Hearts of Gold by Catrin Collier Page B

Matron based her decisions on sister’s reports. She really should have made more of an effort to get on with Squeers.
    Reaching out she fingered a thin wedge of foul-smelling yellow soap in the dish at the side of the bath. It fell to pieces in her hand, melted and watery.
    ‘Powell!’
    She jumped as though she’d been scalded. ‘Yes, Sister.’
    ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
    ‘Testing the bath water, Sister,’ Bethan lied promptly, standing stiffly to attention. Three months’ training on Sister Church’s ward had given her an aptitude to tell untruths she wouldn’t have believed herself capable of acquiring a year ago.
    ‘I see,’ Sister echoed baldly. ‘Well, while you’re “testing the water,” the patient is waiting at the door of the ward. Bring her here and supervise her bath. I’ll turn off the tap,’ she said coldly, as though she couldn’t even trust Bethan to complete that simple task.
    The wards in the maternity section led into one another, and Bethan walked quickly out of the side corridor into the room that housed the mothers. Pushing open the double doors at the end she went into the nursery. She loved this ward, with its aroma of talcum powder and fragile new life, and normally took time to linger among the rows of placid pink babies tucked up in their cots. Even now, rushed as she was, her steps slowed as she glanced into the cot of baby Davies, a sweet little girl with a mop of dark curly hair who’d rapidly become the staff favourite, although none of them would have willingly admitted such favouritism.
    ‘Nurse! Nurse!’ The cry was accompanied by a furious knocking on the far door that led into the main corridor. She broke into a run.
    ‘She’s in a lot of pain, Nurse.’
    ‘All right, Jimmy.’ Bethan smiled reassuringly at the tall, thin gangly porter who’d been sent from Church Village Homes to the Graig hospital on his sixteenth birthday, and worked his way up from the status of inmate to porter, a position he’d held for over thirty years.
    ‘Breathe deeply.’ Bethan looked from the pale, strained face of the young girl to Jimmy.
    ‘Maisie, Maisie Crockett, Nurse,’ Jimmy supplied anxiously.
    ‘Maisie?’ Bethan looked for a resemblance between the young girl who stood, hunched and trembling before her, to her old school friend from Danygraig Street.
    ‘You remember me then?’ Maisie clutched her abdomen as another pain gripped her.
    ‘Of course I remember you.’
    ‘I’ve seen you around the hospital. I didn’t think you wanted to know me,’ Maisie gasped.
    ‘Now, why should you think that?’ Bethan wrapped her arm around Maisie’s thin shoulders.
    ‘You know ... this.’ Head down, humiliated by her condition and weakened by pain, Maisie cried. Harsh, rasping sobs that tore violently through her throat.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Jimmy was almost in tears himself. ‘Nurse will see you all right.’
    The girl clung to his arm, reluctant to release her hold.
    ‘Sorry, Maisie, but Jimmy can’t come in here.’ Bethan looked meaningfully at the porter and he prised Maisie’s fingers away.
    ‘Sister on the Homes side said to tell you she went into labour four hours ago. Shouldn’t be long now,’ Jimmy whispered.
    Bethan nodded. ‘You’re going to have to be quiet now, Maisie. We have to walk through the nursery.’ She turned and pushed backwards through the double doors. Maisie stifled her sobs as Bethan led her, head-bowed, through the nursery and mothers’ ward into the side ward. Sister Church was waiting impatiently in the bathroom.
    Wearing her most intimidating expression she looked Maisie up and down before turning to Bethan. "Bathed, shaved and in the delivery room in ten minutes, Powell,’ she barked.
    ‘Yes, Sister.’
    Used to life in the Homes’ section, Maisie began to undress without being told. Sister Church left. Bethan followed her as far as the linen cupboard. Unlocking the door from a bunch of keys that hung at her