Across the Mersey (13 page)

His face grew even redder as he shook her off. ‘I told you not to go getting yourself into the TA in the first place,’ he reminded Charlie again. ‘If you’d left well alone I could have wangled it that you’d be on the reserved occupation list, but it’s too bloody late for that now.’

Charlie’s stomach heaved and he was violently sick on the hall floor and his father’s slippers.

Grace could hardly believe that it was finally happening and that she was about to begin her nursing training, but overlying her excitement as she walked towards the hospital’s nurses’ home where she had been told to present herself, was her anxiety for her brother, and her awareness of her mother’s anguish.

Luke was in an army camp somewhere now, undergoing his training. There was an unfamiliar and very strained atmosphere at home, and as excited as she was at the thought of beginning her own training, Grace also felt guilty for leaving her mother when she was so very upset.

And yet at the same time as she shared her mother’s anxiety, Grace could also understand how Luke felt and why he had joined up.

In the battered leather suitcase she was carrying, and which she and Jean had bargained for in a pawnbroker’s dusty shop, were all the items on the list she had been given when she had received the letter informing her that she had been accepted
for her training: three pairs of black stockings, one pair of flat black serviceable shoes, a selection of safety pins and studs, a packet of white Kirbigrips, two plain silver tiepins, one pocket watch with a second hand, one pair of regulation nurse’s scissors, money for textbooks, six exercise books, pens and pencils and two drawstring laundry bags clearly marked with her name. Although the cost of her uniform and the textbooks would exceed her first year’s earnings, her board and food, and her laundry would be provided free of charge.

Since Sister Harris had recommended her there had been no need for her to attend an interview, and it had also been Sister Harris who had measured her for her probationary uniform and sent those measurements to the hospital.

The letter she had received had told her the date on which she was to report to the nurses’ home for her probationary training; that she would find her uniform waiting for her in her room; that she was to change into it and then wait in the probationary nurses’ sitting room for further instructions; that she must not under any circumstances whatsoever leave the hospital wearing her uniform.

Had she done the right thing? Did she really have what it took to become a nurse? Ought she to have stayed where she was at Lewis’s? What if the other girls didn’t like her? What if … Grace’s eager footsteps halted, but it was too late for second thoughts and doubts now. The nurses’ home was right in front of her and the nurses’ home sister, thin, grey-haired and sharp-eyed, was watching her.
Behind her stood two other sisters with lists in their hands.

Nervously Grace approached them.

‘Name?’ one of them barked.

‘Er … Grace … Grace Campion.’

The sister was frowning for so long over her list that Grace began to wonder if it was all a mistake and she wasn’t going to be allowed to train after all, but then to her relief she nodded her head and handed Grace a key with a number on it.

Now what was she supposed to do? Uncertainly she looked at the sister, but she didn’t look back, turning instead to the girl who was now standing behind Grace. Another girl who had had her name ticked off by the other sister was making her way into the home, so Grace followed her.

Several girls were already inside and Grace joined them as they walked along corridors and up and down flights of stairs looking for their rooms.

The smell of carbolic lingering on the air was somehow in keeping with the green-painted walls, and shiny clean linoleum.

Grace found her room up two flights of stairs and halfway along a corridor. Her arm aching from the weight of her suitcase, she unlocked the door and went inside. Her room was small and very basic. The paint on the walls was peeling, especially around the small sink in the corner. A small dark brown wardrobe stood against one wall, along with a dressing table-cum-desk and a chair.

The iron-framed bed was covered with a green bedspread that looked thin and worn. The room felt cold and Grace shivered, suddenly overwhelmed with homesickness and a longing for her own pretty attic bedroom.

Her uniform was lying on the bed, the dresses short-sleeved, with a separate uncomfortable-looking set of collars and cuffs. The dresses were patched and darned and had obviously been passed on many times before they had come to her. Next to them was a long navy woollen cloak with a dark purple lining and purple straps that crossed at the front and fastened at the back. Grace looked for her cap, her heart sinking when she saw the two oblongs of white cloth the size of a nappy starched as stiff as a board. How on earth was she supposed to transform those into a nurse’s cap?

Mindful of the list of rules she had been sent with her acceptance letter, Grace had already removed the pale pink nail polish she normally wore before leaving home, along with her pretty silver chain and locket. Student nurses were not allowed to wear any makeup or jewellery. No pictures or posters were to be hung on the walls, and slippers were not to be kept on the floor.

Quickly Grace unpacked her case and put everything away, then changed into her uniform, her fingers clumsy with nervousness.

She checked her appearance in the mirror, worrying that the hem of the dress might not be the regulation twelve inches above the floor. The fabric of her uniform dress felt uncomfortable and
scratchy, and she wasn’t sure which pockets she was supposed to put everything into. Her thick black stockings looked drab and her shoes felt heavy and clumsy. Grace checked her letter again. Once she had changed into her uniform she was to make her way down to the student nurses’ sitting room for a ‘welcome tea’.

Feeling awkward and uncertain, Grace hesitated just inside the open door to the student nurses’ sitting room, which was already busy with other girls dressed in their uniforms. The tables were each set for six, with individual plates containing two sandwiches and a slice of Victoria sandwich.

A cheerful-looking girl with ginger hair and freckles came up to her and smiled. ‘If you’re looking for a table there’s a spare seat on ours,’ she offered.

Gratefully Grace followed her over to one of the tables where four other girls were already seated.

‘Now we’ve got a full table I suppose we’d better introduce ourselves,’ the ginger-haired girl suggested. ‘I’m Hannah Philips.’

‘Grace Campion,’ Grace followed her, listening carefully as the other girls gave their names: Iris Robinson, small and pretty with dark hair and huge dark eyes. Jennifer Halliwell, who spoke with what she explained to them was a Yorkshire accent, adding that her family were originally from Leeds. Doreen Sefton, who said that if the war went on for long enough she wanted to join the army as a nurse, once she had done her training, and finally the prettiest of them all, in Grace’s opinion, Lillian
Green, who had blonde curls and huge blue eyes, and who was so slim and delicate she looked as though she might blow away in the lightest wind, and who giggled and explained that she had decided to train as a nurse after she had met a gorgeous-looking doctor at a friend’s party.

After they had eaten their sandwiches and cake, and drunk as much tea as they wanted, Home Sister stood up and gave them a talk about what was expected of them and the high standards set and demanded by the teaching hospitals. She emphasised how fortunate they were to be given the opportunity to train at such a prestigious hospital.

Their lessons, they learned, started at eight o’clock in the morning and did not finish until six o’clock at night. At the end of their three-month training they would sit an exam and if they passed it then and only then would they be allowed on to the wards, as that lowest of nursing ranks, the probationer.

Once they’d been dismissed, everyone made their way back to their rooms.

‘You’ll find that the six of us will tend to stick together now,’ Hannah told Grace knowledgeably, when they were the only two of the original six who had still not reached their rooms. ‘So it’s a pity we’ve got Green as one of our number. That sort always causes trouble. You mark my words.’

Grace didn’t know what to say. Hannah had already told them over tea that her elder sister and her cousin were both qualified nurses, and she
certainly seemed to know the ropes better than anyone else.

‘I don’t mind a bit of a lark around but when it comes to chasing after doctors, saying that you’ve only taken up nursing so that you can do that …’ she gave a disapproving shake of her head.

Alone in her own small room, Grace undressed, hanging up her uniform carefully, and then once she was washed and in her night things she sat down to write to her family.

Her head was buzzing with all that had happened. There was so much she wanted to write that she hardly knew where to start. She felt both uncertain and excited, half of her wishing that right now she was at home in her mother’s kitchen, with its familiar sights and smells, and most of all her mother in one of her floral pinafores bustling about looking after them all, and the other half of her sharply aware that she had taken the first step from being a girl at home to being an independent young woman. She stifled an exhausted yawn. She didn’t want to write anything that would alarm her mother, like how hard the work was going to be, or how nervous she had felt listening to Home Sister’s stern warnings about the penalties for not making the grade or breaking one of the very many rules. It had been such an extraordinary day – a day that would live in her memory for ever. There were things like meeting the other girls in her set that she would always share with them; things that were apart from the life she had known at home.
And yet these were also things she wanted to share with her family.

It would take her ages to write down everything she wanted to say, Grace admitted, stifling another yawn, and some of it would have to wait until she had her first time off.

In the end she simply wrote that the day had gone reasonably well and that she was well and happy, but that she missed them all.

‘Oh, darling!’

Vi dabbed at her eyes with the lace-edged handkerchief she had removed from her handbag, whilst Bella ignored her mother’s emotions, pursing her lips and studying her reflection in the mirror.

They had arrived at the exclusive modiste’s on Bold Street just over an hour ago, having had to make an appointment, as Madame Blanche only ‘received’ one bride at a time.

Her ‘salon’ was on the first floor, its décor very pink and supposedly ‘French’. Everything that could be was swagged in pink silk, even the changing cubicles, and the chaise-longue and chairs on which mothers waited, handkerchief in hand, for that moment when their daughter appeared from behind the mirror screens, magically transformed by Madame and her staff into ‘the bride’.

Initially Madame had been inclined to be slightly off hand. She was busy. Everyone wanted to get married because of the war. She had even – although very discreetly – added a bit extra to the prices of her gowns because of the high demand.
But then she recognised what an excellent advertisement for her gowns Bella would be, especially when she had measured her waist and found it to be a mere twenty-two inches, and she had thawed slightly.

‘And the bridesmaids – will they be dressed by us?’ she asked Vi once Vi had got over the emotion of seeing Bella looking everything that a bride should be.

It was Bella who answered her, saying carelessly, ‘Oh, no. I’m having only two bridesmaids, after all, and we’ve already got them something.’

Madame incline her head. She wouldn’t have expected a bride as pretty as this to insist on her having her bridesmaids dressed to their disadvantage and her advantage, but quite plainly in Madame’s opinion that was what she intended. So far as the bride herself went, though, Madame doubted she’d seen a better one the whole year.

Bella preened and posed in her gown, the most expensive one they had been shown, and she had known immediately that she wanted it. Plain heavy satin trimmed with thick lace, and designed to show off a small waist, it might have been made for her. The only alteration necessary, as Madame had said, was a fraction reduction of the waist because hers was so tiny. That would show Alan’s mother and stop those cold angry looks she kept on giving her. It might have suited Bella to have both sets of parents believe that Alan had ‘forgotten’ himself, in order to expedite their marriage, but it certainly did not suit her ambitions for her
future to be talked about behind her back by the Tennis Club set as someone who had ‘had to get married’.

She certainly wasn’t going to have either Grace or Trixie wearing an expensive dress either. Why should she? If Grace had had any consideration at all she’d have waited until after the wedding to go and start training to be a nurse. It was ridiculous, her doing something like that anyway, trying to show off and get herself involved in nursing because of this wretched war. And as for Trixie … well, the only reason Bella had wanted to have her as her bridesmaid was to show Trixie and Mrs Parker that she was the one who was marrying Alan. Trixie wasn’t even one of her friends, and she wasn’t going to become one either. Why should she want to make a friend of a plain dull girl like Trixie? Of course, she was another one involving herself in this wretched war fuss, as well.

Vi tried not to look too appalled when Madame informed her of the cost of Bella’s dress. Edwin wouldn’t be pleased. She tried to suggest that Bella have a less expensive wedding gown but the truth was that her heart wasn’t really in it. From the moment she had seen her darling standing there in it, looking a true vision of beauty and modesty, her heart had swelled with so much maternal pride that she had agreed with Bella that it was impossible for her to wear anything else.

Edwin was constantly preaching economy, with regard to the wedding, especially since she had insisted to him that they could not let poor Bella
move in with her in-laws and that if the Parkers didn’t do something for the young couple to enable them to have their own house then they must. But at the same time as he was saying he wasn’t made of money he was also boasting about how much money he was going to make because of the war.

‘We’ve just got the flowers and the cake to sort out now, darling,’ Vi told Bella as they left Madame’s salon.