Secrets to Keep (20 page)

Ty’s thoughts drifted back to his previous surgery. A far cry from this one! Leaving aside the affluent area and clientele, consultations there had been by appointment only, either at the surgery or at home. Ty had been allowed plenty of time to spend with
each patient, listening in depth to their symptoms and thoroughly examining them before prescribing their treatment. All the cleaning of wounds and changing of dressings had been dealt with by a qualified nurse; an efficient clerk and receptionist had dealt with the administrative tasks. A locum doctor had dealt with all the after-hours call outs and Sunday emergencies, unless the patient in question happened to be the sort to insist on being seen only by the senior doctor.

Ty had had time then to spend as he wished, without interruption. His sleep had been unbroken and he awoke each morning feeling refreshed.

He’d not had one night of unbroken sleep since he arrived here, but prised his eyes open each morning before dragging himself from his bed, dreading what the day held for him.

Ty was very aware that if he didn’t do something about easing his burden, very soon his own health would suffer. He was concerned that several times recently he had nearly misdiagnosed a serious illness because his permanent state of fatigue was affecting his concentration.

He had sworn an oath to do his best to cure people, not kill them.

There was one ray of hope that kept him going, which was that eventually he would escape this life of purgatory he had unwittingly cast himself into.
No matter how unpopular he knew it had made him, at his insistence the majority of his patients now settled his fee in cash, apart from those stalwarts who insisted on carrying on in the same way as they had in James McHinney’s day. But the surgery’s finances were at least much healthier than they had been when Ty had first taken over. He was now able to settle his own bills without fretting and, most important of all, he had a little left over each week to put away in a savings account towards his future.

Trouble was, the help he so desperately needed would cost him a wage, which meant his savings were going to suffer and he was stuck here even longer. But if he continued as he was, he risked not living to see his day of escape.

Affording to pay a locum or nurse was out of the question, but he could afford to pay a receptionist to take all the clerical work off his hands, and still have a little left each week to add to his savings. Better they should grow slowly than not at all. Ty felt there must be plenty of women needing a job during these desperate times and expected he would be able to have his pick. A thought struck him then. Would he be lucky enough to find a woman who wanted a receptionist’s job but could also tackle some of the lighter cleaning and dressing of wounds? He sincerely hoped so.

He hurriedly glanced at his pocket watch. He
hadn’t time to address this now, really should be setting off on his afternoon round, but then the way time was for him, when would he have a better opportunity? He immediately started drafting a notice of his requirements to put on the surgery door.

Aidy spotted the notice as she approached the surgery a short while after Ty had put it up.

She stared at it, her mind whirling. She liked the idea of being a doctor’s receptionist. It sounded so posh! Trouble was, though, she’d no experience of office work whatsoever. Oh, but wait a minute, wasn’t filling in her time sheets and logging off her completed work classed as office work? Well, by a short stretch of the imagination it could be. She’d never had cause to use a telephone, but how difficult was it to pick up a receiver and speak into it? And anyway, she doubted she’d have much cause to use one since it was unlikely any of the doctor’s patients had a telephone and it cost precious money to make a call from the public box. She was reliable and trustworthy, and apart from the incident that had cost her her job, she was punctual. She might not have the best of clothes but she was at least clean and tidy. The starting time of eight-fifteen would certainly suit her better than the factory hour of seven-thirty, and that break in the afternoon from two until four-forty-five meant she could do the shopping at a more leisurely pace
than the race she’d had during her one-hour dinner break from her sewing machine. On a Saturday morning the factory hours had been seven-thirty until one, whereas the doctor only needed his receptionist to work from eight-fifteen until twelve-thirty.

This job was appealing more and more to Aidy.

Then her excitement plummeted as a problem presented itself. She didn’t actually like the man she’d hopefully be working for. Could she work for someone so cold and aloof? She didn’t ponder too long on that problem, though. If it meant her securing a job, and especially a job that offered her all that this did, then, yes, she could put up with the man who was offering it.

Her excitement rose to fever pitch. This job certainly seemed to have her name on it. Then her high spirits sank as she read the last line of the notice.
Someone with nursing experience would be preferred
. She hadn’t got any nursing experience. It didn’t look like this job had her name on it after all. Then her spirits rose yet again. She certainly
did
have nursing experience. Over the years she had bathed and dressed numerous wounds suffered by her brother and sisters and Arch when they’d accidentally cut, bumped or burned themselves. None of the wounds had turned septic. And wasn’t what she was doing now in respect of her grandmother nursing? It certainly felt like it to Aidy’s mind.

This job
did
have her name on it. She was determined to land it.

Interviews for the position were to take place on the following Monday evening after surgery finished at seven o’clock. She’d be there prompt. She just had to hope not too many applied for it who were better qualified than herself. She was about to walk away when an idea came to her of how she could lower the odds against that happening. Flashing a hurried glance around to ascertain no one would witness what she was about to do, she snatched the notice off the door and thrust it into her pocket.

She was so excited at the prospect of getting a job she completely forgot why she had called at the doctor’s surgery in the first place.

Aidy wasn’t complacent enough to believe that just because she was hell-bent on getting the job as the doctor’s receptionist she actually would. She knew she’d be well advised to keep on with her search meantime.

Which again turned out to be a futile. No factories, shops, yards or even scrap merchants seemed to have any vacancies for suitable jobs. It seemed at the moment the job the doctor was advertising was her only hope.

Having reluctantly called it a day, she was back at home in the scullery, peeling potatoes to make a cheese and potato pie for their dinner – although
considering the small noggin of hard cheese that was left, it was more of a potato pie – when Marion burst through the door. She immediately threw herself at her sister, clasping her arms around Aidy’s waist and burying her head in her midriff, wailing, ‘I ’ate that Elsie Broadbent, our Sis! She’s ’orrible. I ain’t ever gonna be her friend again.’

Hurriedly wiping her wet hands on a towel, Aidy unhooked Marion from her person, knelt down and wiped her eyes using the bottom of her apron, saying, ‘You two were as thick as thieves yesterday. You begged me to let Elsie stay for dinner as you didn’t want to be parted from her during that time, only I had to say no ’cos I hadn’t enough chips and bread and marge to stretch. What’s happened between you two for you to hate her so much now?’

Marion blubbered, ‘She … she told Miss Hubbard I’d wet meself! And in front of the whole class and all, so now everyone knows and they’re calling me Pissy Pants.’

Aidy’s heart went out to her. Running a hand tenderly down the side of the child’s face, she said, ‘Well, you can’t help it if you have an accident. But what you could do to try and stop having them in future is keep going to the lav regularly, even if you don’t feel the need to go. Will you do that, eh?’

Sniffling, Marion nodded.

‘Good girl. Now, about Elsie … you don’t think
she was trying to help you, do you?’

Marion’s little face screwed up in bewilderment. ‘Help me? I don’t see how.’

‘Maybe she didn’t like the fact you were sitting there in wet clothes, and hoped that by her telling Miss Hubbard, you’d be given clean ones to borrow until your own dried. Maybe she didn’t think about the rest of the class finding out when she told Miss Hubbard.’

Marion had to think about that for a moment. Finally she said, ‘I suppose she could have.’

‘Well, why don’t you ask her before you decide you’re never going to be friends with her again? If she did do it on purpose then you’ve every right not to talk to her, if that’s what you decide, but I think she was after helping you myself.’ Aidy stood up. ‘You’d best get changed, and bring me those clothes you’ve on down so I can wash them and get them dried ready for tomorrow. But before you go and square things with Elsie, I want you to find George for me and tell him to get himself home. I want a word with him. Then find Betty and tell her the same.’

Marion was looking at her worriedly. She blustered, ‘Oh, I dunno where either of them are, Aidy.’

‘Don’t lie, you do. You’ve been covering their chores while George is helping his best mate fix up his bike and Betty babysits her best friend’s brother and sister.’

Marion was looking mortally uncomfortable. She blurted, ‘Er … oh, yeah, so I have. I forgot. But I … er … don’t know where their best friends live, honest I don’t.’

‘Well, one of their other friends is bound to, so go and ask around until you find out.’

‘Can’t yer wait to have a word with ’em until they come home?’

Aidy began to feel irritated with Marion now. Sharply she said to her, ‘I want a word with them both
now
. The quicker you find them for me, the quicker you can sort out things with Elsie. Go and get changed then be off to do what I’ve asked you, or you’ll end up in bed with a red bum and hungry ’cos yer’ve had no dinner.’

Marion spun on her heel and shot off.

Aidy sighed as she returned to her task. What did it take to get her siblings to obey her?

George finally appeared at a quarter to six. By this time Aidy had decided he had ignored Marion’s summons for him to come home and her temper was at boiling point. She was in the process of setting the table. Slamming down the cutlery, hands on hips, she flew at him. ‘I’ll teach you to blatantly ignore my instructions to come straight home, George Greenwood. You’ll stay home for a week. And then you’ll stay for another week on top, for not doing as I asked which was coming home straight from
school to see if Gran needed anything or if I’d left any instructions for jobs I needed you to do. And then you’ll stay home for
another
week for bribing your little sister to do your chores for you while you were off enjoying yourself with your mate. That’s three weeks altogether.’ She noticed Betty hovering behind her brother and snapped at her, ‘And the same goes for you, young lady.’

From her makeshift bed on the sofa, Bertha opened her mouth, preparing to speak up for the children, to request Aidy be a little more lenient with them as, after all, they had not long since lost their mother. But then, Aidy was their mother now, to all intents and purposes, and it wouldn’t be right for Bertha to interfere with the way she decided to discipline them.

Both children’s faces had paled and they were looking extremely worried.

George blurted out, ‘Oh, please, don’t keep me in, our Aidy, ’cos if you do I’ll lose …’ He suddenly stopped speaking, it being very obvious he’d been about to divulge something he’d sooner Aidy not know.

She eyed him suspiciously. ‘You’ll lose what?’ she demanded.

He shuffled uncomfortably on his feet, averting his eyes from hers. ‘Er … me friends.’

‘Yeah, and me too, so please don’t punish me either,’ pleaded Betty.

Aidy eyed them both suspiciously. Her instincts told her they were both up to something … especially George. He had a guilty look about him. Had the Board man not made a mistake after all? If he hadn’t been to school for the last week then where had he been? She looked at him closely. At the end of the day George always looked like he’d been playing in a muck heap, but his appearance did look even more dishevelled than normal. And he did seem fit to drop. Whatever he was up to it was wearing him out.

Matter-of-factly she announced, ‘Gran had a visit from the Board man today, wanting to know why you haven’t been at school. ’Cause you’ve been at school, haven’t you, George? Where else would you be, eh?’

His face was ashen now. ‘The Board man’s bin round?’ he uttered, horrified. Then he said defiantly, ‘Well, he’s got me mixed up with another kid ’cos I have been at school, ain’t I, Betty?’

She gulped, eyes darting everywhere but in her sister’s direction, and uttered, ‘Yes, he has, our Aidy. Honest he has.’

‘And I know when lies are being told! You’re both lying.’ She wagged a finger at George. ‘Shame on you, getting your sister to lie for you. Did you think I wouldn’t find out you’d been truanting from school? Did you think your teacher wouldn’t ask me where you were when I never sent a note in, saying
why you were absent? So what
have
you been up to when you should have been in school? Larking around with your delinquent mates? Plaguing shopkeepers? Robbing old ladies? What, George?’ she bellowed furiously. ‘Now I’ll give you one chance to tell me what you’ve been up to or else you’re in bigger trouble than you already are, if that’s even possible.’