CHAPTER THREE

      MRS OLBINSKI slept like a child, and like a child, woke early, so that there was ample time to help her dress after their coffee and rolls. By the time the docks were closing in on them they were both ready, so that when Dr Winter tapped on their door they were able to go with him without the smallest hitch.

      It was a fine morning with a fresh breeze blowing from the Baltic, so that Mrs Olbinski shivered a little as Isobel helped her down the gangway with the doctor in front holding the old lady’s hand—‘Like a crab,’ chortled Nanny, and allowed herself to be helped towards the Customs shed and the Passport office. There was a short delay while her papers were examined by one man, given to another to read and then handed back again, but her passport was stamped and the three of them made their slow progress to the waiting taxis. To Isobel’s questioning look, the doctor said: ‘No, Carl won’t be here to meet us. We’re going straight to their flat, although I rather fancy we shall have missed them by a couple of hours—they were going on holiday if you remember.’

      The flat was empty when they reached it. Dr Winter carried Nanny up the stairs, took the door key from under the mat, and went inside. There was a note for him, and while Isobel saw to Mrs Olbinski, he read it, chuckling a good deal. ‘That’s all right,’ he said at length, ‘we may stay here as long as we wish.’ He looked at the old lady with an apparently careless eye.

      ‘Tired, my dear? How about bed for a while? Coffee first, though.’

      Which was Isobel’s cue, she supposed, to go into the splendid little kitchen and make it. When she got back the doctor was lying back in a chair with his eyes closed and Mrs Olbinski was snoring gently. He opened his eyes as she set the tray on the table and got up to fetch his coffee.

      ‘Have your coffee, Isobel, then we’ll wake her and get her to bed. I think it likely that we’ll stay here for rather more than two days.’ He paused. ‘Why do you look so dumbfounded? I’d already said it was likely…’

      ‘You called me Isobel.’

      His eyebrows rose. ‘Do you object? Since we’re to be in each other’s company for the next few days.’

      ‘I don’t mind in the least, Dr Winter.’ She spoke in her usual matter-of-fact voice, and wondered what would happen if she called him Thomas. Probably he would explode. She smiled at the idea and he asked sharply: ‘Why are you smiling?’

      She said ‘nothing’ so firmly that it sounded almost true.

      Mrs Olbinski wakened a few minutes later, declaring that she hadn’t been to sleep, only shut her eyes; all the same, when she had drunk her coffee she went willingly enough with Isobel and allowed herself to be helped into her nightgown and settled in bed. She said rather fretfully: ‘I haven’t thanked Mr Thomas—whatever must he think of me? And I’m so grateful…it will be nice to be looked after.’ She put out a hand and caught Isobel’s. ‘You’re a dear child, Isobel, looking after a tiresome old woman who can’t even remember to say thank you.’

      ‘Hush now,’ said Isobel, her pleasant voice gentle. ‘You’re tired and you’ve had a lot to do in the last day or so, I don’t think Th… Dr Winter expects you to thank him until you’re quite yourself again. If you have a good nap now, how about him coming here and having a cup of tea with you later on, then there’ll be time to thank him properly.’ She popped the elderly hand under the blanket. ‘I’m sure he’s tired too…all those papers…’

      ‘It must have taken him months, and then that delay.’ The old voice trembled. ‘I thought just for a while that I wouldn’t be able to come with you.’

      ‘But everything turned out perfectly all right, didn’t it?’

      She went back to the sitting room once she was sure that Mrs Olbinski was asleep and found Dr Winter stretched out on the enormous sofa; he was snoring gently.

      She collected the coffee cups soundlessly, bore them off to the kitchen and then went and sat down by the window. The garden below was charming; she spent some time admiring it and then, since the doctor showed no signs of waking, crept away to the kitchen to open cupboards and peer inside. Sooner or later, he would wake up and want a meal, it would help if she had some idea of what there was to cook. Soup for Nanny—that was easy; there was a row of tins, the wrappers illustrating their contents. In the freezer there was food in abundance, the only thing was that it was all wrapped and neatly labelled in Swedish. As soon as the doctor woke up she would ask him to go shopping. Thank heaven there were potatoes in plenty. She peeled some and set them on the stove ready to cook later on, then she sat down at the kitchen table and made a list of things to buy—too bad if the shops shut at noon; it was almost that already, and as far as she could remember there weren’t many shops close by, only antique dealers and smart boutiques. The list grew alarmingly. She was doing her best to cut it down to a reasonable length when the doctor joined her.