‘What …? Sorry, what did you say?’

Holly sighed. Ivy seemed to be very preoccupied these days. She repeated what she’d said and Ivy nodded.

‘Hmm, that’s good then.’ She wandered away to get ready to see Jeremy. There was clearly something bothering her friend but until she chose to tell her what it was there wasn’t much she could do about it. It didn’t stop her being concerned though.

Chapter Twelve

Sister was inspecting the ward before the doctors did their morning rounds one morning in June when she told them, ‘There will be a new doctor on the ward this morning, nurses. His name is Doctor Parkin and he has just transferred here from Guy’s Hospital so I shall expect you all to show him how efficient we are.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ the nurses chorused as she walked along the line they had formed, inspecting their uniforms. Woe betide any of them if she found so much as a button out of place. It was the same for the patients before the morning visit. The nurses had to truss them up so tightly in their sheets that the poor souls could barely move, but rather that than risk a crease in their bedspreads. It was even worse on the days when the matron accompanied the doctors.

Unfortunately for Holly one of the patients who was allocated to her care suddenly needed the toilet just as the doctors arrived, so she had to quickly pull the curtains about the woman’s bed and hurry off to the sluice room to fetch a bedpan. By the time the woman had finished, the doctors had almost completed their round and as she flicked the curtains aside again she found them standing at the foot of the patient’s bed and Sister looked none too pleased.

‘Couldn’t you have waited, Mrs Batty?’ she asked crossly and the old woman gave her a gummy grin.

‘’Fraid not, luvvy. Yer know the old sayin’, “When yer’ve got to go yer’ve got to go,” an’ ooh I don’t ’alf feel better now.’

Holly hurried past the doctors with the covered bedpan in her hand and caught the eye of a young doctor who was doing his best not to smile. This, she assumed, was Dr Parkin.

‘So, Mrs Batty,’ she heard him say as he unhooked her notes from the bottom of her bed and quickly read through them. ‘You’ve had your appendix removed, I see. How are you feeling now?’

‘Ooh, ever so much better, luvvy,’ the old woman told him cheerily. ‘But I ain’t ready to go ’ome just yet. It won’t ’urt me old man to see to ’isself for a while. ’Appen he’ll appreciate me a bit more when I do go back. An’ why would I wanna rush away anyway when I ’ave a handsome young man like you lookin’ after me?’ She gave the young doctor a suggestive wink which brought colour flooding into his cheeks.

Holly grinned to herself as she disappeared into the sluice. Mrs Batty was a card, there was no mistake about it, but thankfully the young man appeared to have a good sense of humour, unlike some of the other doctors.