Olive smiled broadly and told herself that she had done the right thing. The market was bustling and she’d had little sleep, but somehow she found the reserves of energy to hunt for what she wanted. Her mother had warned her that she would be mad to join the ARP, but Olive knew she had to do something. Now her children were a little older it was up to her to do her bit.
The best thing about being a warden was suddenly finding all these other women not much younger than her who worked for their living, and living for their jobs. Admittedly, there weren’t any others in the ARP in her section, but that might change. The real bonus was meeting Kenny. He seemed such a nice young man, not at all deserving of their superior’s spite, and keen to share what he knew – and through him she’d met his girlfriend. Then just yesterday she’d been introduced to the girlfriend’s colleagues.
‘Come down the Duke’s Arms with us,’ the one with the bright blonde hair had urged. ‘You never can tell when it’ll be useful to know the local district nurses.’
Olive had acknowledged she was right but had had to refuse. ‘Got to get back to see to the children,’ she’d explained. ‘My mother has them for a few hours but she likes me to settle them when I’m not on duty. Perhaps another time.’ Although she knew that was unlikely, as she had so few hours to spare.
Still, it was nice to be asked, and a real breath of fresh air. Olive pulled at the cheerful headscarf she’d hastily tied on before setting out, having had no time to wash or even brush her hair. That was the price you paid for having so much to do. But it was worth it.
There were plenty of apples for sale and she filled her basket. They could have apple pie tonight, which would soften the blow of her being back on shift. Then she could cook the rest into apple sauce and store it, or maybe make a chutney as that would last even longer. Apple chutney and a big piece of cheese … her mouth began to water, as she’d skipped breakfast so that the children could have more. She didn’t like to send them to school without them having eaten properly.
Another stallholder had barley on offer, so she took as much of that as she could reasonably carry too. It would bulk out the stews and soups they tended to exist on during the colder months. Bracing herself against the heavy weight of her basket and her spare string bag, now fully loaded, she strode as fast as she could out of the crowded, noisy row of stalls and towards the big road that would lead her home.
‘Need a hand?’ A young woman in a dark cloak was pushing an ancient bicycle around the corner to meet the big road. ‘Remember me? Ruby? I’m Kenny’s girlfriend,’ she added with a slight blush.
‘Oh, Ruby! There’s a coincidence. I was just thinking about your friend being kind enough to ask me to the pub.’ Olive stopped in her tracks and nearly dropped the string bag. ‘Look at me, what am I like, I’m not usually so clumsy.’ She bent to retrieve it but the nurse was faster.
‘I’m going the same way as you – I’ve got ten minutes spare before my next visit.’ She went to take the string bag, to hoist it into her bike’s basket. ‘Blimey! What have you got in there?’ Ruby knew she was no slouch, as all the nurses had to be reasonably fit to carry out their daily duties, but this weighed a ton.
‘Just barley,’ Olive said brightly, relieved to have offloaded the cereal. ‘I might have overdone it, but he had so much on sale and you never know when there’ll be more – I took advantage. Barley soup for us this evening.’
Ruby nodded. ‘We have a lot of that as well. Good job I bumped into you when I did. How far are you down this road? I’ll help.’
Olive would usually have said not to bother, but she really had bought more than she could happily carry, and also, if she was honest, she enjoyed the thought of the young woman’s company. It had been so long since she had had any actual friends for herself. ‘Not far. Third turn on the left,’ she explained. ‘Thanks, Ruby. You’ve been a godsend.’
Ruby finished her rounds later that day, replaying the conversation with Olive in her mind. She had been impressed with the way the older woman appeared to juggle so many calls on her time and energy. They had at least been able to share the frustrations of having to write up reports after their working hours had officially ended. ‘Just when I’m ready to put my feet up for a well-deserved rest, I remember I’ve got to fill in those blasted forms,’ Olive had said. Ruby had agreed wholeheartedly.
She tried to keep on top of such things, as they all did, but she hadn’t gone into district nursing to compile lists. She knew that side of the job was necessary but it was far from her favourite part. So it was at the forefront of her mind as she went into the service room, intent on a hot drink to take upstairs where she would go through her notes to make sure she had left nothing out.
‘You’re in a hurry,’ Gladys commented, as she carried through a pile of crockery.
‘No, not really.’ Ruby helped herself to a clean cup. ‘Just wanted to get shot of my notes and then I don’t have to think about them later.’ She laughed. ‘Turns out our new warden – you know, Olive? – feels the same.’ She recounted their conversation as she boiled the kettle. ‘Do you fancy a cuppa, Gladys? Do you have the time?’
Gladys looked tempted but shook her head. ‘I haven’t long had one. Better not.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘Of course, they have to keep records too. I wonder …’
‘Something wrong?’ Ruby caught the change in Gladys’s expression.
‘I don’t know.’ Gladys put the plates on their correct shelf. ‘I was just thinking about something that happened at the first-aid post a couple of evenings ago. Do you reckon Kenny could check something for me? Nothing dodgy, or anything like that, just the name of a patient we didn’t catch the right name of at the time.’
Ruby shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. I’m seeing him tomorrow. I’ll ask him then.’
Iris regarded herself in the mirror, turning first one way and then the other. Was her face getting thinner? Perhaps she had come to rely on all the little extras, back in her old district. There was never a shortage of eggs or good, fresh vegetables, and there was usually plenty of milk and cream to be had. Some patients would offer her a chicken or a cut of beef or pork, or even a rabbit. She had often felt reluctant to accept, suspecting they needed the food more than she did, but on occasions it would have been rude to refuse. Many had little spare cash and this was a way of paying their medical bills in kind.
She sucked in her cheeks and then stopped, noticing how it made the lines around her eyes seem deeper. Laughter lines, her mother had called them. Iris wasn’t sure when she had last laughed, not properly. She’d got out of the habit. Sometimes, when she heard the younger nurses chuckling at the wireless in the common room, she felt as old as the hills. She couldn’t see what was so funny about Will Hay and why anyone would want to call their teacher ‘old crumpet’? She just could not understand the humour.
Her face was becoming paler, she was sure. It wasn’t just that the hours of sunshine were diminishing. Out on the moors she’d acquired a tan, whether she’d wanted to or not, and her cheeks would glow rose-red from the copious amounts of fresh air. She was fading to a London pallor. Well, never mind. It wasn’t as if there was anybody special to notice.
‘Not exactly in the market for an admirer, are we, my girl?’ she muttered to herself. She didn’t usually spend much time in front of a mirror. As long as she was clean and tidy, her hair neatly restrained, she was usually content. All the same, she decided her figure wasn’t so bad, with all the exercise keeping it trim, along with the filling and healthy diet – even if it was pretty monotonous.
Iris was not sure what had brought about this strange mood. Her usual aim was to keep busy for as long as possible and then to let tiredness overwhelm her. Then there was no chance for introspection. She didn’t want to think too deeply. She wanted to do her job, be of use, perform the service for which she was trained. Thinking had never done her any good.
If she stopped to question it, she had to admit that it was the new patient who had brought on this unusual moment of reflection. The young man who had shot himself was, on the face of it, beginning to heal. His wound had avoided infection, thanks in no small part to Iris’s twice-daily visits, when she would check him thoroughly. Dr Patcham was still of a mind to keep him semi-sedated, and so Iris had had no conversations with him. Sometimes he would groan a little, or she would reassure him that all would be better as she went about her work, bathing and disinfecting and bandaging, apologising if it hurt.
She therefore had no insight into how he was feeling, if he still longed for death or if he was happy to have survived. It was a peculiar kind of limbo. Her clinical actions would have been the same in either case, but she knew there was so much more to it. If she knew what was going on in his brain she could encourage him or sympathise. Not knowing left her unable to help.
Iris did not like to talk to Fiona or Gwen about the case. If they asked then she would tell them, but they were so busy. She didn’t like to interrupt their continual hard work in keeping the nurses’ home running efficiently. She knew that this did not happen by magic; it took lots of effort, every day. That was far more important than her problems. A nurse of her experience should be able to sort them all by herself. The superintendent would not want her to come running every time something upset her. It couldn’t be called an emergency. Iris acknowledged that she felt thoroughly out of sorts, but that was hardly a reason to take up Fiona or Gwen’s valuable time. Besides, it would have to be done out of earshot of the other nurses, to guarantee the patient’s confidentiality; not always easy with so many people around all the time.
‘So, my girl, you’d better put up with it,’ she admonished herself. Her image stared back. The daylight had almost gone and she knew she should fasten her blackout blind. The government had begun to relax the rules just a little, but this was London, not Dartmoor. She couldn’t do anything that would place Victory Walk at risk.
As she made to turn towards the window, she caught a flash of herself from a different angle. For a moment it reminded her of how she had looked five years ago – and what a different person she had been then. That version of Iris had laughed heartily every day, had known how to let her hair down, and had paid far more attention to how she’d looked. In those days she had had good reason to.
Stop it right now, Iris told herself. Those days are over, and you were just a girl back then. You’ve had to grow up since. It’s no use moping about what might have been. Put all those thoughts back in the box where they belong and lock down the lid for extra safety. It had been a risk to tell Alice what had happened and now she had to be on even more careful guard to stop those feelings leaching out and preventing her from working, from functioning at all.
Giving herself a firm talking-to had done the trick for a long time now. Yet tonight it didn’t quite. The image of that young man, ghostly pale with his shocking dark hair, lying on his bed while his family blamed each other and themselves, would not leave her alone.
‘Getting a bit nippy for sitting outside,’ said Kenny. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Shall we see if there’s a table in the bar instead?’
Gladys liked it better outside, as otherwise she spent most of her time indoors, but she had to admit it wasn’t as warm as the last time a group of them had come to the Duke’s Arms. Tonight it was just the four of them: Ruby and Kenny, herself and Ron. She didn’t want to upset Kenny as he’d done her a favour.
So she picked up her half of shandy and followed the others through the door with its frosted panel, into the cosy bar. The barman met her eye and nodded towards the piano, but she shook her head. She wasn’t going to stay for long as she had a big pile of mending to do back at home. She’d give them a song or two another day. Tonight she wanted to find out what Kenny had learned.
‘Here we are.’ Ron held out a chair for her, like the gentleman he was. She smiled up at him with appreciation. She could see by the way he moved that he was dog-tired but he’d still come out.
‘So, Gladys, you sure you didn’t get the wrong end of the stick?’ Kenny was saying. ‘’Cos there ain’t no sign of an incident that night. By rights it should have been written up but there’s nothing like what you described.’
Gladys grimaced. ‘I can’t see how it was a mistake. It was your senior, and I didn’t take to him one bit. He was all self-important and wouldn’t answer my questions. Then the man he brought in did a runner. He wasn’t in any state to look after himself. I worry for him because he had a broken nose and missing teeth and that’s only what I could see on a quick inspection. He could have concussion. But I can’t trace him without a name.’
Ron looked at her lovingly and patted her knee. ‘Not your job to go worrying about him,’ he pointed out. ‘If you had to worry for every patient you treated, you wouldn’t have no time left for yourself. You hardly do anyway. He sounds big enough and ugly enough to look after himself. You have to forget about it.’
Gladys twisted the beer mat in front of her. ‘Yes, but it was odd. I didn’t feel comfortable at all, looking back on it.’
Ruby bit her lip. ‘You don’t think he’ll come back, do you?’
Ron’s expression turned anxious. ‘He better not try. I could come and sit with you, Glad, I’m not having anyone hurt you!’
‘No, no.’ Gladys realised she had caused trouble with what was meant to be a few quiet questions. ‘I bet he won’t want to come anywhere near me and Queenie. He’ll be lying low somewhere. I was just curious, that’s all.’ She tried to make light of it.
‘I could report old Spencer to Mr Banham,’ Kenny said. ‘Then he’d be for it.’
‘You could, but then you might get in trouble yourself.’ Gladys sighed. ‘Best to leave it, Kenny, but thanks for checking. We’ll have to assume Mr Spencer was in a hurry and didn’t want to be quizzed by a couple of young women – and didn’t know what sort of patient he’d brought in.’ Although she didn’t like the idea of giving the horrid warden the benefit of the doubt, she couldn’t see an alternative. She’d done her best. She certainly didn’t want to get Kenny into his superior’s bad books.
‘That’s probably what it is,’ said Ron. He yawned and hurriedly tried to cover it up.
‘We keeping you out past your bedtime?’ Ruby grinned.
Ron smiled but there was no denying he was not his usual lively self. ‘Got a spot of bother at work,’ he confessed. ‘Ken, you missed it ’cos you was called over to Wapping before we finished up. Another load of cargo has gone missing and I had to run around trying to work out what. A right pain, it is. They can shout at me all they like, but I can’t conjure up replacements out of thin air. Proper got my goat, it did.’
‘Oh, and here am I waffling on about some ungrateful patient who doesn’t deserve a second thought.’ Gladys was guilty now, for causing Ron any extra fuss. ‘Tell you what, let me get you another pint and how about a pickled egg? Did you miss your dinner with all of this going on? I bet you did. Let me get you something to make up for it. Don’t you go worrying about me. We got to look after you, you’re the ones what keeps those docks ticking over.’
Ron was too tired to protest.