Finders and Keepers by Catrin Collier

really well.’
    â€˜My father discourages close relationships between staff and patients, Mr Evans.’
    It was then Harry realized what should have been obvious from the outset. Diana Adams’s offhand manner was a defence mechanism. No one could afford to get emotionally involved with so many terminally ill patients. It would be soul-destroying. But she could let her guard down with those in the recovery ward, because, thanks to her father’s treatments and the care they had received in Craig-y-Nos, they still had their lives ahead of them.
    â€˜Miss Adams,’ he walked out into the covered yard alongside her, ‘would you be kind enough to take me to your father’s clerk so I can make arrangements to have my grandfather admitted here tomorrow?’
    â€˜Yes, Mr Evans.’ For the first time since she had opened the front door to him he saw a hint of sympathy and commiseration in her dark blue eyes.
    â€˜I would be grateful if you could recommend a place where I could rent a room tonight.’
    â€˜The inn at Abercrave has rooms.’
    â€˜The one four miles down the road?’
    â€˜It’s the only other building in the valley with a telephone, Mr Evans. And there are occasions when we need to get in touch with relatives of our patients urgently. Good day.’
    â€˜I won’t forget, Dad. You’ll be arriving at Penwyllt station at eleven o’clock … Doctor Williams has asked Doctor Adams to send an ambulance …’I’ll be there as well. I’m sorry there’s no change in Edyth. How is Mam coping?’
    The crackling on the telephone line drowned out the end of Lloyd’s answer. Harry raised his voice in the hope that his stepfather could still hear him.
    â€˜â€¦ Yes, the countryside around the sanatorium is beautiful, Dad. As to whether Granddad will be happy there I doubt it, because he’ll be so far away from the family … I can’t hear you, but I hope you can still hear me. Love to everyone.’ The line went dead before Harry finished shouting the last sentence. Exasperated, he replaced the telephone and receiver on the rickety card table.
    â€˜Did you get through all right, Mr Evans?’ Mrs Edwards asked when he left the tiny room, no bigger than a broom cupboard, which she had grandly referred to as ‘the office’. There wasn’t even a chair. All it contained besides the table and telephone was a rough set of shelves that housed haphazard bundles of invoices and bills held together by elastic bands.
    â€˜Yes, I did, thank you, Mrs Edwards. Although I was cut off before I finished.’
    â€˜When I booked the call with the exchange, I asked them to give you the full two and a half minutes.’
    â€˜I would have liked five.’
    â€˜The exchange gives priority to Craig-y-Nos. They don’t like us tying up the line for any longer in case they have an emergency and need to contact relatives.’ She lifted the account book she kept beneath the bar on to the counter. ‘I’ll put the call on your bill, Mr Evans?’
    â€˜I’ll pay you now, Mrs Edwards.’ Harry thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change.
    â€˜When you leave will be fine. I’ll add your bar bill to your board and lodge as well, if you like.’
    â€˜That’s good of you, Mrs Edwards. I’ll have a pint of beer now, please.’ After three years in Oxford when he’d had to pay for a full term’s accommodation in advance, Harry found this attitude to money refreshingly trusting. Mrs Edwards had refused the five shillings he’d offered her for a night’s food and accommodation when he’d arrived, on the grounds that she liked her customers ‘to be satisfied’, adding that if he thought a meal ‘wasn’t right’ she wouldn’t charge him for it. And he’d practically had to press the cost of the tyre repair on Alf,