it was dark, and the same this morning when I reported to the ward, and I’ve only been out here a moment.’
Daniel was smiling and she thought that he was different away from his duties at the hospital and looking after lost souls like herself on the train, but he was right, the cold was biting and she was hungry. What did he do about lunch? she thought. Had he already eaten? He was pulling away from the kerb, giving her no time to ask, and she went inside with hunger calling and curiosity taking hold. Where did he live? she wondered, and with who, and was that his day finished?
* * *
It was not, by far. Daniel was about to make a brief visit to the sailing club that he had arranged for teens with time on their hands. He usually put in an appearance in the evening but having been away, and remembering his sister’s comments of the night before, he was keen to see the state of things at the place and what he observed there didn’t please him.
His helper with the running of the club was an old guy called Ely, a retired fisherman who was usually to be found on the premises, but not today it seemed, and the boat that was the magnet that brought young folks to the club was in a state of repair in the harbour.
What had been going on? he pondered. When he called at Ely’s cottage nearby to get up to date with the situation, his wife Bridget told him that her husband was in hospital with a heart problem, where he had been when the boat had been damaged.
‘With you both not around, the would-be sailors were impatient to be out there and they took the boat without permission,’ she told him, ‘and came unstuck on a rocky reef, which meant the lifeboat having to turn out. Two of the lads were injured and are in Oceans House.’ With that cheerful item of news to digest Daniel returned to the hospital to carry on bringing mobility to the immobile in one form or another for the rest of the day, and if Darcey had still questioned his movements after watching him drive away in the lunch hour she would have had her answer on seeing him moving purposefully along the main hospital corridor in the direction of the operating theatre in the early afternoon.
* * *
In the evening that followed, Darcey was restless. There had been no more phone calls from Alexander, no contentment at the end of her first day at Oceans House, nothing to brighten the last hours of it. Just a mediocre night of entertainment on the television screen in the small apartment that was now her home. Her time on the ward had been great, she thought, but what now?
On impulse she reached for the warm winter jacket that she’d travelled in and her knee-high boots and without another thought went out into the dark night where a moon hung over the sea that was less choppy than earlier in the day.
The promenade was well lit with a selection of bars and restaurants to choose from, but Darcey was not entranced at the thought of dining alone in a strange place where she didn’t know anyone, and when she came to the teenage meeting place at the far end of the promenade that, unknown to her, was Daniel Osbourne’s project she paused outside the wooden building and looked around her with interest.
Nearby was the harbour and she saw a roomy boat there in the process of being repaired, and as she looked around her she heard the sound of young voices on the night air. A short distance away was the lifeboat house, shuttered and locked until needed, and as she lingered curiously a deeper voice that was becoming familiar caught her attention as it spoke with authority into what had become silence inside the wooden building and she was rooted to the spot.
When Daniel Osbourne had finished speaking the young members of the organisation came pouring out as the clock on a nearby church tower hit the stroke of ten, and having no desire to be seen hovering outside the place she quickly hurried through the crowd of teenagers as they spread out over the promenade, breathing a sigh of relief when the staff accommodation for Ocean House came into sight. Thank goodness he hadn’t seen her lurking outside while he’d been speaking to the young people.
Daniel thought whimsically that the new sister had had no cause to flee from his presence. She’d been unaware that he had been on foot amongst the kids, and short of sprinting after her in the early dark of an October night had to be satisfied with just quickening his pace. But the apartments had come into view and she’d been inside in a flash with the door locked behind her.
It was just a matter of common courtesy to make sure that a newcomer amongst those he worked with was home safely after wandering alone amongst the night crowds who drank in the bars and ate in the restaurants on the promenade, and with that thought in mind he proceeded to his own residence, which wasn’t far away, where he lived in solitary comfort that was edged with loneliness.
* * *
After her speedy return to base Darcey made a hot drink and pondered on the moments that she’d spent outside the place where Daniel Osbourne and the teenagers had been meeting. He hadn’t sounded pleased about something and had been making it known, she thought. The young folk had seemed chastened when they’d come filing out into the dark night.
‘Young Sailors’ Club’ was what it had said above the door of the wooden building at the end of the promenade and next to it had been the harbour where the boat was being repaired. So was it something to do with that to blame for bringing forth his annoyance?
* * *
Daniel could have told her that it was. He had started the club to keep the kids occupied and off the streets by training them in the complexities of sailing in the rescue safety boat, which was a smaller craft than the lifeboat but just as necessary in moments of danger nearer to the shore. No members were allowed to take it away from its moorings without himself or Ely being there.
But with the old guy hospitalised and Daniel absent, some of the teenagers left to their own devices had taken it out and damaged it against a rocky outcrop. So much so that the lifeboat had been called out to get them all safely back on shore, which, as far as Daniel was concerned, was an even greater annoyance as it could have been avoided if they hadn’t broken the rules.
Two of the young guys had been injured in the mishap and when his sister had informed him on his return that they were in Oceans House with fractures, his annoyance had been normal, but it had peaked when he’d seen the boat.
Hence the stern reprimand to the rest that Darcey must have heard through the open doors of their meeting place, and it hadn’t improved his mood as he’d been bringing the evening to a close when he’d caught a glimpse of her through the open door on the pavement outside, alone in the winter night, which had brought forth his effort to catch her up as she’d hurried back to her own place.
And what now he thought with mild irony as he settled down in front of the fire in the sitting room of the tasteful apartment that had long been his residence.
Tonight would have been another example of him interfering in the life of the new sister on the children’s ward if he’d caught her up. What was the matter with him?
If she’d seen him sprinting along behind her down the promenade she would have thought him insane when he had merely been trying to be helpful, but that was it. From now on he would keep a low profile where she was concerned. His only contact would be at the bedsides of their young patients.
UNAWARE OF THE promise that Daniel had made to himself the night before, when he had finished his ward round the next day and was about to depart Darcey said, ‘I am so sorry about your boat, Dr Osbourne, and I do hope that the two boys who are being treated here will soon
