Digging out Hazel Street

Text 1: Hospital Can’t Wait, by Miriam Oakhurst

An original short story extract.

Overnight the snow had buried every car on Hazel Street up to its wing mirrors. At half past six I heard a scraping sound and looked out to see Mr Novak from number nine, in a woolly hat and his late wife’s pink gloves, clearing a path with a coal shovel. He did not start with his own car. He started with the little blue hatchback outside number four, which belonged to Grace, who worked early shifts in the children’s ward at the General. He dug round all four wheels, brushed the snow off the windscreen with his sleeve, and scattered a bag of salt across the road in front of the bonnet. When Grace came out in her uniform, he was leaning on the shovel, puffing. ‘Hospital can’t wait,’ he said. ‘My car can. I’m not going anywhere.’

Explain why Mr Novak clears Grace’s car before his own.