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'She seems easier now and doesn't need her oxygen; she's being checked quarter-hourly,' Anna told him, getting out the two sets of notes.

'OK, then.' Simon took them from her. 'Karen Miller first. That tumour of hers was benign, a corpus luteum as we thought. Her baby's safely tucked up inside her, and I see no reason why she shouldn't go on to full term with no problems at all.'

'Yes, I saw that from the theatre notes...' Anna started to say, but Simon was already walking into the ward and she hurried to catch him up.

Karen, still sleepy, was able to take his words in but only managed one of her own. 'Magic!' she said, smiling faintly, dark eyes shining between half-closed lids.

Simon glanced briefly at the charts of five of the other post-op patients, after which he and Anna proceeded to the side-wards—running into Nurse Cheng who was leaving Alice Fotheringay's bed. 'She is awake and had asked for a drink,' she said, and went across the corridor to get it.

What happened next was to stay imprinted on Anna's mind for days. As she entered the side-ward, Simon behind her, Alice Fotheringay raised herself from her mound of pillows, smiled and then fell back—eyes fixed, pallid-faced—as though struck by an unseen hand.

'Arrested..
. Ring team!' Simon's hand was at the pulse spot on Alice's neck. Nurse Cheng returned and flew to the phone, whilst Anna jerked the pillows from under Alice's head then watched Simon begin the thumping movements of sternal massage, using the heels of his hands.

After nine compressions she bent to seal Alice's mouth with her own, then, pinching her nostrils, she began to breathe down into Alice's lungs. Anna breathed gently but steadily, down and down, then came up to draw in more air and bent again to repeat the manoeuvre—then up, then down once more.

Now Simon was restarting his massage movements; they were counting them together... Five.. .six. ..

seven.. .eight... At that point they heard the sounds of the resuscitation trolley being rushed down the corridor... Nine...ten... And then the resuscitation team
piled
into the room, sending the door crashing back and connecting Alice to their sophisticated equipment in an attempt to save her life.

At a glance from Simon Anna followed him into the office. 'There's not room to swing a cat in there,' he grunted, sweat beading his lip. Sternal massage was hard work. He looked down at the heels of his hands. 'I felt I was crashing right through her ribs.'

'You probably were,' Anna said shortly, turning to the window. She was disturbed, even upset, but determined not to show it. A nurse wasn't supposed to show anything but calm, not when she was on duty. She had witnessed cardiac arrest before—once during her training years and once only last year, out in a London street.

On both
occasions she had
wished and willed the patient to survive, but this time the reverse was the case; this time she hoped that Alice's gallant heart would refuse to start beating again; would refuse to pump any more life-blood round her exhausted little body; would decide to remain comatose and give its owner peace.

Still facing the window, Anna looked down into the street. From four floors up the scene below was all but panoramic. In the far distance was the sea-front, teeming with holidaymakers. The sea lay flat and lifeless in the heat, whilst faintly above the rumble of traffic on the main coast road came the strains of the end-of-pier band.

She reached up and closed the window, shutting the real world outside. From inside, from next door, the resuscitation team could be heard in little shifting flurries. There was the slip of their feet on the floor, their muttered voices, the click of equipment, the imperative cry, 'Stand clear' as a shock was directed into Alice's heart from the defibrillating machine. The cry came again, followed by silence.

Simon moved behind Anna's back, and turning round to face him she saw how fatigued he looked. His skin was taut, as though stretched on his bones, whilst the little scar to the right of his chin showed up pearl white— like a paring of fingernail. 'Why don't you sit down? You must have been on your feet all day.' Just in time she stopped herself from laying a hand on his arm.

'I have,' he replied, but he didn't sit down and neither did she. For some curious reason it seemed wrong to take their ease.

A movement at the open doorway showed the pale blond head of Doctor Sven, the anaesthetist, and behind him the rest of the team. They were sorry, they said, they could do nothing more; they had tried, to no avail. After a few words with Anna, who went into the sideward, they drew their trolley back up the corridor— rather more slowly than they had come.

Anna was aware of Simon watching as she replaced one of the pillows under Alice's head, then covered her face. 'Please don't say the obvious,' she all but snapped at him, and added more quietly, 'Thank you for staying, but Jean and I can manage now.'

Obeying her to the letter, he said goodnight and left but it was after six before Anna felt that she could reasonably go off duty. By then Alice's body had been taken down to the hospital chapel at the request of her niece, whom Anna had contacted by phone. Miss Bradbury was Alice's next of kin and only surviving relative. Even so, she made it abundantly clear that she couldn't come that night.

'You haven't given me much warning, have you, Sister? I live three miles out, as you know. I'll look in tomorrow first thing. Meantime, perhaps you could take off her rings and keep them safe. One hears such awful things about corpses being stripped...'

'Mrs Fotheringay's personal effects will be taken great care of, Miss Bradbury,' Anna said, forming a mental picture of the hard-faced niece who, according to Jean, had only visited once during Alice's time in the ward.

Whatever must it be like to have no one who cares tuppence about you, she was thinking as she left the colonnade for the scorching heat of the yard. Of course, if you were old your friends might have died, and if you hadn't had any children you could end up like Alice— with no one but a money-grubbing niece, only concerned with stripping off your rings! God, what a thought! And she shivered and felt cold, then told herself to brace up.

She stood for a minute or two, undecided whether to go straight to her car or stop off at the hospital shop for a can of Coke. She could sit down and drink it in the medical school garden, leading off from the shop. She knew about the shop and the garden from Ruth, who had pointed both out to her. If she went there and delayed a little she would miss the worst of Charding's rush-hour traffic and, quite apart from that, she was absolutely parched with thirst. Off she marched to the shop.

It had been built long after the medical school and stuck out from its creeper-clad side like a bare brick appendage, not attractive but functional. As she neared it she could see several of the staff buying evening papers.

Amongst them was Bill Corby. Easy to recognise with his mop of dark curls and short stocky figure, he was still in his surgical coat. With him, and bending his head in conversation, was Simon Easter, the sight of whom halted Anna for a second for she hadn't really banked on meeting either him again
or
Bill Corby that night. Still, to do so was inevitable for they had spotted her and were waiting. She could hardly, with any politeness, turn the other way.

'You've had an action-packed day, Anna!' Bill was the first to speak. 'Thrown in at the deep end, as it were!' His face was the chubby kind.

'It happens!' Anna smiled back at him, whilst on the periphery of her vision she caught the movement of Simon's paper as he tapped it against his thigh.

'I think Sister is probably used to deep ends,' he observed in level tones, not exactly squashing Bill nor praising Anna either. She looked at him then, caught his eye full on her and immediately wished she hadn't rolled up her sleeves or undone the top of her collar. She looked improperly dressed and unprofessional, and was getting hotter by the minute.

'If you'll excuse me,' she said, turning sideways and moving between the two men, 'I'm going to get myself a drink before starting off for home.'

'If you want tea there's the vending machine... Cold is at the counter,' Bill called after her, and she raised an arm in answer. Choosing a can of orange juice and taking a plastic beaker from the pyramid on the counter, she pushed through into the enclosed garden at the back of the medical school.

There were one or two students there, stretched out on the strip of grass, but the two long garden seats were free. Taking the nearest one, she opened her can of drink with caution, mindful of her dress, then, stretching out her legs in front of her, she prepared to relax but had taken no more than three sips of her drink when Simon appeared at the shop exit and, to her astonishment, joined her on the seat.

He didn't ask her if she minded, or anything like that, just sat down and half turned to face her, remarking on the brilliant evening and telling her that he was killing time before going up to the station to meet the London train. 'I'm meeting my parents off it; they've travelled from Cornwall today. They're staying with me for a few days before flying off to Corfu.'

'A lovely holiday,' Anna commented, gripping her plastic beaker so tightly that it nearly caved in at the sides.

'A long awaited one, I assure you. My father has just retired. He was a GP in Port Treviss...in single practice too. This break is something he and my mother have been looking forward to for goodness knows how long. I'm just glad it's come at last.'

'Will he settle well into retirement, do you think?' Anna asked.

'Well, at first it will be a novelty, won't it?' Simon said thoughtfully. 'How about your folks, are they living near...? They'll be younger than mine, of course.'

'Mum and Dad live in Surrey; Dad's a vet.' Anna began to loosen up and talk more naturally. 'He and Prue were in partnership at one time. It was actually Prue's practice then, when she retired and came to live here, Dad took in another partner.'

'Interesting!'

'Yes.' She smiled.

'Your grandmother,' he said, 'is a remarkable lady.'

'You can say that again, and she loves living down here. Her husband, my grandfather, was killed in the War. She was only twenty then and pregnant with Dad. It was fifty-two years ago!'

'She never remarried?'

'I don't think she wanted to.'

He made no comment on that but presently asked her if she knew many people in Charding, apart from the hospital crowd.

'Quite a few, yes,' she said offhandedly, well aware that she wasn't being strictly truthful but she wasn't going to have him think that she was friendless, or anything like that. Anyway, she knew the Marriners and one or two of her grandmother's friends.

'It's essential, I think, to have a life apart from the hospital—to be able to socialise with people unconnected with blood and guts.' He said this perfectly seriously, not laughing even when she did.

'When I first came here,' he went on, 'my cousin and her husband, who live out at Crowdean, took it upon themselves to get me socialised. At the time I found this irksome; I dislike being "done good to". I wanted to concentrate on my job and very little else. Now, however, I find myself looking forward to my free time.'

'Do you get much of it?'

'In a word.. .no!' He did laugh then and bent to pick up his paper, which had fallen from the seat. 'Anna, about Alice Fotheringay,' he said as he straightened up, 'We can't be sorry, can we, that she went as she did? I know everything had to be tried to get her going again, but it was merciful that she switched off and refused to come back again.'

'The last thing she did was smile at us but, like you, I'm glad she's gone. When the team were working on her I actually hoped she'd stay as she was.'

'So did I.'

'She told me I walked like an angel,' Anna smiled, remembering.

'Light, effortless walking... Yes, I think she got that right.'

His eyes met hers and something in their depths made Anna's heart beat faster; made her catch her breath and say, looking away from him, 'Alice was a dear.'

'Discerning, too,' Simon said as he got up to go. 'Are you coming now, or staving for a while?' He bent a little towards her, as though about to take her hands and draw her to her feet.

Quickly she reached for her drink, which she'd set down on the seat. 'Oh, I'm staying put, just for a bit; it's called unwinding,' she laughed.

'I hope I didn't spoil the process.'

'Only put it on hold.' Her hands were gripping the beaker, denting the sides again. Then he moved and she began to breathe normally, even managed to reply to his quick 'Goodnight' in an ordinary voice as she watched him walk away.

He was attractive, and he was attracted to her—she knew that without conceit. He had sought her out, and she had glimpsed the sexual interest in his eyes. She was flattered, thrilled—what girl wouldn't be? But she was also on guard. Simon Easter had the power to overturn her life exactly as Daniel had done. She had no intention,
ever
, of going down that road again so it was up to her, wasn't it, to look the other way?

As
Anna
turned into the driveway of The Gables some thirty minutes later it was to see a green Range Rover at the kerb and a small boy in the porch, pulling heads off the clematis and dashing them onto the ground. When he saw her get out of her car he turned to sidle through into the house but she called out to him, darting swiftly across the strip of drive. 'What do you think you're doing?' Her voice wasn't loud, so much as sharp.

He faced her—a slim child , in jeans and patterned shirt. 'I'm Tom Marriner, and I'm waiting for my father!' He met her eye defiantly at first and then looked away, pulling at the front of his shirt.

'I see.' So this was Alex's son. 'Why spoil the clematis?' she asked, aware now of a mumble of voices coming from the sitting-room.

'I got bored.'

'That's no excuse, is it?' The voices were getting louder: her grandmother and Alex were coming out. Swift as lightning, Anna stopped and scooped up the severed flower-heads and thrust them into her pocket, noticing Tom go red as she did so—and serve
him
damn well right.