‘So I did. I walked over your nice clean floor.’
They bumped into another couple walking in the opposite direction. There was no moon that night and the blackness was total. One or two trams and buses lumbered past, their headlights scarcely visible.
‘Where are we?’ Kitty asked nervously. The footsteps of the couple they’d bumped into faded into the distance and she could hear no others.
‘By St George’s Hall – I think.’
‘It’s funny to think you could get lost in the middle of Liverpool. I know these streets like the back of me hand in daylight.’
Larry put his arm around her and squeezed her tightly. ‘You’re safe with me,’ he said. He began to lead her up some steps.
‘Where are we going?’ cried Kitty. ‘This isn’t the way to the Exchange Station.’
‘Don’t worry, Kitty. You’ll be all right.’
She felt his other arm snake across her front, pressing heavily against her breasts. ‘Larry!’ she said indignantly. ‘What are you doing?’ She was unable to work out what was happening. Was he sick or something?
Suddenly, she felt herself being pushed against something hard and cold and Larry was kissing her, hot dry kisses from which she seemed unable to escape.
‘Kitty, oh, Kitty,’ he groaned and thrust his tongue into her mouth.
‘No!’ She almost choked and tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but remembered he was a boxer and his strength was far greater than hers. She felt her coat being unbuttoned whilst he pinned her painfully against the hard wall with one hand. His other hand began to fumble underneath her jumper with her breasts.
Kitty struggled harder, but the harder she struggled, the more he seemed to groan and pant, as if she was egging him on, not trying to escape. She felt his hand run down her hips and he was pulling at her skirt.
‘Aargh!’ His whole body shuddered when he touched the flesh between the top of her stockings and her pants. ‘Kitty, my lovely, lovely Kitty!’
‘
Stoppit!
’ Kitty screamed. ‘Go away! Leave me alone!’ She managed to free her arms and beat his face with her
fists
, which only seemed to inflame him more and before she knew it he was kissing her again. She felt his teeth grind against hers.
Kitty twisted her head and bit his nose, hard. He yelped, stepped backwards and released her. She heard him swear as he lost his balance, but by then she was, somewhat miraculously, down the steps and already on the pavement. As she began to run through the darkness in what she hoped was the direction of Exchange Station, a cry of pain came from somewhere behind her. He must have fallen down the steps.
She paused briefly, but decided she didn’t care, not even if he’d broken his neck!
The atmosphere in the hospital on afternoons was entirely different to mornings. The floors had been done hours ago, the wards tidied, the men bathed and the Chief Medical Officer had already been on his rounds. At two o’clock, the afternoon shift arrived and there was a wild flurry of activity during which the kitchen, the sluice room and the toilets were scrubbed from top to bottom with disinfectant and the morning women stopped for a belated dinner break. They then prepared the patients’ tea before going home. After they’d eaten, the men sat quietly in the dimly lit wards listening to the wireless, playing cards or reading. It was the time for visitors, some of whom had travelled long distances to spend a few hours at the bedside of their loved ones.
At the beginning of Kitty’s second week on afternoons, the day after her date with Larry Newell, the weather had turned wild and stormy. A gale blew in from the River Mersey, rattling the windows of the old building. Rain had fallen in a steady downpour all day long, with thunder rumbling in the distance and occasional flashes of lightning.
At half-past eight, after the patients had taken their medicine and drunk their cocoa and all the visitors had gone, Kitty entered one of the wards to tuck them up in their beds and say goodnight.
‘Sing us a lullaby, Kitty,’ one man pleaded.
Kitty smiled and began to sing softly, ‘Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top.’
‘That’s nice.’
She patted his face and moved on to the next bed, still singing.
‘Goodnight, Kitty, luv,’ the man said contentedly.
‘On nights like this, me mam always used to say a prayer for the sailors out at sea,’ said another.
‘I’ll say a prayer later,’ promised Kitty.
Martin McCabe was fast asleep when she went into his cubicle. He was heavily sedated and she’d hardly spoken to him since she’d started on afternoons.
‘Goodnight, luv,’ she whispered.
A few minutes later, she switched off the main light, leaving only the red-painted bulb above the clock on the far wall. She paused at the door. It was strange to see the ward so still and peaceful, every man tucked in his bed. Most were already asleep, though a few were watching, waiting for her final ‘goodnight’. The wild noises coming from outside, the lash of the wind, the rain, the trees whipping back and forth, seemed to belong to a different world altogether.
What was it Miss Ellis had said when she was at the Labour Exchange? ‘Working for one’s country during a war is a privilege, not a chore.’ Kitty caught her breath, as a feeling almost of exultation swept over her. She felt privileged beyond words that she’d been allowed to help take care of these young men during this terrible period of their lives, a period when some had to come to terms with the fact they’d never walk again or that parts of their once healthy bodies were no longer there. Others knew they would recover and be expected to return to another ship, where once more they’d be at risk of injury or death from every direction. It might come from the sky above, from the sea around them or the waters underneath.
‘Goodnight,’ Kitty mouthed, and the men who were watching closed their eyes and went to sleep.
Half a dozen nurses, as well as the auxiliaries, were standing round the kitchen drinking tea. The air was thick with smoke. Unless one of the patients called out, there was little to do in the final hour before the night shift took over. Sometimes, even one of the MOs popped in for a cuppa.
‘There’s tea in the pot, Kitty,’ one of the nurses said.
‘Ta.’ Kitty poured herself a cup. She’d been surprised at how friendly the nurses turned out to be when they weren’t rushed off their feet and could relax for a while. They transformed from stiff, starched individuals snapping out orders into ordinary young women with all the problems young women often had. Few came from Liverpool. They lived, far away from their hometown, in a hostel along the road in Waterloo. Some were homesick, others yearned for their husbands or boyfriends who were away in the forces. They worried about their job, their patients, their looks, their clothes. They were upset if Matron or one of the sisters spoke to them sharply.
‘I understand you’re responsible for the plaster on Larry Newell’s nose,’ one remarked to Kitty, grinning.
Larry Newell had avoided Kitty’s eyes when she passed him briefly that afternoon. ‘Yes, but not the bruise on his forehead,’ she said. ‘He must have got that falling down the steps of St George’s Hall.’
Everyone laughed. ‘I wish I’d known you were going out with him, Kitty,’ remarked Jenny Downing, a pretty young nurse with short crisp curls peeping out from underneath her lawn veil. ‘I would have warned you off. Dirty bugger, he can’t keep his hands to himself.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ Kitty said, ‘is why he wouldn’t stop when I asked him to.’ She’d been wondering about it ever since it happened. How could a man enjoy doing things to a woman who was trying to fight him off?
‘Because men are so bloody conceited, they can’t
imagine
there’s a woman alive who’d turn their advances down.’
‘Either that, or in their own twisted way they think “no” means “yes”.’
Kitty began to doubt if she’d ever learn how to cope with men, particularly when one of the nurses said, ‘You want to steer clear of men like Newell in future.’
‘But he seemed very nice,’ she cried. ‘How am I supposed to know which men to steer clear of?’
There was silence until Lucy piped up, ‘I suppose you’ve got to play it by ear. Being very nice is often a sign they’re up to no good. Mind you, most men’ll have your knickers off given half a chance.’
‘But I didn’t give him the least chance,’ Kitty said indignantly. ‘All I did was let him walk me to the station. What’s wrong with that?’
There was another silence, as if Kitty had posed an unanswerable question. ‘If, as Lucy says, most men are like that,’ Jenny Downing said, frowning, ‘it means that most women end up marrying them.’
‘Perhaps most men don’t behave that way with the women they fall in love with,’ another nurse suggested hopefully. ‘One of these days Larry Newell might turn out to be someone’s perfect husband.’
There was a united groan at this. One of the older nurses spoke up, a woman with several grown-up children. ‘I didn’t like to say anything before, but Newell’s already married. I once heard him mention he had a wife to another SBA.’
‘Do you mean to say I’ve been out with a married man?’ said Kitty, horrified.
‘I’m afraid you have, dear.’
‘That means Newell’s turned out to be anything but the perfect husband,’ commented Lucy. ‘Jaysus, how’s a girl supposed to know about these things? Perhaps it would be best if we all stayed spinsters and let men stew in their own juice.’
‘If we did, the human race would die out altogether.’
Harriet Mansell spoke for the first time. ‘You just have to accept the fact that men are very different from women,’ she said sensibly. ‘They have different needs, different priorities. Sex is all-important and few will turn it down when it’s on offer, nor hesitate to try their hand if they think there’s the slightest opportunity, as Newell did with Kitty. This doesn’t mean they don’t love their wives, or their future wives, deeply.’
‘How the hell would you know,’ Clara Watkins sneered, ‘when you’ve never been married yourself?’
‘I may not have been married,’ Harriet replied, unfazed, ‘but I know quite a lot about love.’
‘Well, my George would never even look at another woman,’ Clara said huffily.
‘I suppose we just have to accept what Harriet said is right,’ Jenny Downing said with a sigh. ‘Anyway, who are we to criticise? Most of us have boyfriends, even husbands, yet we go out with other men. Somehow, it doesn’t mean anything, particularly when there’s a war on. I know it sounds stupid, but I even feel as if I’m doing my bit, particularly if I let them kiss me. Charlie, my boyfriend, would have a fit if he knew.’
‘Charlie’s probably doing the same thing down in Portsmouth.’
‘I suppose so,’ Jenny said gloomily.
‘If it doesn’t mean anything to you, then it won’t mean anything to Charlie, will it?’ Harriet put in. ‘As you said, there’s a war on. None of us can be sure we’ll be alive this time next week. We all should live life to the full whilst we have the opportunity.’
There was a chorus of agreement, and Lucy said, ‘Do you realise, we would never have had this conversation if Kitty hadn’t bitten Larry Newell’s nose?’
Everyone burst out laughing, though the laughter quickly subsided when Staff Nurse Bellamy appeared in the doorway. Staff normally did a quick round of the
first-floor
wards alone before finishing her shift. She beckoned Kitty outside, looking grave.
Perhaps it was second sight, but Kitty knew immediately what she was about to say.
‘I thought it best to tell you this privately, Quigley, though it’s not something I would usually do. When I checked on Seaman McCabe, I found he had passed away peacefully in his sleep.’
‘May I see him one last time?’ Kitty asked, her voice devoid of emotion.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Bellamy said crisply. ‘I want the other patients disturbed as little as possible. Two SBAs are already in the process of removing the body to the morgue.’
‘I see. Thank you for telling me,’ Kitty said politely. ‘It was very kind of you.’
‘Kindness didn’t come into it. I just didn’t want you making a scene if you found out in public.’
‘I wouldn’t have done, but thanks all the same.’
Instead of catching the bus, Kitty walked home that night along Liverpool Road with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. She shed no tears for the poor young sailor whose face she’d never seen except in a photograph, though she knew she’d never forget him as long as she lived. When she got home, she’d put the ring and the photo underneath her handkerchiefs in the dressing table drawer. She’d always felt uneasy wearing another woman’s wedding ring.
Instead of crying, Kitty cursed. She cursed Hitler for all the misery he’d brought onto the world, for the terrible waste of young men’s lives, men who’d done harm to no-one and wanted only to grow old in peace, for the loss of children like Tony Costello, scarcely old enough to have had any life at all, and all the ordinary men and women who’d been blown to smithereens during the Blitz.
When she got in, her dad was sitting at the table where
twenty-two
matchsticks were set out in the pattern of two football teams, eleven dead matches, eleven live. He was moving them about, lips pursed, practising manoeuvres for the game on Saturday, too engrossed to notice his daughter’s wild appearance. Kitty’s hair was matted to her head and her coat was soaking.
‘’Lo there, kiddo,’ he said without looking up. ‘I’m dying for a cup of cocoa.’
‘In that case, you’ll just have to make it yourself,’ snapped Kitty. ‘I’m not in the mood for making cocoa just now.’ With that, she placed her squelching shoes in the oven and marched upstairs to bed.
Jimmy stared after her resentfully. He wasn’t sure what had got into his Kitty lately, but she seemed to be looking after him less and less.
St Joan of Arc’s won their quarter final match on Saturday. Dominic Reilly played a superb game. He had the ability to visualise several strikes ahead of the other players. A goal had been scored in Dominic’s head long before it thudded into the net of the other side. Jimmy Quigley knew it was a rare ability, one that only the finest footballers had.