Read Online A Silver Lining by Catrin Collier - Free Book Online

referred to himself by his Russian name, never the nickname that had been bestowed on him in Pontypridd market), had held a woman. He was still young. Only twenty-eight, but sometimes, surrounded in his working and lodging life by younger men like William and Eddie Powell, he felt like a grandfather.
    He’d compartmentalised his life into sections: the proscribed past, and the allowable present. (He never attempted to forecast what the future might hold.) The problems of childhood, adolescence and early manhood paled into insignificance when set against the traumatic events that had marked his entry into Russian adult life.
    Afterwards had come the numb, desensitised years of exile. Five long years during which he had tried valiantly, with varying degrees of success, not to feel anything of a remotely emotional or personal nature.
    And now –now –the simple act of carrying a sick woman up a staircase had reminded him that life didn’t have to be cold and solitary. That human existence could encompass warmth, physical contact with people – and even –the possibility hovered tantalisingly, almost beyond his present conception –a relationship with a woman.
    He looked into the bedroom. Tina was sitting on the bed. All he could see of Alma was a mass of red hair lying on the pillow, the same hair that had flowed over his arm when he had carried her up the stairs.
    Perhaps that was it! The combination of red hair and green eyes. Nothing more. A passing physical resemblance. An attraction that was not born of his feelings for Alma, but Masha ... Masha ...
    ‘Charlie?’
    The shadowy figure of Trevor Lewis stood before him on the staircase. ‘William tells me Alma collapsed.’
    ‘Yes. I’m sorry, I’m in your way,’ Charlie apologised, rising quickly.
    ‘Hello Charlie.’ Trevor’s wife Laura, who had been a Ronconi before her marriage, acknowledged him before following her husband into the room. ‘I’ll take over here,
    Tina, you go and help Tony downstairs,’ Laura Lewis murmured in her brisk no-nonsense nursing voice.
    Charlie waited for Tina, then followed her down the stairs into the café where Tony’s raised voice and Angelo’s intensified crashing of pots and pans testified to the chaos that the temporary shortage of staff had created.
    ‘It’s appendicitis and mild concussion,’ Trevor announced through the open door at the foot of the stairs.
    ‘That isn’t too bad, is it?’ Tina enquired uneasily from behind the counter.
    ‘I don’t think the mild concussion will present much of a problem, and appendicitis is usually straightforward,’ Trevor agreed, ‘but Alma’s appendix is on the point of bursting. I’m going to have to operate right away.’
    ‘Here?’
    Even Trevor smiled at the panic on Tony’s face. ‘Not in that bedroom, with only the stub of a candle for light and the wind whistling in and flapping the wallpaper! But I could move her into the kitchen. You do have a scrub down table and sharp knives to hand?’
    ‘You’re joking?’ Tony wasn’t absolutely sure, even after the smile.
    ‘My car’s outside. I’ll take her up to the cottage hospital. I’ll need help to carry her downstairs,’ Trevor frowned, thinking of the narrow staircase.
    ‘I’ll carry her down for you, Dr Lewis.’ Wanting to help, but uncertain how, Charlie had been hovering close to the counter.
    ‘She has to be held steady,’ Trevor warned.
    ‘He took her up there without any trouble,’ Tina replied for him.
    ‘Then if you’ll be kind enough, Charlie. The sooner we get started, the sooner I can operate.’
    ‘Someone’s going to have to tell Alma’s mother.’ Tina hoped it would be her. High drama was infinitely preferable to the boredom of waiting at tables.
    ‘I’ll go,’ William offered. ‘If I take the Trojan I can drive Mrs Moore to the hospital.’
    ‘There won’t be anything for her to do there,’ Trevor protested. ‘Better you stay with her until it’s all over. I’ll