A Wartime Nurse (33 page)
Authors: Maggie Hope
Tags: #Nurses, #World War; 1939-1945, #Sagas, #War & Military, #Fiction
She had gone to Darlington to see her younger daughter and found her hugely pregnant. ‘By, daughters can break your heart,’ Theda had heard her saying to Matt.
‘What’s the matter with you, woman? Our Clara’s respectably married,’ he had replied impatiently, but Bea had shaken her head and pressed her lips tightly together to stop herself from crying.
He had muttered something incoherent and gone upstairs to bed, out of the way of foolish women.
Theda wasn’t going to shame her mother a second time, that was something else she had determined, though it was hard in a strange town with no one to talk to except occasionally Nurse Jenkins, her one confidante. Laura Jenkins had come through to see her twice on her days off but then she had gone away to train for her SRN in Cardiff, where her husband had come from.
Richard had been born on the first day of October when the leaves on the sycamore tree outside the delivery room had turned to copper and already some had fallen to the ground, presaging a long winter, the midwife had said cheerfully.
‘We’ll bind up your breasts to discourage the flow of milk,’ she had added. ‘In a few minutes, I’ll be back. I’ll taken baby along to the nursery first.’
‘I haven’t seen him yet,’ protested Theda. All she had seen was the piece of cotton sheeting in which he was wrapped, covered by a threadbare blanket.
‘Best you don’t,’ said the midwife calmly laying the baby in a cot and wheeling him to the door.
‘Bring him back here!’ shouted Theda, sitting up in bed, the after-birth tiredness dropping from her. She was ready to leap out of bed and seize the baby and keep him safe from all comers.
‘It’s for the best, Theda, really it is.’ The midwife sounded as though she had been through this argument thousands of times before, which she probably had.
‘Bring him here,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I haven’t signed any papers yet, remember. And I probably won’t. How do I know what sort of life he’ll have with strangers?’
The midwife brought Matron and the doctor but Theda had made up her mind yet again and they brought her the tiny human being and she held him to her breast, and after that nothing they could say could make her give him up.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time that had happened, so they were used to it. And in the mother and baby home they were allowed to stay for three months while the authorities tried to teach the girls how to look after the babies on their own and helped them get work afterwards. With Theda that wasn’t necessary. She told them plainly she could manage.
It was Joss who found out where she was and what had happened to her. One day Theda had an interview for a job at a small cottage hospital for a Staff Nurse’s post. It was only until she got herself organised, she told herself. As soon as she had a little more money saved and could afford to pay for live-in help, she would take her second-part midwifery and be once more on her way up.
‘Are you sure you can do it, Miss Wearmouth?’ asked Matron, sounding very dubious. The woman peered at her over the application form and the references she had from Bishop Auckland and the Infirmary. Anyone would think that having a baby had made her half-witted, thought Theda. She felt like saying she could do the job standing on her head, having a baby had not made her lose her wits altogether.
‘Of course, Matron.’
‘Hmm. I can’t have a member of my staff taking time off from work because her child is teething or has a rash. I need someone reliable. Are you sure you can get adequate help?’
‘I am, Matron.’
In the end Theda got the job, though she knew it was because she was the only applicant. The salary was far from generous, but if she was careful she could manage to pay Ruby, one of the girls she had met in the home, to look after Richard while she was at the hospital. Ruby was unique among the residents in that she had a small house of her own; her parents had been killed in the war and the house had been theirs. So she planned to run a child-minding service.
Theda walked back to the home feeling happier than she had done for a long time. And there, in the entrance, was a tall soldier, standing with his back to the door and his hands on his hips. The home’s Matron was flustered, Theda could see. Her face was red and she tossed her head at the soldier.
‘I tell you, you can’t come in. I don’t care who you are. No male visitors allowed, can’t you read the notice?’ Matron had pointed to a large placard on the wall.
‘And I’m telling you, I’m coming in. So stand aside, woman, and let me past!’
‘Joss!’
Theda forgot all about keeping her secret from the family; the rush of feeling that flooded through her was so elating that there was only a great thankfulness that he was here, home from Germany or wherever he had been. She flung her arms around him and hugged him, laughing and crying together. For the first time she realised how alone she had been without her family. Not just lonely, but
alone
, which was so much worse.
alone
, which was so much worse.
‘Well!’ said Matron from somewhere over his shoulder. ‘What do you think you are doing, Miss Wearmouth?’ But nothing she said mattered any more.
‘Right then, are you going to show me my nephew?’ asked Joss. ‘I’ve come all the way from Dover since yesterday morning, and I don’t mind telling you, you took some finding. So tell this woman who I am and let’s have no more aggravation, our Theda.’
‘Oh, Joss, Joss,’ she said helplessly. ‘By, I’m that glad to see you, you have no idea.’
‘Aye, well, it seems I’ve come home none too early neither, what with Mam and Dad in a lather worrying about you, and our Clara going off to Canada.’
‘You should have told me you were her brother,’ said Matron huffily. ‘Go on then, you can go up to the nursery for five minutes. But it’s strictly against the rules, mind.’
Upstairs, a crowd of curious girls suddenly found it necessary to attend to their own babies in the nursery. They covertly eyed the handsome soldier as he stood for a minute over Richard in his cot.
‘Aye, well, our Theda,’ he said, ignoring the others, ‘you’d best get your things together an’ the bairn’s an’ all. You’re coming along o’ me. We’re going home.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She had known it wouldn’t work as soon as she walked into the house carrying the baby, with Joss following behind with her case. Not that Mam or Da condemned her; she had steeled herself for what they would have to say but they had said nothing, at least nothing in criticism of her.
‘Our Theda!’ Bea cried, rising up from her chair by the range where she was knitting a Fair Isle sweater. Needles and wool went flying perilously near the fire as she stepped forward and hugged her daughter. She looked down at the baby, protesting loudly now he had been woken up, and smiled.
‘Aye, I wondered,’ she said.
‘This noisy little brat is Richard, Mam,’ Joss announced. ‘Two months old and with a voice enough to raise the dead.’
‘Stand out of the way, woman, let me have a look at him,’ ordered Matt. He lifted the baby from Theda’s arms and undid the shawl wrapped around him, holding him on one muscled arm and regarding him solemnly. Richard opened his eyes and his mouth ready to yell his protest even harder, and stopped, staring up at his grandfather. Matt put up a blue-scarred finger and the baby grasped it tightly.
‘A good, strong little babby,’ he observed. He looked up at Theda, his gaze keen. ‘Are you all right, lass?’
‘I am, Da,’ she answered.
‘Howay in then, let’s have the door shut. I don’t know what that draught’s going to do to my oven and I have some pies in.’
Bea bustled about, taking the oven cloth from the brass line above the range and opening the oven door to inspect the pies.
‘I’ll take these up then,’ said Joss, and picked up the cases again and headed for the stairs. Chuck had not yet risen from the table where he was sitting in his black, only his hands showing strangely white where he had washed them for his meal.
‘Hello, Chuck,’ said Theda.
‘Now then, our Theda,’ he said grimly, his gaze sliding over her. Rising to his feet, he walked past her, ignoring the baby. ‘I’ll have me bath in the room, Mam,’ he said to Bea. ‘Seeing as you’re so busy here.’
Maybe he was just tired and impatient to get his bath and go to bed, Theda told herself. But he could at least have looked at his new nephew. She laid the baby on the sofa and put the kettle on the fire and made up a bottle of National Dried Milk for Richard’s feed.
‘You’re not feeding him yourself, then?’ asked Bea, watching her. ‘Eeh, I don’t think it’s natural to give a babby cows’ milk. Did you not have enough milk yourself, Theda?’
‘It’s ‘specially prepared, Mam. It’s perfectly all right, good nutritionally.’ Theda tested the temperature of the milk on her wrist and picked up the baby. He took the teat into his mouth and sucked noisily. ‘It was no good me starting him on the breast, Mam,’ she continued. ‘I’m going to have to go out to work.’
‘No, you’re not,’ her father said sharply. ‘I don’t hold with a mother leaving a young baby. You can stay at home and help your mam, until the bairn’s a good bit older any-road. When he starts school then you can think about it.’
Theda bent her head over the baby, fighting to stop the sharp retort that rose to her lips. Already the happiness she had felt at coming home, the gratitude at not being condemned for what had happened to her, was dissipating. Instead depression was rising in her. She had been independent too long to give it up easily now. But it was no use arguing with her father.
Her silence was hardly noticed by the rest of the family for Joss was telling them about Germany – Cologne in particular.
‘You can’t imagine it, the whole place is in ruins. It’s just like a giant builder’s tip,’ he said as they sat round the table eating the corned beef pies hot from the oven and chips made from potatoes from Matt’s garden. Richard, replete after his feed, slept soundly on the sofa.
‘Aye, well,’ growled Chuck, ‘they bombed British towns first. What about Coventry, eh?’
‘Sunderland has some big holes in it, too,’ Theda said. She thought about the streets with uneven gaps in them and rosebay, willow-herb and nettles growing amongst the rubbish.
‘You can’t help feeling a bit sorry for them, though,’ said Joss. ‘They have nothing left – nothing.’
‘Only right—’ Chuck began, but was interrupted by his mother.
‘Eeh, Chuck, think about the bairns, man,’ she exclaimed.
The argument went on but Theda hardly listened; she was going over and over her troubles in her own mind. How could she live here for five years without working? Oh, of course she could claim National Assistance and would probably get it and that would give her some independence from her family, but it wouldn’t be enough. In any case, she needed to get on with her career. She couldn’t afford to waste five years, not if she was to reach her goal.
‘I’ll borrow Renee’s old pram and we’ll take the baby for a walk after we’ve washed up,’ suggested Bea. ‘Fresh air’s good for him.’
‘Aye, you do that,’ said Matt approvingly. ‘On Saturday you mebbe can go into Bishop and get him a pram of his own. It’ll be our Christmas present – what do you think of that?’
‘Oh, Da, you can’t afford to lay out such sums,’ Theda protested.
‘Aye, I can an’ all, I’m earning good money now. Things is different around here, you know. And when the pits are nationalised and there are no owners taking fat profits out, we won’t know we’re born. The good times are coming at last, an’ not afore time neither.’
‘There never were such times,’ murmured Bea, looking sceptical.
‘You’ll see, lass, you’ll see,’ he asserted.
‘Well, good times or not, I’m not going back down the pit when I’m demobbed,’ said Joss, and shook his head emphatically. ‘No, there’s plenty of jobs going elsewhere. Why go down the pit and flog your guts out for a pittance?’
‘But I’m telling you, it’s going to be—’
‘Eeh, Joss, do you mean you won’t be coming home to live?’
His parents gaped at him. Both of them seemed shaken by the thought that Joss was thinking of working away from home.
‘You’ve been away all these years, I was looking forward to having you back,’ wailed his mother.
‘Well, I might be back, depends what work is on offer,’ said Joss. ‘Don’t fret yourself, Mam. I’ll still be coming home to plague you. You’ll be sick of the sight of me, I’m telling you.’
Bea said no more but her agitation showed in her jerky, nervous movements as she got to her feet and began siding the table ready to wash up.
Later, as she and Theda walked the baby in the battered old pram they had borrowed from Renee, she seemed to recover some of her good humour, but not for long. It was a dark, overcast afternoon threatening rain and there were few people about, but those that were stopped to admire the baby and ask Theda where she was living now and was she well and all the usual small talk.
‘She’s coming back home to live,’ Bea told them. ‘In fact, she’s back for good now.’ Theda looked sideways at her mother but didn’t contradict her.
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