Merryn Allingham - The Nurse's War

Connie stopped scrubbing and fixed her with an unwavering look. ‘Don’t say you still have feelings for him.’

She swallowed hard. ‘I found it upsetting today, that’s all. Sitting by his side, hearing him speak, seeing him smile even. It brought back the man I married, the man I loved once.’

And brought back all the anguish. She’d hidden it well, camouflaged beneath her nurse’s uniform, beneath the harsh training and the relentless routine. But she was still hurting.

‘You do still want him out of your life, I take it?’ The bedpans were neatly stacked to one side and Connie had thrown her a towel.

Daisy nodded.

‘So when are you going to see Grayson Harte?’

‘As soon as possible. I need to get it over with.’

She felt a whoosh of air as Sister Elton bustled into the room. ‘No time for talking, nurses. You have patients to prepare for theatre.’

The ward sister allowed nothing to escape her. Daisy saw her glance towards Willa, still labouring through her pile of bedpans, but the older woman said nothing. From the days of initial training, Willa had constantly been at the rough end of Sister Elton’s tongue, but since the news of her brother’s death had percolated, Daisy had noticed a distinct softening towards her. There was a rumour that two of the brother’s friends, also pilots, had been lost and everyone knew that Willa had a picture of one of them on her bedside table.

‘From what you’ve said, Grayson seems a gentleman,’ Connie continued to urge, as they made their way onto the ward. ‘He’s not likely to make you feel uncomfortable, is he?’

‘No, I don’t think he will, and that makes me feel worse. When we said goodbye … it was, well, difficult.’

‘You didn’t tell me it ended badly. I thought you’d both agreed it was best to part.’

‘We did—sort of. It was more that he didn’t understand why I couldn’t make a new start. He tried to understand, but it just didn’t work.’

‘I can’t see why not.’

‘Neither could he. For him the Indian episode was over. The bad people had been punished and my ne’er-do-well husband was dead, so what was stopping me?’

‘He had a point,’ her friend said judiciously. ‘But in any case he won’t remember much of how you parted. It’s not as if he’s still pining for you, is it? You said he looked perfectly happy when you last saw him.’

She’d glimpsed Grayson one Saturday afternoon in Regent Street just before Christmas. Nurses had each been given a precious few hours to shop for presents, not that there was much to buy or money to pay for what there was. And there he’d been, strolling along the pavement outside Liberty, with a laughing girl on his arm. She could still feel the fierce jealousy that had taken a sudden grip on her. She’d darted down a side street to get out of their way. And to recover. It was a shock that she could feel so passionately when months ago she’d sent him away, knowing she could never give him the closeness he craved.

‘I’m sure he is,’ she managed to reply. ‘Happy, that is. Things move at such a speed these days, they’re probably already married.’ Joking was the best defence, and it was probably not even a joke. War was not the moment to hang about. People met, coupled, married and left each other, all within months, sometimes weeks, even days.

‘So meet him as an old friend, an old acquaintance. You’re asking him a favour, that’s all.’

‘It’s quite a favour, don’t you think? He’s an intelligence officer and I’m asking him to aid a deserter. It’s not something that makes me feel good.’

‘You’ll just have to get over it. After all, he’s in an ideal position to help you. Who better? And if he finds it impossible or he’s shocked to the core, he can say no. It’s as simple as that. And then you can tell that dratted husband of yours that’s it’s a no-go and he’ll leave you alone.’

If only it were that simple. But Connie didn’t know Gerald, didn’t know his persistence or his reaction when he didn’t get what he wanted.

She’d used the bombing as an excuse to stop seeing Grayson. It was true that meeting each other had become more difficult when day after day she was ferrying casualties out into the countryside and had virtually no time free. And with death all around, it was better perhaps to forget relationships, forget friendship for that matter, and concentrate on the work they both must do. But it was an excuse and a poor one at that. It wasn’t the war that was stopping her. Not the fragility of existence, the gossamer line between life and death that she saw every day in the hospital, but the sheer awfulness of what had happened to her. She couldn’t get over the betrayal. Her husband’s, and even worse, Anish’s, the man she had thought her dear friend. She could never again commit herself wholeheartedly to anyone. From her earliest years, she’d lived a solitary life—at the orphanage, as a servant to Miss Maddox, as a working class girl in Bridges’ perfumery. She’d always been lonely and expected nothing else. And then Gerald had come along and for a short while a warmer life had beckoned. Her love for him, her friendship with Anish, had changed her, made her newly vulnerable, opened her to pain.

She could never be that girl again, but neither could she expect Grayson to understand. His life had been smooth. He’d lost his father at a very young age, she knew, but he had a mother who adored him, uncles who’d educated him, a job he loved and colleagues who were friends. If he survived this war, he would climb the intelligence ladder until he reached its very pinnacle and he would have allies all the way. His was a golden life. He could never understand the raw wash of despair that, at times, could overwhelm her. The feelings of worthlessness, that in some twisted way she had deserved her fate. While she was working, she was happy. That first day of training on the ward, she’d felt a flow of confidence and that had stayed with her. She’d known she could do the job and do it well. But that was on the ward. Out of uniform, her self-belief could waver badly and in an instant render her defenceless. She had to protect herself from further hurt. And protect Grayson, or any man who came too close, from disappointment. That was the result of Jasirapur and the shattered dreams she had left there.

She stayed on duty into the evening. Several of the nursing staff had gone down with bad colds and been sent to the sickbay. The hospital was very strict about nurses going off duty as soon as they fell ill but it meant, of course, more work for those who remained standing. She stayed until past seven and when she left Barts, daylight was already fading. The long evenings were still for the future. Until they came, she sensed rather than saw her way home. In daytime, the city went busily about its affairs, but at night the unaccustomed darkness altered its rhythm. You went slowly, feeling your way forward, hoping not to bump into walls, lamp posts, stray wardens or huddled strangers. She turned the corner into Charterhouse Square and began to follow the path through the trees.

Tomorrow she must use her free afternoon to visit number sixty-four Baker Street. How was she to manage this unwanted encounter? Perhaps if she arrived near to the time that Grayson finished work, she might catch him at the entrance. That way she wouldn’t have to brave the building or its gatekeepers. She was halfway across the square when the moon swam from beneath its dark cover. It was a full moon, too, and for a moment it bathed the area in white light, tipping the grass with silver and casting long shadows wherever she looked. A moment only and it had disappeared once more behind the banking clouds. But it had been enough to bring discomfort, enough to make her aware of those shadows and feel again eyes that followed her. It seemed a night for ghosts.