Nightingale

by Fiona McIntosh

  Eugenie had lost patience with her, it seemed. She was waving away all the tea paraphernalia. ‘Joy, please call Bertie Cartwright and tell him to get out his Daimler. And please fetch my wheelchair.’

  ‘Mrs Lester, I —’

  ‘Do as I bid, please, Joy. Claire, I know you’ve only recently arrived and I suspect you need to lie down and gather your wits, but so help me I need to jolt you out of this morbid mindset. Minutes ago you arrived here so rejuvenated and happy, so come with me; let me show you something.’

  ________

  Claire sat in astonishment as she bounced along in a superbly glamorous car, whose bright-red paint – polished to a high gloss – reflected Radlett’s thin, winter sunlight off mirrors and brass, making her wince. Joy had walked ahead with the wheelchair, complaining that this cold air was not at all good for Mrs Lester. Meanwhile Eugenie seemed perky and fresh, wrapped up from head to toe in voluminous shawls and rugs so that she looked like a child in a papoose.

  Bertie Cartwright was a ruddy-faced, genteel fellow who clearly had more money than notion for what to do with it and Claire liked him immediately for his ability to keep up a non-stop stream of apologies for everything from why he hadn’t gone to war to why his passengers might be ‘smelling a bit of oil in the back’. Claire was perched in what Bertie called the dickie seat.

  ‘Just over twenty-two horsepower this beauty is, Miss Nightingale.’

  ‘That sounds like it can go fast, Mr Cartwright,’ she replied, pulling her scarf tighter, knowing it was what he wanted to hear.

  ‘Well,’ he chortled, ‘enough to make that gorgeous golden hair of yours blow in this wind. I say, do call me Bertie, by the way,’ he added over his shoulder, lifting a hand covered in a glove that came halfway up his arm to protect his tweed jacket and voluminous driving overcoat.

  She found a smile for his sweetness and he stole a shy glance returning a grin from pudgy cheeks below his oversized driving goggles that sat below a huge tweed flat cap. He looked vaguely ridiculous but helplessly endearing.

  ‘Eugenie,’ she yelled over the sound of the car. ‘Where are we going, exactly?’

  ‘You’ll see. It’s barely another minute away but I think it’s important.’

  Claire sat back, sighing to herself, and while the distraction had been welcome for this last half hour, she now reconfronted the despair of the letter that she’d read. It was back with all of its black vengeance of pain. She deliberately forced her mind to wander down another pathway as Bertie expertly cornered away from Watling Street and up the hill towards woodland, to wonder what Eugenie could possibly think was important here.

  ________

  ‘Now, if you don’t mind waiting back with Bertie and his car, Joy, I do believe Claire can take me from here,’ Eugenie said, settling in comfortably to her wheelchair.

  Joy stomped away back through fallen leaves on the tiny path a few feet away to where Bertie had managed to negotiate his vehicle. Claire bent down. ‘Really, Eugenie, what are you up to?’

  ‘Straight ahead, dearest.’ She pointed.

  ‘To where?’ Claire could see only trees.

  ‘That lovely big old beech. Push hard or I’m quite likely to get stuck in these leaves.’

  It took effort to push Eugenie's wheelchair deeper into the woodland and by the time they arrived at where she directed Claire was breathing hard and happy for the release of the tension, both physically and emotionally.

  ‘Here?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘Yes, darling, now get me up.’

  The wood smelled of damp earth and slowly rotting leaf-fall. It wasn’t disagreeable. To Claire it smelled of peace and the cycle of life. She looked over at the sound of a rustle and saw a bright-eyed red squirrel dash away, seemingly oblivious to their presence, and she recognised the loud song of finches. These were pleasant thoughts but they were disrupted by Eugenie’s struggling.

  ‘Eugenie, please —’

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Claire dear, I am not long for this world, and I didn’t think I’d have a chance to see this again. I’m unbearably happy to share this moment with you of all people, so indulge me and help me to walk, will you, or shall I do it myself?’ She waved at Claire impatiently. ‘I will never be strong enough, or my body willing enough, to attempt this again.’

  Claire, with the practised motion of a nurse, eased Eugenie out of the wheelchair, realising sadly that her greatest friend felt birdlike in her arms, weighing far too little. ‘All right, we’ll take this slow. How far?’

  ‘Just there, darling. It’s this one,’ Eugenie held a wavering finger towards the tree. ‘It hasn’t changed a bit,’ she continued, and Claire heard the tremor in her voice. She wasn’t sure if it was from exertion or emotion. They took four unsteady steps to the tree. ‘There,’ Eugenie said again, proudly.

  Claire looked to where a curious arch-shaped gnarl appeared on the tree. It was a smooth patch where the bark had fallen away. It was grey and weathered, and she could see that a heart had been carved into its centre. An arrow bisected the heart, alongside the initials EL and EL.

  She sighed at the romantic symbol. ‘You and Edward?’

  Her friend nodded and Claire saw with surprise that her elder was weeping softly but smiling.

  ‘He brought me here for a picnic. It was the day Eddie first kissed me and then told me he loved me and couldn’t imagine he could spend another day without knowing I shared his initials.’

  Claire smiled in spite of her mood. ‘He asked you to marry him here?’

  ‘On bended knee when this whole area was a meadow of buttercups,’ Eugenie admitted, waving an arm expansively, even though the action cost her a wince. ‘I was even dressed in yellow, I seem to recall. We toasted ourselves with beakers of my homemade lemonade and swore we’d never be parted except in death. We kept that promise.’ Eugenie touched her gloved fingers to her lips and with difficulty she bent to place her fingertips on the centre of the heart. ‘Now it’s your turn, Claire.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Eugenie motioned towards the chair and Claire helped her back to it, assisting her friend to be seated comfortably again. ‘Do you see that the gnarl of that tree is arched?’

  Claire looked back and nodded.

  ‘Eddie said to me that’s the fairy door. It is a secret opening into another kingdom, I recall were his exact words.’

  Claire smiled at the whimsy of this notion. She loved Eugenie for bringing her here; already she was feeling a fraction more optimistic.

  ‘The fairy kingdom?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Claire,’ Eugenie continued, proceeding with a more droll tone. ‘If you were a pretty little five-year-old, you’d be quite excited to hear this but because you are a beautiful 25-year-old, I’m going to have to rely on you to accept the idea based purely on the romanticism of this notion.’

  ‘I will,’ she promised, surprised she could feel even as vaguely lighthearted as she did in this moment.

  ‘Good. We all know that it’s the fairy world that grants us our wishes, agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘So, Claire, as Eddie made me, now you must knock on that door and after you do so, make a wish. Eddie said the fairies would be listening on the other side and if they like you they will grant you your wish. They granted me mine, which was to convince my parents to let me marry Edward Lester. I wish I’d thought to include in that wish that he might live as long as I.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Go knock and make your wish. You’ll be surprised who is listening.’ Claire stared at Eugenie for a moment. ‘Do it, Claire,’ she whispered. ‘If you say it and cast out that wish, then you’ll believe in it as I did; hold his memory close, bring him home.’

  Claire felt moved by these words, but they were soft, plump tears of swelling joy rather than despair this time. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed to her friend before she turned to the tree.

  Claire bent and, with all of her heart open, she tapped gentl
y on the fairy door and prayed they were there and paying attention to her.

  ‘If you’re listening, fairies,’ she began, ‘please bring Jamie Wren safely back to me on April Fool’s Day. I don’t want to believe he is dead. Just make him safe. Bring him to me – even if he’s hurt – and I will heal him . . . I will believe in you forever and help set up Eugenie’s clinic to help heal others as my namesake did so faithfully.’ She touched her fingers to her lips, and as Eugenie had done, she placed her fingertips to the centre of the carved heart.

  Claire turned. ‘There . . . satisfied?’ she said, affecting a tone far drier than she felt.

  ‘Completely,’ Eugenie admitted. ‘Thank you for coming here with me.’

  ‘It’s a very special spot,’ she agreed. ‘So beautiful. I think I could live here beneath this canopy of beech trees forever.’

  Eugenie smiled. ‘First you have a date to keep, yes?’

  Claire nodded. Eugenie was right. Why would I give up on him now? ‘Every time we’ve met you’ve had to remind me to keep faith with Jamie. Maybe you’re the fairy, Eugenie.’

  Her friend snorted a laugh.

  ‘I think I shall head back to Charvil – I need a couple of days to navigate through the shock and I’ll go to London from there.’

  ‘Let me organise a car for you so that you don’t get rained upon or blown about and so you look your picture-perfect best for Mr Wren.’

  She didn’t think it would matter to Jamie how she looked. ‘Thank you, Eugenie, but I think I’d prefer to find my own way; it’s good thinking time on the bus.’

  ‘Well, at least let me send someone to pick up your belongings from Berkshire and bring them here.’

  Claire nodded. ‘All right, thank you. My belongings will be ready in a couple of days.’

  Eugenie cast a glance backwards. ‘Best we don’t keep the others waiting much longer. Plus I don’t believe I can feel my nose any more.’

  Claire grinned. ‘Just for a while, in fairyland, it was easy to forget the cold, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Keep your wish close in your thoughts, Claire. It will keep you warm these next couple of days.’

  23

  Thin sunshine peeped through the morning drizzle of the twenty tall, small-paned windows of the ward and lit all corners softly. Anything that was white seemed to be bathed in a special glow of starched, spring purity. It was cold enough to snow, though, and the heating in these long draughty wards at Dartford was struggling.

  It was a kind team here, mainly involved in nursing neurotic soldiers returned in a state of anxiety and suffering more from stress than from their injuries. It was slightly different for him; his wounds were so blatantly obvious but he was mostly here to recover from the shock of an explosion that at the same time as wounding his arm had bounced him up into the air and flung him beneath two huge animals. He’d heard later that he’d been fortunately dragged out immediately, or perhaps he would have perished on Arab soil beneath his beloved horses.

  All was relatively quiet on the ward save the irregular thump of his wooden crutch on the long, light-coloured floorboards. Mornings were easy here. The men with the broken minds seemed to find peace enough to sleep from the early hours through to full daylight. It was the dark hours that were nightmarish, when all the demons would be at play; he understood, but he was free of those nightmares now and if not for the wails and shrieks from his fellow soldiers, he was sure he might heal even faster. Instead he lay awake a lot of the night to the sounds of his comrades’ mental anguish and felt guilty for conquering his trauma, and returning from the stupor.

  Nurse Jane rustled in her crisp white uniform and gave a sigh of approval. ‘You are doing so well, James. You really shouldn’t be here but I haven’t got the heart to move you to Southall Hospital, where you should be now, and give you all that upheaval again.’

  ‘I’m happy here.’ When he nodded he was aware of droplets of perspiration flicking off his face, landing on the newly dusted fronds of the palms in pots. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. That’s a clear sign of the effort you’re putting in and it’s being rewarded. Look at you. Already up on your feet. It’s a marvel.’

  ‘I need to go faster.’ He shifted the single crutch and pushed off again, negotiating his way down the straight corridor formed between the neat row of equally spaced black enamelled iron cots.

  She caught up, gave him a look of caution, and he paused again, sweat running like an opened tap down his back and dampening his shirt. ‘Listen to me now. I was at the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital in Cairo when it opened at the sporting club in June 1915, also when it closed just over a year later, and I was right here the day we re­opened 3AAH in October of 1916. I have seen a steady stream of wounded, broken soldiers, some men with almost identical injuries, James, not once or twice, but repeatedly. And I can assure you that I have not seen anyone make the kind of rapid recovery that you have made.’ She helped him to sit down in a wheelchair. ‘You cannot push too hard or there’ll be a price. You could relapse, or you could damage something else. There’s no race.’

  ‘There is for me, Nurse Jane.’

  Her lips narrowed in a sympathetic gesture. ‘I know. Claire Nightingale.’

  ‘Have you heard anything of her whereabouts?’

  She shook her head. ‘I would have told you. I would have run in here and screamed it at you.’

  He gave a sad grin.

  ‘But I don’t want to bring it up for fear of sending you into a bleak mood when you’re doing so well. When you arrived here you couldn’t speak a word; you seemed altogether lost in your mind from the trauma. Now look at you. We’re all so impressed. Have you written to home?’

  He nodded. ‘One of the nurses scribed it for me. She posted it yesterday but it will probably take an age to reach South Australia. They probably think I’m dead,’ he joked.

  ‘Well, you’ll be out of here soon.’

  ‘I’m leaving on the first of April,’ he promised.

  She gave him another gentle smile. ‘The most recent information I can offer is that she was repatriated with a group of invalid soldiers in September 1918.’

  ‘So she’s given up nursing?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised, would you? But no, it doesn’t mean that at all. She could be in Australia looking for you right now for all we know. Why don’t you have an address for her?’

  ‘I never had an address for her,’ he said. ‘It was such a strange, unreal sort of period in Gallipoli and then in Egypt – me in hospital . . . we just thought there was time for all that. But all I have of her now is April Fool’s Day.’

  ‘So you’re determined to go?’

  He nodded. ‘Too right. I’m determined to arrive at the Palm Court Lounge of the Langham Hotel at three o’clock.’

  ‘Have you thought that she may feel differently now . . . I mean, the war plays havoc with our hearts and minds, doesn’t it?’

  ‘This date and the promise we made is all that has kept me going. I nearly lost my life in the August offensive at Gallipoli, and then all the battles in the desert campaign. Gaza, Es Salt; they were lucky escapes but I was injured at both. And each time I forced myself to be well because Claire would be waiting for me.’

  ‘I know. I understand.’

  ‘As for someone else . . .’ He tried to shrug but couldn’t. ‘How? When?’

  ‘Oh, doctors, officers . . . she’s been in Europe, after all.’

  He shook his dark head with confidence. ‘Not my Claire. We’re in love, we’re going to marry. Besides, I can’t think like that or I might as well give up.’

  ‘Well, you’re an inspiration, Trooper Wren. I hope your dream comes true. I’ll see what I can do about getting you a lift to the station in a couple of days but you’ll be on your own from then.’

  ________

  The previous week had been wet and miserable in Berkshire but today, March thirtieth, snow was predicted. Packing up at Charvil had kept Claire occupied,
but only briefly, and had been far easier than she’d imagined. In her mind as she’d hugged Eugenie farewell it had felt as though she was facing a mountain to climb in starting to pack up her life.

  However, the reality was that her life was now summarised by a few trinkets, some photos, some books and two suitcases of clothes. Standing in the small hallway of the tiny two-bedroom cottage, she looked at the luggage and the three fruit boxes of belongings and felt instantly embarrassed that this was all she could muster to speak for her quarter of a century on this earth. The old adage that a rolling stone gathers no moss rang loud in her thoughts. She had been on the move, skittering from place to place and deliberately not staying long enough to gather possessions, friends or even many happy memories. Her aunt had left her this cottage and yet it felt unlived in, unloved. She couldn’t sell it but she didn’t feel she belonged here either.

  There were few people she could say she loved. And of the one she had loved the longest, her father, she had only his shaving kit left, the single physical memento his second wife had permitted her. No, Claire corrected herself – the shaving brush that was made of badger hair was the only memento she had chosen to take with her. The watch she had admired as a small child – the one she would have loved to own of his – Doreen had kept. And she could understand that now.

  Claire reached for ‘badger’ now, touching it against her cheek the way her father had used to when she’d watched him lathering up for his morning shave. She caressed the white-tipped hairs of the brush and remembered the smell of the suds, her father’s wide grin from beneath the lather and their shared laughter, which had stopped with the arrival of Doreen.

  Claire realised now that she’d been running away from the lonely, often mirthless life she’d imposed on herself ever since. She baulked as the horror of this truth washed through her mind. Running away to England from Australia, then running away to war from her non-life in England. After losing Jamie she had fled from Egypt straight to the battlefront in Europe, taking more and more risks. Then she’d deliberately exposed herself to Spanish flu in a bid to run from the reality that there was no more war and only a lonely existence here in Charvil. And then there was Istanbul and its temptation. Had she failed the test? Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d almost convinced herself that the recent news was punishment for her emotional entanglement in Turkey.