poppy had to be content.
Next she rang the local library and spoke to a very helpful girl there who explained that, as most large libraries were computerised, their systems would be inappropriate for a small, private collection of books. She suggested that alphabetical filing by author would be best, with a cross-reference file for subject matter. She also advised a marker system, in case any of the books were lent out.
While she waited for the maintenance department to ring her back, Poppy sorted all the books out into alphabetical order and placed them in neat groups around the room. It took her over an hour to do this, and by the end of it her mouth felt dry and her clothes were covered in a fine layer of dust. She had long since removed her mohair sweater, and her pink T-shirt proved plenty warm enough. She brushed her hands down the side of her leggings and glanced around. Some order had been restored, at least. She hunted around for something to drink, but found nothing, and since she didn’t want to risk missing the telephone call regarding the bookshelves she did without, but added, ‘Buy a kettle!’ to her list.
At five minutes to five they rang back and she explained her predicament, but not even all her charm could sway the dour-sounding man at the other end, who seemed the worst kind of petty bureaucrat, and obviously relished refusing her request.
‘If we put shelves up for you, then everyone would want them,’ he droned.
‘But we’re not everyone!’ wailed Poppy. ‘And if you don’t tell anyone, we won’t.’
He was now not only impervious to pleading, he was disapproving.
‘We have to work within the system, miss,’ he said sternly. ‘And as for not letting anyone know—I have to complete my work sheets in triplicate, so everyone would know.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ said Poppy crossly. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! Talk about a spirit of co-operation! Thanks for nothing!’
She put the phone down. Now what was she going to do? She had almost barricaded her desk in with the wretched things, and she could just see Dr Fergus Browne storming in tomorrow and accusing her of mucking around with his precious books—he was just the kind of contrary person to do that!
But wait a minute—he wasn’t going to be in tomorrow, and neither, officially, was she. Tomorrow was Saturday and the day after was Sunday. Which gave her two clear days to get the shelves up!
She gave a small smile as she mentally applauded her brilliant brainwave, and at five-thirty she set off home, to tell Ella all about what had happened.
Ella slammed her way into the flat at just gone seven to find it strangely silent. Poppy usually had music blaring out from the sitting-room.
‘Poppy?’ she called hesitantly.
‘In here! I’m in the bathroom.’
Ella hung up her jacket and left her basket on the table and, picking up an apple which she began crunching into, walked into the bathroom, where she found Poppy, clad only in a black lace bra and knickers, bending down and peering at herself in the badly placed mirror.
Without turning round she spoke in a gloomy voice.
‘Do I remind you of a marshmallow?’
Ella swallowed a pip by mistake. ‘What? I knew this would happen. I always said it—one day Poppy Henderson will finally flip!’
‘Shut up—I’m serious. Do I or do I not remind you of a marshmallow?’
‘Of course you don’t. You remind me of Marilyn Monroe—everyone says so.’
‘Marilyn Monroe was fat.’
‘She wasn’t fat, she was curvaceous. Nice bust, small waist, good legs—just like you.’
‘Fat,’ muttered Poppy dejectedly. ‘Do you think I wear too much make-up?’
Ella shifted uncomfortably. ‘It is a bit much, sometimes—especially by day.’ She saw Poppy’s face and hurriedly changed her tack. ‘I mean, it was different when you were working at Maxwells—that whole look was part of your job. But you’ve got such lovely skin and eyes that it seems rather a shame to cover them up. And if I had hair as shiny as yours I certainly wouldn’t dye it blonde.’
‘You would if it was mousy,’ Poppy pointed out, the harsh light falling on her finely-boned face to cast deep shadows under her cheekbones.
‘It’s golden-brown, not mousy—and what the hell has got into you tonight, Poppy? I’ve never known you to be so negative. Do I take it that you’re one of the many unemployed, and that this is responsible for a face as long as your arm?’
Poppy shook her head, so that the pale curls flew like angry snakes around her face.
‘Not at all—I’ve got a job, and that’s the problem.’
Ella’s face broke into a huge grin. ‘What are you talking about? You’ve got a job, that’s fabulous! You should be jumping up and down for joy and offering me a large glass of wine to celebrate.’
Poppy sighed. ‘Wait till you hear! I’ve got a job working for the most bad-tempered doctor you could ever imagine.’
‘A doctor? But you can’t. . . I mean, you don’t. . .’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Poppy grimly. ‘I know nothing about medicine. I don’t understand what he does, and I certainly haven’t got a clue how to spell the words.’
‘Then how come. . .?’
‘I’m the agency’s last hope. He’s driven away countless others. And that’s the second bad thing—he hates secretaries. From what he’s said I can imagine that a slug eating his prize cabbage would get more respect and affection!’
‘He sounds ghastly.’
‘Believe me, he is. Then there’s the third awful thing,’ added Poppy.
‘Go on.’
‘Someone jokingly told me that he was a professor, and so that’s what I called him—after, I might add, I mistook him for one of the maintenance men.’
Ella stifled a giggle. ‘Oh, Poppy!’
‘How was I to know that “Professor” was the nickname he hated which he’s had since medical school?’
‘You’re making all this up!’
‘Oh, that I were! And now I’ve got to try and get some shelves up in his room before Monday, or else he’ll hit the roof when he sees how I’ve rearranged his blessed books. Do you have Mick Douglas’s number?’
‘It’s in the book,’ replied her friend with a fond but sinking heart. Why had Poppy insisted on rocking the boat in order to do a job that she clearly wasn’t suited for?
Professor indeed! She couldn’t see this job last the week out.
Fergus left the side room and walked quickly into the office, his professional demeanour of calm assurance crumpling into brief despair. It never got any easier. How could it?
The charge nurse looked over at him sympathetically. ‘Coffee?’ he asked.
Fergus shook his head. ‘No, thanks, Geoff.’ He began to write in the patient’s notes ‘systemic lumpus erythematosus’. In his untidy hand he scrawled the inevitable syptoms—the outaneous signs which included the well-known ‘butterfly’ erythema on the face, frontal alopecia, mucosal ulceration. He refrained from writing the two words which the disorder signified to most of the staff on the ward—potentially fatal.
Today was Sunday and he shouldn’t even have been here, but how could he not be here? He had come in himself as if to lessen the blow of the news he’d had to impart.
But how did you tell a young girl of twenty-three, poised on the brink of her professional and emotional life, that she might not see the year out? A beautiful young girl with the face of a Madonna, a classical pianist with so much life and talent in those hands, whose equally young husband had stared at him with bewildered eyes, as if he were some idiot who had made some fundamental and terribly wrong mistake, not the consultant in charge of his wife’s case.
He finished writing in the notes and stood up slowly.
‘What are you up to today, Fergus?’ asked Geoff. ‘Nice day for a country pub!’
Fergus half smiled. ‘No such luck, I’m afraid—I’ve an article waiting at home which won’t write itself.’
Geoff groaned. ‘Rather you than me!’
Fergus left the ward, mentally agreeing with the charge-nurse. He wished he had arranged something today, something which was a million miles away from this damned job.
Still, he’d feel good once it was written, and afterwards he’d reward himself with the luxury of all the Sunday papers and a plate of spaghetti alla carbonara while Vivaldi played gently in the background. An almost perfect evening.
He was just about to leave by the main entrance when he remembered the book. Blast it! His run-in with the latest dizzy blonde secretary meant that he had left the office on Friday without Jacob’s definitive work on skin diseases, without which he couldn’t hope to write the kind of well-founded article the Journal would naturally expect from him. Thank goodness he’d remembered before he’d gone all the way home.
He was pleased to be able to arrive at the door to his office without encountering anyone he knew. He had been dreading running into Veronica Entwistle—the staff nurse on one of his wards, who had told him at least four times that she was on an early Saturday, followed by a late on Sunday, ‘so if you’re short of company, Fergus. . .’ The woman was about as subtle as a sergeant-major!
As he turned the handle of the door he became aware of two discrepancies—a muffled expletive assailed his ears and he heard some tinny kind of banal rubbish playing, which he assumed was the radio.
He flung the door open and the first thing he saw was the sight of a very long, very slender leg, clad in faded denim so clinging that he was immediately convinced that the wearer’s circulation would be seriously affected. The shapely thigh became an extremely attractive bottom and in turn a tiny waist topped by the most splendid bust he’d ever seen.
Fergus had been many things in his life, but he had never before been quite so taken aback, and it took a few seconds for it to dawn on him that he was standing staring like an idiot at the curvaceous shape of his new secretary. She was standing frozen into immobility, screwdriver in her hand. In the corner stood a worried-looking fair-haired young man whose huge shoulders and stature marked him out as a born rugby player.
Fergus set his mouth in a grim line. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing hanging off a step-ladder, Miss Henderson? No, don’t tell me, let me guess! Your local amateur dramatic society is holding auditions for its production of Peter Pan, and you’re just getting in a bit of practice?’
Sarcastic so-and-so! thought Poppy as she carefully picked her way down to his level, peering up at him with a fixed smile on her face.
‘I’m putting up some bookshelves for you, Dr Browne,’ she informed him brightly. ‘Do you like them?’
It was true. He could see symmetrical shelves, four rows of them already in place on one side of the fireplace, and at the same moment he realised that she’d changed his whole office round.
‘What?’ he boomed, so loudly that Poppy took a step back. ‘What have you done with my books?’
Poppy smiled as patiently as if she were dealing with a simpleton. ‘I’ve been sorting them out for you, Dr Browne. Obviously we couldn’t have them lying around in piles on the floor, could we?’
‘Oh, couldn’t we?’ he snapped petulantly. ‘Well, I want a copy of. . .’ He rattled the name of the textbook off quicker than a laser. ‘And I don’t want it next week—I want it now. So either you produce the book within the two minutes I’m giving you, or you find yourself back in the dole queue first thing in the morning!’
Damn cheek, thought Poppy rebelliously as she scurried over to the alcove—she’d never been in a dole queue in her life.
The silence in the office was like a time-bomb waiting to go off. Fergus stood looking out of the window, his back to the giant in the corner, studiously avoiding all contact with him.
Mick Douglas watched as Poppy scrabbled to find the list she’d made of all the volumes. To think he could have been down the pub with his mates, instead of stuck in this chilly room with this hotheaded maniac! The guy needed locking up. Fancy speaking to her like that! Mick sighed. Poppy had a lot to answer for. She had a way of looking at you that made it impossible to refuse her anything, and she had meant it when she’d said that she wanted to put the shelves up, not him. ‘You’re just here in an advisory capacity,’ she had told him grandly. Mick eyed the brooding figure by the window warily. He must be a good twenty pounds lighter, but he’d hate to get on the bad side of him.
Fergus had begun drumming his fingers on the windowsill as the final seconds ticked away, when Poppy gave a great shout of delight.
‘Here we are! Dermatological Disorders Discovered by Professor Donald Jacob.’ She held the book out with smiling eyes, the laughter quickly leaving them when she saw the expression on her boss’s face as he strode over from the window to take the book from her.
‘I wonder if you’d be good enough to step outside for a moment?’ he asked in a deliberately polite voice which did nothing to disguise his ill-humour.
‘Certainly, Dr Browne. I shan’t be more than a moment, Mick,’ she called to her friend. I hope. She had been reading 1984 by George Orwell last night, the bit where they had recited the old nursery rhyme: ‘Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head’. How appropriate that seemed just at this moment, following old Grumpy out into the corridor. ‘Chip-chop. Chip-chop. The last man’s. . .’
‘Miss Henderson?’
‘Dead!’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself.
He frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She realised what she’d said. ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Browne—I was miles away.’
‘Obviously.’
He looked as if he’d spent the morning sucking a lemon—he was so sour-faced, she thought as she waited. He was bound to get rid of her now.
He was about to tell her not to bother coming in tomorrow when he caught a glimpse of such a resigned expression on the na
And hadn’t he rather admired the spunky way she had spoken to him on Friday? It was a sad but inevitable fact that the higher up your particular ladder you got, the more distance it created between you and the people around you. He disliked people toadying to him—simpering sycophants who thought that tacking ‘yes, sir’ on to the end of every sentence would make them an instant crony.
Apart from Catherine, he couldn’t remember anyone who had spoken to him as directly as this girl in a long time.
He forced himself to be pleasant. ‘It was good of you to give up your weekend to rearrange my office, but I would have preferred it if you’d consulted me first. . .’
‘I will in future,’ Poppy butted in eagerly.
Fergus sighed. She was like an exuberant young puppy, completely unsquashable. He rearranged the softer expression which had crept over his features and looked down at her sternly.
‘In future, however, you will not bring your boyfriend into my office, not without my permission.’
‘But he’s not my. . .’ she protested, but he shook his head.
‘I’m not interested in your private life, as I hope you’ll be uninterested in mine. And, now if you’ll excuse me, I have an article to write. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.’
Weakly she nodded, leaning against the wall of the corridor as she watched him walk away, unsure whether to cheer or howl.
CHAPTER THREE
POPPY arrived punctually at her typewriter at nine o’clock on Monday morning to find the office empty, and she stood in the centre of the room rather uncertainly, unsure of what to do next—she didn’t dare try to alter anything else, not without the permission of Grumpy! And she had decided not to introduce the kettle or any plants until she had a better idea of just how long she would be staying!
One thing was for sure—his office looked a million times better—more spacious and less cluttered. And what was it they said? A tidy room means a tidy mind—maybe the quality of his articles would improve, and then he’d be forever in her debt!
She was bent over her desk, flicking dust off the electric typewriter and ineffectually moving pieces of paper around for something to do, when the door flew open with a crash and she looked up, startled, expecting to see Dr Browne; instead she was confronted by the sight of a girl of about sixteen, her eyes red from crying, her hair flying wildly around her face, and some poorly applied foundation attempting to cover what Poppy could see were angry red spots on her face.
‘Where is he?’ the girl demanded, on a note that sounded as though it could become a sob without very much provocation.
Poppy smiled encouragingly. ‘You mean Dr Browne? I’m expecting him in any time now. Won’t you take a seat?’
The girl flopped into the chair Poppy had indicated, and with trembling hands started fumbling around in her handbag. She pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and had extracted and lit one, exhaling deeply, before Poppy could stop her. The familiar acrid smell of the smoke assailed Poppy’s nostrils and she was filled with a wave of nausea.
She spoke as politely as possible. ‘This is a hospital, you know. I don’t think it’s a very good idea if you smoke, do you?’
The girl stared at her belligerently. ‘I don’t think a lot of things are a good idea—like the fact that I resemble Frankenstein’s monster with this face of mine, but there’s not a lot I can do about it.’ She took another deep drag of the cigarette.
Poppy coughed. The room was filling up with smoke and she couldn’t bear it, and neither, she was pretty sure, would Dr Browne.
