He Sent Me Overseas to Marry Her, I'm Staying Overseas to Never See Him Again novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Peggy

The ambulance had already gone by the time we got back to the lane.

Zoe was standing in the green doors in her yellow puffer, holding Peggy's cardigan.

"They took her to the hospital by London Bridge," she said. "She was talking. She told the paramedic his hands were cold."

"That's good," Oliver said. "That's very good."

The corridor outside the ward had six plastic chairs and a vending machine that hummed.

By four o'clock the whole arch was in it.

The old cutter sat nearest the door with his flask between his knees.

The apprentices sat on the floor, because the bench workers had the chairs.

Nobody had gone home.

Oliver couldn't sit.

He walked to the window, and to the doors, and back to the window.

Zoe went to the vending machine and came back with her arms full.

"I didn't know what anyone likes," she said, "so I got everything."

She handed out crisps and chocolate and a packet of something orange that nobody could identify.

The boy apprentice read the label out loud.

"Prawn cocktail."

"That's a crisp?" Zoe said. "That's a crime."

"It's the best one," the girl apprentice said, and took it off him.

The old cutter poured tea from his flask into the lid and passed it to me without looking.

I drank it.

It had whisky in it.

"Medicinal," he said.

At six a doctor came out with a clipboard.

Every head in the corridor came up at once.

"Family of Mrs. Haddon?"

Twelve people stood up.

The doctor looked at all of us.

"Right," she said. "Well. She's fine."

Oliver sat down on the nearest chair.

"Exhaustion, mostly," the doctor said. "She's got a heart murmur she's apparently had since 1990 and never mentioned to anyone. She's seventy-eight and she says she's been working fourteen-hour days."

"She has," the old cutter said.

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