The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,136

his neck, looking desperately around.

‘She’s on her tea break, so I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other.’ She jammed the thermometer into his mouth before he could reply.

She gingerly picked up his wrist to check his pulse, and felt him recoil. She watched him curiously as she counted the beats. His eyes were fixed on her, but not in the leering, overconfident way he usually looked at her. This time he looked almost . . .

Fearful.

That was it, she realised with a shock. Alf was actually afraid of her.

She remembered what her mother had said about Alf being terrified of doctors and hospitals. Now, not only was he in hospital, but he was also completely at her mercy. And after everything he had done to her, no wonder he was scared.

‘What you smirking at?’ Alf watched her, eyes narrowed suspiciously, when she took the thermometer out of his mouth. ‘What does it say? Is it bad news?’

She didn’t reply as she noted down the figures on his chart and hooked it back on the end of his bed.

‘You didn’t ought to go around grinning like a bloody Cheshire cat when there are sick people about,’ Alf grumbled.

‘And you didn’t ought to go around telling nurses what to do,’ Dora said, still smiling. ‘I could make life very uncomfortable for you, remember.’

She saw him pale, his face suddenly grey against the snowy pillows. That would give him something to think about, she decided.

And it gave her something to think about too. A way to make sure he didn’t hurt her sister again.

Helen had never been in love, but she was sure it must feel something like she felt now, sitting in the stalls of the Rialto, holding hands in the dark with Charlie Denton.

She had been nervous when he first suggested a trip to the pictures. She had never been to the cinema with anyone but her parents before, and then only on very rare occasions when it was a film of which her mother approved. She had also heard the other girls talking about what went on in the back row, and she worried that Charlie’s hands might start to wander after the lights went down.

But he was the perfect gentleman as he had been every other time they’d been out together, buying her a box of chocolates and insisting on paying for the tickets.

‘I hope you don’t mind the stalls?’ he said anxiously.

‘It makes no difference to me where we sit.’ Helen would happily have sat on the floor as long as she was with him.

The last six weeks had been the best of her whole life. Every week she and Charlie would meet on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. They would go to the park if it was fine, take a bus trip into town or go for tea at the local cafe. Helen knew the other girls would probably laugh at her – they liked to brag about the smart places they’d been with their boyfriends – but she was content just to be with him.

Charlie had even taken her to meet his family. She already knew his mother from her visits to the hospital, and Mrs Denton was delighted to welcome the shy young nurse into her home.

‘You’ve been a tonic to our Charlie, you really have,’ she told Helen, embracing her warmly. ‘He’s a different lad since he met you.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Don’t say anything, but I never really took to that Sally Watkins. Too full of herself by half.’

Helen had been overwhelmed by Charlie’s noisy, boisterous family – his younger brothers and sisters and his down-to-earth dad who sold fruit and veg in the market. It was so different from her own quiet home, where her mother would never even hug her own children, let alone a stranger.

Although now Charlie was dropping hints about meeting her family. It was the only thing spoiling Helen’s happiness as she sat in the darkness, watching Robert Donat avoiding spies in The Thirty-nine Steps.

She hadn’t told her mother about Charlie, of course, and shuddered to think what she would do if Constance ever found out about him.

‘You’re not ashamed of me, are you?’ Charlie had joked when she made yet another excuse.

‘Of course not,’ Helen said. Her mother would disapprove even if she were stepping out with the Prince of Wales.

She hadn’t set out to deceive her parents, but she had never imagined she would get this far with Charlie. She’d thought that after one or