"Might I borrow a light?" Patsy asks, holding up her cigarette. Her lighter does choose the most inopportune times to fail.
Doctor Turner passes over the lighter, rather than light it for her, which Patsy appreciates. She takes a drag and hands the lighter back. "Thank you. I don't usually indulge during a shift, but it's been rather a trying morning."
"Hasn't it? If Mrs Mitchell doesn't resubmit her urine sample, I don't know what we'll do."
"Mrs Mitchell the diabetic?" Patsy says, "oh, I'll be having words with her."
Doctor Turner chuckles, "I should have known to put Nurse Mount on the case."
Over the months, Patsy and Doctor Turner have formed a rather agreeable working relationship. She suspects her involvement in the case with Mr Glennon – heading all the way out to Liverpool to retrieve the necessary medication – has earned her his respect. Patsy feels a kinship with him from what snippets she has caught about his work during the war; the war affected everybody, but she thinks that, among the residents of Poplar, it is only Doctor Turner who could recognise the horror and filth she sees in her nightmares.
"Shelagh has been trying to get me to cut down on these," he says, taking another puff.
"Delia's the same." Patsy says without thinking.
Doctor Turner regards her for a moment, but says nothing. He drops the butt to the floor and stubs it out. "They're probably right, but I rather think we've earned our vices here and there, don't you?"
Patsy stubs out her cigarette and follows Doctor Turner back into the clinic. "I think you're right."