A Wartime Nurse (31 page)
Authors: Maggie Hope
Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction
‘Tell me you love me?’ he commanded.
She shook her head. ‘I—’ she began, but Gene stopped her mouth with his and his brilliant blue eyes hazed over as he kissed her, forcing her lips apart, slipping the tip of his tongue into her mouth. Theda closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the feel of him. Where was the surge of feeling she should experience, the rapid pulse, the feel of her body responding to his lovemaking?
‘Theda,’ he murmured thickly, and put his hand on her breast. For a second there was a flicker of something but then all she could feel was a shrinking sensation for her breast was so tender she had to bite her lip to stop herself crying out.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said, pushing his hand away and sitting forward. She only just stopped herself from jumping up and running down the grassy bank to the path which led out of the deserted park to the market place, where there were people and she wouldn’t have to be alone with him. But she stopped herself, forced herself to sit back.
‘Why not?’ Gene bent over her again. He obviously thought she was just being conventional, protesting because she thought she ought to. He ran his hand down the length of her. ‘What’s the harm, Theda? I love you, I told you so. Don’t act so cold to me.’
‘No!’ Her cry was involuntary.
This time he dropped his hand and lay back against the stone wall. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Is it because I’m scarred?’ In a gesture that was becoming characteristic of him, he pulled his silk scarf up over the scar on his neck – a scar which in truth she no longer even saw.
‘No, don’t ever think that,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry, Gene. I have to talk to you, I haven’t been fair to you at all. I shouldn’t have done it . . .’
‘Done what? Oh, come on, Theda. You can’t have done anything which will make any difference to the way I feel about you.’
‘I’m pregnant.’
In the silence that followed the chattering of a family of sparrows nesting in the battlements of the deer house sounded loud in her ears. Gene’s arm remained around her shoulder. He sat very still. Along the path below them a man walked by followed by a labrador. It dawdled to sniff at something and the man whistled. The dog ran to him. Theda watched it as though in a daze.
Abruptly, Gene got to his feet and pulled her roughly after him.
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m expecting a baby.’
He still had hold of her arms. They were standing very close, almost touching. She lifted her head and looked properly at him. His blue eyes were very angry and a pulse was visible in his temple.
‘I’m sorry. I should have said from the beginning.’ It sounded lame, inadequate.
‘Yes, you damn well should!’
Gene dropped his arms and walked a few steps away, turned and came back. ‘Whose is it? I suppose he’s away in the war and you’ve been here, playing around to amuse yourself.’ He began walking up and down, striding out, his fists clenched. ‘Or is he dead?’ He turned to her. Tell me is he dead?’
‘No, he’s in Germany. At least, I think he’s all right, or alive at least. I haven’t heard from him since he went away. He doesn’t want me, Gene.’
‘So you thought you’d palm the kid off on me, did you? Is that why you agreed to go out with me?’
‘No!’
Had she thought she could do that? Bleakly, she wondered. He caught the guilt lurking in her eyes and came back to her, taking her by the shoulders and forcing her to him, lifting her so that her eyes were only inches from his.
‘You couldn’t do it in the end, could you? I suppose that’s something to be said for you.’ His eyes blazed with anger and she became alarmed.
‘Let me go, Gene,’ she said, trying to still the tremor in her voice.
‘Let you go? Why should I? Don’t you think I deserve something from you?’
His mouth came down on hers, hard and demanding. It was not at all like the kisses they had shared a moment or two ago. He wrapped his arms around her and held her in such a grip that the breath was driven out of her body, her lips were bruised, the pain in her back excruciating where his fingers were digging into the flesh.
Theda tried to fight. She kicked and struggled but it was no use. Her arms were pinioned to her sides and she felt herself losing consciousness so that she sagged against him. Somewhere close a dog barked. She heard it faintly.
‘Hey, are you all right, miss?’
The grip on her slackened. She gulped in air and her vision cleared. The man with the labrador was there, halfway up the bank. The dog was barking furiously and he shushed it in an aside.
‘We’re all right, mind your own business,’ growled Gene, and the man frowned.
‘I was asking the lass,’ he said. ‘You bloody foreigners—’
‘I’m all right, really I am. We . . . we were just having a bit of an argument. I’m OK really, thanks for asking,’ said Theda. She pulled back from Gene and took her handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Aye, well, you young lasses want to be careful who you get friendly with, that’s all. I mean, what do you know about these chaps? Where they come from?’
‘Mind your own business, I said.’ Gene stepped forward and the dog set himself and began to growl. Theda put herself between them, hurriedly.
‘No, really, thanks for bothering but I’m all right, I told you.’
‘Aye, you did. Well, I’ll be on my way.’ Whistling the dog to heel, he went back down to the path and walked on. He turned and looked back once, but must have decided that Theda was all right after all. Beside her, she could hear Gene breathing heavily, felt the anger emanating from him.
‘I’ll go now,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘I’m sorry, Gene, very sorry. Oh, I am. You’d best go back to Middleton and forget all about me.’ She set off, almost at a run.
She followed the man with the dog down to the path and out by the stile on to the broad gravelled drive which ran alongside the Bishop’s Palace. The day had turned overcast and a shower of icy rain began to fall, sending people scurrying for shop doorways. Theda carried on walking regardless, making for the hospital and her room in the nurses’ home. Her mind was a blank almost. She stared ahead unseeing, barging into people once or twice and murmuring an apology automatically.
Once back in the sanctuary of the home, she stripped and ran a hot bath and lay in it, soaking, until the water cooled. Then she climbed out and dried herself and went back to her room and bed without bothering about supper. She couldn’t have eaten it anyway.
She lay awake for most of the night, not thinking of anything in particular, just lying there. About five o’clock, just as grey light was beginning to lighten the room, she got out of bed and sluiced her hands and face in cold water and dressed. She only had another two days at the hospital and then had a couple of days off before she had to report to Sunderland. She finished most of her packing and then went for a walk down Newgate Street, where the only people about were the milkmen and the paper boys from Armstrong’s the newsagent.
She walked the streets for an hour, then returned to the hospital and went down to breakfast. Laura was there, eating a bowl of porridge with a dollop of golden syrup.
‘When’s the wedding, then?’ she asked, grinning.
‘What?’
‘Well, I saw Gene the other day and I could see he’s really fallen for you. I’m so pleased, Theda. Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about Sunderland?’
‘It’s all off, Gene and me,’ said Theda. She collected her bowl of porridge and added sugar and milk and began eating stolidly.
Laura put down her spoon and stared at her. ‘Come on, tell me all about it?’
‘Nothing to tell, really. He doesn’t want to marry me anyway. So I’m going to Sunderland. A girl has to think of her career.’
Laura was disbelieving. ‘There has to be more to it than that,’ she declared, and Theda sighed.
‘Well, yes, there is,’ she admitted, and paused for a moment. She needed to confide in someone. If she kept it to herself much longer she would go mad. ‘If I tell you, will you promise not to breathe a word to anyone?’
Five minutes later, they were the only two still sitting in the dining-room and perilously near to being late on duty. Laura was concerned, and for once she had forgotten all about the Children’s Ward.
‘But how are you going to manage?’ she asked. ‘How can you work and see to a baby? Don’t be so soft, Theda. You’re talking like a fool.’
‘No, I’m not. I’ll finish my first six months before the baby. Then, later, I can carry on. I’ve thought it all out. There’s loads of mother and baby homes about these days, I’ll have no trouble getting in one until I can find another place.’ The baby will be better off if it’s adopted by a couple, she thought. A couple who could give it a secure, loving home. But she did not say this to Laura. She would tell her, but not yet.
‘I still think you should tell your parents,’ her friend said firmly. ‘Anyroad, who is the father, or am I forbidden to ask?’
‘You can ask, but I’m not saying,’ said Theda. ‘Come on, now, back to the wards or you’ll be in trouble.’
‘There’s trouble and trouble,’ said Laura, rising to her feet. ‘Eeh, Theda, I don’t know what to say. But I can tell you this: if you need any help, you just have to let me know. If you’re determined to go ahead, that is.’
‘I am.’
Because they had sat so long in the dining-room, she didn’t have the time to call to see if there was any post in her pigeon hole that morning. So she didn’t know that there was a letter there from Germany. It was Major Koestler who found it. There was no one about so he had taken the opportunity to check over the post for anything interesting. And letters from Germany were always interesting. Sometimes they showed small insights into the progress of the war and how they were faring on the home front – news which was sought eagerly by the other prisoners.
The following Sunday, Theda travelled up to Sunderland. She went on the Northern bus from Bishop Auckland, jolting along slowly from small town to small town for the hour and a half it took to get there. The last two days had been fraught for her at home in West Row, pretending to be bright and happy and looking forward to her new career. And Bea had been so proud of her, telling everyone she met that Theda was going to be a midwife and maybe one day would be back as a district nurse ‘delivering all the babies in Winton’.
She had even told Tucker Cornish when he happened to meet them down by the pit gates, and he had looked puzzled.
‘Oh, but—’ he began, then stopped.
‘Was there something?’ asked Bea.
‘No . . . I wish you all the best, Miss Wearmouth,’ he replied, and Theda mumbled something, feeling hot as she remembered her humiliation the last time they had met.
There was a knock at the door on the Friday evening and as it happened Theda was in the kitchen on her own. The men were both on night shift and Bea was lying down with a headache. Standing there, when she opened the door, was Gene.
‘Are you going to let me in?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ said Theda, and led the way, indicating that he should sit in Da’s chair. She herself sat opposite him in Bea’s. She said nothing, simply waited for him to say what he had to say.
‘How are you?’ he asked, looking uncomfortable.
‘Fine, thank you,’ she answered, and waited while he cleared his throat.
‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he said at last. ‘I still want to marry you, no matter what you have done. Marry me, Theda, and I’ll be a good father to your child.’
‘No matter what I’ve done?’ she asked, and he flushed and she was sorry. He meant well, she knew. ‘I can’t, Gene, I’m sorry,’ she went on.
‘Think about it, Theda, please. We’ll have a good life, the three of us, you’ll see. I do love you.’
But it was no good, she knew that now. The baby was hers and hers alone; she would look after it herself somehow. She tried to let Gene down gently but in the end he went off in a bitter mood.
‘You’re nothing but a tease, Theda Wearmouth,’ he said. ‘No wonder he went off and left you. No doubt he found out what you were like in time. Well, this was your last chance. I wouldn’t have you now if you came begging on your knees.’
Sitting in the bus as it pulled out of Durham and set off on the Sunderland road, she sighed, remembering. But she had done the right thing, she knew she had. To marry Gene would have been to compound one mistake with another. She would get over this bad time, she would rise above it. And she would work hard, become better qualified, be a success. She didn’t need a man.
Part Two
1950
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘Richard! What on earth have you been up to?’ Theda propped her bicycle against the school railings and went forward to meet her son. He was trailing out of the gates on his own, his cap awry, his shirt – pale grey and spanking new when she sent him out to school that morning – spattered with mud and half out of his shorts. Blood trickled down from grazed knees to his grey socks and she could see where tears had trickled through the dirt on his face and dried on his cheeks.
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