Betty Neels - The Moon for Lavinia

‘This one’s wider,’ her companion remarked carelessly, and turned into a short, quite broad street leading away from the square. It ran into another main street she didn’t recognize, crowded with traffic, but beyond advising her to keep her eyes and ears open the professor had no conversation. True, when they had to cross the street, he took her arm and saw her safely to the other side, but with very much the tolerant air of someone giving a helping hand to an old lady or a small child. It was quite a relief when he plunged down a narrow passage between high brick walls which ended unexpectedly at the very gates of the hospital.

‘Don’t try and come that way by yourself,’ he cautioned her, lifted a hand in salute and strode away across the forecourt. Lavinia went to her room to change, feeling somehow disappointed, although she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps, she told herself, it was because she had been wearing a rather plain dress; adequate enough for Juffrouw de Waal, but lacking in eye-catching qualities. Not that it would have mattered; the professor hadn’t bothered to look at her once—and why should he? Rather plain girls were just as likely two a penny in Holland as they were in England. She screwed her hair into a shining bun, jammed her cap on top of it, and went on duty, pretending to herself that she didn’t care in the least whether she saw him again or not.

She saw him just one hour later. There had been an emergency appendix just after she had got back to theatre, and she had been sent back to the ward with the patient. She and one of the ward nurses were tucking the patient into her bed, when she glanced up and saw him, sitting on a nearby bed, listening attentively to its occupant. The ward nurse leaned across the bed. ‘Professor ter Bavinck,’ she breathed, ‘so good a man and so kind—he visits…’ she frowned, seeking words. ‘Mevrouw Vliet, the mastectomy—you were at the operation and you know what was discovered? When that is so, he visits the patient and explains and listens and helps if he can.’ She paused to smile. ‘My English—it is not so bad, I hope?’

‘It’s jolly good. I wish I knew even a few words of Dutch.’ Lavinia meant that; it would be nice to understand what the professor was saying—not that she was likely to get much chance of that.

She handed over the patient’s notes, and without looking at the professor, went back to theatre. Zuster Smid had gone off duty, taking most of her staff with her, there were only Neeltje and herself working until nine o’clock. She had been sorting instruments while her companion saw to the theatre linen, when the door opened and Professor ter Bavinck walked in. He walked over to say something to Neeltje before he came across the theatre to Lavinia.

‘Off at nine o’clock?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

His mouth twitched faintly. ‘Could you stop calling me sir? Just long enough for me to invite you out to supper.’

‘Me? Supper?’ Her eyes were round with surprise. ‘Oh, but I…’

‘Scared of being chatted up? Forget it, dear girl; think of me as a Dutch uncle anxious to make you feel at home in Amsterdam.’

She found herself smiling. ‘I don’t know what a Dutch uncle is.’

‘I’m vague about it myself, but it sounds respectable enough to establish a respectable relationship, don’t you agree?’

A warning, perhaps? Letting her know in the nicest way that he was merely taking pity on a stranger who might be feeling lonely?

‘Somewhere quiet,’ he went on, just as if she had already said that she would go with him, ‘where we can get a quick snack—I’ll be at the front entrance.’

‘I haven’t said that I’ll go yet,’ she reminded him coldly, and wished that she hadn’t said it, for the look he bent on her was surprised and baffled too, so that she rushed on: ‘I didn’t mean that—of course I’ll come, I’d like to.’

He didn’t smile although his eyes twinkled reassuringly. ‘We don’t need to be anything but honest with each other,’ a remark which left her, in her turn, surprised and baffled. He had gone while she was still thinking it over, and any vague and foolish ideas which it might have nurtured were at once dispelled by Neeltje’s, ‘You go to supper with the Prof. Did I not tell you how good and kind a man he is? He helps always the lame dog…’

Just for a moment the shine went out of the evening, but Lavinia was blessed with a sense of humour; she giggled and said cheerfully: ‘Well, let’s hope I get a good supper, because I’m hungry.’

She changed rapidly, not quite sure what she should wear or how much time she had in which to put it on. It was a warm evening and still light; still damp from a shower, she looked over her sketchy wardrobe and decided that the pink cotton with its jacket would look right wherever they went. As she did her face and hair she tried to remember if there were any snack bars or cafés close to the hospital, but with the exception of Jan’s Eethuisje just across the road and much frequented by the hospital staff who had had to miss a meal for some reason or other, she could think of none. She thrust her feet into the pink sandals, checked her handbag’s contents and made her way to the entrance.

The professor was there; it wasn’t until she saw him, leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, that she realized that she hadn’t been quite sure that he would be. He came across the hall to meet her and she noticed that his clothes were good; elegant and beautifully cut if a little conservative—but then he wasn’t a very young man.

He said hullo in a casual way and opened the door for her and they went out to the forecourt together. It was fairly empty, but even if it hadn’t been, any cars which might have been there would have been cast into the shade by the car outside the door.

‘Oh, it’s the Bentley!’ cried Lavinia as her companion ushered her into its luxury.

‘You like it? I need a large car, you see.’ He got in beside her. ‘One of the problems of being large.’

She sat back, sniffing the faint scent of leather, enjoying the drive, however short, in such a fabulous car. And the drive was short; the professor slid in and out of the traffic while she was still trying to discover which way they were going, and pulled up after only a few minutes, parking the car on the cobbles at the side of the narrow canal beside an even narrower street, and inviting her to get out. It seemed that their snack was to be taken at what appeared to be an expensive restaurant, its name displayed so discreetly that it could have passed for a town house in a row of similar houses. Lavinia allowed herself to be shepherded inside to a quiet luxury which took her breath and sitting at a table which had obviously been reserved for them, thanked heaven silently that the pink, while not anything out of the ordinary, at least passed muster.

It was equally obvious within a very few moments that the professor’s notion of a quick snack wasn’t hers. She ran her eyes over the large menu card, looking in vain for hamburgers or baked beans on toast, although she doubted if such an establishment served such homely dishes.

‘Smoked eel?’ invited her companion. ‘I think you must try that, and then perhaps coq au vin to follow?’ He dismissed the waiter and turned to confer with the wine waiter, asking as he did so: ‘Sherry for you? Do you prefer it sweet?’

She guessed quite rightly that it wasn’t likely to be the same sort of sherry they drank at hospital parties. ‘Well…’ she smiled at him, ‘I don’t know much about it—would you choose?’

The sherry, when it came, was faintly dry and as soft as velvet. Lavinia took a cautious second sip, aware, that she hadn’t had much to eat for some time, aware, too, that conversationally she wasn’t giving very good value. Her host was sitting back in his chair, completely at his ease, his eyes on her face, so that she found it difficult to think of something to talk about. She was on the point of falling back on the weather when he said: ‘Tell me about yourself—why did you take this job? Did not your family dislike the idea of you coming here? There are surely jobs enough in England for someone as efficient as you.’ He saw the look on her face and added: ‘Dear me, I did put that badly, didn’t I? It just shows you that a lack of female society makes a man very clumsy with his words.’