Olivia
Conway was a theatre sister at the Winston Churchill Hospital and she was a
rather ordinary looking middle-aged woman just the wrong side of 50.
Olivia was five foot six inches tall and very trim, and stood an inch
or so taller in her shoes, and her sisters uniform fitted her to perfection,
tapered at the waist where the broad belt sat.
Her once strawberry blonde hair was now peppered with grey.
She was always smiling, but the ageing in her face wasn’t all due to
laughter lines, life’s hardships and experiences were etched into her face as
well, each line and furrow an event and for those who could read such signs it
was like her résumé.
She was well-liked and respected at work and many of her colleagues
were close friends outside of work.
But when she chose to she could be a private person and didn’t talk
about everything in her private life and when she was outside of work she
didn’t discuss every aspect of her work.
She had lived in the small Downshire village of Clarence in the
Finchbottom Vale for 20 years and was believed to be a lonely soul as she lived
alone and had never married.
When she wasn’t working long hours at the Winston Churchill she was heavily involved with Mary of Bethany
church and she was very popular with the other congregants.
Olivia was
by profession a care giver and in the village she was considered to be an angel
of mercy because she would, in her own time, visit parishioners in need, she
was also a matchmaker.
Which was
why she was visiting Tim Sharpe to try and rally his spirits.
There was
nothing physically wrong with Tim, but he was depressed, he was 35 years old
and had just lost his beloved wife Debbie to breast cancer and the light in his
world had been extinguished so Olivia had decided to relight his candle and
show him there were still things in this world worth living for.
The Cancer
may have been responsible for taking his wife but to Olivia’s mind Tim’s
problem was curable.
To that end
she took with her Staff Nurse Selena Brown when after she had failed on her
first three visits.
His
unmarried sister Linda, was living with him and looking after him but the cure
Olivia had in mind was not something his sister should administer, it was love
and not familial love.
Linda let
them in and then excused herself as she had some shopping to do.
Olivia and
Selena walked up the stairs and found Tim lying in his bed in the unlit room
with his eyes closed as if he’d fallen asleep.
But she
knew he was awake, he was pretending to be asleep so that she wouldn’t be able
to shower him with banalities and clichés and encouragements to make him pull
himself together.
“Hello Tim”
she said but there was no response as she slipped off her coat.
“I’ve
bought someone with me today” she said “This is Selena”
As she had
gone to his house straight from work she was still wearing her sister’s
uniform, as was Selena.
“Oh dear it
seems he not interested” Selena said “Oh well it appears he’s not interested in
we angels of mercy”
“Oh well
lets go then” Olivia said “We do have people to see who do want us to be there”
“No don’t
go” he said as they reached the door
After three
weeks she stopped taking Selena with her as she had by that stage already
started to visit him on her own so she started to take her next door neighbour
Darren with her but not for Tim’s benefit Darren was there for his sister
Linda’s benefit.
So by the
end of the summer Olivia was feeling very pleased with herself, partly because
she had helped Tim back from the dead so to speak by giving him something else
to live for in the form of Selena Brown but also because she had, after taking
Darren with her on her visits given Linda a reason to leave the house other
than doing some shopping.
If only she
could find someone for herself.
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