A Nightingale Christmas Carol

by Donna Douglas

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Clare kept her own smile carefully fixed in place. ‘Have a lovely time, won’t you? And remember to give Riley my regards.’

  ‘I will.’

  Clare waited tensely until Helen had gone. It was only when the door had closed behind her that she threw her pen in rage. It hit the wall, spattering blue ink down the plasterwork.

  After everything she’d done, this was the way Helen treated her! She had supported her through thick and thin, only to be cast aside as soon as Dora Riley came along.

  She abandoned the letter she was writing. She had lied to Helen; her parents wouldn’t give a damn whether she wrote to them or not. They had forgotten about her the minute she left home to sign up with the QAs. They had four other children to think about. Her older sisters were married with children, and her two younger brothers were in the air force. Clare was the forgotten middle child, thirty years old, unmarried and childless. She could have disappeared and no one would have noticed.

  Clare, the one no one wanted. The girl who was doomed to be cast aside.

  She tried so hard to make friends. At school, during her hospital training, in the QAs. But somehow all the girls seemed to pal up and leave her out. She didn’t understand why, although she had once heard one of the QAs describe her mockingly as being ‘like a pathetic puppy, always bounding about, trying to please’.

  And then Helen came along. Clare couldn’t believe her luck when they were assigned to the same room. Helen was quite the most beautiful, graceful creature Clare had ever met. And she was kind, too. They weren’t exactly friends, but at least she didn’t treat Clare with the same disdain as the other girls.

  Perhaps they would never have become real friends if Clare hadn’t found her that night, sobbing in the shower. She had only come home early from the party in the officers’ mess because everyone was ignoring her as usual. She was on her way to bed when she heard a sound coming from the bathroom. She had discovered Helen cowering in a cubicle, scalding hot water streaming over her, scrubbing her skin raw with a hard brush.

  From that moment, Clare had become Helen’s best friend, her protector and her confidante. She took complete charge of the situation, and Helen was happy to allow her to do it. Her confidence was gone, and she needed someone to look after her. For the first time in her life, Clare felt needed and important.

  And then Dora Riley had come along and ruined everything.

  It was obvious from the start that she and Helen had a special bond. Clare had seen the spark that came into Helen’s eyes when she first saw her. Even when the two of them fell out – much to Clare’s delight – she could still see the life starting to flow back into her friend. She knew it was only a matter of time before she lost her forever.

  And now it had happened.

  The worst thing was, Helen had confided in Dora, told her the secret that had bound her and Clare together. Now Dora knew, Clare was no longer special. Helen had already started to spend more time with Dora. It was only a matter of time before Clare was cast aside completely.

  And she couldn’t say a word against the wretched girl because of her dead husband. Now all Helen seemed to think about was how she could help Dora. She had even begun to rise above her own unhappiness for the sake of her friend.

  Clare thought about them, off together without her. True, Helen had invited her, but Clare knew she didn’t really want her to come. And Dora certainly wouldn’t want her to be there; she had made her dislike of her all too obvious.

  Clare had even thought about inventing a dead sweetheart of her own, someone from her past, to try to win back Helen’s attention. But she wasn’t sure if she could carry off the lie. Dora would see through it, even if Helen didn’t. She was as sharp as a tack, that one. And so common, too. How someone as refined as Helen had ever become friends with a vulgar girl like her was a mystery to Clare.

  She wished Helen would come to her senses and realise how awful Dora was. Then perhaps she would remember what a loyal friend Clare had been, how she had stood by her, how she had never betrayed her. Clare doubted if Dora would ever be as worthy of her trust as she was . . .

  And then it came to her. She would prove how untrustworthy Dora could be, and then Helen would come crawling back to her.

  She screwed up the letter to her parents. They would never bother to read it anyway. Then she pulled out a new sheet of writing paper, rescued her pen, and began to compose a new letter . . .

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘Careful, Bauer,’ the foreman called out. ‘You’ll do yourself an injury if you carry on like that!’

  Stefan ignored him as he trudged across the site, the hod of bricks braced on his shoulders. He knew the foreman couldn’t believe his luck, finding a worker as willing as him. He toiled tirelessly, from the time they climbed off the lorry just after dawn, until it collected them at dusk to return to camp. No hod was too heavy, no work too back-breaking. He hauled bricks, mixed mortar and cleared rubble, working like a machine and rarely taking a break.

  He knew the other prisoners resented him for making them look bad, but he didn’t do it to please anyone, least of all their captors.

  He did it to forget.

  Not that it worked. No matter how exhausted he was when he went to bed, he knew when his head touched the hard, flat pillow he would be immediately haunted by the vision of Kitty Jenkins.

  He knew he’d done the right thing. She had a good life ahead of her, and he had no right to get in the way. What could he promise her, apart from an uncertain future? Kitty deserved more than he could ever give her.

  Anyway, he kept telling himself, he wasn’t the kind of man to need encumbrances in his life. Loving someone brought pain, it made him vulnerable. He was better off alone.

  But deep down he knew it was too late for that. He had already fallen in love with Kitty Jenkins, and he was already suffering a world of pain. And he’d hurt Kitty, too. The look of sadness in her eyes when he’d rejected her would stay with him for the rest of his life. He had set out to spare her pain, and instead he’d caused her more.

  The best thing he could do now was to stay out of her life, he thought grimly as he hauled another load of bricks across the site. The sooner this building was finished, the sooner he could leave this wretched hospital and never see her again.

  ‘Gunther!’ Stefan was mixing mortar when he heard the foreman’s shout. He looked up to see the young man stumbling towards them, his expression sheepish, his head swathed in dressing. Mal, Kitty’s cocky-looking boyfriend, was with him.

  ‘You lazy devil! It’s about time you showed up for work!’ The foreman slapped him on his skinny shoulder.

  ‘No work for this one,’ Mal said in the gruff accent Stefan found so hard to understand. ‘He’s got to go back to the camp and rest for a couple of days. We’ve come down to wait for the lorry.’

  Mal left Gunther with the foreman and strolled over to chat to one of the guards a few yards away from where Stefan was working.

  Stefan kept his head down, trying not to be seen. But he couldn’t help overhearing their conversation as they smoked a cigarette. Mal was telling the guard about a girl he’d met the previous night.

  ‘You should have seen her,’ he was saying. ‘She was gorgeous. Blonde, blue eyes – and her figure . . .’ He described a shape in the air with his hands. ‘I’m telling you, she’d give Betty Grable a run for her money!’

  ‘I thought you were courting that little nurse?’ the other guard said. ‘What was her name? Kitty something—’

  ‘Oh, her.’ Mal was dismissive. ‘No, I threw that one over a few weeks ago.’

  Stefan stopped, his head cocked to listen.

  ‘Oh, aye? Last I heard, you were planning to get engaged.’

  ‘No, pal, you’ve got it wrong. You think I’d marry that? She wasn’t much of a looker.’ Mal paused to take a drag on his cigarette. ‘No, I was just messing about with her until something better came along.’

  Stefan bu
rned with fury. His hands tightened on the shaft of his spade as if it was Mal’s neck.

  ‘Anyway, I’m a free agent now,’ Mal went on airily. ‘And there are plenty of lonely lasses in London . . .’

  The other guard muttered something Stefan couldn’t hear, and Mal laughed out loud. ‘Oh aye, pal. And I’ll tell you something else – I won’t be wasting my time with any more frightened little virgins, either. Give me a girl who likes a good time!’

  The lorry rumbled up the drive towards them. Mal stubbed out his cigarette, bade his friend goodbye and called Gunther over. Stefan turned his back as he passed, but Mal didn’t spare him a glance as he strode off towards the waiting vehicle.

  His friend watched him go. ‘He’s a bloody liar,’ Stefan heard him tell the other guard. ‘The way I heard it, he popped the question and she turned him down.’

  ‘Serves him right,’ the other guard joined in. ‘I’ve always thought he was a bit too full of himself.’

  ‘Bloody shortarse Scotsman. Anyone would think he was God’s gift to women!’

  ‘Bauer! Hurry up with that mortar, or it’ll be set by the time you’ve finished,’ the foreman interrupted.

  Stefan went back to his work, but his thoughts were in turmoil.

  Kitty had turned Mal down.

  What did it matter? It made no difference to him. They still couldn’t be together. Everything he’d told himself still stood. He could give her nothing, promise her nothing except unhappiness and uncertainty.

  And his love.

  But that wasn’t enough, was it? It wasn’t enough to part her from her family, to cause painful rifts with the people she cared about. He couldn’t put her in that position, make her choose . . .

  But she had already chosen. She did that when she turned down Mal’s proposal.

  It was too late for him, anyway. He’d had a chance to tell her how he felt before he left the hospital, and he had been too cowardly to take it. Then fate had brought him back to her, and still he hadn’t grasped his chance.

  Fate would never be so kind again.

  ‘Poor Gunther,’ one of the other men said. ‘I wonder if he’ll ever be back?’

  ‘They’ll probably send him back to the farm. He won’t be able to get himself injured there,’ another said.

  ‘Knowing Gunther’s luck, he’ll probably step on a rake!’

  ‘Or get attacked by a bull!’

  ‘He was lucky, anyway,’ another man said. ‘I wouldn’t mind a couple of days in a nice comfortable hospital bed.’

  Stefan looked at the spade he was holding, and an idea began to stir in the back of his mind.

  Fate might not help him again, but perhaps he could help himself.

  As bad luck would have it, Kitty was the only nurse on the ward when Stefan Bauer arrived, his hand wrapped in a filthy rag.

  ‘Managed to slice it open on the edge of a spade, daft beggar!’ the guard explained with a grin. ‘Could you take a look at it for him, Nurse?’

  Kitty couldn’t bring herself to look at Stefan as she peeled off the rag and examined his wound.

  ‘It ain’t too bad, is it, Nurse? Only I reckon the foreman would have something to say about it if he lost another worker!’ the guard grinned.

  Kitty forced a smile back. ‘I’ll clean it and then we’ll see. It might need a couple of stitches but I think we should be able to save it.’

  ‘Did you hear that, mate? You’ll still be able to mix that mortar.’ As she pulled the curtains around them, the guard winked at Kitty and said, ‘I might as well nip outside and have a smoke, since you’re likely to be here a while.’

  ‘Oh, but—’ Kitty started to say, but the guard interrupted her.

  ‘Don’t worry, miss, I shouldn’t think he’ll give you any trouble.’

  If only you knew. Kitty held herself rigid as the guard sauntered away, pulling the curtains closed behind him, shutting them both in.

  She quickly set about cleaning the wound, working in silence, aware of Stefan watching her every move. She prayed he wouldn’t notice how clammy her hands were.

  ‘It will not need stitches, I think.’ He broke the silence. ‘It is not a deep cut.’

  ‘No.’

  There was a long pause, then he said, ‘Your hands are shaking, Fraülein.’ He sounded amused.

  Kitty said nothing as she continued to dab at his hand. He had the coarse skin and calloused palms of a labourer, but his fingers were long and almost delicate, like a musician’s.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I did it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ she muttered.

  ‘I did it for you.’

  That shocked her. She looked up sharply. ‘What? You mean, you did this deliberately?’

  ‘It was the only way I could see you again.’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘I – I don’t understand,’ she said, confused. ‘The last time we met, you acted as if you barely knew me.’

  ‘I wanted you to forget me.’ This time it was Stefan who looked away. ‘I knew how you felt, and I didn’t want you to waste your love on me.’

  ‘Then why are you here now?’

  His broad shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. ‘Because I couldn’t stay away.’

  Kitty finished cleaning the wound and covered it with gauze, then began to apply the dressing. All the while, she fought to push down the hope that rose in her chest. She had been through too much disappointment to allow herself to trust again.

  ‘So you do – have feelings for me?’ she asked, her gaze fixed on the dressing as she wound it carefully around his hand.

  He sighed. ‘Ah yes, Fraülein. Although how I wish I didn’t, for both our sakes.’

  Pain jabbed at her. She could feel him backing away again, slipping through her fingers. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Because there can be no future for us.’ His voice was husky. ‘How can there be, when I am a prisoner?’

  ‘You won’t be a prisoner forever.’

  ‘No. But even if I was a free man, we could never be together. What would your family say? Could you ever tell them about me?’

  She looked away. ‘I might—’

  Stefan gave an impatient snort. ‘You are lying to yourself, Fraülein. They would never accept me. They would be angry, they would cast you out—’

  ‘I don’t care!’

  ‘Yes, you do. You care very much.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t ask you to do it, to give up your life for me—’

  ‘You’re not asking me to do anything. I want to do it.’

  ‘Nein—’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Then why did you come back?’ she snapped, jumping to her feet. ‘Why did you come here and raise my hopes, make me think you cared—’

  ‘I do care!’

  ‘You don’t! If you really loved me, you wouldn’t be talking like this. You wouldn’t be telling me why we can’t be together—’

  She didn’t manage to finish her sentence before Stefan had shot to his feet and was kissing her. Kitty was too shocked to react at first as he grabbed her around the waist, lifting her feet off the ground so his mouth could meet hers.

  By the time she’d realised what was happening she was back on the floor. He was still holding on to her.

  ‘Can you not see I am afraid?’ he whispered. ‘I do not know how to love, Fraülein. What if I can’t?’

  Kitty looked up at him. His eyes were dark with raw pain and longing.

  ‘I think you already do,’ she said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  March 1945

  There was a wooden train waiting for Dora when she arrived on duty that morning. It sat on the desk in the middle of the ward, three carriages lined up precisely behind it, attached with string. In each carriage sat a tiny doll, one with yellow wool hair, one with black and one with red, all dressed in white.

  ‘They are good, yes?’ Dora was admiring the yellow-haired doll when Major Von Mundel came up be
hind her.

  ‘They’re smashing,’ Dora agreed.

  ‘Very ingenious, I think, as they have no tools to make them.’ Major Von Mundel picked up the red-haired doll. ‘This man used a piece of iron from his bed to carve the wood, and sewed their dresses with a needle made from the opener of a tin of sardines. Their dresses were an old taschentuch – a handkerchief? It makes them look like angels, I think.’

  ‘Very clever, I’m sure. But what are they for?’

  ‘They are for you, Nurse Riley. For your children.’ He looked shyly pleased with himself, like a bashful schoolboy. ‘And there are many more, if they like them . . .’

  ‘You don’t have to keep giving me presents!’

  ‘I want to.’

  Dora looked at the red-haired doll in his hand, and Helen’s warning came into her mind. ‘Please, Nurse Riley?’ He held out the doll to her. ‘I would like to think I was helping your children, as I cannot help my own.’

  Dora saw his forlorn expression and hated herself for even thinking about what Helen had said.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘Why don’t I give these toys to the WVS? They have a shop where they sell things to raise money for our POWs. They’d love these, I’ll bet.’

  His expression stiffened. ‘As you wish.’

  ‘I think it would be a good idea, don’t you? Then other children could enjoy them, too.’ She silently pleaded with him for understanding.

  He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. ‘I think it would be a good idea, Nurse Riley,’ he agreed. ‘And perhaps I could bring more toys and other things that the men have made?’

  ‘I’m sure they’d appreciate it.’

  Major Von Mundel considered it. ‘It is fitting, I think, that our prisoners of war will be helping yours.’

  ‘I never thought of it like that,’ Dora smiled. ‘But now you mention it, I suppose it is.’

  They were interrupted by Arthur Jenkins, coming into the ward shoving a wheelchair ahead of him.

  ‘You’ve got a prisoner wants taking down to theatre,’ he muttered.

  Dora opened her mouth to reply, but Major Von Mundel got in first. ‘How dare you address a nurse in that way? Have some respect!’ he hissed.