A Wartime Nurse (29 page)

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Authors: Maggie Hope

Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction

BOOK: A Wartime Nurse
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Later in the afternoon, he sat in the manager’s office at Winton Colliery. He was alone in the building though the activity in the engine house continued, the winding wheel buzzing and clanking as the steel ropes sent the cage back down to Busty number two seam to bring up the last of the back shift men.
Idly he thought about finishing up and going home. Mrs Parkin would have left him a meal in the oven. It was warm in the office, though. A coal fire had burned in the grate all day and the heat had built up even though the fire was beginning to die now. It was only a short walk to the house but rain spattered on the windows of the office and the wind swept up the pit yard, howling round the corners and even lifting the coal dust. The prospect of going outside was not very inviting.
It would have been different if Betty were there, waiting for him, the kettle humming on the hob ready so that she could mash a pot of tea for him as soon as she heard him open the front door. Or if he had been expecting Ken to come and eat a meal with him; he had enjoyed those times. But Ken was in Europe, probably over the Rhine by now, working in some field hospital. He would write to him tonight, get his address from Jane.
Maybe he had been too harsh with that girl, Theda Wearmouth. A good-looking girl she was, with her dark hair and eyes and that proud lift to her chin. Yet there was the night he had seen her outside the club with that Canadian and only a few weeks after Ken had gone . . . she couldn’t have been serious about his nephew.
Perhaps he would drop Ken a line, telling him Theda had been to see him. And maybe he would mention too he had seen her on the day of her sister’s wedding, and what a good time she seemed to be having.
Theda walked back to the hospital along the path through the fields, glad when she reached the cover of the wood. She walked blindly. Knowing the path she could find her way almost automatically, and it was just as well. She felt humiliated, dirty – used almost. No, that was silly. She had been a willing partner, an eager partner. What had happened to her was her own fault. It wasn’t even unique: it happened to hundreds, thousands of girls. It was humdrum, banal.
The path was wet and muddy but she stumbled on, the mud coming over her shoes in one place and seeping through her stockings, clinging and icy cold. Her fingers were dead white with the cold, she had come out without her gloves. Gradually the cold seeped into her mind and she paused, realising with a last vestige of common sense that she had to get inside, somewhere warm.
She climbed the stile at the end of the wood and entered the cemetery, threading her way between the graves to cut off a corner and ending up in South Church Road, on the outskirts of the town. She paused. It was only three-fifteen, too early to go back to the hospital. In any case, she couldn’t bear to see anyone she knew, not yet. Making up her mind, she turned down the road and headed for Rossi’s coffee shop. It was warm in there, and what’s more she could hide in one of the booths at the back.
The coffee shop was empty at this time of day. She bought a cup of Bovril and took it into a booth. She crumbled the free cracker into the drink and sipped the hot liquid, burning her tongue. But she could feel the warmth in the shop, and held her fingers round the hot cup, and slowly she began to thaw.
What right had Tucker Cornish to speak to her like that? she thought suddenly, her self-esteem rising with her body temperature. If Da had heard him he would have had something to say all right, even if he lost his job over it. Why the hell should she let what he said humiliate her? He didn’t know her, and anyroad, who the hell was he? A Cornish, that’s who he was, one of the family that had been the scandal of the place. Why, wasn’t it his own father who had murdered the agent years ago?
Theda sat up straight and rooted in her bag for her compact, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, but otherwise she didn’t look too bad. The cold had put colour into her cheeks and her eyes were beginning to sparkle with indignation. Taking out her comb, she pulled it through her tangled hair, taking it back from her face and pinning it with a clip over one ear. She found her lipstick and touched up her lips. Lipstick was frowned on at the hospital but just now she couldn’t care less about that.
Finishing off her Bovril, Theda fastened her scarf under her chin and, picking up her handbag, slung it on her shoulder and marched out of the coffee shop and up Newgate Street to the hospital. Running a hot bath, she stripped off her clothes and lay in the hot water and made her plans. She would get through this on her own. Oh, yes she would. She didn’t need a man. And it wasn’t just bravado – she was capable of looking after herself.
Chapter Twenty-Four
So much for fine talk and resolutions! Theda told herself as she made her way wearily down to the dining-room a few days later. She still had no idea how she was going to manage on her own, none at all. Laura Jenkins was at her usual table and waved as Theda came through the door.
‘Where have you been lately?’ she asked when Theda had hung up her cloak on one of the pegs that ran along the wall and gone up to the hatch to fetch her tray of food. ‘I was beginning to think you’d given up eating altogether. Either that or you were off sick, but Sister Smith said you were working all right. If you hadn’t turned up today, I was going to come looking for you.’
‘I just haven’t felt like eating much lately,’ said Theda. ‘Stomach trouble. I’ve been living on Magnesium Trisilicate.’
‘You look as though you have an’ all,’ said Laura, frowning in disapproval. ‘You’ve certainly lost a lot of weight. I don’t know, why didn’t you go off sick? Anyone else would have done. No sense in killing yourself, you know. Mag Tri is all right for a while but you can overdo it.’
‘Well, I’m all right now.’ Theda looked down at the grey minced beef on her plate, the plain boiled potatoes and watery cabbage. Picking up her knife and fork she attacked the food, unappetising as it was. Laura was right, of course, she had to eat. Her uniform dress was hanging from her as if on a coat hanger.
Laura put down her own knife and fork and gazed at her with concern. ‘You don’t look too clever even yet, it must have taken it out of you,’ she observed. ‘What time do you finish?’
‘Six. I’ll probably go straight to bed and try to sleep it off.’
‘It’ll do you more good to get out, forget about it for a while. Look, I’m going to the pictures in Darlington tonight, the Regal. We could go through on the train and get the last one back. At least we’ll be getting out of the place for a while. What do you say?’
‘What’s on?’
‘
Random Harvest
. Oh, I know it’s been on before – but, ooh, I love Ronald Colman, don’t you? And Greer Garson’s all right, when she isn’t being all noble and self-sacrificing and keeping the home front together against all odds. What do you say?’
Theda made her mind up all at once. She and Laura had gone from one cinema to another once upon a time just to see Ronald Colman. Her friend would definitely think there was something seriously wrong if she refused to go when she had the night off and nothing else arranged.
‘It’s a date,’ she said.
Getting ready to catch the train she almost cried off. She felt so tired and slightly dizzy and her breasts ached. But in the end she brushed her hair and put on the brightest lipstick she had and she and Laura ran down to the station just in time to catch the train.
‘We must be mad, going all the way to Darlington when there are three perfectly good picture houses in Auckland,’ she said as they stood in a crowded compartment, swaying as it click-clacked over the tracks. Shildon tunnel loomed and abruptly they were swathed in darkness and someone must have left a window open for sooty smoke swirled down the corridor.
‘Yes. But Ronald Colman’s on at Darlington,’ Laura pointed out as they came out of the Shildon end of the tunnel and the gloom lightened.
There was quite a walk from North Road station to Bondgate and by the time they got to the cinema, the lights were already down and Gaumont British News well underway. They were shushed as they followed the torch of the usherette and groped their way to their seats. The audience’s attention was on the screen where grubby-faced tommies were marching up a road in Germany, their guns at the ready and ruins all around them.
Theda closed her eyes. It was warm and muggy in the stalls, the only place where there had been empty seats, and to watch the screen she had to tilt back her head. But when
Random
Harvest
came on she was feeling better and lost herself in the improbable story of the man who lost his memory and forgot he was an aristocrat, and the wife who pretended to be his nurse.
‘By, it was grand, wasn’t it?’ sighed Laura as they stood for the National Anthem and then joined the crush for the exit.
‘Theda? Theda Wearmouth?’
Both girls turned at the sound of the American voice. They were just entering the foyer and its brighter lights and Theda saw it was Gene Ridley and a friend.
‘Gene, how nice to see you!’ she cried. ‘What on earth are you doing here? I would have thought the cowboy film down North Road would be more in your line.’
‘Not me. I’m a sucker for films about the British stiff upper lip. Besides, I’m trying to learn a thing or two from Ronald Colman. There must be some tips on making women fall for you I can pick up from him.’
Theda laughed and introduced Laura to him and he introduced his friend. ‘Scam – you’ll probably remember him from Dean’s wedding?’
‘Oh, yes, of course I do,’ said Theda, and smiled as she saw the look of embarrassment crossing the gangly young man’s pleasant features.
‘Don’t remind me, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I truly thought I was going to die.’ He turned his attention to Laura and fell into step beside her as Gene and Theda led the way out into the dark street. Gene hesitated, loath to let them go.
‘Look, why don’t we have a drink together? There’s a pub just along here. It’s pretty good too,’ he suggested. ‘Now we’ve just met up again, we can catch up on all the gossip.’ He stopped walking and they formed a small group on the edge of the pavement. The crowds following them out of the cinema swirled round them as they stood close together though it was so dark they were simply black looming shapes to one another.
Gene was smiling eagerly at her and Theda couldn’t help responding to his obvious interest after these last few weeks of feeling so rejected and unloved. She was tempted but Laura put in the voice of reason.
‘We can’t, we have to be back at the hospital. We’re catching the last train as it happens and if we don’t get a move on we’ll miss it and then the fat will be in the fire.’
‘AWOL, eh?’ Scam said. ‘We can’t let that happen, can we, Gene? How about we give you a lift?’
‘Oh, no, there’s no need—’ Theda began, but she was overuled and outnumbered and the four of them walked down the road to where Gene’s old car was parked.
The car, a Humber, ate up the eleven miles from Darlington to Bishop Auckland and they laughed and sang the songs from
Rose
Marie
with Scam doing the Mountie’s song in a surprisingly melodious baritone in imitation of Nelson Eddy and the girls joining in with the ‘Indian Love Call’, which ended in a fit of the giggles as Gene joined in too in a squeaky falsetto.
‘Don’t go right up to the gates. We can walk from here,’ said Laura as they drove along Cockton Hill.
‘You ashamed of us, ma’am? We not respectable enough for you?’ asked Scam, but he was joking really and Gene pulled up at the kerbside and they handed the girls out in the courteous way of the New World.
‘Will I see you again?’ Gene asked Theda. ‘I’ve thought of you a lot. I was going to come looking for you. We can have some good times together, can’t we?’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ she said. Scam and Laura had walked a little way down the road and were out of earshot.
‘Why not? You like me, don’t you? I know you do, I feel it, and I like you a lot, you know I do. What’s the harm? You don’t have a boyfriend away at the front, do you?’
Theda was silent for a moment. He had made her think of Ken. With a brief stab of pain, she shook her head. ‘No, I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said. Not a boyfriend, no, she thought, just a man who didn’t want her any more. But she couldn’t say that to Gene.
‘Well, then, why not?’
Theda hesitated. Why not indeed? Gene’s attentions were like balm to her battered self-esteem.
‘Theda? Are you coming?’ Laura called softly from up the road, and in the muted beam of a car headlight, newly liberated from its blue masking paper, she saw that Scam was walking back to the car.
‘All right,’ she said rapidly. ‘When are you free? I won’t be until next Sunday afternoon.’
‘It’s a date,’ said Gene, satisfied. ‘I’ll pick you up at the gate.’ Scam was getting into the car now, studiously avoiding looking at them.
‘No, here, in that cafe,’ she said rapidly, starting to move away and at the same time indicating a small teashop on the other side of the road. She had almost said Rossi’s but changed her mind at the last minute; Rossi’s held too many painful memories for her just now.
Getting ready for bed later, she wondered why she had agreed to meet Gene. She could say there was no harm in it – after all, she and Gene could just be friends, and goodness knows she needed a friend just now. But in her heart she knew that he wanted to be more than a friend. She put out the light and jumped into bed and lay quietly in the dark, trying to sort out her feelings.

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