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the smile of a tiger baring teeth. ‘Why?’
    The question was predictable. I’d been preparing for it for all the years I could remember. Yet when the reply came, it was as unrehearsed as it was terrifying.
    ‘Brown boots. Old shiny brown boots.’
    Matron’s eyebrows raced upwards at the same time as her jaw dropped. Even the oil paintings looked shocked and the chandelier was silent.
    I plunged on, ‘They belonged to a Mr Matheson. He was an old shepherd who was admitted to the Ian Charles. You know, where I work. He was pretty confused but if you could imagine you were out on the hills with him, he made sense. Sometimes he’d put the boots on and sit in his hospital pyjamas trying to get the other patients to herd his long-ago sheep, but of course, they weren’t interested.’ My laugh was fond if trembling. Matron was now looking bemused but at least she was listening. Were we moving out of the land of permafrost?
    I struggled on. ‘After all, as you would understand, they’d their own flocks to mind. The boots were hidden because the staff thought they just added to his confusion but I thought they were so much part of his personality that it was a shame. Then he had a stroke and we never heard him speak or whistle again.’
    ‘And the boots?’ Matron picked up a pen and held it like a gun over a clean sheet of paper.
    ‘When Mr Matheson died, I’d to pack his belongings. He didn’t have much, but the boots were his and they just lay there as if waiting for him to put them on. I hadn’t realised how fond I was of him. The boots seemed to echo a sadness I didn’t know I had and I wished I’d had nursing skills to look after him. I’d have felt better about him dying.’
    For a moment even Matron seemed to accept that death was a force mightier than her as she gazed heavenward in silent contemplation. Then her knuckles went white as with renewed vigour she squeezed the pen. It spluttered into life to allow her to dash out a scrawl.
    ‘Right! Well thank you, Miss Macpherson, I’ll let you go now but,’ she consulted her watch, ‘have you any questions?’
    ‘Will it be long before I know if I’ve been accepted?’ I couldn’t think of anything cleverer to say.
    ‘No,’ she said and arrow-aimed a smile at the door.
    The secretary was hovering outside. She greeted me with a grin reminiscent of a whist player with a winning hand. She must have won that rota row.
    ‘Now for your written.’ She took me past a girl, her church-going hat and lacing shoes making her an ideal candidate with matching academic qualifications because, tussling with syntax and number questions, I sat the exam alone and in a small airless room.

    ‘You’ll be glad that’s over; it can be daunting.’ The secretary’s unexpected kindness made me blink. ‘Why don’t you go and have a cup of tea? There’s a café downstairs and I do hope you have a safe journey home.’
    Returning along the main corridor and unsure of my future, I considered throwing myself under an oncoming trolley. At least I could stay in this bustling and exciting place, even if it was at the receiving end being put back into shape. There were nurses passing by, so casually and at ease, they didn’t seem to realise how lucky they were to be in uniform, here, in this fabulous place.
    Meanwhile, a cross Beth was waiting at the entrance, her bag loaded with learned-looking tomes.
    ‘Come on!’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting ages. These books weigh a ton. See!’ She took one out and thrust it at me.
    ‘Thanks for asking how I got on,’ I said, catching it, reading its title and promptly holding it in such a way that people could see it and think I was a medical student. ‘I didn’t know you were studying adenoids.’
    ‘It’s actually Virgil’s Aeneid – if you’d bother to read properly,’ Beth chuckled. What a little rib tickler my sister could be.
    ‘You don’t fancy a cup of tea here? There’s a café near the entrance.’
    Beth