A Wartime Nurse (4 page)
Authors: Maggie Hope
Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction
‘Oh, Mam, we haven’t even discussed it yet. But I promise we won’t go off and do anything daft like getting a special licence and going to the Register Office. No, we’ll have a proper chapel wedding when the time comes.’
Theda suddenly thought that she didn’t really know what Alan’s thoughts were on the wedding; he could have completely opposite ideas. But he wouldn’t, she told herself. She felt she knew him so well now. Sometimes you learned more about a person through what they wrote than what they said, she told herself.
‘We haven’t even met the fella,’ commented Chuck when he came in.
‘No,’ said Mam, ‘but Mrs Andrews down the row knows the family and she says the Prices are good, decent folk and his father’s a foreman at the Railway Waggon Works. Alan has a good job, too, to come back to after the war, like.’
Theda gazed at her in amazement.
‘Well,’ said Matt, ‘you didn’t think we wouldn’t make enquiries about a lad you were going out with, did you?’ But of course, Theda hadn’t even thought about it.
Alan came down from Shildon for tea to meet the family and they seemed perfectly happy with him, at least Mam kept persuading him to have some more tea, or another piece of her eggless sponge cake, and he had a great conversation with Matt and Chuck about the progress of the war. Afterwards, he and Theda sat in the front room on their own, a privilege allowed to a newly engaged couple.
‘We could go away for a few days – why not?’ said Alan, lifting his head from her neck where he had been nuzzling her soft skin. He looked as bemused with love as she felt, thought Theda, hot and bothered and shivery and melting, all at the same time. But she thought he must be joking and just smiled and kissed him again.
‘No, I mean it, why can’t we? We could go to . . . oh, Windemere, or Blackpool, or even just up the dales for a few days. Why not?’
Theda sat up straight. ‘Alan, you know my parents would never allow us to – not to go away together. Let’s just be happy as we are. We’ll probably be married this time next year. The war won’t last so long now, will it?’
He got to his feet and walked over to the window and his going left a coolness where he had been, close beside her. ‘But why not? We’re engaged now, why can’t we go away together? You’re all I’ve thought about for months and months. Have you no feeling for me?’
‘Yes, of course I have, Alan, I want to just as much as you do. But we can’t.’
‘You could say you had to go back to the hospital—’
‘Alan!’
He turned back and gazed at her, his expression pleading with her. ‘Theda?’
‘I can’t. I won’t lie either, Alan.’
He bit his lip, seemed about to say something else but in the end didn’t, simply strode to the door leading to the kitchen.
‘Alan. You’re not going like that?’
He paused, hand on the door, and after a moment turned back to her and smiled tightly. ‘No, I’m not going. Sorry, pet, it was just – oh, I don’t know. I want you so much.’
He sat down beside her again and took her hand and kissed her lightly on the forehead but something had gone out of his lovemaking. Their passion had dwindled. And after a minute or two he rose to his feet again.
‘I have to go now. I promised I’d have a drink with Dad before he goes on the night shift.’
‘Yes.’ Theda felt miserable out of all proportion; nothing had happened after all. It was in the nature of lads for their passion to get the better of them and hadn’t she always been taught that it was up to the girl to keep them in check? But no one had told her that the passions in herself would rise to such a pitch. What an ignorant girl she was! Almost twenty-three and she didn’t know a thing about men or life or anything. She almost said she would try, she would do anything, she even said, ‘Don’t look like that, Alan.’
He smiled down at her. ‘I really have to go, sweetheart. You look so worried. Don’t you look worried; I love you, pet. It doesn’t matter – I was being selfish. Come on, now, walk with me to the bus stop.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’
‘No one could keep me away; not Hitler himself.’
He kissed her goodnight at the bus stop and said something about her coming to meet his mother and father on Sunday. ‘They want to meet you, of course they do. You’ll like them, Theda, and they’ll like you. Then we can have the rest of the week to ourselves, can’t we?’
Yes, she thought, as the bus pulled away and she waved to him until it was out of sight, ignoring the giggling young pitlads on the corner who were pretending to make sheep’s eyes at each other and sighing and making loud kissing noises while looking shyly at her to see her reaction. They could have the rest of the time on their own, but wasn’t that asking for trouble?
‘She looks bewitched, Matt,’ said her mother as Theda came in the door, refused a last cup of tea and went straight upstairs to bed. ‘By, I hope nothing happens to the lad, dear God, I do. He’s the first one our Theda has shown the least bit of interest in, and I don’t know what she’ll do if anything happens to him. I reckon it must be a dangerous thing, this jumping out of aeroplanes an’ all.’
‘Why, woman, will you hold your tongue?’ Matt answered, impatient as ever. ‘He seems a sensible fella to me. And anyroad, there’s not a thing in the world we can do about it so he’ll just have to take his chance along with all the other poor sods.’
Chapter Three
Theda wore her new utility costume to go to tea with Mr and Mrs Price. It was a pearly-grey colour and she had a smoky-blue chiffon scarf to soften the rather military lines of the shoulders and lapels. There was one small pleat in the back of the skirt but the shortage of cloth being what it was, the overall effect was pencil slim and close-fitting. It suited Theda to perfection. She was glad she had stuck out and saved her clothing coupons to buy it and the neat grey court shoes that went with it.
Her hair was dark and shining, curling down on to her shoulders at the back and pinned up in a roll at the front. Clara had done it for her when Theda said she didn’t have a hat to suit.
‘You can’t go up there looking like you’re still stuck in 1939,’ her sister had said. Clara lent her her own gloves, ones she had painstakingly cut out of an old gaberdine she had bought on the market and hemstitched round in surprisingly neat stitching. ‘Just the right shade of grey to go with that suit,’ she said. ‘Now, are you going to let me pluck your eyebrows? And you’re not just going to put on a smear of that Pond’s vanishing cream, are you? What you need is a bit of colour. I have just the right shade of lipstick and how about some green eyeshadow?’
‘I’m fine, thanks, Clara,’ Theda interjected. ‘I like my own paler lipstick and I really don’t want my eyebrows plucked, I’m too much of a coward. You don’t want me to go up to Shildon to see my future mother-in-law with tears in my eyes, do you?’
‘Well, I wash my hands of you but you can’t say I didn’t try.’ Clara began packing up her make-up huffily.
‘Come on, don’t be miffed,’ said Theda. ‘I’m really grateful for all your help, you know that.’
‘Well, I have to say, you’re not the best model to work on.’
But Clara was mollified. ‘Hurry up now, here’s Alan come for you already.’ He was coming down the yard and Theda’s heart gave a small skip and flutter when she saw him and Clara laughed when she noticed.
‘Mind, you are in love,’ she said. ‘I never thought to see the day.’ Theda pulled a face at her.
Alan rolled his eyes and whistled when he saw her. Walking up Shildon bank with him, their shoulders touching and their hands entwined, Theda felt she was in a dream, she was so happy. As they came to the entrance to the Black Road, part of the Stockton and Darlington Railway before Shildon tunnel was built, he drew her on to it.
‘Where are you going?’ she protested weakly, but followed him willingly.
‘Oh, come on, it will be quieter up here. And it still leads to Shildon, doesn’t it?’
There wasn’t a soul on either path but Theda allowed herself to be drawn on up the old line, still clearly defined and black from the small coal and slag that went into its construction more than a century before. On either side the grass grew high and one or two goats were tethered out to graze. They looked up, thoughtfully chewing as Theda and Alan strolled past, the young ones bleating and running close to their mothers in mock alarm. Up above, a lark sang and they stood close together and squinted up into the blue to try to see it. It was Alan who spotted it first.
‘There it is, look!’ he cried, and Theda bent her head back eagerly to see and he slid his arms around her and kissed her full on the lips so that they toppled over into the long grass, the lark forgotten. His hand was on her breast and her instant response shocked her so that her eyes flew open and she scrambled to her feet.
‘Alan, come on, your mother’s expecting us,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be late the first time I come to tea, do I?’ She smiled, trying to be cool and in charge of the situation. He lay back in the grass and put his hands behind his head, supporting it while he looked up at her soberly.
‘Theda,’ he said, and his voice was low and throaty, ‘don’t you want me?’
I do! I do! she cried silently but turned away from him, twisting Clara’s gloves round and round in her fingers. After a minute or two he got to his feet and brushed bits of grass from his khaki trousers. He came over to her and took her hand.
‘Howay, pet,’ he said softly. ‘Like you said, you don’t want to be late for tea, do you? I know for a fact Mam got hold of some currants yesterday and she’s made a cake ’specially for you. Just to prove to you that she’s a hard act to follow, you understand. Oh, yes, her little boy is used to the best of food. The best of everything, in fact.’
Theda smiled weakly and after a moment they walked on up the bank to where the old line came close to the modern, tarmacked road.
Alan’s parents lived in one of a neat line of semi-detached houses with small gardens to front and rear. Pansies grew in rows by the path from the gate and beside them rows of lettuce and spring onions. Salad for tea, guessed Theda as she waited by the door for Alan to open it.
Mr Price was an older version of his son, still slim and straight-shouldered under his Fair Isle pullover, but his mother was a surprise: small and dumpy and bubbling over with the desire to please her guest.
‘He’s our only son, you know,’ she confided to Theda as she brought in the teapot under its knitted strawberry cover. ‘Eeh, I thought he was never going to settle down with a lass. I’m that pleased for you both, I am.’
It was obvious that Alan was their only child. The piano in the corner had three pictures of him on the top and on the wall was an enlargement of him in his uniform, one eyebrow lifted in a quizzical grin which made Theda’s heart melt all over again.
‘Come on, lass, tuck in,’ Mr Price invited when the tea was served, and Theda didn’t like to say she wasn’t hungry because she had not long eaten her Sunday dinner. But the meat had been suspiciously like whale meat and she had only had a small piece so she did justice to the corned beef and onion pie, and praised the currant cake, and even ate some stewed plums and custard.
They sat on into the evening, the Prices talking about their son and his exploits over the years and Theda drinking in every word while Alan kept trying to shut his mother up.
‘All in all, a success, don’t you think?’ he asked as they took their leave at last, Theda promising she ‘wouldn’t be a stranger’ when Alan was away. The thought made her feel cold but she thrust it to the back of her mind; she wasn’t going to let it spoil the week – oh, no, she was not. And when she went to bed his kisses were still warm on her lips, her body still felt the imprint of his hands and the length of his body pressing against hers in their last embrace. And still four more days to look forward to.
Days which got harder and harder, she admitted to herself on the last of them. The weather didn’t help. Though it hadn’t been all that good a summer, the week of Alan’s leave had excelled itself. The sun shone from dawn to dusk and the cool wind that had plagued the north-east all year suddenly disappeared.
They walked down the wood on the way to the Bishop’s Park with a picnic basket, and Theda told Alan of the time they’d had a picnic in the wood and Joss had got himself caught in a pothole under the water and the panic everyone had been in and how she could laugh at it now, though not then, oh no.
That was the nice thing about Alan, she thought. They could talk just as easily as she and Joss had talked, about anything. She’d told him all about her elder brother, of course, and how he was in Italy now.
‘What’s he like?’ asked Alan.
‘Like you, really,’ she answered, and now she thought about it, it was true.
‘I always wanted a brother,’ said Alan.
‘Well, after the war you can share mine,’ Theda promised.
They sat on the grass by the bank of the Gaunless which had left the wood and now meandered through the park on its way to join the Wear. There was no one about; it was market day in the town and the streets were thronged with shoppers queueing for bargains while the children were in school.
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