For the purposes of this story, the movie Brief Encounter was made in 1941. :-)
The year 1941. Patrick's point of view. Part 2
The coffee hour discussions at the London Hospital could be hilarious. The students, the nurses and the researchers mixed fairly easily. The war, albeit the evil in many cases, had lowered the social barriers. Patrick enjoyed the informal atmosphere.
That afternoon, the talk was about the new movie Brief Encounter and the always interesting topic of forbidden, but unconquerable feelings.
"Oh, it was so soppy. "Please, let me see, I am a doctor," one medical student sneered.
"A good pick-up line. Have to use that next Saturday," another giggled.
"I thought there was such a beauty in their relationship. It was like looking at Rembrandt's still life..."
"But there was that fantastic moral tension there. Should you succumb to the...things that overmaster you? Or not? That is the question."
"If Trevor Howard looked at me like that, I would not give a damn for such a value discussion," someone stated emphatically.
"Isn't the problem that you know the value of things only after they have overmastered you? Sometimes, only experience can tell the value of a...feeling, " Nurse Mannion was heard to say.
"Oh Shelagh, you're always the great analyst."
Her opinion and the manner she gave it pleased Patrick. He joined the conversation. "How many times can you bite a whole apple?" He wondered if anyone might recognize the catch.
"Exactly. The old philosophical conundrum. After one bite it is no more a whole apple." Nurse Mannion's clear gaze met his. He smiled. She smiled back.
Someone was eagerly pushing the discussion to another direction: "But shouldn't we, as scientists, as we replicate the tests, rely only on those results that stay constant in continuous testing? Shouldn't that apply to moral values as well?"
"Oh, if you wish to subject Mr. Trevor Howard to rigorous testing, I'll volunteer as a guinea pig very quickly."
Patrick could detect Nurse Mannion's silvery tones even in the general laughter that followed. It disconcerted him. Those blue eyes. The apple bitten or not, that is the question...
After a period of a few months, he had a vague sensation that something had changed in Nurse Mannion's appearance. It dawned on him slowly that it was to do with her hair. He didn't anymore see her golden hair. She always used a veil.
Usually, all the nurses wore cupcake headdresses, and so did Nurse Mannion at first. Her hair was often tied in a French knot above her neck.
He had of course mostly seen her at operations, when she was fully clad anyway in the protective white garments.
Now she wore the veil at other times as well. Like when she was having breakfast at the London Clinic kitchen. He also saw her leaving the hospital wearing that veil with her overcoat. Odd.