When she is feeling particularly put-upon – whenever she has been treated with less than the respect that she deserves – Dr Heather Preedy slips one hand into the deep back pocket of her mind and takes up a memory. She turns this memory in her palm, thumbing it fondly. Its edges, once rough, have long since been worked smooth by years of such tender attention. Cold to the touch, the memory is all that can be relied upon to drain the heat from Heather's temper.

     With the memory comes a name; one that Heather has not spoken out loud for almost a decade, although within the safe confines of her own mind it has been intoned like a peace-giving mantra: Mrs Blythe. Mrs Blythe. Mrs Blythe. The noises of suffering (from the mouths of staff and patients alike) that echo through the ward around her; the laughter of the secretaries in the office next to her own; all these petty irritations can be reduced to nothing by this simple invocation.

     Heather wonders sometimes if she still owes Mrs Blythe her title, and ought not to have progressed to first name terms by now, calling instead on 'Catherine' for her comfort. She can't quite bring herself to do it. The deference of the schoolroom was drilled into her too deeply to be challenged now. It irks Heather, this submissive mental tic; she has more than earned the right to address the woman as an equal. What they had shared, what had passed between them that night, ha