Betty Neels - Never Say Goodbye

‘It’s very sad—your nanny must find it sad too.’

‘She has her happy memories. We’ll find somewhere for tea and then drive along the coast. In Poland the main meal in a normal household is eaten about four o’clock, but we should be able to get tea or coffee and then have dinner at the hotel before taking Nanny back. You’ll be good enough to help her to bed and leave everything at hand.’

They were walking back to the car across the path built on the sand.

‘Wouldn’t you like me to sleep there tonight?’ asked Isobel. ‘I’ll be quite comfortable…’

‘There’s no need for that. You’ll go to her after breakfast—I’ll drive you there before going to check her papers—they may arrive by then.’

‘Suppose they don’t?’

‘Then we’ll spend another day here.’

They had coffee in a small café in the town and the owner pulled up a chair, delighted to air his English. He was a middle-aged man, with dark eyes and full of wry humour. They stayed quite a while, so that their drive along the coast wasn’t as lengthy as Isobel had hoped, all the same she listened to Mrs Olbinski’s titbits of information about the country around them and looked at houses and churches and old castles with all the zeal of a tourist.

They had dinner very soon after they got back to the hotel—soup again, grilled beef and dumplings and an ice. Dr Winter drank vodka, which Isobel prudently refused, although she did drink the beer he offered her. Nanny had vodka too, that and the good food and unexpected treat of a drive that afternoon had rendered her nicely sleepy. They took her back to her flat and the doctor waited while Isobel helped her to bed, tidying up afterwards and leaving coffee ready for the morning.

‘You’re a good girl,’ declared Mrs Olbinski, when she went to say goodnight. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-five, Mrs Olbinski.’

Nanny gave a chuckle. ‘I shall be eighty in six weeks’ time,’ she declared. ‘I’ll have a proper birthday too with a cake and presents.’

Isobel and Dr Winter went back to the hotel in silence, only when they had gained the foyer did he bid her goodnight. ‘Breakfast at half past eight, Nurse,’ he reminded her, ‘and afterwards we’ll go immediately to Mrs Olbinski’s flat.’

She didn’t ask questions; there was no point, since she was sure that he wouldn’t answer them. She went up to her room, had a shower, washed her hair and went to bed.

She woke early to a grey morning and the sound of early traffic in the street below. It was barely seven o’clock, a whole one and a half hours before she could go to breakfast, and she was wide awake and longing for a cup of tea. She went to peer out of the window and then on impulse, got dressed; there was still more than an hour to breakfast, she would explore a little, it would pass the time, and she had little hope of that meal being earlier if the doctor had said half past eight, then that was the time at which they would breakfast—not a minute sooner, not a minute later; she knew him well enough to know that. He would be a strict father, she mused, brushing her mousey hair, but kind and gentle. And why should I suppose that? she enquired of her neat reflection, he’s never been either of those things to me. She pulled a childish face in the mirror, put on her coat and hat and left the room, locking the door carefully behind her.

There was a woman cleaning the corridor and a porter behind the reception desk in the foyer. Both of them replied to her good morning and the porter gave her a questioning look so that she said: ‘I’m going for a short walk,’ and smiled at him as she reached the big swing door.

Before she could open it, Dr Winter came in from outside, took her by the elbow and marched her back to the foyer.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ he asked in a voice so harsh and so unlike his usual bland coolness that all Isobel could do was gape at him.

Presently she managed: ‘Only going for a walk.’

‘Going for a walk,’ he mimicked mockingly. ‘Of course you can speak Polish, know your way around Gdansk and have your passport with you, not to mention enough money for a taxi back if you should get lost.’

She said reasonably: ‘I was only going a little way—close to the hotel, and you have no need to be so nasty about it, Dr Winter.’

She peered up into his angry face and saw that it was grey with fatigue and needed a shave. ‘And where have you been?’ she asked with disconcerting candour. ‘You’re cross and tired and you haven’t shaved… Out all night?’ She kept her pleasant voice low. ‘At Mrs Olbinski’s flat? She’s ill?’

He shook his head. ‘No, your eyes are too sharp, Nurse, and it’s just my confounded luck to meet you…’

‘There was a curfew.’ She raised troubled eyes to meet his dark ones.

‘Lifted half an hour since. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Nanny alone.’ And at her look: ‘Oh, you were safe enough, the porter knew where I was; he’s a friend of hers anyway, he promised to keep an eye on you.’

He didn’t look angry any more, only faintly amused and impatient.

‘And now, if you’ve finished your questioning, I’ll have a shower and shave and join you for breakfast.’ He caught her arm again. ‘You’ll oblige me by staying in your room until I come for you, and I’d like your promise on that.’

‘I never heard such nonsense!’ said Isobel impatiently. ‘You’ve just said the curfew is over.’

‘Your promise,’ he insisted in a voice she didn’t much like the sound of.

‘Oh, very well.’ She went with him up the stairs and when he took her key and opened her door, went past him without a word, only at the last minute she whizzed round and held out her hand.

Dr Winter put the key into it. He said softly: ‘You are, after all, my responsibility until we’re back in England.’

They breakfasted in a comfortable silence, broken only by polite requests to pass the salt, the toast or whatever. Dr Winter’s face had lost its greyness; he was freshly shaved, impeccably dressed and very calm. Isobel, taking a quick peep, asked when she should go to Mrs Olbinski.

‘We’ll go together,’ he told her, ‘and while you’re helping her to dress I’ll go and see if her papers are in order. If so we can leave on the evening boat.’

Isobel had just coaxed Mrs Olbinski into the last of her garments when he returned to say that there would be no papers until the following morning. ‘So we may as well spend the day sightseeing,’ he finished. ‘Where would you like to go, Nanny?’

‘Oliwa,’ she said at once, ‘to listen to the organ recital—it’s at twelve noon, I believe.’

They had coffee first in the hotel coffee room and then got into the car and drove the few miles to Oliwa. The Cathedral was magnificent—twelfth century, with Renaissance Baroque and Rococo added from time to time. The doctor parked the car and they began the slow progress to its entrance with Mrs Olbinski in the middle, insisting that she would rather die than be carried. The interior was splendid, with a high vaulted roof, painted with stars and hung with the Polish flag and with old-fashioned pews, already well filled. They found seats near the back, and presently the recital started with a disembodied voice explaining in English what music would be played and the history of the Cathedral, ending with the advice to turn round and look at the organ at the back of the Cathedral when the organist broke into particularly loud music. Isobel, with Mrs Olbinski’s old hand in hers, only half listened. This was the real Poland, she thought, here in church, with the flag hanging on either side of the chancel and the quiet people sitting in the pews around her. The organ began then and she sat for half an hour, as still as a mouse, listening until the organist suddenly broke into a tremendous volume of sound. It was Dr Winter who leaned across Mrs Olbinski and touched her arm. ‘Look behind you,’ he said softly.