Ruby. Marie Maxwell

      Prologue

       Southend Hospital, 1952

      ‘Someone give me something … I’m in such pain … I can’t breathe,’ the woman on the trolley groaned. Her head rolled back and forth and she clutched fiercely at her chest. ‘I can’t breathe, help me …’ As she spoke, all her strength seemed to float way from her body and she could feel herself being pulled towards unconsciousness. She tried to turn onto her side to curl up into a comforting ball but hands reached out to stop her and hold her flat on her back.

      Her mind confused by the ever-increasing waves of pain, she was losing track of where she was. All she knew was that she was suffering the worst pain she had ever felt in her life. She felt as if her lungs were on fire. She could hear voices all around her but she was finding it hard to focus. An atmosphere of urgency pervaded, but the words she could hear made no sense.

      She kept drifting between pain and oblivion: floating away peacefully to another place and then being pulled back with the fierceness of the pain.

      Then the voices became louder and more urgent, and she felt herself being moved quickly. Bright lights flashed overhead, wheels rattled loudly underneath her and doors slammed behind her. Almost as soon as the journey had started, so it stopped, and people she didn’t recognise grouped around her, touching her, pulling at her clothes. Then there was a pain in her hand, a mask over her face, and she was drifting away again. She just had time to wonder if she was dying, if that was it for her life – if that was all it had been about – before oblivion took her over and she succumbed to the anaesthetic.

      ‘Time to wake up now,’ a disembodied voice said. ‘Your operation is over and we need to see you awake.’

      She tried to shake herself awake but it was hard.

      ‘Don’t move. You’ve got dressings on your chest and your arm is in plaster. Just open your eyes so we know you’re out of the anaesthetic and then you can go back to sleep.’

      She forced her eyes open and focused on the nurse standing beside the bed.

      ‘What happened?’ The words came out slowly past her swollen tongue.

      ‘You’ve had surgery. The doctor will talk to you about it later once you’re transferred from post-op.’

      As she watched the ramrod-straight back of the nurse walking away, the