Annie Groves - A Christmas Promise

Sally wondered when, exactly, she had become such an object of maturity and even apprehension. She wouldn’t go so far as to terrify the life out of the probationer nurses, like Matron – or demand respect, like the doctors – and she was firm but fair. The young nurses did give her respect and, in turn, she gave it back where it was due.

Her thoughts drifted now to her own training days when she and Morag whispered and gossiped in the sluice room and shared their secret desires of the latest handsome doctor because there was always at least one whom all the nurses fell for; like these eighteen-year-olds trainees were drooling over a doctor now, and wondering who between the two of them would be the first to snare the potential high-flying consultant and live happy ever after.

‘I’ve heard Dr Parsley is going to be the best heart surgeon in England,’ one of the young nurses gasped, her hands covering the place where her heart was probably beating fifteen to the dozen, thought Sally.

‘One of the junior nurses has seen him – he’s as handsome as debonair David Niven, they say. I can’t wait to meet him.’

Oh, she did miss Morag, Sally suddenly thought. She missed being carefree and young, linking arms and swapping stories they could never tell anybody else, of sharing hopes and dreams without fear of being teased for being immature – because even now she still had fleeting moments of doubt in her abilities, and Morag would have been the perfect person with whom she could share those moments. Sally knew now that she would never have a friend like Morag ever again. She missed their heart-to-heart chats but most of all she missed having Morag as the best and kindest friend she had ever known … It would have been nice to share her thoughts, maybe to go out dancing instead of being old before her time. Sally almost laughed out loud; since when did she have time to go dancing these days? All she seemed to do was work, sleep and, more rarely, enjoy the company of her young half-sister, Alice – Morag’s daughter.

If she was being honest now, Sally thought, she was beginning to understand how her father and Morag were drawn to each other. Morag had been so wonderful – the best of good friends, taking over the most intimate nursing of her mother as though she had been her own, when Sally needed to leave her mother’s bedside to give way to her tears.

Morag, with her gentle nature, wonderful sense of humour and, most of all, her compassion; so like her own mother – if Sally were truthful, even if only to herself, there was a part of her that was glad Morag took care of her mother when she was unable to do so, for, there was nobody else she would have trusted to do it.

It was so easy now to see how her father would have been instantly beguiled by her friend, and Sally realised now that she wasn’t betraying her mother’s memory by thinking this way. Her father had found comfort in Morag’s company and that comfort had eventually led to love – for both of them. With hindsight, Sally could see it now. Life was too short and too precious to live with regret.

Her father was not the kind of man who could have his head turned by any young flibbertigibbet who came his way – he truly loved her mother, of that Sally had no doubt – but neither was he the kind of man who was strong enough to live alone or wallow in grief. He celebrated her mother’s life in everything he did. Morag had been his strength when Sally had been so defeated by grief and absolutely useless, emotionally and substantially, to her father. So who better to fill her mother’s shoes and – yes – her bed? Sally knew that, at the time, she would have thought nobody was good enough to take her mother’s place – absolutely nobody.

Yet, thinking of it now, she knew that Morag would never have had any intentions of becoming a substitute for her own mother. The thought of it still brought on a small shudder of distress, but now she had to put the feeling to one side, because she had to move on, for Alice’s sake as well as for her own wellbeing. Harbouring such toxic thoughts as she had done in the past was not healthy. It had been wrong to foster bitterness and a single-minded refusal to see anybody’s point of view, except her own.

‘Ah, Sister, there you are.’

Sally turned suddenly to see a young, floppy-haired doctor approaching, wearing what looked like a brand-new stethoscope and a wide grin, his white coat-tails flying as he walked.

Sally’s freshly starched apron rustled as she turned to see the object of the young nurses’ affection. One of the trainees gaped in the doctor’s direction and said quickly, her face taking on a pink tinge as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t, ‘I’m sorry, Sister, I didn’t see you standing there. Did you want us for something?’

‘No, Nurse,’ Sally said in her usual calm manner. ‘You carry on.’

‘Carry on, Nurse, you are doing a sterling job,’ Dr Parsley said enthusiastically, undermining Sally’s authority, for which she gave him a withering look. This was the young doctor who, according to the probationers, was a bit of a lady’s man and, according to Matron, was a pain in the rear.

‘How lovely to meet you, Sister,’ Dr Parsley said, holding his hand in front of him, which Sally pointedly ignored. ‘And may I say how beautiful you look in that disapproving grimace.’

‘Indeed.’ Sally’s nonplussed demeanour was fully witnessed by the probationers, whom, she suspected, Dr Alex Parsley was trying to impress. ‘This way,’ Sally said, walking into the sluice room. ‘Nurse, show Dr Parsley where he can put his preposterous observations.’ Sally knew that once they took their Hippocratic oath these newly qualified doctors left their common sense at the door.

‘Oh, Sister, would you be a pet and see if there are any rooms to let hereabouts?’

‘Did your last slave die of exhaustion, Dr Parsley?’ Sally asked with an air of disdain as she left the young doctor in the care of the salivating nurses. She had no intention whatsoever of finding the young upstart a room.

Sally knew what she had to do. She had left making the journey far too long, and the time had come to visit her home city. Her mind was made up. The only problem was she wanted to go right now, but she wouldn’t be able to have leave until well after Christmas, maybe even after spring.

‘Ah, Sister, so glad to have caught up with you,’ said one of the older and much more experienced doctors. ‘There is a gentleman in bed five who has been asking for you in his sleep – his name is—’

‘I know who it is, thank you, Doctor.’ Sally could feel the hot colour rise to her throat and cheeks; Callum was calling her name in his sleep.

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