CAROL MARINELLI - The Scandalous Kolovskys - Knight on the Children's Ward

‘His observations are stable,’ Annika said carefully.

‘But how do you think he’s doing?’ the mother pushed, and Annika didn’t know what to say. ‘Is there something that you’re not telling me?’

The mother was getting more and more upset, and so Annika said what she had been told to in situations such as this.

‘I’ll ask the nurse in charge to speak with you.’

It was her first proper telling-off on the children’s Ward.

Well, it wasn’t a telling-off but a pep talk—and rather a long one—because it wasn’t an isolated incident, apparently.

Heather Jameson came down, and she sat as Caroline tried to explain the error of Annika’s ways.

‘Ross is in there now.’ Caroline let out a breath. ‘The mother thought from Annika’s reaction that there was bad news on the way.’

‘She asked me how I thought he was doing,’ Annika said. ‘I hadn’t seen him before. I had nothing to compare it with. So I said I would get the nurse in charge to speak with her.’

She hadn’t done anything wrong—but it was just another example of how she couldn’t get it right.

It was the small talk, the chats, the comfort she was so bad at.

‘Mum’s fine.’ Ross knocked and walked in. ‘She’s exhausted. Her son’s ill. She’s just searching for clues, Annika.’ He looked over to her. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact he is improving—but you couldn’t have known that.’

So it was good news—only for Annika it didn’t feel like it.

‘It’s not a big deal,’ Ross said later, catching her in the milk room, where she was trying to sort out bottles for the late shift.

‘It is to me,’ Annika said, hating her own awkwardness. She should be pleased that her shift was over, and tonight she didn’t have to work at the nursing home, but tonight she was going to her mother’s for dinner.

‘Why don’t we—?’

‘You’re not helping, Ross,’ Annika said. ‘Can you just be a doctor at work, please?’

‘Sure.’

And she wanted to call him back—to say sorry for biting his head off—but it was dinner at her mother’s, and no one could ever understand what a nightmare that was.

‘How’s the children’s ward?’

Iosef and Annie were there too, which would normally have made things easier—but not tonight. They had avoided the subject of Aleksi’s latest scandal. They had spoken a little about the ball, and then they’d begun to eat in silence.

‘It’s okay,’ Annika said, pushing her food around her plate.

‘But not great?’ Iosef checked.

‘No.’

They’d been having the same conversation for months now.

She’d started off in nursing so enthusiastically, raving about her placements, about the different patients, but gradually, just as Iosef had predicted, the gloss had worn off.

As it had in modelling.

And cooking

And in jewellery design.

‘How’s Ross?’ Iosef asked, and luckily he missed her blush because Nina made a snorting sound.

‘Filthy gypsy.’

‘You’ve always been so welcoming to my friends!’ Iosef retorted. ‘He does a lot of good work for your chosen charity.’ There was a muscle pounding in Iosef’s cheek and they still hadn’t got through the main course.

‘Romany!’ Annika said, gesturing to one of the staff to fill up her wine. ‘He prefers the word Romany to gypsy.’

‘And I prefer not to speak of it while I eat my dinner,’ Nina said, then fixed Annika with a stare. ‘No more wine.’

‘It’s my second glass.’

‘And you have the ball soon—you’ll be lucky to get into your dress as it is.’

There was that feeling again. For months now out of nowhere it would bubble up, and she would suddenly feel like crying—but she never, ever did.

What she did do instead, and her hand was shaking as she did it, was take another sip of wine, and for the first time in memory in front of her mother she finished everything on her plate.

‘How are you finding the work?’ Iosef attempted again as Nina glared at her daughter.

‘It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.’

‘I was the same in my training,’ Annie said happily, sitting back a touch as seconds were ladled onto her plate.

Annika wanted seconds too, but she knew better than to push it. The air was so toxic she felt as if she were choking on it, and then she stared at her brother, and for the first time ever she thought she saw a glimmer of sympathy there.

Annie chatted on. ‘I thought about leaving—nursing wasn’t at all what I’d imagined—then I did my Emergency placement and I realised I’d found my niche.’

‘I just don’t know if it’s for me,’ Annika said.

‘Of course it isn’t for you,’ Nina said. ‘You’re a Kolovsky.’

‘Is there anything you want help with?’ Iosef offered, ignoring his mother’s unhelpful comment. ‘Annie or I can go over things with you. We can go through your assignments …’

He was trying, Annika knew that, and because he was her brother she loved him—it was just that they had never got on.

They were chalk and cheese. Iosef, like his twin Aleksi, was as dark as she was blonde. They were both driven, both relentless in their different pursuits, whereas all her life Annika had drifted.

They had teased her, of course, as brothers always did. She’d been the apple of her parents’ eyes, had just had to shed a tear or pout and whatever she wanted was hers. She had adored her parents, and simply hadn’t been able to understand the arguments after Levander, her stepbrother, had arrived.

Till then her life had seemed perfect.

Levander had come from Russia, an angry, displaced teenager. His past was shocking, but her father had done his best to make amends for the son he hadn’t known about all those years. Ivan had brought him into the family and given him everything.

Annika truly hadn’t understood the rows, the hate, the anger that had simmered beneath the surface of her family. She had ached for peace, for the world to go back to how it was before.

But, worse than that, she had started to wonder why the charmed life she led made her so miserable.

She had been sucked so deep into the centre of the perfect world that had been created for her it had been almost impossible to climb out and search for answers. She couldn’t even fathom the questions.

Yet she was trying.

‘You could do much better for the poor orphans if you worked on the foundation’s board,’ Nina said. ‘Have you thought about it?’

‘A bit,’ Annika admitted.

‘You could be an ambassador for the Kolovskys. It is good for the company to show we take our charity work seriously.’

‘And very good for you if it ever gets out that Ivan’s firstborn was a Detsky Dom boy.’ Iosef had had enough; he stood from his seat.

‘Iosef!’ Nina reprimanded him—but Iosef was still, after all these years, furious at what had happened to his brother. He had worked in the orphanages himself and was struggling to forgive the fact that Levander had been raised there.

‘I’m going home.’

‘You haven’t had dessert.’

‘Annie is on an early shift in the morning.’

Annie gathered up the baby, and Annika kissed her little niece and tried to make small talk with Annie as Iosef said goodbye to her mother, who remained seated.

‘Can I hold her?’ Annika asked, and she did. It felt so different from holding one of the babies at work. She stared into grey trusting eyes that were like the baby’s father’s, and smiled at the knot of dark curls that came from her mother. She smelt as sweet as a baby should. Annika buried her face in her niece’s and blew a kiss on her cheek till she giggled.