The Nurse's War (21 page)

‘Steady on.’ Connie disentangled herself and stepped back to see her assailant. ‘Lydia Penrose, I might have known. What’s sent you into such a steam?’

‘Ask her!’

Daisy had followed her friend into the room and, at the anger in Lydia’s voice, she turned to look over her shoulder. Willa Jenkins was crouched into the corner of one of the upright chairs and was blinking rapidly.

‘What’s she done now?’ Connie asked, wearily.

Daisy went over to the girl and bent down by the side of her chair. She’d promised to talk to Willa and she hadn’t. There’d been no time. But she felt guilty that in some way this was the result.

‘What’s the matter, Willa?’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘What’s the matter, Willa?’ Lydia taunted. ‘She’s a cheat that’s what. She’s copied my last homework project word for word. Look at it.’

There were two sets of papers on the table and Lydia jabbed her finger at one, then the other. ‘See. She’s copied my work. And now I’m in trouble with the physiology lecturer. Have I cheated? he asked me. How dare he! How dare she! Have I cheated? I don’t need to cheat, not like that brainless moron over there.’

Daisy looked at Willa. As the words rained down, she had balled herself even smaller. There seemed little left of the person she had first known. A husk, she thought, that’s what Willa had become.

‘Did you copy Lydia’s work?’

The girl stared at her as though she hadn’t heard.

‘Did you copy it, Willa?’ she repeated. ‘If you did, it’s better to own up now.’

The girl remained silent, staring glassily ahead.

‘Of course she did. Look at her. Can you imagine
that
actually writing an essay?’ Lydia advanced on the chair and prodded her victim with a sharp finger. Her voice was shaking. ‘I’ve had just about enough. If you cross me once more, Jenkins, I’ll make you more sorry than you’ve ever
known. Whatever you’ve had dished out so far, won’t touch it.’

‘What do you mean, what she’s had dished out? What have you been doing?’

‘Never mind, Goody-two-shoes Driscoll. It’s not your business. But I forgot, not so goody-two-shoes after all, I hear. A married woman who sleeps around. There’s a four-letter name for that beginning with “s” and ending with “t”.’

‘How did you …?’ She’d thought only Connie knew of her marriage and Connie would never have told. The girl must have eavesdropped on their conversations. Lydia Penrose was despicable.

‘Leave her, Daisy,’ Connie said, as Lydia pushed past them.

‘Yes, leave me. Do as Ginger says and keep away.’ The angry girl turned at the door. ‘I’m not surprised you always defend Jenkins. You belong with her. You’re both aliens.’

Daisy was bemused, and Lydia walked a few paces back into the room. She pointed her finger first at Willa and then at Daisy. ‘Her brain, your genes—both of them unnatural.’ When Daisy continued to look mystified, Lydia said, ‘Don’t you realise? Take a look in the mirror some time, Driscoll. You’re hardly pure bred.’

A flash of enlightenment and Daisy was suddenly back in Jasirapur, back at the Club and hearing a woman, Margot Dukes was her name, announce to the entire room that in
her opinion the newcomer had
a touch of the tar brush
about her. It had been a devastating moment that she’d worked hard to expunge from her mind, but now here was Lydia, not just reviving the dreadful memory, but giving it new life.

Connie grabbed her by the arm and hurried her away. ‘You’re to take no notice. Penrose is a cow, the most unpleasant woman I’ve ever met. Come on, I’ve got things to tell you.’

On the other side of the room, Willa rose to her feet and walked mechanically out of the door. Daisy knew she should go after her. She still hadn’t had the talk she’d promised and now would be an ideal moment. But she was too upset by Lydia’s words, too incensed, to give Willa the attention she needed. Instead, she allowed Connie to lead her to the battered sofa they’d made their own.

She slumped down on its cushions and brooded in silence. Her friend sat beside her and waited. Eventually, though, she could wait no longer and burst into speech.

‘It was amazing. Last night, I mean. Colin was amazing.’

Daisy roused herself to take an interest. ‘He’s a great dancer,’ her friend breathed. ‘A regular shincracker. I had difficulty keeping up with him and I must have stood on his toes plenty, but he never mentioned it, not once. He’s a darling. We danced for hours, or at least it seemed like that and then the siren sounded and we had to beetle out and find the nearest shelter. We were stuck there for an age, but it didn’t matter. It was scary though. The noise was
horrendous—a sort of screaming in the air alongside the sound of bombs. Colin said it was JU88 dive-bombers. He knows such a lot. And we talked and talked, and there was this funny, little old man who’d brought his accordion and was playing tunes and we sang along to them.’

‘Is Colin an amazing singer, too?’

‘Don’t make fun. No, he isn’t, but he’s a great sport and you needed to sing, just to keep up your spirits. It was the most tremendous raid.’

‘I know it was. Have you seen all the destruction?’

‘Not really. I’ve been on the ward all day and last night we walked back in the dark. Some of us had a bed to go to. Our own bed.’ And she looked pointedly at Daisy.

‘The Ritz has rooms underground.’ She tried very hard not to redden. ‘Rooms to shelter in,’ she added.

‘And what else?’

There was to be no escape. Connie could read her too easily. ‘What was it like?’

She knew her friend wasn’t referring to the underground room. ‘Wonderful,’ she said simply, ‘wonderful.’

Connie gave her an enormous hug. ‘So you’re together now.’

‘Don’t go too fast.’

‘Not go too fast. What do you think you were doing last night?’

‘I don’t know. And I don’t know how it will end. All I know is that I feel free and happy and …’

‘Wonderful!’

They fell about laughing and were shushed by a nurse at one of the tables, a stack of textbooks at her elbow.

‘I knew he was for you,’ Connie whispered excitedly.

She didn’t answer but instead looked across at their studious colleague. ‘Perhaps we should play a game of cards,’ she suggested. ‘As long as it doesn’t get too noisy.’

‘You really are goody-two-shoes,’ her friend scoffed.

She walked across to one of the groaning cupboards that lined the sitting room wall and rummaged, disgorging half its contents across the threadbare carpet before she held aloft a pack of cards.

‘There. I hope it’s worth the effort,’ and she threw the pack down on to one of the side tables.

‘Tut tut, Nurse Driscoll. Everything in ship-shape fashion,’ Connie clucked an imitation of Sister Elton.

‘Gin rummy?’

‘I think so. This time I’ll slaughter you.’

They played for an hour or so in a spirit of friendly rivalry, Connie interrupting play every so often to recount snippets of her magnificent evening with Colin, or to persuade Daisy to divulge the intimate details of her night. Several nurses drifted in and out, the student packed her books and departed, and a doctor looking for Sister Phillips poked his head around the door. When he’d gone, Daisy stopped playing.

‘I need to go to bed,’ she yawned.

‘No, you need to go to sleep,’ Connie mocked.

They had cleared the table of cards and were piling the
moth-eaten cushions back on to the sofa, when the door banged open. The only other girls left in the room, who’d been chatting quietly together in one corner, looked up.

It was Lydia again. She stood immobile in the doorway.

What now?
was Daisy’s first impatient thought. But then she noticed that Lydia’s complexion was deathly white and her face frozen. Her jaw seemed trapped, trying ineffectively to work itself free.

She rose quickly, tipping the pack of cards across the floor. ‘Lydia?’ she queried uncertainly. ‘What is it?’

By now Connie had become aware of the little drama being played out in the doorway. ‘Come on, Lydia. Stop being Lady Macbeth,’ she joked. ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s Willa,’ the girl managed to say at last and her voice came gratingly, barely a whisper. ‘Willa.’

‘What about her?’ The other nurses had stopped chatting and were looking anxious.

‘She’s, she’s …’ But Lydia could not go on.

Connie pushed past the traumatised girl and took the stairs to the bedrooms two at a time. Lydia remained a statue in the doorway, and Daisy was forced to take her by the hand and lead her to a seat.

‘Look after her,’ she said to the nurses who were hovering, uncertain what to do, then turned and followed Connie out of the room.

At the top of the stairs, she met her friend coming out of Willa’s room. ‘Don’t go in there.’ Connie was looking sickly and her voice did not sound her own.

‘Why not?’

‘Stay there. I’ve got to get Sister Phillips.’

‘But—’ Daisy moved towards the door.

‘Don’t!’ Connie screeched. ‘Don’t look.’

‘But Willa—’

‘She’s … she’s dead.’

And it was then, through the open doorway, that Daisy became aware of the soft sway of a body and a pair of feet where they shouldn’t be.

The morning following Willa’s death, Daisy was on the ward at seven o’clock. Sister Phillips had made it clear that despite the dreadful thing that had happened under their very noses, every nurse would be expected to fulfil her duty roster. Daisy was fulfilling it, though she was hardly conscious of doing so. She washed faces, tidied bedclothes, dusted lockers and smiled. She smiled constantly, though inside she was crying and could not stop. It wasn’t just for Willa that she cried—poor, sweet, incompetent Willa—to die in that dreadful way and so very young. It was for herself, for the terrible guilt permeating every pore, until she felt she was rotting from within. Guilty, guilty, guilty. She could have saved the girl if only she hadn’t been so wrapped in her own petty affairs. Willa had cried for help and none had been forthcoming. She’d heard the cry and offered nothing, distracting herself instead by playing out romantic fantasies in an unreal setting.

That was a bubble well and truly burst. She would never think of the Ritz again without thinking, too, of Willa, and those feet swinging a few feet above her head. With a shock, she realised she would never think of Grayson either, without recalling the terrible price her colleague had paid. Willa had needed support and out of all the nurses in the Home, the girl had come to her. Knowing nothing of Daisy’s history, she’d still sensed a kinship between them, and asked for help. A help that hadn’t materialised. Daisy had promised they would talk, promised she would listen to whatever Willa feared and try to advise. And, in the next breath, she had broken that promise. She’d been too dazzled to make time for her. She could have gone to the girl’s room on Saturday evening, but instead she’d put on make-up, put on a fancy dress and gone to the Ritz. She’d told herself that she would see Willa tomorrow. But she hadn’t seen her. She’d been too busy on the ward. And then, last evening, when she could have talked to her, she’d failed again. She hadn’t followed when Willa was so obviously distressed by Lydia’s accusations, but instead she’d sat with Connie and talked to her—of Grayson.

Grayson was the problem. He’d distracted her from what was most important and she’d allowed it to happen. He was not good for her; they were not good for each other. Trouble seemed to follow them and always would, and that was something she’d known instinctively. She’d tried to keep her distance, tried to protect herself, and him,
by pulling free. But then what had she done but propel herself back into his orbit and allow the old attraction to flare? Meeting again had proved disastrous, in just about every way. That night—she could hardly bear to think of it, the night she had spent with him—the joy, the delight, were no more. Ashes, was what she knew, the taste of ashes.

She hardly saw Connie all day. She knew her friend was somewhere in the background, but she didn’t see her. She didn’t see anyone. Willa’s face superimposed itself on every moment. It startled her when, after dinner, Connie took her hand and led her to the nurses’ sitting room and their favourite sofa. Twenty-four hours ago they’d laughed here over a game of cards, full of life, full of love.

‘You look dreadful, Daisy.’ She didn’t know how to respond. Looking dreadful was the least she could do, she thought dully. ‘You mustn’t take this so hard.’

Daisy swivelled to look at her. ‘How am I supposed to take it?’ she asked, fiercely.

‘It’s sad, terribly sad, but life has to go on. Our lives have to go on.’

‘But not Willa’s.’ Daisy pinned her arms against her stomach and stared down at her feet.

‘No, not Willa’s. But I doubt if she’d want to see us sitting around in this moping way for too long.’

‘How do you know what she’d want? How do any of us know?’

‘Daisy—’

‘It’s true, isn’t it? None of us were too concerned with what she wanted when she was alive. And now she’s dead and past wanting.’

‘You’re taking this too personally.’

There was the slightest hint of irritation in Connie’s voice and, for the first time since they’d met, Daisy felt a distance opening between them. ‘How else am I to take it? I feel responsible.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it? I knew she was unhappy. I knew she was being bullied. And what did I do about it?’

‘What did any of us do? It’s not just you.’

‘No it’s not, Driscoll.’ Another voice had joined them. An unexpected voice. ‘It’s not your concern. It’s mine. I did the bullying. I pushed her to her death.’

They both looked up at Lydia Penrose who had come very quietly into the room, though the figure confronting them no longer seemed to be Lydia. She had shrunk overnight, and her face was tight and parched, the skin scoured across the bones. She planted her feet squarely on the threadbare rug and looked down at them. ‘I’m the one to blame,’ she repeated, ‘and I intend to make amends. Or at least to try.’

‘But how?’ Connie was frowning deeply.

‘I can’t bring Willa back, certainly,’ Lydia said gruffly. ‘But I can look after other dead people. A punishment to fit the crime.’