‘Look what I found!’ she cried.
Dora turned around, expecting to see the cat in her daughter’s arms, and instead caught the dull glint of dirty metal in her hand. Before she’d had time to think about what she was doing, she had let go of Walter and thrown herself at it, snatching it away from her.
‘What did I tell you?’ She shoved Winnie out of the way and flung the lump of metal out into the street as far as she could. ‘I don’t want you digging things up. They’re not toys, do you hear me? You’re not to play with them!’
The world seemed to blur before her eyes, and it wasn’t until she heard Nick’s voice, firm and low, that she heard her daughter crying and realised she was shaking her like a doll.
She released her abruptly, numb with shock. Freed from her mother’s grasp, Winnie gave a sob and rushed off. Dora went to follow her, but Nick held her back.
‘Leave her,’ he said. ‘She won’t go far.’ He held Dora at arm’s length, his eyes meeting hers. ‘It was just an old shell case, Dora. It was harmless.’
‘She didn’t know that when she dug it up, did she? It could have been anything.’ She paused, fighting for control. ‘We had a kid from Russia Lane in the other day, brought home something he’d found on an old bomb site. It turned out to be an unexploded incendiary.’ She kept her voice flat, neutral. ‘I’ll never forget his dad carrying him in his arms, his clothes all soaked through with his blood . . .’
‘Don’t.’ Nick flinched.
‘What if that had happened to our Winnie?’ Dora said. ‘What if it wasn’t a harmless shell case she picked up? What if it was a – a—’ Fear gripped her chest so tightly she couldn’t speak.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll have a word with her, all right? Make sure she knows not to pick anything up – Dora? Dora, are you crying?’
She turned away from him sharply towards the window. ‘No,’ she said, but the thickness of tears clogging her throat gave her away.
‘You are.’ Nick turned her to face him. ‘Come on, this ain’t like you. What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong?’ Dora echoed in disbelief. ‘Look around you, Nick. Look at this place. Can you imagine anyone robbing their neighbour before this rotten war started? And look at our kids. Winnie’s fascinated by bombs and planes, and Walter wets the bed because he’s so terrified. Now Christmas is coming, and there’s no presents and nothing to eat, and not even enough coal for the fire. I spend all my time worrying and waiting for the next disaster to befall us. And you ask me what’s wrong!’ She laughed harshly.
‘I know it’s bad,’ Nick said. ‘But you’ve got to keep going—’
‘Why?’ She gestured around the poor, upended remnants of what had once been Mrs Price’s home. ‘Look at this place. Mrs Price tried to keep going, and look what’s happened to her.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry I’m not doing what Lord Woolton and Mr Churchill and all the rest of them tell me, keeping my chin up and putting on a brave face and everything else. But I’m tired, Nick. Whatever it was that’s got me through the past few years, I’m starting to run out. This war has taken everything away from me.’
‘You’ve still got me.’
‘Yes, but for how long?’
Dora saw his face change, and knew the strange, heavy feeling in her gut had been right. There was something Nick wasn’t telling her.
‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’ she said dully.
‘We always knew I had to go back—’ Nick started to say, but Dora cut him off.
‘When?’
His gaze dropped to his hands. ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Christmas Eve . . .’ She paused for a moment, taking it in. ‘How long have you known?’
‘Dora—’
‘How long?’
‘I got my embarkation orders a couple of days ago.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You seemed so happy . . . I didn’t want to upset you.’
Dora wanted to rage, but then she saw his beseeching expression, and tried to hold herself together.
‘So you won’t be staying for Christmas?’ she said quietly.
‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘You can’t help it. I s’pose we should count ourselves lucky we’ve had this time together. There’s plenty of women round here haven’t seen their husbands for years.’ She looked around. ‘We’d better get this place sorted out. I don’t want Mrs Price to come home and find it like this.’
Nick was very quiet as they straightened the furniture, and Dora wasn’t surprised. He rarely saw her upset. Like all the other women in the East End, she preferred to keep her chin up and battle on regardless. If she had any doubts or fears, she kept them locked inside.
She didn’t know why she’d allowed herself to weaken. Perhaps it was because Nick was there, reminding her of everything she was missing. But she was ashamed of herself for showing her feelings in front of him, because whatever she was going through, she knew he was going through far worse. She might whine about rationing and blackouts and the daily fear she had to cope with, but it was nothing compared to the real dangers he faced day after day on the front line.
And now she’d made him feel worse. She watched him from across the room, and a chill ran through her. She knew there was a real chance she could lose him, and she didn’t want him to go away thinking that he had to worry about her.
She approached him as he heaved the dresser back into place against the wall.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
He straightened up and turned to look at her. ‘What for?’
‘I shouldn’t have carried on like that. I feel like such a fool.’
His eyes were wary. ‘I didn’t know you were so upset.’
How can I be anything else, she wanted to say. But instead she smiled and said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just having an off day.’
Her smile didn’t fool him. Nick’s frown deepened. ‘You will be all right, won’t you? I don’t like to think of going off and leaving you . . .’
‘I’ll be all right, honestly,’ Dora said. ‘Don’t give it another thought. You just worry about yourself.’ She paused. ‘Do you know where they’re sending you?’
He turned back to the dresser, leaning his weight against it to push it into place. ‘Somewhere on the south coast is all we’ve been told.’
And they couldn’t let you have one more day at home? Dora bit back the complaint that sprang to her lips. She had already said far too much.
‘And then on to France, I suppose?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. And even if I did, you know I wouldn’t be able to tell you.’ Nick’s face was a blank mask. Dora knew that like her, he was trying to play down his feelings.
Then he smiled, and said, ‘But if I do end up in France, I promise I’ll bring you home a bottle of fancy French perfume, as a late Christmas present.’
‘I don’t want any perfume. I just want you to come home safe.’
Her anxiety must have shown on her face, because Nick grinned and said, ‘I’ll be all right.’
If only that were true. Without thinking, Dora’s gaze dropped to the place where the bullet had torn through his chest, missing his heart by inches. He still had the scars, the flesh puckered and silvery under his shirt. Dora couldn’t bear to touch it, because it reminded her how close she had come to losing him.
He followed her gaze downwards. ‘That’ll teach me to run faster next time!’
He laughed, but Dora didn’t. Her throat tightened, and she felt like crying again. But this time she managed to hold it in.
Nick reached for her hand. ‘I’ll be back, I promise,’ he said.
‘Do you? Do you really promise?’
‘You know I will. I’d never leave you. And I want you to be here waiting for me when I come home, too,’ he joked. ‘No running off with any handsome GIs, do you hear me?’
That brought a reluctant smile to her lips. ‘What kind of a girl do you thi
nk I am?’
His intense navy blue gaze met hers. ‘My girl,’ he said softly.
For a moment they were caught, trapped in a moment together. Then suddenly, Winnie’s voice interrupted them from outside, breaking the spell.
‘Look what I’ve got!’
‘Oh Lord, what’s she found now?’ Dora hurried to the back door, Nick at her heels, in time to see her daughter staggering across the yard, her arms full of hissing, spitting ginger fur.
Winnie beamed at them, pleased with herself. ‘I found Timmy!’ she announced.
‘So you have.’ Nick went to take the cat from her. ‘Give him here before he scratches you to ribbons. Come on, we’ll find a box to put him in.’
As he went outside, Nick turned to look back at Dora. ‘It’ll be all right, you know,’ he whispered. ‘Just keep your chin up, for my sake.’
Dora smiled back. ‘I will.’
It was only when he was out in the yard that she allowed her smile to drop.
Chapter Three
June 1944
‘Have you heard the news, Nurse? The Allies have landed in France.’
Mr Hopkins the Head Porter stuck his head out of the window of the porters’ lodge. His eyes gleamed with fervour above his bristling moustache. ‘This is it, Nurse,’ he said. ‘It’s finally started!’
‘So it has, Mr Hopkins.’ Dora tried to smile, but unease was already uncurling itself in the pit of her stomach.
It’s finally started.
She had lain awake most of the night, listening to the planes going overhead. There seemed to be many more than usual, and now she knew why.
The Head Porter puffed out his chest and gazed up at the cloudy grey sky. ‘It’s a big day for all of us,’ he declared in his sing-song Welsh accent.
Dora gazed past him into the lodge, where two more porters sat hunched over the wireless set, sharing a cigarette, laughing and joking. It was all right for them all to look pleased with themselves, she thought. They weren’t the ones risking their lives.
‘Just think,’ Mr Hopkins went on, ‘at this very moment, our brave boys are on those French beaches, ready to give those Germans what for—’
‘One of our windows is cracked,’ Dora interrupted him shortly.
Mr Hopkins frowned. ‘I beg your pardon, Nurse?’
‘On the emergency ward. One of the panes of glass has cracked, and it’s letting in a terrible draught. Could you do something about it?’
The Head Porter drew himself up to his full height, which was barely taller than Dora. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he sniffed.
‘Thank you, I’d appreciate it.’
As she walked away, she heard him saying, ‘Well I never! Did you hear that? The news we’ve all been waiting for finally comes, and she’s not even interested!’ He tutted. ‘Downright unpatriotic, that’s what I call it.’
Dora stopped dead, rage singing in her ears. She had half turned to go back and give him a piece of her mind, then she forced herself to carry on walking.
It wasn’t Mr Hopkins’ fault, she told herself. He was just excited that the waiting was over. Ever since the Russians defeated the Germans on the Eastern Front, the newspapers had been calling for the Allies to take the fight to them in the west.
But Mr Hopkins didn’t have someone he loved in that fight. He didn’t have to lie awake at night, worrying that they wouldn’t come home.
Of course she wasn’t the only one. Nearly everyone she knew had a husband, or a son or a brother out there fighting. And a lot of people were much worse off than her. Poor Mrs Price had lost both her sons, one at Dunkirk and the other in North Africa.
She remembered her promise to Nick. Keep your chin up.
You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself, Dora Riley, she told herself sternly. it was a bad lot, but she had to pull herself together and get on as best she could.
But it wouldn’t be easy. She was afraid if she uttered Nick’s name she would lose the fragile self-control she had been holding on to so grimly for the past six months.
The squeak of her shoes echoed in the empty passage as she made her way into the main hospital building. Once those same passages would have been busy with nurses hurrying to start their morning duty. But ever since the gas explosion two years earlier which had destroyed half the hospital building, most of the wards had closed down and the patients transferred out of London to a hospital in the Kent countryside. Most of the doctors and nurses had been sent away too, while others had signed up for military service.
Only Dora and a handful of other nurses, medical students and VADs had been left behind to man the Casualty department, the male and female emergency admissions wards and the few outpatients clinics that remained.
She missed the hustle and bustle of hospital life, the nurses and the doctors, and the orderlies going to and fro with trolleys. She even missed the stern ward sisters in their grey uniforms and white bonnets. The empty wards seemed almost eerie, their rows of bare metal beds like ghostly skeletons.
Kitty Jenkins, the junior nurse, was already on the male emergency admissions ward when she arrived, chatting to Miss Sloan, one of the VADs. They looked odd together, young Kitty so dark and petite, in contrast to Miss Sloan’s awkward height and long, clumsy limbs. Dora could tell from their excited faces that they were discussing the news.
Kitty fell silent the moment Dora appeared in deference to her rank, but Leonora Sloan continued to chatter on, oblivious as ever to the niceties of hospital etiquette. She was a middle-aged music teacher, a well-meaning soul who had joined the Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment to do her bit for the war effort. She could be more trouble than she was worth at times, but Dora couldn’t fault her redoubtable spirit. Every morning without fail, Miss Sloan cycled in from Essex, paying no attention to blocked roads or air raids, snow or thunderstorms.
Now she hurried up to Dora, her broad smile exposing her prominent teeth. ‘I say, Nurse, have you heard the news? The Allies—’
‘Yes, I’ve heard.’ Dora kept her own smile fixed in place.
‘Isn’t it marvellous?’
‘Yes, it is. ‘ Dora turned to Kitty. ‘It looks as if it was a busy night last night, Jenkins?’
‘Yes, Staff. Five admissions, according to the night nurse.’
‘Where is she? I’ll take report from her.’
As the weary night nurse went through the details of the cases that had been brought in overnight, Dora was aware of Miss Sloan’s huffy expression at the corner of her vision. But she tried not to pay attention to it as she concentrated on the appendicitis, the suspected heart failure and the burns case that she would have to deal with that day. Not to mention the two sailors with toxic gastritis who had arrived in the early hours.
Dora sighed. ‘Let me guess – they’d been drinking in the White Horse?’ The night nurse nodded. ‘When will they shut that place down?’
She had lost count of the number of men they’d had in after drinking there. The locals all knew to avoid it, but off-duty sailors and soldiers couldn’t believe their luck at finding gin and whisky so freely available. It was only when they woke up in hospital that they discovered the booze they’d been enjoying was actually heavily disguised methylated spirits.
‘One of these days that landlord is going to kill someone,’ Dora said. ‘You’d think the police could do something about it, wouldn’t you?’ She smoothed down her apron, then turned to Kitty. ‘Right, let’s make a start, shall we?’
Dora might have managed to avoid Miss Sloan’s chatter, but she couldn’t stop the patients talking about the invasion. As the morning passed, conversation went back and forth across the ward as the men discussed the news and what it might mean.
It was only a matter of time before one of them asked if they could have the wireless on.
‘Come on, Nurse,’ they urged Dora. ‘You want to know what’s going on same as the rest of us, don’t you?’
Dora hesitated. The truth was, she was torn between
wanting to know and being afraid to find out.
‘Of course we should have it on,’ Miss Sloan stepped in. ‘I don’t know about anyone else,’ she glared at Dora, ‘but I certainly want to know what’s happening to our brave boys.’
Kitty looked sideways at Dora. ‘Would it be all right, Staff?’
Dora summoned a smile. ‘Of course,’ she said.
After all, she reasoned, surely the truth couldn’t be half as bad as the dark pictures her imagination was summoning up.
For once, Kitty Jenkins was grateful for Leonora Sloan and her forthright manner, otherwise Nurse Riley might never have agreed to having the wireless on. Kitty was conscious of the senior nurse quietly going about her business, sitting at her desk writing up her reports as the rest of them listened avidly to the hourly bulletins.
It was strange, really. Kitty knew Nurse Riley’s husband was away fighting in France. If it was her, she thought, she would have been glued to the wireless, wanting to know everything.
But then she remembered how she hadn’t been able to look at a newspaper for weeks after her own brother Ray was killed. Over a year later, her mother still flinched whenever she heard of another boat being lost in the North Atlantic.
But there was no getting away from the news this morning. And of course, everyone had an opinion on it.
‘Of course, the Germans ain’t going to take this lying down,’ one of the men said, as Kitty helped Nurse Riley prepare him for an injection. ‘I reckon we’re going to be for it now. There’ll be some heavy bombing coming our way, you mark my words.’
Kitty’s hands shook as she cleaned the needle. She tried to block out the man’s voice, but it droned like an annoying wasp at the edge of her consciousness.
‘Oh yes, they’ll be bombing us every night, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he continued. ‘We’ll be back down those air raid shelters every night.’
Kitty’s heart started to crash against her ribs. Air raids had terrified her ever since she got caught in one with no chance to get to shelter.
‘Although I’ve also heard tell the Germans have invented a super weapon that can destroy the city of London in one night,’ the man went on. ‘It’ll make the Blitz look like a tea party, so they say . . .’
A Nightingale Christmas Carol Page 2