In the small but thriving
English county of Downshire people go about the tasks of their everyday
existence in ways that range from the mundane to the extraordinary as their
forebears had done for centuries before, in the varied and diverse landscape,
from the Ancient forests of Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and
manmade lakes of the Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the
Downshire Downs, to the beautiful Finchbottom Vale and the short but beautiful
coastline to the east.
But our story concerns The
Hedgerley Court Hospice which was located in the quiet village of Applesford
and Lorraine Trapnell was one of the nurses, and one of her patients was Katie
Vickers, and it was through Katie that Lorraine met her husband Tim.
Tim wanted to nurse his wife
at home rather than have her face the end in the one place he most dreaded.
“Why can’t I look after you
here?” he asked “It’s a big house and there will only be me, we could easily get
a bed in the lounge”
“Why would you want to do
that?” she asked
“Because I love you” he
replied
“I will need twenty-four-hour
care before the end,” she said “and round the clock nursing”
“There is a spare room” he
replied, but she wouldn’t be persuaded, not by him at least, so he tried to
recruit her sister Anne to his cause.
“Katie will never agree,”
Anne stated, “she doesn’t want to be a burden”
“What is it about sick people
not wishing to be a burden?” Tim said crossly
“When my time comes I plan on
being a burden to all and sundry”
“She’s not you” Anne rebutted
“But I will go and talk to
her,”
“We’ll go together,” he said
“She’s resting now but we can go later”
“No” she retorted “I’ll go
alone”
So Anne went in to see her
sister but there was persuading her despite her best efforts.
Denied his role as carer, Tim
was left in a kind of limbo, and he was unsure what his role was with her in a
Hospice and to his great shame he sought solace in the arms of another woman.
Anne would have gladly been
that woman, had he chosen her, but he felt that would have been too great a
betrayal, so he found himself instead in the arms of his wife’s nurse Lorraine
Trapnell.
Their meeting place was a
Narrow Boat moored on The Downshire Navigation in Applesford.
The Navigation was part of the canal network which ran
between Nettlefield in the north, down through Millmoor and the Oakhams to
Northchapel, Abbeyvale and then to its most southerly point, Abbottsford, where
it again headed north, this time to Childean, Purplemere and Finchbottom where
it joined the River Finch.
The Barge belonged to
Lorraine’s sister and they lay quietly in the darkness when she made a
confession
“When I walked into the room
this morning and you were lying on the bed next to Katie, I felt jealous”
“Jealous?” he said surprised
“I know it’s silly” she said
“I had no right to, but I did”
“Why?” he asked
“I don’t know really,” she
said with a shake of the head “I’m a married woman after all, who loves her
husband, what I have with you is a bonus, and with no strings attached”
“But there is love too” he
said
“You feel that too?” Lorraine
gasped
“Oh yes” he replied and she
sighed and looked down at her lap
“I think that’s why I was
jealous of a dying woman,” she admitted, “because I wanted to feel your tender
embrace”
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