"Ah, Poland. Do you like it here?"

"I think yes."

"Do you have a job?"

"No. No job. I do some things." She indicated her cleaning cloth.

"What else? What other work?"

"I go to houses to wash the cups and to clean the floors. I put the leaves from the trees into big bags. I see little boys clean car windows. I think maybe ..." Her face was pale and peaky.

"Do you get enough to eat?" Clara asked.

"Yes, I live up the stairs in a restaurant, so I get one meal a day"

"Do you have friends here?"

"Some friends. Yes."

"But you need work?"

"Yes, madam, I need work."

"What's your name?"

"Ania."

"Come with me, Ania," Clara said.

There were lengthy and wearying conversations with builders. The foreman told Clara that she'd never get all these changes past administration. They hated change, administration did. They feared open s.p.a.ces, loved small individual rooms where people could talk in private. Clara chose fabrics for the curtains that would divide the cubicles, as well as blinds for the windows. She looked through office furniture catalogs marking desks and cabinets. The time flew by.

She sent the little Polish girl scampering all over the place as she dealt with officialdom. Clara had typed out a letter explaining that Ania Prasky was the temporary a.s.sistant to Dr. Clara Casey and put in every initial and qualification that she possessed. They weren't going to get in the way of this battery of achievement.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon and she hadn't even thought about lunch. Ania must have had no lunch either. She came running at Clara's command.

"Lunch, Ania," she said briskly. Across Ania's face went a shadow of anxiety.

"No, madam, thank you, but I work," she said.

"A nice bite of lunch and good strong coffee and we will work even better."

The anxiety left Ania's face. Clara was going to pay for lunch. A day's wages wouldn't be broken into. She looked just like a happy child.

Clara knew when Adi and Linda had been traveling the world when they were eighteen that kind people had often put them up for the night or given them a good hot meal when they needed one. It was a kind of currency: you were kind to other people's young, they were kind to yours.

"Come on, Ania. This will put hair on our chests."

"It will?" Ania was startled.

"No, not real hair. It's a figure of speech. Do you know what that is?"

"Not really, madam."

"Well, I'll try to explain it to you over lunch," Clara said, reaching for her jacket.

Frank couldn't believe that this woman had taken on so much and so quickly. His desk was filled with forms, requisitioning this, that and the other. It was a day's work to get through his in-basket. Now he had an additional problem. He had heard that a small Polish girl with large, worried eyes had been seen running around at least half a dozen times, carrying more information. This Clara Casey seemed to be taking her new premises apart brick by brick. Each request or explanation was accompanied by a personal note from her on her own headed notepaper, which she must have had printed practically overnight. She always referred back to "our conversation" or "our agreement." She was effectively making him part of her expansionist plan. He would have to stop her now before he was dragged down with her. Or else he could let her go ahead. Not the kind of woman he liked, but as a hospital colleague intent on getting things done, she was unbeatable.

Frank decided to give her a day or two before stepping in. Surely in the next forty-eight hours she would exceed her brief so spectacularly it would be a case of self-destruct. In the meantime he would write her a cautious, meaningless letter covering his back, saying that all the plans would of course have to be sanctioned by the board.

Barbara sank her teeth into the big hamburger. She had been on a diet for six weeks and had lost only six pounds. She had promised herself a treat if she got the new job in the heart clinic. She hadbeen hadbeen thinking of new shoes or a big cla.s.sy handbag. But it had been a long day and she hadn't the energy to go to the shops. She was meeting her friend Fiona for a celebration. thinking of new shoes or a big cla.s.sy handbag. But it had been a long day and she hadn't the energy to go to the shops. She was meeting her friend Fiona for a celebration.

Fiona was envious. It sounded like just the kind of job she would have loved.

"But you didn't apply" Barbara was furious with Fiona. "You'd have got the job and we could have worked together, but no, you wouldn't fill out any forms."

"I didn't know she was going to be nice, that it would be open plan, that you'd have so much power. I thought it would be a 'Come here, do that' sort of job."

"Well, it's too late now. She's probably hired some awful battle-ax that I'll have to work with just because you wouldn't fill in a form."

"What's she like?" Fiona asked.

"Dark-haired, groomed, sort of good-looking in an oldish way. A bit like that woman at the table over there. Hey, wait a minute- that is is her." Barbara's hamburger remained poised in the air. her." Barbara's hamburger remained poised in the air.

"She's eating here here?" Fiona was openmouthed.

"Yes, and that's a girl from the center, a foreign girl called Ania, with her. How extraordinary!" Barbara shook her head in disbelief. "The woman has to eat somewhere, I suppose ..."

But Fiona was already heading toward Clara.

"Come back," Barbara hissed, but it was too late. Fiona was already talking.

"Dr. Casey, please forgive me interrupting your meal, but I am Fiona Ryan. I work with Barbara over there, who is going to start working with you next week. I meant to apply for a job there, but I thought it would be a bit routine. Barbara has been telling me all about it and it sounds brilliant. I was just wondering was it too late to send you my CV. I could leave it in tonight if you haven't picked anyone else yet."

Clara looked up and saw a pretty girl in her twenties with a broad smile. She radiated confidence and encouragement. Exactly the kind of person she wanted working with her. In the background she saw Barbara trying desperately to discourage her friend, but Fiona was having none of it.

"Barbara is embarra.s.sed, but I thought if I didn't ask you now I'd never know."

She looked bright and alert. It wouldn't hurt to read her CV.

"Sure," said Clara. "Leave it in as soon as you can and a phone number where we can get you. This is Ania, by the way."

"Hi, Ania. I'll leave you both to your food. Thank you very much." And she was gone, back at the table with Barbara, who was babbling abuse at her.

"Nice, isn't she?" Clara seemed to be treating Ania as an equal.

Very flattered, Ania agreed. "She has a big smile. Will you employ her, madam?"

"Definitely," Clara said. "Now, Ania, will we have an ice cream, do you think? Or should we get back and get our clinic up and running?"

"We go back now, madam," Ania said. Lunch was good, but they must know where to draw the line.

At seven o'clock Clara paid Ania her day's wages. "See you tomorrow at eight-thirty," she said.

Ania's face was split in half by her smile. "I work again tomorrow?" she said, clasping her hands.

"Sure, if you'd like to. I mean, you're trained now. But you may have to do some cleaning and hauling furniture about. I'll help you, of course."

"Thank you, madam, with all of my heart," Ania said. "And for my beautiful dinner too. You are a very kind lady doctor."

"That's not what they say about me at home." Clara sighed. "They say I am barking mad."

Adi had brought her boyfriend, Gerry, home for supper. They were eating soup and a salad at the kitchen table when Clara came in. Adi got up to get some for her mother, but Clara waved it away.

"Just a coffee, love. I had a huge meal in the middle of the afternoon. Burger and chips."

Gerry sent out waves of disapproval. "Meat! Very bad. Very bad indeed."

Adi was surprised. "That's not your normal speed, Mam."

"No, but things are far from normal these days," Clara said, taking her coffee upstairs. She knocked on Lindas door.

"Come in." Linda was in bed and wearing a face mask. She looked like a mime artist or a child dressed up as a ghost for a fancy-dress party.

"Sorry. I didn't think you'd be in bed this early," Clara said.

"No, this is just getting ready to go out. I'm off clubbing around eleven. There's a new place opening tonight, and I want to be in the whole of my health for it."

Linda looked at Clara as if expecting some rebuke or mention of keeping antisocial hours. Surely her mother would say something something about the lack of books and study. But you could never second-guess Clara. about the lack of books and study. But you could never second-guess Clara.

"When will you actually be earning any money, Linda?" she asked mildly.

"I knew you'd start to grizzle." Linda's face under the mask was moving with annoyance.

"Who's grizzling? It's just a simple question."

"Well, in a couple of years, I suppose," Linda said grudgingly.

"Don't you qualify next year?"

"Mother, what is is this? Do you want to let this room or something?" this? Do you want to let this room or something?"

"No, I'm quite happy for us all to live here. It's just that today I met a lot of builders and electricians and plumbers-"

"And you're going off to live in a commune with them," Linda interrupted.

Clara ignored her. "And I was thinking of having a second bathroom built. But your warm, generous father is unlikely to want to support this project, and I was wondering how to finance it. Adi could give a little, and I was hoping that next year you'd be in a position to contribute too."

"I was thinking of a gap year before settling down to work."

"A gap between what and what exactly?" Clara asked.

"Don't take it out on me if you've had a bad day" Linda looked mutinous.

"I haven't had a bad day; actually as it happens, I had a very good day. I employed a girl who is about your age, and she worked from nine a.m. until seven p.m. without complaining. I asked her to come in and do the same tomorrow and she cried with grat.i.tude."

"Bet she wasn't Irish," Linda said.

"She will be one day, but at the moment she's Polish."

"Aha!" Linda was triumphant.

"Oh, Linda, shut up. You don't know the first thing about work of any kind and here you are bleating on about gap years. You don't know how lucky you are."

"I don't think I'm lucky at all, not even a little bit. My parents hate each other. My father is going to marry someone my age. Think how that makes me feel. My mother is a workaholic, bellyaching about the fact that I'm not out there slaving for a living even though it was agreed agreed I'd be a student. I was here minding my own business having a sleep and you come in and unload all this on me. Why not tell me about all the starving orphans in China or India or Africa as well as the Polish girls who are I'd be a student. I was here minding my own business having a sleep and you come in and unload all this on me. Why not tell me about all the starving orphans in China or India or Africa as well as the Polish girls who are your your slaves?" slaves?"

"You are a truly horrible girl, Linda," Clara said and banged the door on her daughter's bedroom.

"What's all that shouting upstairs?" Gerry asked Adi.

"It's the real world, Gerry," she said. "It's the world of people not getting on, not making allowances for other people, not seeing anyone else's point of view."

"It's all that red meat," Gerry said. "No good could come from eating a dead cow in the afternoon."

The next morning, Clara was gone by the time Adi came down to breakfast. There was no sign that she had eaten anything, and no note left about evening plans. All that shouting last night must have been more serious than it sounded. Adi went to wake Linda, who was not best pleased.

"You only need to close your eyes in this house and someone barges in roaring and bawling," she complained as she struggled to wake up.

"What's wrong with Mam?"

"G.o.d, how do I know? She was like a bag of weasels last night, complaining that I wasn't Polish, that I wasn't financing a new bathroom, that I was still a student. She nearly took the door off its hinges. She's coming unstuck, I'd say."

"What was it about, about, Linda?" Linda?"

"I have no idea on earth. Maybe she's upset about Dad wanting to marry Cinta."

"She doesn't love Dad anymore."

"How do we we know who she loves? She's totally deranged. Now know who she loves? She's totally deranged. Now wi will you you go away and let me sleep?" go away and let me sleep?"

"What about your lectures?"

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Adi, go away and poison young minds, will you?"

Linda was back snuggled down again, deep in her bed. Adi shrugged and left. There was no further information for her here.

Little Ania was sitting outside the door of the center.