Disclaimer:I do not own Call the Midwife, or any of the characters mentioned. All rights belong to BBC One, PBS, Heidi Thomas and Jennifer Worth. I do not own rights to 'Poetry in Motion' or any such published works of music, art and film mentioned in the story.
For entertainment purposes only.
Chapter 7
A dull pain spread through Delia's right shoulder. No. Not even shoulder really. It was the odd nook in between her neck and her shoulder. A throb so noiseless and slow, it flowed with the all-encompassing viscosity of molasses. Thick, mawkish and glutinous it dipped shy from its barrel of morose aches and twinges and dashed free a trail down the terrain of her hips and her calves and toes. First one side and then another and by the time it was over Delia was nothing more than a small, human-shaped container of sore syrup.
With a soft sort of weight, the solid man lifted off her and flipped into the space next to her; for the first time in a half hour she inhaled. She was alive. Half-open eyes blinked twice to clean out whatever was keeping them into place and the Welsh woman nearly panicked when she heard the athletic panting. In hospital, the noise signalled emergency. Just today, little Raymond had sounded this way; chest small and unwilling as he sucked Poplar's polluted air in and out and in and out so it sounded like Fred Buckle from Nonnatus House pumping air into the wheels of her horrid bicycle. He had done that today as well. She pulled the white sheet toward her chin, tugging harder when it clung to sweaty skin.
Hugh was not Raymond though. His panting was one of a grand great gladiator. Brandished with gold armour and a sword and a precious shield in the centre of the Colosseum after a fight with his foot atop a decapitated head.
Like Fred. Fred's air-pump.
Heavy lids fell and rose again. God she was tired. The molasses now back in full force and she moved. She felt a heaviness in her stomach and she wondered if she was hungry or about to be sick but she looked down and saw a large white hand laying there. Motionless. Patches of gold hair on the knuckles.
She was knackered. Patsy was a slave-driver.
"Nurse Busby, do appreciate we might save precious moments out of our day if it weren't for your tireless insistence on riding in spite a flat bike tire?"
"Some might call that diligence Nurse Mount."
"Yes and some might settle simply on calling it a 'puncture.'"
"You do know your smile could light up every blotch of dark in the night don't you?"
Delia turned to her side, her entire body rolled and folded until the stinging liquid sugar was jostled once more. The hand from her abdomen came up and brushed hair off her face. She let her own fingers mimic the action, running over the angles of her husband's glistening skin. His eyes were so dark it looked as though there was no white. A motorcar or a shooting star or flaring missile zapped by their window and yellow light came and went. It blanketed his face and lit it so he looked, to the nurse, extra-terrestrial in his appearance. A smile, dazed, tickled over his mouth and Delia withdrew her hand.
"It's so lovely to see you're happy" he said; the Scotsman in him coming out through enunciated 'r's, "What are you thinking of?"
"Bicycle tires."
The tip of his index finger stopped its journey on Delia's nose. Two bushy eyebrows rose slightly and he grinned now with his teeth.
"Yes that's exactly what I expected you wee hen."
Delia heard herself chuckle. Off-handed and husky and she sat up and reached for the glass of water on her bedside table. Hugh followed suit, reaching for a lighter instead of a source of hydration. Delia held the damp sheet in place against her chest, suddenly wishing for a nightgown. Or a petticoat. Or a burlap sack. Anything.
Dilated green eyes watched his wife as she moved to the closet. She rifled through her wardrobe and pulled out a pair of blue pyjamas. The cotton sheet around her fell as she slipped into clean clothes, and even in the dark he caught curves bare. He averted his gaze. Hugh Fraser took a deep drag in, wondering in what universe he had gotten so lucky.
He had the most beautiful wife in London. In Europe. A woman who looked the way she did and could hold a conversation about politics, medical reform, education reform and who could understand just what he was talking about when he cribbed on about which investor did what – was not half easy to find. Yes, Delia Busby was a special woman, and he intended to do whatever he had to in order to make sure she was happy.
She seemed happy. He looked at her again, lacing up her trousers, hair falling around. She did. Some hesitancy was normal. She was young, and in a new city, with a new job. He couldn't help but sigh a little as she drew open the curtains, wrapped her arms around herself when a draft blew in. She was flawless.
"Dreich outside still" he said, blowing out a swirl of tobacco.
"Don't even say it –" she stood on her tiptoes peering out the window, at the blustering grey dawn sky "I'm to be riding on that bloody bicycle in this hailstorm, you're aware?"
"I still don't know why you won't just let me drive you to the London."
She turned around, watching the naked smoking man in bed, saying his words like they were a novel solution worthy of a Nobel Prize. He breathed out smoke, haughty like a dragon in shining armour and she gritted her jaw, busying herself with pulling out her uniform from the cupboard.
"I want to be independent Hugh" she said.
"You don't have to be sweetheart."
A sleeve caught on the edge of the hanger. She snatched the material.
"Yes I do. Besides. I have to travel on that bike all day long, you're hardly going to take off work tending to TB and festering ulcers with me are you?"
He put his palms forward and smirked, "Sorry," he said, cigarette hanging out his mouth, "You don't have to go blatherin' about ulcers now."
"You've made me" Delia said, pointing the hanger toward her husband.
"Oh alright, now come on back into the scratcher and let us apologize properly" he cooed, burying into bed with his arms folded behind his head.
"I've got to get ready Hugh. And I don't like the smell of those things."
"Fifteen minutes! Look, gone –" he said, jabbing his smouldering fag into an ashtray, "Promise."
The brunette gathered her clothes for the day and yanked at a towel, "I've got to make breakfast."
"Very good then. Ten. Ten quick, fast, apologetic minutes. Scout's honour"
Delia raised a sculpted eyebrow at the imploring blond man.
"Alright ten's ambitious" he resigned.
Delia padded around the room, heading toward the door, "I didn't say anything."
Hugh tossed a small pillow at the retreating woman, "Very well but let's not pretend like breakfast's going to take very long."
At that, Delia whirled around and offered an unrestrained gasp. Her clothes gathered in one arm, she bent down, picked up the felt cushion and tossed it hard at the amused man attempting to shield himself.
"I'll remember that the next time I make my mam's crempog!" she huffed, slamming the door behind her as she headed to the bathroom.
"As will the ceiling my love!" Hugh called, laughing.
The smitten businessman watched the doorway for minutes after she left. Yes. Delia was happy. She was. She really, really was. Delia was practically gay.
A petite pair of gloved hands clutched a crumpled paper bag – striped red and white in a fashion betraying its confectionary contents. Delia held the parcel close to her body, sheltering it from the harsh gusts of autumn as she watched carefully the woman standing next to her. With a pace akin to a sloth, the redhead protracted two long fingers and reached into the packet. Held in between the tips of her thumb and index finger emerged a banana coloured disk of Styrofoam. It was a three-dimensional, spherical capsule analogous to a spaceship. Patsy treated it as such as she spent a significant amount of time examining it. She smelled it and shook it and switched it out for a pink one. She looked at Delia like she was being made to participate in an act so inevitable and horrendous as a goat-sacrifice.
"Oh for heaven's sake" Delia said finally, "I'm not poisoning you Patsy. Children eat Flying Saucers. Just put the blasted thing in your mouth."
Patsy knitted her brow with exaggerated hurt and the brunette resisted the urge to roll her eyes. For someone who barely bristled as a little boy gagged himself half to death, Delia was learning that the taller nurse was quite the oversensitive, sometimes fragile sort of a person.
In keeping with the Welsh woman's hypothesis, the candy barely touched Patsy's lips and she scrunched her nose and made a hissing noise.
"Oh that's ghastly Deels. That's absolutely, entirely just –" Patsy shook as she spoke, dropped the Flying Saucer back into the bag and brushed her hands off, "- ghastly. That was ghastly."
Delia could hardly contain her laughter, shocked by the childlike reaction.
"You can be such a Madam sometimes –" the brunette looked into the envelope and back up when she heard Patsy gasp at the allegation, "- you're supposed to break into the wafer for the sherbet pellets. You're missing all the fun! Try again, here – "
Patsy physically stepped away from the offer, eyeing the candy-disk like it was a malignant tumour.
"Thank you. The four packets of Gobstoppers and countless sticks of that horrific sugar rock pop atrocity you supplied throughout the film sufficed quite alright."
"Atrocity? What are you talking about? It's like Tizer in a tube!"
"Which might actually be more frightening than Tizer in a glass" Patsy retorted.
"You won't know it now but the Brides of Dracula will remain fondly in your heart forever and always owing to my steady furnishing of chocolates and lollies throughout."
"Furnishing? I might opt for 'sousing' as the verb of choice there."
"Oh how clever" Delia deadpanned, side-eyeing the redhead.
Patsy raised a manicured eyebrow, haughty and bemused by Delia's insistence on defending every bit of inspired, beastly sweetmeat England had managed to yield since the war.
"I'll have you know I brought those Jelly Babies with you in mind."
Patsy folded her arms, eyes questioning the woman strolling alongside her and attempting with every bit of strength to squelch the sudden flurry of butterflies in her stomach at the fact that Delia had thought of her.
"Just don't tell me it's because I'm a midwife."
Delia bobbed a shoulder "Some have to cultivate it, I'm simply born with it –" she looked to the redhead with utter sincerity, "I don't take it for granted."
"Don't take what for granted?" Patsy said, following her like an entranced cobra.
"The art of gift-giving."
The tall woman let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding and gave into the pull of her mouth. Smiling lopsided and looking away from the charming brunette only to wave hello to a couple pushing a pram who called for her from across the curvy road they were walking down.
"Delusion of grandeur at its finest ladies and gentlemen" Patsy said. The brunette smacked her bicep in a familiar way that caused no pain but only giddy nausea in the pit of the redhead's stomach.
Get off it.
For the first time, Patsy noticed the sun was setting. She glanced at her watch, then tugged at her scarf, attempting to hide the action.
If the brunette noticed, she didn't let on.
It was odd seeing her out of uniform, though it wasn't the first time by half. Patsy had had to take special effort to not observe everything Delia was wearing and how it fit her where when they had been to the café last weekend. She was almost appalled by the lack of control she seemed to have over her eyes when she was with Delia. While the Welsh woman opted for clothes not very flashy or even along the latest trends of couture – Trixie might have shuddered at this one yellow number she had worn to the flicks a few days ago – Patsy found herself arrested by everything that was Delia Busby-Fraser. Her hair, had she pinned it up in a bun, or let it down, or tied it half up in braids or left it loose in a side ponytail. The way she smelled, it was always of lilies and sometimes of butter and sugar; the times she had said she was attempting to make a new dish from some cookbook or other. She wore this champagne shade of lip colour that was gone when she licked her lips or none at all and never wore nail varnish. She had the smoothest skin and the glossiest hair and this lilting way of speaking and an obsession with Bournvita and Patsy Mount was utterly, utterly, totally, madly besotted.
"Hellooo Nurse Mount –" Delia was waving in front of her dazed face, "Anybody in here?"
"Sorry" Patsy blinked, recovering expertly, "Must be all that flavoured sugar going to my head."
"Forgive me, I've disturbed your otherwise balanced regimen of cigarettes and Johnnie Walker."
"Apology accepted" Patsy bowed casually, watching the brunette from under her eyelashes, "At least when I die of liver-damage, my teeth will still be intact."
"Mm…" Delia hummed, bending closer "What deliciously attractive prospects."
The temperature was dropping fast and children were screaming with evening glee. Along the shapely, cobblestoned carriageways of Poplar, the two women teased and talked and laughed. Unaware of the world around under cumulous clouds blocking bright orange sun, unaware and comfortable and captivated.
Reluctantly, they each went their own way for the day when they reached a bus-stop. Delia caught the number 8 and Patsy walked back to Nonnatus, hoping against all odds that she hadn't kept supper waiting.
Not only because her mind was preoccupied by the company she had spent the better part of her day off with, and not only because she was quite literally levitating mid-air, but when Patsy Mount walked into her bedroom, she flinched.
Round, stunned pupils were taking in what they were facing and she was sure she had been too distracted, lost her way and walked into one of the high-end brothels of Poplar. Then she remembered there was nothing high-end in Poplar, let alone brothels.
Clothes – lots of clothes – lots of clothes of lots of colours and fabrics and textures had quite literally splashed on all inches of the room like a pottery wheel gone bezerk. She stepped over a velvet sash and into a blue petticoat. A pair of glittering peach pantyhose were hanging limp on her bedside lamp and a green beret perched on another. A thick, dark scarf-slash-hat-slash-slacks looking thing had obscured half the wooden crucifix hanging on the wall.
Had Elvis not been singing and a glass of sherry hadn't been left unattended on the dressing table and had Sister Evangelina not scolded her for treading on newly-waxed stairs – the midwife would have called out for help, fearing burglars.
She opened her mouth meaning to say something when the humming blonde, casually crouched in the centre of a tall pile of mauve chiffon looked up to her.
"You look nice" Trixie said, bright eyes running down the length of the redhead who was now slowly moving toward her.
"The Russians drop the bomb right on top of us and nobody thought to tell me?"
"Not quite – "the slender woman got up to change the record in her dancette, "– not to discount the absolute exigency of the present predicament, however."
Patsy picked up a magenta pashmina she had never seen before off her pillow and tossed it on the blonde's. She kicked off her heels and dropped to the bed, only just registering the pull in calves. Her evening had been so outright lovely she couldn't even find it in herself to be frustrated with her room having been turned into a casserole of Turkish dessert. She reached for her packet of Dunhills, watching her roommate as she yanked out things from her closet like a magician doing tricks.
"You're not going to tell me what the present predicament is?"
Trixie was in the middle of tying a Warli-patterned red scarf around her neck; she twisted around, plucking at the bright silk with her fingers. She simply raised a finger to the redhead, signalling for her to wait. Then the blonde dropped what she was doing and poured her good Bourbon into a glass.
She waltzed to her friend, handing her the dark gold liquid. Patsy accepted readily, curiosity piquing as she a sat forward, taking a deep drag in. Trixie then proceeded to refill her votive and situated across from the redhead, expression grave and lips in a thin line.
"Has something happened Trixie?" Patsy put out her smoking butt.
"Please don't say no" she crossed a leg over another.
"To what?"
"What are you doing Friday night?"
"This Friday?" the redhead sipped her drink, stalling.
"And don't say you're on call because I know you're not."
Trixie had checked her roster. She must have had balcony tickets to A Doll's House or something, the nurse thought.
"What is it?" Patsy allowed a small smirk, lighting another clove.
"Jared Tucker"
Round lips curved around the butt, sucking in a full smolder.
"What, the dashing ear nose and throat surgeon you met last Tuesday?" Patsy gently tapped her cigarette into an ashtray, letting the dust collect.
"Hal Elmer. That was three weeks ago Patsy –" Trixie chided from behind the wide rim of her sherry, "Jared Tucker's the aircraft charter I met at Billingham Docks during Ruby Iker's fifth last Monday. Remember? He filled the meter for the water?"
"Oh of course! So what about him?"
The platinum blonde took a deep breath in, bracing herself before saying, "He's got a friend and – "
"No Trixie…" Patsy moaned, sinking back into her cushions, knowing exactly where the conversation was headed.
"Just hear me out Patsy! He's a very successful shipbroker and he's abso –"
"I don't care Trixie!" Patsy protested, booting a purple corset off the foot of her bed.
"Oh for Heaven's sake just listen to me –" Trixie placed a hand on the redhead's arm, retrieving it quickly when she caught her expression, "Jared asked me to Russel & Bromley's for dinner and this Patrick Black's staying with him for a fortnight and he's got nobody to go with. He's so worldly Patsy and undeniably handsome like Gregory Pe –"
"If he's so handsome then why hasn't he got a date?" Patsy groaned, taking a large gulp of her whiskey and nearly coughing it up.
"Please Patsy! It's a casual business meeting with Jared and another business-partner and it wouldn't look good for Patrick to be alone when the other men aren't. You know how it is?"
"Oh so I'd be nothing more than a benchwarmer?"
"Not if you wanted to be more" Trixie said, eyes big and bright nearly naïve "This might come as a shock to you but I doubt any man would deny you Patsy."
A dark eyebrow hiked up, "Sycophancy will get to you nowhere."
"I'll do the enema the next we're both on the same round –" Trixie was begging now, her sherry left abandoned, and hands clutching the edge of her bed "I'll take the next three enemas!"
"But I don't want to…" the redhead whimpered, sliding her empty glass onto the wooden table.
"Four!"
Patsy swallowed a mouthful of her Bourbon, "If it's for purposes of arm-candy and business arrangements then why can't you just ask Barbara?"
The blonde rolled her eyes, reaching for her glass now.
"For God's sake Patsy, Patrick's a shipbroker not a – a – some – a – " she shook her head looking for a word, the burgundy liquid in her glass sloshing with the movement, " – vicar. And as sweet as Barbara is they'd have absolutely nothing to talk about."
For God's sake Trixie, Patrick's a man, not a woman.
Instead, Patsy just did what she knew best. She blew out a whirl of smoke and grinded her teeth, letting the fag hang in a wilted hand.
"Whereas you have more experience with shipbrokers than any of us" Trixie was still talking. The redhead grumbled unintelligibly, regretting the tipsy night she had told the blonde about her father being an inter-global shipbroker. What she hadn't said was that she had abhorred the profession – one that left only memories of a little girl padding down a house too big for her feet, peering through heavy doors as men guffawed and drank brandy and negotiated prices of cargo and freight hidden in fogs of smoke.
"What is it that I do when you and aircraft charter are whispering sweet-nothings in each other ears and I'm sitting there cheek by jowl with this Patrick chap?" Patsy extracted the last breath out of her cigarette and let it go in the ashtray.
"First of all –" Trixie lit her first of the night, pulling her legs up onto her bed "- Jared's made reservations to Russell & Bromley's. It's a five-star restaurant. There isn't going to be any cheek-by-jowling. Secondly, it's just a glorified business meeting. Rest assured, there won't be any whisperings or sweet nothings."
The blonde was grinning at Patsy, proud, as though she had solved the problem entirely in mere seconds.
Patsy did not look impressed, "Must I?"
Trixie opened her mouth and closed it again, seeming to think better of whatever it was she was intending to say. Sharp blue eyes traced the redhead's face, then again. Patsy prickled under the intense stare, a sudden shift from the light-hearted banter that had ensued only moments before.
"Were you with a man today?"
This time, Patsy smiled. Crooked and honest and too tired to restrain any of it.
"Well then where were you?" Trixie folded her arms across her chest.
"I was with a friend from work. I told you last night" Patsy said, adjusting her head on her pillow.
"I'm a friend from work. Barbara's a friend from work. Hell, Phyllis is a friends from work –" Trixie got up now, agitated and pacing around, "- and we were all on call!"
"The other work. From the London" the redhead felt her jaw clench.
"Who?"
"A nurse" Patsy said, lighting another cigarette and avoiding eye-contact.
At this point, she didn't know why she was hiding the fact that she had been spending time with Delia. She was married to a man and had managed to cultivate several friendships with other females in the hospital. Nobody would suspect a thing. It's why she had been so lenient about spending time with her. Still, the subject felt secret somehow. Forbidden.
Trixie stood above her, hands on her hips and waist cocked to one side, "And is this the same 'nurse' you've been out with four times this week with your new lipstick on?"
"This isn't my new lipstick!" Patsy sat up, fingers crossed metaphorically.
"Oh please. You'd been wearing Yardley's mauve for months before this. I'd recognize this one from five miles away –" her pupils zoned in on Patsy's mouth, causing the reticent woman to purse her lips, "It's Estee Lauder's sugar-plum in matte and it looks absolutely smashing against your skin-tone!"
Trixie's tone had escalated to that special pitch now; the one she reached only to summon dogs or put in place difficult fathers-to-be whilst coaxing babies out from between women's legs. Just now however, she had chosen Nurse Mount as her target and the woman was practically shrinking into the back of her bed.
"Trixie if –" the redhead cleared her throat, to buy time and establish eye-contact, "– if I met a man Trixie, I promise you, you would know before I did."
For a flash, only a flash, it seemed as though Trixie believed her. Fine eyebrows knitted together and an iron ball of unadulterated fear fell deep and from a great height into Patsy's belly and she regretted her words immediately.
She knew.
She knew. She bloody knew and she was going to ask. The redhead threw a cursory glance around the room; registering her points of exit and wondering perfunctorily if she would survive the fall if she were to summersault out the window.
Alas, as soon as the expression – whatever it was – had come, it was gone and the blonde went back to being indignant.
"Alright –" Patsy sighed, polishing off her glass with a quick swig, "Alright. What does one wear to Russell & Bromley's?"
In the nature of a puppet switching characters, the once vexed nurse was suddenly ecstatic. Eyes bright and blue and big and hands clapping soundlessly as she bobbed on her toes. Patsy couldn't help a bemused smile at seeing her friend so happy. No matter how unfounded that happiness was.
Before either woman could say anything, a quick knock led to the door flinging open. Barbara's kind face peered through the crack.
"Mrs. B's made an Arctic Roll and Sister Monica Joan's getting testy. Which of course means Sister Evangelina's getting testy – so – will you two be long?"
"You look nice" she added, taking in Patsy and then the room, "Oh gosh. What happened in here?"
The two roommates looked around and got up, getting ready to head downstairs. Trixie threw in a comment about cleaning it up later and the redhead didn't resist, practically jubilant to have escaped a potentially horrendous situation.
The three girls began their walk down the corridor, chastising and murmuring about spinach quiches and salmon rolls from the dining-hall leading their way.
Patsy bent close to the blonde, "This Patrick better have good breath if I'm meant to maintain a substantial conversation."
Trixie turned to the tall woman, chuckling "The best."
A.N. : I hope you all enjoyed that! Please do let me know if the dialogue is bogging down the story for you. I am personally a fan of dialogue, especially in between interesting characters and so I can become much too liberal with it. If anything at all bothers you, do let me know, I am also learning.
As for your reviews and PM's, I must say they are some lovely thoughts and I so appreciate you taking the time to do that. It means more than you can imagine.
I must apologize for the late update. A new job and a messy personal life will do that to you. I will try wholeheartedly to get the next chapter in sooner. I know it must have been a tough last week what with all the abstruse exits (?) from the show. Fingers crossed it's all temporary and Patsy and Delia will be back next series.
Have a lovely day and do let me know what you thought if you have a moment :)