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'Only about the type of patient, Staff. Do you get much variety of disorder?' Anna ventured. 'I mean, most of them are heart trouble. Only three have something else.'

'Yes, but heart trouble can cover a variety of things, Nurse,' Staff Nurse sighed. 'It isn't just
one
condition. But generally speaking we do get mainly coronaries. We get a lot of patients from ITU once their condition is more stable. We've got an admission from there, probably tomorrow.' She checked the admission book. 'He'll have to take Mr Excell's
bed. He's the inoperable carcinoma,' she added.

Anna had met Mr Excell briefly at breakfast, a tall, yellow-skinned man. 'He's going home then?' she queried, and Staff Nurse shrugged.

'What else is there to do with him? He isn't quite at death's door yet. Anyway, there isn't any terminal care home he can go to, so we're discharging him to his wife. She's willing to nurse him. You could pack his belongings for him after breakfast tomorrow. Better make a note of that.'

Anna began to write but Staff Nurse stopped her. 'No wait. Better let Ruth Barratt do it. He knows her well and he might not like a stranger helping him.'

Anna beamed. Staff Nurse Powell had gone up considerably in her estimation, showing she cared about the feelings of a dying patient.

'There. That's it, I think. Did you do injections on your other ward?'

'Only one, Staff Nurse. It was rather an ordeal,' Anna confessed, and Staff Nurse smiled sympathetically.

'It still is, as far as I'm concerned, Nurse Curtis. I hate giving them! Did you do last offices at all? I suppose not.'

'No, I didn't. I expect you get a lot here?' Anna ventured. She had never seen a dead person and wasn't sure she could cope.

'Not that many. It just depends. I hope you enjoy Park Ward, anyway. You live in, I suppose?'

Anna shook her head. 'No, I'm local.'

'Oh? So am I. I've a flat now but my parents live in Green Street. Where do you live?'

Anna hesitated but really had no option. 'Oh, a bit nearer than that. At the bottom of Brightling Hill.'

'Do you?' Staff Nurse leaned forward, eyes widening in astonishment. 'They're big houses, aren't they? Surely you don't have one of those mansions?'

'Well, not exactly,' Anna admitted, and Staff Nurse looked relieved,.

'You've a flat then. Some of them
are
divided, now I think of it. I was going to say if you had the whole house you wouldn't need to work!'

Anna smiled, bitterly. I
do
have the whole house! she wanted to yell. And I
don't
need to work! I took a job so that I could escape for a few hours every day.

If only Staff Nurse knew! Being shut up in one of those creepy old houses with an ailing mother and a couple of middle-aged women was no joke. Not that Anna begrudged helping to care for her mother, of course. Indeed, the knowledge that she was gaining as a nurse would benefit her. That was probably the reason her mother hadn't created too much of a fuss when Anna had insisted on doing the nurse training.

The rest of the morning passed swiftly without Anna doing anything terribly wrong and she began to grow in confidence. That such a big girl should be nervous and lacking in self-confidence might seem odd to others, Anna mused as she hurried to the canteen. But her upbringing had done nothing to prepare her to take her place as a leader. She had been kept firmly under her mother's thumb, even before the coronary attack which led to Mrs Curtis becoming an invalid, virtually a recluse, too.

'Hello Anna! How's the new ward?' Bryan Harris, one of only two boys in her set asked as they queued together in the canteen.

'Interesting. I think I might like it,' Anna conceded. 'It's a job remembering names, though.''

He nodded, then waved to one of the other girls, Shirley Weston, a neat little blonde. 'See you, Anna.'

'Yes, sure,' she murmured, choosing a small corner table. Being two or three years older than most of the set was rather a bind. Sometimes she felt years older, not just twenty-one. It made it difficult for her to form friendships, though there was a girl of about twenty-three in the set, Sheila Haggerty. Even she seemed more at ease with the others than Anna did, and a sigh escaped her as she gazed around the small canteen.

Groups of laughing, chattering learners were everywhere. The higher-ups had to use the canteen as well—no consultants' dining-rooms here. Anna noticed Dr Wilmott, their house doctor, with several others in white coats, bleeps clipped to the front of their breast-pockets. She couldn't see Ricky Jerseyman, though!

'Mind if I join you?' Suzie Almazan, a Filipino second-year, sat down and smiled at Anna, who felt the years and the worries roll off her. It was good to be a nurse and good to have someone to talk to.

She hummed a little tune as she strolled back to the ward, trying not to feel self-conscious. Everyone had the national uniform of plain white dress. First-year students wore a white belt to denote their lowly status, together with a butterfly cap - a horror of starched linen dreamed up by someone who
hated nurses, Anna thought. It was becoming but the very devil to make up, particularly when fresh from the laundry.

Unfortunately, the white dress was rather tight and accentuated her full figure. Her large rounded breasts were eye-catching, as she'd found out, and she longed to hide behind a starched apron!

The afternoon shift had arrived on duty when Anna returned. One of them was male, Albert Grainger, an auxiliary. Staff Nurse had told her they ought to have a male nurse on each shift but that 'flu had knocked them down and it might be a week or two before they got another male student. They could, in any case, always borrow a male nurse for any intimate procedure.

Albert, a friendly West Indian, beamed at Anna then whistled appreciatively as she hovered in the office doorway.

She was about to ask for Staff Nurse when a cool voice spoke from behind, 'Do you
have
to block the doorway, Nurse?' Dr Alexandre none too gently moved her to one side by placing his hands around her waist and lifting.

She could not suppress the blush that suffused' her face and neck, and Dr Alexandre chuckled. 'A nurse who blushes! What will they think of next? Get me Mr Gabriel's notes.'

'I beg your pardon?' Anna had never heard of Mr Gabriel and didn't think they had a patient of that name.

'Mr Gabriel's notes,' the registrar repeated, very slowly, and Anna flushed even more. 'His notes. I want them, Nurse!' Those blue-grey eyes were fixed on Anna as she hurried to the filing cabinet and began flicking through the folders.

Fortunately Albert came to her rescue. 'Here they are, Doctor!' Anna whirled around. Albert was holding them aloft and he grinned at her.

'They were on the desk, honey. He's coming in tomorrow.'

'He is indeed, Albert. Thanks,' Dr Alexandre said, shooting Anna an irritated look. 'If you can't be bothered to learn anything Nurse, may I suggest you look elsewhere for employment?'

Outraged at the injustice of his remark, Anna was about to protest but the registrar continued, relentlessly. 'I suppose, being beautiful, you spend all your time preening in front bf a mirror instead of attending to your patients. Now, for God's sake get out and find something to do!' he finished cuttingly, his mouth a hard slit, lines of temper showing on his rugged, forceful face.

Albert rolled his eyes in mock horror. 'Come on, Nurse. 'I'll find you something to do.' Anna allowed herself to be led from the office just as Staff Nurse Powell came back.

She heard Dr Alexandre's voice as she followed the auxiliary. 'You'll have to get a bigger office, Staff Nurse. Or a smaller student! That one keeps getting in the way!' Staff Nurse's distinctive giggle was all Anna heard as she marched away, head held proudly, tears not far away.

How could they be so unkind? She bit her lower lip until it hurt, then a patient called her over and she forgot her own troubles. One thing was for sure, Dr Alexandre was no sad, wistful-eyed spaniel, he was a fierce alsatian with sharp teeth and snapping jaws!

None too soon four-thirty came round and Anna went to the office to ask permission to leave. It had been a very long, tiring day and an upsetting one, too.

Staff Nurse grunted her permission, then reminded Anna that Sister would be on duty the next day.

Anna hesitantly asked what Sister Noakes was like to work for, and Staff Nurse Powell raised a pencilled brow. 'Let's put it this way—if she's had a bad weekend, we will all suffer for it!'

A crestfallen Anna walked through the ward door, wishing she hadn't asked. Today had been bad enough but what would tomorrow be like? If she had any more brushes with the senior registrar, she wasn't sure she would last long on Park Ward. Hopefully, the consultants wouldn't notice her. They never seemed to recognise students or any form of nursing life under SEN or Staff Nurse, so that was something to be grateful for.

Dr Smith, the locum consultant, she'd already met briefly. He was semi-retired with a bark worse than his bite. Dr Carter she knew nothing about so she must meet that challenge when it arose. Dr Paul Tester she knew by reputation. He was a bit of a rake, by all accounts, but a good doctor. Anna snuggled further into her sheepskin jacket, the bitter December air hitting her as she hurried down the hospital drive. Dr Tester was also dynamic, or so she'd heard, a forceful personality who steamrollered people into doing things his way whether they wanted to or not. Rather like Dr Alexandre, she mused.

That
man! She refused to think about the doctor
from the Channel Islands. But she couldn't keep him out of her mind for long. He was rude, arrogant, boorish, and dreadfully unkind. He had no right to make that remark about her being too big for the office! She was only five feet eight—he was much taller, with wide shoulders that almost filled the doorway.

Anna clenched her fists inside her woollen gloves. Once she was trained she would make him eat his words! There was nothing attractive about the man and his personality was nil as far as she was concerned. She couldn't think what the night nurse and Staff Nurse Powell found to eulogise about.

Home was some twenty minutes' walk, across the recreation ground and along a dimly-lit lane. They were, as she'd told Staff Nurse, at the bottom of Brightling Hill, so she didn't have to face a tiring climb at the end of a busy day.

How would Mother be? she wondered. She was always more difficult when Anna returned to duty after days off. She was desperately lonely and Anna wished she would invite friends in as she used to. Unfortunately, her mother was convinced that one coronary meant she had to lead an invalid's life, something Anna felt wasn't good for her. In her reading on heart disorders she had discovered that once the lesion was healed a little gentle activity was beneficial, indeed essential, and she was determined to persuade her mother to live a little more. The persuasion would have to be gentle and prolonged but Anna believed that her mother would eventually agree. It would just take time and patience. Last year she had roused herself sufficiently
to spend a few days in Bournemouth but it hadn't been a success.

A sudden movement by the hedge caught her eye, and she jumped. A fox, perhaps? Or Jasper, the cat? Or . . .

A shape materialised from the darkness and Anna opened her mouth to scream.

'Anna! It's me!' a hoarse voice whispered, and relief shot through her.

'Mike! Oh, Mike!' Then she was in his arms and the frustrations and worries of the day rolled away. Nothing else mattered.

'Thought you weren't coming, Anna. I've been here hours. It feels like hours, anyway,' Mike Forster chuckled, taking her by the hand and walking back the way she'd come.

'I mustn't be long, Mike. Mother will worry and phone the hospital if I'm not home by five,' Anna said, worry flooding back.

'That mother of yours has too much of her own way!' Mike exploded, and when Anna opened her mouth to protest, he kissed her again.

It was a lingering kiss and she trembled, desire mounting and overshadowing her concern for her mother. She loved him! It was so unfair having to meet like this, as though they were cheating on a marriage partner, slinking from one assignation to the next. They loved each other and there was no reason for them not to marry.

If marriage was what Mike had in mind, a cautionary voice whispered. Anyway, the voice persisted, it could kill Mother. What if she guessed?

With a sigh, Anna broke away and put a hand up to her throbbing head. If Mother knew she would make a scene and that could be fatal. 'Oh, Mike!' Anna said, dazedly, looking to him for comfort.

It was dark and overcast and they had to keep away from the street light, so all she could see of him was his height, little more than hers, and the outline of his shaggy head. As always he needed a haircut and Anna was overcome with tenderness and love for him. '

But when he moved to take her into his arms again, she resisted. 'I have to go in, Mike. They will be waiting tea for me.'

'Yeah, all right. But listen. I've got some good news. Wait till you hear!' he chuckled, and her heart lifted.

Perhaps he was going to say that their relationship could come out into the open now, that he'd found a way of declaring his love without upsetting her mother! She waited, breathlessly.

'I've
found a new flat—in Shipley Street,' Mike said smugly, and disappointment stabbed at Anna.

'That's wonderful, Mike. Will you still share with the other boys?'

'No, that's the great thing. I'll be on my own— and it's near the hospital so you can meet me there at dinner times!' he said triumphantly. Before Anna could protest, he took her into his arms again and they clung together, desperation lending a poignancy to their embrace.

It was so unfair that they had to meet furtively like this! 'I... I have to go, Mike. Good luck with your new flat,' Anna said quietly, pulling herself free and beginning to walk away.