Fen End, by Rosalind Thurlby

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

Nurse Feeney arrived at Fen End Farm the way she arrived everywhere, at speed, her black bicycle rattling over the ruts and her bag strapped to the carrier like a prisoner. She wiped her boots on the grass with three hard strokes each and marched into the kitchen without knocking.

Old Mr Cawthorne was sitting by the range with his bad leg up on a stool, exactly where she had told him not to put it.

‘Off,’ she said.

He took it off. In forty years nobody in the parish had seen Abel Cawthorne do as he was told, but nobody had ever argued with Nurse Feeney for long either. She unwound the old bandage, sniffed it and gave him the look a magistrate might give a poacher.

‘You’ve had the dog licking this.’

‘Only the once.’

‘Once is a hundred times for a dog.’ She washed the wound with water so hot it steamed, and she did not stop talking while she worked: about the price of eggs, about the foolishness of men who thought a dog’s tongue was cleaner than carbolic. Her hands, though, were slow and very gentle, and when he flinched she paused without comment until his breathing settled.

She stood back to admire the new dressing, as pleased as if she had painted it. ‘Thursday,’ she said. ‘And if that leg is on the stool when I come, I shall take the stool home with me.’

From the window he watched her pedal away, her cape flying out behind her like a sail.

What impressions does the writer create of Nurse Feeney?

You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.