linoleum as they approached her door. She chided herself for fretting about how she looked. There were more important matters at hand.
She heard the rap of a knuckle on the door.
‘Mrs Sutherland?’
It was Valérie Latoc.
‘You can come in,’ she said, pulling herself up on the cot to a comfortable sitting position.
He stepped tentatively into the cabin and offered her a warm and friendly smile. It seemed like an eternity since she’d last seen his face; another lifetime. In fact, just a month and a half had passed. She remembered wanting to look good for him because she’d found him attractive. Right now she felt painfully self-conscious of the livid ripples of healing skin on her face and her hair now clipped uniformly all over to a less than feminine short dark fuzz.
‘You are much better?’ he inquired.
‘I’m mending, thank you.’
There was someone else behind him. Martha stepped into the room in his wake, her eyes lighting up with joy at the sight of her. ‘Jenny!’
‘Martha?’
Jenny hadn’t asked for her to come up. In fact, she expressly asked Walter to tell Valérie she wished to speak with him alone. The woman stepped around him and towards the cot, her broad dark face beaming kindly, genuinely relieved to see her friend awake and getting well.
‘Oh, Jenny, love, I’ve been so worried for you,’ she said, extending arms to embrace her.
‘Please . . . don’t!’ she said holding up a hand to stay Martha. ‘My skin hurts.’
Martha froze where she was. Her full vibrant voice faltered. ‘Oh, love, I’m so, so sorry about Hannah. She was such a wonderful little—’
Jenny reached out and grasped one of her hands. This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have right now although she was learning to accept that everyone who’d so far been allowed to see her insisted on opening with an awkwardly offered condolence; genuinely heartfelt, of course, but always awkward and faltering. Each time for Jenny, behind her weary smile of gratitude, it was another painful tug on the stitching of her broken heart.
‘I know . . . she was,’ she replied. ‘Thank you, Martha. I know you were fond of her.’
Martha’s eyes filled as she nodded silently. ‘One of God’s little angels,’ she whimpered. ‘She’s in a better place now, Jenny, love. So much better.’
Valérie nodded. ‘Yes. We prayed for her soul. And yours . . . and that you would heal very quickly.’
Jenny grimaced. She felt that a ‘thank you’ was perhaps the right thing to say under the circumstances, but then, prayers - that was exactly what she’d wanted to talk to Valérie about, alone.
‘Yes, and look, that’s why I wanted to see you. I’ve been informed, Mr Latoc, that mealtimes in the mess have become an opportunity for an open prayer meeting.’
Valérie made no attempt to deny it. ‘Yes, I have been saying a prayer before meals, this is correct.’
‘Are you aware that it’s one of the few things I ask people in this community not to do?’
His eyebrows arched, his smooth voice rose in surprise. ‘To pray?’
‘To pray aloud in a shared space like the mess room, yes.’
‘It is just a blessing,’ he smiled. ‘That is all; a thanks to God for feeding us.’
Jenny was surprised by the sudden jab of irritation she felt. ‘No, well you see it isn’t God that has to shovel human shit onto our potatoes every day, is it? He doesn’t water them every day with rainwater we’ve carefully collected or fetched by tug from Bracton, does he? He doesn’t do any of the things we all have to do each and every day to survive.’
‘We are here, alive and well,’ he replied calmly, ‘because He wills it. A little thank you at mealtimes, is this so much to ask?’
She stared at him, then at Martha who was nodding silently. She knew Martha had faith, was a Baptist, prayed every day and every night, but it was nothing she’d ever tried to press on Jenny. It was a personal faith, between her and her God.
‘He wills it?’
Valérie smiled as he nodded.
‘Jenny,’ cut in Martha, her voice still trembling with emotion, ‘I love you like a sister and it breaks my heart to think how much pain you’re going through, love. Hannah, Leona and Jacob all gone. My boy, Nathan, left with them. I spend every night worryin’ after them.’ Her cheeks shone with tears. ‘But it helps, love. It helps if you’ll accept Him into your heart. His love will make things right for