They didn't hold it against her; she was always good-natured, ready to help, willing to cover a relief telephonist if she had a date, listening to emotional outbursts about boyfriends with a sympathetic ear. They agreed among themselves that she was all right-never mind the posh voice; she couldn't help that, could she, with a father who was a schoolmaster? Besides, it sounded OK on the phone, and that was what her job was all about, wasn't it?


* * *

Home for the weekend, Mr Foster agreed with Emmy that there was no reason why she shouldn't be at home on her own for a while.

'I'll be at Coventry for a week or ten days, and then several schools in and around London. You don't mind, Emmy?'

She saw her mother and father off on Sunday evening, took George for a walk and went to bed. She wasn't a nervous girl and there were reassuringly familiar noises all around her: Mr Grant next door practising the flute, the teenager across the street playing his stereo, old Mrs Grimes, her other neighbour, shouting at her husband who was deaf. She slept soundly.

She was to go on night duty the next day, which meant that she would be relieved at dinner time and go back to work at eight o'clock that evening. Which gave her time in the afternoon to do some shopping at the row of small shops at the end of the street, take George for a good walk and sit down to a leisurely meal.

There was no phone in the house, so she didn't have to worry about her mother ringing up later in the evening. She cut sandwiches, put Sense and Sensibility and a much thumbed Anthology of English Verse in her shoulder bag with the sandwiches, and presently went back through the dark evening to catch her bus.

When she reached the hospital the noise and bustle of the day had subsided into subdued footsteps, the distant clang of the lifts and the occasional squeak of a trolley's wheels. The relief telephonist was waiting for her, an elderly woman who manned the switchboard between night and day duties.

'Nice and quiet so far,' she told Emmy. 'Hope you have a quiet night.'

Emmy settled herself in her chair, made sure that everything was as it should be and got out the knitting she had pushed in with the books at the last minute. She would knit until one of the night porters brought her coffee.

There were a number of calls: enquiries about patients, anxious voices asking advice as to whether they should bring a sick child to the hospital, calls to the medical staff on duty.

Later, when she had drunk her cooling coffee and picked up her neglected knitting once again, Professor ter Mennolt, on his way home, presumably, paused by her.

He eyed the knitting. 'A pleasant change from the daytime rush,' he remarked. 'And an opportunity to indulge your womanly skills.'

'Well, I don't know about that,' said Emmy sensibly. 'It keeps me awake in between calls! It's very late; oughtn't you to be in your bed?'

'My dear young lady, surely that is no concern of yours?'

'Oh, I'm not being nosey,' she assured him. 'But everyone needs a good night's sleep, especially people like you-people who use their brains a lot.'

'That is your opinion, Ermentrude? It is Ermentrude, isn't it?'

'Yes, and yes. At least, it's my father's opinion.'

'Your father is a medical man, perhaps?' he asked smoothly.

'No, a schoolmaster.'

'Indeed? Then why are you not following in his footsteps?'

'I'm not clever. Besides, I like sewing and embroidery.'

'And you are a switchboard operator.' His tone was dry.

'It's a nice, steady job,' said Emmy, and picked up her knitting. 'Goodnight, Professor ter Mennolt.'

'Goodnight, Ermentrude.' He had gone several paces when he turned on his heel. 'You have an old-fashioned name. I am put in mind of a demure young lady with ringlets and a crinoline, downcast eyes and a soft and gentle voice.'

She looked at him, her mouth half-open.

'You have a charming voice, but I do not consider you demure, nor do you cast down your eyes-indeed their gaze is excessively lively.'

He went away then, leaving her wondering what on earth he had been talking about.

'Of course, he's foreign,' reflected Emmy out loud. 'And besides that he's one of those clever people whose feet aren't quite on the ground, always bothering about people's insides.'

A muddled statement which nonetheless satisfied her.


* * *

Audrey, relieving her at eight o'clock the next morning, yawned widely and offered the information that she hated day duty, hated the hospital, hated having to work. 'Lucky you,' she observed. 'All day to do nothing…'

'I shall go to bed,' said Emmy mildly, and took herself off home.

It was a slow business, with the buses crammed with people going to work, and then she had to stop at the shops at the end of the street and buy bread, eggs, bacon, food for Snoodles and more food for George. Once home, with the door firmly shut behind her, she put on the kettle, fed the animals and let George into the garden. Snoodles tailed him, warned not to go far.

She had her breakfast, tidied up, undressed and had a shower and, with George and Snoodles safely indoors, went to her bed. The teenager across the street hadn't made a sound so far; hopefully he had a job or had gone off with his pals. If Mr Grant and Mrs Grimes kept quiet, she would have a good sleep…She had barely had time to form the thought before her eyes shut.

It was two o'clock when she was woken by a hideous mixture of sound: Mr Grant's flute-played, from the sound of it, at an open window-Mrs Grimes bellowing at her husband in the background and, almost drowning these, the teenager enjoying a musical session.

Emmy turned over and buried her head in the pillow, but it was no use; she was wide awake now and likely to stay so. She got up and showered and dressed, had a cup of tea and a sandwich, made sure that Snoodles was asleep, put a lead on George's collar and left the house.

She had several hours of leisure still; she boarded an almost empty bus and sat with George on her lap as it bore them away from Stepney, along Holborn and into the Marylebone Road. She got off here and crossed the street to Regent's Park.

It was pleasant here, green and open with the strong scent of autumn in the air. Emmy walked briskly, with George trotting beside her.

'We'll come out each day,' she promised him. 'A pity the parks are all so far away, but a bus ride's nice enough, isn't it? And you shall have a good tea when we get home.'

The afternoon was sliding into dusk as they went back home. George gobbled his tea and curled up on his chair in the kitchen while Snoodles went out. Mrs Grimes had stopped shouting, but Mr Grant was still playing the flute, rivalling the din from across the street. Emmy ate her tea, stuffed things into her bag and went to work.


* * *

Audrey had had a busy day and was peevish. 'I spent the whole of my two hours off looking for some decent tights-the shops around here are useless.'

'There's that shop in Commercial Road…' began Emmy.

'There?' Audrey was scornful. 'I wouldn't be seen dead in anything from there.' She took a last look at her face, added more lipstick and patted her blonde head. 'I'm going out this evening. So long.'

Until almost midnight Emmy was kept busy. From time to time someone passing through from the entrance hall stopped for a word, and one of the porters brought her coffee around eleven o'clock with the news that there had been a pile-up down at the docks and the accident room was up to its eyes.

'They phoned,' said Emmy, 'but didn't say how bad it was-not to me, that is. I switched them straight through. I hope they're not too bad.'

'Couple of boys, an old lady, the drivers-one of them's had a stroke.'

Soon she was busy again, with families phoning with anxious enquiries. She was eating her sandwiches in the early hours of the morning when Professor ter Mennolt's voice, close to her ear, made her jump.

'I am relieved to see that you are awake and alert, Ermentrude.'

She said, round the sandwich. 'Well, of course I am. That's not a nice thing to say, sir.'

'What were you doing in a bus on the Marylebone Road when you should have been in bed asleep, recruiting strength for the night's work?'

'I was going to Regent's Park with George. He had a good walk.' She added crossly, 'And you should try to sleep with someone playing the flute on one side of the house, Mrs Grimes shouting on the other and that wretched boy with his stereo across the street.'

The professor was leaning against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his beautifully tailored jacket. 'I have misjudged you, Ermentrude. I am sorry. Ear plugs, perhaps?' And, when she shook her head, 'Could you not beg a bed from a friend? Or your mother have a word with the neighbours?'

'Mother's with Father,' said Emmy, and took a bite of sandwich. 'I can't leave the house because of George and Snoodles.'

'George?'

'Our dog, and Snoodles is the cat.'

'So you are alone in the house?' He stared down at her. 'You are not nervous?'

'No, sir.'

'You live close by?'

What a man for asking questions, thought Emmy, and wished he didn't stare so. She stared back and said 'Yes,' and wished that he would go away; she found him unsettling. She remembered something. 'I didn't see you on the bus…'

He smiled. 'I was in the car, waiting for the traffic lights.'

She turned to the switchboard, then, and put through two calls, and he watched her. She had pretty hands, nicely well-cared for, and though her hair was mouse-brown there seemed to be a great deal of it, piled neatly in a coil at the back of her head. Not in the least pretty, but with eyes like hers that didn't matter.

He bade her goodnight, and went out to his car and forgot her, driving to his charming little house in Chelsea where Beaker, who ran it for him, would have left coffee and sandwiches for him in his study, his desk light on and a discreet lamp burning in the hall.


* * *

Although it was almost two o'clock he sat down to go through his letters and messages while he drank the coffee, hot and fragrant in the Thermos. There was a note, too, written in Beaker's spidery hand: Juffrouw Anneliese van Moule had phoned at eight o'clock and again at ten. The professor frowned and glanced over to the answering machine. It showed the red light, and he went and switched it on.

In a moment a petulant voice, speaking in Dutch, wanted to know where he was. 'Surely you should be home by ten o'clock in the evening. I asked you specially to be home, did I not? Well, I suppose I must forgive you and give you good news. I am coming to London in three days' time-Friday. I shall stay at Brown's Hotel, since you are unlikely to be home for most of the day, but I expect to be taken out in the evenings-and there will be time for us to discuss the future.

'I wish to see your house; I think it will not do for us when we are married, for I shall live with you in London when you are working there, but I hope you will give up your work in England and live at Huis ter Mennolt-'

The professor switched off. Anneliese's voice had sounded loud as well as peevish, and she was reiterating an argument they had had on several occasions. He had no intention of leaving his house; it was large enough. He had some friends to dine, but his entertaining was for those whom he knew well. Anneliese would wish to entertain on a grand scale, fill the house with acquaintances; he would return home each evening to a drawing room full of people he neither knew nor wished to know.

He reminded himself that she would be a most suitable wife; in Holland they had a similar circle of friends and acquaintances, and they liked the same things-the theatre, concerts, art exhibitions-and she was ambitious.

At first he had been amused and rather touched by that, until he had realised that her ambition wasn't for his success in his profession but for a place in London society. She already had that in Holland, and she had been careful never to admit to him that that was her goal…He reminded himself that she was the woman he had chosen to marry and once she had understood that he had no intention of altering his way of life when they were married she would understand how he felt.

After all, when they were in Holland she could have all the social life she wanted; Huis ter Mennolt was vast, and there were servants enough and lovely gardens. While he was working she could entertain as many of her friends as she liked-give dinner parties if she wished, since the house was large enough to do that with ease. Here at the Chelsea house, though, with only Beaker and a daily woman to run the place, entertaining on such a scale would be out of the question. The house, roomy though it was, was too small.