Knight on the Children's Ward

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘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.

  ‘Annika?’ Iosef gestured her out to the hall. ‘Would some money help?’

  ‘I don’t want your money.’

  ‘You’re having to support yourself,’ Iosef pointed out. ‘Hell, I know what she can be like—I had to put myself through medical school.’

  ‘But you did it.’

  ‘And it was hard,’ Iosef said. ‘And…’ He let out a breath. ‘I was never their favourite.’ He didn’t mean it as an insult; he was speaking the truth. Iosef had always been strong, had always done his own thing. Annika was only now finding out that she could. ‘How are you supporting yourself?’

  ‘I’m doing some shifts in a nursing home.’

  ‘Oh, Annika!’ It was Annie who stepped in. ‘You must be exhausted.’

  ‘It’s not bad. I actually like it.’

  ‘Look…’ Iosef wrote out a cheque, but Annika shook her head. ‘Just concentrate on the nursing. Then—then,’ he reiterated, ‘you can find out if you actually like it.’

  She could…

  ‘Give your studies a proper chance,’ Iosef said.

  She stared at the cheque, which covered a year’s wage in the nursing home. Maybe this way she could concentrate just on nursing. But it hurt to swallow her pride.

  ‘We’ve got to go.’

  And they did. They opened the front door and Annika stood there. She stroked Rebecca’s cheek and it dawned on her that not once had Nina held or even looked at the baby.

  Her own grandchild, her own blood, was leaving, and because she loathed the mother Nina hadn’t even bothered to stand. She could so easily turn her back.

  So what would she be like to a child that wasn’t her own?

  ‘Iosef…’ She followed him out to the car. Annie was putting Rebecca in the baby seat and even though it was warm Annika was shivering. ‘Did they know?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Annika?’

  ‘Levander?’ Annika gulped. ‘Did they know he was in the orphanage?’

  ‘Just leave it.’

  ‘I can’t leave it!’ Annika begged. ‘You’re so full of hate, Levander too…but in everything else you’re reasonable. Levander would have forgiven them for not knowing. You would too.’

  He didn’t answer.

  She wanted to hit him for not answering, for not denying it, for not slapping her and telling her she was wrong.

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Why?’ Iosef asked. ‘So you can have the pleasure of hating them too?’

  ‘Come home with us,’ Annie said, putting her arm around Annika. ‘Come back with us and we can talk…’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Come on, Annika,’ Iosef said. ‘I’ll tell Mum you’re not feeling well.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Annika said. ‘I can’t just leave…’

  ‘Yes, Annika,’ Iosef said, ‘you can—you can walk away this minute if you want to!’

  ‘You still come here!’ Annika pointed out. ‘Mum ignores every word Annie ever says but you still come for dinner, still sit there…’

  ‘For you,’ Iosef said, and that halted her. ‘The way she is with Annie, with my daughter, about my friends…Do you really think I want to be here? Annie and I are here for you.’

  Annika didn’t fully believe it, and she couldn’t walk away either. She didn’t want to hate her mother, didn’t want the memory of her father to change, so instead she ate a diet jelly and fruit dessert with Nina, who started crying when it was time for Annika to go home.

  ‘Always Iosef blames me. I hardly see Aleksi unless I go into the office, and now you have left home.’

  ‘I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘And you would rather have no money and do a job you hate than work in the family business, where you belong,’ Nina said, and Annika closed her eyes in exhaustion. ‘I understand that maybe you want your own home, but at least if you worked for the family…Annika, think about it—think of the good you could do! You are not even liking nursing. The charity ball next week will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars—surely you are better overseeing that, and making it bigger each year, than working in a job you don’t like?’

  ‘You knew about Levander, didn’t you?’ Had Annika thought about it, she’d never have had the courage to ask, but she didn’t think, she just said it—and then she added something else. ‘If you hit me again you’ll never see me again, so I suggest that you talk to me instead.’

  ‘I was pregnant with twins,’ Nina hissed. ‘It was hard enough to flee Russia just us two—we would never have got out with him.’

  ‘So you left him?’

  ‘To save my sons!’ Nina said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How could Pa?’ Still she couldn’t cry, but it was there at the back of her throat. ‘How could he leave him behind?’

  ‘He didn’t know…’ Annika had seen her mother cry, had heard her wail, but she had never seen her crumple. ‘For years I did not tell him. He thought his son was safe with his mother. Only I k
new…’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘We were ready to leave, and that blyat comes to the door with her bastard son…’ Annika winced at her mother’s foul tongue, and yet unlike her brothers she listened, heard that Levander’s mother had turned up one night with a small toddler and pleaded that Nina take him, that she was dying, that her family were too poor to keep the little boy…

  ‘I was pregnant, Annika…’ Nina sobbed. ‘I was big, the doctor said there were two, I wanted my babies to have a chance. We would never have got out with Levander.’

  ‘You could have tried.’

  ‘And if we’d failed?’ Nina pleaded. ‘Then what?’ she demanded. ‘So I sent Levander and his mother away, and for years your father never found out.’

  ‘And when he did Levander came here?’

  ‘No.’ Nina was finally honest. ‘We tried for a few more years to pretend all was perfect.’ She looked over to her daughter. ‘So now you can hate me too.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  BUT Annika didn’t want to hate her mother.

  She just didn’t know how to love her right now.

  She wanted Ross.

  She wanted to hide in his arms and fall asleep.

  She wanted to go over and over it with him.

  The truth was so much worse than the lies, and yet she could sort of understand her mother’s side.

  The family secret had darkened many shades, and her mother had begged her not to tell anyone.

  Oh, Annie knew, and no doubt so did Millie, Levander’s wife, but they were real partners. Ross and Annika…they were brand spanking new!

  How could she land it on him?

  And anyway, he would soon be heading off for Spain!

  For the first time in her life she had a tangible reason to sever ties with her mother. Instead she found herself there more and more, listening to Nina’s stories, understanding a little more what had driven her parents, what had fuelled their need for the castle they had built for their children.

  ‘I haven’t seen you so much,’ Elsie commented.

  ‘I’ve cut down my shifts,’ Annika said, with none of her old sparkle. ‘I need to concentrate on my studies.’

  Cashing the cheque had hurt, but then so too did everything right now. When push had come to shove, she’d realised that she actually liked her shifts at the nursing home, so instead of cutting ties completely, she’d drastically reduced her hours.

  Ross was around, and though they smiled and said hello she kept him at a distance.

  She had spent the past week in cots, which didn’t help matters.

  The babies were so tiny and precious, and sometimes so ill it terrified Annika.

  She was constantly checking that she had put the cot-sides up, and double-and triple-checking medicine doses.

  She longed to be like the other nurses, who bounced a babe on their knee and fed with one hand while juggling the phone with the other.

  She just couldn’t.

  ‘How’s that man of yours?’ Elsie asked, because Annika was unusually quiet.

  ‘He goes to Spain soon—when he gets back we will maybe see each other some more.’

  ‘Why wait?’

  ‘You know he’s a doctor—a senior doctor on my ward?’

  ‘Oh.’ Elsie pondered. ‘I’m sure others have managed—you can be discreet.’

  ‘There’s stuff going on.’ Annika combed through her hair. ‘With my family. I think it’s a bit soon to land it all on him.’

  ‘If he’s the right one for you, he’ll be able to take it,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Ah, but if he’s not…’ Annika could almost see the news headlines. ‘How do you know if you can trust someone?’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Elsie said. ‘You never know. You just hope.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ROSS always liked to get to work early.

  He liked a quick chat with the night staff, if possible, to hear from them how things were going on the ward, rather than hear the second-hand version a few hours later from the day nurses.

  It was a routine that worked for him well.

  A niggle from a night nurse could become a full-blown incident by ten a.m. For Ross it was easier to buy a coffee and the paper, have a quick check with the night staff and then have ten minutes to himself before the day began in earnest. This morning there was no such luxury. He’d been at work all night, and at six-thirty had just made his way from ICU when he stopped by the nurses’ station.

  ‘Luke’s refused to have his blood sugar taken,’ Amy, the night nurse, explained. ‘I was just talking him round to it and his mum arrived.’

  ‘Great!’ Ross rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me she took it herself?’

  ‘Yep.’

  It had been said so many times, but sometimes working on a children’s ward would be so much easier without the parents!

  ‘Okay—I’ll have another word. What else?’

  There wasn’t much—it was busy but under control—and so Ross escaped to his office, took a sip of the best coffee in Australia and opened the paper. He stared and he read and he stared, and if his morning wasn’t going too well, then someone else’s wasn’t, either.

  His pager went off, and he saw that it was a call from Iosef Kolovsky. He took it.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Sorry to call you for private business.’ Iosef was, as always, straight to the point. ‘Have you seen the paper?’

  ‘Just.’

  ‘Okay—now, I think Annika is on your ward at the moment…’ Iosef had never asked for a favour in his life. ‘Could you just keep an eye out for her—and if the staff are talking tell them that what has been written is nonsense? You have my permission to say you know me well and that this is all rubbish.’

  ‘Will do,’ Ross said, and, because he knew he would get no more from Iosef, ‘How’s Annie?’

  ‘Swearing at the newspaper.’

  ‘I bet. I’ll do what I can.’

  He rang off and read it again. It was a scathing piece—mainly about Iosef’s twin Aleksi.

  On his father’s death two years ago he had taken over as chief of the House of Kolovsky, and now, the reporter surmised, Ivan Kolovsky the founder must be turning in his grave.

  There had been numerous staff cuts, but Aleksi, it was said, was frittering away the family fortune in casinos, on long exotic trips, and on indiscretions with women. A bitter ex, who was allegedly nine weeks pregnant by him, was savage in her observations. Not only had staff been cut, but his own sister, a talented jewellery designer, had been cut off from the family trust and was now living in a small one-bedroom flat, studying nursing. Along with a few pictures of Aleksi looking rather the worse for wear were two of Annika—one of her in a glamorous ballgown, looking sleek and groomed, and the other… Well, it must have been a bad day, because she was in her uniform and looking completely exhausted, teary even, as she stepped out into the ambulance bay.

  There was even a quote from an anonymous source that stated how miserable she was in her job, how she hated every moment, and how she thought she was better than that.

  How, Ross had fathomed, was she supposed to walk into work after that?

  She did, though.

  He was sitting in the staffroom when she entered, just as the morning TV news show chatted about the piece. An orthopaedic surgeon was reading the paper, and a couple of colleagues were discussing it as she walked in. Ross felt his heart squeeze in mortification for her.

  But she didn’t look particularly tense, and she didn’t look flushed or teary—for a moment he was worried that she didn’t even know what was being said.

  Until she sat down, eating her raisin toast from the canteen, and a colleague jumped up to turn the television over.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve already seen it.’

  The only person, Ross surmised as the gathering staff sat there, who didn’t seem uncomfortable was Annika.

  Ross called her back as the day staff left for handover.
‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘If you want to talk…?’

  ‘Then I’ll speak with my family.’

  Ross’s lips tightened. She didn’t make things easy, but he didn’t have the luxury of thinking up a smart retort as his pager had summoned him to a meeting.

  ‘I’m here if you need me, okay?’

  The thing with children, Annika was fast realising, was that they weren’t dissimilar from the residents in the nursing home. There, the residents’ tact buttons had long since been switched off—on the children’s ward they hadn’t yet been switched on.

  ‘My mum said you were in the paper this morning!’ A bright little five-year-old sang out as Annika did her obs.

  ‘What’s “allegedly” mean?’ asked another.

  ‘Why don’t you change your name?’ asked Luke as she took down his dressing just before she was due to finish. Ross wanted to check his leg ulcer before it was re-dressed, and Annika was pleased to see the improvement. ‘Then no one would know who you are.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it,’ Annika admitted. ‘But the papers would make a story out of that too. Anyway, whether I like the attention or not, it is who I am.’

  His dressing down, she covered his leg with a sterile sheet and then checked off on his paperwork before the end of her shift.

  ‘What’s your blood sugar?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  It had been a long day for Annika, and maybe her own tact button was on mute for now, but she was tired of reasoning with him, tired of the hourly battles when it was really simple. ‘You know what, Luke? You can argue and you can kick and scream and make it as hard as you like, but why not just surprise everyone and do it for yourself? You say you want your mum to leave you alone, to stop babying you—maybe it’s time to stop acting like one.’

  It was perhaps unfortunate that Ross came in at that moment.

  ‘His dressing’s all down,’ Annika gulped.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll just have a look, and then you can redress.’

  ‘Actually, my shift just ended. I’ll pass it on to one of the late staff.’