Across the Mersey

by Annie Groves

They were over six months into the war now and Hitler hadn’t invaded. Optimists were beginning to say that the BEF would soon rout the Germans if they dared try marching into France, and some were even saying that it would all be over by summer and the men would be home. Grace didn’t feel like being optimistic, though, as she got off the bus outside the hospital, not when she was still upset about what had happened with Teddy earlier in the day.

  She had almost reached the entrance when she heard him calling her name, and was half minded to pretend that she hadn’t, but she wasn’t really the sort that could ignore a person just because they had caused her to be upset, so she stopped walking, turned round, and was rewarded with a relieved smile from Teddy as he caught up with her.

  ‘I’ve been looking out for you all afternoon, and then I nearly went and missed you.’

  Grace said nothing. After all, it wasn’t her fault that they had spent the day apart.

  As though he knew what she was thinking, Teddy said quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Grace, about … about what happened earlier. That’s why I’ve bin waiting for you, so that I could explain.’

  ‘I’ll have to be in the nurses’ home in half an hour otherwise I’ll miss supper.’

  He needn’t think she was going to go and act all soft as if he could treat her any way he liked, because he couldn’t. He might not be in love with her, but she wasn’t in love with him if what Francine had said to her was true. He had hurt her, though.

  ‘I’ll buy you a bag of chips to make up for it.’ He was teasing her, trying to lighten the mood between them, Grace knew. It wasn’t in her nature to sulk or be difficult and so she exhaled shakily and said, ‘I was upset by what you did, Teddy, and I can’t pretend that I wasn’t, but since you’ve said you want to explain—’

  ‘I do.’ He reached for her hand. ‘Come on, we can go and sit in the ambulance so that we can talk properly.’

  ‘What if you’re called out?’

  ‘I’m not on duty, but if we was to be, then the lucky so-and-sos will have a nurse to look after them, as well as an ambulance, won’t they? Come on …’

  That was typical of Teddy. He always had an answer to everything, Grace acknowledged, as they walked towards the ambulance.

  ‘So what was it you want to say?’ Grace demanded once they were inside.

  Instead of answering her immediately, Teddy offered her a cigarette, lighting one for himself when she shook her head.

  ‘You know you was asking me earlier about you and me, and how I hadn’t said anything about us going steady or you being my girl?’

  Grace nodded.

  ‘Well, the thing is, Grace …’ he took a deep drag on his cigarette, and then exhaled, ‘it wouldn’t be fair to you if I was to do that, and … and it’s for your own sake that I’ve not said anything.’

  ‘You mean that you don’t want to go steady with me?’ said Grace. She could feel tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Everyone knew that when a lad didn’t really want you he made out that he was holding himself back for your sake.

  She heard Teddy curse suddenly and then he put out his cigarette and reached for her hands, holding them tightly.

  ‘No! Of course I want to go steady with you, but I can’t, Grace. Like I just said, it wouldn’t be fair or right. You see the thing is …’ he took a deep breath, ‘well, you know that thing I told you about when we first met, about how I wasn’t medically fit for the services, on account of me having had rheumatic fever when I was a kiddie?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Well, after I’d had me medical they sent for me, and seemingly, this rheumatic fever wot I’d had has left me heart a bit dicky.’

  Grace felt her own heart give a sudden flurry of anxious thuds.

  Teddy was still holding her hands but he wasn’t looking at her, and Grace remembered how badly the cold weather had affected him and how he’d struggled to walk and breathe in the cold. She’d thought nothing of it at the time, but now …

  ‘The medics wanted me to wrap meself up in cotton wool and lie in bed for the rest of me life ’cos they’ve said that me heart won’t stand me doing too much. But I can’t do that, Grace. That’s no kind of life for a grown man. In fact it’s not living at all and I might as well be dead. It’s like I’ve told them, I’d rather have a few months of proper life than years of lying in me bed watching others get on with their lives around me.’

  ‘A few months of life?’

  Grace wasn’t aware that she had spoken the shocked words aloud until she realised that Teddy was now looking at her. In his eyes she could see confirmation of what he had said, along with his fear and his pride.

  She wanted to reach out to him and hold him as tenderly as she might have done a child. She wanted to comfort him and tell him that everything would be all right and he would be well, but she knew that she could not do those things.

  ‘That’s why I haven’t said anything to you about you and me. No matter what I might feel about you, Grace, it would be wrong of me to let you fall in love with me, knowing that I’m not likely to be around for very long. When I do go I don’t want you getting yourself upset and grieving, and thinking that you’ve got to mourn me on account of us being an item when you should be out enjoying yourself and falling in love with a chap who’s got his health and strength, and who can give you the future that I can’t.’

  She must not cry. She must not, not when Teddy was being so brave and so decent. Why hadn’t she thought of something like this for herself? She had seen how he sometimes struggled to walk and breathe. She knew from her lectures that there was a connection between childhood rheumatic fever and heart weakness.

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you any of this because … well, I just wanted to live like any other chap would and … and I didn’t want to go burdening you with all of this or have you pitying me. But when you said what you did today, I knew that I wasn’t being fair to you, not being straight with you, and that I’d have to say summat. I couldn’t have you thinking that I don’t care about you, Grace, or that I wouldn’t ask you to be my girl like a shot if I could and I thought it would be right. You’re all the girl I could ever want, and if things were different …’

  He was making it all sound so cut and dried. So final and unavoidable.

  ‘You shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, Teddy, not with a bad heart. You should be resting.’

  ‘No! I’m sorry,’ he apologised when he saw how upset she was. ‘It’s just … well, I can do all the resting I want when I’m dead, can’t I? I want to live my life, Grace, even if that means I won’t have as much time to live it in. I don’t want to look at life through me bedroom window, I want to feel it. I want to be part of it. That’s why I volunteered for this lot. I want to feel I’m part of what’s happening and at least wi’ me doing the driving I’m not overdoing things. They weren’t going to take me on at first – the doctor who examined me was dead against it – but in the end I managed to talk him round.’

  Grace just did not know what to say. His revelations were so very different from anything she might have expected, and so much more painful. She’d been acting like a silly girl fretting over a lad not wanting to kiss her, when all the time poor Teddy was facing what he was. A huge wave of emotion rolled over her and sucked her down into its undertow. She looked at Teddy, wanting to tell him how much she wished things were different. She tried imagining how she would feel if she was in his shoes, but couldn’t. It frightened her to think what it must be like and how much he must want to live as she would herself. Love for him filled her. Not so much a woman’s love for a man, as a human love for another human that was truly caring and giving.

  He was still holding her hands. She lifted one of his to her face and placed her cheek against it. It felt so cold.

  ‘I am your girl, Teddy, whether you want me to be or not.’

  Suddenly he was holding her and kissing her, not as she had imagined but just like they did in the films, his mouth hard against her own, his
heart thudding into her chest. Too hard? That fear came between her and his kiss, her anxiety for him making her ache to be able to protect him and keep him safe.

  It was hard to go on the ward and act as though everything was normal after what Teddy had told her, but Grace knew that she must. He had made up his mind, Teddy had said, that he intended to live as though there was nothing wrong with him, and Grace knew that he had meant that.

  It made her heart ache to know that he had wanted them only to be friends because he had wanted to protect her, and it had made it ache even more when he had admitted to her that he could very easily fall in love with her, and that she was not to fall in love with him.

  ‘I mean what I said,’ he had insisted. ‘If it does happen and I go, then I don’t want you spoiling the rest of your life thinking that you owe it to me not to fall in love with anyone else. And don’t try telling me that you aren’t that sort,’ cos I know you too well.’

  ‘But if they could do something for your heart …’ Grace had protested.

  ‘They can’t,’ he had answered her. ‘The doc has already told me that. He can’t say either how long I’ve got, only that it will be longer if I rest up all the time and, like I said, I’m not doing that.’

  She had desperately wanted to beg him to be careful but she had known that she mustn’t and that that was not what he wanted. What he wanted was to be treated like a man and not an invalid, and Grace wasn’t sure if she had the womanly strength to do that.

  Since it was her first night back on nights, she knew from past experience that she would be struggling to stay awake by the time it got to three and four in the morning. It got easier after the first few nights, of course.

  The now familiar routine of the ward absorbed her, demanding her physical and mental attention. Visiting time came and went; lockers had to be cleaned and water glasses refilled, bottles had to be taken round, charts had to be written up and Night Sister herself had to be accompanied on her ward round, and then finally at last it was time for Grace to take her tea break.

  The dining room was always quieter on nights, even though the same number of nurses were there as were on days. No one wanted to say much and when they did, voices were lower. Somehow nights were like that.

  Back on the ward it was time for the patients’ medication.

  Her first patient was Harry, and Grace frowned as she checked his chart.

  ‘It says half a gram of morphia, Staff.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Staff Nurse Reid confirmed. ‘Dr Lewis has increased his dosage. He’s in a lot of pain, poor boy, and it doesn’t look as though his amputation wounds are healing as well as they might.’

  Grace knew what that meant, even if the putrid smell of his wounds whenever they changed his bandages had not told her. Slowly, inch by inch, Harry was dying, killed by his own flesh as it rotted away, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop that, no matter how devotedly they nursed him.

  He was only semiconscious when she gave him his morphine injection, his flesh burning hot to the touch and his temperature up over 103.

  Another bottle round, the last one before lights out. Sister didn’t look up from her dimly lit desk where she was writing up reports as Grace went past on her way to the sluice room, to do the necessary urine tests. By the time she came out again all the patients were asleep and several were snoring.

  She had to take Harry’s temperature again. When she went in he was rambling feverishly and still only semiconscious. His temperature was now nearly 104.

  As though somehow he had sensed her presence suddenly, he opened his eyes and cried out quite clearly, in a boy’s voice, ‘Mam, Mam. Please make the pain go away. I can’t bear it, Mam, it hurts so much,’ before lapsing back into unconsciousness.

  Tears stung Grace’s eyes. Hurriedly she wiped them away and went in search of Staff Nurse Reid, who was down at the end of the ward.

  ‘It’s Harry, Staff,’ said Grace. ‘His temperature’s up at 104.’ She hesitated and then added, ‘He thought I was his mother.’

  Staff Nurse Reid, who had been writing up a chart whilst she listened, suddenly stopped writing and looked at her.

  ‘What did he say?’ she asked.

  ‘He said, “Mam, Mam. Please make the pain go away.”’

  Staff had the chart replaced and was on her way towards Sister.

  ‘Campion, go down to the desk and ask one of the porters to send up the chaplain. Tell them we need him quickly.’ When Grace’s eyes rounded, she explained quietly, ‘Most patients, but especially the men, call out for their mothers when they are near the end. Quickly now, but remember, no running.’

  The porter was sympathetic and understanding. ‘Yer first death, is it, love? Well, never mind, you’ll get used to it. You get back to yer ward. I’ll tell the chaplain and make sure he gets there.’

  It was all over so quickly Grace could hardly take it in. She had only been back on the ward a matter of seconds when the chaplain arrived and was ushered into Harry’s room by Sister.

  Staff had instructed Grace to refill all the water glasses even though most of them didn’t need it, and Grace suspected she was just trying to keep her occupied and her mind off what was happening in the side ward.

  She hadn’t even reached the end of the ward when the chaplain emerged, accompanied by Sister.

  ‘Gone has he, then, young Harry?’

  Grace nearly dropped the water jug. She hadn’t even realised the patient who had just addressed her was awake, never mind aware of what was happening.

  ‘You should be asleep, Mr Whitehead,’ she told him, imitating Staff’s firm voice. ‘And if Sister catches you talking we’ll both be for it.’

  ‘Poor lad, but I reckon he’ll be better off where he’s gone now. Had a bad time, he has, and we all reckoned he wasn’t going to pull through.’

  ‘When you’ve finished filling those glasses, Campion, Sister wants a word with you.’

  Grace nodded, dutifully going over to the table.

  ‘Staff is going to lay out the patient’s body now, Campion,’ Sister told her. ‘You will assist her with this.’ Grace felt sick. And afraid. She had never seen a dead body, never mind touched one, but Staff was waiting for her and she knew she couldn’t disgrace herself by giving way to her feelings.

  ‘You’ve already been taught how important it is to respect a patient’s dignity, Nurse. Well, that respect is just as important now.’

  As she spoke Staff was carefully folding back part of the sheet, preparatory to washing Harry’s body, taking the same care not to expose more of him than needed to be exposed as she would have done were he still alive.

  The smell from his flesh was appalling, especially once they had removed the bandages, but Staff worked as calmly as though it wasn’t there. Grace’s hands trembled as she helped her to re-bandage his poor stumps with their blackened flesh, but for the most part, Staff Nurse Reid simply instructed her to watch whilst she worked busily but carefully.

  All Grace could think of was that one day soon this might be Teddy … that one day soon Teddy might be dead and his body the one that received this final service. Teddy, who had told her she must not love him but who she knew now did love her. How would she be feeling now if she had fallen in love with him? Guilt filled her because she wasn’t; because what she felt for him was the love of a friend and not a woman’s love of a lifetime.

  She must concentrate on what was happening here in this room and not think about Teddy.

  Already Harry’s face was relaxing out of pain and into peace, his features softening and becoming slightly waxen and not quite real somehow. She mustn’t think about death; she must watch Staff carefully instead, and remember everything she was showing her.

  Harry’s fingernails had to be pared and his hands washed, his hair combed and then those things done for him that were part of the laying-out process: the packing of mouth, nostrils and rectum, and the tying up the jaw with a chin strap.

 
; Only when it was time to cover Harry’s body with its shroud did Staff summon Grace to assist her.

  Grace was trembling so much she felt sure she would be sent off duty in disgrace, but all Staff said to her was a quiet, ‘Brace up, Campion. You’re doing very well. Don’t let the side down now.’

  Harry’s body was covered with a sheet and then it was time to summon a porter to wheel him down to the mortuary, his journey there accompanied by a nurse. Grace had feared that she might be sent but as though she sensed what she was feeling, Staff summoned one of the other junior nurses instead.

  Death. Grace had never really thought about it in any great detail, not really. Nursing was about helping people to get better, after all, but today she had been confronted with the reality of death and its harshness, not once but twice.

  It was four o’ clock in the morning. Nearly two hours since Harry had passed away. Grace remembered that she had heard other nurses calling two a.m. the death hour. She started to tremble sviolently that her teeth were chattering together. All she could do was take refuge in the sluice, but once there Grace found that she couldn’t cry. What she was feeling was too raw and went too deep for the release of tears.

  SIXTEEN

  Alan hadn’t left her any housekeeping, and not for the first time either. Well, it just wasn’t good enough, Bella fumed, and she was going to go to his father’s office now and tell him so. That would show him.

  She was sick of this wretched rationing already. How was anyone supposed to manage without a decent amount of butter? Alan put more on his breakfast toast every day than they were supposed to manage on for a full week. Everyone knew that there was a black market where you could buy as much butter as you wanted provided you were prepared to pay for it, and if Alan wanted butter on his toast then he was the one who was going to have to find the money.

  Alan’s father’s business premises were in the centre of the town. The bus stop was at the bottom of the street, but the bus had lumbered to a halt right outside the office because of some commotion in the street. From where she was seated on the top deck – where she had had to go because it was full – Bella could see right in through the window of the Parkers’ office. She could see that stupid Trixie seated at her desk, in front of a typewriter. She could see too Alan coming into the office, closing the door behind him.