The Vale was once
a great wetland that centuries earlier stretched from Mornington in the East to
Childean in the west and from Shallowfield in the south to Purplemere in the
north.
But over the many
centuries the vast majority had been drained for agriculture, a feat achieved
largely by the efforts of famous Mornington Mills, of which only three had
survived to the present day and even those were no longer functional and were
in various states of repair.
There were only
three small bodies of water left in the Vale now one in Mornington, one in
Childean and third of course was Purplemere which was to the north of the Vale,
where in the lee of Pepperstock Hills, lay the modest town of the same name.
On the western
side of the town was the residential area known as Hill Side, and in one of its
many quiet road, was the home of Turner’s, where Nurse Amanda lived with her Parents and her
younger siblings.
She was the oldest
and, as her mother kept reminding her, was still single, which wasn’t for the
want of trying on her part.
The problem was when you worked shifts it was difficult to have a social
life and meet new people, but although she wondered sometimes why she was alone
she wasn’t unhappy, she didn’t feel diminished by her unattached status.
But there were many times when she wished she could change her Facebook
status to “in a relationship”.
She had plenty of friends and two sisters, all of whom took turns at
throwing single men in her direction, but she evaded most of them and of the
ones she didn’t evade, none of them turned out to be keepers.
As she was a Nurse at the Royal Downshire Hospital, Doctors always tried
their luck of course, but news and reviews of doctors travelled fast along the
nurse’s grapevine, so they generally knew who to avoid and working in the Emergency Department meant that
patients weren’t an option.
She liked the ED
though, and there was one regular visitor that she had her eye on, PC Ricky
Hall, and she had been applying some intense flirting for several months,
however she had not been able to get anywhere with him, but she was determined
to persevere.
In fact on one
Thursday evening in May Amanda, who
was tall, skinny and freckly with straw coloured hair thought she had made a
breakthrough, his partner PC King was taking a statement from a mugging victim
and Ricky was stood by the nurses station, and as she had just finished
stitching a nasty scalp wound, Amanda decided to go and flirt with him again.
As she was tall it made a nice change for her to talk to a man who was
taller than her as Ricky was six feet plus and she had
always had a weakness for red hair, and his was very red.
It was a very busy shift in the ED and she should have felt a bit guilty
under the circumstances, and very unprofessional, because she was flirting with
him shamelessly and she couldn’t help herself, as she inclined her head to one
side and played with her hair and behaved like she did when she was still at
school, and fully expected it not to get her anywhere, when his demeanour
changed and it looked like he might be about to say something that was giving
him a dry mouth.
So, she held her
breath expectantly, but before the words came out a group of rowdy drunks came
in and he had to leave her to go and separate two scuffling revellers, and she
had to return to cubicles, and that was that.
But by the end of
a busy shift he returned and this time he sought her out.
“Hi Amanda, I’m
looking for a Mrs Twiss, Edith Twiss”
“Hello Constable.…”
she began, and was about to start flirting, when she had another thought “She’s
been admitted”
“Do you know which
ward?” he asked
“I’m going up myself,
so I can show you if you like”
“Great” he
responded
Thankful the lift
was there waiting, it was only three floors, but she was feeling a bit leg
weary.
“Thanks for doing
this” he said
“No problem, my
pleasure” she retorted and was momentarily distracted by thoughts of pleasure
as the lift began to ascend
But her unprofessional
thoughts were abruptly halted when the lift started rattling and shaking and
threw the pair of them, nose to nose, into one corner.
“Well this is fortuitous” she said and kissed him.
“That was so much better than flirting”
“I can’t argue with that” he said “especially as I’ve wanted to do that
for a while”
“Really? me too” she concurred “Seconds then?”
His reply came in the form of a kiss and it was even better than the
first and only came to an end when the lift started moving again.
By the time they had reached the floor they wanted and emerged from the
lift they had a dinner date for Saturday evening.
And after showing him to Mrs Twiss’s ward she returned to ED, but not in
the lift, she skipped down the stairs instead.
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