The Nurse's War (10 page)

‘Have you ever been to a London terminal at night since the blackout started?’ Grayson asked. ‘I always think it’s a magnificent sight.’

‘It’s certainly a magnificent sound,’ she joked.

Once they’d shut the doors of the station café behind them, the noise was reduced to a comforting shush. She settled herself on a bentwood chair while Grayson took his chance at the counter. He was soon back with two mugs of suspiciously grey tea.

‘Hardly any milk,’ he apologised.

‘The romance of the railway isn’t dead then?’ She was
feeling almost unbearably light-headed. It was relief, she knew, simple relief.

‘It will return,’ he promised. ‘It’s always been a great way to travel, at least on this island.’

She wondered if he was remembering India as he spoke and its interminably long train journeys. Anything up to three days of blistering heat and sweating discomfort. Days of noise, colour, chaos, before you arrived at your destination a wet and crumpled heap.

He stirred his cup. ‘I never got to tell you, but I did some research. I think you might find it interesting.’

‘Yes?’ She couldn’t imagine what the research could be, but if it took her mind away from India, she was happy to listen.

‘I found some information on your mother. I know I promised you on-board ship that I’d look, but then life got in the way. Recently, though, I managed to trace her to where she did her nursing. It could be the place you were born.’

She felt an odd spurt of indignation. She should have been the one to find her mother. It wouldn’t have been that difficult. She was a nurse herself now and there must be channels she could have followed. But she hadn’t. She’d let it go. If she were honest, she hadn’t wanted to find out. She’d known instinctively that any search was likely to bring pain, the pain of not really knowing who she was.

‘If I said Brighton, would it ring a bell?’

‘I don’t think I hear any.’

‘That’s where your mother was nursing during the Great War. At the Brighton Pavilion. The palace was converted into a hospital for wounded soldiers. Interestingly, it was used for a couple of years for troops from the Indian Army, recuperating from trench warfare in France and Belgium. Your mother probably didn’t nurse the wounded. There would have been male orderlies to do that, I think. And the doctors were a mix of Indian medical students and British doctors from the Indian Medical Service. They’d worked in India and spoke various languages.’

She barely heard his last few words. The mention of India had brought to mind the one photograph she had of her mother. Her mother wearing a brooch that replicated the image Daisy had seen amid the tumbling masonry of a temple. On a necklace worn by the Indian goddess, Nandni Mata. The words that meant ‘daughter’.

With difficulty, she wrenched her mind back to the present. ‘If my mother wasn’t nursing, what was she doing there?’

‘There were several British nurses listed as working in the Pavilion hospital at that time, and my guess would be that they were used to train the Indian orderlies. The orderlies would be the same caste or religion as the patients they tended.’

An Indian orderly. Of course. A shaft of understanding flared, so bright that if it had been tangible, it would have shattered the café’s gloom and sent the pieces flying. So that was the meaning of the jewellery.

‘One of the orderlies could have given your mother the brooch, the one she’s wearing in your photograph.’ His words echoed her thoughts precisely. ‘A gift, perhaps, for the help she gave him?’

She nodded. ‘That must be it.’ She was turning the information over in her mind. ‘I would never have guessed. Brighton. I always thought I had to have been born in the East End, but the details were missing from my birth certificate.’ Like my father’s name, she thought.

‘We should take a trip down there one day and see if we can dig up anything more.’

She wasn’t sure she wanted more. In her experience, information usually meant an unpleasant shock and she’d sustained enough of those already. But in any case, it was unlikely she would ever get to Brighton. After Dunkirk, the Kent and Sussex coastal towns had been closed to anyone but residents, and even they had to observe a night-time curfew. Casual visitors were strictly forbidden on pain of imprisonment.

That wasn’t going to stop Grayson though. ‘We’d need a special permit to go,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t be completely impossible.’

‘A special permit or the end of the war?’

‘Or the end of the war,’ he agreed. ‘Not much of a cup, was it?’ and he gestured to her half-drunk tea. ‘But perhaps we should go. We’ve still a few miles to cover.’

C
HAPTER
6

T
hey dropped down from Euston into Bloomsbury and then on to High Holborn. Here and there were signs that the bombers had come this way, dealing their random destruction. She glanced down several of the side roads, though she could see little. The air around them was choking, a mixture of powdered mortar and fumes from the fires which still burnt brightly. A row of houses here, a row there, had been obliterated and rescue workers were combing the area in force, crunching through glass to toil away at the dust-covered rubble. Beside the main thoroughfare, bodies waited for collection, some covered in sacks, others by blankets and torn curtains. An old woman dug desperately at masonry she had no hope of shifting. Daisy looked away. It was too painful to witness.

Grayson had not let her hand drop since they’d left the station. It was a necessary precaution, she told herself. She’d never walked these streets at night; they were as dark as pitch and every few yards the bombing had cast hazards in their path. But necessary or not, it was immensely comforting to have his strong figure by her side.
At last they were nearing Charterhouse Square and not a minute too soon. Her legs were weak and her entire body ached. The red brick of the Nurses’ Home, just visible through the trees, was a welcome sight, but she decided there and then that she would walk to its door alone. If Grayson was seen, and he was bound to be, it would cause gossip and that was something she couldn’t face. During the first six months of her training, she had met him only briefly and always well away from the hospital. He’d remained unknown to her nursing colleagues and that’s how she wanted it to stay.

She disentangled her hand as gently as she could. ‘We can say goodbye here. I’ve only a few yards to go and you’ve still at least a mile before you get home.’

‘What you mean is that I’m getting too close to
your
home.’

‘It’s easier if you don’t.’

He didn’t ask her why but accepted her decision. That was one of the things she liked about him. He didn’t argue, didn’t impose, didn’t try to control. She supposed that was called respect. Respect had been largely absent from her life and it was something she cherished.

‘I’ll try and sort something out in the next few days.’ He looked down at her as he made the promise.

She couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, just the dim outline of his head. An almost desperate longing to take his face in her hands and kiss his warm, firm mouth caught hold of her, astonishing her with its force.

‘Be prepared for disappointment,’ he was warning, ‘but I’ll do my best.’

She stepped back to a safer distance, shaking herself free of the unwanted emotion. ‘It’s more than I deserve. Thank you again.’

‘It’s far less than you deserve, Daisy, but we won’t quarrel over that. If I’m not to come here or to Barts, where do you want to meet?’

She couldn’t quite forget the sense of being watched, and searched her mind for somewhere innocuous. She’d told herself that the shadow she’d seen was probably an innocent passer-by, or a trick of the light, but she would be careful—just in case.

‘Would a Lyons tea shop suit?’ she hazarded.

‘Sounds good to me. Can you make the one in the Strand? That would be halfway house for both of us.’

‘On Thursday I can. I’ve an extended shift the day before and should be able to take a couple of hours off duty that afternoon. That is, if Thursday isn’t too soon for you?’

‘I’m pretty sure to know one way or another by then. Three o’clock? If you’re not there, I’ll know you’re still being a ministering angel. Then I
will
have to come looking for you!’

She stepped through the oak door into a scene of confusion. Her mind was already unsettled from the encounter with Grayson, and the last thing she needed was to walk into
turmoil. The narrow hall seemed over full with people. One or two girls were hanging from the banisters while several others were bunched at the foot of the stairs, but all of them seemed unable or unwilling to intervene in the furious argument that had erupted between Willa and Lydia Penrose.

‘You snitched, you cow. Don’t deny it.’ Lydia, her face tight and red, was advancing against the other girl who had backed further and further towards the wall, until she was now cowering flat against the postboxes.

‘It wasn’t me.’ Willa’s voice was barely audible. She had put up her arms as if to defend herself from the blows she was expecting, and Daisy felt slightly sick at the sight.

‘It was you, all right. It always is. You’re lousy at your job and you can’t bear it that I’m good at mine.’ Lydia’s voice was shaking with anger. ‘You have to tell tales about me to make yourself feel better.’

The trembling girl could only shake her head and her silence seemed to infuriate Lydia even more.

‘Not talking now, are you? Worn yourself out gossiping behind my back.’

‘I haven’t. I didn’t. I’ve never said anything bad about you.’ Willa had found her tongue but her protest was feeble.

‘You did. You must have. No one else would. You’re pathetic—look at you. You call yourself a nurse. You can’t even wear the uniform right. The only way you’ll ever get on is to suck up to Sister and tell tales. I wonder what else you’ve been saying—about all of us.’ And she pointed to
the girls looking on, their eyes wide, their mouths slack with surprise. ‘I bet they’d like to know. Tell us, why don’t you?’ Willa was shaking and her face was the colour of laundered sheets. Daisy walked towards the pair of them, intent on stopping Lydia’s flow of invective.

‘What exactly is she supposed to have done?’

Lydia whirled to face her, momentarily forgetting her prey, and the pause allowed the crouching girl to pull herself upright. ‘I’ll tell you what she’s done, Nurse Driscoll.’ Her tone was sneering. ‘I went out for a fag. After an eight-hour shift, I bloody deserved it. But no, apparently not. Little Miss Suck Up here seized her moment. She told Sister that Lydia had been a naughty girl.’

‘I didn’t,’ Willa repeated and her voice was a little stronger. Daisy’s presence seemed to be steadying her. ‘I didn’t, Daisy, honestly.’

Lydia turned to face her victim again and her expression had lost none of its venom. ‘Someone did. If it wasn’t you, who was it?’ she spat out. ‘Was it one of you, girls?’ She surveyed the half-dozen faces looking at them from the other side of the hall. ‘No, I thought not.’

‘Why don’t you just admit it, Willa, and say sorry,’ one of the nurses suggested.

‘Yes, say sorry. Then we can all get some rest,’ said another. The girls had so far remained neutral but now they’d made their decision. They were tired and desperate for sleep, and none of them fancied being on the sharp end of Lydia’s tongue.

Willa looked from one to the other, a flicker of desperation passing across her face. She licked her lips with her tongue. ‘Sorry.’ The word crept out, barely reaching the ears of her listeners.

But they’d heard enough and nodded, satisfied. The group dispersed, most turning to go back up the stairs, but one or two of the girls were coming towards Lydia and patting her on the back. Willa was deliberately ignored.

‘You know what,’ Lydia complained bitterly to them, ‘because of that bitch I’ve got to work for two weeks without a break. That’s my punishment, but what’s hers?’

‘We’ll think of something, Lydia, don’t worry.’ They smirked at each other and the three of them made for their rooms, leaving Daisy with a still trembling Willa. She looked at the girl’s face, puffed from weeping, and took her hand.

‘Are you all right?’ It seemed inadequate after the scene she’d just witnessed.

Willa didn’t answer her but instead said again and again, ‘I didn’t tell. I didn’t tell. Honestly, I didn’t.’

Daisy hugged her, smoothing her tangle of hair in an attempt to quieten her agitation. But now she had begun to talk, Willa couldn’t stop. ‘Someone must have reported her, but it wasn’t me. I’ve often seen Lydia go out for a smoke, so why would I say anything today. Why? Why?’

‘I think you should try to forget the matter,’ Daisy soothed. ‘Lydia will, I’m sure. In time she’ll come to realise it wasn’t you. You’ve just been the scapegoat. She had to
have someone to blame.’ And wasn’t that always the way of the world, she thought wearily, the weakest, the most vulnerable, were called to shoulder the blame. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you to your room. You need to sleep. Work will be as hard as ever tomorrow.’

They were platitudes, but all she could offer. ‘What do you think they’ll do to me?’ Willa asked in a wavering voice as they reached the door of her room.

‘Nothing, it’s all talk. What could they do? They’ll be far too busy even to think about what happened tonight. You mustn’t let it play on your mind. Promise me, you’ll try to sleep. Remember we’re on duty again at seven. Think of all those breakfasts to serve, beds to make, floors to clean before Sister walks in to read prayers. Who’s going to have time to think of petty tit for tats?’

‘I suppose so,’ the girl agreed miserably. ‘I suppose you’re right. Thank you, Daisy.’

‘I’ve done nothing.’

‘You have. You were here,’ she said simply. ‘And it’s helped.’

Daisy shut the door and collapsed wearily against it, glad to be back once more in the small, bare room. After the strain of meeting Grayson and this latest unpleasant incident with Willa, she needed to be alone. She needed time to think. First, though, she must jettison the shoes that were pinching remorselessly and stretch her poor,
bruised toes. Willa’s problem was soon dispensed with. It was a spat, she decided, one of many that erupted at regular intervals in the Home, a result of being cooped together, working and living under the most intense conditions. Lydia Penrose was always going to be an awkward addition to the nursing team. She came from a wealthy family and liked people to know it. She was proud of ‘doing her bit for the war’ as a humble nurse and liked to remind them of that too. Often she was the driving force behind any trouble on the wards or at the Home. And whenever there was trouble, it seemed that Willa was always the target.