A Wartime Nurse (22 page)
Authors: Maggie Hope
Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction
Ken finished tying his shoelaces and got to his feet. ‘You’re not sorry it happened?’
She looked up into his face, all shadowy in the candlelight, and for a moment they stood motionless, their haste forgotten. And then the light came on, bright and harsh and directly on them both. Tentatively she put out a hand to him.
‘I’m not sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m glad. I’m very glad.’
Ken took hold of her and kissed her gently. ‘That’s good. I’m glad too.’
The magic was still there, she thought, ready to flare up into ecstasy at any time. The knowledge was there inside her, a lovely, comforting, exciting ball of feeling at her very core. She had forgotten about Da and what he was going to say. But Ken had understood.
‘Come with me to the hospital. You can tell them I asked you to, that I needed you there.’
‘No, I can’t do that. There’s no way of letting them know, and they’ll worry until they hear from me. No, I’ll just go home and face them.’
‘Sure? Shall I give you a lift to West Row?’ He was already pulling on his greatcoat and gloves, his mind on the emergency once more. She couldn’t detain him.
‘No, no, I can easily walk. There will still be people about, first-footing the New Year.’
‘Well, if you don’t mind . . .’
He was ready, waiting for her to go so that he could lock up the house. She hurried past him and out on to the driveway, the gravel bumpy under the thin soles of her dancing shoes. By the car he turned again to her and pecked her on the cheek.
‘’Bye, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow, no doubt.’ Getting into his car, he started the engine and drove off in the direction of Bishop Auckland.
He almost said ‘Let’s do it again, sometime’, she thought miserably. That was all it meant to him, an interlude for sex. They hadn’t even been to bed. Well, that was her fault, she told herself, as she started down the lane. It was very dark and she didn’t have her coat and was shivering. He had forgotten she had left her coat in the church hall. He hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t wearing one.
She began to walk faster and faster, to keep herself warm, but when she turned into West Row, she hesitated, not wanting to go in. She could hear laughter and music coming from the house. There were some neighbours in likely. She was still hesitating at the gate when a crowd came out of next-door and she found herself seized by the sailor she had met earlier in the church hall and waltzed round the yard.
‘Happy New Year. Please will you give me a kiss?’
There was a laughing, tipsy crowd of neighbours, evidently well on with their journey round the houses, letting in 1945 to each one, and they just about carried Theda into the house through the open back door. The kitchen and front room were packed with people, pitmen and soldiers and a handful of airmen with ‘Canada’ blazoned on their shoulders, and one of the Canadians had his arm around Clara – a laughing, sparkling Clara, bubbling over with what she had to tell her sister.
‘Theda! Where’ve you been? We were looking for you.’
‘I . . . I didn’t stop for supper, I thought I would come home and then I got delayed . . .’
It sounded very lame in her own ears and she faltered to a halt as she looked across the room at her mother and father but they weren’t even listening, they were watching Clara and the Canadian with stunned expressions on their faces. Clara, clutching the arm of her airman, pushed over to Theda.
‘Theda, Theda, this is Dean. He escaped! What do you think of that? He was in a prisoner-of-war camp and he escaped, wasn’t he brave?’
‘How do you do?’ said Dean gravely, and held out his free hand and pumped Theda’s enthusiastically. ‘I understand you will be my new sister-in-law?’
Theda gazed up at him, her mouth open. She felt dazed, unable to follow what they were saying. But there was no mistaking the happiness which spilled from them both.
‘Dean just went up to Da in the dance, Theda, and asked him if he could marry me. Wasn’t that sweet? And all his mates were cheering and they carried us round on their shoulders. Oh, Theda, it was great, why weren’t you there?’
‘I—’
But Clara wasn’t listening, she was off to the other side of the kitchen, laughing and talking, and Chuck was thrusting a glass of ginger wine into Theda’s hand and the lot of them were suddenly in a ring singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ then the crowd were off out into the night, visiting the next house on their rounds and taking the Canadians and Clara and Violet with them.
There was a sudden hush in the kitchen and Matt and Bea sat down suddenly in their accustomed chairs and looked at each other.
‘Well, that was a New Year to remember,’ said Bea. ‘I think I’ll away to bed now, I don’t think I can take any more surprises.’
‘Yes, me too,’ said Theda.
‘Mind, I don’t know where you got to, our Theda,’ Matt began, but then he seemed to forget about it. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when that lad came up to me and asked if he could marry our Clara. What could I say? If he’s the one she wants, well . . .’
‘I only wish he didn’t live on the other side of the world,’ said Bea, looking pensive. ‘Manitoba, did he say?’
Matt patted her shoulder. ‘That’s what it sounded like to me. Aye, well, he seems a decent enough lad.’
Incredibly, they didn’t seem worried about where Theda had been. ‘I’ll go up now,’ she said, thinking it best to leave before they looked at her properly and noticed something was different about her for she was certain that it must show.
‘Aye, you look tired, pet,’ said Bea. But she spoke absently, staring into the fire. ‘I’m glad you had a good time. Join in the Armstrongs’ party, did you? They always put on a good party.’
Theda nodded and turned for the stairs, hurrying up them before Bea could ask any more awkward questions. As she undressed for bed, Theda realised they never thought for an instant that she could have been doing anything they would consider wrong; they trusted her. And that was the reason she hadn’t realised Clara was pregnant – it was something which just didn’t happen to one of their girls. Fervently she hoped that Clara would be married and away before they found out.
Climbing into bed, she stretched her aching limbs, feeling aches and pains she hadn’t known she had, wincing as she turned on her side and caught her breast against a lump in the mattress. How sore it was. She should feel guilty, she knew. But she did not, she was glad, just as she told him she was glad. He had said he was too, hadn’t he? Maybe he did love her; he was just one of those men who didn’t say it all the time. She would make him love her, she thought, she could do it.
Chapter Eighteen
Theda’s thoughts were still muddled the following day when she began working on the ward. The patients were subdued, no doubt because they had heard the news that the German advance had been halted and the allies were once again surging towards the Rhine.
Many of the prisoners were being transferred back to the main camp up in Weardale and the staff were kept busy preparing for a new influx of patients. Theda managed to push her personal problems to the back of her mind as the day-to-day routine of the ward took over.
Even so, when the doors to the corridor swung open and she saw the doctors walking up to Sister’s office and going in, her pulse beat rapidly and she bent her head over the pillowcase she was replacing as a wave of heat rose in her.
‘I’m saving my clothing coupons until spring,’ Nurse Cullen was saying as she went to the next empty bed and stripped off the sheets in one capable sweep and flung them in the dirty linen skip. ‘I fancy a yellow silk dress with a heart-shaped neckline and a lovely full skirt for when my lad gets home. Do you think I’ll get one on utility?’ She giggled at the thought before turning to look at Theda, expecting her to share the joke. But Theda wasn’t even listening – she was looking at the doctors as they came out of Sister’s office.
It was the look on her face which made Nurse Cullen stop smiling and follow her gaze. There was Mr Kent and Major Collins and Sister Smith with an armful of the brown folders that contained the patients’ notes. Well, nothing strange about that: it was Mr Kent’s day for coming round. In any case, he was advising Major Collins on whether any more patients could be sent back to Weardale. She turned back to Staff Nurse.
‘I’ll take the slip back to the sluice and empty it,’ she said. Sister hated there to be a mess in the ward when the consultant came round.
‘Yes,’ said Theda absently. She stuffed the pillowcase on top of the other linen. And then Ken was there, walking by the end of the bed with Mr Kent. Theda smiled at him.
‘Morning, Staff Nurse,’ boomed Mr Kent.
‘Morning,’ murmured Ken. And walked on by, his smile polite and impersonal, and Theda felt as though he had slapped her face which was silly, she knew. Did she expect him to take her in his arms in front of everyone? Liaisons between the staff were frowned upon.
‘Staff, will you put the screens around Private Stern, please? Nurse Cullen seems to have disappeared.’
‘What? Oh, yes, Sister.’
She hurried down to the end of the ward for the screens. At least it gave her a minute to compose herself and when she came back with them her face was as impassive as Ken’s.
The rest of the day was filled with work; new admissions always caused a flurry of activity for both doctors and nurses and through necessity Ken was on the ward quite a lot. Rather belatedly, Theda’s training was coming to her rescue, however. She was able to immerse herself in her work and put their personal relationship out of her mind until at last it was time for her to go off duty.
Walking down the ramp to the gate, passing the entrance to the theatre, she was searching in her bag for her pass to show Tom when Ken stepped out of the doorway.
‘Staff Nurse?’
Theda jumped. It was dark, only the tiny light at the door of the theatre lighting up the path, and as she turned to face him he was little more than a dark shadow before her.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Theda,’ he said quietly. ‘Meet me by the footpath on the railway bridge?’
‘I have to get back for supper. I’m staying in the nurses’ home tonight,’ she said. During the day she had decided that was the best thing to do; in the home she would be away from temptation, Night Sister saw to that. No matter what, she couldn’t let it happen again. And even now, when he was so near and she could smell the soap he used and, faintly, the unique scent of his skin, she could feel herself melting. It took an effort of will not to sway towards him.
‘Meet me,’ he said. A group of nurses was coming down the ramp and he put his hand on her arm and drew her to one side as they passed. ‘Good evening,’ he said.
‘Evening, Doctor,’ they chorused, and Ken began to speak about the treatment he wanted for a patient on the ward and Theda thought, Well, they won’t be fooled. They’ll wonder why he didn’t say it all on the ward.
‘Meet me,’ he said as the nurses’ footsteps died away and they could be heard greeting Tom, one of them laughing at something he said.
‘I can’t, it’s too public’
‘Where then?’
She looked up the ramp. A group of nurses was just coming out of Hut C. ‘Rossi’s,’ she said, naming a coffee shop in the town. ‘I’ll be having a cup of coffee in Rossi’s.’ It wouldn’t hurt to meet him in Rossi’s, there would be a few people in the cafe but there were enclosed booths, it was fairly private.
Ken nodded and went off up the ramp, whistling ‘String of Pearls’. Theda walked on down without looking back and showed her pass to Tom at the gate and answered him as he said something or other, though what she said she hadn’t an idea.
She bought a cup of coffee in the coffee shop and took it down to the far booth near the door at the back. She sat, stirring away at the muddy liquid, waiting for Ken to come, her nerves on edge. The feeling of euphoria which had enveloped her last night was fading; there was only the memory now overlaid with doubts.
When he did come she would tell him that it was over. She wasn’t like that really; he had caught her at a bad time because her boyfriend had been killed at Arnhem and she was still too upset about it to think straight.
She would tell him that she couldn’t meet him again. It was hopeless when they worked at the same hospital; she couldn’t afford for the hospital grapevine to get hold of any gossip about her which would harm her career. And besides, there was Mam and Da . . .
‘Hello.’
She was jolted out of her thoughts as he slid into the seat opposite her. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘I’ll take you home when you’ve finished your coffee.’
‘No, no, I’m not going home. Thank you.’
He raised his eyebrows over his coffee cup and smiled and the skin crinkled round his grey eyes. ‘Well, then, come for a drive.’
The front door opened and Theda popped her head round the wooden partition of the booth. ‘It’s Nurse Cullen and Nurse Elliot,’ she whispered.
‘Does it matter?’ he asked, then as he saw her expression he realised that it did. ‘Come on then, we’ll go.’
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