Eva was dying to hear all about it. She was fully recovered from her bout of flu and as soon as she’d checked back into the nurses’ home, she came looking for Connie who was in the laundry washing her smalls. Connie dried her hands and the two friends embraced warmly.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough to come back?’ Connie asked anxiously.
‘There’s only so much soup and chocolate cake a girl can have,’ she laughed. ‘It was lovely to be home, but Mum drove me nuts with her fussing. Your friend Jane Jackson came with an orange. Did you tell her I was ill?’
Connie nodded and turned her attention back to the sink.
‘She tells me she’s met someone. He goes to her church and she says he’s lovely.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Connie. ‘She deserves someone nice. Did she say anything about Sally Burndell?’
‘Only that she’s staying with her aunt for a bit longer,’ said Eva, making herself comfortable on the laundry table. ‘She found out that her boyfriend has left the army but he’s never got in touch. She thinks he had some poison pen letters.’
‘Yes, I heard that too,’ said Connie. ‘I ask you, who would do a thing like that?’
‘There are some really sick people out there, Connie,’ said Eva. ‘Now, tell me about your brother.’
Connie was glad of someone to talk to about Kenneth. Roger had wanted to know all about him but she was reluctant to say too much. She had written to Kenneth a couple of times since she’d got back and she was due to go home to Belvedere Nurseries on her next day off. ‘I’ve never been good at keeping secrets,’ she told Eva, ‘and he flatly refuses to let me tell Mum he’s alive and well.’
‘Why doesn’t he want her to see him?’ Eva asked.
As Connie wrung her things out and put them on the draining board she explained about the walking stalk skin flap and Kenneth’s ongoing rhinoplasty. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘it makes him look as if he has an elephant’s trunk and he hates the idea of Mum seeing him like that.’
‘Perfectly understandable,’ said Eva.
Of course it was. How silly of her not to realise. Connie hadn’t really thought about it from Kenneth’s point of view. Her whole focus had been on how difficult it would be keeping the secret. Yes, Kenneth was right. It would be much better to wait for a while and then see Mum when he had some semblance of a normal face. ‘He must be an amazing man to work for,’ Connie observed.
‘Who, Kenneth?’
‘No, Mr McIndoe,’ said Connie plunging everything back into the rinsing water. ‘In the way he’s pioneered the way people with terrible burns are treated. They say he even got the Ministry of Aircraft Production down there to see what damage their aircraft can do to the men trapped inside.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘He was trying to get them to build safer aircraft.’
‘I can’t say I would have even thought of that,’ Eva nodded. ‘I wish I’d brought my ironing down while we talked.’
‘How is Steven?’ Connie was surprised that Eva hadn’t yet mentioned the love of her life.
Eva grinned and looked a little coy. ‘He’s lovely. Oh Connie, he’s such a wonderful man. I never thought I would say this about anyone after Dermid but I love him so much.’
‘I know you do,’ Connie laughed. She tipped the rinsing water away and took her things to the mangle. ‘It’s in your eyes.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Eva. ‘Does it really show? It’s so important to keep it a secret. You know going out with the junior doctors is strictly off limits. Sister Hayes would go loopy if she found out.’
Connie squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘Your secret is safe with all of us,’ she said. ‘You two were made for each other so just enjoy it.’
Eva mouthed a silent thank you. ‘I’ve made arrangements to go and see Queenie. I hope she won’t be too upset.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ said Connie and her friend nodded.
‘Your brother was so kind,’ Connie said and Eva listened starry eyed as she told her of Roger’s gentleness when she had collapsed. ‘He took me for a meal afterwards. I’m afraid I wasn’t up to much by the end of the evening but he had me laughing.’
‘He’s like that,’ Eva smiled. ‘Could there be …?’
‘Eva, don’t,’ Connie interrupted. ‘What with training and worrying about Kenneth …’ She hung everything on the overhead pulley. She didn’t say so, but with all this Stan business being raked up, Connie was in two minds about everything. She didn’t tell Eva that Roger had already written to her. It was a chatty letter, telling her that he was going up to Yorkshire for a refresher course for a few days and asking her to write. ‘It gets a bit lonely for a chap in a strange place,’ he’d written, ‘so it would be nice to have the odd letter from a friend.’ She hadn’t replied but it sounded as if he was keen on her. ‘I don’t even want to think about romance right now …’
Eva put her hands up in mock surrender. ‘All right, all right, keep your hair on,’ she laughed.
While Connie cleared up, Eva told her about her illness. ‘My granny had me inhaling Friar’s Balsam and Mum kept me in bed for ages …’ But by now, Connie was only half listening. She was thinking about her nightmare journey home from East Grinstead. She’d been totally exhausted, both physically and mentally drained and yet every time she’d tried to relax, that awful face would push its way into her thoughts. She hadn’t really thought about Stan Saul for years but ever since Kenneth said his name, she could almost smell his sweaty body above her and feel his breath on her cheeks.
Eva jumped down from the table. ‘Connie, you’re miles away. Something is wrong.’
‘Umm? Oh, sorry,’ said Connie. ‘Go on. I am listening.’
‘No,’ said Eva. ‘I can tell by your face that you’ve got something on your mind. Come on, out with it.’
‘I was thinking about something that happened when I was thirteen,’ she began, ‘and it’s not a pretty story.’
‘Go on,’ said Eva uncertainly.
‘It’s the reason my brother left home.’
Eva sat back on the table and gave Connie her full attention. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I was with my brother at a place called Long Furlong near Patching where we used to live and we’d met up with another lad called Stan Saul,’ she said leaning against the wall. ‘Kenneth and I had been out on our bikes all day with a few other boys and girls from the village. We’d taken a primus stove and cooked some sausages in the frying pan.’
Eva smiled. ‘Nothing like cooking out of doors. Go on.’
‘Kenneth is two years older than me but Stan was already grown-up. He was seventeen and nobody could understand why he hung around with us kids all the time.’
‘Does sound a bit odd,’ Eva agreed.
‘Anyway, he’d brought some bread and he had some sweets which of course made him everybody’s mate that day,’ Connie went on. ‘It was a lot more fun having a slice of bread to wrap around a boiling hot sausage, although it did pose a bit of a problem having to cut the slices with only Curly Bishop’s penknife.’ She laughed briefly.
Eva listened as she recalled what happened. She told Eva that she wasn’t very happy when Stan had invited himself back to their place afterwards and was even more anxious when she’d realised that no one else was at home. Mum and Ga were out but she’d consoled herself that Pip, although still only a pup, was there to protect them.
‘That’s when Stan produced the cider.’
‘Cider?’ Eva remarked.
‘It was very strong and the bubbles gave me hiccups. Stan told me to “Drink up,” and he kept tipping the glass back every time I put it to my lips.’ Connie put her trembling hand to her forehead as she remembered. The gathering gloom outside gave the window a mirror effect and she studied herself in the glass. The jumble in her mind was clearing and she shuddered as she remembered Stan running his tongue over his dirty teeth.
‘Connie?’ Eva jumped down and put her hand on Connie’s shoulder. ‘Did something awful happen?’
Connie thought of Roger again. He was a nice man but if Eva told him about Stan, would he want to write to her again? As she felt her eyes smarting, Connie pulled herself together crossly. The past was the past. She couldn’t alter it and the only way it could hurt her was if she dwelt on it. Stan was out of her life forever and the chances of ever seeing him again were remote. They’d just come through a war for heaven’s sake. There was a fair chance that Stan Saul had perished on the battlefield anyway. She picked up her empty laundry basket. ‘Nah,’ she said brightly. ‘A silly memory of a rubbish first kiss, that’s all.’
*
His mother wouldn’t like it but he’d have to tell her. No point in beating about the bush. He’d come right out with it. Best way.
‘I’m changing my name, Mum.’
She almost dropped a stitch. ‘Change your name. Whatever for?’
‘I told you, didn’t I? I want a new start. As soon as people hear my name, they remember what happened to my wife and they’ve already made up their minds, haven’t they?’
She had no answer to that.
‘I’m going to use my second name instead,’ he went on. ‘It might bring me better luck.’
‘Oh, son,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. People are bound to think you’ve got something to hide.’
She saw something flicker in his eyes and his mouth took on a sinister sneer. ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, Mum,’ he said coldly. ‘I told you what I’m going to do, so you’d better get used to it.’
As he left the room, he slammed the door so hard the cups rattled on the sideboard. She could feel the panic rising inside her chest. It was starting all over again, wasn’t it? He hadn’t changed at all.
*
Matron was doing her ward rounds and Sister had asked Connie to clean Room 1 in preparation for an incoming patient. She had spent the morning wiping the locker, the iron bedstead and the mattress with disinfectant. She’d checked the curtains on the screen and changed one of them because it had a splash of some sort on it. She’d cleaned the thermometer holder on the wall and changed the mouthwash solution. When she had finished, Sister deemed it a job well done.
As Matron sailed onto the ward, Connie was just taking a bedpan to Mrs Meyer in bed four. She whipped the curtains round and hidden from view, she dealt with her patient. Mrs Meyer was lovely. She’d come in for an operation on her stomach but when the surgeons had opened her up, they’d found out that there was nothing more they could do. They’d stitched her back up again and when she came around, told her the bad news. Mrs Meyer knew she didn’t have long to live but it never seemed to dampen her spirit.
Connie had just taken the full pan from under Mrs Meyer when Matron swept the curtain aside. ‘Everything all right here?’ she bellowed.
The sudden movement made Connie jump and she accidentally spilled a little urine on the bed sheet. Matron’s eyes narrowed. ‘Scandalous waste of bed linen, nurse.’
‘Yes, Matron, sorry Matron.’
‘You cleaned Room 1, didn’t you, nurse?’
‘Yes, Matron.’
‘Then when you’ve cleaned that up come and stand outside.’
When Connie had finished changing Mrs Meyer’s sheet, she stood outside the door of Room 1 and waited. A minute or two later, Matron came and took a pair of white gloves out of her pocket. Putting the left one on, Matron went inside and closed the door. They could hear her moving around and then it all went quiet. A couple of seconds later she came out with her hands in the air. On the right hand, the index finger of her white glove had a black smudge on it.
‘Not good enough, nurse,’ she said curtly. ‘Do it again.’
‘But where did you find it?’ Connie blurted out.
‘That is for you to find out, nurse,’ snapped Matron sweeping out of the ward. ‘I shall be back in one hour.’
Connie could have wept. Her face was flaming with rage. She went to the sluice room to fetch her cleaning things again. She was supposed to be off duty in half an hour.
As she hurried to Room 1 for the second time, Mrs Meyer called her over. Pulling Connie down to the bedclothes she whispered conspiratorially, ‘Don’t let the old witch get to you, darling. Remember we all look the same with our knickers around our ankles first thing in the morning.’
Connie laughed and somehow that thought kept her going as she began again.
*
The reporter yawned. Not much excitement in court today, a couple of non-payments of fines, a chap accused of harassing his ex-wife and someone being prosecuted for not having a gun licence. It was all pretty boring stuff, only fit to go on page nine and column four. What he wanted was a page two or three piece or better still, a juicy front page story.
The last case of the day involved a gypsy. Who cares about gypsies, he thought as the boy stood in the dock, and then he realised he’d seen him before. As the case unfolded it dawned on him that this was the kid who had been in the paper a few weeks ago. He was the do-gooder who had been helping people out in the cold weather. Helping himself more like. The headlines were already turning over in his head. Good neighbour turns bad. That sounded quite good. Or, bearing in mind the boy’s name, how about, Light-fingered Light.
Isaac Light stood glum-faced in the dock as the judge passed sentence. ‘You will go to prison for six months.’
He had expected no less; after all, the police had found some stolen items, a pearl necklace and a valuable ring, in his caravan. The prosecution made much of the fact that there was other stuff missing and even though the police had searched the caravan thoroughly, it was still missing. Isaac was told to come clean and say where it was if he wanted a lighter sentence but how could he? He hadn’t stolen it in the first place. Everything seemed very circumstantial until the crown produced its most damning piece of evidence, eighty-six pounds they’d found under the floorboards. ‘No doubt the proceeds from your ill-gotten gains,’ the judge decided as he confiscated it for police funds. ‘Take him down.’
His father, Reuben, had leapt to his feet to shout but instead struggled to control his cough. As Isaac was escorted down the steps, the reporter’s lip curled. The old man was in no fit state to look after himself. It was obvious to everyone in the courtroom that he was on his last legs. Another man, vaguely familiar but the reporter couldn’t place him, was sitting next to the old man.
‘I’m innocent, Dad,’ Isaac called from the bottom of the stairs. ‘I didn’t do nothing.’
There was another case coming up but the reporter dashed out to get to the telephone and the news desk. With a bit of luck, the story of Light-fingered Light would be in the morning paper.
The other spectators in court shrugged and exchanged sceptical looks as Isaac called out from below the dock but Reuben was a broken man. Everyone in his family cut corners and bent the rules a bit, but this was the first time anyone had been jailed for theft.
‘It wasn’t him,’ he croaked.
Sitting next to him, the Frenchie patted his back. ‘I, for one, don’t believe it either, Reuben,’ he whispered and the old man looked up at him with hope in his eyes.