Over the past week or so, as her absolute terror about her daughter's condition has subsided to something more manageable, Mrs Busby's become increasingly aware of her surroundings: more specifically, of the damp, the mould, and the stink of someone else's boiled fish that permeates the boarding house in which she's staying. They'd had to hastily arrange their lodgings the night they'd arrived, and then, when their thoughts had been distracted by panic about their daughter, it had seemed – well, not inviting, not pleasant, but tolerable. But now, on the ninth day after Delia's accident, with Delia visibly improving every day (and not having had a seizure for five days, touch wood), Mrs Busby has reached her breaking point. She really can't stay there any longer without going mad.

It's a far cry from her warm and immaculately spotless home. She misses Wales.

She can cope with it at night, more or less, but it's during the day, in the long, lonely stretches between visiting time in the morning and visiting time in the evening that it affects her most. Were she in London for any reason other than the one that's brought her here (and were she another person entirely) she thinks she might have used this opportunity to explore the city, to go to museums and galleries, to see parks and palaces, to visit the famous shopping streets. But given the circumstances and given the person she is (or the person she's become, somewhere along the way) all of that is (or seems) out of bounds. In between visiting time in the morning and visiting time in the evening, she'd just like somewhere comfortable she can return to, somewhere to sit, to potter, to knit, to read, to while away the hours until it's time to see Delia.

And she'd like to be somewhere where the food isn't so unrelentingly awful.

If David were here, she'd ask him to find somewhere new for them to stay. But David's not here. He's at home, coping, so he tells her each evening on the telephone, managing reasonably successfully to do the washing up, to walk the dog, to get himself up and ready for work each morning. He's even taken to making his own packed lunches. The thought of her husband making himself at home in her kitchen is one she finds half-amusing, half-terrifying: the place'll be in an absolute state when she gets back.

She misses David.

Without David here, the problem of the boarding house is one she's going to have to solve by herself.

She's not one usually to ask for help but it seems silly not to get some local advice, so, that evening, over hands of cards (her own ability to remember the rules of the game improving as her daughter's does) she says to Patsy, 'You must know the area around here well.'

'I cycle most of it on a daily basis,' Patsy agrees.

'I don't suppose you know of a decent guesthouse in the area, do you? The place I'm staying –' she pulls a face, the better to convey her disgust with the place.

'Oh,' Patsy says, understanding. 'Lodgings in London can be hit and miss.'

Mrs Busby outlines her complaints: the damp, the mould, the smell, the noise, her profound but ill-defined suspicions about some of the other residents…Delia, to whom the world outside this room is still, largely, a great unknown, seems enthralled by the tale.

'Why don't you stay with us?' Patsy says, after reflecting for a moment.

'In the flat?' The words are said before Mrs Busby has a chance to stop herself.

Patsy seems to wince. The flat is a thing that neither of them have yet spoken about. Mrs Busby's not even sure they found a flat, let alone moved into it. She only knows about it from a letter that had arrived in Wales just a day before Delia's accident had summoned her to London. Lots of girls share flats, Delia had written - whether to convince herself or her mother - and it'll be so much more comfortable having a real home rather than a single room in the nurses home.

She'd read the letter with a creeping sense of dread. It seems a lifetime ago. It's hard to remember, now, that time when the worst thing she could imagine happening to her daughter was her deciding to share a flat with another woman. She's been wondering whether, if she were given the chance by some fairy godmother, whether she would trade those pre-accident fears about what Delia was getting up to in London for this post-accident horror of amnesia. She's not sure. She might. But it's a pointless thing to think about, anyway, because she can't turn back time, she can't go back and avert Delia's accident.

'I'm not staying there,' Patsy says quietly. 'Not without - ' She stops. Her eyes flick almost imperceptibly to Delia. Mrs Busby understands what she means, what she can't say. 'No,' Patsy continues in her normal voice, covering over the moment of awkwardness. 'Stay with us at Nonnatus, I mean. Sister Julienne was saying just the other day that you'd be more than welcome to stay with us.'

'Don't you live in a nurse's home like – ' Like Delia does, or did, Mrs Busby almost says, but doesn't. Like Patsy, she's treading carefully on the subject of Delia's life before the accident for all sorts of reasons. She knows the place Delia lives (lived?) is strict on visitors and has no space for when family came to visit. That, at least, was the excuse that Delia had made when she had last proposed making a visit.

'No,' Patsy says. 'I used to, but now – well – I live in a convent. And Sister Julienne, the Sister-in-charge, says you're very welcome to stay.'

Mrs Busby and Delia turn to her, both stunned. That Patsy lives in a convent is clearly news to them both.

'You don't look like a nun,' Delia says, looking Patsy over with an appraising grin.

'Don't worry, I'm not,' Patsy grins back.

Mrs Busby dithers for a moment, weighing up the offer. It would be an easy way out of her current lodgings, but she feels awkward about taking this favour from someone she feels so ambivalent about. But Patsy's insistent, and Mrs Busby's current lodgings are so damp - and expensive! - and the food so bad, that she's desperate to get out of there.

'Go on,' Delia says, as she's wavering. 'I'm sure living with Patsy can't be as bad as where you're staying now.'

'I won't swear to it never being cold or damp,' Patsy says, 'but it doesn't usually smell of boiled fish. And I think it's probably nearer to the hospital than where you are now'.

That settles it. It's all arranged for the following evening: Mrs Busby'll give her landlady notice (she fears she'll be charged for the rest of the week but it's a price she's willing to pay to get out of there) and Patsy will come and meet her after her shift, and take her to Nonnatus. And then they'll come and visit Delia.

Delia, for her part, seems thrilled at the idea of her two companions living together. Whether her pre-accident self would be quite so pleased, Mrs Busby's not so sure, but things have changed since then, in so many ways.

Waiting on the steps of her boarding house for Patsy to meet her as arranged Mrs Busby watches a good-looking couple approach. It's not until they've almost reached her that the woman waves to her and she realizes it's Patsy. She hadn't recognized her in her uniform, hadn't expected to see her in the company of a young, handsome man.

She looks appraisingly at the pair of them, and wonders.

'This is Tom,' Patsy says. 'The Reverend Hereward, rather. He's offered to give us a lift to Nonnatus.'

'Good evening, vicar,' Mrs Busby replies.

'Call me Tom, Mrs Busby,' the man says, shaking her hand. 'I was so sorry to hear about what happened to Delia. She's been in my prayers.'

'Thank you,' she manages to say, feeling a little overcome at this concern from a complete stranger. Patsy takes her suitcase from her, and Tom leads them around the corner to where his car is parked.

Fifteen minutes later and they're at Nonnatus House. The vicar melts away into the background as she's welcomed in by a nun, the Sister-in-charge that Patsy had mentioned the day before. She's kind but efficient in her greeting.

'You're very welcome to stay here for as long as you need,' Sister Julienne tells her. 'Nurse Mount will show you to your room, and give you a tour of the amenities, such as they are. After that it'll be time for you both to leave for the hospital, I suspect. By the time you get back, it'll be compline so we won't have a chance to get to know each other properly this evening, but I was hoping you might join me for a cup of tea tomorrow morning?'

'Don't worry,' Patsy says conspiratorially, as she leads Mrs Busby away, making her wonder, anxiously, how much worry she had been conveying in her demeanour. 'You haven't been summoned to the headmistress for a telling-off. She just wants to make sure that you know how welcome you are.'

Then Patsy takes her up through the building – a grand old, wood-panelled place – to her own room. Putting her case down, Patsy says, 'I'll leave you to get settled while I run and get changed', and then disappears.

Ten minutes later, she's just finished putting her things neatly in drawers when there's a knock on her door and Patsy's back.

'Time's escaping us, rather' she explains. 'So we better get a move on. Nurse Crane has agreed to run us to the hospital so we won't be late.'

At the hospital, Delia wants to know all about Nonnatus House, this place where they're both now living.

'I've hardly seen it myself,' Mrs Busby says, shaking her head.

It's been a whirlwind, rather, the last couple of hours, and Mrs Busby doesn't know what to think about it. She can't put it into words, not quite, not yet, but somehow, for the first time since she arrived in London, she's starting to feel like part of a community. A vicar, a nun, a nurse – people she doesn't know at all – have shown her care and concern, have shown that same care and concern for her daughter.

For that she is grateful.