‘I’ve had me suspicions fer a while,’ she admitted. ‘But the way yer have to look at it, it ain’t the end o’ the world. She ain’t the first to find ’erself in this position an’ she certainly won’t be the last! Is the baby David’s?’

Sunday sighed as she gazed towards the window. ‘She says it isn’t. To be honest, she won’t even discuss it so we may never know.’

‘Aw well, there’s enough of us to look after the little soul,’ Cissie responded matter-of-factly and Sunday could have hugged her. Cissie was never judgemental, which was just one of the many things she loved about her.

A month later, Kathy was working on one of the wards when a young student nurse approached her to tell her, ‘Nurse Branning, Matron would like to see you in her office.’

Kathy’s heart sank. She had been expecting this for a while now. It was getting harder by the day to disguise her swollen stomach, so after tucking the blankets about the patient in the bed and giving the girl a smile, she straightened, rubbed her hands down her apron and with her chin held high headed for Matron’s office.

‘Ah … Nurse Branning.’ Matron looked mildly embarrassed. She was a middle-aged woman who was known to be firm but fair and Kathy had nothing but respect for her. ‘I, er … don’t quite know how to broach this,’ she said haltingly. ‘But I was wondering … is there anything you would like to talk to me about?’

Kathy took a deep breath. This was it then, the end of her nursing career, for now at least, yet she was almost relieved to get everything out into the open.

‘There is actually,’ she admitted. ‘I was going to come and see you anyway to tell you that I’m expecting a baby, round about the end of September.’

‘I see.’ Matron steepled her fingers and tapped away at her bottom lip as if she was wondering how to respond. Kathy Branning was developing into one of her finest nurses and she would be greatly missed. But she had no option but to dismiss her. What example would it set to the other nurses if she allowed her to stay on? A young, unmarried, pregnant woman? It was common knowledge that, until quite recently, she and young Dr Deacon had been seeing each other. Now that she came to think about it, they seemed to have been avoiding each other recently and she briefly wondered if the baby was his, not that it was any of her business, of course, she silently reminded herself. What the nurses did in their spare time was up to them up to a point, but she did have the reputation of the hospital to consider and gossip like this would spread like wildfire once Kathy’s condition became common knowledge.