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He was already there when she got home that evening, having tea with her parents and Prue in the sitting-room that overlooked the back garden. They all looked up as she entered. 'Oh, Anna, there you are!' Prue exclaimed, moving to refill the teapot, which Anna took from her grasp.

'I'll do that...boil some more water.' She smiled round at them all. 'So this is what you do in my absence—sit around guzzling tea!'

'As you do, on the ward, I'll be bound!' her father teased, whilst Alex, in all seriousness, said that he doubted it.

'On the two occasions I've seen Anna in action, she was working harder than her nurses.'

'I can believe that,' her mother remarked, just as seriously. 'I wish the uniform wasn't purple, though, it doesn't go with her hair.'

Prue refuted this with heat and so did Anna's father, Alex carefully agreeing that purple was a difficult colour to wear, but adding that Anna, with her clear skin, could get away with it.

Thereby offending no one, Anna thought, staring at herself in the kitchen mirror as she waited for the kettle to boil. Alex—a peace-loving man—would be easy to live with for he'd never allow himself to quarrel, let alone have a blazing row.

Insofar
as any funeral can be said to have gone off well, Great-Nan's did exactly that. The hotel luncheon afterwards, which had been Prue's idea, gave relatives and friends a chance to unwind in a cheerful atmosphere. Back at the house for tea and more talking, the day had begun to drag, but when the very last guest had driven away or been taxied to a train Prue was still game for an evening walk along the front with her son.

'She's got more energy at seventy-plus than I have at fifty,' Diane Gatton, with her feet up, remarked to Anna when they were having a pre-supper drink. 'It'll be just like your father to try to persuade her to rejoin the practice, sell up here and live with us.' She turned anxious eyes on her daughter, who immediately shook her head.

'She wouldn't entertain the idea, not for one moment, and I'm sure Dad won't ask her.'

She mentioned this to her father, though, when they were shopping in the town next morning. 'Mum seems to think you've got plans for spiriting Prue back into the practice,' she said as they hurried across the traffic-halted road before the green man disappeared.

He laughed at the idea, as she'd known he would. 'Your mother's imagination goes into overdrive sometimes,' he said. 'What I wish Prue would do, though, is get herself a dog. I've got a grand little bitch at the surgery now, who's in need of a home. She's small, spayed, of mixed breed, and about two years old. Her owner got killed on the road last week, and Doris—good name for a dog—was brought into me.'

'Did you mention it to Prue?'

'Yes, and she wouldn't consider it. Said she was too old to start looking after a dog again which, seeing how fit she is, I felt was a lame excuse.'

'Still, it's got to be her choice, Dad,' Anna was saying just as he pulled her to a halt and pointed across the road.

'Look over there.. .just passing Boots... Isn't that your Mr Easter with a woman in blue? Lost them now, can't see them... Ah, there they are, by that poster, by the news-stall.. .just going round the arcade!'

'OK, OK, I can see them—or could—and, yes, it was him!' She had seen him at once, and the usual pinging shock of recognition had hit her full force. He'd been wearing grey and had his jacket off—slung over one shoulder. The girl beside him had been slim and dark; it'd been Julia Trafford. Anna was sure that it was her, for hadn't Alex said she was due back home any day?

'I suppose the girl's his wife?'

Anna shook her head as she and her father walked on. 'He's divorced so, no, but I rather think she's a Doctor Trafford. She's a doctor of research—something to do with equinine diseases.'

'Clever, then? Still, I can't see Easter interested in an air-head. I take it she's his girlfriend?'

'I shouldn't be surprised.'

'You know, it's funny,' Paul Gatton said, steering Anna across the road, 'but I'd have taken him for a married man with a couple of kids.'

Lunch back at The Gables—a cold collation—was a comfortless, dreary affair, with Prue looking pensive and she was most likely, Anna thought, wishing that she wasn't going to Reading; wishing that she was staying at home; perhaps even wishing—for such are the vagaries of human nature—that Great-Nan was still alive and up at the nursing-home, and that she, Prue, was going to visit her to hear all her moans and groans.

She looked happier, though, at three-thirty when she was actually in the car, riding in the front with her son— Diane happy to sit in the back with her feet up and her dark glasses on.

Left to her own devices at last, Anna went into the garden with the idea of weeding and tidying up generally, a task which she very soon found in no way precluded thinking.

And so it was, as she bent and weeded and raked and swept with determined energy, that the glimpse she had had of Simon and Julia making their way past Boots assumed mammoth proportions in her mind, blotting out everything else.

Until she told herself with steadying sternness that Simon's private life was nothing, but nothing, to do with her and that if he was walking past Boots with half the female population of Charding it was still no concern of hers.

A brisk little wind had begun to blow, and she was thinking of going inside when she heard a car stopping at the front gate. Seconds later Alex appeared, making for the front steps and carrying roses somewhat gingerly— perhaps because of possible thorn damage to the front of his shirt. As she called to him he turned and they met halfway across the lawn.

'Pa and I thought Mrs Gatton might like these roses. Hope they're not coals to Newcastle,' he added with a smile.

'They're not. Prue's second crop didn't come to much—' Anna took the flowers '—but the only thing is that she isn't here. She went back to Reading with Mother and Daddy after lunch. She's going to stay with them for a few days.'

'Oh dear,' Alex frowned.

'Unless you want to take them back home, I'd love to have them.' Anna buried her face in the blooms, drawing in the scent of the dark red ones which she loved best.

'Of course. Keep them—I'd like you to have them,' Alex said, agreeing at once when she suggested that he stayed, and had some tea.

'I was just thinking of making some.' She was glad he had come, pleased at the thought of some company. Solitude was fine but only, she thought sadly, when one wasn't bedevilled by painful thoughts.

Alex hadn't seen her flat before and he walked around, looking at her pictures and photographs with interest and exclaiming at the fact that she had two sitting-rooms— both of them with views—and admiring her modern kitchen. 'You've made a real home of it, Anna.'

'It
is
my home,' she said.

'Well, yes, of course.' He took the tray from her and she led the way into the sitting-room which overlooked the back garden—overlooked, in fact, several of the neighbouring gardens going up the road. 'Seems to be a lot of activity going on along there,' Alex said, looking away to the right where the top of what looked like a large marquee could be seen.

'It's a wedding. Prue was asked, but of course couldn't go.. .had to cry off at the last minute.' Anna handed him his tea.

'Good day for it.'

'Just about perfect.' She leaned back in her chair, feeling happier by the minute. It was pleasant to sit and talk to Alex about his father and Tom; about yesterday's funeral and the following luncheon party, and about how good it had been to have some time with her father. 'He wants Prue to have a dog,' she said, and he told her that Tom's current craze was to have a pet snake.

'Fortunately Imogen has put her foot down, and with my full backing!'

It was when they were in the kitchen, washing up, that Alex dropped his bombshell. 'You and I could get married,' he said.

Anna caught her breath, swivelling round to face him, unable to believe her ears. Not for one moment had she thought he was joking but, even so, the way he had spoken—so unemotionally—made his words unreal. 'I know we're not romantically in love,' he went on before she could speak, 'but that kind of thing doesn't always last. Affection and friendship do. You're exactly what I want in a wife—I knew that from the first.'

She stared at him as he stood there against the breakfast bar, looking as he always did--smart, and smooth, and brushed. The thought of what marriage to him would bring her reeled through her mind like a film—a lovely home, security, status, children and a good man. For he'd be loyal always, she knew that; he'd never let her down.

But you don't love him, Anna Fellowes, and he doesn't love you. You'd strain at the relationship, certainly strain at making love with him. You can't do it and you know you can't; being 'just friends' isn't enough.

'Alex, I can't! I'm terribly sorry, but I'd have to be in love to marry again, I really would. Being fond of you isn't enough!' All this came out in a tumbled rush, whilst through the open window the sound of wedding party revelry blew in like mocking dust.

'It's all right, don't worry, I expected you to say almost exactly that.' He was grave-faced but didn't, she thought, look particularly upset. He was folding the teatowel he'd been using and hanging it back on the rack. 'You've never been other than honest with me, Anna, so there's nothing to be sorry about. And now, I think, I'd better be going. Tom will be waiting for me. Don't forget to put your roses in water.' He touched them as he passed.

'No, I won't, they're lovely.' She followed him downstairs, and walked with him to the gate.

'See you,' he said, as he got in the car.

'See you,' she said in reply, but these were just words to cover embarrassment, and their smiles were that kind too. They would meet again by chance, she knew that, but never by design, for when marriage has been offered and the offer turned down, however tactfully, nothing can be quite the same after that.. .it's a no-go zone.

It was necessary, after Alex had gone, to apply herself to physical activities again so, between five o'clock and ten, she cleaned the flat from floor to ceiling, including its windows—inside and out—at great danger to herself, the flat being two floors up.

Her reward was sleep—sound sleep—that night, but on waking in the morning it was to a feeling of bleakness, even fear, about the future. Why, even the Sunday bells carolling out from St Peter's Church did nothing to lift her gloom.

Shortly after nine, when her phone rang, she was still in the bathroom. Stepping out of the shower, wrapped around in a towel, she went to answer it. It was probably Prue ringing up from Reading. All set to be cheery and bright she lifted the receiver, and almost before she had sung out, 'Hello' the voice of one of the nursing officers rattled in her ear.

'Sister, there's been a collision on the motorway... We're on Major Accident Alert. Can you help us out...? Can you report in...? We need all the help we can get. You're at liberty to refuse, of course, but.. .'

'I'll come...I'll be there!' Anna's towel slipped unheeded to her feet.

'Report to Cas.. .thanks...goodbye!'

Anna scrambled into her clothes, pinned her name badge onto her dress and raced down the stairs. She was at the hospital within fifteen minutes, meeting on the way a tide of ambulances and two fire engines speeding to the accident scene.

A team of doctors and nurses, wearing helmets and fluorescent tabards, were piling into a waiting ambulance as she turned into the yard. It was the team, she knew, who would administer to the wounded on site, giving pain-killing injections, setting up IV lines and making decisions as to which of the injured should take the first ambulance.

One of the doctors climbing into the ambulance with a backpack of equipment was Simon. Anna saw him distinctly before the doors were slammed to, and the ambulance, siren wailing, swung out of the yard. He must have been called in before her; he might even, she thought, have been here at the time. Whichever it was, he was on the road now, on the road and geared for action. Perhaps even, like her, feeling apprehensive at what lay ahead.

Inside A and E all areas had been cleared for action. The emergency plan was in operation, and any routine patients who had come in that morning had been evacuated to Outpatients until staff could attend to them.

Equipment was being rushed in, every cubicle stood ready, extra beds and trolleys stood in the bays and doctors and nurses from various wards and sections of the hospital were being co-ordinated by Sister Forrester, who placed Anna on triage with the surgical registrar. This meant that as the casualties arrived she and he would have to sort them into the categories of critical, urgent, non-urgent or dead.

Anna thought about Simon; imagined him in the thick of it on the motorway, working in a melee of ambulancemen, fire officers and police; kneeling by the injured staunching wounds, applying temporary splints, setting up drips and drains, comforting the trapped, injecting analgesics and trying to keep up morale.

The waiting was tense and it was almost a relief when the first three ambulances came in, their crews giving vital information as to whether a patient had been unconscious, had been trapped—and for how long—had been having fits, or was showing signs of bleeding internally.

The accident had been a knock-on collision. It appeared that a Jaguar had crashed into the back of a coach, bringing day-trippers into Charding. A second coach, following the Jag, had ploughed into its chassis, a van had hit the second coach and a car had hit the van—the whole lot piling together like a set of children's bricks.

The police arrived; the press arrived; more and more patients arrived. Stretcher after stretcher was wheeled in. It seemed to Anna that she'd been looking down at faces half-obscured by masks, at temporarily splinted limbs, at head collars steadying spines, and hearing moans and cries of pain for hours, and hours, and hours.

Thirty stretcher cases were sorted and passed through for treatment. It was learned that another twenty-five had been sent two miles inland to the county hospital at Bewlis, which was sharing the load.