A Wartime Nurse

by Maggie Hope

  ‘Can we have a baby, Mam?’

  The question took her by surprise. For a minute she could only stare at him as he turned away from the river. The rowing crew had disappeared round the bend. It was very quiet, even the birds seemed to have gone to roost early.

  Theda took him on her lap and hugged him as she gathered her thoughts. ‘Has one of your friends got a new baby brother or sister?’ she temporised.

  ‘Gary Nichols has. And he says his dad said you brought it.’

  Theda remembered the Nicholses, of course, the baby boy was about two weeks old. She sighed. ‘No, we can’t have a baby, Richard.’

  He clambered down and they began walking back up the lane to the main road. Waiting to cross it, he said, ‘It’s not fair.’ But he didn’t ask any more questions though she was dreading having to explain why a baby brother wasn’t going to materialise and that once again it had something to do with his lack of a father.

  Later, as she made toasted Marmite fingers for his supper and Richard was upstairs in the bath, the door bell rang. Her heart sank. She really didn’t want to have to go out again tonight and it would mean getting Sheila in again to look after Richard and Theda hadn’t even eaten yet. She went out into the hall and saw a dark shape through the ornamental glass of the front door, a man’s shape. Best put on the chain, she thought, just in case.

  It was a postman. Surprised, Theda took off the chain and opened the door wide and he handed her a telegram.

  ‘Any reply?’

  She hadn’t even read it yet, just stared at the yellow envelope in her hand. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. But before she could open it the telephone rang and she started, pulse racing.

  What a fool she was, she told herself, and went to pick up the receiver. Maybe one of her patients was early. Everything always happened at once. That was one thing about midwifery: life was full of surprises.

  ‘Theda?’

  It took a second or two for the voice to register and she realised it was her mother. But why should she ring? Bea hated the telephone.

  ‘Theda?’

  ‘Hello, Mam? Is that you?’ Something in her mother’s voice alerted her, filled her with a nameless fear. ‘What is it? Mother?’

  ‘Where have you been, Theda? I’ve been trying to ring you for the last hour. I tried and tried, and managed to ring Joss and he tried to get you an’ all. Eeh, Theda, where’ve you been? Did you get the telegram?’

  Theda looked down at the telegram still unopened in her hand. ‘I’ve got it, Mam, I haven’t read it yet. Mam, what’s the matter?’ She was practically shouting down the phone now, the fear growing in her, choking her. Dear God, was it Da? Had he been hurt in the pit?

  She could hear her mother begin to sob, great breaths being drawn in and whistling over the line. Tearing open the telegram, Theda had trouble focussing on the words and then she had trouble taking in the sense of them.

  ‘Regret to tell you Charles had accident. Come home.’ It was signed simply ‘Mother’.

  ‘Mam, what happened? Is Chuck all right?’ But she knew he couldn’t be, not when Bea called him by his given name.

  ‘An accident. At the pit. My bonnie lad . . . oh, my bonnie lad.’ Bea began to moan, a deep terrible sound. ‘An’ him just made under-manager an’ all. Eeh, we were that proud, your da and me.’

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘He’s gone, pet.’

  ‘I’ll come home, Mam. First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, pet. First thing in the morning.’ Bea repeated the words but it was clear to Theda, even over the phone, that she hardly knew what it was she was saying.

  ‘Mother, sit down, take it easy. I’ll be there as soon as I can. You’re not on your own, are you?’

  ‘Nay, lass, of course I’m not. I’m at Norma’s. We’re both at Norma’s. Of course we are, her family an’ all. Poor lass is due next month. I’m coping fine, it was just with not being able to get in touch with you. No, I’m all right now, we’re bearing up. We have to, for Norma’s sake. She’s having a lie down at the minute. I’ll go now. See you in the morning, pet.’

  The telephone went dead and Theda put it back on the rest.

  ‘I’ll have to go, missus. There’s no reply, I take it?’ She had forgotten all about the postman, still patiently standing at the door.

  ‘No, no reply.’

  Theda closed the door and went upstairs. Richard was already out of the bath and dripping water all over the bathroom linoleum but she hardly noticed, just wrapped him in a towel and carried him out to his bedroom and sat on the bed drying him. She put on his pyjamas and Mickey Mouse dressing gown and took him downstairs to sit him in front of a plate of Marmite toast.

  He was quiet, drooping sleepily over it. She had to remind him twice to eat a little more. She warmed milk and made him a mug of cocoa and he only drank half of it before falling forward sound asleep. She only just caught him before he landed on the floor. Yet all the time she was doing it in a kind of shocked limbo, as though it was someone else dictating her actions.

  Later, when he was tucked up in bed, she made her plans to get away, ringing up her supervisor and arranging to take compassionate leave, ringing Sheila to explain where she was going and that she wouldn’t need her childminding services for a few days.

  ‘By, I’m sorry,’ said Sheila. ‘What happened, do you know?’ Theda had to admit that she didn’t, she had just taken it for granted that Chuck had been killed in the pit. A fall of stone? A waggon gone amain, out of control? There were so many accidents that could happen in a mine.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how it happened in the end,’ she said.

  ‘No, of course not.’ Sheila was silent for a moment.

  ‘Well, look here, do you think it would be better if I kept Richard with me? I could you know, he’s no trouble.’

  ‘Good of you, Sheila. But no, I’ll take him. I might be away for a few days.’

  It was nine o’clock by the time Theda put down the phone. She went upstairs and packed a case for herself and Richard. She would go on the first bus, she decided. That would be the Newcastle to Bishop Auckland. It called in at Durham bus station at eight-thirty. She made a list and checked off everything she needed to take and tried to think of anything she needed to do before leaving, and all the time a part of her wondered at how she was keeping control when all she wanted to do was weep.

  She had thought that she would not be able to sleep but somehow, round about midnight, she turned over on her side and next thing she knew it was already morning. She had missed the bus from Newcastle and caught the one from Sunderland at nine o’clock instead.

  ‘But where are we going, Mam?’ Richard asked, clambering on to the double-decker bus and making for the stairs. He loved sitting upstairs at the front and luckily the seats were vacant. ‘Will Miss Robinson be annoyed at me for not going to school?’

  ‘We’re going to see Grandma and Grandda,’ said Theda. ‘And no, Miss Robinson will understand.’

  ‘Where do they live, Grandma and Grandda?’ asked Richard, and she realised with a sharp pang of shock that he had not been to Winton Colliery, at least not that he could remember. And with the shock came apprehension. Would she not be welcome in her father’s house? Surely he would not turn her away, not now, not when Chuck . . . Suddenly she had to search in her bag for a handkerchief as the full force of losing her brother hit her.

  Chapter Thirty

  It was a quarter to four on the day before Theda and Richard travelled to Winton Colliery that Chuck joined the back shift men coming off shift as they walked to the shaft bottom. The men were tired and talk was desultory. It had been a hard day’s work and they were hungry. Some of them moved over and made room for the young under-manager as a mark of respect, but after all it hadn’t been so long ago that he had been working alongside them on the coal face.

  ‘He always did have enough ambition for half a dozen,’ observed Sam Hughes, the overman, as he watched Chuck strid
e through the crowd.

  ‘Aye, he intends to be chairman of the Coal Board, that one,’ someone else answered, and there was a general laugh.

  Chuck heard it but it didn’t matter to him; he got on well with most of the men and let them have their little digs. It was true, anyroad – he was going as far as he was able and had high hopes that under the Coal Board that would be right to the top.

  Norma would have his meal ready, he thought. No need to go to the new canteen, which had been built beside the equally new pithead baths. There was his report to write but it wouldn’t take long, the new coal cutter was working fine.

  He rode up to bank in the cage with a group of young hewers, their spirits noticeably brightening the nearer they drew to the surface, and they all spilled out into the grey drizzle of the afternoon. Chuck shivered. It was cold after the heat of underground. What he needed was a hot shower. He marvelled that in such a short time the pithead baths had become so essential. He had almost forgotten the discomfort of going home black and caked with coal dust from the pit.

  ‘Not before time an’ all,’ Da had said when the builders arrived to put up the baths, or showers as they were really. ‘By, in my young day we would have thought we were in heaven, not having to travel home in our pit clothes. And to have a hot meal in the canteen. Molly-coddled these young ‘uns are going to be.’

  Chuck grinned to himself. He went into the dirty room of the baths and stripped off his pit clothes and put them in the drying locker. At the other end of the room a party of youngsters were larking about, laughing as they talked of the dance that was being held in the Miners’ Welfare hall that evening, most especially the girls who would be there. Another cage load of men joined them as Chuck walked through to the main room with its open-ended shower cubicles. He could hear the laughing and joking getting more and more boisterous all the time, and smiled.

  Just like bairns let out of school, he thought, but he himself was past all that. He was a married man with a baby on the way and hadn’t time for messing about; he had better things to do. Picking up the soap, he turned on the water and stood for a minute or two, letting it sluice down his skin.

  By, the hot water was grand. Thank God for the Coal Board. He threaded his fingers through his hair to loosen the dust and watched as the black water eddied round his feet and drained away into the plug hole. Soaping himself all over, he paid particular attention to his hair. He must remember to bring some of that shampoo Norma had bought him. Imperial Leather, that was it. He had felt slightly decadent, a bit cissy even, using special liquid soap to wash his hair but had to admit it made a better job than ordinary soap.

  The suds ran down his face and stung his eyes. On the other side of the waist-high partition the young lads were larking about, flicking soap at each other, chasing round from one cubicle to another, laughing and shouting boisterously so that it sounded like a near riot in the echoing room. It was different for those who lived outside the village and needed to catch a bus home. He’d known that lot to come up in the cage at a quarter to the hour and be in the dirty end of the baths and out the clean side in time to catch the five to the hour Martin’s bus.

  ‘Bloody hell, man!’ an older miner shouted as he was almost knocked off his feet as he stepped outside his cubicle. Chuck rubbed his eyes and looked across at him.

  ‘Sorry, Grandda,’ a lad said over his shoulder, his grin belying his words.

  ‘An’ I’m not your grandda!’ shouted the older man. The others exploded into laughter as though he had made the joke of the century. It was time to intervene, thought Chuck.

  ‘A little less hilarity, lads, if you don’t mind,’ he said, sounding only slightly pompous. They said nothing, though the laughter died in the air and they went back to their cubicles rather sheepishly.

  Chuck felt a fool. Even to his own ears he had sounded fifty at least. There was a muffled burst of laughter from the other side and something landed at his feet. The lads weren’t as respectful as all that. Not nowadays. Chuck rinsed himself off and stepped outside the cubicle, rubbing his eyes again as he did so, which were still stinging from the soap.

  The fall was completely unexpected. One minute he was striding over for his towel on the other wall and the next he’d stepped on a sliver of soap and was flat on his back, staring up at the strip lights far above.

  There was a splash of red on the white tiles of the cubicle. A drop was running down, ruby red turning to pink as it mixed with the water and he turned his head and saw the pink mingling with the coal-streaked soapy water, whirling round faster as it hit the drain. There were faces now bending over him, mouths working as though they were saying something, but there was no sound. And then everything faded from view.

  It was just after ten o’clock when Theda, holding Richard by one hand and carrying her case with the other, walked up the yard to the back door of her parents’ house. She hesitated before turning the brightly shining brass door handle that had replaced the sneck and went in.

  It was dim in the kitchen, the curtains drawn against the light as was usual in a house of mourning. There wasn’t even much light from the fire, which was almost out – just a few black cinders and a lot of grey ash. It wasn’t like Mam to leave it like that, thought Theda as she dumped her case by the side of the press. Taking the coal rake, she pulled some small coal down on to the fire and then stirred the embers with the poker. It wasn’t quite dead, smoke drifted lazily up the chimney.

  ‘Does anybody live here?’ asked Richard, looking round solemnly.

  ‘Yes, Grandma and Grandda do.’

  ‘I don’t like it here. It’s too dark.’ He put his hands in his coat pockets and thrust out his bottom lip.

  ‘Come on, we’ll go and find them,’ said Theda, taking his hand. Leaving the case where it was, they walked back up the yard and out on to the back lane. There was no one about. Whether the women were all out shopping or inside doing their housework Theda didn’t know, in fact she didn’t think about it.

  It took only ten minutes to walk to the other end of the rows to where there was a small street of better-class accommodation, officials’ houses. Chuck and Norma lived in the second house in Office Street. Theda knocked at the front door and after a moment it was opened by her father.

  ‘Hello, Da,’ she said. She gazed at him. He looked so old and bent and grey, his eyes puffy as though he had not slept for a week.

  ‘Now then, lass.’ Matt gazed back at her sombrely. Stepping forward she threw her arms around his neck and after only a slight hesitation his arms were around her too.

  ‘Oh, Da. Oh, Daddy,’ she said into his bristly neck.

  ‘I know, lass, I know,’ he muttered.

  ‘Well, howay in, don’t stand on the doorstep like that for all the world to gawp at,’ snapped Bea’s voice from behind him and his arms dropped to his sides.

  ‘Mam? Is he my grandda?’ asked Richard, and then turning to Matt, ‘Are you my grandda?’ he asked again, throwing his head back so that he could look up into Matt’s face.

  Some of the tension left Matt; he even managed a smile. ‘I am that,’ he declared. ‘Mind, I never knew you were such a big lad. How old are you? Eight? Nine?’

  Richard stood as tall as he could, proud that anyone could think him so much older. ‘I’m only five,’ he admitted. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘As old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth,’ said Matt. He took hold of Richard’s hand and Theda breathed a sigh of relief. At least there was going to be no bad feeling to complicate an occasion already so fraught with shock and sorrow.

  Joss came, and solemn-faced he hugged his mother and Theda. Richard ran to him immediately and Joss sat him on his knee where Richard remained quietly watching the crowd of relations, all new to him except for Joss and Beth and his grandmother.

  ‘I’ll speak to Norma while you have Richard,’ Theda said, and Joss nodded.

  She was in the front room with her mother sitting protectively beside he
r. Norma wore a maternity smock printed with large sunflowers, which did nothing to disguise her late state of pregnancy, and her face was swollen with crying. Nevertheless, she accepted Theda’s condolences with polite dignity.

  ‘He was your brother,’ she said. ‘You’ll miss him too.’

  Theda had not seen Chuck since Joss’s wedding yet she realised that didn’t matter – Norma was right.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ asked Norma’s mother, but she looked frail and strained almost beyond endurance by what had happened and what was still happening to her daughter and the question was the automatic one asked of any visitor.

  ‘No, thank you. I’m fine, Mrs Musgrave,’ Theda replied. She sat with them for a few minutes more, noting the high colour in Norma’s cheeks, the obvious weariness in her as she put a hand to her back and sighed. Norma probably had less than the supposed month to go, she judged, and hoped all this did not bring on premature labour.

  ‘Perhaps you should lie down for a while, Norma?’ she suggested, and looked at Mrs Musgrave who nodded her agreement.

  ‘Oh, no, I must be here for him,’ said Norma. Mrs Musgrave raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  Here for whom? asked Theda in her mind, though she did not put it into words. Here for Chuck, that was what Norma felt. It was an instinctive reaction.

  ‘The minister is coming anyway,’ she said. ‘We have to arrange the funeral.’

  ‘No, pet. There is to be a post-mortem and inquest first,’ her mother reminded her.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Norma turned to Theda. ‘It was the tiles in the showers, you know. They’re so hard, that’s the trouble.’ She looked puzzled. ‘Though why Chuck should bang his head on them, I don’t know.’

  She ought to be in bed. Theda took hold of her wrist, feeling the pulse flutter. Norma was being entirely too reasonable and normal, she was liable to crack at any time. But what did she mean? Had Chuck not had his accident down the pit? But this was no time to enquire.

  ‘Come on, love, we’ll help you upstairs. You have to think of the baby, you know. Chuck wouldn’t want you to get overtired, would he?’