‘It’s very strange,’ Kenny admitted, as he and Ruby strolled along the Downs in the fading evening light. Gradually summer was ending and autumn beckoned, with the leaves beginning to crisp and change colour, a hint of a nip in the air. Ruby pulled down the sleeves of her blouse which she had rolled back as they started out for their walk, and Kenny took the cheeky opportunity to put his arm around her shoulders and draw her closer. ‘Don’t want you getting cold,’ he explained, mock-innocently.
‘Don’t you get clever with me,’ Ruby said smartly, but she didn’t move away. ‘But what do you mean, strange? What is it that’s so strange?’
‘Well, me being a new warden and all that, and yet they want me to look after one of the latest recruits.’ Kenny lowered his head a little so that his cheek brushed the top of Ruby’s dark hair. He loved her hair.
‘Means they must think you’re up to it,’ she pointed out. ‘They wouldn’t ask otherwise.’
‘That’s as maybe. Or perhaps they think I’m the only one daft enough to say yes.’ Kenny spoke in jest but secretly feared there was some truth to it.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Ruby said at once. ‘They wouldn’t do that. They need all new recruits to be treated proper, you said as much yourself when you started at the beginning of summer.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ Kenny said again. ‘I dunno, Ruby, I don’t want to get caught out of my depth or nothing.’
Ruby sighed and leant against his shoulder. ‘You’ll find you know more than you think you do. What’s he like, then, this new bloke?’
‘He’s a bit younger than me.’ Kenny chuckled. ‘He’s got dodgy eyesight and so he couldn’t go in the army like what he wanted and his glasses are even thicker than mine. He’s chuffed to bits to be a warden. He’s called Cliff, he’s from down Shoreditch way, and he seems nice enough.’
‘Good,’ said Ruby neutrally. ‘Perhaps you should get him down the Duke’s Arms one time, introduce him to everybody. Has he got many friends?’
Kenny thought about it. ‘He don’t mention many. I think he’s a bit quiet. Tell you what he did ask, though. When he heard you were a nurse, that is.’
‘Go on then,’ said Ruby in a tone that showed she knew what was coming next. ‘Surprise me.’
‘He asked if you’d got any friends. Single friends, that is.’
‘Of course he did,’ said Ruby, and this time she did draw a little away from Kenny.
‘Oh, don’t be like that, Ruby. He didn’t mean no harm by it.’ Kenny knew he had struck the jackpot with Ruby and couldn’t blame the new man for trying. ‘Like you say, we could introduce him to some of the others. Who knows, one of them might like him.’
‘Hmmph.’ Ruby was not impressed. ‘What, like Lily, you mean? She’d eat him for breakfast.’
‘Er, no, maybe not Lily.’ Kenny could see that would not be a good idea.
‘Everyone else will be older than him,’ Ruby pointed out. ‘I know some don’t mind that, but I don’t reckon any of the nurses will want to walk out with someone much younger unless he’s older than his years, if you take my meaning. It’s just that when you’re a nurse you see everything, so you can’t be a shrinking violet. You grow up fast, you have to.’
‘No, I know that,’ said Kenny, serious now. ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Ruby, I can see that for myself. We won’t introduce him to, let’s see, Iris for example.’
Ruby giggled. ‘No, I don’t think she’d be very interested. She’s nice enough, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t see her letting her hair down.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Kenny thought of how the new nurse had been that night down by the canal. Not frightened in the slightest bit, which was saying something. Unexpectedly tender with the lost little boy. Somebody who could look after herself in a difficult situation. Unlikely to be on the lookout for a younger boyfriend, that was for sure. He pulled Ruby close again. ‘And listen to the other news. This has really got Mr Spencer’s goat. Oh, he don’t know what to do with hisself about this. We got another new recruit – and it’s a woman.’
‘Good thing too,’ said Ruby. ‘Why shouldn’t a woman be an ARP warden?’
Kenny laughed. ‘No reason at all. I got nothing against her. But Mr Spencer, you’d have thought they’d asked him to go to the moon or dig a hole to Australia. Proper up in arms, he was. Said he wouldn’t show her anything as she wouldn’t be able to do it. They threatened him with a disciplinary and so he had to give in but he ain’t happy, not one bit.’
‘Poor woman,’ said Ruby feelingly. ‘I wouldn’t want to get stuck with him, after everything you’ve said to me about the miserable old stick.’
Kenny agreed. ‘I wouldn’t want you to be stuck with him neither. But give her her due, Olive don’t seem to mind. Gives as good as she gets, she does.’
‘All the same, rather her than me.’ Ruby shivered deliciously, as they stepped into the shadow of a big tree. ‘Oooh, I am a bit cold now, Kenny.’ She flashed her eyes at him.
‘Can’t have that,’ he breathed, turning and pulling her as close as he decently could.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Alice asked, buttoning her light jacket in the ground-floor hallway. ‘You don’t have to.’
Iris nodded seriously. ‘I know. But I want to.’ She fiddled with the collar of her blouse, unsure whether to leave the top button undone. The weather would soon be on the turn.
Alice gave a small smile. ‘Then … thank you. I’m sure everything will go well, but it’s good to have an extra pair of hands, just in case. Especially as Janet can’t make it after all.’
Iris nodded again, glancing at the two small bags set at the foot of the stairs. ‘Is this all they’ve got?’ It didn’t seem much, if this was the total of the children’s belongings.
‘They never had many clothes or toys,’ Alice told her. ‘We’ve been known to give them a few hand-me-downs over the years, or sometimes we’ve made them things. Actually, that’s pretty well as much as most of the children on that first train of evacuees were allowed to take. They had this exact list of what they should pack, no more, no less. It was like a military operation.’
A faraway look came to Iris’s eyes. ‘I remember when some arrived, back in Dev—’ she began, then a commotion from the door of the canteen halted her in her tracks. ‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
Alice flashed her a smile. ‘I’d like that. Well, Pauline, Larry – all ready? Then off we go. Plenty of time to get to the station but we don’t want to hang around much longer.’
Pauline was grinning from ear to ear. ‘I never been on a train before, miss. Well, only the underground ones, but not often. Stank of smoke, they did. This one won’t be like that, will it?’
Alice put her hand on the girl’s shoulder in reassur-ance. ‘It’ll be daylight all the way.’ She gently ushered her out through the big front door and down the steps, carrying one of the bags, while Iris did the same for Larry. As ever, the boy was more reluctant than his sister, but he clearly trusted Iris.
They caught the bus to Liverpool Street with no mishaps. Alice had privately worried that there would be a last-minute diversion, which happened frequently, but they were in luck. It was only as the four of them made their way to the platform, the noises of the trains and passengers echoing from the grand arches of the big roof, that Pauline hesitated.
‘Miss …?’
‘Yes, Pauline?’ Alice still had to bend down to the girl’s level, but not nearly as far as she used to. The child was growing up.
‘We will be all right, won’t we? Dotty’s ma knows where to meet us?’
Alice knew that neither of the children had ever left London. She could hardly blame the girl for asking, in a rare moment of vulnerability. ‘She does. Miss Phipps gave her exact instructions. You needn’t worry.’
Pauline bit her lip. ‘So … will I see you again, miss?’
Alice swallowed quickly. She hadn’t realised quite how much she would miss this young girl, who had been a constant figure in her life ever since she’d come to Victory Walk. Then she smiled as brightly as she could. ‘I bet you will. You know the address so you can write and tell us where you are and how you’re doing. Then, when the war’s over, it will be safe for you to come back, if that’s what you want.’
‘Is it going to be over soon, miss?’ Pauline’s voice sounded strained.
Alice didn’t want to raise false hopes, but gave her considered opinion. ‘Do you know what, Pauline, I think it will. Not like tomorrow, or even next month, but I do believe the end’s in sight.’
Iris looked at her watch and cleared her throat. ‘Time to get on board,’ she said firmly.
Pauline cocked her head to one side and met Alice’s gaze. Then she nodded decisively. ‘Righto.’ She took Larry by the hand. ‘Ta-ta for now then, miss. And … thank you.’ With that she picked up her bag and strode down the platform, Iris and Alice following with Larry’s bag, as the two children who had bravely weathered all that fate had thrown at them set off for their new lives.
Alice stayed at the end of the platform as the train pulled out. She knew that they had done the right thing and yet she couldn’t help wondering how the children would get on. Iris cast a glance her way, and seemed to pick up on her mood. ‘Shall we go to find a cup of tea, now we’re here?’ she suggested.
Alice gave herself a mental shake. Here was a chance to get to know the newest nurse, something she had been meaning to do for weeks. ‘What a good idea,’ she agreed. ‘There’s a café around the corner – it’ll be less busy than the nearest place.’
Iris brightened. ‘Can’t beat a bit of local knowledge,’ she said, grinning, and let Alice lead the way.
The café was a five-minute walk away, off the main road of Bishopsgate, tucked behind an old church. Its windows were polished and a cheery jug of flowers stood on the sill by the door in welcome. ‘This is it.’ Alice smiled at her colleague to see if it met with her approval.
Iris nodded. ‘Much better than a station buffet.’ They made their way inside, where there were few other customers at this time of day, a lull between the rush of customers who worked in nearby offices.
Settling at a table covered in a bright yellow cloth, cups and saucers with matching yellow rims and a generous teapot that could have served four people, the two women decided against teacakes or toast as well. Alice wondered how to broach the subject that had been bothering her: that Iris clearly had something in her background she had not shared with her new colleagues. As they traded stories of their backgrounds and how they had come to nursing, there seemed to be little in the way of an opening, until she happened to mention that Joe had been based at Devonport.
Iris looked up intently. ‘I know Devonport docks well,’ she said, and an expression passed across her face that Alice could not help but react to.
She cleared her throat a little. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ she offered. ‘You needn’t if you’d rather not – but I can be discreet.’
Iris met her eyes directly. ‘I’m sure you can. It’s not that … it’s just … it’s so long since I’ve spoken about it. I’ve come all this way from home but the truth is, what happened never goes away.’ She swallowed hard and began, gazing out of the window now, as if remembering the scenes.
‘I was working near Devonport for a while, not long after the war began …’ She took a sip of tea, for courage. ‘We nurses got to know the ARP wardens of course. Sometimes you received cases from them or had to exchange notes … things like that. Well, there was one warden I got to know in particular. H—he was called Peter.’ She stopped, took a deep breath, put down her cup. ‘He was about my age, and we had so much in common. He was an engineer and couldn’t be called up, but he wanted to do his bit … He worked such long hours.’ She sighed. ‘Like those young men on the docks do now. I hear the other nurses talking, and I know those boys work all day and then several of them are wardens as well. It brings it all back.’
‘What happened to Peter?’ Alice asked quietly.
‘It was down at the docks. He’d gone to attend a fire. You’ll have heard what happened to the docks, to Plymouth, the bombings … it was terrible. The fires, the heat, the smell … we were rushed off our feet with the number of burns victims, I’ll never forget it. But that night … well, Peter and another warden got to the fire and the emergency services were called, and it was terrible but no worse than other nights. Then one of the young dock workers cracked; he just couldn’t take it any more. He’d somehow got hold of a revolver – they said it was his father’s from the Great War, but I don’t really know and it doesn’t change what happened. He said he was going to kill himself, that he couldn’t stand the constant bombings, the stress of it, not knowing when it would happen next. If he was going to die, then it would be at a time of his own choosing.
‘Peter went to try and help him. The boy warned him not to, that he was serious. Peter carried on anyway.’ She rubbed her hands together, in pain at the dreadful image.
‘Go on.’
‘The boy shot him and then himself,’ Iris said bleakly. ‘He killed Peter outright and then turned the gun on himself. Just killed my Peter, like he was shooting a rabbit or something. At least it was quick. It’s the only good thing.’ She stopped, took another sip of warm tea. ‘We’d been engaged for three weeks. The best three weeks of my life. I thought I was going to die too, when they told me.’
Alice nodded again, sympathy in every line of her face. ‘But you didn’t.’
Eventually Iris managed to find her voice once more. ‘I didn’t. I had to leave Plymouth, though. I couldn’t bear to be there any longer. All the places we used to go together … everything … it was all ruined. So I looked around for a rural position as a district nurse and moved to the village near my home town, so at least I could look after my mother. My father had died by then. People used to ask me was I sure; there would be so few young people to see, I’d have no friends my own age, but I didn’t care. That was the last thing I wanted. To tell you the truth, being on my own was easier. I’d had the best – not for long, but I’d had it and known true happiness. I—I couldn’t settle for less.’ She came to a halt, her hands shaking a little as she set her cup on its saucer.
Alice reached out and briefly put her hand over her colleague’s. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t imagine. It was bad enough when Joe’s ship was attacked … but to lose someone, it’s the worst thing.’
Iris nodded sadly. ‘That’s why my work means so much. I mean, it did before – but after Peter died, I had to pour my heart into something. That something was nursing.’
Alice nodded, knowing that she had done just that when Mark had broken her heart back in Liverpool. ‘I’m glad you told me,’ she breathed. ‘We need nurses like you, Iris. Everyone says so. I just hope you can find happiness again.’
Iris poured the last of the tea. ‘Maybe. It’s not what I look for. Or rather, I get great satisfaction from a job well done.’ She drained her cup and set it down. ‘Thank you, Alice. You are a good listener – as a good nurse should be.’ She broke into a small smile. ‘Shall we get back?’