‘Considering the shock you’ve just had, your symptoms are only natural,’ said the doctor, in a calming, kindly voice as he examined the old lady. When he’d finished he turned round to face Charley. ‘Everything thing seems okay, but I suggest you take her for a cup of tea and a bite to eat in the cafeteria, and I’ll let the nurse know where you are, so she can send someone to update you on her friend’s condition.’
Charley offered Winnie her arm, and she accepted it gratefully. ‘My head feels like I’ve been on a bender,’ she said, as they walked at a slow pace down the hospital corridor.
‘What are you like?’ Charley replied, feeling Winnie’s hand sweating in the crook of her arm. ‘I can’t imagine you on a bender!’
Winnie stopped to get her breath. ‘You young ’uns think you have the monopoly on the good times. Thankfully no one can take away my memories.’
Charley looked down at the smaller woman at her side, and squeezed her hand, knowing Winnie was thinking of Charley’s dad, Jack.
‘Josie was an orphan, you know. She told me that she had been left on the steps of St Anne’s Church as a baby. How anyone could do that I’ll never know. She came to my school when she was adopted. We’ve been the best of friends for over sixty years.’
Winnie sat in the cafe, staring blankly at the untouched toast and pot of jam on her plate, when Charley put down the phone to Mike whom she’d rung to update.
‘An orphan, you said?’
‘Yes, and no wonder she took a tumble, her head was full of talk of her adoption when I saw her last. It has weighed heavily on her mind lately,’ Winnie said.
‘Why now I wonder?’ said Charley.
Winnie shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t think she ever got over finding her adoption papers in her father’s documents when he died suddenly. It affected her that much she put everything on hold, even her work, to concentrate on her personal search to find her real parents’ identities, but even with her vast experience of historical archives and research, she found nothing. I know it was her greatest wish to find out her origins before she died.’ Winnie sighed. ‘Now it might be too late.’ A lone tear ran slowly down her cheek, which she brushed aside.
The news from the neurosurgeon concerning Josie’s condition was not good. Hearing it from the specialist nurse seemed to make Winnie’s sorrow a little easier to bear. The cafeteria was almost deserted, and the nurse thought about moving her to a private office, but it was less formal here, and Charley considered it was all right to talk to Winnie where she was sitting.
‘Your friend is very poorly,’ nurse said, when she sat at the table beside her. She held Winnie’s shaking hand, as she delivered the devastating news that an operation was not an option. ‘All we can do is make her comfortable as we can, and ensure that she isn’t in any pain.’
‘Is she going to die?’ Winnie asked, aware of what the answer would be.
‘That I can’t tell you, but what I do know is that she is in good hands. The best, in fact.’
Winnie’s eyes were hollows in her face. ‘Can I see her? There isn’t anyone else.’ Her question was more of a plea.
The nurse looked up at Charley to see her reaction. She responded by briefly closing her eyes and nodding her head. At that moment, she was filled with admiration for the nurse: so gentle, so sympathetic, so kind. Nursing indeed was a vocation.
‘I shouldn’t really,’ she said, ‘family only, but come with me, I’ll see what I can do.’
Charley held back the tears as she looked at Winnie broken by the news of her childhood friend and wondered how it was that a heart that had held a lifetime of love didn’t break.
With the nurse by her side, Charley stood outside in the corridor and watched as Winnie talked to her sleeping friend. They saw Winnie cry, then laugh through her tears, and all the time she held on tightly to her friend’s hand, which lay upon the crisp white bed sheet.
Charley leaned towards the nurse. ‘Do you think Josie can hear her?’ she whispered.
The nurse swallowed hard. ‘I know she can,’ she said, putting an arm around Charley’s shoulder and squeezing her tightly. ‘This will be a great comfort for them both.’
‘You have a way with words, a proper angel,’ Charley said.
‘Me, an angel?’ the nurse chuckled. ‘My mum might not agree with you… I understand that Josie hadn’t seen a doctor in the last month?’ she then asked, seeking confirmation.
Charley shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘When she passes, we won’t be able to release the body straightaway. There will have to be a post-mortem,’ she said to Charley. ‘Local pathologist, but, as you know, if they discover any issues it will be stopped, and a Home Office pathologist called.’
Charley nodded her understanding. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell Winnie, she’ll understand.’
As the nurse walked away for a moment to speak to the staff nurse in charge, Charley went to kneel by her friend’s side. Charley reached for her hand and Winnie held it tight.
After a while the two stood as the nurse had signalled that it was time to leave, but as they turned to do so, the alarm monitors around Josie’s bedside starting bleeping loudly. The nurse and staff nurse were quickly alongside them, and Charley and Winnie were ushered outside. They turned the monitors off, and continued to check Josie’s vital signs.
‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’ Winnie wept.
Charley comforted her.
‘I’m so pleased I was able to say goodbye,’ Winnie sobbed.
The next day Charley stood on the step of Winnie’s house and knocked at the door. She was glad she could give her the findings of the post-mortem, which showed that there were no extenuating circumstances in her friend’s accident. It appeared that Josie had slipped on the
