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approachable too, and informative; he wasn't the sort to make students squirm for the hell of it, nor be lofty with ward sisters, as some of the senior doctors were.
    At his request she outlined each patient's case history for the benefit of the students and, as they proceeded from bed to bed, they were invited to ask questions and in some cases—with the patient's permission—carry out routine checks under Simon's vigilant eye. The more seriously ill patients weren't disturbed, their conditions being discussed well away from the bedsides—up at the nurses' station.
    Mrs Tooley was perfectly happy to tell them all they wanted to know. 'You can 'ave a butcher's at whatever you want, not that there's much to see. I've 'ad everything taken away, you see, but they tell me it's all for the best.'
    'You'll be a new woman, Mrs Tooley.' Simon watched Anna cover her up.
    Karen Miller, now safely pregnant, minded nothing at all but that fact, and she knitted industriously all the time her operative details were discussed. At the end of it she thanked Simon again for what he had done, promising him and Anna a slice of christening cake.
    The round proceeded slowly and by the time it was over, and the students had dispersed to the medical school, it was time for ward lunches. Simon was in the office with Anna, signing prescriptions, when his bleeper made its plaintive squeaking. As he reached for the phone she heard his curt, 'Easter here,' ;after which there was a second of silence before he snapped out, 'OK, coming now.' He slammed down the phone and muttered, 'Acute abdomen.. .A and E,' as he strode up the corridor.
    'I was just bringing this.' Rosina, the domestic, appeared with two cups of coffee. 'Sister Hilton always gave Mr Easter coffee.' She looked reproachfully at Anna, as though it was all her fault that he'd gone rushing off.
    'No matter—' Anna took the tray from her '—I can drink both cups. With the amount of talking I've done this morning I'm as dry as a husk.'
    'I expect you mean dehydrated,' said Rosina, who fancied herself as a nurse.
    The luncheon trolley was trundled into the ward before Anna had finished her coffee. She and Janice Hall served out the food—salads for those who were extra health-conscious, cottage pie for those who were not. There was only one Nil By Mouth sign this morning—over the bed of Miss Ida Drew, who was to have a cone biopsy later that afternoon.
    The three D and C ladies, back from Theatres, were still half-asleep. Anna gave orders that they were not to be roused; they could have something later on.
    Once the last portion of raspberry jelly and ice-cream had been handed out she went up to her own lunch, returning to find Meg in the office with details about the A and E admission.
    'It was an ectopic gestation. Simon decided to have her prepped in Cas and taken straight up to Theatres. She presented with generalised abdominal pain and signs of internal bleeding. She's a Mrs Cotton, she's twenty-eight, and all I've got so far are her GP's letter and cross-matching details. She'll be on transfusion so best have her in the main ward, don't you think? Miss Rayland's bed would be ideal, being next to the nurses' station.'
    'It's the only one free,' Anna said, 'till the D and C patients go home. There are three admissions for Sunday, too.' She was looking at the list.
    'Aye, it never stops, does it?' Meg went into the ward to see Mrs Tooley and Mrs Jacobs, the fibroidectomy.
    Fay Cotton, having been stabilised in Recovery, was brought up to the ward at a little before four o'clock when teas were being served and most of the visitors were leaving, carefully replacing chairs and stools under the central table and staring' at the stretcher trolley as it was wheeled up the ward.
    Anna supervised Fay's transference to the bed, and bent to speak to her. 'You're in the ward now, Mrs Cotton. I'm Sister Fellowes. I and my nurses are here to look after you; just relax now and sleep.'
    Fay tried to