I had made my decision. I was going to do as Nelly asked. And it was the worst thing I could ever have imagined. In fact, it was far beyond anything I could ever have imagined – before the war at least. Before the nightly raids and the destruction of our normal lives. But somehow it also seemed less bad than watching Nelly die a slow and painful death. Seeing her limbs withering beneath the dressings, or watching her being submerged in baths of saline water, hearing her moan with pain, and knowing none of it would help.
Once I’d decided I would help her die, I felt lighter, as though a weight had been lifted from me. But that lightness didn’t last long. This was a huge thing I was doing. I knew it would be a decision that would stay with me for my whole life. And that was assuming no one ever found out what I had done. It was something I would have to learn to live with. But I knew in my heart that if the roles had been reversed, I would have wanted Nelly to do the same for me. And I knew she would have agreed.
Fortunately, I had two days off after Nelly had asked me to help her die, and I decided to spend them getting everything ready. I knew I had to act fast, because the awful truth was Nelly was suffering terribly and I wanted it to stop. I wanted her to be at peace.
‘A few of us are going to the pictures tomorrow,’ Petra said as we left the hospital. ‘Afternoon showing, then a couple of drinks afterwards and home before the siren goes. Fancy coming along?’
I smiled at her. ‘I’d love that,’ I said honestly, wishing I could go and do normal, fun things like Nelly and I used to. I wondered if I ever would again. ‘But I have to help a friend.’
At home I dug out some of my old books from my nursing training and pored over the sections on medicines. Nurses couldn’t prescribe of course, but we handed out the drugs that the doctors had allocated for patients. We had access to the medicines cupboards and with everyone so busy at the hospital, things weren’t as tightly controlled as they once had been, or indeed, as they should be.
I thought the best way to let Nelly slip away would be to give her more morphine than she needed. But because she was already on lots of painkillers, she would be used to the medicine and I needed to be sure that the dose I gave her would work.
I looked at the pages in my book and rubbed my head, thinking hard. Nelly was small and slight – even more so now – but she’d have a tolerance to the medicine. I scribbled down some sums on the back page of the textbook and then added a bit more to be sure. That would do it, I thought.
But how to get hold of it? I couldn’t go and take what I needed from the drugs cupboard in my own ward. Someone would notice it was missing. Instead, I thought, I would have to take little bits from all over. But the good news was, I had access to every ward in the hospital thanks to my book. No one would pay any attention to me wandering around. No one would even notice what I was doing.
Morphine came in tiny glass bottles and lots of patients were given it, because we had so many badly injured people to care for who needed proper pain relief. I planned to take a walk round the wards just when I knew the nurses would be doing their rounds with the medicines trolley and swipe a bottle here and a bottle there.
So, the following day – when I was still on my break from the ward – I headed to work. Thankfully there was no sign of Jackson. He was on the same shift pattern as me more or less – nurses and porters’ shifts weren’t exactly the same – and though that usually made me uneasy, this time it made things easier.
I found the book quickly in one of the women’s surgical wards. I checked my watch – almost time for the drugs round – and decided to hang around for a while. So I chatted to a few of the patients about the book, staying out of the way of the nurses as they bustled round, checking charts and getting the medicines ready. And then, when the trolley was prepared, I said goodbye and walked casually towards the door. As the nurse with the medicines looked at the chart she was holding, I reached out a hand without breaking stride, picked up one of the little bottles of morphine and slipped it, unseen, into my pocket.
Then I did the same in the ward along the corridor, popping in and pretending I’d got the wrong ward, so I didn’t have to linger. And finally I did it on a ward upstairs, where I pinched two more bottles from their trolley too.
And then, with the book clutched in my arms and my pockets rattling with the bottles, I went to see Nelly.
‘She’s very low,’ the nurse on the ward said as I went in. ‘Hopefully seeing you might cheer her up.’
I doubted that, but I nodded and pushed open the door to Nelly’s room.
‘It’s me,’ I said quietly because her eye was closed but I knew she wasn’t asleep. Sure enough, she blinked a couple of times and then opened her eye and looked at me.
‘Do you feel awful?’
She nodded slightly.
I pulled the chair over from the corner of the room and sat down next to her.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you asked me,’ I said. I took a breath. ‘I’ll do it.’
Nelly breathed in sharply. She felt for my hand and squeezed it tightly.
I leaned over so I could speak into her ear. ‘Morphine,’ I said in a low voice. I looked up at the metal stand where a glass bottle was dripping fluid into Nelly’s vein. ‘I thought about putting it into your fluids …’
Nelly shook her head.
‘No, I know that wouldn’t work. I changed my mind. I’ll inject you.’
I felt Nelly relax. ‘But I need to know this is what you want. I thought we could come up with a signal so if you want me to stop at any time, you can let me know.’ I thought about that. ‘Maybe hitting the bedclothes with an open hand like this?’ I showed her and she copied.
‘That’s it. Do that if you want me to stop.’
Nelly nodded.
‘I can’t do it today because I need …’ I paused, trying to collect my thoughts. ‘I need to prepare myself. And I think it’ll be easier when I’m working.’
Nelly nodded again.
‘But I brought the book and I thought you could tell me what you want to say to your mum?’ I felt tears prick at my eyes again as I thought about Nelly’s mother, across the Irish Sea, worrying about her daughter and knowing she’d never see her again. ‘If you tell me, I’ll write down the message.’
Wiping my eyes, I tried to sound efficient. ‘Shall we get started then?’
Being cautious, I’d sealed the pages where I’d written Nelly’s request. But now I opened it again so she could use her alphabet.
Slowly she tapped out her message, and I wrote it down. “Mammy, I am sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye,” I wrote. “I love you all very much.”
‘They love you too,’ I said to Nelly. ‘I know that from your mum’s letters, and her stories about your family. They love you so much.’
A tear trickled down Nelly’s cheek.
‘And so do I,’ I said. ‘I love you too. You’re the best friend I ever had and I don’t know what I’ll do without you.’ I was crying properly now. I wiped my eyes again and tried to carry on. ‘When Billy died, you were there for me, looking after me. And you always make me laugh. And you taught me how to put kohl pencil round my eyes and how to get the last bits out of a tube of lipstick.’
I looked down at my handkerchief clenched in my fist and leaned closer to Nelly. ‘Nelly, I think I might be expecting,’ I said in a quiet voice. ‘I think I’m having a baby.’
Nelly’s eye widened. She took my fingers in hers and squeezed.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said. I’d not properly let myself think about this added complication yet. It seemed too huge to contemplate, but it also seemed like a tiny chink of sunlight on a very dark day. And I wanted Nelly to know.
Nelly reached for the book again. I held it up and she tapped out the word. “L … I … V … E,” she spelled. “For me.”
‘I will. I promise.’
Nelly’s chest was heaving in a way that looked very painful and she was making a sort of whimpering sound in her throat. ‘Don’t get upset,’ I urged her. ‘Please don’t. I didn’t want to make you sad. I just want you to know that I’m a better person because I knew you. That my life is better because you were in it.’
I sniffed, searching in my pockets for another handkerchief because mine was soggy with tears, and feeling the little bottles of morphine clinking together. ‘Thank you, Nelly,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry my baby won’t know you. I’m really going to miss you.’
I leaned over and kissed her head, and she stroked my hair awkwardly with her good hand, and then I left her room without looking back.