A Wartime Nurse (32 page)
Authors: Maggie Hope
Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction
‘I’m sorry, Nurse Wearmouth,’ said Miss Robinson grimly, ‘but we just can’t seem to stop Richard from fighting.’ She looked pointedly at her watch. ‘I wanted to have a word with you about your so often being late to pick him up as well. I don’t want to carp and I know you are a busy woman, but so am I and it’s well past the time I should be on my way home.’
‘Sorry, Miss Robinson, truly I am. I just couldn’t get away. It won’t happen again, I assure you.’
‘Hmm.’ Miss Robinson looked sceptical, which Theda realised she had a perfect right to. This was the third time she had been a few minutes late this week.
‘’Bye, Miss Robinson,’ said Richard as Theda collected her bike and they set off up the street. He smiled a bright sunny smile and Theda’s heart swelled with love as his grey eyes – only a little darker than his father’s – sparkled and lit up his face.
‘Hold my hand, Richard,’ she said.
‘You can’t wheel your bike properly with one hand,’ he pointed out, and then, as she opened her mouth to say more, he sighed. ‘All right, then. But I’m not going to run into the road, Mam. I’m not daft.’
‘Daft enough to fight with the other boys and get your clothes in a mess. What was it about this time?’
‘Nothing.’
She didn’t press him. They walked to the crossing and waited until the light changed to green then crossed the road and went up the hill behind the prison. Theda had a house there, a pleasant house with a garden. The fact that it came with the job had been one of the main reasons she had come to Durham City. That and the fact that they were close to a good primary school at New Elvet.
‘Go on up and take off those clothes. I’ll be up in a minute to clean you up,’ she told her son.
‘You won’t put iodine on my knees, will you, Mam?’
‘Go on, don’t be a baby,’ she replied, and he stuck out his bottom lip and climbed slowly up the stairs, holding on to the banister, head down.
‘I won’t use iodine,’ she said, relenting. ‘I’ve got some Cetavlon. It doesn’t sting one bit.’
Before she followed him upstairs she opened a tin of baked beans and slid a slice of bread under the grill of the gas stove. She didn’t need to ask him what he wanted. At the moment it was baked beans every day.
In the bathroom, Richard had taken off his school clothes and was standing by the hand basin in his underpants and vest. He had run a tiny amount of water into the bowl and was busy making a lather with the soap, standing on tiptoe to reach so that the water ran down his arms and dripped over the black and white squared lino. He was very quiet, she thought, something on his mind no doubt. Well, she wouldn’t press him, he would tell her in his own good time.
She cleaned his cuts and bruises, put on the antiseptic and covered them with sticking plaster. He struggled into a pair of old shorts and a jersey for he considered himself too old now to accept help with dressing. She took him down to the kitchen and sat him before the plate of beans on toast and glass of milk. And, sure enough, what was troubling him came out.
‘You know Billy, Mam – Billy Carter?’
Theda, who was sitting at the other end of the kitchen table, drinking tea while she consulted her notebook on next day’s visits, put down her cup and gave him her full attention.
‘Yes.’
She remembered Billy all right, a boy a few months older than Richard, and taller, sturdy with blond hair like his mother’s and a boisterous way with him. He always had a gang of small boys round him and Richard would hang about on the edges, obviously hoping to join them. Billy’s mother was married to a college professor and lived over the footbridge in one of the detached houses that overlooked the Wear.
‘Billy says I’m a Bassett. I’m not, am I, Mam? A Bassett’s a dog. Mrs Smith had one where we lived before.’
Theda felt it like a blow to the heart. By, if she could get hold of that snobby Mrs Carter she’d knock her into the middle of next week! Who the hell did she think she was, talking about a little lad like Richard in those terms.
‘Are you sure he said a Bassett, Richard? Maybe you were mistaken.’ Theda forced herself to keep her voice calm.
‘He did say that, Mam.’ Richard nodded his head vigorously.
‘He was just being silly, pet. Why would he say that anyway? Had you been fighting with him?’
‘No, not then I hadn’t. But then he said I had no daddy and it was because I was a Bassett. So I hit him.’
‘Richard! You know you shouldn’t have hit him. Not unless he hit you first.’ Theda frowned at him. ‘So that’s how you got in such a mess. Did Billy do it?’
Richard sat up proudly. ‘Billy couldn’t hurt me, I knocked him down. But then his gang set on me and that wasn’t fair, was it, Mam? I’d have won him if he’d been on his own. Next time I’ll wait—’
‘Richard! There’s not going to be a next time. Promise me now?’
He stuck out his lower lip and bent his head over his plate. He mashed his beans with a fork and stirred them round and round. Theda could practically see his mind working. It was logical to him that if the other boy was bigger or there was more than one he had to use strategy. Despairingly, she picked up her cup and sipped her cooling tea, feeling inadequate. Was she bringing him up the wrong way altogether? Should she tell him what Mrs Carter had really said and what it meant?
There were lots of children Richard’s age without fathers, a lot of men had been killed in the war. She had hoped that in a town like Durham where she was unknown, people would take it for granted that that was what had happened, his father had been a war casualty. How had that woman stumbled on the truth?
Theda’s head throbbed. She leaned her elbow on the table and rested her forehead on her hand, closing her eyes. Questions buzzed around her tired brain. That was it, she was weary from lack of sleep. She had been called out in the middle of the night to a home delivery and the woman’s labour had been protracted, the baby had not arrived until shortly before she had to pick up Richard from school, hence the reason she had been late.
That was the one fault with her job, though she loved it really. But every time she was called out of school hours she had to get Sheila from next door to look after Richard.
‘Are you sad, Mam?’ Richard had got down from his chair and was standing beside her; he slipped his hand into hers and leaned against her shoulder. ‘I won’t fight any more, Mam,’ he promised. ‘I don’t care if Billy never lets me join his gang. I wouldn’t join it anyway, they’re just silly babies.’
Theda picked him up and sat him on her lap and hugged him. ‘I’m all right, pet, just tired, that’s all.’ She dropped a kiss on his fine brown hair, so different from the strong black hair of the Wearmouths.
‘Billy can’t even tie his own shoelaces,’ he confided, grinning. ‘He doesn’t know how to put the wireless on to the Home Service for
Children’s Hour
.’
Children’s Hour
.’
Theda smiled and set him down on his feet. ‘Well, if you want to listen to
Children’s Hour
you’d better go and put it on now. Go on, and not too loud, I want to be able to hear myself think.’
Children’s Hour
you’d better go and put it on now. Go on, and not too loud, I want to be able to hear myself think.’
‘You can’t hear yourself think,’ he shouted incredulously. ‘Nobody can hear themselves think!’ But he went through to the sitting-room obediently and in a minute she heard the introductory music through the open doors. Thank goodness for Uncle Mac, honorary uncle to most of Britain’s children.
It would be better when she had qualified as a Health Visitor. At least then she wouldn’t be called out during the night. She got to her feet and began to wash the dishes. There was the kitchen floor to wash too. By the time
Children’s Hour
was over, she had finished the kitchen and put Richard’s discarded clothes in to soak and laid out a clean set for tomorrow. As soon as he was asleep she intended to spend the rest of the evening studying. At least there were no births due for a couple of days.
Children’s Hour
was over, she had finished the kitchen and put Richard’s discarded clothes in to soak and laid out a clean set for tomorrow. As soon as he was asleep she intended to spend the rest of the evening studying. At least there were no births due for a couple of days.
Later, with Richard in bed and the curtains drawn to keep out the late-summer sun, she sat on the couch in the sitting-room with her books spread around her. But she was finding it difficult to concentrate; she kept thinking of Richard and what Mrs Carter had obviously said. Smug, self-righteous cow!
Theda’s mind flashed back to the one occasion she had taken Richard to Seaburn to meet the Sunday School trip from Winton Colliery. Her mother was travelling with them and she had thought it was a good chance to combine giving the child a day at the seaside and meeting up with Bea.
They had taken deck chairs onto the sands and it was a beautiful day with the sea sparkling in the sun and the children running backwards and forwards to the water’s edge for tiny buckets of water to put in the moats round the sand castles they had made. A never-ending job really as the water soaked into the sand and the children had to go back for more. And Richard, who must have been three at the time, came back slopping his bucket so that there was only a table-spoonful in there and the women had laughed and he had flung down the bucket and howled his frustration.
‘Hush now,’ Bea had said to him, and handed him a lollipop. And as he stopped crying they could plainly hear the group of women behind them, talking.
‘You’d think she wouldn’t have the face to bring him here among decent folk,’ one was saying. Theda turned her head, disbelieving.
‘Aye, well, some folks has face for anything,’ replied a fat, middle-aged woman with her legs spread out in front of the deck chair so that half-lying back as she was, a great expanse of pink knickers was exposed to view.
Bea jumped to her feet, fairly frothing at the mouth in temper. ‘Is that a fact, missus?’ she demanded. ‘An’ some folks dare show more than their faces—’
‘Mam, Mam, come away! They’re not worth talking to,’ said Theda, taking her mother’s arm.
‘Aye, you’re right. Howay, pet. We won’t stay where we’re not wanted.’ They had picked up the deck chairs and taken them further up the beach to howls of protest from Richard who, in picking up his bucket and spade, dropped his lollipop in the sand. Behind them, the two women flushed red and spluttered with indignation and muttered something about the Wearmouth lasses, both of them being no better than they should be. What about all those Canadians coming to the house during the war?
The sun had gone down now and it was too dark to read in any case. Theda sighed and closed the book on her lap and went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. She remembered she had had no evening meal so rummaged in the cupboard and found a packet of mushroom soup. She mixed it with water and stood by the stove stirring the pan until the water boiled. It wasn’t very palatable but she ate it steadily, together with a slice of bread. She was just depressed because she was hungry, she told herself.
Her thoughts wandered back to the time she had first left home and gone to Sunderland. What a nerve she had had, starting that course knowing she was already pregnant! But somehow she had finished the six months of the first part of midwifery and that had given her heart to go on later.
Her thoughts sheared away from the memory of the mother and baby home she had entered in the autumn of 1945. Such a dismal place it had been, yet full of young girls and even some older women. Not all abandoned by their men; some were just unlucky to have them killed right at the tail end of the war.
Most of them didn’t know what they were going to do afterwards but Theda had laid her plans. She would have her baby and have it adopted and get on with her life. Further training was her goal. She would reach the highest point in her chosen profession, oh, yes she would, she was determined. Anyway, a baby would have a better life with a married couple who could give it a stable family life.
So there was no reason to distress Mam by telling her about the baby. It was best that she should never know about it. But that meant not going home at all after she had begun to show. The last time had been VE night, and Theda had gone home for the celebrations.
There had been a street tea party with trestle tables laid end to end and every house had a Union Jack fluttering from a bedroom window, or if not red, white and blue bunting. Pianos had been dragged outside on to the pavement and everyone sang until they were hoarse. They danced the hoky-cokey and every other daft dance they could think of and in the evening there was an enormous bonfire up by the old claypit just outside Winton Colliery and everyone in the rows was there. They roasted potatoes and even some sausages they had cadged from the butcher.
‘Are you staying for the Victory dance on Saturday?’ Norma had asked her, and Theda had shaken her head.
‘Sorry, I have to be back on duty,’ she had replied. Privately, she thought she would never go to a dance in the church hall ever again, perhaps would never dance again. Look what it had got her into, she told herself grimly.
‘You’re putting a bit of weight on, Theda, maybe you could do with the exercise,’ Norma said, and laughed. But Theda couldn’t laugh. She knew she couldn’t come back, not until the baby was born at least.
‘I won’t be back for a while, Mam,’ she told Bea as she hugged her mother goodbye. ‘I’m going to have to do a lot of studying on my days off for the next six months.’ She had to steel herself not to tighten her arms around Bea, not to burst out crying and tell her everything. But how could she put her mother through that? Already Bea had found out the real reason Clara had got married in such a hurry.
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