A Woman's War

by S Block

  Kate took refuge in the fact she was due to return to Manchester to continue her nursing studies, hoping the day-to-day demands at the hospital would take over her days, much as they had when her own young husband had been killed in training.

  For Laura and Erica, the changes to daily life were both small and large.

  Eating with Will in the dining room was something Erica tried to maintain until the very end. On the occasions Will was unable to leave his bed, Erica and the girls decamped to his room and ate with him. Now, with Kate returned to Manchester and Laura in and out of the house doing an increasing number of shifts at the Observation Corps, or seeing her beau, Tom, Erica had to get used to eating most of her meals alone. Sometimes she would open her mouth to say something to Will or one of the girls then realised they weren’t there. She closed her mouth and continued to eat in silence.

  When Laura was at home, she had become used to popping in on her father at irregular times. Either in his surgery when he was still working, or in the sitting room, or latterly, when he was laid up in bed. Now Laura found herself coming downstairs and automatically heading towards her father’s surgery to pop in to say hello. Each time she had to stop short of going into the room where she imagined he would be. With the recent deaths of her brother-in-law, Jack, and now her father, maturity came to Laura both fast and hard.

  The other new accommodation Laura had to make was the way people in the village reacted when she walked or cycled through on errands or to get to the Observation Post. People she scarcely knew well would nod solemnly at her as they passed, or offer strained smiles within the shadow of the brim of their hats. Some stopped to ask how she was ‘bearing up’, an expression that left Laura nonplussed until she realised that those asking were only being polite and required the most basic reassurance. Laura quickly understood that all questions about her feelings in the aftermath of her father’s death were not required to be answered honestly, but with a formality that belied her true feelings and, where possible, in a mildly comforting tone.

  I’m feeling terrible, the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life, and I don’t expect that to change soon, if ever. But if I said that to people they would be horrified.

  Yet Laura had also seen a few people coming towards her cross the road ahead to avoid having to say anything to her, not having the wherewithal to broach her father’s death. Initially this angered her. But gradually, she found it suited her, as she had less and less desire to talk about her feelings, regardless of whether they had become sanitised for public consumption.

  And all the while her father’s last words to her played on a loop, ‘You good doctor . . .’

  *

  It was while walking with Tom one cold, blustery, mid-November afternoon that Laura finally built up the nerve to mention her father’s final words to her. Tom turned to her with an expression of surprise, as if becoming a doctor was the last thing he imagined Laura either could or should pursue.

  ‘Do you think it’s a ridiculous suggestion?’ she asked, already suspecting his answer.

  Tom hesitated for a few moments, collecting his thoughts so that he could say what he meant very clearly, without offending her.

  ‘It’s not that I think it’s ridiculous. I’ve simply never heard you express any desire to study medicine.’

  ‘You haven’t heard me express my desire to study anything in particular.’

  ‘True,’ Tom said, feeling relieved that he appeared to have avoided an accusation of disloyalty. ‘But I always imagined people drawn towards that field express an interest relatively early, and pursue it single-mindedly. Certainly, the boys in my last year at school who wanted to study medicine made that intention clear by about fourteen or fifteen.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean everyone has to. What happened at your boys’ boarding school doesn’t have to be a template for everyone else, does it?’

  ‘I didn’t say it did,’ said Tom, back on the defensive. He was wary about being drawn into an argument, and struck out for firm ground. ‘So, does that mean you have given it serious thought?’ he asked in an upbeat fashion that he hoped Laura would interpret as him thinking it was a terrific idea.

  ‘Since Dad suggested it, you mean?’

  ‘I imagine you’ve given it some thought since then. But before that. Off your own bat. Had you ever thought of going into medicine and becoming a doctor independently of anything anyone else may have said to you?’

  Laura gave his question a few moments’ thought.

  ‘No, if I’m honest. But as I just said, I haven’t given a great deal of thought to what I might do. I think the war sort of stopped me going down the “planning” path.’

  Tom frowned before he could stop himself. ‘I don’t really think you can use the war as an excuse.’

  ‘Why not? I would have thought it’s the perfect excuse for not being able to seriously think about one’s future. We could be invaded tomorrow and be turned into a slave nation, working for the Third Reich.’

  Tom smiled. He admired Laura’s combative spirit, refusing to be subdued by counter-arguments.

  ‘Given we aren’t yet slaves for the Fuhrer, I’m still unsure the war’s a reasonable excuse for not thinking about what you might like to do with your life. Especially for girls.’

  ‘A bomb might fall on me tomorrow,’ Laura interrupted conclusively. ‘An army truck might run me over. Another aeroplane might crash into our house, killing us all. It would be the most awful luck, but it could happen. Anything could.’

  Tom took a deep breath, controlling his impatience at what he considered to be Laura’s wilful determination to disagree with him.

  ‘Including absolutely nothing,’ he said. ‘Look, all I’m saying is that in my experience chaps who want to become doctors express some form of vocational spirit beforehand. I suspect that’s a requirement, don’t you?’

  Laura looked into the far distance, over the rolling landscape of Cheshire.

  ‘It may be a requirement of “chaps”. But I don’t think it should necessarily exclude the rest of us who haven’t previously given it a great deal of thought, but who then do.’

  ‘But isn’t it entirely possible you are only thinking about it because your father suggested it?’

  ‘Meaning what? What are you getting at, Tom?’

  ‘Your father was very ill at the time. Every word he was able to say carried additional weight because of the effort it took to express it. I’m simply asking if you might be thinking more seriously about what he said because of his condition than if he had expressed the same view when he wasn’t sick.’

  ‘I have thought of that. I’m not a complete idiot, Tom.’

  Tom started to feel boxed in. Whatever he said in relation to Laura’s father’s final words to her seemed to be inadequate or provocative. While this walk with Laura was a very welcome distraction from work at the station it wasn’t the calming, peaceful stroll with ‘his girl’ that he’d been looking forward to all morning. He glanced at her, and could see she was frustrated. He took a deep breath and decided to try a different tack.

  ‘Perhaps I’m completely wrong. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps chaps and girls take different routes towards deciding what they want to do with their lives. Perhaps it does sometimes take someone else to see something in us to make us think of pursuing a particular course we never previously thought of. That’s certainly been true for me recently—’

  Laura turned and smiled. Tom felt his heart lift a little.

  ‘That’s all I mean,’ she said. ‘Perhaps my father saw something in me that I haven’t seen in myself. After all, I enjoy the sciences. And I’ve always taken an interest in what he was doing in the surgery.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Who would be more qualified to see the makings of another doctor in his own daughter than a doctor? Perhaps you should speak to Dr Rosen about it. She may have had a similar experience.’

  ‘Because she’s female? Not all women are the same, Tom, you must have notic
ed that much.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I meant, because she’s a doctor, and because she’s a female one she might have a useful perspective on what we’re discussing.’

  Laura continued to look at Tom, nodding encouragingly, not wanting to make him feel too self-conscious. She did value his perspective on things. It had been Tom who’d suggested she apply to join the Observation Corps after she was thrown out of the WAAF, and she had never regretted following the advice.

  ‘She might,’ Laura said. ‘It’s not a completely stupid idea.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Tom said, grinning.

  He pulled Laura to him and kissed her on the lips. She kissed him back twice as hard. She always kissed him back twice as hard. After a moment, she pulled away and looked at him with a puzzled expression.

  ‘What did you mean when you said, “that’s certainly been true for me recently”?’

  Tom looked confused, as if he had completely forgotten everything he said the moment he said it. Laura re-phrased the question.

  ‘You said, perhaps it takes other people to see something in us to make us think of doing something we hadn’t previously thought of doing. You then said, “that’s certainly been true for me recently.” What did you mean?’

  ‘Just something Wing Commander Lucas said to me a week or so ago. He asked if I’d ever thought of becoming a flyer, because he thought I had the right temperament for it.’

  Laura looked at Tom, and suddenly felt a little sick.

  ‘A pilot? You told me you had no desire to fly.’

  ‘That was true a while ago. When we met. A lot has changed since then. Perhaps I have, too.’

  Laura looked at him, blinking slowly to try to keep her emotions from running away with her. His being a ground-based RAF driver wasn’t the only, or even the main reason she had opened herself to the possibility of becoming Tom’s girlfriend. But had he been a pilot when they met that would never have happened. Not after she had lived through Kate’s torment over Jack.

  ‘You can’t be a pilot,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Because you’re a driver.’

  ‘I could drive a plane. You’ll have to do better than that.’

  ‘All right. Because I forbid it.’

  Tom looked at Laura and could see she was deadly serious, however comical her words initially sounded.

  ‘So . . . you can become a doctor because your father suggested it, but I can’t become a pilot because my boss suggested it?’

  ‘He only suggested it because he’s short of pilots.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true. Anyway, who’s to say your father only suggested you become a doctor because we have a shortage of male doctors at the moment?’

  Laura’s eyes started to prick. She blinked hard to force back any tears that threatened to form.

  ‘I don’t care, Tom. You are not to become a pilot. Not if you want to continue to step out with me. I expressly forbid it.’

  Tom realised that saying anything more would only add fuel to a fire he wanted to extinguish as quickly as possible.

  ‘It was only a passing comment,’ he said. ‘That’s all it was. I do understand how Jack’s death affected you.’

  He kissed Laura on the cheek, threaded his arm through hers, and pulled her forward gently to resume their walk. She allowed him to lead her on, and they walked in silence for nearly a minute.

  In that brief period, Laura understood how deeply her feelings for Tom now ran. She didn’t know the precise statistics, but she knew enough about the survival rates of RAF pilots to want Tom to be anything but one of them. That said, she didn’t want to push him towards an entrenched position, so she chose to drop the subject in the hope the idea would wither away from neglect.

  From Tom’s perspective, he had no desire to re-ignite the conversation about Laura becoming a doctor – an idea he didn’t wish to encourage as it could take her out of the area and, given the rapid churn of events caused by the war, out of his life.

  They continued in silence, arm in arm, each keeping their own counsel, pretending to admire different parts of the windblown, rain swept Cheshire landscape they were slowly passing through.

  Chapter 9

  WHILE ANNIE HADN’T fully recovered from her injuries, at the start of her most recent visit Teresa learned that the aviator was making great strides. Annie was over the worst of her operation and entering a period of recovery. The medical staff were very attentive and revered Annie as an exotic (an airwoman!) who had sustained her injuries in service of her country. Teresa had noticed the hospital staff gave Annie little extras on the quiet. Three pillows instead of two. An extra potato for supper. A little more fruit than other patients on the ward. Annie accepted them with small smiles of appreciation.

  But she clearly hated lying around in hospital ‘like a corpse’ – as she described herself – and was working hard to make her way to the lavatory and back without an escort.

  ‘It means I don’t have to wait until a nurse or orderly is available. Nor do I have the distraction of someone lurking outside the toilet door,’ Annie said. ‘Bugger that for a game of soldiers!’

  Teresa had been visiting Annie daily, resisting the urge to walk over in the morning so as to give herself something to look forward to as the empty hours passed. It helped give the day some structure. Prior to getting married, teaching had left Teresa with no time to worry about how to fill her day. Every minute was accounted for. Yet since being unceremoniously yanked from her position in the village school to allow the local authority to hand her job to a man, finding a way to shape her waking hours had proved a tremendous challenge.

  She read a great deal more than she had previously, and enjoyed it. In the spirit of supporting her local novelist, Teresa had even attempted Bob’s novel based on his supposed-exploits during the Dunkirk evacuation, but found it written like a newspaper story – fast-paced, thick with plot but thin on character, lacking in any emotional depth or psychological insight.

  Teresa also had time to almost scientifically cleanse her house of all dirt, something that had become a creeping obsession; an outcome Teresa regarded ironically, since her previous disposition was to relegate housework to the very bottom of any list of necessary things to do.

  She went for long morning walks into the countryside, where her enjoyment was marred by the knowledge that she would rather be walking with Nick or Annie. Before her marriage, Teresa went out almost daily with Alison and her dog. Now, though walking alone did allow her mind to slip its bridle of domesticity, it nevertheless amplified how estranged she had become from her old self.

  It was little wonder Teresa had come to rely on her hospital visits to Annie as much as – if not more than – Annie looked forward to them.

  Usually, they would chat as they played a board game, the board resting on Annie’s lap as she sat up in bed. Or they chatted as they played cards. Annie was fascinated about Teresa’s life with Nick.

  ‘I’m not meaning to pry or pass judgement,’ she said. ‘I just want to understand what you enjoy about married life? Because for me, if one’s preference is for women it makes little sense to marry a man unless it’s due to some form of force majeure – a pregnancy, or . . .’ Annie decided not to finish her sentence.

  ‘Or in desperation?’ Teresa was not so coy as her playing partner.

  ‘I know many women opt for marriage as a way of obtaining a certain kind of social acceptability—’

  ‘A shield against the prying eyes of others,’ said Teresa.

  Teresa’s life was lived on the precipice of possible scandal. She had seen at least three friends make just a single mistake, have their sexuality exposed, and fall into the abyss of disgrace. One had tried to take her life as a consequence, so malicious had been the level of humiliation she had been forced to endure for loving another woman. Connie, Teresa’s lover before she sought sanctuary in Great Paxford from possible scandal in Liverpool, planned to
start a new, freer life in America, but was lost in the Atlantic when the ship carrying her was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The threat of exposure gave Teresa’s life a constant thrum of stress that she had learned to live with, though it took its toll on her. Its level had risen unexpectedly with marriage, as her union with a man of status like Nick elevated the height from which she might potentially fall. It wasn’t that Teresa had any cause to distrust Annie per se, but fear of betrayal had become a form of self-protection. In her experience, when provoked, folk reverted to self-preservation, whatever the cost to others.

  ‘I’d never have placed you in the category of someone who felt the need to take such a drastic course as marriage,’ Annie said. ‘You always seemed to be brimming with a mixture of self-confidence and a take-me-or-leave-me defiance.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ said Teresa. ‘Also, you have little idea of what I’ve experienced in the past that’s left me with a deep-rooted fear around exposure. I’m assuming you’ve had little of that.’

  Annie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘None. As a pilot, I operate in a man’s world. I get respect for my prowess in the cockpit. Where RAF pilots are only required to master one or two aircraft, we in the WAAF have to fly all sorts. We’re valued for what we do. The men I work alongside essentially treat me as an honorary man, and take little interest in my private affairs.’

  ‘But what if one of them should begin signalling romantic intentions?’

  ‘Instant deflection. I tell them I never mix business with pleasure.’

  ‘I don’t have the same luxury,’ Teresa said. ‘As a teacher you find yourself continually vulnerable to questions about your private life – from pupils and parents alike. They all want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  Teresa shrugged. ‘It’s part of the job. Children are just fascinated by everything about their teachers. Parents want to be reassured we’re a sound influence on their kids. I’d be the same.’

  Having spent more time alone in Teresa’s company, Annie had started to develop an understanding about where her fears originated.