by Daisy Styles
After they’d found a quiet table in a corner and Ian had bought the ladies sherry and himself a half pint of bitter, they all sat staring awkwardly at each other. Kit tried her best not to stare at the nervous woman, whose hand visibly trembled as she reached for her sherry glass. There was no doubting she had the same red curly hair as Edna, but now they were in the pub Kit could see she also had her mother’s green eyes. Feeling sudden pressure on her arm, she realized that Ian was trying to draw her attention.
‘If you can start by telling us what you know,’ Ian suggested. ‘I’m a solicitor,’ he added. ‘I’ll take notes, if you don’t mind?’
The woman nodded and then started. ‘I’m Flora Forester, Forester’s my married name,’ she quickly added. ‘My maiden name, my adoptive parents’ name, is Hardman. I grew up in Penrith and only recently found out, after the death of my mother, that I’d been adopted as a baby.’
‘May I ask how old you are, Mrs Forester?’ Ian politely asked.
‘I’m twenty-seven years old. I was born in 1916,’ she replied. Kit caught her breath – she was exactly the right age.
‘I have my birth certificate here,’ Mrs Forester added, and she handed it to Ian and Kit, who read it carefully; Kit’s eyes widened and her pulse started to race. ‘Oh, my God!’ she thought. ‘It’s all here!’
Edna’s name; the father’s name, Edward Pilkington; name of child, Flora; and her date of birth – all signed and sealed by the county registrar. Holding her breath, she waited for Ian to take the lead.
‘I’ll have to make further checks,’ Ian said smoothly. ‘May I keep your birth certificate in order to do so?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Flora replied. ‘But when can I see my mother?’ she implored.
‘If everything is in order, you should be able to make contact soon,’ Ian replied.
Feeling Kit fidgeting beside him, Ian, under the cover of the table, pressed her knee to stop her from speaking. ‘Here’s my card,’ he said to Flora. ‘Ring me at my office in two days’ time.’
Looking slightly deflated, Flora rose. ‘Two days isn’t long in a lifetime,’ she said, then after saying goodbye she left the pub.
‘I was terrified you were going to start telling her all about Edna,’ Ian said to Kit, who looked like she was going to burst with excitement.
‘I felt like it when I saw the birth certificate; she even looks like Edna!’ Kit cried.
‘I thought so too,’ Ian agreed.
‘But you’re sticking to the rule book?’ Kit said.
‘Yes,’ Ian responded in a firm voice. ‘I have to check that the birth certificate is one hundred per cent legitimate. I have to be absolutely certain that Flora Forester is Edna’s daughter before I even think of arranging a meeting.’
‘I know, you’re right,’ Kit agreed. ‘But, oh!’ she cried as a shiver of excitement went down her spine. ‘I just can’t wait to see the two of them reunited.’
After conducting his checks at Somerset House, Ian was quite satisfied that Flora’s birth certificate was in order, so when she phoned two days later they arranged a time and a date when Flora could come to his office to finally meet her mother.
26. Night School
Gladys was happy to be back in the Phoenix Infirmary, where, after her intensive training at St Thomas’, she felt so much more confident and assured.
‘Well, you seem to have learnt a lot down South,’ Sister Atkins said, as she watched Gladys deftly remove a line of stitches from a patient’s arm, then, after sterilizing the wound, neatly change the dressing – all the time chatting easily to the nervous patient, who visibly relaxed under her care.
‘It was non-stop down there,’ Gladys told her. ‘What with the air-raids most nights and the shifts never ending, I barely got any sleep. But,’ she added with a bright smile, ‘my goodness, I learnt so much.’
‘I knew you would benefit from the experience of working in a big, busy teaching hospital,’ Sister Atkins replied. ‘It’s good to have you back, Nurse Johnson.’ As Gladys hurried off to the sluice room, Sister Atkins noted a new maturity in her trainee. ‘She’ll go far if she carries on like this,’ she thought to herself.
Dr Grant had recommended that Gladys should attend some lectures at Manchester Royal Infirmary. ‘They’re by a number of visiting doctors and surgeons who’ve been asked to deliver lectures to trainee nurses. I know you have to attend in your own time, but I think you would benefit from them, and it will build on your St Thomas’ experience.’
‘My St Thomas’ experience,’ Gladys thought ruefully to herself. ‘Little do you know, dear Dr Grant, that it consisted of a lot more than nursing wounded troops fresh from the front line.’
Gladys was keen to learn more, and after the long gruelling hours in a London hospital an extra couple of hours at the end of her shift at the Phoenix wasn’t so bad. After she’d read through the leaflet that Dr Grant gave her, Gladys decided she’d try to attend a couple of lectures that were on post-surgical procedures, something she was considering pursuing once she’d got her basic qualification. Violet’s death had had an immense impact on all her friends; the far-reaching effect on Gladys was a determination to care and nurse the victims of war to the very best of her ability. She had lost two beloved friends in a very short space of time; her personal memorial to them would be dedication to her new vocation.
After finishing her shift, Gladys changed out of her uniform – the nursing staff were strictly forbidden to wear their uniforms outside the hospital for fear of cross-infection – and set off for the bus stop next to the Phoenix’s main gates. As she stood in the dark waiting for the bus, she jumped in shock as she felt a tap on her shoulder.
‘Where’ve you been all my life?’ a familiar smoker’s voice whispered behind her.
‘Malc!’ Gladys exclaimed.
‘We all miss you on the cordite line, Glad,’ he said. ‘How’s nursing suiting you?’
‘I LOVE it!’ Gladys replied. ‘In fact, I’m on my way to a lecture at Manchester Royal right now,’ she told him.
‘Do they give lectures on building bigger bombs to drop on Jerry?’ he joked. ‘Cos if they do, I’ll send my cheeky Bomb Girls along with you for a bit of further education.’
‘I don’t think they need any teaching, Malc,’ she laughed. ‘Anyway, tell me, how are your wedding plans going?’ Gladys asked.
‘All going smoothly since you lasses took my Edna into town to get herself dolled up,’ he replied with a grateful smile.
‘Not long now,’ Gladys retorted.
‘Don’t talk about it,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve still not tracked down a bouquet for Edna; bloody roses at this time of the year in these parts, even courtesy of the black market, are as rare as soddin’ hen’s teeth!’
‘I’m sure you’ll manage somehow, Malc, you always do!’
An hour later, Gladys arrived at Manchester Royal, where she followed the porter to a small lecture theatre. ‘In there, Miss,’ he said.
Gladys enjoyed the lecture, which concentrated on monitoring vital health signs and managing acute pain post-operatively. Because of her recent nursing experience at St Thomas’, she was aware of some practices, but it was invaluable to learn of more. As she left, Gladys checked the title of another lecture scheduled for the end of the week; when she saw it was on post-op complications, she made up her mind to attend it. ‘The more I can build up my knowledge, the better a nurse I’ll be,’ she thought to herself as she left the hospital.
Arriving home late, she found a yawning Rosa filling a heavy stone hot-water bottle.
‘You are late,’ said Rosa as she topped up the kettle. which she popped on top of the wood-burning stove.
Rosa gazed fondly at her tired but excited friend after Gladys had explained where she’d spent her evening. ‘You love nursing so very much, mia cara,’ she remarked.
‘I really do,’ Gladys assured her. ‘I was telling Malc earlier how much I enjoyed it. I’m glad Dr Grant packed me o
ff to London; it really was a good experience – well, most of the time,’ she admitted to Rose for the first time.
‘Oh …?’ Rosa asked, unsure how far to probe.
‘I met up with a doctor … who I knew from Naples,’ Gladys volunteered.
Rosa’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Dio! Not that bad bastard?’ she said, using the words she’d picked up on the factory floor and pronouncing them with a strong Northern accent, which was so out of keeping with her exotic Mediterranean looks.
Gladys shook her head. ‘No! Not him, thank God!’ she exclaimed as she gratefully accepted the mug of cocoa Rosa handed to her. ‘Someone else,’ she said, emphasizing the word for Rosa’s benefit. ‘I liked him very much, but we parted on bad terms. I was shocked sideways to see him at St Thomas’,’ she told Rosa.
‘More than shocked,’ Rosa thought to herself as she recalled how often she’d heard Gladys crying herself to sleep most nights after her return home.
‘We kept arranging to see each other, but it never worked out,’ Gladys said with a shrug. ‘Then I found out he already had a girlfriend anyway, so I stood him up.’
Rosa sighed. ‘Forget doctors,’ she cried. ‘They bring you bad luck, my Gladeeees.’
‘Cheers to that!’ Gladys laughed as she waved her mug of cocoa in the air. ‘Leave him to his London girlfriend!’
Though she was dog-tired by the end of the week, Gladys was still keen to attend the next lecture at Manchester Royal. This time she didn’t need directions but went straight along to the lecture theatre, where she stopped dead in her tracks. A piece of paper pinned to the door told her she’d come to the right place – POST-SURGICAL COMPLICATIONS – but her heart almost rose up into her throat when she saw who was delivering the lecture: DR R. LLOYD.
‘What’s HE doing here?’ Gladys thought angrily, and then the next question that raced through her mind was: should she stay or should she go?
Hurrying into the ladies’ toilets, Gladys locked herself in a cubicle, where she frantically tried to collect her thoughts. Was she really going to spend the rest of her life running away from Reggie Lloyd or was she going to behave professionally? He was a doctor; she was a trainee nurse; it looked like their paths might occasionally overlap – they certainly had so far, she thought grimly. He was delivering a lecture on a subject that she was interested in and also planned to specialize in; she could sit there and take notes or she could run off back to Pendleton. Throwing back her shoulders, Gladys decided to stay; even if the wretched man showed up with his glamorous girlfriend, she hadn’t come all this way on a dark night after a long shift only to go all the way home again. She was Nurse Johnson – and she was damn well staying for Dr Lloyd’s lecture, girlfriend breathing over his shoulder or not! Taking a deep breath, she left the ladies’ and entered the lecture room, which was half full of chattering nurses. Hurrying to a seat at the back, Gladys sat down, took out her pencil and note pad and waited for the lecture to begin.
Five minutes later, tall, handsome Dr Lloyd appeared in a white coat carrying a sheaf of notes, which he carefully placed on the dais in front of him. He was tired, having spent a long day on the wards with his trainee surgeons, who he’d travelled up from London to supervise. He’d been asked by the senior registrar if he would kindly deliver a lecture before he took the train back to London, and Reggie, though exhausted, had agreed. It was tough on trainee nurses these days; after being thrown in at the deep end, they hardly had any opportunity to attend lectures or do anything other than practical work. It was the least he could do. He had half wondered if he would bump into Gladys Johnson whilst he was in Manchester – she was a trainee nurse after all, with an irritating habit of always running away without any explanation, he’d reminded himself.
When he spotted her at the back of the lecture hall, he wasn’t as stunned as he had been when he’d seen her in the operating theatre at St Thomas’. Unfortunately, nobody, not even he, who’d been let down by her too many times, could fail to miss that mass of wonderful long, rich, brunette hair. Turning his attention to his notes, Dr Lloyd began his lecture, whilst Gladys, pencil poised, drank in every detail of his face: his sweeping, dark hair with the tantalizing mop that always landed on his eyebrows, causing him to flick it impatiently away, only for it to slide back down again. As he continued in a low, soft voice, Gladys started to take notes – after all, that’s what she was there for, she told herself. As before, she found that she was excited and stimulated by the content of the lecture; it made her long to be back working in post-operative wards.
At the end of the lecture the trainee nurses gathered up their belongings and filed out of the theatre; as Gladys passed Reggie, who was still at the dais collecting together his notes, he called out to her in a cheery doctor’s voice, ‘Goodnight Nurse Johnson.’
Blushing to the roots of her hair, Gladys nevertheless managed to summon up her cheery nurse’s voice: ‘Goodnight, Doctor.’
Reggie couldn’t resist watching the sway of her shapely hips as she left the room along with the other nurses, and before he could stop himself, because he knew he really should know better, he grabbed his notes and hurried after Gladys, who was all but running out of the hospital.
‘Gladys!’ he called before she disappeared out of the door. ‘Stop!
Reluctantly she stopped and turned. ‘WHY does he insist on chasing after me?’ she thought furiously.
Seeing the resentment in her startling blue eyes, Reggie hesitated. ‘I just thought we might have that drink you promised me?’ he said challengingly. ‘Seeing as you missed the last one,’ he couldn’t stop himself from adding rather pointedly.
Gladys gave an overdramatic sweeping glance around the hospital entrance hall. ‘Would that be with your girlfriend, or have you left her at St Thomas’?’
Reggie’s mouth fell open as the penny dropped. So was that why she’d stood him up on her last night in London?
‘Actually, I haven’t got a girlfriend any more,’ he answered.
‘You had the last time I saw you,’ she added sharply.
‘Nooooo,’ he replied slowly. ‘I called it off just after I met you.’
Gladys’s jaw dropped; was he telling the truth?
‘Just out of curiosity, is that why you stood me up, Gladys? Because you thought I was two-timing you?’ he asked, looking her straight in the eye.
Caught on the back foot, Gladys blushed to the roots of her glossy brown hair. Flustered, and knowing it was all so much more complicated than that, she simply didn’t know what to say.
Seeing her discomfort, Reggie continued, ‘So how about that drink? I’m leaving on the eleven o’clock train from Piccadilly, so that doesn’t give you very much time for bolting,’ he said cryptically.
Trying to ignore his flippant comments, which made her feel like an overwrought, slightly hysterical schoolgirl, Gladys said brusquely, ‘There’s a pub across the way. I can’t stay long – I’ve got to catch the last bus home.’
Reggie raised his eyebrows; her invitation was as warm as coming home to an igloo.
In the pub, Reggie bought a pint for himself and a port for Gladys, who seemed intent on avoiding eye contact with him.
‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his glass.
‘Cheers,’ she said, keeping hers on the table.
As they’d already got off to a bad start, Reggie decided he had nothing to lose by coming straight to the point. ‘I know what happened, Gladys.’
She turned to him with a startled movement. ‘What do you know?’
‘About Captain Miles.’ Seeing her eyes grow wide in fear, he took her hand. ‘No need to run off,’ he assured her. ‘He’s been court-martialled,’ he added solemnly.
‘What?’ she gasped as the colour drained from her face.
‘I heard the story from an old school pal of mine who served as a naval officer with Miles; he was the one who told me that Miles had been reported for indecent behaviour.’
Gladys was so shocked she cou
ld hardly catch her breath.
‘He’s always had a reputation as a ladies’ man,’ Reg added.
‘That’s putting it bloody mildly,’ she exploded.
‘He went a step too far, though; a plucky young WREN serving in the Admiralty reported him for rape.’
‘She went to the police?’ Gladys spluttered incredulously.
‘She took it right to the top,’ Reggie assured her. ‘Report has it that Miles denied it emphatically, said she was a little flirt, but somehow she had evidence: a witness who’d seen Miles driving her off and, fearing the worst, had followed; as luck would have it, he vouched for her and Miles was promptly court-martialled.’
‘My God!’ Gladys cried. ‘What a brave woman to go public like that!’
‘Course it’s all been kept hush-hush – bad for public morale to have this sort of thing in the papers – and the woman’s name has been kept secret to protect her.’
With a trembling hand, Gladys picked up her wine glass and downed almost all of the rich fortifying port. Reggie took a deep drink from his pint pot of beer then said softly, ‘That’s what happened to you, isn’t it, Gladys?’ When she didn’t answer, he added, ‘I remember seeing him hound you; I knew he wouldn’t stop. I’d seen him do it too many times before. He always bragged that he got what he wanted.’
‘Oh, he got what he wanted, all right,’ Gladys seethed. The anger in her bubbled up like a suppressed volcanic eruption – it came bursting out of the very core of her. ‘He’s an animal!’ she raged. ‘He ruined me – he took away my life and made me feel like dirt.’
Still holding her hand, Reggie squeezed it hard. ‘Is that why you ran away without any explanation?’
Gladys slowly nodded her head as she desperately tried to squeeze back tears that were threatening to overwhelm her.
‘I told nobody – I couldn’t even speak the words. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible, even if it meant leaving ENSA, which I loved,’ she finally admitted.
Reggie balled his fist, which he slammed down hard on the table, causing the landlord to scowl at him. ‘I could kill the bastard!’ he cried.