ready to start as soon as you wish me to.’
Aidy stared at Ty in shock. This was the first time she had ever seen him show any emotion. Although the rest of his face was displaying his normal impassive expression, from the light kindled in his eyes it was apparent he was delighted to be gaining the services of a nun to help ease his workload.
He said to her in his usual monotone, ‘Surgery generally finishes around ten in the morning, so if you arrive by ten-thirty I will have a list of patients ready for you to visit that day along with a bag of supplies. I will leave it with my receptionist, Mrs Nelson. Please express my appreciation to your Mother Superior for assigning you to my surgery. And now, do excuse me. I must get on with my rounds.’
He placed the pile of records on Aidy’s reception desk and returned to his surgery.
Sister Teresa smiled at her and said, ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you in the morning, Mrs Nelson.’
Aidy was very pleased by this turn of events. She had been dreading the doctor asking her to undertake a dressing change on his behalf, something she had told him she was adept at during her interview when in fact she wasn’t, so having the nun on board to do such things was going to save her possible embarrassment.
Despite his good fortune earlier in being awarded the invaluable help of a nun, for which he was very grateful despite the fact that her attending patients on his behalf meant a lost fee for him, Ty returned from his morning round feeling more depressed than he usually did. He had examined and decided on the best treatment for all those he had been asked to visit, ignoring as best he could the dire conditions the majority of those patients lived in. He had been bemused by a statement made by one patient, though in fact it had been said to him a couple of times previously by others visiting him at his surgery, that they were only seeing him because the old woman … whoever she was … was not available at the moment for them to get their treatments from. Then, as he’d been about to knock on the door of a patient he was treating for a nasty leg ulcer that needed redressing, the sort of chore which in future Sister Teresa could tackle on his behalf, from a house in the row opposite a woman rushed out into the street, a bundle in her arms, wailing hysterically that her baby had stopped breathing.
Automatically, Ty rushed to take the child from her, dashing with it into her house and sweeping his arm out to clear the clutter off the rickety kitchen table so that he could lay the child on it while he examined it. There was nothing he could do. The baby was already dead and long past resuscitation. It transpired that the six-month-old child had been fretful while it was teething and in her effort to quieten it, the mother had given it a dose of laudanum – or overdose as it turned out. This was not the first child who had met its end in the same or similar circumstances since Ty had taken over the practice and it reduced him to despair that some mothers around these parts would resort to using such highly addictive substances, just to stop their babies from crying. Usually he managed to keep control of his feelings and go on his way, but today he’d been unable to hold then back. Did they not realise how precious a young life was? He had vented his anger on the already distraught woman, leaving her in no doubt that she was responsible for the death of her baby.
Aidy was to find out about this incident later, and of Ty’s reaction. An idea then struck her of just how the doctor could help to avoid any repetition of the sad event in future, but putting her idea to him was a different matter. He had already made it very clear to her it wasn’t her place to tell him how to run his surgery.
Due to this incident it was after two o’clock when Ty returned. Aidy had already left for her afternoon break. For a moment he stood in the hall and listened to the silence. A sudden wave of loneliness engulfed him. With a shock he realised he was actually