Flis was daydreaming already. “I want to switch wards,” she whined. “He’s never going to come over to Age Care. The only time I ever see him is in the corridor at lunch times.”
Jenny shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t like him, Flis; he’s far too good for you. He’s a complete love with the patients: gentle and calming, but his eyes… What I wouldn’t give to be stuck in a lift for an hour with those eyes.”
“Are you sure it’s his eyes you’re thinking about there?” Kate asked her.
Flis flumped back into her seat, complaining that it wasn’t fair, and Jenny grinned mischievously.
“Did you get to speak to him?” Sophie asked.
“Not much. I just showed him where his patient was. But you should see the way he looks at you… He really looks at you, you know?” Jenny’s eyes were wide as she fanned her face with her hand.
“Is he married?” Kate asked.
“I didn’t see any ring,” Jenny said.
Kate nodded over to Flis. “Keep bumping them off, Flis. He’ll have to be on the crash team sooner or later,” and the girls all roared with laughter at Kate’s macabre yet practical approach to romance.
The following morning Kate was feeling a little more fragile than usual. She was woken at six-thirty by a punishing alarm that she’d forgotten to change from the previous day. She groaned, rolled over and went straight back to sleep. The next thing she knew it was a quarter past twelve, three quarters of an hour before her shift was due to begin.
She flew out of bed at Mach eight and just about managed to hurtle through the doors to A&E only a few minutes after the shift had started, still a little dazed and with the mother of all headaches. She slunk inside, downed a couple of Paracetamol and got straight to work.
Half an hour later she was volunteered, along with two more junior nurses, to join the junior doctors in an impromptu teaching session. Kate walked into the clinic room and sat down and then for the next twenty minutes was bombarded with a lecture on ethics and teamwork and when it was time to go, she walked back to her duties, exceedingly suspicious of the motivation that had sparked such an extraordinary talk.
Throughout the evening Kate made discreet enquiries to see if anyone could shed light on the reason for such a session and why she in particular had been chosen to attend it, but nothing was forthcoming.
On Saturday, everything was back to normal. Kate was on an early, Elliott was not on call, and so had no chance of being around, and she was left to get on with her work in peace.
~~~
“So who was the love of her life, then? Not Elliott, surely?” Lena asked. “Was it Peter?”
The woman smiled. “Would you like me to go on?”
Lena nodded, her curious gaze piercing her heavy fringe and the woman could feel the bond between them growing.
That evening, Kate drove over to her mum and dad’s house, to see how her mum was getting on since her granddad’s funeral. Her Auntie Ann was there too, also a nurse, who worked at the local hospice. She was talking with her mum about what to do with their father’s things.
Kate offered to help with the cleaning after the two of them had cleared his house and then she gave them a fruit cake that Sophie had made for them. “Oh, she’s an angel. You must say thank you to her from us, won’t you?” her mum said, carrying the cake out to the kitchen for slicing. “I don’t know how you’d manage if she ever moved out.”
“I’d starve,” Kate said.
“You would an’ all.”
“But I wouldn’t starve in squalor.”
“No, that you would not,” her mum replied and she smiled. “You both bring your strengths to the table, don’t you?”
“Of course. Why do you think I chose her? She cooks, I clean. It’s a perfect match. Shall I make some drinks?”
The three of them sat down around the dining table, with a piece of cake and a cup of tea. “How have you been, love?” her mother asked her.
“Okay, I suppose,” Kate said. “I had a bit of a run-in with a consultant after the funeral the other day, but the girls took me out to Helix to cheer me up, so…”
“You had a run-in? Who with?”
“One of the consultants.”
“What about?”
Kate paused, cautious of upsetting her mother any further. She shook her head. “Nothing much.”
“Katherine?”
That was Kate in trouble. Her mother never called her by her full name otherwise. She scowled.
“Well, tell me then.” Her mum gave her a ‘you’re going to tell me one way or the other, so you might as well get it over with’ kind of look and Kate heaved a big sigh.
“I just caught him having a go at one of the patients on the ward.”
“And?”
“And he was treating him like dirt.”
Her mum looked at her for a moment. “And you thought of your granddad,” she said.
Kate nodded and dropped her gaze to the table and her mum reached across and squeezed her hand.
“I should never have told you about that. It was probably nowhere near as bad as I made it out to be.”
“Was Granddad upset?” Kate asked.
“Well, yes, he was, but-”
“And you were fuming?”
“Yes, at the time-”
“Then it was bad enough.”
Kate’s mum considered for a moment and then seemed to decide to let it slide. “So what did you do? Or, I guess more importantly, what did he do?”
Kate told them everything and then waited, a little anxiously, for their response.
“You’ll be all right, Kate. You’re a good nurse and you care about your patients. He won’t be able to make much more of it than that,” her Auntie Ann said and she winked.
“Well I’m proud of you,” her mum added. “If only more people stood up for those less fortunate than themselves it would be a better world to live in.”
Auntie Ann smiled. “Which one was it?”
Kate looked across. “Elliott.”
“Seriously?” She seemed bemused. “He’s always seemed like such a lovely man when I’ve had anything to do with him.”
“You know him?” Kate asked, surprised.
“Yes. At least, I assume it’s the same one. His mother is in with us at the moment. You surprise me. I tell you, if I was twenty years younger…”
“Auntie Ann! I’ll tell Uncle Malc,” Kate said.
“I’m only kidding.”
“You must be,” Kate told her.
Her aunt looked at her watch and gasped. “Goodness, is that the time? I’d better get going or your uncle’ll be round here banging the door down and demanding his tea.”
They all stood up and cleared their plates to the kitchen and then Kate and her mum saw her auntie to the front door. Auntie Ann turned and called