by Sue Peters
'Run along, then. We'll finish our coffee in peace,' she smiled at her aunt, and sat back in her chair to enjoy a relaxed few minutes, dawdling over the remains of her second cup.
'What on earth ‑?' Mary Gray put hers down with a clatter and sat bolt upright, and the two doctors paused in the act of leaving the room as a loud hammering resounded from the front door. Rose's voice, not so calm now, bade the perpetrator of the noise to 'Shush up, now, I'm coming as quick as I can!' And then the heavy front door swung in wards, and Rose backed away hastily as it revealed a dishevelled-looking man on the top step, whose one arm was still upraised in the act of raining further blows on the long-suffering wood. He lowered his arm immediately he caught sight of Rose, and Nan recognised him as one of the gipsies from the encampment on the edge of Peel Wood.
'What is it, Jake? Come inside a minute.' Oliver Gray strode forward and beckoned the man info the hall, ignoring Rose's reproving look. 'What's the matter? I thought your people had moved out?' His kindly voice had the effect of calming their early visitor, who stepped gingerly the minimum distance across the threshold, and stood so that it was impossible for Rose to close the door.
'All right, Rose,' Nan smiled at the girl, releasing her from her post. Rose did not share her own sympathy for the stifling sense of claustrophobia felt by the travelling people when finding themselves unexpectedly enclosed within brick walls.
'The rest of urn's gone,' a greasy cap twisted in nervous fingers, and their visitor answered Oliver Gray's last question first. 'But Rita's started, an' she ses to let you know she's in trouble.'
'Wait here, I'll come at once. No, better still I'll ask Doctor Raven to come,' Oliver Gray turned to Keir. 'I'll take your surgery, and Nan can go with you. You may need help, and she's more used than you are to meeting the sort of conditions you might find when you get there,' he told his partner quietly. 'Have you come on foot, Jake?'
'Aye,' briefly, with a hunted look in the direction of the ceiling, as if it might close in and trap him at any moment.
'You can come back in the Land-Rover with us,' Nan told him. 'It's quicker.' From the bulge in the gipsy's pocket, out of which dangled one end of an unidentified cord, she suspected that despite his apparent urgency Jake had come the slow way via the snares he had set the evening before on the edge of the wood. There was no means of knowing how long he had been on the way, nor in what condition they Would find the mother to be as a result of the delay.
'Bring your baby bag,' she told Keir lightly, and drew him unresisting back through the door of the breakfast room. 'Come prepared for anything,' she told him in a terse undertone. '-The caravan people don't come for medical aid unless there's practically no hope left.'
'We'm got eight chavvies, all told.' The gipsy settled himself happily enough into the back of the Land-Rover when he saw that there was no overhead covering on it. The bulge in his pocket got in his way, and he dived a bony hand inside and extricated a dead rabbit. He caught Keir's glance as he was about to lay it on the seat beside him, and unknotted the grubby scarf from about his throat and rolled the body in that instead. ‑'
'Chavvies?' Keir went to put his medical bag in the back of the vehicle beside the gipsy, changed his mind and climbed up beside Nan and kept it on his lap.
'Children,' Nan interpreted, swinging the Land-Rover round and heading it in the opposite direction from the village.
'Eight children—in a caravan?' Keir looked startled.
'Eight surviving ones, he means,' Nan had no illusions, 'and I don't doubt they were all born without medical help,' she said bluntly, concentrating on squeezing the safest speed possible out of their transport. 'That's why I'm so anxious to get to his wife now. If she says there's trouble, there's trouble. After having eight children, probably more, she should know.' She did not speak again until a hill loomed up in front of them, crowned by a dark stand of trees.
'There!' The gipsy leaned over the back seat and pointed ahead of them to where a large cream-coloured modern caravan lay parked in a clearing on the edge of the trees.
'Open the gate for us.' Nan pulled into a field gateway, and Jake jumped down and swung the five-barred barrier clear for her to go through, then with a heave he returned it to its place and leapt lightly back into the Land-Rover.
'It's a modern van,' Keir realised with relief. 'That means there'll be some facilities ... He stared at the long, gleaming mobile home confronting them.
'Don't bank on it,' Nan advised him tersely, as Jake jumped out again and, fishing a bowie knife from his belt, prepared to skin his rabbit. He made no attempt to go into the van to see how his wife had fared during his absence, and Nan rounded on him sharply.
'Never mind that now. Doctor Raven will want lots of boiling water,' she told him. 'Stir up the fire, and see you keep us supplied.' She gestured to the remains of an open fire smouldering on the ground a short distance from the van. It had a crude tripod arrangement fixed over it, and cooking utensils scattered in an untidy clutter close by. 'Clean the pan first before you put the water in it,' she bade the indifferent husband, 'and have another panful ready to put on again straight away. See that that's clean, too,' she instructed firmly. The lurcher dog that slunk beneath the caravan at their approach could well have breakfasted from the congealed remains of food lying in the other pans, and she was taking no chances.
'Surely there'll be Calor gas?' Keir viewed the wood fire and cooking pots with disfavour.
'I told you not to depend on it. We must use whatever's to hand.' Nan was not disposed to be patient with Keir, either. Effortlessly her professional training pushed her own emotional disturbance into the background, so that for the moment she and Keir were linked only by the needs of their patient. And if what she suspected came about, Keir would not find this patient tidily presented for him, either, she thought grimly. A groan from within the steel walls hastened her feet towards the door, and Keir grabbed up his bag and followed her.
'Mind the step.' She spoke automatically, from previous experience. 'It's probably unsafe.' A moment later she was glad she had warned him. The middle step was missing, and the top one-was loose. She did not relish the thought of Keir breaking his ankle. Not before the confinement anyway, she qualified to herself with a quick flash of humour, which vanished abruptly as she opened the caravan door. The interior confirmed her worst fears.
'God ‑!' The foetid air that hit them wrung a shocked mutter from the doctor, and she turned at the doorway.
'Put a mask on, it helps,' she advised him. 'Here, I've brought a couple with me, just in case. Hello, Rita.' She moved towards the girl lying on a bundle of untidy covers on the floor, speaking easily, showing no sign that the choking atmosphere distressed her. She did not see the quick gleam of admiration in Keir's eyes as, dangling the mask she gave him, he followed her example. 'I've brought Doctor Raven with me,' Nan sank to her knees beside the girl. 'We'll help you through.'
She sounded calm, supremely confident, showing nothing of the display that had threatened even her poise as she Surveyed the interior of the caravan. All the panelling, even the bunk beds, had been stripped out and the floor was a litter of torn blankets and old coats. Every available inch of the mobile home had been ruthlessly converted to provide sleeping accommodation for Jake and his wife and their eight chavvies. Keir's hoped-for Calor gas was non-existent. Nan had not expected it to be otherwise. With a brood of that size cooking, eating and daytime living had to be carried on out of doors, the only space available.
'We'll have to get her to hospital, out of this,' Keir shrugged on his white coat, accepting Nan's help as he would accept it from one of his staff in hospital.
'I doubt if there'll be time,' she retorted quietly. There was not. And Rita had been correct about being in trouble. Nan and Keir knelt on the floor, one on each side of her, using the none too clean bedding as pads for their knees, and worked with concentrated desperation. The girl in their care could not have been more than thirty, probably less, but he
r brown, weather-beaten face, grey now with exhaustion, could have belonged to a woman twice her years, thought Nan compassionately. With her thin cheeks lined by constant childbearing, and endless work in the open fields in all weathers; drawn by pain, and hollowed by indifferent, probably inadequate food, the gipsy girl's only claim to beauty now lay in her huge black eyes, clouded with suffering, and the long raven hair that, had it been washed and combed out of its tangles, would have reached to her waist. She had probably been married at fifteen or sixteen, thought Nan sympathetically. She had seen it often enough before with the caravan people. Had admired the young beauty of the girls that made her long to commit their faces to canvas, and pitied its sharp decline, accelerated by their harsh existence.
'Bring another potful as soon as it's boiled.' She took a pot of water from Jake, blessing the fact that she had thought to bring a clean enamel bowl from Minster House.
'It's a boy!'
After an aeon of time Keir's breathed message reached her, and she sat back on her heels for a second, wearily conscious for the first time of her cramped legs. Numbly she watched the doctor work on the limp infant, its strength drained by its difficult entry into the world. She leaned across, her hands outstretched to help him, met the frown in his eyes as there was still no response, and then the quick flash of joy as a thin wail rewarded their efforts—the joy that is the eternal, priceless reward of all those who strive for another's life, and win. The wail grew stronger, turned into a surprisingly lusty bawl, and Keir pulled off his mask and grinned.
'Show him to Rita. We'll let them both rest for a minute before we start to tidy them up.' His own face was strained, the supreme concentration demanded by the difficulty of their recent task draining him too, so that quick tiredness showed as he relaxed.
'I've got him.' Nan took the infant from his hands and laid him in his mother's arms, held up to receive him, and for a moment a lump rose in Nan's throat as Rita cradled her son. Eight other children were waiting for her somewhere, they had probably moved on with the rest of the tribe, and would be picked up later, but from the deep glow in the mother's black eyes this latest one might have been her first.
'Keep the water going, we'll need lots more yet.' Vaguely she listened to Keir instruct Jake, heard the new father's shambling footsteps shuffle out of the van and down the steps; heard him curse the lurcher dog as if the animal might have crept from its hidey-hole under the van and got in his way at the fire, but these were only background noises, unobtrusive and unimportant. In their brief, locked glance, that said nothing and yet so much, the two women shared an intimate moment in a world apart. Eyes that had looked on two very different ways of life met above the now softly whimpering infant, acknowledging a dark valley safely traversed, and a reward at the end of the journey such as only a woman can know.
'I'll tidy him up for you.' Gently Nan took the squirming baby from its mother, and a fierce pang of longing, so strong that it shocked her, caught her heart in an indescribable pain. I envy Rita! Incredible as it seemed, it was true. She envied the gipsy woman her child. Born into conditions that could only be described as dreadful, to a life that few would envy, the tiny morsel of humanity she held to her had the power to stir her uncontrollably, and she went about her task in a daze, reminding herself over and over again of her own recent conclusions. The right partner came first...
She wrapped the baby in a soft towel she had brought with her, and glanced towards Keir. He was watching her, his dark eyes inscrutable. How long he had been looking at her, bathing the baby, she did not know. She tucked the last corner of the towel round her charge hurriedly. Keir was probably waiting for her to help him make Rita comfortable, though he showed no signs of impatience. She placed the now peacefully sleeping infant safely out of the way and turned to help him, and the gipsy woman spoke, her voice faint, but distinct.
'Your own sons will be strong, dearie.' Her work-roughened hands caught at and held one of Nan's, turning it over so that she traced the lines across its palm, and long-established custom raised her voice in the everyday patter. 'You've got a lucky face!' she said.
'That's useful to know,' Keir grinned as he sluiced his hands and arms clean, sharing the last of the hot water with Nan. 'We can clean up properly when we get home.'
'I'll leave the soap for Rita, she can use it on the baby.' Nan swung her arms vigorously to dry them, and turned to Jake. 'Don't pull out tonight,' she said. 'We'll be back again to see Rita just after tea, and I want to find her and the baby still here. If you travel too soon and anything happens to either of them, I'll see you're held responsible.' Her voice carried a stern warning. 'Now, get that rabbit put in a stew, and keep your wife properly fed.'
'Surely he won't take his wife on the road yet? She's not fit,' Keir protested as they walked towards the Land-Rover together. 'She can't ride in the van while they're travelling, it's against the law. And she's not fit to ride in the cab of that thing.' Jake's ramshackle lorry, that looked less than capable of pulling the caravan, was parked carelessly close by.
'The caravan folk are a law unto themselves,' Nan answered him resignedly. 'And it's no good trying to put her in hospital, she wouldn't go,' she stemmed his angry reaction.
'In that case I'll get some blankets from the hospital and bring them here,' Keir retorted brusquely. 'She's not remaining in those conditions, if I have to scrub the van out myself.' He swung his case angrily into the back seat. 'I'll come twice a day for the next few days and keep an eye on her and the baby,' he said determinedly. 'Give me the ignition key,' he added abruptly. 'I'll drive home, you've done enough for the moment. You can guide me if I take a wrong turning,' he softened his order with a sudden smile.
'Thank you.' Nan handed over the key, grateful for the respite. She did feel tired, but she suspected it was as much from the previous disturbed night as from the last arduous hour's work, but she could not say so to Keir. Instead she said, 'I'll bring a supply of baby clothes when we come this evening, Aunt Mary always keeps a stock for cases like this. The people in the villages give her the clothes their children grow out of, if they're still in good condition. They come in useful more often than you might think. But you can take Rita off your visiting list,' she added. 'The van will be gone before daylight tomorrow.'
'You were right.' Keir gazed at the empty clearing the next morning with furious disbelief.
'It's no good trying to coddle a gipsy,' Nan told him. 'They don't coddle themselves. By tomorrow Rita will be up and cooking for her family the same as usual,' she predicted.
'At least she'd got no sigh of a temperature last night,' Keir still sounded worried.
'Stop fretting,' Nan scolded him. 'The only thing Rita and Jake are likely to suffer from is a dose of over-cleanliness. I'll guarantee Jake slept under the van, not in it, last night,' she chuckled. 'A combination of clean hospital blankets and a van smelling of disinfectant would be too much for him.'
'At least the baby started off well. He looked cosy in those woollies you put on him.' Keir's eyes searched the line of road running across the side of the hill, and he spoke abstractedly.
'You can see the road for miles from the other side of the wood.' Nan guessed he was searching for signs of the caravan. 'It isn't far to walk, and if it'll set your mind at rest— they'll be miles away by now, though,' she added convincingly.
'Oh well, we tried.' Keir scanned the empty countryside to the horizon, an easy task from the eminence where they stood, and at last, reluctantly, turned back towards their own vehicle with Nan.
'There's a lovely lot of blackberries,' she stopped to gather a handful of succulent fruit. 'I promised to bring Timmy berry picking,' she remembered with a prick of conscience. 'I'll have to find time one day this week—these are just right.' She held out her handful towards him and shook some into his palm, sharing her booty. In silence they strolled under the edge of the trees, stopping now and then to pick more from the temptingly loaded sprays, and Nan gave a gurgle of amusement as Keir turn
ed to speak to her, and showed a blackberry-smudged face.
'It's a good job you're going back to the surgery, not on your rounds,' she teased him. 'You're all purple juice.'
'Where?' He shook a clean handkerchief from his top pocket, and Nan took it from him.
'Lean down a bit, I can't reach that far.' He bent obediently closer to her, and she scrubbed the stains clean. 'There, you'll do until we get home.' She tucked the hanky back in his top pocket, standing on tiptoes to get it in as he straightened up, and gasped as he captured her in his arms.
'You ran away from me last night,' he said softly. 'Why, Nan? Were you afraid?'
'N-no.' She had been. She was now. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird. Surely he could feel it, beating against his breast?
'We live in the same house. We do the same work. Surely we can be—friends?' There was just the slightest pause before he said 'friends'. Nan's heart sickened inside her. Friends . . . this was the second time he had held her in his arms, and now it was broad daylight, not the spell-haunted nether hours of the night, and this second time was enough to make her take the one irrevocable step through the mist, willingly following the beckoning music that called her and told her whatever she and Keir might be to one another in the future, as far as she herself was concerned they could never remain just friends.
'Don't tremble so.' He bent his head and kissed her, with the patient tenderness of one coaxing a frightened child, but this time the touch of his lips did not take her unawares, and even as she felt their firm pressure against her own she steeled herself with a mighty effort of will not to respond. For all she knew, he might be married. No, he wasn't married. What had Oliver Gray said about him? She searched her bemused mind.
'He can live at Minster House with us, there's no wife to worry about.' And that was the last she had thought about it, until now. He might be engaged, though. Men did not wear engagement rings, so it was impossible to tell. Silently she handed him the ignition key, and he took it from her and slipped behind the driving wheel without comment. This time he would have to drive. She still trembled too much to trust her judgment on the road.
