Knight on the Children's Ward

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘I’m also here for the chance to talk to you.’

  ‘There’s really not much to say.’

  ‘You’d let it all go for a stupid misunderstanding? Let everything go over one single row?’

  ‘Yes,’ Annika said—because her family’s shame was more than she could reveal, because it was easier to go back to the fold alone than to even try to blend him in.

  ‘Hello!’ Nina was all smiles. Seeing her daughter speaking to a stranger, she wormed her way in for a rapid introduction, lest it be someone famous she hadn’t met, or a contact she hadn’t pursued.

  ‘This is my mother, Nina.’ Annika’s lips were so rigid she could hardly get the words out. ‘Mother, this is Ross Wyatt—Dr Ross Wyatt.’

  ‘I work at the hospital with Annika; I’m also a friend of Iosef’s.’ Ross smiled.

  Only in her family was friendship frowned upon; only for the Kolovskys was a doctor, a working doctor, considered common.

  Oh, Nina didn’t say as much, and Ross probably only noticed her smile and heard her twenty seconds of idle chatter, but Annika could see the veins in her mother’s neck, see the unbreakable glass that was her mother’s eyes frost as she came face to face with the ‘filthy gypsy’ Iosef had spoken so often about.

  She glanced over to Annika.

  ‘You need to work the room, darling.’

  So she did—as she had done many times. She made polite conversation, laughing at the right moment and serious when required. But she could feel Ross’s eyes on her, could sometimes see him chatting with Iosef, and a job that had always been hard was even harder tonight.

  She was the centre of attention, the jewel in the Kolovsky crown, and she had to sparkle on demand.

  Just as she had been paraded for the grown-ups on her birthdays as a child, or later at dinner parties, so she was paraded tonight.

  Iosef, Aleksi, and later Levander had all teased her, mocked her, because in her parents’ eyes Annika had been able to do no wrong. Annika had been the favourite, Annika the one who behaved, who toed the line. Yes, she had, but they just didn’t understand how hard that had been.

  And how much harder it would be to suddenly stop.

  She stood at the edge of the crowd, heard the laughter and the tinkle of glass, felt the buoyant mood, and how she wanted to head over to Ross, to Iosef and Annie, to relax. She almost did.

  ‘Aleksi isn’t here…’ Her mother’s face was livid behind her bright smile, her words spat behind rigid teeth. ‘You need to speak to the Minister, and then you need to—’

  ‘I’m just going to have a drink with my friends, with Iosef…’

  ‘Have you any idea what people are paying to be here tonight?’ Nina said. ‘Any idea of the good we can do? And you want to stop and have a drink?’

  ‘Annie and Iosef are.’

  ‘You know what I think of them. You are better than that, Annika. Your father wanted more for you. Iosef thinks his four weeks away a year helping the orphans excludes him from other duties. Tonight you can make a real difference.’

  So she did.

  She spoke to the Minister. She laughed as his revolting son flirted with her. She spoke fluent French with some other guests, forgetting that she was a student nurse and that she wiped bums in a nursing home. She shone and made up for the absent Aleksi and she impressed everyone—except the ones that mattered to her the most.

  ‘It’s going well!’ Annika said, slipping into her seat at their table, putting her hand over her glass when the waiter came with wine. ‘Just water, thanks.’

  ‘Ross was just saying,’ Iosef started, ‘that you’re…’ His voice trailed off as his mother appeared and spoke in Annika’s ear.

  ‘I have to go and sit with them…’ Annika said.

  ‘No, Annika, you don’t,’ Iosef said.

  ‘I want to.’ She gave Ross a smile, but he didn’t return it.

  ‘It’s hard for her,’ Annie said, once Annika had gone, but Iosef didn’t buy it. He had done everything he could to keep Annika in nursing, and his mother had told him earlier today that Annika was quitting.

  ‘No, she loves this,’ he said. ‘She always has.’ He looked over to his wife. ‘Has she told you that she’s handing in her notice at the end of her rotation?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘I told you she wouldn’t stick at it.’ He glanced at Ross. ‘Model, pastry chef, jewellery designer, student nurse…’ He looked to where his sister was laughing at something the Minister’s son had said. ‘I think she’s found her vocation.’

  Aleksi did arrive. Dinner had already been cleared away, and the speeches were well underway, but because it was Aleksi, everyone pretended not to notice his condition.

  A stunning raven-haired beauty hung on his arm and he was clearly a little the worse for wear—and so was she. Their chatter carried through the room, once at the most inappropriate of times, when Zakahr Belenki was speaking of his time in the Detsky Dom.

  Abandoned at birth, he had been raised there, but at twelve years of age he had chosen the comparative luxury of the streets. The details were shocking, and unfortunately, as he paused for effect, Aleksi’s date, clearly not listening to the speaker, called to the waiter for more wine.

  And Ross watched.

  Watched as the speaker stared in distaste at Aleksi.

  Watched as a rather bored Annika played with her napkin and fiddled with the flower display, or occasionally spoke with her brother’s revolting date.

  He saw Aleksi Kolovsky yawn as Zakahr spoke of the outreach programme that had saved him.

  Clothed him.

  Fed him.

  Supported him.

  Spoke of how he had climbed from the gutters of the streets to become one of Europe’s most successful businessmen.

  He asked that tonight people supported this worthy cause.

  And then Ross watched as for the rest of the night Annika ignored him.

  He’d clearly misread her. Here she was, being how he had always wanted her to be—smiling, talking, dancing, laughing—she just chose not to do it with him.

  ‘Why don’t I give you a lift home?’

  ‘There’s an after-party event.’

  ‘How about we stay for an hour and then…?’

  ‘It’s exclusive,’ Annika said.

  And he got the point.

  Tonight he had seen her enjoying herself in a way that she never had with him.

  For once instinct had failed him.

  He had been sure there was more, and was struggling to accept that there wasn’t.

  ‘It was a good speech from Zakahr…’ Ross said, carefully watching her reaction.

  ‘It was a little over the top,’ Annika said, ‘but it did the job.’

  ‘Is that what this is to you?’

  ‘Ross.’ Annika’s cheeks were burning. ‘You and Iosef are so scathing, but you don’t mind spending the funds.’

  ‘Okay.’ She had a point, but there was so much more in the middle.

  Iosef and Annie were leaving, and they came over and said their goodnights.

  ‘You’ve got work tomorrow,’ Iosef pointed out, when Annika declined a lift from them and said where she was heading.

  And then it was just the two of them again, and, though he had no real right to voice an opinion, though she had promised him nothing, he felt as if he had been robbed.

  ‘Are you giving up nursing?’

  ‘Probably,’ Annika answered, but she couldn’t look at him. Why wouldn’t he just leave her? Why, every time she saw him, did she want to fall into his arms and weep? ‘Ross, I need to be here for my mother, and there’s a good work opportunity for me. Let’s face it—I’m hardly nurse of the year. But I haven’t properly made up my mind yet. I’m going to finish my paediatric rotation—’

  ‘Come back with me,’ Ross interrupted.

  How badly she wanted to—to go back to the farm, where she could breathe, where she could think. Except Ross would be gone on Tuesday, and all
this would still be here.

  Her mother was summoning her over and Annika took her cue. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘I’ll see you at work on Monday,’ Ross said, and suddenly he was angry. ‘If you can tear yourself away from the Minister’s son!’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ROSS’S words rang in her ears as she raced home and pulled on her uniform. After this afternoon, she knew it would confuse Elsie to see Annika in anything else.

  Yes, she was supposed to be at the after-party event, and, yes, her mother was furious, but even though she wouldn’t get paid for tonight, even though she wasn’t on duty, she had to be here.

  ‘How is she?’ Annika asked, as Shelby, one of the night nurses, let her in.

  ‘Close to the end,’ Shelby said. ‘But she’s lucid at times.’

  ‘Hi, Elsie.’

  They were giving her some morphine when Annika walked in, and the smile on the old lady’s face was worth all the effort of coming. Now she was in her uniform Elsie recognised her. Yes, Annika would be tired tomorrow, and, no, she didn’t have to be here, but she had known and cared for the old lady for over a year now, and it was a very small price to pay for the friendship and wisdom Elsie had imparted.

  ‘My favourite nurse,’ Elsie mumbled. ‘I thought you weren’t on for a while…’

  ‘I’m doing an extra shift,’ Annika said, so as not to confuse her.

  ‘That’s good.’ Elsie said. ‘Can you stay with me?’

  She couldn’t.

  She really couldn’t.

  She’d only popped in to check on her, to say goodnight or goodbye. She had to be at work at twelve tomorrow. The charity do would be all over the papers—it was unthinkable that she call in sick.

  But that was exactly what she did.

  She spoke to a rather sour voice on the other end of the phone and said she was getting a migraine and that she was terribly sorry but she wouldn’t be in.

  There was going to be trouble. Annika knew that.

  But she’d deal with it tomorrow. Tonight she had other things to do.

  Elsie’s big reclining seat was by her bed, and Annika put a sheet over it and sat down beside her. She took the old bony hand in hers and held it, felt the skinny fingers hold hers back, and it was nice and not daunting at all.

  She remembered when her father had been so ill. Annie had been his nurse on his final night. How jealous Annika had been that Annie had seemed to know what to do, how to look after him, how to take care of him on his final journey.

  Two years on, Annika knew what to do now.

  Knew this was right.

  It was right to doze off in the chair, to hold Elsie’s hand and wake a couple of hours later, when the morphine wore off a little and Elsie started to stir. She walked out to find Shelby.

  ‘I think her medication’s wearing off.’

  And Shelby checked her chart, and then Elsie’s, and agreed with Annika’s findings.

  Gently they both turned Elsie, and Annika combed her hair and swabbed her mouth so it tasted fresh, put some balm on her lips. Elsie was lucid before the medicine started to kick in again.

  ‘How’s Ross?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Annika said, because she knew it would make Elsie happy.

  ‘He’s good to you?’ the old lady checked.

  ‘Always.’

  ‘You can be yourself?’

  And she should just say yes again, to keep Elsie happy, but she faltered.

  ‘Be yourself,’ Elsie said, and Annika nodded. ‘That’s the only way he can really love you.’

  The hours before dawn were the most precious.

  Elsie slept, and sometimes Annika did too, but it was nice just to be there with her.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you,’ Elsie said, her tired eyes meeting Annika’s as the nursing home started to wake up. The hall light flicked on and the drug trolley clattered. ‘You’re a wonderful nurse.’

  Annika was about to correct her, to say she wasn’t here as a nurse but as a friend, and then it dawned on her that she could be both. Here, she knew what she was doing, and again Elsie was right.

  She was, at least to the oldies, a wonderful nurse.

  ‘I’m very grateful to you too,’ Annika said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You’ve worked it out for me, Elsie.’ And she took Bertie’s photo and gave it to Elsie, who held it instead of Annika’s hand.

  The next dose of morphine was her last.

  Annika stepped out into the morning without crying. Death didn’t daunt her, it was living that did, but thanks to Elsie she knew at least something of what she was doing.

  Her old friend had helped her to map out the beginnings of her future.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘ANNIKA.’ Caroline had called her into the office immediately after handover. ‘I appreciate that you have commitments outside of nursing, and I know that your off-duty request got lost, but I went out of my way to accommodate you. I changed your shift to a late and you accepted it!’

  ‘I thought I would be able to come in.’

  ‘Your photo is in the paper—dining with celebrities, drinking champagne…’ Caroline was having great trouble keeping her voice even. ‘And then you call at four a.m. to say you’re unable to come in. Even this morning you’re…’ Her eyes flicked over Annika’s puffy face and the bags under her eyes. ‘Do you even want to be here, Annika?’

  Just over twenty-four hours ago her answer would have been very different. Had it not been for Elsie, Annika might well have had her notice typed up in her bag.

  But a lot had changed.

  ‘Very much so.’ Annika saw the dart of surprise in her senior’s eyes. ‘I have been struggling with things for a while, but I really do want to be here.’ Annika was trying to be honest. It wasn’t a Kolovsky trait, in fact her life was a mire of lies, but Annika took a deep breath. All she could do was hope for the best. ‘I wasn’t sick yesterday.’

  ‘Annika, I should warn you—’

  ‘I am tired on duty at times but that is because I have been doing shifts at a private nursing home. Recently I have tried to arrange it so that it doesn’t impinge on my nursing time, but on Saturday I found out that my favourite resident was dying. She has no visitors, and I went in to see her on my way home from the party. I ended up staying. Not working,’ she added, when Caroline was silent. ‘Elsie had become a good friend, and it didn’t seem right to leave her. I’m sorry for letting everyone down.’

  ‘Keep us informed in the future,’ Caroline said. ‘You’ve got a lecture this morning in the staffroom—why don’t you get a coffee?’

  She had expected a reprimand, even a written warning. She was surprised when neither came, and surprised, too, when Ross caught up with her in the kitchen.

  ‘Caroline said you were at the nursing home on Saturday night?’

  ‘I’m surprised she discusses student nurses with you.’

  ‘I heard her on the phone to Heather Jameson.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Is that the truth?’ He didn’t know. ‘Or did it take you twenty-four hours to come up with a good excuse?’

  ‘It’s the truth.’ She filled her mug with hot water.

  ‘So why couldn’t you tell me that?’ Ross demanded. ‘Why did you make up some story about an after-party event?’

  ‘I thought I was just going to drop in on Elsie; I didn’t realise that I’d stay the night.’

  ‘You could have told me.’

  ‘And have you tell Caroline?’ Annika said. ‘Or Iosef? He’s given me some money so that I don’t have to work there any more.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I wasn’t actually working. I don’t expect you to understand, but Elsie has been more than a patient to me, and it didn’t seem right to leave her—’

  ‘Hey.’ He interrupted her explanations with a smile. ‘Careful—you’re starting to sound like a nurse.’

  ‘I thought I would be in trouble,’ Annika admitted. ‘I didn’t expect
Caroline to understand.’

  ‘You could have told me,’ Ross said. ‘You could have trusted me…’

  ‘I don’t, though,’ Annika said.

  Her tongue could be as sharp as a razor at times, but this time it didn’t slice. He stared at her for a long moment.

  ‘Why do you push everything good away?’

  He didn’t expect an answer. He was, in fact, surprised when she gave one.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Each Monday, patients permitting, one of the senior staff did an informal lecture for the nursing staff, and particularly the students. As they sat in the staffroom and waited for a few stragglers to arrive, Ross struggled to make small talk with the team. His mind was too full of her.

  He watched as she came in and took a seat beside Cassie. She smiled to her fellow student, said hello, and then put down her coffee, opened her notebook, clicked on her pen and sat silent amidst the noisy room.

  Her eyes were a bit puffy, and he guessed she must have spent the night crying. How he wished he had known—how he wished she had been able to tell him.

  Ross waited as the last to arrive took their seats. It was all very informal, even though it was a difficult subject: ‘Recognising Child Abuse in a Ward Environment.’

  Ross was a good teacher; he didn’t need to work from notes. He turned off the television, told everyone to get a drink quickly if they hadn’t already. As he talked, he let his eyes roam around the room and not linger on her. She was probably uncomfortable because it was Ross giving the lecture—not that she ever showed it. She nodded and gave a brief smile at something Cassie said, and she glanced occasionally at him as he spoke, but mainly—rudely, perhaps—she looked at the blank television screen or took the occasional note on the pad in her lap.

  ‘Often,’ Ross said, ‘by the time a child arrives on the ward there is a diagnosis—perhaps from a GP, or Emergency, or perhaps you have a chronically ill child that has been in many times before. It is your responsibility to look beyond the diagnosis, to always remember to keep an open mind.’ He glanced around and saw her writing. ‘Babies can’t tell you what is wrong, and older children often won’t. Perhaps they are loyal to their parents, or perhaps they don’t even know that something is wrong…’