‘Shall we fetch the boot?’ said Bee.

Bridget saw Joe almost slipping on the shingle as he raced down the cliff. ‘No. Leave it to Joe. He’ll know what to do.’

Chapter 21

If she drank any more tea, Matron thought to herself, she would float out of the door. She was flanked by Cat on one side and Mrs O’Keefe on the other.

‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw you get out of that car, Matron,’ said Mrs O’Keefe.

‘I didn’t feel too stable myself,’ said Matron. She looked around the post office in bemusement; it was filled to the door with women talking and she wondered how was it they found so much to say. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked them both. ‘Is it something to do with the Malone girl?’

Cat lowered her voice and leant forward. ‘We came to see was Mary Kate all right. They have very strict ways over here. Very prim and proper, they are.’

‘As am I,’ said Matron in a flash.

‘Ah, yes,’ Mrs O’Keefe interjected, ‘but you, Matron, are also a woman of the world. You made allowances for Mary Kate because you knew she was in an impossible position. The same allowances wouldn’t have been made here. They are the loveliest people, but they are most definitely not people of the world.’

She winked at Matron, who furrowed her brow. No woman had ever winked at Matron. She was a woman who made probationers tremble in their shoes and porters flee to the sides of corridors like cockroaches avoiding daylight when she approached. She pulled her posters tighter to her chest and sighed. ‘Dr Gaskell has been concerned about her too. There’s something about that girl – I could tell as soon as I laid eyes on her. We both think she would make an excellent nurse, once she’s through her period of grieving. That’s why we’re here, in fact, on the lookout for girls like her, and like Nurse Brogan. They seem to be of a type, and we’re having such trouble recruiting. Girls get married so young and then they leave and have families. I wonder sometimes how it is we’ll be able to staff our wards.’

Cat was now right on the edge of her seat. ‘I think she’d make a good nurse too. It’s not just because she was so good with Dr Marcus when he was dying – she was lovely to all the patients on the ward, they all loved her.’

Matron’s expression softened. ‘Quite. I don’t mind telling you, though, I never thought to find her in this situation – having been kidnapped!’

Peggy approached them carrying a wooden tray. ‘A drink, missus?’ she said as she held the tray out to Matron.

Mrs O’Keefe saw Matron’s back stiffen at the ‘missus’ and would have laughed herself if she’d not been so desperately worried about Mary Kate’s disappearance.

‘Er, what is it?’ Matron managed.

‘’Tis a glass of whiskey, for the shock. We all need it. Keeva just fetched it over from Paddy’s bar. We get that many visitors around here these days and go through that much of the stuff, don’t we, Keeva?’ she shouted over her shoulder to Keeva, who was setting down her own trayful of small glasses on the post office counter.