A Christmas Promise

‘He was the first man who ever spoke to me like a friend; he helped me settle in when I went to work on the underground … He was my guide and I was obliged to him, but you can’t build a life together on gratitude … And his mother!’ Agnes’s eyes widened, and Olive found her expression vaguely comical, but she did not even smile as Agnes continued earnestly.

‘I was constantly aware that any moment London would be attacked from the air and she could be dead, injured or incapacitated, and I know now that I only cared for Ted’s sake.’

‘Well, you weren’t engaged to his mother; you didn’t have to love her, Agnes—’ Olive began, but Agnes continued as if it was the most important thing in the world to get it all off her chest while she had the courage to do so.

‘No, but if Ted had lived and had put a ring on my finger, I know his mother would never have allowed him to leave their flat.’ Agnes was pleating the burgundy chenille tablecloth between fingers and thumb as she spoke. ‘And she would have expected him to tip up his wages to her. We would never have been able to save for a place of our own – even if there were any to spare – and I realise now that Ted would never have gone to live on the farm. His mother would have had a canary if he’d suggested leaving London!’

‘How could she stop a grown man from doing as he pleased?’ asked Olive, even though she was sure she knew the answer.

‘You know as well as I do how wily she is, Olive. Mrs Jackson would make herself ill – or even one of the girls – she would have done anything to keep Ted at home, and he would have felt it was his duty, he was so trusting; his mother could do no wrong.’

Although Olive didn’t say so, she couldn’t see Ted ever marrying Agnes. He wasn’t the marrying kind, as far as Olive could see – he liked the best of both worlds, did Ted: his mother’s home comforts and Agnes’s unfailing admiration. No, he wasn’t the marrying kind at all.

‘I must admit, Agnes, I did wonder, if you had managed to persuade him to go to the farm whether his mother would have soon followed you both.’

‘She never would,’ Agnes replied, certain. ‘She is London born and bred and so is her family.’

‘I’m not so sure, Agnes. When the chips are down, as they say …’

‘Well, we’ll never know now, will we?’ Agnes knew she could talk about anything with Olive. The landlady gave sensible advice without pity, knowing there were plenty of girls who had lost their sweethearts in this war and who found a way to cope. And so must she.

‘I wonder what life would be like in the countryside.’

‘A lot of hard work, I should imagine,’ Olive answered, ‘but a lot of satisfaction too, knowing that you are helping your country to win the war by filling the stomachs of your own people.’

As Agnes’s mind began to wander a balmy September breeze gently wafted through the open window and whispered through her hair. It would be wonderful to get away from the soot-covered bombed-out buildings and inhale the scent of newly cut grass and clean fresh air, she thought, instead of taking in the acrid smell of charred destruction that London had become.

Yet, there was still an element of doubt. Agnes couldn’t imagine leaving Olive, who was more like a mother to her than anyone she had ever known before; the kind of woman Agnes imagined her own mother would have been: kind, considerate and, above all, a rock of common sense.

‘Penny for them?’ Olive asked as she scraped back her chair and picked up the empty cups.

‘I was just thinking that if anybody would give me the best advice it is you,’ Agnes smiled.

‘You only have to pluck up that courage I know you have and to ask, Agnes.’

‘Yes …’ Agnes said, more certain now than ever that Olive was the type of competent woman who deserved to wear the uniform of the Women’s Voluntary Service.

With their motto ‘Never say no’, the WVS ran the mobile canteens in bombed-out areas; delivered water in tankers where the water supply had been damaged; gathered circles of women into the church hall to knit socks for servicemen; collected and distributed clothing and household items to those who had lost everything to bomb damage – as well as helping to organise the housing of evacuees. Olive was the one woman who knew exactly what Agnes was talking about.

So, thought Agnes, why had it been so difficult to tell her landlady that the time had finally come for her to move on? The reason was because, in her heart, Agnes knew she didn’t want to leave Article Row without Olive.

However, Agnes needed to find out about her parents, about the life she should have had. Although she had been treated kindly at the orphanage it wasn’t her home; and even though Olive had made her feel comfortable and part of her own family, neither was number 13. They were places she had been obliged to inhabit because she had nowhere else to go. Although, maybe she would leave it a little longer before telling Olive that she was leaving to go to live on the farm …

If she was honest, Sally knew Callum’s sister, Morag, would once have been the first person she would have gone to when her mind was uneasy. But having been so angry with her over these last few years, she now realised she hadn’t even grieved for the loss of their friendship. And while she had not mourned the passing, there was a void inside Sally that could not be filled. The knowledge, coming out of the blue when she saw Callum again, made her realise that Morag and her father had given her the most precious gift after they were killed: her beautiful half-sister, Alice. But now was not the time for such thoughts. Now was a time to work …

Later that morning, Sally was making sure that the junior nurses were carrying out their obligations to the best of their abilities, and not slacking in their endeavours to keep the patients comfortable. She headed to the sluice room to check that all was in order before doctors’ rounds, where she saw two young trainee nurses from the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, or, as it was more popularly known, the QAs, who replaced the qualified nurses that had once staffed the wards and were now spread around other hospitals or had even been snapped up by the armed forces.

These two, Sally noticed as she stood in the doorway undetected, were dressed in a pale blue uniform to show their position in the hospital hierarchy – or lower-archy, as she and Morag used to complain when they were hard-working probationers. Obviously unaware of her presence, the two probationers worked and chatted while busily emptying the metal bedpans, then placing them into a specially made sterilising machine and securing the drop-down lid before preparing the glass urinals for further use.

Sally smiled as they giggled their way through their duties, and she knew that they would invite a severe dressing-down if caught by any other senior member of staff, Matron especially. All the younger nurses were terrified of Matron, even though she was an absolute angel in Sally’s estimation.

But she couldn’t see the harm in a little bit of banter if they were competently carrying out their duties; she had soon discovered better results were achieved when the young trainees were given an inch, and offered good, down-to-earth advice, rather than having the life terrified out of them, although the latter seemed to work for Matron.

However, Sally knew the probationers worked well for her, and she seldom had to reprimand the juniors. Also, she recognised that if the two probationers realised she was standing in the doorway they would not be very happy at being listened in to, and probably would be all fingers, thumbs and bumbling apologies.

Sally wondered when, exactly, she had become such an object of maturity and even apprehension. She wouldn’t go so far as to terrify the life out of the probationer nurses, like Matron – or demand respect, like the doctors – and she was firm but fair. The young nurses did give her respect and, in turn, she gave it back where it was due.

Her thoughts drifted now to her own training days when she and Morag whispered and gossiped in the sluice room and shared their secret desires of the latest handsome doctor because there was always at least one whom all the nurses fell for; like these eighteen-year-olds trainees were drooling over a doctor now, and wondering who between the two of them would be the first to snare the potential high-flying consultant and live happy ever after.

‘I’ve heard Dr Parsley is going to be the best heart surgeon in England,’ one of the young nurses gasped, her hands covering the place where her heart was probably beating fifteen to the dozen, thought Sally.

‘One of the junior nurses has seen him – he’s as handsome as debonair David Niven, they say. I can’t wait to meet him.’

Oh, she did miss Morag, Sally suddenly thought. She missed being carefree and young, linking arms and swapping stories they could never tell anybody else, of sharing hopes and dreams without fear of being teased for being immature – because even now she still had fleeting moments of doubt in her abilities, and Morag would have been the perfect person with whom she could share those moments. Sally knew now that she would never have a friend like Morag ever again. She missed their heart-to-heart chats but most of all she missed having Morag as the best and kindest friend she had ever known … It would have been nice to share her thoughts, maybe to go out dancing instead of being old before her time. Sally almost laughed out loud; since when did she have time to go dancing these days? All she seemed to do was work, sleep and, more rarely, enjoy the company of her young half-sister, Alice – Morag’s daughter.

If she was being honest now, Sally thought, she was beginning to understand how her father and Morag were drawn to each other. Morag had been so wonderful – the best of good friends, taking over the most intimate nursing of her mother as though she had been her own, when Sally needed to leave her mother’s bedside to give way to her tears.

Morag, with her gentle nature, wonderful sense of humour and, most of all, her compassion; so like her own mother – if Sally were truthful, even if only to herself, there was a part of her that was glad Morag took care of her mother when she was unable to do so, for, there was nobody else she would have trusted to do it.

It was so easy now to see how her father would have been instantly beguiled by her friend, and Sally realised now that she wasn’t betraying her mother’s memory by thinking this way. Her father had found comfort in Morag’s company and that comfort had eventually led to love – for both of them. With hindsight, Sally could see it now. Life was too short and too precious to live with regret.

Her father was not the kind of man who could have his head turned by any young flibbertigibbet who came his way – he truly loved her mother, of that Sally had no doubt – but neither was he the kind of man who was strong enough to live alone or wallow in grief. He celebrated her mother’s life in everything he did. Morag had been his strength when Sally had been so defeated by grief and absolutely useless, emotionally and substantially, to her father. So who better to fill her mother’s shoes and – yes – her bed? Sally knew that, at the time, she would have thought nobody was good enough to take her mother’s place – absolutely nobody.

Yet, thinking of it now, she knew that Morag would never have had any intentions of becoming a substitute for her own mother. The thought of it still brought on a small shudder of distress, but now she had to put the feeling to one side, because she had to move on, for Alice’s sake as well as for her own wellbeing. Harbouring such toxic thoughts as she had done in the past was not healthy. It had been wrong to foster bitterness and a single-minded refusal to see anybody’s point of view, except her own.

‘Ah, Sister, there you are.’

Sally turned suddenly to see a young, floppy-haired doctor approaching, wearing what looked like a brand-new stethoscope and a wide grin, his white coat-tails flying as he walked.

Sally’s freshly starched apron rustled as she turned to see the object of the young nurses’ affection. One of the trainees gaped in the doctor’s direction and said quickly, her face taking on a pink tinge as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t, ‘I’m sorry, Sister, I didn’t see you standing there. Did you want us for something?’

‘No, Nurse,’ Sally said in her usual calm manner. ‘You carry on.’

‘Carry on, Nurse, you are doing a sterling job,’ Dr Parsley said enthusiastically, undermining Sally’s authority, for which she gave him a withering look. This was the young doctor who, according to the probationers, was a bit of a lady’s man and, according to Matron, was a pain in the rear.

‘How lovely to meet you, Sister,’ Dr Parsley said, holding his hand in front of him, which Sally pointedly ignored. ‘And may I say how beautiful you look in that disapproving grimace.’

‘Indeed.’ Sally’s nonplussed demeanour was fully witnessed by the probationers, whom, she suspected, Dr Alex Parsley was trying to impress. ‘This way,’ Sally said, walking into the sluice room. ‘Nurse, show Dr Parsley where he can put his preposterous observations.’ Sally knew that once they took their Hippocratic oath these newly qualified doctors left their common sense at the door.

‘Oh, Sister, would you be a pet and see if there are any rooms to let hereabouts?’

‘Did your last slave die of exhaustion, Dr Parsley?’ Sally asked with an air of disdain as she left the young doctor in the care of the salivating nurses. She had no intention whatsoever of finding the young upstart a room.

Sally knew what she had to do. She had left making the journey far too long, and the time had come to visit her home city. Her mind was made up. The only problem was she wanted to go right now, but she wouldn’t be able to have leave until well after Christmas, maybe even after spring.

‘Ah, Sister, so glad to have caught up with you,’ said one of the older and much more experienced doctors. ‘There is a gentleman in bed five who has been asking for you in his sleep – his name is—’

‘I know who it is, thank you, Doctor.’ Sally could feel the hot colour rise to her throat and cheeks; Callum was calling her name in his sleep.