To Have and To Hold. Anne Bennett
home.
‘Merry Christmas, Carmel,’ Paul said softly, and he kissed her gently on the cheek and waited until she had gone in the door before making for his own lodgings.
Carmel thought about the evening as she lay in bed, and despite her tiredness, sleep eluded her as she went over everything in her head. She decided that she was glad that she had met up with Paul. She knew he was a kind man and a gentle one, for she had seen the way he was with patients, but she had seen another side to him that night. She had met the Paul with a sense of humour, and who refused to take himself too seriously—and she liked that. No more than that, of course, but if they liked one another, they could perhaps behave more naturally in the hospital if they should meet.
By the evening of the twenty-eighth, Carmel was exhausted. She had worked long hours straight through from Christmas Eve, and she was heartily glad she had the following day off. She met Paul in the dining hall and they went in together and then sat at the same table, though Carmel did say, ‘I hope you are not expecting sparkling conversation. I’m really no fit company for anyone tonight in fact, it is hard enough to just string a few words together.’
Paul smiled. ‘If you did manage to deliver a marvellous oration, I know for a fact I would be too tired to appreciate it.’
Carmel knew that Paul had been working as hard and just as long hours as she, and she said, ‘Are you off tomorrow too?’
Paul nodded. ‘From ten o’clock I am. Just pray that nothing serious happens before then that might mean me stopping later, for I fear they would have to prop my eyes open with matchsticks.’
‘Poor you,’ Carmel said. ‘I don’t think I could work a minute longer. I will be making for my bed as soon as I possibly can, and stay in it most of tomorrow too, if I get my way.’
‘Surely not,’ Paul said. ‘Resting is for old bones.’
‘Right,’ Carmel said nodding sagely. ‘Of course, how silly of me. I will be up with the lark and run the marathon instead.’
‘Do you know, Miss Duffy, that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?’
‘And the highest form of intellect, so I’m told,’ Carmel retorted.
Paul burst out laughing. ‘Touché, as the French would say.’ Then he went on, ‘I was actually thinking of leaving the marathon until next week and taking in a pantomime tomorrow. Aladdin is on at the Alex.’
‘A pantomime!’ Carmel breathed, because she’d never seen a pantomime, though many of the other probationers had and had described them to her. Her chances of seeing one with her friends were less now than the previous year, for her three room-mates were dating fairly seriously so the girls’ nights out had been severely curtailed.
Lois had told Paul this. Now he said, ‘Point is, a pantomime will be no fun on my own.’ He raised his eyes. ‘I don’t suppose that you…?’
‘No, Paul.’
‘Why not? Have you already seen it?’ he asked, knowing that she hadn’t.
‘I have never seen a pantomime in the whole of my life.’
‘Then why?’
‘I don’t think that it would be sensible.’
Paul stared at Carmel for a minute or two and then said, ‘Can you tell me what is so unsensible about two friends, both at loose ends, going to the Alex together to see a pantomime?’
‘Two friends?’
‘Yes, friends,’ Paul said. ‘We’re sure as God aren’t enemies, are we? Unless I am missing something here, that is.’
‘No, of course not. It’s just…I don’t know. I mean, what if people sort of misconstrue the whole thing?’
‘What if they do?’ Paul said. ‘Do you give a tuppenny damn for what people might think?’
‘Not usually,’ Carmel admitted. ‘But, honest to God, Paul, you wouldn’t believe the nurses’ home. It’s a hotbed of rumour and speculation.’
‘So you’re passing up on something you want to do in case people tease you about it,’ Paul said. ‘I honestly didn’t think you were so feeble.’
‘I’m not feeble!’ Carmel cried. ‘Don’t you dare call me feeble!’
‘Prove that you are not then,’ Paul taunted.
‘Right, I’ll show you,’ Carmel said.
‘So you’ll come with me?’
‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
Despite his weariness, Paul was in a jubilant mood as he returned to the ward, though he knew he would have to treat Carmel as the friend he had claimed to be and not the lover he hoped to become.
The night was a magical one. Paul called for Carmel in the afternoon and, though the day was bleak and raw, with all the promise of snow from the leaden skies, they wandered around the shops first, all preparing for the January sales, the streets outside still festooned with Christmas lights.
Before the pantomime, they went for a meal at Lyons Corner House and then on to the Alex. The pantomime was every bit as good as Carmel had hoped. She loved the glitz and glamour and sheer splendour of it all. She loved the audience participation too, and she booed, hissed and cheered with the best of them, laughed herself silly at the jokes and clapped until her hands were sore.
Paul would have taken Carmel for a drink after the show, but she said she wasn’t keen on pubs and, anyway, it was late enough. Paul didn’t argue and as they walked back he said, ‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Oh, Paul,’ Carmel said, ‘I can’t tell you how much. I have had such a wonderful time. I feel as if I’m still in it, you know? As if I could dance madly along this road now.’
Paul laughed. ‘Shall I catch up your hand and we’ll cavort along together?’
She gave him a push. ‘You’ll do no such thing. They’ll think the two of us crazy.’
‘I thought we weren’t going to care what people thought.’
‘Maybe not,’ Carmel said, ‘but I’d care very much if I was encased in a straitjacket.’
‘So if I promise to behave, could we, maybe, do this again?’
‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘I’d like that, but don’t forget my prelims are looming and I will have to get my head down to do some revision.’
Still, Paul was amazed at the progress he had made in one evening.
Carmel was right about one thing: nothing could be kept quiet in the nurses’ home. Though her room-mates knew she had gone out with Paul she had told no one else, but still they had been spotted. Aileen stopped Carmel and Lois when they came off duty the night after the pantomime.
‘Are you going out with Paul Connolly, Duffy?’ she demanded angrily.
Carmel looked at Aileen’s angry face and she was irritated by the way the girl had spoken to her. ‘I don’t know what it has got to do with you, but, no, I am not “going out”,—not in that sense. We are just friends.’
Aileen gave a sniff of derision. ‘Don’t give me that,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? The two of you were seen all very pally walking the town.’
Later, up in their room, Lois said, ‘Is anything going on with you and Paul?’
‘No,’ Carmel said. ‘We’re just friends, like I told you.’
‘Hmm,’ Lois said. ‘Don’t play fast and loose with Paul’s feelings, will you? He is really gone on you.’
‘He might have been once,’ Carmel said, ‘but, he’s over that now and knows full well where he stands.’
But