The pair of them stood in front of me, joint accusation, joint virtue, and all around conversation dropped to next to nothing as every
other woman in the room wanted to hear what they were going to say to me.
‘Er, Mrs Stoneman ...’ Sister Weston, hating my guts but not
wanting to let the vicar’s wife see it.
‘It‘s miss.’ And my
face matched my name, the ‘stone’ bit at least. This was a battle I’d fought several times
already.
‘Oh, it’s ... it’s just a courtesy title ...’ The starchy rustle of her gown, the creaking
of her highly-polished lace-ups, the pursing of her lips - not one iota of
courtesy in intent.
‘I find it insulting.
I’m not married, don’t want to be and certainly do not merit the title.’ I reached into my pocket for the packet of
Woodbines I knew was there and without taking my eyes off her, pulled one out
and put it between my lips, closed the packet and replaced it in my pocket.
Right on cue, she said ‘Oh Mrs ... er, Miss Stoneman, we
don’t want to smoke around baby do we?’
And beside her the vicar’s wife reached into her own pocket,
pulled out a lighter, flicked it to flame and while extending it to my
cigarette said, ‘Whyever not, I need something to help me through the day.’
You could have heard a pin
drop.
Actually that’s a lie, because
if it had dropped the same time as the pupil midwife, poor little kid, dropped
the metal dish, in such a way as to cause the nappy therein to tip and spill
its contents – what had that child been
eating?! – you wouldn’t have heard a thing, especially as her screech, of
horror, followed the clatter pdq.
Mercifully, Sister Weston was struck dumb.
Her face was a picture though
and I remembered then that it was a new
vicar’s wife, or rather the wife of the new vicar, only arrived on Sunday (I
just knew they always came into the clinic, regular, presumably to sign us up
for christening and all the other shit. I’d always ignored them. Up to now.)
Anyway, this one was no
sweet-natured flowers-and-soup type vicar’s wife. Had her wits about her, well and truly. Before Sister could open her mouth the she’d
said to the poor little pupil midwife, ‘Don’t cry, it’s only piss and shit,
tell me where the cloths are kept and I’ll clean it up, then perhaps you can
take me round to tell me who’s who.’
Words Inc. (Wednesday) joint, gown, pocket
One Word/Sentence Two (Friday) In
the second sentence include the following word: dish
Plot Thickens (Thursday) taking on an unfamiliar role
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