Free The Treatment and the Cure by Peter Kocan Page A

has given them a warning look. They’ve had their fun.
    “Well, I suppose I should be going now,” says Mr Fleming, as if going is the last thing he wants to do but has a schedule to keep. He goes out with Arthur, smiling and waving back at us.
    “Bye bye,” calls Ray Hoad. “Give our love to the Wee Ones.”
    “And the Totties.”
    “And the Snotties.”
    “And the Potties.”
    But Mr Fleming has gone, back to tell his battleaxes what a decent bunch of chaps we are.
    You’re digging over a vegetable bed one morning and Arthur strolls down.
    “What do you think of books?” he asks.
    “How do you mean?”
    “Think our fellows need them?”
    “Well, reading is a good pastime.”
    The hospital is supposed to have a library, but it’s over in the open section and we don’t have access to it. All we have here are a few old books piled up on a shelf at the end of the verandah where the cards and dominoes and chess set are kept. The books are falling to pieces because the rain has been blowing in under the verandah on them for years. They aren’t very interesting anyway, mainly detective stories, and you never see anyone reading them. You wonder why Arthur is suddenly concerned with books.
    “I’ve had an approach from the librarian,” he says. “She’s new on the job and pretty keen. She wants our chaps to have access to her stuff.”
    “Good idea,” you say.
    “Someone will have to handle it from this end. On a weekly basis,” he says. “Are you interested?”
    “I’ll have a go,” you say.
    “Good. The librarian is coming over this morning to talk to you about it.” This is an interesting turn. Arthur has been a bit distant with you ever since the dirty spoon, and now he’s chosen you for this. You think your stocks must be rising again. An hour later a screw calls you up from the garden and you go into the office. Arthur is there with a young woman of about twenty-two. She is slim and nice looking, with long brown hair. Arthur introduces you. Her name’s Marian.
    “Your Charge tells me you’d like to help me extend the library service into this ward,” she says. Her voice is very assured and educated, like a school mistress.
    “Yes.”
    “Excellent,” she says. She gives you a big smile. “I gather you read a lot yourself?”
    “Oh, a good deal,” you say. It seems the right answer.
    Marian is wearing a miniskirt and it is right up near her thighs. Her legs are long and very beautiful. You try to keep looking her right in the eyes because if you don’t concentrate on her eyes, you know your glance will keep going down to her legs and then she’ll know you’re not the nice bookworm she thinks you are.
    “Your Charge tells me you like poetry,” she says.
    “Er, yes,” you say.
    “Do you write any yourself?”
    “Oh, a little bit,” you say. You feel awkward about that. You’d rather not tell anyone about the poems you’ve been trying to write. You’d prefer to keep all that quiet and safe inside yourself, but Marian obviously wants to hear you say that you write poetry and you want very much to please Marian. You want her to give you another big smile that makes your insides quiver. She does.
    You can see a few men out on the verandah looking in through the glass partition at Marian. They’re envying you being right in the office with this girl and so close to her beautiful legs.
    “Who are your favourite authors?” she asks.
    “Oh, I suppose Julian Grenfell’s my favourite.”
    “Who?”
    “Julian Grenfell.”
    “I don’t know him,” she says. “What did he write?”
    You feel slightly shocked. Surely she knows the author of the wonderful “Into Battle”? You start to think that maybe you don’t like Marian as much as you thought.
    “He was a war poet, in the trenches.”
    “Oh, like Wilfred Owen?”
    “That’s right!” you say, warming to her again. “Do you like Wilfred Owen?”
    “Oh yes, his verse is lovely,” she says.
    You’re liking Marian a lot