Secrets to Keep

CHAPTER TWO





Ty Strathmore emitted a deep sigh as he sank down in an antiquated leather captain’s chair behind the desk of his surgery.

A year ago he’d had everything he could ever have aspired to: an income that afforded him a high standard of living; a lovely home to which he’d have been proud to welcome the most affluent among society; a beautiful wife he adored who, like himself, possessed all the desirable social skills. She’d also been expecting their first and much longed-for child.

And now what did he have?

No lovely home, no loving wife or expected baby, and certainly no prospects … definitely not in this hell-hole of a place he’d unwittingly landed up in.

In his mind’s eye a vision of Anthea, the very last time he had seen her, rose to torment him. She stood framed in the doorway of the house they had lived in so happily together, seeing him off to work as she had done every morning, her red-gold hair cut into a fashionable bob framing a face that never failed to take his breath away each time he caught sight of it. Her tawny-green eyes were sparkling with good humour, her full lips curved into the smile she displayed only to him. Her ‘Mona Lisa smile’, he had termed it, because like Leonardo Da Vinci, he was the only man who knew what lay behind it: her unstinting love and devotion to him. Her arms were cradling her swollen belly, protecting the precious cargo she carried.

The vision vanished as quickly as it had arisen. Pain at his overwhelming loss, so great it could be likened to a hand being plunged inside him and ripping out his insides, consumed his being while simultaneously a surge of pure hatred flooded through him against the man who had single-handedly taken Anthea from him, along with everything else he had held dear. What that man had done was not out of any sense of vengeance against Ty, but through sheer unadulterated selfishness. Ty didn’t believe that violence resolved anything, but in this case it had been fortunate the man in question had seen to it that he wasn’t around to be punished for his crime, or Ty himself would have faced the gallows for murdering him.

Taking a deep breath and forcing away excruciating memories, he leaned back in his chair and took a slow, despondent look around him. The last surgery he had worked from had been spacious, light and airy, owning the very latest in medical equipment and employing a highly qualified nurse to help with the care of the patients. It had been housed in its own late-Edwardian villa in a tree-lined street in an affluent suburb. He would drive the short distance to it from his home each morning in a leather-seated black Daimler sedan, and on arrival he’d be greeted with a tray of tea delivered by his smartly attired receptionist. They’d had close associations with the local hospital. A quick telephone call was usually sufficient to secure a bed there and the best medical attention for any of their moneyed patients.

This surgery’s finances couldn’t support either a receptionist or a nurse, and to obtain a hospital bed and treatment for any of his patients, Ty had virtually to get down on bended knee and beg for them.

Another surge of anger erupted within him against the person whose selfish actions had reduced him to this level. At the time of the terrible catastrophe, the pain of his loss was so unbearable that, by way of protecting himself from ever suffering such emotional devastation a second time, he had vowed never to allow himself to become involved with another human being on a personal level again. And if people thought him rude and arrogant because of it, then so be it. He’d ostracised himself from all his former friends and turned his back on the medical profession, wanting nothing more to do with it. By sheer frugality, for over two years he’d managed to exist on the paltry amount of money he’d been left with, but when that had virtually run dry, and with his landlady not the type to let him lodge with her free, he was left with no alternative but to get himself a job. Unfortunately for Ty, he wasn’t a man who could turn his hand to anything. After being fired from several menial labouring jobs, he was left with no choice but to seek another position back in the profession he had made such an effort to disassociate himself from.

The thought of applying for a hospital position and having his past delved into was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. This practice had seemed like the answer to a prayer to him when he had spotted it advertised in a medical journal. Thriving practices changed hands for large sums of money, depending on their size and location. But this one was being given away. Ty had assumed that the deceased doctor had had no partner to take it over and was against his estate going to the Crown. He’d assumed that many other doctors would be after it, young men starting up or others rendered short of funds like himself, and didn’t think his chances of being awarded it were high. He was most shocked to receive a letter back by return from the solicitor handling the estate of the late James McHinney, offering him the practice without even an interview. He was later to come to the conclusion that no other doctor had even applied. If other interested parties had had the foresight to take the time and trouble to visit the area, unlike himself, they’d no doubt swiftly have decided against it. The astute James McHinney had without doubt known that upon his death, unless he lured a doctor here by giving his practice away, the local community of around five thousand patients would be left without a medical practitioner.

The three-bedroomed corner terrace house that housed the surgery stood in the middle of a rabbit warren of sooty streets. The rundown terrace houses had two or three bedrooms and tiny paved backyards. Water was obtained from stand pumps in back alleys, and several families shared each outside toilet. Ty’s was the only house to have its own water pump and toilet in the backyard. Arriving with all he possessed in one trunk, he’d accused the taxi driver of delivering him to the wrong address when the vehicle had stopped outside the grim-looking house in the middle of this deprived area, and had been mortified to find no mistake had been made.

The inside of the house was as bleak as the outside. Despite the heavy chenille curtains at the windows all being pulled back, hardly any light penetrated the rooms due to the closeness of the surrounding properties. The furniture was all of the plain, heavy dark oak sort, no ornaments or adornments to soften its harshness. The floorboards were dark stained. The only rug lay in the sitting room in front of the hearth, its original pattern long since faded away and its pile flattened by age. The previous occupant obviously hadn’t felt the need for fripperies of any kind. Ty was, though, gratified to find the place spotlessly clean, the fires in all the rooms laid ready to be lit and his bed freshly made, albeit with aged linen, threadbare in parts. The pan of mutton stew that just needed heating had turned out to be delicious, and a few basic food essentials had been laid in. He’d assumed, in his ignorance, that the housekeeper had been busy … only to discover the next day that the surgery’s finances didn’t run to the extravagance of a housekeeper either. The food had been provided and the cleaning done by several well-meaning local women, by way of a welcome to their new doctor.

The room the surgery was housed in appeared to be far smaller than it actually was due to the amount of furniture in it. The large old oak desk he was sitting at had years of use evident on its surfaces. The huge bookcase to one side of him was crammed with ageing, musty-smelling medical journals, while a table behind him held five large wooden boxes, each divided into four drawers, and each drawer rammed to overflowing with patients’ records dating back to God knew when. How many records were in respect of people still actually alive was debatable. He’d skimmed a look through them on first arriving and noted the ages of some of the patients and the date of the last entries. At some point they must be overhauled. He had besides an examination couch, a washstand and bowl, a cupboard full of medical supplies, and a table on which was displayed an ancient microscope and some gruesome-looking old medical instruments.

A thick, dark brown dado rail divided the walls into two, the bottom half painted brown, the top half cream, which had turned to dark yellow after decades of Doctor McHinney’s dedicated smoking habit. He had obviously had a penchant for a drink, too, judging by the number of empty whisky bottles Ty had discovered in the dank, cobweb-filled cellar, along with a half-filled bottle in the desk drawer. Ty didn’t smoke himself, but since arriving in his new post had taken to having a glass of malt before he retired to bed, in the hope it might help him gain a better sleep than the fitful and disturbed rest he’d experienced since his life-changing experience two years ago.

It became immediately apparent to Ty on his first surgery that James McHinney had been revered by his patients. He suspected that as long as he himself remained in this post – which as matters stood for him would be until he, too, was carried out in a box – he would never match up to Doctor Mac in the locals’ eyes. Not that Ty cared what they thought of him. His only desire was to deal with their medical needs, which he would do his best to serve, and not to allow himself to become any further involved with them than that.

A faint murmur of voices filtered through to him, coming from the waiting room across the corridor. Ty heaved another despondent sigh. He had been called out twice on emergencies during the previous night, so what sleep he had managed to get had not proved beneficial. He had taken a twenty-minute break earlier during which he had gobbled down a hastily put-together sandwich. He had been out on house calls since, had just returned from the last one in fact, and was hoping that evening surgery would be a light one so he could catch up with sorting out the surgery, something that up to now the demands on his time hadn’t allowed … but the noise level coming from the waiting room was warning him otherwise.

From what he’d observed of the locals while dealing with their medical needs in the week he had been in this post, he’d come to the conclusion that they were an uneducated lot, obviously not averse to living in what seemed to be appalling conditions, some of the houses so dirty farmers would have considered them unfit for pigs, or they’d have done something about it. Some of the people whose houses he had visited didn’t even practise the most basic hygiene. The majority of the women looked far older than their years, slovenly in both their appearance and housewifely duties, while their menfolk appeared interested only in the local pub and collaring the bookie’s runner for their bets. And it was debatable if many of the undernourished, barefoot, raggedly dressed children he’d encountered to date would actually reach adulthood, considering the way their parents were raising them.

The way James McHinney had operated financially was of grave concern to Ty. If he carried on the way his predecessor had, then he was deeply worried he wouldn’t be able to meet his bills each week. Thankfully a couple of local factories had paid him a retainer each year to care for their workers’ medical needs, so at least Ty could count on that money still coming in, but he had been under the impression that the bartering system had died out in Britain in the Middle Ages. Out of all the patients he’d seen up to now, though, nearly three quarters had paid in kind with goods or promise of manual labour, turning a deaf ear to any requests for hard currency instead. Not to be thwarted, before he’d departed on his morning rounds today, Ty had penned a very clear notice and pinned it on the wall of the waiting room, advising them that in future only cash would be accepted in return for his services.

The din emanating from the waiting room rose several decibels, heralding more arrivals. He visualised them all packed into the small room, squashed together on the unyielding wooden bench spanning three of the walls. The stench from their collective body smells would be nauseating. Ty sighed again as he took his pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket and looked at it. Evening surgery started at six. It was eight minutes to. He could sit here for those eight minutes, keeping them all waiting as he savoured this little bit of time to himself. Or he could make an early start and get it over with. He decided to make the early start.

His first patient was a shrunken, dirty, toothless old woman whose visit was for him to lance a nastylooking carbuncle on her chin. While he got his instruments and dressings together, he was forced to listen to her list all the remedies she had tried, including stabbing a sewing needle into it. He doubted she’d thought to sterilise it first and the result had been to worsen it, not cure it. The pus that oozed out of the carbuncle was a vile shade of green and yellow, the stench of it stomach-churning. Having dressed the residual gaping hole and scrubbed his hands with carbolic soap, using the jug and bowl on the marble-topped table, Ty sat back down in his chair and opened his mouth, preparing to tell the old crone the fee for his work, when she pre-empted him by pulling out a battered Peek Frean biscuit tin from her old shopping bag, putting it on his desk before him and saying, ‘Thanks fer sorting me out, Doctor. The pain I was suffering was worse than I’ve ever experienced and, believe me, I’ve suffered more than me fair share of aches and pains in me life, ’specially when I trapped me hand in the mangle and broke four of me fingers.’

She sucked in her cheeks as she pulled a pained expression. ‘That hurt like the blazes, let me tell yer, and at the time I had eight kids to feed and a bleddy wastrel of a husband who was out of work more times than he were in, so no money to spare for the likes of yerself. Had to strap it up meself.’ She held up her hand, showing him her four misshapen fingers. She then pushed the tin towards Ty. ‘Doctor Mac used to love my Welsh cakes.’

He eyed her sharply. ‘Madam, I am not Doctor McHinney and …’

Before he could utter another word, eying him sardonically, she cut in, ‘No, yer not, more’s the pity. He actually made yer feel welcome when yer came in to see him, not like yer was intruding, and he chatted to yer about this and that while he was seeing to you. It’s like being in a morgue, being seen to by you. Still, if that’s how yer are, that’s how yer are. We ain’t a choice around here who we get to be our doctor, just mortally grateful we’ve got one to come to when we need to.’ Getting up from her chair, she scuttled out with the agility of a woman half her age.

Ty stared blankly after her. He didn’t care what she thought of him personally. He had successfully dealt with her ailment, but the old woman needed to consult an optician about her eyesight as she obviously hadn’t seen the very clear notice in the waiting room, informing her that payment in kind was no longer acceptable. He knew where those Welsh cakes were going and it wasn’t into his stomach, not if the dire state of the maker of them was anything to go by.

He picked up his pen in order to write notes on the old lady’s record card. It had taken him precious time to find this. His predecessor might have been revered by his patients for his doctoring skills and his compassion towards them, but keeping records in alphabetical order seemed to have been beyond him. The door opened unexpectedly then and a thickset man dressed in work clothes came in, shutting it behind him, taking a seat on the chair to the side of the desk and looking at Ty expectantly.

Respectfully taking off his flat cap, he announced, ‘Evening, Doctor. I’ve come to see you about me arm.’

Ty eyed him steadily. Had the people in these parts no manners? He’d been taught that it was polite to knock before entering an occupied room, and to wait for a response from the occupant before invading their privacy. He tersely announced, ‘I’m not ready for you yet. I’ll call you through when I am.’

The man pulled a bemused expression. ‘Oh! Well, in Doctor Mac’s day, when one came out of the surgery, the next went in. Anyway I’m here now. I don’t mind waiting while yer finish what yer doing.’

Ty minded. Patients’ records were private and he was not going to risk anyone peering over and possibly seeing what he was writing, then feeling at liberty to relay that person’s medical problems to all and sundry. Fixing the man with his eyes, he reiterated slowly, ‘I’ll call you through when I’m ready to see you.’

The man stared at him, taken aback for a moment, before he slapped his cap back on his head and rose, saying, ‘As you wish, Doctor.’

It took Ty less than thirty seconds to finish writing up the old lady’s notes. He then put the record card on an ever-growing pile on top of the drawers, his intention being to go through all the records as soon as time allowed him and re-file them correctly. He got up from his desk, opened the door and crossed the corridor, taking a deep breath before he opened the door to the waiting room, preparing himself for the smell that would hit him. Those chatting inside immediately fell silent and everybody sat looking at him. He could tell by their faces that they thought him wrong for insisting the patient who had entered the surgery unbidden should return to the waiting room, but Ty didn’t care what they thought. He ran his own surgery his way, and that was the end of it. Keeping their records secure was important to him. He announced in a clear voice, ‘Next.’

The man he had sent back to await his summons rose, taking off his cap. ‘Well, as you know, that’d be me, Doctor.’

Back in the surgery, Ty asked the man’s name, which he gave as William Bates, and got out his records, which again took him precious minutes. He eventually found them tucked in a pile in the drawers labelled G,H or I. Taking a quick look at William Bates’ past history, which was hard to decipher as James McHinney’s handwriting had been very spidery, it appeared that the last time he had sought medical help was fifteen years previously, when he had fractured his leg after being clipped by a runaway cart while crossing a road. Either he’d a hardy constitution and had not been ill again or he’d resorted to home remedies for any ailment since then. Ty knew that many locals did so and this practice infuriated him. Did these people not have the intelligence to realise that resorting to quack cures, instead of trained professional advice, could prevent many initially minor ailments from becoming much worse, possibly life-threatening – and being allowed to become so purely in order to save the doctor’s fee?

‘What can I do for you, Mr Bates?’ he asked.

‘Well, it’s as I told yer before, Doctor. It’s me arm. I nicked meself at work this morning and I’m needing a stitch or two.’

William Bates didn’t look the kind of man to come here if an ailment could be dealt with at home, so Ty suspected that the word ‘nick’ was being used wrongly in this case. Bates eased off his jacket to reveal an arm wrapped tightly from elbow to wrist in a grubby piece of cloth saturated with dried and fresh blood. Without seeing the actual wound, Ty could tell by the amount of blood visible that what lay beneath was definitely no minor injury needing a couple of sutures. What he discovered, though, when the cloth was removed, was far worse than he’d expected. The gaping gash was bone-deep and at least six inches long. Ty just hoped that no infection had gained hold between the time Bates had done it and his arrival here or there was a severe risk the man could end up losing his arm.

While deciding how best to proceed with treatment, Ty asked, ‘How did you do this?’

Bates’ face darkened thunderously and he spat, ‘Through the bloody owner being too tight fisted to get a fault fixed on me machine. Months it’s been broke. All he cares about is his profits, to keep his family living the grand style they live in. Doesn’t care a jot that his workers are risking their lives, or can hardly keep themselves and their families on what he pays. Some workers are lucky as their bosses pay their doctors’ fees for injuries at work. But the bastard I work for sees his employees as easily replaceable.’

Ty’s previous life hadn’t bought him into contact with the likes of lowly factory workers, but a close friend of his father’s had been a factory owner and the man always seemed to be complaining of how lazy and incompetent his workers were, never satisfied with their pay and conditions, not at all grateful that if it weren’t for the likes of himself, providing them with the means to earn a living, then they and their families would all be in the workhouse or on the streets. His father’s friend had been justified in his complaints about his workers, it seemed to Ty, judging by this man’s attitude. Then something he’d said struck home. ‘You did say you did it “this morning”? Why didn’t you go straight to the General to get it seen to or else come to me then?’

Bates looked at Ty as though he were stupid. ‘And lose me pay for not finishing me shift?’

Ty was struck dumb. His injury must be excruciatingly painful yet this man had been prepared to endure the pain and face the consequences of delaying treatment, sooner than lose any pay. Obviously the loss of his beer and gambling money was far more important to him than the prospect of losing a limb!

After thoroughly cleaning the wound with boracic acid, then a thick layer of sulphur ointment as an antiseptic, Ty set to work with his needle and cat gut to close it up. However neat he was in his stitching, William Bates was going to be left with a terrible scar. It took twenty sutures to complete the closure, and despite Ty’s low opinion of the man, he did admire the fact that throughout the procedure he sat stiff backed and unflinching, when Ty knew he must be in agony.

William Bates was preparing to take his leave. Ty made to inform him of his fee when the man pre-empted him by announcing, ‘As soon as me arm lets me, I’ll be around to do whatever jobs yer need attending to around the house.’

Ty eyed him closely. ‘You obviously haven’t seen the notice I put up in the waiting room, Mr Bates, informing all patients that payment in such a way is no longer acceptable.’

He looked bemused. ‘Well, it wa’ good enough for Doctor Mac …’

‘I’m not Doctor McHinney and …’

Narrowing his eyes and giving Ty a look of disdain, William Bates interjected, ‘No, yer definitely not, are yer? Proper doctor he was, not some kid wet behind the ears who looks down his nose at his patients ’cos they obviously ain’t good enough for the likes of him. Don’t worry, Doctor, you’ll get yer fee.’

With not a flicker of emotion crossing his face at the insulting comparison to the late James McHinney, Ty hurriedly jotted down the amount payable on a piece of paper and held it out to Bates, saying matter-of-factly, ‘I’d appreciate payment as soon as you can.’

Both men jumped in surprise then as the door unexpectedly burst open and a young woman dashed into the surgery. She was in her mid-twenties or thereabouts, her light brown hair cut fashionably to chin-length, her shapely figure dressed in a floral, belted work dress that would have looked dowdy on any other woman but, the way she wore it, was very fetching on her. She wasn’t beautiful, but good looking enough to stand out in a crowd, and she had a confident air about her.

It wasn’t her physical attributes that were making Ty take notice of her now, though. This woman could have been the most beautiful in the world and he still wouldn’t have noticed; the emotional damage that had been done to him in the past had seen to that. Instead he was angered by the fact that she had had the audacity to barge rudely into his inner sanctum uninvited while he was actually in consultation with a patient.

He opened his mouth to make his feelings known to her, but she forestalled him by crying out, ‘You’ve got to come quick, Doc, it’s me mam!’

The fact that she was addressing him with what he saw as disrespect didn’t go down well with Ty. He snapped back, ‘It’s Doctor Strathmore. As you can see, I’m busy with a patient. Now, please wait your turn like everyone else is in the waiting room. I’ll attend to you as soon as I can.’

His reprimand about her informal way of addressing him was obviously lost on her. In a frenzied state, she cried, ‘But this can’t wait, Doc. Me mam’s bad … real bad.’

William Bates took this chance to make his departure. Without a word, he skirted around the young woman and hurried out.

She demanded again, ‘You’ve got to come now. Me mam’s collapsed on the kitchen floor and her lips are all blue … I’ve tried all I can think of to get her to come round but nothing worked. She don’t look good, Doc. She don’t look good at all.’

The condition of this young woman’s mother didn’t sound good to Ty either. From what she had informed him, he was already fearing what he’d find. He made to grab his bag then thought he had better take a look at her notes first, to familiarise himself with her past medical history in case it affected the medication he prescribed for her now.

‘Name?’ he demanded.

The woman looked at him dumbstruck. ‘There’s no time for that. Will you just come now?’

She was indeed infuriating. ‘Name?’ he snapped again.

She shot back, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, if you must have it … Aidy.’

While she waited impatiently, he twisted around in his seat and pulled out the drawers labelled A to C, praying that for once James McHinney had filed a patient’s records in the correct location. He hurriedly flicked through all the As, then the Bs and Cs for good measure, but could find no sign of a Mrs Aidy at all. Swivelling back round he said to the young woman, ‘Has your mother ever visited this surgery? Only I can’t find a trace of a patient with the surname Aidy.’

The young woman gawped at him. ‘Eh? Oh, me mam’s not called Aidy – that’s my name. Aidy Nelson. You should have made it clear whose name you wanted. Hers is Jessie … Jessica Greenwood.’

Why on earth had she thought he’d be asking for her name when it was her mother that was in need of him? Ty refrained from telling the young woman how stupid he thought her for wasting precious time in this situation. Swivelling back in his chair to face the drawers again, he yanked open the one marked G to I and, lo and behold, found Jessica Greenwood’s record card filed where he would have expected it to be. From quickly scanning the spidery writings, it appeared that Jessica Greenwood, like his previous patient, was only an infrequent visitor to the surgery. The last time she had sought the help of a doctor had been twelve years ago, in 1918, for glandular fever.

Jumping up from his seat, Ty grabbed his bag, saying to Aidy. ‘I’ll just inform those in the waiting room I have an emergency to attend, then you can take me to your mother.’

She ran him through several miserable terrace streets until she turned down an alleyway to enter the back yard of a dilapidated three-bedroomed house, set in a long row of equally decrepit two- and three-bedroomed abodes.

As he followed her into the kitchen, he couldn’t fail to notice the pungent smell that hit him as soon as he stepped over the threshold. Something had been cooked earlier, but it wasn’t food. What exactly it was he hadn’t time to work out. Like other houses he had been inside since arriving in his new post, it was evident this was a lower-class dwelling. But unlike most of the others he’d visited, this one was spotlessly clean and tidy. He noticed it only fleetingly, though.

As soon as he clapped eyes on Jessica Greenwood, Ty knew she was dead. Regardless, he went through the process of checking thoroughly for any vital signs.

Finally he stood up and addressed Aidy. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this but there is nothing more I can do for your mother.’

She blurted out, ‘What do you mean, there’s nothing you can do for her? You’re a doctor! If you can’t then … Oh, we need to get her to the hospital, is that it? They’ll make her better, won’t they? You’ll be wanting to hurry back off to yer surgery to telephone for an ambulance, won’t you? You will tell them to come quick …’

She made to cross to her mother’s side, fully expecting him to dash off and summon the ambulance, but he stopped her. ‘I’m afraid you misunderstand. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I or anyone else can do for your mother. She’s dead.’

She stared at him, befuddled. Her mam, that vibrant women who had faced and dealt with more than her fair share of terrible traumas, couldn’t just be dead. In an accusing tone she declared, ‘You’ve made a mistake! My mam’s not dead. You haven’t even tried to do anything for her. Some bloody doctor you are!’

Incensed that she should dare question his medical skills, he responded coolly. ‘I’m afraid there’s no mistake. She was already dead when I got here.’

Aidy stared at him for several long moments before, bottom lip trembling, she uttered, ‘But she can’t be ’cos … ’cos … she’s our mam. We can’t do without her.’ Then she beseeched him, ‘Please, please, just try to do something for her? Please, Doc, please?’

The look he returned told her she was wasting her time. Jessica Greenwood was beyond help.

Aidy’s whole body sagged and she stepped back to slump against the wall as she tried to take this in. Then, with a look of horror filling her face, she wailed, ‘How the hell am I going to tell my sisters and brother that our mam is dead? And my gran too … This’ll kill her, I know it will. She worshipped her daughter. How could Mam die just like that, Doc? She wasn’t ill. Got the stamina of an ox, she used to tell us. We could all be down with colds and she’d never catch them off us.’

‘So she hadn’t been complaining of any pains in her chest or feeling more tired than usual recently?’ he asked.

Aidy shook her head. ‘Not to me. The only ailment I knew she suffered from was a bad back which used to give her gyp now and again, though Mam wasn’t a complainer. But anyway, Gran would have noticed if she wasn’t well and told me. She lives here with Mam, me brother and two sisters. Gran’s the sort who’s got eyes in the back of her head. She misses nothing.’

‘Well, if your mother wasn’t suffering from anything you and your grandmother were aware of, then it’s my considered opinion that her heart just gave out. She died from natural causes.’

There was nothing more to be done here. Ty wanted to get back to the surgery or he risked still being there until midnight at this rate, but despite how annoyed he was at what he perceived to be this woman’s disrespectful attitude towards him, he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave her on her own.

‘Your father ought to be informed,’ he told her. ‘Maybe a neighbour could go and fetch him for you, if you know where he’ll be?’ He thought to himself, Most likely in the pub. That’s where the majority of the men around these streets seem to head straight from work.

There was a flash of anger in her eyes and a harshness to her voice when she responded, ‘Knowing me dad, he’ll be in the pub … but which pub is anyone’s guess. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since before our Marion was born and she’s eight.’

Ty wasn’t surprised by this information. There seemed to him to be quite a number of absent husbands locally, some admittedly having been forced to seek work further afield, the depression that had started in America now making its ill effects felt in England and jobs being less easy to find. But just as many men had selfishly abandoned their wives to struggle to raise their children alone, merely because they’d better things to go off to. ‘Then your grandmother needs to be summoned back home then. A neighbour will maybe oblige?’

Aidy was fighting hard to comprehend and accept this terrible turn of events. She was hardly listening to Ty but aware that he had said something and automatically muttered, ‘Yes … yes, Doc.’

‘It’s Doctor Strathmore,’ he reminded her again. ‘Look, I really need to be getting back to the surgery. If you’ll call in the morning, I’ll have the death certificate ready for you.’ And of course there was the matter of his fee, but it would be very remiss of him to mention it or expect her to in these circumstances. He would bring up the subject when she called to collect the death certificate in the morning.

Picking up his bag, he made to depart but was stopped in his tracks by the back door opening and the arrival of a small elderly woman. She was dressed in a well-worn black coat that came down to just above her ankles, a black dress underneath, black woollen stockings, and sturdy black lace-up shoes on her size two feet. A black felt hat was pulled well down over her iron-grey hair which was cut pudding basin-style just below her ears, the sides gripped behind them. The new arrival’s attention was fully fixed on searching through her capacious handbag for something.

‘Bloody hell! That Vi Jones can’t half talk, our Jessie. I’ve never known anyone with so many ailments, and it’s my opinion all are the making of her own imagination. I ain’t one to refuse a penny or two for me concoctions, as you well know, but this is the third time this week I’ve had to make up summat for her! I’ve other folks that need my services besides her, and I can’t help out me other clients if Vi’s hypocondriousity is taking up most of me time. If she sends her daughter around again this week, I want you to tell her I’ve gone off on one of me plantcollection jaunts and yer not sure when I’m due back.’

Having given up her search through her bag, Bertha Rider was now taking off her coat. Spotting Aidy out of the corner of her short-sighted eye, she smiled delightedly and said, ‘I thought I’d missed you tonight, gel. Glad I ain’t. It always does me heart good to catch sight of your pretty face. Is your Arch working late? Is that why you ain’t at your own home, getting his dinner?’

While her grandmother had been chuntering away, Aidy had been staring at her blindly. Despite her own devastation, all Aidy’s thoughts now centred on this old lady. Her sixty-eight-year-old gran had taken her husband’s death from septicaemia several years ago very hard. Her grandparents had worshipped each other. There had been worry at the time that Gran would join him herself from a broken heart, but the love and support of her family had pulled her through. She now looked fondly back over the years spent with the love of her life and didn’t burst into tears whenever he came to mind.

Jessie had been the only child out of the four she had given birth to, to survive past infancy. Mother and daughter had always been very close. Losing a husband was bad enough, but losing a a child must be the worst thing ever. Aidy dreaded to think of how her grandmother was going to react to the death of the daughter she’d doted on. And not just her gran either. Her three younger siblings, who were all obliviously out playing with their friends, would need to be told of their beloved mother’s sudden death. They were all going to be devastated.

Bertha Rider suddenly sensed that she and her granddaughter were not alone. Her beady, short-sighted eyes were directed at Ty as she demanded, ‘And who a’ you?’ She then told him in a warning tone, ‘Not a salesman, I hope, ’cos we don’t want anything you’re trying to flog.’

Ty was not in the least amused by being mistaken for a salesman. He sharply introduced himself. ‘I’m Doctor Strathmore. I’ve taken over the local surgery from Doctor McHinney.’

Squinting, Bertha scanned him closely. ‘Bit young to be a doctor, ain’t yer? Hardly out of short pants. I’ve been hearing about you. Doctor Mac’d be turning in his grave if he knew how you was changing things at the surgery. Anyway, what yer doing here? No one in this house is sick enough to need your help … well, they weren’t when I left an hour or so ago.’ She then caught sight of something on the floor by the doctor’s feet and squinted harder. ‘What’s that on the floor?’ She peered at it. ‘That our Jessie?’ Her aged face was wreathed in bewilderment. ‘What’s she doing down there? Get up, our Jessie, you’ll catch yer death on those cold flags. Jessie, you hear me?’

Aidy stepped over to her grandmother, placed one hand tenderly on her arm and said tremulously, ‘Mam can’t hear you, Gran.’

Very aware of the passing of time and the patients waiting for his return, Ty spoke up. ‘I’m sorry to inform you, Mrs … er … your daughter passed away a short time ago.’

Bertha glared at him. ‘Passed away?’ Then she snapped harshly, ‘Don’t be stupid. She was as right as rain when I left here an hour ago after helping her with the dinner pots. She was going to do a bit of ironing before she settled down with her knitting. She’s in the middle of a new school pullover for George that she’s desperate to get finished as his other one ain’t fit for the rag bag. I can’t finish it off as me stiff knuckles won’t let me, and Aidy can turn her hand to lots of things but knitting in’t one of her talents. So Jessie is the only one that can finish George’s jumper.’ She gave a disdainful click of her tongue. ‘Some doctor you are who doesn’t know a live woman from a dead one.’ She then looked over at the body on the floor and demanded, ‘Come on, Jessie, get up, lovey. I don’t know what yer playing at but it ain’t funny.’

Aidy’s grip on her arm tightened. ‘Mam’s not playing a joke on us, Gran.’

Bertha stared at her granddaughter for several long moments before she whispered, ‘She’s not?’

‘Doc said her heart just stopped.’

Bertha stared back at her, desperate to find any sign that this was all a bad joke. When she couldn’t, she seemed visibly to shrink inside her clothes. With pleading eyes, she uttered, ‘My Jessie really gone?’

A lone tear escaped from the flood that was building behind Aidy’s eyes. She swiped it away and nodded.

Bertha’s aged face sagged with grief. Shrugging her arm free from her granddaughter’s hold, she shuffled over to her daughter’s body and slumped down beside it, tenderly lifting Jessie’s head on to her lap and cradling it. The tears came then. As she rocked backwards and forwards, she softly moaned, ‘Oh, Jessie love, Jessie love. How could you do this to us?’

Aidy’s tears started in earnest then and both women were too consumed by their grief to notice Ty take his leave.