A Woman's War

by S Block

  Oh my God. Is this real? Is he really experiencing genuine remorse?

  ‘Forgive me,’ Bob repeated. ‘Forgive me . . .’

  Chapter 19

  LAURA SAT AT the dining table waiting for Dr Rosen to  finish in surgery. At the Observation Post, Brian hadn’t convulsed with laughter or recoiled in horror at the suggestion that Laura might become a doctor; further, David Brindsley had taken the idea seriously. They had come to know Laura well; if she was serious about the idea then they felt convinced she could succeed. This gave Laura succour to continue to contemplate the idea in earnest, but she knew neither man was really qualified to make a judgement. It reminded her of one of her father’s most firmly held beliefs: ideas must be tested to destruction – only if they survived did they have merit.

  Laura knew she had reached the moment when she had to properly test the proposition. There were two people with whom she could do this. The first, and perhaps the most qualified of anyone she knew, was Dr Rosen.

  Laura waited until Myra had finished for the day, and listened from the front room as she closed the surgery door. Laura took her opportunity and fully opened the door into the hall and stuck her head out.

  ‘Myra, could I have a word?’

  Myra turned to Laura. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But I’m somewhat tired. Can it wait until morning?’

  ‘It could, yes,’ Laura replied, ‘or . . . I could walk you back to your lodgings?’

  Myra agreed to talk as they walked. Laura smiled, grabbed her own hat and coat and followed Myra out of the house.

  ‘You don’t mind if we walk briskly, do you?’ Myra asked. ‘Only I’ve been sitting behind the desk all day and could do with blowing away some cobwebs.’

  ‘Not at all. Dad always took a brisk walk at the end of the day for the same reason. And to smoke his pipe, of course.’

  ‘I’m almost certainly not going to be following his lead on that score,’ Myra said with a smile, ‘but it was actually his suggestion. He warned me that patients don’t just bring their ailments with them into the surgery – but also their lives. He told me to take the time to shake off their concerns at the end of the day or be consumed by problems I can do nothing about. He was right. Also, it’s very cold at the moment, so walking at a fair lick will keep us warm.’

  Laura found this encouraging. In his last days, it seemed her father was dispensing his reflections to others as well as herself. If Myra took his suggestions seriously, why not she?

  ‘The reason I wanted to speak to you in private, Myra, is because I wanted to ask your opinion.’

  ‘I’m really only qualified to give medical opinion. On everything else I’m pretty hopeless, I’m afraid. For example, I was convinced Germany would never invade Austria and then Czechoslovakia. And equally convinced we would never declare war on Hitler. Wrong on every count.’

  ‘It was a medical opinion of sorts I wanted to ask you about.’

  Myra’s face frowned as she silently scrolled through the medical conditions a young woman of Laura’s age might experience. As she had asked to see Myra in person, away from the house and her mother, Myra swiftly arrived at the most likely issue.

  ‘Do you suspect you might be pregnant?’ she asked as matter-of-factly as she could.

  Laura’s mouth fell open at the suggestion, though Myra took it as amazement at her prowess and continued.

  ‘You needn’t worry about me telling your mother. Though that might become necessary as I’m technically her employee. It could be a conflict of interest for me to know something so personal about her daughter that she doesn’t. Even if it wasn’t strictly a conflict of interest, it will certainly put me in a difficult position. But we can discuss that later. When was your most recent period?’

  If Laura’s mouth could have opened any wider it would have hit the ground. Instead, it began to emit a strange form of laughter in response to Myra being both colossally wide of the mark about Laura’s enquiry and improperly assumptive about her private life.

  ‘I’m not pregnant!’ Laura finally exclaimed.

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t mean to be rude, but you wouldn’t be the first young woman to find herself in the family way. Especially now, when all bets are off about the future.’

  ‘I can absolutely guarantee that I am not pregnant, Myra.’

  ‘You don’t have to beat around the bush with me, Laura. I consider you a friend now, as well as the daughter of my employer. As such I would do whatever I could to help you.’

  ‘I appreciate that, but me falling pregnant would be a biological impossibility.’

  Myra thought she understood what Laura meant, but needed absolute clarification. ‘So, you and your young man, Tom—’

  ‘Can we please change the subject back to what I actually wanted to ask your opinion about?’

  Myra had been sure she was right. Her diagnostic powers were certainly formidable, and her ability to read between the lines of what people said against what they meant had grown daily since taking up the post at the surgery.

  ‘Of course. What did you wish to ask me?’

  Laura hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath. ‘It’s about my future.’

  Myra kept silent and nodded, listening.

  ‘You know what it takes to become a doctor, Myra,’ Laura said.

  ‘I do. A lot of hard work on top of proving wrong a lot of people who think it’s not a job for women.’

  ‘I’ve been giving my future a great deal of thought since my father died.’

  ‘And you thought you might go into medicine?’

  They were now at the nub of it. There was no turning back.

  ‘In your expert opinion, is it a ridiculous idea?’

  ‘I know you’re clever, but are you good at science?’

  ‘I think I am when I apply myself. At school I didn’t always do that. But as I grew older I found science increasingly interesting. But then war broke out, dad became ill . . .’

  ‘Do you want to help people, Laura? Work with the sick? You don’t have to answer definitively, but do you think that is something you might become good at?’

  ‘In the way my father did, yes. I don’t want to mimic him in any way. But I saw the impact he had on this community, and I saw the pleasure that gave him. If I could achieve a fraction of that same satisfaction I think I would be very rewarded indeed.’

  Myra smiled at Laura as they walked side by side in the cold evening air.

  ‘I am so pleased you said that. Because I have come across many young people who talk about becoming doctors because they want to fix people and do good, and all of that. But very few of them understand that to do it effectively, over the length of a career, they must derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from doing it. Because the last thing the medical profession needs are saints or martyrs. Believe me, they are no good to anyone.’

  Laura wanted to push Dr Rosen for an unequivocal answer. ‘Given your own experience, Myra, do you think I could do it?’

  Myra slowed her pace to a stop and looked intensely at the younger woman. ‘I’ll let you into a little secret, Laura, by way of answering your question.’

  Myra paused for dramatic effect, much as she might pause with an anxious patient before telling them their anxiety was misplaced and they could look forward to a long and healthy life.

  ‘My father was also a doctor. A damned good one. I know exactly where this comes from. Of course, I think you could do it.’

  *

  There was only one person remaining for Laura to speak to on the matter. She felt guilty about talking about herself to her mother so soon after they had buried Will, as if the rush to get on with living might feel disrespectful and unseemly. At St Mark’s, during the burial service, Laura had overheard people mention ‘a period of mourning’, but she had no idea how long such a period should last. Nor did she believe her feelings about her father’s death could be contained to a prescribed timeframe.

  In Laura’s
mind, she would be mourning the loss of her father for the rest of her life. There would never be a right time to bring anything up about going forward when everything seemed to have come so resolutely to a halt. So, she just came out with it over supper.

  ‘What would you say if I told you I was thinking of trying for medical school?’

  The spoon with which Erica was eating was halfway between the bowl and her mouth. She set it down and calmly took another piece of bread from the plate in the centre of the table and looked earnestly at Laura.

  ‘Is this in response to your father telling you he thought you’d make a good doctor?’

  Laura couldn’t believe her ears. ‘He told you that?’

  Erica smiled indulgently. ‘Darling, your father and I talked about everything.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ Laura asked, dumbfounded. ‘Those words have been going around my head since he mentioned it. I wasn’t sure if he was serious, or speaking in some kind of morphine-induced delirium.’

  ‘He was quite, quite serious. The reason I haven’t mentioned it was because it was a private conversation between the two of you. And if it was something that had no interest for you I felt I had to give you the opportunity to leave it at that.’

  ‘So how do you feel now you know I have been giving it serious thought and believe it’s something I really want to do?’

  Erica stood up and crossed to the other side of the table where Laura was sitting and crouched beside her daughter. She took Laura’s hands in her own and looked at her with great intensity.

  ‘I think it’s possibly the greatest testament to your father there could ever be.’

  Within seconds tears were welling in Laura’s eyes. ‘I’m not sure I’d want to be a GP.’

  ‘He didn’t care. He saw himself reflected in you in so many ways. But always with what he would call “a unique twist of Laura”.’

  ‘I really want you to know that I’m not just wanting to do it because Dad mentioned it.’

  ‘Many people came to their areas of expertise by very circuitous routes. It doesn’t matter, as long as the passion to do it has been truly ignited.’

  ‘I truly believe it has.’

  Erica nodded. ‘Horrible as it is to say, but now is a good time to apply, what with so many young men being siphoned off to the war.’

  ‘I don’t want to get into medical school through the back door because there aren’t enough better-qualified men.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant a lot of medical schools have a traditional bias against taking female students. They won’t be able to uphold that.’

  Laura nodded. As ever, her mother made sense.

  ‘There’s only one issue about it, darling,’ Erica continued. ‘And I’m afraid it’s one we have to take very seriously.’

  ‘What issue?’

  ‘Money. We had some savings put aside in case you and Kate wanted to go to university. But we always calculated that your father would have to continue to work for the duration. Now that he’s gone—’

  ‘I’ll go somewhere that offers a scholarship!’ Laura declared.

  It seemed like the perfect solution. And indeed, it would have been the perfect solution in Erica’s eyes if only Laura had hitherto demonstrated the academic aptitude of a scholarship girl. Laura’s evident natural intelligence always put her near the middle of most of her classes, but she had seemed to lack the drive to be at the very top of them.

  Erica wiped her eyes and looked at Laura with great affection.

  ‘There will be tremendous competition for scholarships. I imagine there will be a great many extremely bright girls seeking to capitalise on the situation.’

  ‘Then I’ll compete with them.’

  Laura’s tone was a mixture of defiance against any who might dare suggest she lacked either the intelligence or ambition to gain a scholarship to a medical school.

  ‘You’ll have to be ferociously single-minded,’ said Erica.

  ‘I can be single-minded.’

  ‘You’ll have to be ferociously focused on your studies.’

  ‘I can be focused.’

  Erica smiled encouragingly, but without complete confidence. Laura wasn’t narrow in her approach to life and her schoolwork, but demonstrated an interesting, broad outlook, and enjoyed the company of a large group of friends. Her daughter’s attitude to her life had not been business-like, or goal-centred in any way, but had always been more free-form and improvisatory. It was what made her one of the more interesting younger cohort at the WI. It was what had made her susceptible to the dubious charms of Wing Commander Bowers, who had used her so disgracefully; and what enabled Laura to come through that experience stronger, wiser, and with a greater understanding of how some men – and some organisations – can behave towards women. Studying for a scholarship to medical school would require a dedication to her studies and a tunnel-vision to her future that Laura had not previously demonstrated. Erica told her directly. Laura nodded.

  ‘I think for the first time in my life I know what I want to do. Competition or not. I want to make Dad extraordinarily proud of me.’

  Erica looked at her daughter and brushed an errant strand of hair from her face.

  ‘Your father was always extraordinarily proud of you. So, if you are going to attempt this, don’t keep looking over your shoulder for him to spur you on. He’s gone, my love. You have to drive yourself. There really is no other way. And don’t be ashamed by how selfish and self-centred I believe you will need to become in the weeks ahead. Become that to achieve your goal. Only then revert to the wonderful, warm and generous Laura we all love and adore.’

  Chapter 20

  STEPH SAT AT the kitchen table when Stan telephoned the Liverpool Echo to tell them to pull the story about his wife and son struggling with and then killing the German pilot. He asked to speak to the reporter who’d come to the farm on a tip-off from a police source. The reporter, Philip Shepherd, wasn’t yet in the office, so Stan was diverted to the duty news editor, who told Stan in an unapologetic voice that it was too late – the story had already been splashed across that morning’s front page, and as a consequence the paper was selling like hot-cakes.

  ‘Never seen a run like it, Mr Farrow,’ the editor told Stan. ‘Not since the evacuation of Dunkirk. Your wife’s a remarkable woman.’

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me that,’ Stan said, irritated by an overfamiliarity. ‘Is there nothing you can do? Only, she’s changed her mind.’

  ‘Sorry. But whether she likes it or not, she’s about to become a local hero. Wouldn’t bet against her becoming a national one too. Her story’s just what the doctor ordered. Bloody hell, the only way it could be better was if she’d killed Hitler himself.’

  When Stan put the receiver back on its hook he turned slowly and looked at Steph.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘We’re too late, love. Paper went out this morning.’

  Steph’s eyes widened with alarm.

  ‘Nothing they can do.’

  ‘How long before everyone round here finds out?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they won’t. Don’t think many read the Echo in the village.’

  ‘But who comes into the village every night, Stan – trekkers from Liverpool. One of them’s bound to bring a copy with them.’

  ‘Well, we can hardly stop them on their way in and take it off them, can we?’

  ‘This is horrible.’

  ‘Is it, love? I mean . . . it did happen. The bloke on the telephone called you a hero. Worse things to be called.’

  Steph shook her head. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Everyone else seems to think so, so maybe . . . you’re wrong.’

  ‘I was there, everyone else wasn’t – including you.’

  Suddenly, the telephone began to ring, causing them each to jump a little.

  ‘Don’t answer it,’ Steph instructed, her voice tinged with panic.

  ‘It might be the sub-edit
or saying there’s something they can do after all.’

  ‘What can they do – go into every kitchen in Liverpool and take them all back? Don’t answer.’

  Stan could see from Steph’s expression she was as adamant as she was frightened. He crossed to the table and sat opposite her. He took Steph’s hand in his, and held it as they waited for the telephone to stop ringing. Without realising she was doing it, her hand slowly gripped tightly around Stan’s. Eventually, the telephone was silent.

  ‘You can’t undo it, Steph. You can’t go back and unkill the man.’

  ‘More than anything else in the world, I wish to God I could.’

  Suddenly, the telephone began to ring again, causing Steph to startle. Stan began to get up but Steph pressed his hand down onto the table, and shook her head.

  ‘It might be important,’ he argued.

  ‘More important you leave it.’

  Stan slowly sat back down, believing that once Steph’s initial panic had subsided she’d be more open to reason about the story coming out. As they waited for the ringing to stop, the door to the farmyard opened and Stanley looked in at them.

  ‘Heard the telephone. Thought something must’ve happened. Why aren’t you answering?’

  ‘Your mam doesn’t want to.’

  ‘Why – who is it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Makes no sense.’

  The telephone stopped ringing.

  ‘The story about the pilot’s out today, Stanley,’ Steph said.

  ‘In the Echo?’

  Steph nodded.

  ‘Everyone’ll know it was us.’

  Steph nodded.

  ‘We’ll be famous!’ Stanley said, excitedly.

  Steph looked reproachfully at her husband and back at her son. ‘What did we do, Stanley?’

  ‘What do you mean? You were there. You shot the bugger.’

  ‘What did we do, son?’ she repeated, unable to suppress the miserable tone in her voice.

  ‘Steph . . .’ Stan didn’t know why Steph was asking Stanley for an account of what happened. Not only had he clearly repeated it many times, it was about to become a matter of public record. His wife didn’t turn her head towards her husband, but continued to stare at their son in the farmhouse doorway.