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'You mean I gave you no chance?' One eyebrow rose.

'Let's just say that I felt it best not to raise any personal issues. Anyway, I assumed that you'd heard...' was all Anna had time to say before Alex and Tom reached them, when the matter of Charles's progress was briefly discussed before Simon took his leave.

'He seems a caring type,' Alex remarked as they walked down to the sea front.

'He should be—he's in a caring profession,' Anna said, so briskly, and with such a snap to her voice, that he glanced at her in surprise.

There were five admissions to the ward next day, one of them a Spanish girl—a young language student— who was admitted from Casualty after miscarrying a fourteen-weeks foetus. The mother of the family with whom she was billeted had brought her in, but had since left in obvious relief, and who could possibly blame her? Anna thought, glad to find that Maria could speak English reasonably well.

'Please, have I lost the baby?' She pronounced each word with care.

'Yes,' Anna told her, not knowing whether she was conveying good news or bad.

The big, dark eyes searched her face. 'Then why do I need to be here?'

'Because you need a small operation, Maria, to make quite sure there is nothing left behind in your womb that might cause trouble later on.'

'Will I have it today?'

'Yes, just before lunch.'

And now her eyes swam with tears. 'My friends go back to Bilbao this morning. My boyfriend, Jose, too.'

'You'll have your operation, which we call a D and C, at twelve o'clock today, but you certainly won't be fit to travel. You'll be sleeping all afternoon.'

Maria wept in earnest and Anna drew the curtains round her bed, sending May Fenn to comfort her, the two being about the same age.

'What the hell was she doing coming to England three months gone?' Meg said irritably. 'Surely the Spanish medicos couldn't have missed a thing like that.'

'They might have if she didn't mention it. She wanted, she said, to come over here with her boyfriend. She didn't expect to abort. In fact, she said, they both wanted the child and would marry as soon as they could.'

'Love's young bloody dream!' Meg said explosively, yet none of her irritation showed when she went to talk to the girl. 'She's on Bill's list,' she told Anna. 'Simon's got a section at midday—twins, and one of them's breached. You ought to go and watch.'

'Can't spare the time, and I don't think he'd want me taking up students' space.'

'You're not like Sister Hilton, are you?' Meg clipped her pen to her coat. 'She'd have been there
and
well to the front. She was one of his ardent fans.'

'Yes, well, we're all different, aren't we?' Anna stopped to help one of the second-day post-op patients get a book out of her locker. Thelma Cannon, who'd undergone a hysterectomy, had come in with her left arm in plaster, having fallen three weeks previously whilst exercising her dog. 'Nothing like coming in plastered!' she'd joked. She was a big, jolly, overweight woman, who bred Pekinese.

Maria Lomez had her D and C at midday and was back in the ward by one. Already coming round, she was laid on her side and told there was nothing to worry about. She was fully conscious by half-past four when Simon came into the ward. There were still one or two visitors around, and at Maria's bedside her boyfriend, Jose—a flamboyant young Spaniard. The two of them sat clasping hands.

'Draw the curtains round and he'll be in there with her!' one of the patients told Simon, with her eye on the young couple. 'You know what they say about Latin blood!'

'I don't suppose it's a great deal different from the English variety, Mrs Kerr. And what is more,' he added for Anna's ears alone, 'she won't be fit to travel back to Spain tomorrow. She can be discharged to her host family, who I understand are concerned about her, but she would be unwise to make any long journeys until after the weekend.'

'I'll make sure she's told that.' Anna accompanied him to the ward doors. The last of the visitors trickled out, and she was watching the lanky figure of the desolate Jose walking up the corridor when Simon told her that he was going to see Charles Marriner before he went home.

'He'll be pleased to see you,' she said a little stiffly. 'He's doing really well now. Alex tells me he might be discharged next week when he'll convalesce at home, taking it really easy—but Miss Rayland will see to that.'

'Seems to me she's the linchpin of that establishment,' Simon said, walking away.

Back in the office, Anna wondered how he'd managed without
his
linchpin all week—namely the redoubtable Amy Benson, who was holidaying in Wales. He hadn't asked her, Anna, to help him; hadn't so much as mentioned Amy's absence until yesterday outside the hospital shop.

It was possible, more than possible, however, that the reason for his silence stemmed from the fact that in no way did he want any help from her, not after Saturday night...when she'd told him she hated him.

On Monday the news filtered through, via Meg, that Amy Benson was up in Parker Ward, having been admitted as an emergency with acute abdominal pain late on Saturday night.

'Good Lord, what was the matter with her?' Anna dumped a pile of notes on the ward desk and gave her whole attention to Meg.

'Inflamed appendix, about to perforate. Anyway, it's out. Dan Mansell operated, and this morning she's up and walking about the ward, according to Simon.'

'Poor Miss Benson. I'm sorry to hear it.' But how would he manage with no secretary/nurse for at least another fortnight? Anna's thoughts ran amok.

'She'd just got back from Wales, apparently... Staggered off the train at Charding Station, and they called an ambulance.'

'Poor Miss Benson,' Anna intoned for the second time, then for the third—rather more concernedly—when Simon came onto the ward.

'Yes, it's shaken her up.' Simon was signing scripts, sitting in a bar of sunlight that striped across his back. His hair lay pelt-thick, tapering down to his nape, where it moved on his collar, and she longed to touch it. It was all she could do to control her hands and keep them at her sides. 'Still,' he looked up, and she started guiltily, moving back as he said, 'that inflamed appendix would account for her gastric attacks.'

'Almost certainly, yes... She'll be far better now.'

'In the meantime, of course, I'm going to miss her.'

'How will you manage?' Anna dared to enquire. But she mustn't offer to help, must she, for that would be lunacy?

He was looking at her steadily, holding her eyes with his as he unrolled himself from the desk and stood up, leaning against its edge. 'I employed a nurse from the agency when Amy was in Wales,' he said, 'and I was lucky enough—this morning, when I rang—to get the same girl back for as long as I need her. She seemed very willing to come.'

I bet she did. 'Oh, so you're fixed!' Anna forced a smile to her face.

'In that sense, yes.' He didn't smile back but, from the way he spoke, she felt that he was only too well aware that it had been on the tip of her tongue to offer her services once again, and this was confirmed when he added, turning away and making for the door, 'You mustn't concern yourself with my troubles, Anna. I can usually sort myself out.'

It's called the brush-off, she thought after he'd gone; he wants nothing more from me. And once again she had that feeling of a door being closed in her face.

'Trouble always comes in threes,' Amy Benson declared next morning when Anna paid her a visit in Parker Ward. 'Mr Marriner was the first casualty, wasn't he, and now there's me? There's bound to be another one—better keep your fingers crossed.'

Anna smiled but said nothing, her main concern at that moment being of the passing of time. She was on the late shift and in another ten minutes was due on her ward.

'You look older in uniform. I'd hardly have known you,' Amy went on, her lacklustre eyes taking in Anna's hand-span waist, shown to advantage in the dark purple dress with its silver-buckled belt. 'But it suits you,' she added more generously, 'and thanks for the magazine.'

'If there's anything else you want, give me a ring at home.' Anna was about to write down her number when Amy informed her that she was being discharged that afternoon.

'My mother's coming for me, and she'll look after me at home. She came all the way from Rhyl when she heard what had happened to me. She's over eighty, but she'll help me cope over the next week or two.'

Anna, who was having difficulty imagining Amy with a mother, said how glad she was that she'd have help at home. 'You only had the operation on Saturday and you're bound to feel odd at first.'

'An uncomplicated appendectomy is nothing these days,' Amy said, sitting up straight—no doubt to prove her point. 'In some hospitals it's done on a day basis, even with someone as old as me, but, of course, you'll know that, won't you?' she added, then exclaimed in the same breath, 'Why, here's Mr Easter.. .now, aren't I a lucky girl!'

He had brought her fruit, three perfect peaches in a little Cellophane box. He laid them carefully on the bed and made to fetch a chair but Anna, getting to her feet, gave him hers. 'I was going anyway,' she said, keeping her eyes on Amy and not him as she spoke. 'Bye, Amy, get well soon.'

'I will, and thanks for coming,' she smiled, but her attention, now, was all on Simon, who was waiting until Anna had gone before sitting down.

No one could fault him on manners, she thought, casting a sneaky eye over her shoulder as she passed through the ward doors. He and Amy were chatting together and, being the nice man he was, he wouldn't be forgetting to tell her how much he was missing her, and how much he was looking forward to having her back.

Amy would love that. She would preen herself, and who wouldn't, for goodness' sake? She would also, with her prophetic tendency—which inclined towards morbidness—no doubt tell him that with the habit troubles had of never coming singly and that, bearing in mind that there were two casualties already, there was bound to be a third.

She was right, too. There was a third, for when Anna got home at a little after ten o'clock that night it was to find her grandmother waiting for her, looking shaken and distraught, with the news that Great-Nan had suffered a stroke and had died an hour ago.

Anna's
parents—Diane and Paul Gatton—drove down from Reading next day. Anna was on late duty again, so was able to see them before setting off. In fact, her car and theirs met nose-to-nose at the gate. She drew to the side to let them in and then got out to greet them, whilst Prue came running down the steps to be hugged and kissed by her son.

'I wish I could stay, but I can't.' Anna drew away from her mother.

'See you tonight.' Diana Gatton watched her get back into her car.

'Around ten, yes,' Anna said, then, before slamming the door, asked her mother to be careful of what she said to Prue. 'Don't go telling her it's all for the best, or anything like that. She knows it is, but she doesn't want it said—at least not this morning.' Her mother, she knew, wasn't renowned for her tact, and she didn't want Prue upset.

'I'll watch every word.' Quite unoffended, Diane waved her off—a tall slender figure in a grey and white shirt-waister dress. Anna took after her in looks, but favoured her father in temperament—a big man with a big heart that often ruled his head.

The previous night she had moved down with her grandmother, not liking to leave her alone. She had slept, too—out of sheer weariness—but suspected that Prue had not. Poor love, she must be feeling weird, she thought, for situations like this were many-sided and complicated as well.

Great-Nan had had more than her fair share of life and it was high time she went but, having said that, she'd been Prue's mother. One couldn't discount that fact, which was why Prue couldn't raise a smile this morning and why she felt physically sick.

'And as to how I feel,' Anna muttered, pulling out to pass a van, 'I suppose not a lot, to be honest, but then I hardly knew Great-Nan. If I feel anything it's guilt for not having visited her more. It's Prue I feel for, and I hate seeing her sad.'

Having to go on duty, however, and having to immerse herself in the problems of ward management was a respite of sorts, as all thoughts not connected with the patients had to be laid on one side.

The ward lunches were just finishing and then come the quiet hour, when Jean informed her that Simon would be coming up at four o'clock to meet Emily Bagley's husband, who was pressing for his wife to have keyhole surgery.

'She's not suitable for it because of her weight. She was told that very definitely, in Outpatients,' Anna replied.

'Yes, well, Mr Bagley needs to be convinced. He rang up this morning, and contacted "Sir", who promised to see him,' Jean said, pushing Emily's notes nearer to Anna's hand.

Looking through the viewing window, both Anna and Jean could see Emily Bagley sitting on her bed and combing her hair, which was the long, thin straggly kind, just beginning to go grey. It wasn't surprising that she didn't want to add to her family as she was forty-six years old. She had five children all under ten, had come off the pill and had opted for sterilisation—which would simplify things, she'd said.

She had been perfectly happy with the advice Simon had given her as to the method of approach. Now it appeared that her husband didn't like the idea of a long, stitched wound.

'She's not just fat, she's obese,' Anna said, turning round to Jean again.

Once the report was finished she did her round of the ward, placating one patient, Mrs Strong, who didn't like being catheterised. Another patient complained that her bell wasn't working and another about her lunch, which was 'fish again, and boiled, and disgusting' and giving her terrible wind.

Going into the ward kitchen with a dirty cup, which she had found in the ward, she found Rosina nursing a bloodied leg. 'I caught it on the bin when I fell just now, Sister... There's not much skin on shins.'

'No, Rosina, quite right.' Anna bent to examine it and found the damage sustained not much more than a graze. It looked much worse than it was. Little Nurse Cheng applied a dressing, after which Rosina limped about with a martyred expression but flatly refused to rest. Anna was filling in an accident form when the visitors began to arrive, rustling bags and bunches of flowers and complaining about the heat.