Father stepped forward and put out his hand. Tom looked at it for a moment and then shook it.
It was the first time that they’ve ever done this, and I immediately knew what it meant. Father considers Thomas to be a man, and as I watched I smiled inside for what I hope it means.
67
Tom and I have been catching up today, swapping stories of hospital life.
We chatted as we helped Mother make Christmas pudding, rather late this year. This is one job she likes to do herself, and not leave to Cook. She bustled around the kitchen, getting Molly to fetch ingredients for her. She was busy, she seemed happy, and I saw that she smiled, listening to us talk as she stirred in a bottle of brown ale and a bottle of stout.
Father came home later and we had supper. It was quiet at first, and I felt nervous for some reason.
Father looked at Tom, a forkful of food in one hand.
“So, how are your studies, Tom?”
Tom’s face lit up.
“Everything’s going well,” he said. “There’s only a few of us, really, because lots of boys deferred entry to go to . . .”
He stopped.
Father nodded.
“Go on,” Mother said. “Tell us about Manchester.”
Tom shrugged.
“It’s well enough,” he said. “It’s not as nice as Brighton, but the people are friendly. Well, most of them.”
I could tell he was thinking of the white feathers he’s been given. I knew more about that than Mother or Father because he knows it upsets them, though in different ways.
Tom talked for a bit as we ate. Then Father put his knife and fork down and looked at Tom.
“I’m sure that any son of mine could make a fine doctor,” he said. “But I think you may not have the chance to find out for a while.”
Tom’s head dropped.
Father was talking about conscription. It seems more likely than ever that a bill will be passed soon.
“But if we start now, we can get you a commission in the medical corps, and then you can do your bit as well as do what you feel is right.”
Father was trying to compromise between what he thinks Tom should do and what Tom wants to do, and I was amazed. Father is not a man who usually compromises on anything.
But Tom let his head sink a little further, and would eat no more supper.
66
I saw Evans today, and it’s true, he seems to be better. I was wheeling a trolley between wards when I heard someone behind me.
“How are you, today, Nurse?” he asked, as if he made small talk like this every day of his life.
I smiled.
“F-fine . . . ,” I stuttered out. “Fine.”
“That’s good.” He stood smiling at me, waiting for me to speak.
“And how are you?”
As I spoke I saw from the corner of my eye that three nurses on the other side of the corridor were watching us with interest.
I started to wheel forward again, but Evans was talking to me now.
“Very well,” he said. “Thank you, Nurse. Very well.”
“You look much better, I must say.”
We were still being watched, and I was afraid.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Wonderful what the doctors have done for me, it is.”
I thought about what he had said, about the tests, the lights and being hurt.
“Everything’s right now, is it? The tests . . . ? They didn’t—”
“Oh, no,” he said quickly, smiling.
I started to feel uneasy.
“But what you said,” I persisted, “about feeling as though you had already seen things once before. What about that?”
He stopped smiling and stood up straight, stiff. For the first time I could actually imagine that he could be a soldier.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and turned on his heels.
I looked at the nurses who had been watching and they pretended to be busy.
I wheeled my trolley on to the ward.
I feel let down. Of course it’s good that Evans is better, and I feel guilty for even thinking this, but when everyone thought he was crazy I thought I had found one person who I could confide in. And now he denies we ever spoke of such things.
If I only took heart from a discussion with a man while he was mad, what does that say about me?
65
Tom and I went Christmas shopping today. It didn’t feel quite right, because Edgar won’t be home this year. Nonetheless, we must try to make Christmas as normal as possible.
After a fruitless and tiring morning we decided that parents are impossible to buy presents for, and took a shortcut down one of the twittens that runs off Middle Street, to shelter in a small café in the Lanes, even though it’s an area of town Father doesn’t like us to visit.
We ordered buttered toast and tea, and hidden away in a corner by the window, I felt safer and happier than I had for a long time. I had been occupied at the hospital, but with Tom, I felt truly safe. But tired too, and told him so.
“Why?” he asked.
“There’s been so much going on.”
“At the hospital?” he asked.
“Yes.”
I stopped.
“There must be a lot to learn. Some of it must be pretty horrible, too.”
I nodded, and sipped my tea.
I looked out the window at the narrow, twisting passages of the Lanes. I could see a small slit of sky above the rooftops. It seemed likely to rain again soon.
“Are you all right?” Tom asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“But are you enjoying it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t thought about it like that. But yes, I suppose I am.”
He stretched a hand across the table to mine.
“Then what’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
“What’s wrong, Sasha? I can tell something’s getting to you. You’re different from when I went away. Is Father being mean?”
I shook my head.
“No more than usual.” I smiled. “In fact, he’s been quite generous at times.”
“So what is it?”
I looked at my brother, and then looked away. He was so kind to me, he always had been, and he was open-minded and clever. If there was one person I could talk to, it was him.
I squeezed his hand briefly, then pushed it away.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Do you want some more tea?”
He was the one person who might believe me, but if he, of all people, reacted the way everyone else had, it would hurt more than I could bear.
64
When we got home, we found Mother and Father in the drawing room. They had a visitor: Miss Garrett.
Mother forced a smile as we came in.
“Miss Garrett stopped by to see you,” she said, but Father cut across her.
“To have a talk about your studying,” he said. I looked from Mother to Miss Garrett, who seemed uncomfortable.
“Sit down, Alexandra,” Father said. “Tom?”
Tom shuffled awkwardly in the doorway, then backed out, nodding to Miss Garrett and closing the door behind him.
“Mother?” I said, and felt very small.
Mother looked at her hands and then at Father.
“We understand that your work has been poor recently,” Father said.
“I only said—” Miss Garrett began, but Father interrupted.
“We are very disappointed.”
It all started to come out then.
“Alexandra, you’re an intelligent girl,” Mother said.
“But you’ve been so distracted lately,” Miss Garrett said.
I couldn’t think what to say; I knew it was true.
“Miss Garrett says you borrowed a book from her,” Father said. “Will you please go and get it.”
I hesitated, wondering what all this was about.
“Sasha. Please.” Mother said.
“Why did you want this book when you haven’t been paying attention?”
I frowned.
“I wanted to read the stories,” I said. “I thought I’d better make an effort to catch up.”
“The Trojan Wars?” Father said. “Achilles? Ajax? Helen and Paris?”
“Your recollection of the classics is admirable,” said Miss Garrett, with false jollity. She misread Father’s tone entirely.
“And Cassandra, too?” he said, his voice loud. “Is that it?”
I could see what he thought, but I didn’t know what I could say. As usual, his mind was made up.
I shrugged.
There was silence for a long time.
63
Miss Garrett left shortly after that, making some embarrassed excuse and hurrying out into the evening with Mother fretting at her heels, pushing the copy of Greek Myths back into her hands as she went.
I really don’t think she meant to get me into such trouble. She’s not a strict tutor, and she means well. I think she was probably genuinely worried about me.
Mother dithered in the doorway, but Father wouldn’t let her back in, telling her to find Cook and that he wanted his dinner soon. She saw the look on his face and went off to the kitchen.
“Father,” I said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Be quiet!” he shouted.
I sat down and felt myself shaking.
“Why do my children insist on making a fool of me?” he said, but I knew it was not a question I should reply to.
“What did you talk about?” he snapped.
“I . . . Do you mean with Miss Garrett?” I asked.
“No, I do not, and you know I do not!”
I didn’t understand, I really didn’t.
“The patient,” he seethed. “The Welshman.”
“Father,” I said, pleading, “nothing. I said nothing. He talked to me, I asked him how he was. That was all!”
“It was not all.”
“I swear it,” I said.
“You talked about his treatment. About me! Admit it!”
“No, Father, no,” I said, tears running down my face.
“You talked about the tests and the electrical stimulations. About the déjà vu he claimed to experience. Well, it’s all nonsense.”
I said nothing. It was clear someone had told Father and there was no point denying it anymore.
“You have been living a fantasy life, Alexandra, a fantasy. You have been idolizing the neurasthenic patients like Evans, and filling your head with wild myths from books!”
He paused then, as if I was supposed to say something, but there was nothing I could say.
“You are nearly a woman now, Alexandra. Did you ever stop to think what effect your childish imaginings would have on someone who’d lost a relative? Pretending you knew it was going to happen? How distasteful! How disrespectful! To make a game from their suffering!”
“No, Father!” I cried. “That’s not fair. It’s not true. I haven’t hurt anyone.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But I’m not going to give you the chance. You are not to go back to the hospital.”
“Father . . . ?”
“You heard me. I forbid you to continue nursing. That’s over now. You will go back to studying properly and conduct yourself in a manner more fitting to a young lady of your class. And that is all.”
He left the room, and a few moments later, I heard him leave the house, heedless that dinner was on the way.
I don’t think he will change his mind.
62
A generation of men is like the leaves on the trees. When the winter winds blow, the leaves are scattered to the ground, but with spring, a new generation of men bursts into bud, to replace those that went before. But this is a harsh winter, the likes of which has never been seen before.
I think of the words from my dream, croaked to me by that evil bird on the battlefield.
You alone saw the horror of war, and wept when we did not believe you.
I don’t fully understand what it is that I have done in Father’s eyes. I don’t understand what is so terrible, but I have been punished anyway. Not just with words, but with deeds, too. I am not to be allowed to continue nursing.
And all for something I did not wish for. A power which has been given to me, to see endings, but to be unable to prevent them, or even to make others believe what I have seen. In idle fantasy you might think that to see the future would be a wonderful gift.
It’s nothing but a curse.
61
It’s nearly Christmas.
I haven’t been to the hospital, nor anywhere near it. I have seen no more visions of the future, and yet still I feel fate swirling around me like leaves caught in those tiny whirlwinds that eddy in the autumn streets.
Today there was another coincidence. I was walking home from Miss Garrett’s in Preston Park, and was surprised when a soldier coming up the hill stopped in front of me.
“Hello, Nurse,” he said. “And goodbye, I suppose.”
It was David Evans. The uniform stopped me from recognizing him immediately.
I struggled for words. I knew that it was perhaps because of what he’d said that I’d lost my position, but I didn’t want to talk about that. It wasn’t his fault; he probably didn’t even remember anything about it now.
“Are you leaving?” I asked, though it was obvious. He had a kit bag on his back and was heading for the station.
“I am indeed,” he said, smiling, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Got to get back to my mates. That’s important. Stick together, we do. That’s the only way.”
I nodded.
“Yes,” I said, “yes. Don’t you have family to see first?”
“No family, no,” he said. “The boys, the sergeant-major. That’s my family. See?”
I nodded again.
“Well, better be along, got to get the train to Southampton. Catch a boat, you know!”
I smiled.
“One last thing,” he said. “May I give you a kiss?”
I took a step backward, but I could see he meant no harm.
“If I tell the boys I kissed a girl as beautiful as you,” he said, laughing, “they’ll be green fit to burst!”
I laughed too.
“Very well,” I said. “Are all Welshmen as charming as you?”
“Not quite,” he said, winking.
He leaned down and kissed me quickly on the cheek, like an uncle.
As he straightened up again I noticed he was looking at me thoughtfully. At my eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, casually. “Nothing. I just . . . Well, anyway, I must be going now. Goodbye.”
He slung his kit bag over his shoulder, and set off to the station once more.
I felt a little glow of satisfaction inside as he went, though I never thought my first kiss would come from a Welsh soldier.
I was puzzled. He seemed to have made such a complete recovery from the wrecked shell of a man he had been when I first saw him. That didn’t often happen with shell-shock, and I spent the rest of the day wondering what had made him better.
60
Christmas has come. It’s Friday evening, and tomorrow is Christmas Day.
Earlier this evening, we sat in the drawing room, and all had a glass of sherry, even me. Mother asked me to play some carols on the piano, which I was happy to do for her, though my heart wasn’t really in it. I played quite badly, but Mother and Father and Tom sang along and thanked me when I finished.
I can’t help being sad that Mother hasn’t tried to get Father to change his mind about my nursing. If only Tom could speak out for me!
His own situation is hard enough, with the tension between Father and him over joining the army. Tom wants to continue his training until he is
forced not to. If he were to try to take my side, we both know it wouldn’t help either of our causes.
We had a Christmas card from Edgar. I don’t know how he managed to get time to send it. It’s very jolly and shows some young ladies on a sleigh, wrapped in furs, with Joyeux Noël in ornate writing across the front.
It had come a few days ago, but Father kept it hidden as a surprise and read it out to us this evening.
Dear Family,
I trust you are all together at home now in Clifton Terrace. I wish I could be with you, too, but you know that I must be here. Nevertheless I wish you all a Merry Christmas. We’re hoping for a bit of a do ourselves, God willing, so don’t worry about me. I must go now.
Your Edgar
Father put it up on the mantelpiece, in pride of place, moving a card from someone else aside to do so.
Mother was delighted.
“You were naughty to keep it from us,” she chided Father, gently.
He smiled, and kissed her on the forehead.
“But it’s the best Christmas present we could have had,” I said, and everyone agreed.
Then we had a supper of goose and gravy, and went to bed happy.
I am tired now; it is late, and Christmas is here.
59
The nightmare I was dreading has started.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t. I don’t.
I woke early, but not with the excitement of Christmas morning. I woke in the grip of fear. And my heart pounding so hard it hurt.
A thought came into my head from nowhere.
The Christmas card. Edgar’s Christmas card. I suddenly realized that after Father had produced it and read it to us, he put it straight on the mantelpiece.
I had not touched it.
But I have now.
I went downstairs, took it from the shelf, turned it over and read it myself.
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