A Nightingale Christmas Wish (28 page)

On the way back to the sisters’ home, she thought about calling in at the Porters’ Lodge to see if there were any messages for her, then decided against it. After nearly a month, she’d given up expecting to hear from John Campbell. And she had more pride than to go looking for him. He’d made it very clear that anything they might have had between them was over.

Frannie would have liked to see him again, though, just to ask him why it had happened. His sudden rejection had been all the more hurtful and shocking because it was so unexpected. One minute they were growing close, and the next – he was gone. Over the weeks since, Frannie had searched her mind for the reason, but couldn’t come up with anything that satisfied her.

At the sisters’ home a few of the windows glowed with light, but most were in darkness. The more elderly ward sisters tended to retire to bed early while the younger ones were still out, either together or with their admirers.

Frannie was letting herself into her own little flat when she heard a door open at the other end of the corridor, followed by shuffling footsteps.

‘Miss Wallace?’ It was supposed to be a whisper, but Veronica Hanley couldn’t manage anything quieter than a boom.

She loomed out of the darkness, her tall, square figure blocking out the light from the street lamp outside the window. She hadn’t earned the nickname ‘Manly Hanley’ for nothing.

‘Have you heard the news?’ she asked.

Frannie paused, her key in the door. ‘What news?’

‘They’re closing down the hospital.’

‘April Fool’s Day was three weeks ago, Miss Hanley!’ Frannie laughed. Then she saw the Assistant Matron’s earnest expression. ‘Are you serious? Where did you hear that?’

‘Miss Trott was telling us about it at supper. If war breaks out, we’ll be closing our doors and sending everyone home.’

‘Oh, well, that explains it. You know you can’t believe anything Miriam Trott says. She’s inclined to exaggerate.’

Frannie let herself into the flat and Miss Hanley followed her.

‘But it isn’t just Miss Trott. It’s all round the hospital,’ Veronica Hanley insisted. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.’

Frannie looked up into Veronica Hanley’s plain, square face, fringed with sensibly short grey hair. Miss Hanley didn’t usually allow herself to get upset over nothing.

‘There must be some mistake,’ Frannie told her. ‘Have you spoken to Matron about it?’

Miss Hanley looked uncomfortable. ‘I tried to talk to her after supper, but she said I would have to wait until tomorrow morning. To be honest with you, Miss Wallace, I find it very hard to talk to her about anything these days. She’s very – distracted.’

Frannie considered this. She hadn’t seen much of Kathleen recently, apart from her morning ward rounds. They were supposed to be going to a choral concert together the previous week, but Kathleen had cancelled at the last moment, saying she was too busy.

‘I wonder – do you think you could talk to her about this?’ Miss Hanley pleaded. ‘I know you’re a particular friend of hers, so I thought she might discuss it more freely with you.’

‘I’m not sure—’

‘Please, Miss Wallace? I don’t suppose the rumour is true, but it’s causing a great deal of consternation among the staff. It would help put all our minds at rest if you could find out for sure.’

‘Very well,’ she sighed, putting on her coat again. ‘I’ll go and talk to her now. But you do realise she’ll probably laugh at me for coming to her with such a ridiculous idea?’

Miss Hanley smiled nervously. ‘I hope so, Miss Wallace,’ she said.

But Kathleen Fox wasn’t laughing when she opened the door to her flat a short time later. She was wrapped in her dressing gown, her chestnut hair loose around her tired face. She looked as if she’d just woken up.

‘Frannie?’ she frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m sorry, were you in bed?’

‘No, but I was just about to have a bath. Come in.’ Kathleen stood aside to let her into the narrow hallway.

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you so late.’

‘It’s quite all right. What can I do for you?’

Standing there in front of her, Frannie suddenly felt very foolish. ‘It’s nothing, really. But I’ve been talking to Miss Hanley . . .’

Kathleen smiled wearily. ‘That sounds ominous!’

‘She’s heard a silly rumour that the hospital might be closing down.’ Frannie waited for Kathleen to laugh, but she just stared at her. ‘Apparently Miriam Trott has it on good authority from someone, who heard it from someone else – you know how these things go. Anyway, I’ve been sent to talk to you about it. I know it sounds utterly ridiculous but—’

‘It’s true,’ Kathleen said.

Frannie’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’

‘Nothing’s been decided yet, of course. But the Trustees have discussed certain – arrangements, in case of war,’ Kathleen confirmed.

Frannie stared at her. This woman wasn’t the Kathleen she knew and loved. There was no warmth in her voice at all. She sounded distant, strained.

‘You mean it? They’re going to shut this place down?’

‘I told you, nothing has been decided yet. It may well be that it turns out to be a lot of fuss over nothing.’

But Frannie wasn’t listening. ‘I can’t believe you’d ever agree to such an absurd notion,’ she said.

‘It’s nothing to do with me. It’s the Trustees’ decision.’

‘But you’re on the Board of Trustees. You could say something, speak up for us—’

Kathleen’s expression faltered for a moment. Then she said, ‘I don’t want to talk about this tonight. I’m too tired.’

She turned away and walked into the sitting room. Frannie followed her.

‘Kath, what’s happened to you? Why are you being like this? The most dreadful thing in the world is about to happen, and you don’t seem to care at all. What’s wrong?’

‘Who says it’s the most dreadful thing in the world?’ Kathleen’s voice rose. ‘It’s just a building, nothing more. Who really cares if it closes down, or if the Germans bomb it to the ground? Some of us have worse things to worry about—’

She stopped herself then, mouth closing like a trap. Frannie took a step closer to her.

‘Kath?’ she prompted gently. ‘Kathleen, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s wrong. What are you so worried about?’

Her friend turned round to face her, and Frannie gasped at the bleak despair in her eyes.

‘Oh, Fran, I think I’m dying,’ she whispered.

FRANNIE’S LEGS BUCKLED
beneath her and she sank down into the nearest armchair.

‘But I don’t understand . . . what . . .’ Her mind groped for the right words, lost in a fog of panic.

‘I’ve been ill for some time.’ Kathleen sounded surprisingly calm. ‘I’m in a great deal of pain.’ She laid her hand on her abdomen. ‘And over the past few months I’ve been bleeding . . . I tried to ignore it at first, but recently it’s got worse. It’s been going on for a few months now.’

‘A few months?’ Frannie stared at her friend, scrabbling around in her mind for an answer, some explanation that would make everything all right.

‘It might not be as serious as you think,’ she said bracingly. ‘Could it be the change? You’re about the right age for it, surely?’

Kathleen shook her head. ‘I thought of that. But the pain is so bad now, I can scarcely think with it. And then there’s this . . .’

She took Frannie’s hand and pressed it against her abdomen. Under the folds of her dressing gown, her belly was solid and swollen. It was all Frannie could do not to snatch her hand away in shock.

But Kathleen must have noticed her reaction, because she gave a sad little smile and said, ‘You see?’

Frannie withdrew her hand. ‘All the same, there are other explanations,’ she insisted. ‘You’re a nurse yourself, Kath. You know as well as I do that it doesn’t have to mean the worst—’

‘Fran, I know. I’ve been through all this before. My mother died of carcinoma of the uterus when I was fifteen. I helped nurse her, so I saw what she went through. It’s exactly what I’m going through now.’ She wrapped her arms around herself in a gesture of self-protection. ‘It happened to her mother, too. The family curse, she always called it. I suppose I’ve just been waiting for it to happen to me.’

‘Then you must see a doctor,’ Frannie said, immediately practical.

‘No.’

‘You don’t have to go down to the Sick Bay with the other nurses. If you ring up Mr Cooper, I’m sure he’d—’

‘I don’t want to see a doctor, Fran.’

Frannie stared at her, bewildered. ‘Why not? You can’t go on suffering like this, Kathleen. You need to get it sorted out. I would have thought you’d know that, with your history.’

‘That’s just it. It’s because of my history that I know it’s already too late.’ Her voice was flat.

‘You don’t know that,’ Frannie insisted in her briskest voice, the one she used for chivvying depressed patients. ‘Just because your mother couldn’t be treated, that doesn’t mean you can’t be.’

‘My mother was treated,’ Kathleen said. ‘I watched her for three years, undergoing all kinds of treatments, getting weaker and weaker, struggling and hanging on to life. She knew nothing could be done, and so did the doctors. But she did it for us, for my father and brothers and me, because she didn’t want to leave us.’ She swallowed hard, her throat moving convulsively. ‘I know what she went through,’ she whispered. ‘I used to listen to her crying when she thought none of us could hear. All the treatment did was prolong her suffering. Why should I put myself through all that pain and humiliation?’

Because it would mean you still had a chance! Frannie cried out silently. If it were her, she was sure she would grab every chance she could, cling to every last shred of hope. And yet Kathleen seemed so resigned, as if she’d already surrendered to her fate.

‘You won’t know for sure until you see the doctor,’ Frannie insisted stubbornly.

‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ A spark flared in Kathleen’s grey eyes. ‘So many times I’ve picked up the telephone to the Sick Bay. I even tried to talk to Dr McKay once after a Trustees’ meeting.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

‘Because I’m scared!’

Frannie stared at her, unnerved. This wasn’t the calm, wise Kathleen Fox she had always known. The energetic young Matron, always so full of practical good sense, had been replaced by a terrified middle-aged woman with a pale, drawn face and bitten-down nails.

‘But you don’t have to be,’ Frannie soothed her. ‘It might not be as bad as you think, Kath.’ Her mind still clung to hope, even if Kathleen’s didn’t. ‘I’ll come with you, if you like?’

Kathleen shook her head. ‘I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Fran, I know you think I’m being silly, but I can’t sit there and listen to him saying it.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? I must have delivered that news to patients’ families a hundred times over the years. And yet I can’t bear to hear it myself.’

‘That’s probably why,’ Frannie said. Before she’d gone into orthopaedics, she’d worked on a medical ward. She could remember every single time she’d had to comfort a heartbroken husband or wife.

But even while she sympathised with Kathleen, she still couldn’t understand why her friend wouldn’t want to grab at any shred of hope that was offered to her.

‘I can’t understand why you’d rather not know,’ she said.

‘I realise it makes no sense to you, but it’s the way I feel. If I’m right and there is – no hope,’ Kathleen’s voice faltered over the words, ‘then I’d rather accept my fate than have to undergo treatment that won’t achieve anything.’

‘So you’d rather live with no hope at all?’

‘If that’s the way it is – yes.’

Frannie looked at her friend’s calm, martyred face and anger flared inside her. It wasn’t Frannie’s way just to accept things, and she didn’t think it was Kathleen’s way either. Frannie had always thought her friend was a fighter, just like her. But now, faced with the biggest fight of her life, Kathleen had let her down.

‘This isn’t like you, Kath,’ she said. ‘The woman I know wouldn’t be such a coward.’

‘A coward? Is that what you think I am?’ Kathleen turned on her angrily. ‘Do you know what it takes for me to get up every morning and face the world? All I want to do is to run away and hide. But I don’t. I put on that uniform and do my ward rounds. I settle the petty disputes between the sisters and reprimand the students for breaking thermometers, and I listen to everyone else telling me their problems when all the time I just want to scream inside . . .’

She put her hands over her face, as if to shut it all out. At once, Frannie’s frustration disappeared and she rushed to comfort her. Kathleen was supposed to be her best friend. How could she not have noticed her suffering so much?

‘Oh, Kath, I’m so sorry,’ she said, gathering her into her arms and stroking her hair, calming her as if she were a child. ‘But you’re not alone any more. I’m here now. I’ll help you.’

In the back of her mind, she still planned to tell the doctors. If Kathleen wouldn’t fight this, then Frannie would fight it for her.

But as if Kathleen could read her thoughts, she pulled away and said, ‘Promise me you won’t tell anyone about this?’

‘I—’ Frannie tried to lie, but the words wouldn’t come out. ‘I can’t watch you go through this and not do anything to help you,’ she said. ‘You’re my friend, Kath. I – I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘If you’re really my friend, then you’ll do as I ask.’ Kathleen faced her resolutely. Her grey eyes were shadowy hollows, rimmed with red. ‘Promise me,’ she insisted. ‘Promise me you won’t say a word to anyone about this?’

Frannie stared at her helplessly. It wasn’t in her nature to sit back and do nothing. But it wasn’t in her nature to betray a friend either.

‘I promise,’ she said.

‘
HOW DO I
look?’

Effie did a quick pirouette at the foot of her friend Jess Jago’s bed, to show off her new dress.

Jess looked up from the book she was reading and surveyed her through narrowed eyes.

‘Like a dog’s dinner,’ she said finally.

Effie pulled a face. ‘I don’t know why I asked you.’

‘You look lovely,’ Devora Kowalski said. She sat cross-legged on her bed, darning some black woollen stockings.