If You Were the Only Girl, page 40
Lucy recounted some of the things and Vera said wistfully, ‘That sounds lovely.’
‘It was,’ Lucy maintained. ‘So what did you do?’
‘I worked.’
‘Worked for your exams, you mean?’ Vera gave a brief nod and Lucy went on, ‘All of the time?’
‘More or less,’ Vera said. ‘Even my father told me to do my best for my mother’s sake. And my mother said that if I had chosen nursing instead of going on to train as a doctor – which incidentally she calls a second-rate career – the very least I can do to try to repay the money spent on my private education is to get top marks. She won’t accept that I’m not very bright. She just says I don’t try.’
She looked at Lucy with bright glittery eyes and went on, ‘Dad says that’s half the trouble, because my mother is clever, and in her day and in her family that was frowned on. Clever girls weren’t good in the marriage stakes so there was no secondary education for them, never mind university. Instead, she was taught accomplishments: how to embroider and sketch, sing and play moderately well on the piano. And then she was told to go and hook herself a nice rich husband and not to bother her pretty little head about mathematics, science or politics, the three things she seemed to be most passionate about. She was advised to leave that to the men.’
‘But none of that is your fault,’ Lucy said. ‘Your mother is trying to live her life through you, but you are not her so you mustn’t let her.’
‘Oh, you don’t know her,’ Vera said. ‘She is very forceful.’
‘Only with you,’ Lucy said. ‘If she was really that forceful she would have fought for what she believed in at the time, not bring resentment into the marriage she probably didn’t want and load it all on her daughter.’
Vera looked at Lucy with admiration. ‘Do you know, Lucy, I have never seen it that way before.’
‘That’s because you were too close to it,’ Lucy said. ‘And brought up in that way without even a brother or sister to knock the corners off you. But you are not your mother. You have to live your own life and follow your own dream, and it is about time you told her so. Write it all down if you really can’t face her. And anyway, if she is so bright, why isn’t she offering her services somewhere now and doing something for the war effort?’
‘Oh, she always prided herself that she never needed to go out to work.’
‘Then she is very lucky, but that doesn’t mean that she can sit on her backside and let the rest of us graft now we are at war. And if she had more to do with her time, just maybe she wouldn’t be quite so concerned with you.’
Lucy saw that she had got through to Vera, who until then had just accepted that’s how things were and questioned none of it.
‘And that’s another thing, while we’re about it,’ Lucy said. ‘Stop saying you’re not bright. All right, so you are not Brain of Britain, but who is? You are at least as bright as the rest of the nurses here and your marks reflect that.’ Then she added, ‘You can’t be top of the class every time, you know. It’s only fair to give other people a chance. Now put that bloody book away and go to sleep. I need my beauty sleep even if you don’t.’
Vera obediently turned the light off but, when Lucy’s even breathing indicated that she was asleep, she withdrew a writing pad from the top drawer of the cabinet beside her bed and, by the light from her torch, wrote a letter to her mother, knowing that she had to write it while she was still fired up with Lucy’s enthusiasm and before her confidence ebbed away.
None of the girls found the prelims that hard. After-wards, they talked about the exam in their room together and then fell to discussing the raids. ‘There were so many with really serious conditions and you had no time to think what to do,’ Jenny said.
There was a murmur of agreement and Babs said, ‘We can only do our best and remember that we’re not flipping robots.’
‘Fat lot of good we would be if we didn’t care,’ Vera said. ‘And some get to you more than others. I’m not talking here about seeing friends in such a dreadful condition that you can’t help them, like you did, Lucy – I can barely imagine how really distressing that must have been – I mean, when I see people who aren’t going to make it, especially the young or very old, I can get upset. Personally, I would be more worried if a person didn’t react in that way.’
‘And I would,’ Jenny said. ‘Anyway, apart from the odd skirmish here and there, those raids seem to be a thing of the past. We can go back to standard nursing again, and the only blot on our personal horizon will be Matron.’
The girls laughed together and Lucy gave Jenny a push. ‘What planet are you from, Miss Jennifer Black?’ she exclaimed. ‘Because it certainly isn’t the same as mine. The war is still going on; Hitler might have any number of surprises in store for us yet. Doesn’t do to get complacent.’
Lucy’s words were prophetic, for the girls were all in their room the following night when the sirens went off at about half-past nine. When the sound died down, Lucy could tell by the rumble in the sky that there were a great many planes approaching and she felt her stomach lurch. Her mouth was suddenly very dry, yet she said with determination, ‘I’m not bothering going into the basement. We will only be brought out again. This is another biggy and it will be all hands on deck, if you ask me.’
‘I agree,’ Jenny said, and the other two said the same.
‘We’d still better see if anyone needs a hand getting the patients down to the basement first,’ Babs suggested.
They were in the throes of doing this, the crump and crash of explosions in the distance, when they were approached by a staff nurse from Women’s Surgical who asked if one of them would volunteer to sit with the bedridden as two of the probationers had been taken to the sickbay. As she didn’t intend to take shelter anyway, Vera readily offered to do this and the girls parted.
The onslaught was directly over them: the roar and drone of many planes, the clatter of incendiaries hurtling down, closely followed by the scream of descending bombs and the boom of explosions, one after another with no space between them. Soon the ambulancemen were carrying in the wounded and describing the carnage.
‘The Midlands Arcade is just a wall of flames from High Street to New Street,’ one said. ‘The road is ablaze too: a molten stream of blazing tar running down towards New Street Station. Dunno what they’re going to do about it. Have to blow summat up, like, to make a firebreak.’
‘The oldest pub in the city, the Swan, has gone too,’ another said sadly. ‘And the Prince of Wales Theatre has been burnt out.’
Lucy was sorry about the destruction of old buildings, but patients were coming in with the most horrific injuries and to her they were far more important.
Suddenly there was an enormous crash, a whooshing sound, and Lucy was flung to the floor. For a split second it was as if all the air had been sucked from the room, and the lights flickered and went out. People began to weep and scream hysterically.
Lucy was just as frightened as all the rest. She knew a bomb had landed very close and the hospital had been caught in the blast. She stretched out her limbs one by one, gratified to see she had no obvious injury, though her head ached quite badly. When she ran her fingers along gently, she felt the jagged cut to the right-hand side of her head and blood that had seeped into her hair. She sat up gingerly, but it was when the dim emergency lighting came on that she discovered the scale of the tragedy. An entire corner of the hospital was just missing. ‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed incredulously. ‘Oh, my God!’
Ignoring the wailing around her, she tried to stand, to find out exactly what had happened. However, as she got to her feet, the room listed and tipped, and she knew she was going to fall and could do nothing to stop it. Before she hit the floor she felt herself enveloped in a cloak of blackness.
The next thing Lucy remembered was waking up in a comfortable white bed. It was silent so that meant the raid was over. She gave an involuntary sigh of relief and let the memories seep into her brain slowly. As she forced her heavy eyelids open she saw Jenny sitting beside her in a chair.
Jenny noticed the slight movement Lucy made. ‘How are you feeling?’
Lucy gave a slight shrug. ‘All right, I suppose. Where am I?’
‘The infirmary,’ Jenny said. ‘They stitched your head. Don’t you remember?’
Lucy lifted her hand and felt the bandage encircling her head. ‘Nothing much after the bomb. The hospital was hit, I remember that. Was there much damage?’
Jenny nodded. ‘But it’s worse than damage to bricks and mortar. ‘It’s … it’s … oh, God, Lucy … Vera is dead.’
‘Dead?’ Lucy echoed incredulously, and it felt like a lead weight had landed in her stomach. Vera … dead! It didn’t seem possible.
‘They all copped it,’ Jenny said. ‘Well, the people that end, anyway: a couple of doctors and nurses, including Vera, and four bed-bound patients.’
‘Oh, God!’
‘Awful, isn’t it?’ Jenny said. ‘Me and Babs, well, we haven’t really come to terms with it, but Matron said it would be a real shock to you, and she gave me and Babs leave to sit with you till you woke up. We’ve taken it in turns.’
‘I just can’t believe it,’ Lucy said. ‘And yet why should I be so surprised? Every raid delivers death, and bombs do not discriminate. But poor, poor Vera. How perfectly awful.’
‘And you didn’t get away scot-free either,’ Jenny said. ‘That was a really nasty crack on the head you had.’
‘Hardly in the same league, though,’ Lucy replied. ‘What’s a crack on the head balanced against a life?’
‘Ah, yes, you’re right,’ Jenny agreed. ‘And there were so many killed and badly injured last night. It was carnage, just like the raid in the autumn of last year.’
‘Hope this isn’t the start of another blitz then.’
‘And me. But if it is there is little we can do about it.’
Lucy suffered no ill effects from her head injury. Two days later she had the bandage removed and insisted that she was fit for work again. She found her roommates in something of a dilemma. As her father, Mr Winstanley, had asked, they had packed all Vera’s things in the suitcase she had brought, and in doing so had found a letter she had written. She’d put it into an envelope addressed to her parents but without a stamp on and not sealed.
‘We read it,’ Babs said, ‘because it can sometimes be really upsetting to receive a letter after a person dies.’
‘So what did it say?’
‘You’d better read it for yourself,’ Babs said.
So Lucy read a letter detailing almost everything she had talked about with Vera the night before their prelims. She told her mother straight that she was her own person and it was her life and that she should not be demanding such a large piece of it. She had even suggested that her mother should take up some form of war work, and went on to say that she felt strongly that everyone should do their bit.
‘I never knew Vera felt like that, did you?’ Babs said.
‘The night before our prelims, when I came up to go to bed, you and Jenny were bringing the pigs home,’ Lucy said. ‘And Vera had open a textbook, trying to cram in some last-minute revision. She told me that her mother had had her working all through her week off.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it all came out that her mother, despite being very intelligent and wanting to be a doctor, was denied the chance to go to university because she was a woman. She wanted Vera to live that life for her. So I told Vera that it wasn’t her fault that her mother couldn’t fulfil her ambitions, that she wasn’t her mother and she should stand up to her more.’
‘Seems she took what you said to heart.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Seems so. She must have written it that night because she had little time after that, but she never posted it.’
‘Maybe she never intended sending it?’ Babs said.
‘Maybe,’ Lucy conceded. ‘But then why go to the trouble of putting it in an envelope with the address on the front? And whether she intended sending it or not, is there any point in even letting her parents see it when she’s dead?’
‘You see the problem, Luce?’ Jenny said.
‘I do certainly. But I don’t feel right getting rid of it.’
‘Nor did we,’ Babs said.
‘Well, it is her mother’s attitude that she is complaining about,’ Lucy said. ‘And with reason, I think, so I suggest we seal the letter and give it to her father – she got on better with him – and whether he lets her mother see it or not is up to him. There will probably be an opportunity to hand it to him at the funeral.’
‘We are not invited to the funeral,’ Jenny said. ‘Mrs Winstanley phoned Matron and was quite clear, she said. Nor does she want any commemorative service held for her here, and she added that she had never wanted Vera to go into nursing but Vera, aided by her father, had defied her.’
‘She sounds a very objectionable woman,’ Lucy said. ‘I didn’t like the sound of her when Vera was telling me about her. She had Vera convinced she was stupid. You must have heard her say that.’
The other two nodded, and Jenny added, ‘Her marks don’t reflect that. I wish I’d done half as well.’
‘Me, too,’ said Babs.
‘Well,’ said Lucy, ‘I think Vera’s parents, particularly her horrid mother, need to know just how bright she was. If I have a word with Matron, I’m sure she would agree. And if we’re not to go to the funeral of someone we have shared a room with for going on for two years then I’m going to write about her.’
‘What, like a sort of eulogy?’
‘Exactly like that.’
‘Good idea,’ Jenny said. ‘I will do the same.’
‘And so will I,’ Babs said. ‘I hate the thought of her going from here and disappearing without trace because we are not allowed to commemorate her life. Well, at least we can let her parents know of the great girl we thought her.’
Mr Winstanley, who came alone to fetch his daughter’s things, was very tall and thin, and quite haughty-looking. He seemed a very cold sort of person, or at least very emotionless about his young daughter’s death. Lucy couldn’t help feeling sorry for Vera and very glad they had written the letters.
‘These are really to say how sorry we are that this terrible thing has happened,’ Jenny said.
‘Yes,’ said Babs, ‘and to remind ourselves, not that we will ever forget, what a wonderful girl Vera was. She would have made a superb nurse and was a terrific friend.’
‘I endorse that,’ Lucy said. ‘We will all miss her so very much.’
‘Thank you,’ Mr Winstanley said flatly. ‘Vera’s death is a great loss to us, a very great loss, and it’s nice to know of the good kind friends she had.’
When the man was packed and ready to go, Lucy said, ‘There are just a couple more things. The first is that we found a letter Vera had written to you but hadn’t had time to send,’ and she passed the letter to him.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘She used to write on Sundays.’
‘Maybe she wrote an extra letter because of the prelim exams,’ Lucy said. ‘She was very worried about them. For some reason she thought she wasn’t very intelligent.’ She fixed Mr Winstanley with a steely glare in her eyes as she said, ‘A lot of bunkum, of course, as you will see from her results.’
‘Results?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘Matron said you might like the certificate and so she has included her certificate in with a letter from the hospital expressing condolences to both you and your wife, signed by her and by a great many more in the hospital because Vera was well liked and respected.’
‘And you say our Vera did all right in this exam?’
‘Oh, much better than all right, Mr Winstanley,’ Lucy said. ‘Vera achieved ninety-seven per cent and she was second in the year.’ She had the satisfaction of seeing Mr Winstanley’s mouth drop agape with astonishment.
Vera’s mother might not have wanted her nursing friends to go to her daughter’s funeral but she was not the only one who had died that Good Friday, and Lucy, Jenny and Babs went to many other forlorn funerals with sorrow-laden relatives in the sad days that followed. Lucy could go to none of the services, however, because she was a Catholic. None of the other girls could understand what difference it made, and Lucy had to admit neither did she.
‘Why don’t you ask the priest as St Chad’s, the one you said was so approachable?’ Babs suggested.
‘I will,’ Lucy said, ‘because I want to know why, myself, but the Church was quite damaged in the last raid and they are a little distracted so I’ll wait a few days – as long as things are still quiet.’
‘Things have been quiet before, and then wallop,’ Jenny said.
‘I know, but Hitler has Russia in his sights.’
‘Well, he has had other countries in his sights before and still attacked us,’ Babs pointed out.
‘I know, but this is Russia,’ Lucy said. ‘I don’t think it has ever been conquered. I think the man has bitten off more than he can chew.’
‘I hope he has,’ Jenny said. ‘And I hope it bloody well chokes him.’
Lucy didn’t forget the rule that forbade her from attending the funerals of her colleagues and patients, and forced her to skulk around in the cemeteries. She asked Father Donahue about it after Mass one Sunday a fortnight or so later and was surprised at his answer.
‘It’s to do with their beliefs and ours, Lucy. Attending such a service in a non-Catholic church is affirming things we know not to be true. Such a service is seen as heretical and to take Communion in such a church compounds the sin.’
Lucy thought that none of her many non-Catholic friends would take kindly to being called heretics and said, ‘But, Father, we worship the same God.’
‘Yes, but in different ways and with different beliefs.’
‘So what reason did he give?’ Jenny asked on Lucy’s return.
‘Oh, some mumbo jumbo I could hardly understand,’ Lucy said. ‘Something about believing different things and worshipping in different ways. I can’t see any problem myself, for, as I told him, we all worship the same God.’
