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worry about things, you’re both going to be all right. And here’s a blanket to wrap round you, we don’t want you getting cold.’
    She turned to Alice. ‘There’s a gown hanging in that cupboard, it should fit you. Gloves and the burns kit are here. Everything OK?’
    ‘No problem. I’ve done this before.’ Alice knew that she could cope—easily. She hadn’t expected to start work today, but she could. She fetched the gown and gloves.
    ‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ she said to Angus, ‘I know it hurts now but we can soon make that hurt goaway.’ It was important to try to soothe Angus, make sure he wasn’t afraid that things were going to get worse.
    ‘Is he going to be all right?’ Eileen’s tearful voice came from behind her. ‘Is my baby badly hurt?’
    At the sound of his mother’s anxious voice, Angus started to cry more than ever.
    ‘Nurse Muir will look after Angus and do a good job,’ Alice heard Morag say, quite sharply. ‘Now, stop worrying about him and let me look at these hands. Did you know that when I started nursing, the doctor told me to put honey on burns?’
    ‘Honey?’ asked a startled Eileen, ‘Why on earth use honey?’ Alice grinned. Morag knew how to divert someone who was interfering with a situation.
    Quickly she checked Angus’s little body but the only injury was to the chest. She diagnosed the scald as superficial and partial—partial because the total area injured was less than the area of his hand. The skin was red and moist, it looked granular. And it hurt—which was a good thing. A burn that didn’t hurt was serious. The nerves were deadened.
    In the burns kit there was paediatric paracetamol syrup, Alice gave him a dose and then made a note of what she had done. She covered the burn with the recommended powder and then a loose dressing. The skin was the natural barrier against infection in the body. Far too many burns resulted in a more serious infection.
    ‘There you are, Angus,’ she said, tucking a blanket round him. ‘Just lie there and sleep if you can. We’re going to keep you here for a while and then you can go home with your mummy and everything will be all right.’
    She looked up, saw Morag silently pointing at a drawer. Alice opened the drawer and grinned—there was a set of tiny teddy-bear badges, each teddy bear with a bandaged arm and leg. She took a badge. ‘And this is for you for being brave,’ she said.
    Angus looked down proudly as she pinned the badge to his coat.
    ‘Angus is fine now,’ Alice said to Morag and Eileen. ‘The burns should have healed in ten or twenty days.’
    ‘So we’ll all celebrate,’ said Morag. ‘Three cups of tea and an orange juice.’
       
    Just before lunchtime there was a call for Alice from Ben’s receptionist. Ben would have to work through his lunch-break so there would be no time for coffee. Could she stay with Morag? And there had been a phone call from Mrs McCann. Fiona was quiet but doing fine.
    ‘There’s always work here if you look for it,’ Morag said. ‘Especially for Dr Cav. He seems to go out of his way to look for work so I’m hoping you’ll make his life easier. Anyway, enough of medicine—come and look at your flat. It’s still like a building site but you can get some idea.’
    Well, it had been a building site but now it was nearly finished. Alice thought it was wonderful—compared with the nurses’ accommodation in London it was a palace. It was in an extension of the main building, on the first floor above her new birthing unit. She had her own living room, kitchen and bathroom. There was a big bedroom and a smaller one that could be used as a study. The furniture seemed to be tasteful but unfortunately itwas piled up in the centre of the living room and covered with a large white sheet. A decorator was working industriously, painting the living-room walls a pleasant shade of yellow.
    ‘Be about another week before we’re finished, ladies,’ he said.