Lessons in Heartbreak (37 page)

Lily knelt on the bare floorboards in her thin cotton nightie, and through a chink she’d made between the blackout curtain and the window, stared out at the ghostly city in front of her. It was freezing; even on the surgical ward, always guaranteed to be warm, she’d felt the cold that day.

The ward had been short-staffed and, in between holding the hand of a man who’d come back from theatre after the trauma of having surgery for colon cancer, Lily had ended up on bed-pan duty.

The patient, a corporal who’d seen action in Africa, had begun to cry the last time she’d left him.

‘Don’t go,’ he said, grabbing her hand weakly. He was pale under his desert tan, and although he’d insisted on shaving that morning before surgery, he already had stubble on his face, making him look somehow more vulnerable.

Lily knew she was no good as a nurse if she couldn’t detach a little, but this man, drowsy and sick after the anaesthetic, seemed so desperate for her attention.

With his coal black hair and sad face, he reminded her of her father: a kind man stuck in a difficult situation. When he’d
been half-delirious after the operation, he’d muttered constantly about the noise of the tank guns.

‘Will I write to your family and tell them how you are, Arthur?’ she asked.

His daughter worked in an aircraft factory near Slough and his wife was at home in Liverpool, taking care of their two smaller children. ‘It would be lovely for them to hear you got through this and that you’re getting better.’

‘Thank you, Nurse Kennedy,’ he said, choking back tears.

At the door to the ward, Lily could see Matron standing, her searing gaze taking in every patient and every nurse. It was nearly teatime and Lily had other duties to attend to, but when the two women’s eyes met, Lily read Matron’s agreement for her to stay with Arthur.

Matron was a woman nobody dared to cross, but Lily liked her for all that. Lily had been trained to work quickly and efficiently, and she applied those skills whatever the task. What was more, she never quailed under Matron’s fierce glare.

Matron’s favourite catchphrase was ‘Your best isn’t good enough, Nurse, I want it to be my best.’

She never said this to Lily.

Whether it was taking care of patients or general dogsbody duties that came with nursing training, Lily did it all.

Diana definitely suffered more under Matron, who did her utmost to ensure that her few de butante nurses didn’t receive any special treatment.

It was the first time Lily had realised that being born into privilege could work against you: nobody expected anything of her because of where she came from, but with Diana, they anticipated a lady-of-the-manor haughtiness. It was unfair because there was nobody with fewer airs and graces than her friend. From sharing clothes to sharing her godmother’s house, Diana gave everything she had, including her love and friendship.

The plus of being in their final year of training was that Lily, Diana and Maisie had been allowed, grudgingly, to live outside the nurses’ crowded accommodation. Two weeks ago, they’d moved into rooms in a small house at one end of a mews just off the Bayswater Road that belonged to Diana’s godmother, Mrs Vernon. Quite bare, because Mrs Vernon had moved a lot of her furniture down to her house in Gloucestershire, the house was, nevertheless, a blessing for the three nurses. Diana’s parents owned a great townhouse in Kensington that had been damaged by a bomb during the Blitz and left uninhabitable: the three of them had gone there to rescue a few bits and pieces to make their new home more comfortable. Diana had thought of asking Philip’s grandmother if they could take a couple of pieces of furniture from the big house in South Audley Street, but Lily had winced and said no.

‘We’ve got everything we need here,’ she said, worried in case Diana suspected the real reason why she didn’t want a single item from that house near her. South Audley Street meant Jamie, and Lily didn’t want any reminders of him. He was in her head often enough as it was, without having to look at a chair or a table from that damn house to ram it home.

Lily’s room in their new home was at the back of the house and looked out on to a small square of garden that she’d considered growing vegetables in. If nearby Hyde Park could host pigs and vegetables, she could supplement their rations with produce from Mrs Vernon’s little garden. But since they’d moved in, she’d changed her mind. They were all working such long shifts, and their time off was much too precious. It was far nicer to spend it lying on the couches in the drawing room, listening to the gramophone, and occasionally, when they could lay their hands on some coal, lighting a fire.

Mrs Vernon had quite a collection of orchestral music and Lily loved lying back on the couch, closing her eyes and losing herself in the music.

Diana had long since realised that Lily felt her lack of education badly, and she’d been more than happy to talk about art and literature, with Lily eagerly listening, keen to learn. The National Gallery’s treasures had been hidden in caves for safekeeping, but once or twice they’d been to the lunch-hour concerts in the gallery where, for a shilling, they listened to great musicians.

Sometimes, Diana talked about her life growing up, something she hadn’t done much before because she sensed the vast differences in their lives made Lily uncomfortable. Yet now, in this house where they could relax, and having come through so much together, it seemed more apt to be honest about their lives.

‘My best friend, when Sibs was small, was the cook’s daughter, Tilly,’ Diana said. ‘We used to play hide-and-seek in the orchard, and sit in the nursery and play with my doll’s house. I’d had governesses but I can’t say I ever learned anything. Mademoiselle Chamoix was the best, and even then, she only stayed a year. Then, when I was nine, Mummy and the rector’s wife cooked up a scheme where her sister, who was getting over a love affair, would come and teach me.

‘Her name was Miss Standing and she was a bit of a blue stocking, but nice with it. She encouraged me to play with Tilly – she was a great believer in social reform. Of course, when Daddy found out Miss Standing was a Fabian he nearly died. Sent her packing, I’m afraid. After that, poor Tilly was teased over being friends with me, and she began to not want to come to play and I was left with Sybil. I didn’t have many friends until I came out.’

‘What was it like?’ Lily asked. ‘Coming out and all that?’

The question wasn’t quite as unconcerned as it sounded: ever since Sybil’s wedding, Lily had listened avidly for mention of Miranda Hamilton, or whatever she was before Jamie married her. Miranda Hamilton. It was strange that the name
of a woman she’d never met had such power over her. But Lily found she could think of almost nothing else.

Jamie was foremost in her mind, but he was followed closely by the mystery of his wife, a woman from Diana’s world of wealth and privilege.

‘Who were your friends?’ she’d asked Diana idly one day, hoping for some snippet about Miranda. Maybe if she knew about her and about Jamie, then the spell would be broken. But she couldn’t say a word of what had happened between her and Jamie to her friend. For all her work in the hospital, Diana remained at heart very innocent.

‘I keep hearing how it was all so different before the war but, coming from Ireland, I can’t tell what’s changed and what hasn’t.’

‘Golly, everything’s changed,’ sighed Diana. ‘Before the war was practically another world, Lily. I can’t begin to tell you

But, once prompted, Diana had gone on to describe a world that was indeed alien to Lily. She talked about being presented at Court in a stiff satin dress with flowers in her hair, and dancing the night away with debs’ delights in Claridges and nightclubs like The 400. The name made Lily feel sick: they’d been going there that night.

‘We weren’t supposed to go to nightclubs,’ Diana revealed. ‘But we all did. I liked the Florida best. It was so much fun.’

Chaste kissing was as far as Diana had ever gone with a man, even now. Lily remembered in their early days of training, thinking it was strange that a nurse could know so little about sex. Having grown up with farm animals all around, Lily had a working knowledge of what must happen between a man and a woman. Diana, in contrast, had seemed clueless.

‘Nobody talked about you know what,’ she said. ‘All we were told about were men who were NSIT – not safe in taxis.’

She was on first-name terms with dukes and foreign princes, had spent a year at a finishing school in Paris where she and ten other young ladies had been watched like hawks in case they escaped from their patroness’s establishment, and had perfected their French and spent many hours in Parisian museums. As a young girl, she’d learned to dance at Madame Vacani’s, where she’d met and giggled with other young, female British aristocrats of the same age.

There was no doubt in Lily’s mind that her friend would marry one of the wealthy titled men from her world, but she was that rare creature: a person without snobbery. The difference in their upbringing genuinely didn’t bother Diana.

Yet it seemed clear to Lily that the old world was changing – birth and privilege meant nothing to a person lying in blood after a bomb had hit. Bombs made no distinctions between the rich and the poor, although a wealthy woman might have a fur coat flecked with blood around her when she arrived, as opposed to a poorer one who’d be in an old, darned wool coat over a nightie.

Lily shivered again in the cold. She was so tired but sleep was out of the question.

Night time was the worst, when Lily, exhausted until she laid her head on the pillow, replayed every aching moment over and over again, from the spike of knowledge that told her Jamie was hers, to the agony of finding out that he couldn’t be.

She replayed the scene in the kitchen again and again.

Had he been about to tell her…

‘Lily, there’s something I’ve got to tell you –’

And she could see the viciousness in Sybil’s eyes. Amazingly, Sybil hadn’t told Diana. Was it guilt at being such a cow, or did she prefer that Lily should suffer in silence? Lily had no idea.

Still, it was better this way, better that nobody else knew.

When Jamie’s face haunted her, sleep was out of the question. Since that night, over a month ago, there had been many
nights when Lily sat at the window both here or in their old room in the nurses’ home, pulled the blackout blinds up and stared out at the dark streets of London.

Tonight, she felt so lonely that she knew she’d almost welcome the roar of the air-raid sirens and the darkened stumble down the stairs into the Anderson shelter in the garden. There at least she’d feel a sense of camaraderie, instead of this awful being alone.

The air-raid siren began to wail and Lily got stiffly to her feet, feeling cold from kneeling so long by the bedroom window.

On nights like tonight, she didn’t mind the siren: it interrupted the raging fire in her brain and the pain in her heart. But she wondered, as she peered out of the window to where the searchlights now lit up the sky, if Jamie was safe. She hoped so.

In early November, Philip was back in London and Sybil quickly arranged to come up to meet him on Thursday evening. Before they knew it, a party had been organised, starting with cocktails somewhere, then on to dinner and hopefully a club.

Diana had said she was meeting Sybil in Haymarket first as it was so central.

‘Sibs says she wants to go to the Savoy for cocktails. Silly girl, I told her you can’t get into the Savoy, it’s full of visiting American colonels waving dollars around. “Jolly good,” she says, “I love Americans!” “Really, Sibs,” I told her. “You’re married and besides, the war isn’t a giant cocktail party. The Goring is the most darling place and it’s much cosier…” but she won’t be swayed. Do say you’ll come, Lily. It’ll be such fun. Philip has asked lots of pals too.’

But Lily couldn’t risk it. She knew that Jamie might easily be part of the group, if he was still in England. He might not be,
he might have rejoined his submarine, gone off to whatever theatre of war was important. Stupid phrase: theatre of war. As if it were a show. If women had their way, there would be no show. Women didn’t want to lose people.

Even if there was a crowd of Philip’s friends there, and Jamie was just one of many talking and drinking, she’d have to leave. She wouldn’t be able to sit there in his presence, feeling so betrayed, and with Sybil gloating maliciously in the background.

‘No, Diana,’ she said. ‘I’m too exhausted. Count me out.’

Maisie was dating an American soldier she’d met in the Café de Paris and had gone out to dinner with him. The house felt very empty with them both gone, so Lily tried to amuse herself by having a bath with the regulation four inches of water. Even with a kettleful of hot water added, it was still too cool. Finally, she got dressed and went out for a walk. She decided to head over to Hyde Park and breathe in the nearest thing to country air she was likely to get in the city.

It was dusk as she began walking home and her heavy shoes were killing her. She’d had a pair of plimsolls that were a lovely relief from her work shoes but they were too worn down now and buying shoes was always such a hard task. Her feet were very narrow with high arches. She often thought she had such trouble with shoes because she’d gone barefoot so much as a child, running over the stones on the back avenue to Rathnaree, her little feet with beetle-hard skin. If Lily closed her eyes, she could feel the cool ticklish flicker of grass on her feet as she ran through the fields, trailing hands through the stalks of rushes.

A bus roared past her on the Bayswater Road, inches away. Lily’s eyes shot open and she rocked back from the edge of the footpath, realising that she’d nearly walked shut-eyed into the road.

‘Watch out, love. He nearly had your head off.’ The speaker was a tiny, shrunken man with a stick.

‘Thank you,’ said Lily, shaken.

This was ridiculous; she could have been killed or at the very least ended up in her own hospital on a gurney.

But the streets kept shimmering in and out of her mind, being replaced by a vision of the Savoy, with Diana rushing in, hair flying and a cloud of Arpège trailing in her wake, saying, ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Diana was always late, Lily thought fondly.