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smile. She had green-hazel eyes which opened wide for a second, the pallor of her skin accentuating the freckles over her nose. A transfusion line ran into her left arm, whilst on her right one above the elbow was a sphyg. cuff, deflated and unconnected, to allow her blood pressure to be checked at intervals without disturbing her.
    Observing the level of the blood bottle and checking the flow rate, Anna left Jean in charge and half an hour later went off duty, still thinking about the young woman who, without surgical intervention, would most certainly have died and might still do so. She did her level best to put that pale, freckled face out of her mind, without much success.
    It was all very well for nurses to be indoctrinated with the concept of being detached but sometimes this was difficult to follow, and possibly even Simon found it to be so for next morning Anna was told that he had paid a midnight visit to Fay, just to make sure that she was all right. He had discontinued the transfusion, and a blood specimen had been sent to the labs who reported that her h.b. was up to 12 g per 100 ml.
    'Brilliant!' Anna said to Meg when she came to do her round, 'I mean, when you think what she was like yesterday.'
    'It's the surgeon who's brilliant.' Meg handed the lab report back to Anna for mounting in the notes.
    By the time Simon came up to the ward, during the late afternoon, Fay was well enough to ask him herself exactly what had been done. 'Oh, I know I shall be all right,' she said. 'Sister's assured me of that, but will the operation I've had affect my chances of having a family later on? I didn't so much as suspect I was pregnant this time round—I simply thought my curse had stopped because I was run down. Then, when the pain started and I felt so grim, I was sure it was appendicitis.'
    'The symptoms and pain are similar, Mrs Cotton—' Simon was taking her pulse '—and, in answer to your query, I can see no reason why you shouldn't have a family later on. What happened this time was that your egg embedded itself in your left-hand tube, instead of sailing on to your uterus and making its home there. As it grew the tube ruptured, causing much bleeding, so I had to go ahead and remove it—there was simply nothing else to be done.
    'The good news is that on the right-hand side you have a healthy tube and ovary, all you need for starting off again once you're fit and well.'
    'Thanks, I'm relieved—' she plucked at her sheet '—although at the moment I feel completely anti the idea; it's my husband who wants a child.'
    'Yes, well, you've had a rough time,' Simon said guardedly, 'and you've still got a little more blood to make up, you know. The transfusion has given you a good kick-start. Eating up your greens and good nursing care is bound to do the rest.' He smiled at her and she smiled back but, then, thought Anna, who wouldn't? Who could help responding to his charms, even if your h.b. level was still two points down and even if your insides grated like teeth every time you breathed?
    He went off to see the D and C patient who was being kept in for further tests and investigations and possible surgery. Jean Ross chaperoned him this time, as Anna was called to the phone to deal with an anxious relative, who would speak to no one else but her. The call took some time and when she'd finished Simon had left the ward. 'You'll no be seeing him till Monday,' Meg said, putting her head round the door. 'He seldom comes in at weekends unless there's an emairgency.'
    'I dare say I'll live,' Anna laughed, feeling relief— spiked with an annoying disappointment—wash over her.
    * * *
    As it happened, though—or as fate decreed it—she was to see him on Sunday, and not at the hospital either but down on the beach.
    It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that sent Anna down there for a swim at eight in the morning before starting her 'lates' shift at twelve. It was the first Sunday in July, and a hot one, so why not make the