A Man To Tame - Rachel Lindsay (Roberta Leigh) (5 page)

'You engaged Dr Gibson and Dr
Gibson you are going to have,' she said aloud, almost as if he was present to
hear her. 'So put that in your pipe and smoke it, instead of your expensive
Havana cigar!'

CHAPTER FOUR

On Friday morning Kate awoke before
her alarm, which she had set for seven. The bedroom was cold and, shivering
despite a warm dressing gown, she went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea.
At seven-thirty she was driving carefully towards the factory in Dr Morris's
car and, not sure if she had a special parking bay, left it in the general car
park which was already stacked with vehicles.

As the eight o'clock whistle blew
she was in her surgery, trim and efficient in a white jacket above a pencil-slim
navy skirt. Nervousness had made her hair curlier than usual and though she had
tried to brush it back from her face, several ends curled obstinately forward,
giving her a faintly cherubic look which annoyed her. Though she rarely wore
make-up when working she had darkened her eyebrows and put on lipstick, not
only to give herself confidence but in the hope that it made her look more
sophisticated. A wasted gesture, she mused, as she regarded herself in the
shining front of a glass instrument cabinet that stood to the left of her desk.
She had not yet seen the nurse who would be working with her and hoped she
would not turn out to be some starchy elderly woman who would make her feel an
interloper. Her first sight of Nurse Evans reassured her on this point, for
though the woman was no longer young, she was plump and cheerful-looking. She
was also delighted to be working with a woman and left Kate in no doubt that
her arrival was both timely and welcome, though she admitted she was not sure
how the men would react.

Diplomatically Kate refrained from
telling Nurse Evans that Mr Howard had wanted to send
her back to London, for the nurse's comment made her appreciate that the man
was not as biased as she had believed, but had said what he did from genuine belief
and not prejudice. For this reason she waited nervously for her first? patient to arrive, steeling herself for his look of surprise
and warning herself too, that he might turn on his heels and walk out.

The count-down has begun,' said
Nurse Evans, popping her head round the consulting room door to give Kate a
reassuring smile. Three men have just come in. Two
Joneses—not related—and Thomas Thomas. He's a
malingerer. Dr Morris generally gave him placebos. I have a stack of them in
different colours if you're of a mind to do the same.’

Kate shrugged, unwilling at this
stage to enter into medical subterfuge with the nurse. She had no intention of
giving placebos to anyone without first trying to get to the root cause of why
someone should pretend to be ill when they weren't.

The door opened and the first
patient came in. He stopped as he saw Kate and she gave him a cool smile and
pointed to the chair beside her desk. She was more brisk than usual as though
to show that though she looked soft and feminine she was anything but, and it
was only when the man was on his way out, a prescription in hand, that she
prompted herself to smile at him, gratified when he gave her a cheery grin in
response.

The second man was equally
surprised to see her and, being talkative, said how astonished all the men
would be to have a woman replace Dr Morris.

'Lots of them won't come to you,’
he said. ‘They'd be too embarrassed.'

They have no need to be. What about
all the women who go to men doctors?’

‘That’s different.'

‘
In
what way?'

The
man
shrugged. ‘You've
got me there, Doctor. All I know is that a lot of the men won't be coming in.'

‘That won't send me away.'

I’m glad to hear it,' he smiled,
breathing in deeply and holding his breath as she placed a stethoscope on his back.

‘You can put on your shirt,' she
said, returning to her desk. 'I would like to have your chest X-rayed.'

'Dr Morris used to do that here.'

The kind I want can only be done in
hospital.'

There's nothing seriously wrong
with me, is there, Doctor?' the man asked apprehensively.

Kate shook her head reassuringly. 'Nothing that can't be put right. So don't worry.'

'I'm not worried,' the man said. I’m
sure you know what you're doing.'

He went out and she waited
expectantly for the malingerer to appear. He had obviously been warned what to
expect and made no comment on the fact that she was a woman.' Kate examined him
carefully and, as Nurse. Evans had said, found nothing wrong with him. — ‘What
are you suffering from, Mr Thomas?’ she asked.

Happily he went into a long
dissertation as to his many ailments and Kate kept an attentive look on her
face and remained silent. Mr Thomas believed himself
to be suffering from a malady so rare to mankind that no specialist had yet
succeeded in discovering what it was. But he suffered from it, oh my, how he
suffered!

'It's no good giving me aspirin and
expecting the pain to go,' he concluded. 'I need something more than that.'

'Indeed you do,' Kate agreed, 'and
I have just the thing. Some new pills have just come on to the market, very
expensive and not generally prescribed under the National Health, but luckily
that doesn't bother us here.'

‘I'll get Nurse Evans
to
supply
you with twenty and you should take one a day and come and see me when you've
finished them.'

‘What are they?' he asked.

'A new type of multi-vitamin,' Kate
said, hoping the man did not realise she was talking
nonsense. The pills have to be taken each day at the same time. That is most
important.'

'What happens if they don't work?
I'm-a hard case to cure,’

'One must not be pessimistic, Mr Thomas.'

'If you suffered the way I do,
you'd also be pessimistic.' Pocketing the prescription, he made his way to
Nurse Evans who was waiting in the dispensary.

By this time several more patients
were in the waiting room and Kate popped her head round the door to-see them
for herself. Some half-dozen pairs of eyes returned
her-gaze and as she motioned the man nearest her to follow her into the
surgery, she saw one of the men walk out with an angry mutter. However, It was after eleven-thirty before Nurse Evans was able to
lock the waiting room door and tell her there were two house calls to be made.

'I took them while you were in
surgery. Dr Morris never liked to be disturbed when he was with a patient, but
I'm not sure how you feel about it.'

‘I’ll leave it to your discretion,'
Kate said. 'If you think it's urgent, I'll talk to them, otherwise I'll call
them back.' She took the list from the nurse's hand and looked at the two
addresses on it.

'I don't suppose there's an
A to
Z
of the district?' she asked.

I’m afraid not, but both these
calls are on the Howard Estate, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding
them.'

Kate set out at once. True to the
nurse's belief she found the addresses easily. One man had flu and the other
bronchitis, and though neither call was strictly necessary she was glad she did
than, for it enabled hear to meet a couple of the wives. They were both in
their thirties with children, and both disposed to chat which gave Kate the
opportunity of saying she was going to start a daily evening surgery at her
house. The first woman seemed pleased at the prospect but the second one was
non-committal, which disappointed Kate, for it seemed as if the wives were as
conservative as their men folk when it came to accepting a woman doctor.

It was one o'clock before she
returned to the factory. She had meant to ask Nurse Evans where she was
expected to have lunch and hoped she did not have to put i4 an appearance in
the directors' dining room. The prospect of seeing Joshua Howard each day would
give her indigestion. She was crossing the foyer when Dermot Kane emerged from
a corridor and hailed her.

'Off to lunch, Dr Gibson?'

She nodded. 'Perhaps you can tell
me where the canteen is.'

Directors' dining
room for you,’ he smiled, 'or one of the tables in the canteen annexe.'

‘What's that?'

'It's a room off the main canteen
where the managerial staff generally eat. It has the
same food as the canteen but with a bit more privacy.'

That sounds the place for me.'

‘Mr
Howard will be expecting you in the dining room. Our doctors generally lunch
there.'

This one won't. I think it will be
good for the men to get a chance of seeing me.'

‘Won't you be embarrassed by so
many male eyes ?'

'I shall relish it,' she lied. 'Now
if you can direct me where to go.'

'I'll do more than that; I'll join
you there for lunch.'

That sounds lovely,' she said, and
meant it, for she had dreaded the thought of entering the canteen alone.

As Dermot Kane had foreseen, there
was a definite lessening of noise as she walked down the centre aisle of the
canteen to the small room at the far end. Here, several tables were laid for
lunch and a couple of women served the food. Though it did not compare with
what she had eaten yesterday, it was well cooked and tasty, and cheap too, as
she found when she went to pay for it.

‘I’ll do that,' Dermot Kane
protested, but she would not let him arid insisted on paying for herself.
'Another sign of emancipation?' he questioned.

'A reluctance to
be a drain on your financial resources!’

‘With the prices they charge here I
could feed you twice daily. You're only insisting that you pay for yourself in
order to assert your independence. Not that I blame you. I would probably do
the same in your position.'

‘Would you have done the same as me
yesterday?' She saw his hesitation and said quickly: ‘Forget it. It wasn't
diplomatic of me to ask you.'

'I'm no diplomat,' he replied. 'And
to answer your question, then I think it would have to be no.' He saw her look
of disappointment. 'It isn't because I don't think you were
right, but because I would never try to get the better of Mr
Howard.'

'I don't want to get the better of
him.'

'But you are determined to show him
you can hold down this position.'

'Naturally. I believe that given time, the majority of the men will
come to me. Don't you think they will, Mr Kane?'

'I don't know, but do call me
Dermot, because 1 have every intention of calling you
Kate.' His eyes twinkled at her. 'You're not a bit like a Kate, are you?'

'Like what Kate ?'
she smiled.

'Shakespeare's
Kate, of course.'

‘I don’t see you as Petruchio either,’ she said dryly.

‘Fair comment.'

'Sorry,' she smiled. 'But you have
to admit that your comment wasn't very original.'

‘You mean other men have made it!'
he said in mock disbelief.’

'So often that at
one time I used to apologise for not being a shrew!'

He laughed outright. ‘You might not
be tall and dark as Shakespeare's Kate, but I bet you can be equally
determined.'

'If I Believe
in something enough,' she agreed. The way I believe I should stay here now and
prove Mr Howard wrong.'

The arrival of a waitress with
their coffee prevented Dermot from replying, and when they were alone again
Kate changed the subject, reluctant for him to think she continually wished to
talk about her employer. But it was hard not to do so when the personality of
the man permeated everything around her.

‘How have you settled into the
house?' Dermot broke into her thoughts.

The bed was comfortable,' she
replied, ‘but I shall have to learn how to cope with the boiler. I was so cold
this morning that I woke up at the crack of dawn,’

He gave an exclamation. 'I meant to
have one of the men come over and explain its mysteries to you. I'll put it in
hand right away.'

There's no heed to bother, I'm sure
it's quite an ordinary boiler. It's just a matter of my giving it a good clean
out and then feeding it with coke.'

‘You do sound domesticated!' he
observed.

‘I used to be.'

‘Why the past
tense?’

She pretended not to hear the
question, for it was hard to make a layman understand that her lack of energy
was reaction from shock. Yet immediately after the fire— when she had woken up
in hospital with mild concussion and bums—she had felt surprisingly well. It
was only a few weeks later, when she was convalescing, that she began to have
terrible nightmares, feeling her body licked by flames; dragging out people
from a furnace only to have them turn into sawdust-filled dolls the moment
she-got them to safety. The nightmares became so bad that on many occasions she
would try not to fall asleep. It was about this time that she found her energy
failing so badly that it was an unbearable effort even to get up in the
morning.

Depression due to shock, had been
the diagnosis, and she had taken the recommended pills and waited patiently for
them to work. Yet though they cured the depression they did not cure the
general lethargy, and discussion with a specialist eminent in this field had
made it clear that though she could be given pills to make her buoyant and tranquillisers to make her sleep, the best cure of all was
time.

Time and a change of scene,' the
man had said. ‘Why not become a ship's doctor for a bit?'

'I get nausea when I see a film
about the sea!’

I’m sure there are other jobs you
could get that would take you away from your practice for a while.'

'It's my practice that is keeping
me sane,’ she had replied, and had returned to work convinced she was right and
the specialist wrong. But the months had passed without any improvement, and
when Peter had told her of this job with Howard Engineering it had seemed as
though fate had given her another chance to change bar mind. So here she was
working a milieu where she felt a total stranger among total strangers. Perhaps
this was what she needed, for strangers made no demands and even an empty house
that belonged to someone else could be lived in without making her feel guilty
because she did not want to turn it into a home. She looked at her hands. The
burn marks were only faintly visible and would disappear completely with time.
It was hard to believe that four months ago those hands had loved to cook and
clean.