The Little Runaways. Cathy Sharp

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СКАЧАТЬ more important that Terry and Nancy should be moved.’

      ‘Are you too busy?’ Nan asked, poking her head round the door of Sister’s office. ‘It is quite important.’

      ‘Come in, Nan. Mark has been telling me that Nancy and Terry must not be parted, but we need the isolation ward free. I can’t let them stay there indefinitely − but I don’t have anywhere they can be put together …’

      ‘Have you asked Angela?’ Mark said, and received a glare for his pains.

      ‘She brought me an up-to-date list of available beds this morning. It’s impossible – until the new wing comes on stream.’

      ‘This is why I came to see you. The children can have my sitting room,’ Nan said. ‘It’s big enough for two single beds and I can use the staff room when I need a rest. It would be a temporary thing, until they can be split up – besides, we’ll have the new wing in a few weeks.’

      ‘Nan! You need a room where you can be private sometimes,’ Beatrice said, but the relief was in her eyes. ‘I suppose it would be useful for the time being … It means inconvenience for you, though.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t mind. Excuse me now; I am supposed to be taking the younger children out. We’re going to Itchy Park, as it used to be called – Christ Church Gardens, as you probably know it.’

      ‘I won’t ask why it was called Itchy Park, I can probably guess – because of all the down and outs that congregated there?’ Mark followed her from the room. ‘You get on,’ he said, and watched her walk off down the hall.

      Mark’s thoughts turned from St Saviour’s problems as he remembered the look in the attractive young nurse’s eyes. Staff Nurse Carole had been giving him sweet smiles and discreet hints ever since they met. She was very young, of course, but there was something about her that he was drawn to. He liked her and if it wasn’t for Angela …

      Not that he knew where he stood with the woman who had become so important to him. Angela had grown since she came to St Saviour’s. If he’d helped her achieve peace of mind and a new confidence he was glad – but he still had no idea whether she thought of him as any more than a friend. At times he’d thought he was making headway but then, after Christmas, when she’d discovered her mother’s illness, she’d seemed to withdraw – even to blame him; though how he could have told her what was going on when both her parents had asked him not to, he had no idea.

      Angela had embraced this new life with enthusiasm and it had given her the purpose she needed to live and be happy. He thought she was happy, though he could never be quite sure what lay behind the quiet eyes – as blue-green as a mountain pool. She was a deep character and he found her captivating, but Angela never gave him reason to think that she felt more than friendship.

      What was it he wanted from his own life, he wondered. Was he content to continue as he had for years, living as a bachelor without a wife or family? He wasn’t too old to start a family, surely? For years he’d felt that he didn’t deserve a second chance, because after he and his wife, Edine, had lost their son, they had drifted apart and she’d died a pointless, lonely death.

      Yet of late Mark had begun to think of a time when his working life was over. Did he really want to dwindle into some crusty old man living alone, too old for a social life and no family to care what happened to him? Mark laughed at himself for brooding. He would advise his patients not to dwell on negative things …

      If he was to marry again, he would need to be sure it was to the right woman; that they had the rest of their lives together to look forward to. Was there anything wrong with asking a pretty girl out, even if she was too young? If he did, it might even make Angela notice him as a man rather than a friend.

      He found he had a spring in his step as he went down the stairs and out of the home into the cool air. He loved this old city, with so much history in its ancient buildings – a good brisk walk as far as the London Hospital would clear his mind – and he ought to be thinking about his patients’ problems, not his own love life, or lack of it.

       TEN

      Alice came in from the yard, shivering from the bitter chill and still wiping the remains of vomit from her lips. Her soft fair was lank because it needed washing and her pretty face was pasty. Always a little plumper than she’d have liked, she’d been putting on weight recently and her clothes had begun to feel tight around the waist. She’d already been sick twice that morning; once into the chamber pot in the chair commode both she and Mavis used in their bedroom, managing to empty that into the outside toilet without letting her mother see, but then she’d felt ill when she saw her brother eating bread and dripping and she’d had to make a dash for the yard to be sick again.

      ‘And what have you been up to, miss?’ Alice’s mother greeted her with a scowl. ‘What did you go dashing off like that for?’

      ‘I felt sick,’ Alice admitted, because she couldn’t get out of it. ‘I think there’s a bug going round at work. I must have got a touch of it.’

      ‘Yeah, several girls at the factory are off sick too,’ Mavis said, swiftly coming to Alice’s aid. ‘I felt a bit sick myself this morning …’

      ‘Well, I hope you don’t give it to me,’ their mother said unsympathetically. ‘I’ve got meself a little job scrubbing floors at the offices down the Docks. I can’t rely on your father bringing in money so I’m off to earn a wage meself. It means yer’ll ’ave to see to yerselves and yer brothers for breakfast from now on.’

      Alice and Mavis looked at each other in relief as she left the kitchen. ‘I’ll do the washing up,’ Mavis offered. ‘You have to get to work before me, Alice – if you’re home early you can tidy up or get the vegetables done.’

      ‘Thanks, Mave,’ Alice said. ‘Are you goin’ out this evening with your fella?’

      ‘Might be,’ Mavis said and grinned at her. She turned on Saul as he grabbed another slice of toast and spread the rich fatty dripping on it. ‘Oi, take it easy with that, you greedy monkey, or you’ll be sick too.’

      ‘I’ll blame it on Alice if I am,’ he quipped. ‘If I was sick I wouldn’t have to go to school. I could go down the Docks wiv me mates and find meself a job.’

      ‘No, you couldn’t,’ Alice said sharply. ‘You have to work hard at school so that you can get a good job when you leave. Do you want to stand in line like Dad all the time and hope for a few hours’ work?’

      ‘That’s his fault,’ Saul said. ‘If he weren’t drunk and late all the time he’d get more work. They won’t take him because he’s unreliable.’

      Alice didn’t answer as she took her coat from behind the door and went out into the street. Her young brother was right, of course, but her father drank because it was the only way he could bear his life – and that was Alice’s mother’s fault. Her tongue was like a razor and she never gave her poor husband a minute’s peace, even when he wasn’t drunk.

      Pulling her coat collar up around her neck to keep out the icy wind, Alice walked quickly. It had been a close thing this morning. If Mavis hadn’t intervened about girls at the factory going sick, their mother might have suspected that Alice was pregnant. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her mother at bay, and she was terrified of the row that would СКАЧАТЬ