Chapter 11

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SECRET in Moore Street. Within days, news of Marion’s visit to the clinic and the doctor’s request for her to go into hospital for tests was all over the markets. There was a path worn to Marion’s stall by other dealers who had a solution for her illness, or a story of someone they knew with a similar complaint to Marion’s that turned out to be nothing. Fat Annie suggested that it might be an ingrown boil and some time was spent by the other dealers discussing how best to get a poultice on the inside. Doreen Dowdall said it could be an extra nipple, for in a James Bond movie she had seen a man with three nipples and Doreen was convinced it was quite common. Mrs Robinson said one of her twin daughters Splish, or was it Splash?, had had a lump on her breast and it turned out to be nothing more than a cyst.

‘It’s simple,’ she said. ‘All they do is lance it.’

Bridie Barnes asked: ‘Does that mean that a fella in a suit of armour runs at it with a spear?’ All the ‘girls’ laughed, including Marion.

In general, Marion’s problem was treated as a simple matter and nobody really worried about it – except Marion. Agnes had convinced herself that it would turn out to be nothing and that Marion would soon be back to her old self, once the tests were done and the results were in.

Agnes decided she herself needed a lift and planned to concentrate on home for a while and get the front room papered and decorated. The opportunity of doing a bit of work in the house perked Agnes up. There’s something about a newly decorated room that puts a woman in good form, she said to herself.

Over the next few days the weather picked up and the Moore Street market was starting to buzz with life again. Agnes found herself in as good a humour as she had been in a long time. So, it was indeed with a light heart that she went to visit Marion in the Richmond Hospital. Marion had been admitted that morning for her tests. Within just three hours of her admission Marion was sitting up in bed, tests completed and just twenty-four hours of bed rest ahead of her. Agnes had knocked into Tommo at teatime that day and Tommo had assured Agnes that Marion was ready for visitors. After feeding her family, Agnes put on a bit of make-up and headed for the Richmond, just fifteen minutes’ walk away.

‘Monks – Marion Monks,’ Agnes said to the porter at the reception desk in the hospital. He flicked through some file pages, and ran his finger down a list until the requested name appeared under his nicotine-stained finger.

‘Monks. Mrs Marion. St Catherine’s ward,’ he announced.

‘Where’s that?’

‘Through the door, take a right, half-way down the corridor take a left, two flights of stairs up, then straight in. Second door on your left.’

Twenty minutes later and after a grand tour of the hospital, Agnes eventually found the ward. St Catherine’s ward was a narrow room about ninety feet long.

There were ten beds along by the two longer walls, each with an identical iron bedstead, and each partnering identical steel bedside lockers. The beds were separated by curtain dividers which, when Agnes entered, had been pulled back to allow the patients to see the visitors as they entered. Agnes stood inside the doorway and scanned the beds down along the left-hand wall, and the faces of the patients now staring back at her. No sign of Marion. She felt uncomfortable standing there, on show. She turned quickly and repeated the procedure along the right-hand side of the room and, five beds down, she saw Marion waving furiously.

‘Agnes! Agnes! Over here, love,’ Marion called.