Wartime for the District Nurses. Annie Groves
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her knees go weak. ‘Have you been waiting long? Here, let me get you another.’
Peggy beamed up at him and stood. ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ she said.
‘Got a moment?’ Edith stuck her head around Alice’s bedroom door. Her friend was sitting by the window to catch the last of the daylight, the sunset fading from bright gold to deep red over the rooftops. Her hair, swept up into a loose bun to keep it out of the way, picked up the golden highlights. In her hand was a letter. ‘Sorry, are you busy?’
‘No, no, come in.’ Alice folded the sheets of paper and tucked them back in their envelope. ‘It’s from Joe. I was only rereading it.’
Edith gave a small smile. Joe, Harry’s older brother, wrote frequently to Alice, and there had been plenty of their friends who took this to mean more than it actually did. Edith knew for a fact that most of their correspondence consisted of comments about books they had recently read and there was no romance to speak of. Alice was not looking for anything of that sort; she had had her heart broken once already and had no intention of repeating the devastating experience. Yet she and Joe had formed a close bond and Edith was glad for her friend, who otherwise would throw everything into her work.
‘How is he?’ she asked now, sitting on the neatly made bed, leaning back and stretching her feet. She groaned a little – they ached as she had cycled or walked for hours on end earlier that day, or that was what it felt like.
‘Lots going on, by the sounds of it.’ Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course he doesn’t say where he is, but he does mention he’s just finished a novel by Eric Linklater. So my bet is he’s at Scapa Flow.’
Edith frowned. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because that writer is from Orkney,’ Alice explained, a little embarrassed to be caught out knowing such details. ‘That’s where our big naval base is, so it would make sense if he was there. That’s my guess anyway. He sends his love.’
Edith nodded. ‘Send mine back.’ She was very fond of Joe, who was as reliable as Harry had been impetuous. From a distance they had looked very similar, but she had never had any doubt which brother she preferred. ‘I’ve had a letter too.’
‘Oh?’ Alice put down her envelope. ‘Not Peggy again?’
‘No. Well, yes actually, she left a note to suggest meeting this Friday but not in a crowd like before. That’s not why I wanted to talk to you, though.’ Her face twisted and Alice leant forward in concern. ‘It’s from one of my brothers.’
‘Your brothers?’ Alice sat up in amazement. Edith’s contacts with her family were few and far between, and in all the time she had known her, there had never been word from any of her brothers.
Edith nodded. ‘Yes. It’s from Mick – the one who’s only a couple of years younger than me. He’s had to join up, of course, and he’s back on leave for a few days. He says we should meet. I think he’s worried that our younger brother Frankie will try to join up too, even though he’s not old enough.’
Alice grimaced. ‘The way this war is going, Edie, he might well get his chance anyway. Sorry, that’s not fair. Will you go? To see him, I mean?’
Edith’s dark eyes grew bright. ‘I don’t know. It’s a bit rich, coming to me now, when there hasn’t been a dickybird from any of them for ages. My mother did send a Christmas card, but she forgot to put a stamp on it and it reached here after New Year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out to cadge some money off me or something like that.’
Alice spread her hands. ‘But you won’t know unless you go.’
‘Exactly.’ Edith got up and walked to the window. ‘That’s the dilemma. If he really needs to see me then I should let bygones be bygones and go. If he’s just after a handout I’ll be back to square one.’ She gazed sadly out at the ridge tiles and chimneys knowing that, far away over the houses, what remained of her family still lived on the other side of the Thames. She could not in all honesty say that she missed them very much. Yet, since meeting Harry’s family, she had become aware of what she was lacking – a big, caring group of people who welcomed friends into their fold. It had broken through the hard shell she had placed around the idea of family. Perhaps her brother really had changed.
‘Then you won’t have lost anything by going, will you?’ reasoned Alice. ‘You might regret not giving him a chance.’
Edith sighed. ‘I suppose so. Part of me doesn’t want anything to do with him. We never got on as kids, and after Teresa died he hated me; well, he hated all of us, but me especially. It was as if I was meant to have kept her alive. But how could I have? I was only twelve.’
Alice got up from her seat and stood by her friend. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Edie. She would have died whatever you did. It was nobody’s fault, just bad luck that your big sister got diphtheria.’
Edith kept her gaze steadily on the rooftops, not trusting herself to look into Alice’s face. She never spoke of Teresa as a rule, the one person in her family who had loved her without question and whom she had adored. Just one year older than her, Teresa had been her best friend for all her childhood, but then she had taken sick and died in no time at all. The shock had never quite left her. She knew deep down it was why she had fought so hard to become a nurse; she might not have been able to save Teresa but she would do her best to save all those other children with that dreaded disease.
‘I know,’ she said eventually. ‘Well, we know better than anyone, don’t we? We saw cases of it while we were training. Not much of it in Hackney, touch wood.’ She tapped the window frame. ‘So it makes sense for me to meet Mick. If he’s changed, then so much the better. If he hasn’t then I’m no worse off.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Alice agreed. ‘Expect the worst but hope for the best. You never know. Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No,’ said Edith decisively. ‘Thanks, but this is something I will do alone.’ She knew that her brother would quite unreasonably think that Alice was snooty, as she didn’t have a London accent. Edith was quietly protective of her friend, who had not grown up on the same tough streets.
‘If you’re sure?’
Edith nodded firmly. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’ll see him. As you say, he might be different now.’ The old proverb about leopards not changing their spots sprang into her mind but she dismissed it. Perhaps joining up had made him see that there were other sorts of people in the world. War was proving to be a great leveller. Time would tell if that was how it had affected Mick Gillespie. ‘You go back to Joe’s letter and his funny old writers. I’ll try to sort out my nuisance of a little brother.’
Peggy opened her eyes and squinted because the light of the ugly bedside table hurt her eyes. Where was she? Her throat was dry and she ached all over. There was an odd noise too, a rhythmic sort of rumbling. Then she remembered.
Some of the details were hazy but she knew Laurence had bought her many more port and lemons. At first it had been fun and she had enjoyed their conversation, relishing his wit and good looks and the way everyone was staring at him in his smart pilot’s uniform. Then she’d begun to get rather wobbly but he’d still continued to buy her drinks. It turned out he was staying in a room above the pub, which had surprised her, but when he’d suggested she go upstairs for a lie-down as she seemed a bit tired, it had made a kind of sense at the time. That had been a big mistake.
He’d been on her in a flash, pushing her up against the door, kissing her roughly and not at all in the way she liked, pulling off her clothes as he undid his trousers. She’d tried to protest but she was too drunk, and her body wouldn’t move as she wanted it to. She tried to call out but he stopped her mouth with his own. It was useless and in the end she’d gone along with it, just to get