House of Doors (15 page)

Stepping into the dance, though, into the flow of the music: that should have been easy, and was not. Trying to fit her body into the hold of a single arm unbalanced her. There must be a technique to it, one that she could learn from these girls around her, but watching wildly over his shoulder wasn't enough. She couldn't pick it up by sight, and improvisation had never been her gift. She needed teaching and practice, whatever she did.

So there was that, her awkwardness married to his own graceless falter, that discomfort with his own body that she had seen in him from the start. In his head, she was sure, he was still what he always ought to have been, whole and unharmed, an expression of the human animal in delight. He was unaccustomed to the new demands, the new limits of his bone and muscle. He must be trying, she could see how much he tried. There was sweat on his fine-drawn face wherever it wasn't marred by new skin or scars, and she thought the effort of it actually hurt him, and still they could neither one of them quite get it right.

‘Do you want to sit this out?' she murmured. ‘Perhaps we should, I'm afraid I'm all left feet tonight  . . .'

He shook his head. He tried perhaps to set his lips in stubbornness, only these new lips of his were stubborn in their own way, disinclined to stiffen.

‘It's not you, we both know that. And no, I don't want to drop out. Unless I'm embarrassing you?'

‘Not that. No. Of course not.'

‘Well then, I'd sooner carry on. If you can bear it. I can learn this, I will learn this  . . .'

And so would she; they could learn at least something together. His legs were fine, and he still had a musician's sense of time. It was only the unbalance, the emptiness of his right hand side where there should have been an arm to lean into and was not. That was difficult for them both, and allowing for it – always a moment late and a sudden lurching recovery, the mind's memory dragging behind the body's knowledge – did keep throwing them constantly out of step with the music and with each other.

Still. They persevered. There were compensations. For Ruth they weren't all about the physical intimacy of a male body pressed close – closer than Aesculapius, because he was a young man and they were both having to try that little bit harder and he overcompensated – but largely, yes. He was a boy and working hard. It was never going to be about the conversation.

Almost, she found herself leading. At least, encouraging him which way to go: a nudge of her hip, a duck of her head, little hints that he was sharp enough to pick up without protest, or else took on board subconsciously. She didn't mind either way, so long as his fragile pride wasn't injured. So long as they had space to move, to learn new ways of moving, to make their little errors and recovers without trampling anyone else's toes.

A quickstep, a foxtrot. A waltz. One after another, and nobody interrupted. Good manners or good politics should have led Ruth to another partner, and then another; but she was working suddenly, this was nursing too. The other men knew it, perhaps, and let them be.

And so, one dance after another, they both grew accustomed to that lack in him, that absent bond between them. They learned to account for it, to discount it, to adjust. If his arm couldn't take her weight, then hers must take his instead. And of course must never let it show. She was a nurse, she was strong; she had been a wife, she understood. She could do this. Good.

He was a boy, he was quick, he could learn. Also good.

They were doing well, better with every passing minute.

Then the bomb went off.

Flat and distant and not far enough. Loud enough to break through everything, the talk and the piano and the high closed doors; not enough to rattle the windows, but.

These men had been in war, all of them. She had been in London through the Blitz. They could all make the calculation. Small and near, not big and far away. Close to the house, but probably not actually inside it.

‘The stables,' someone said, into the silence that followed the sound of it. ‘Come on.'

They had been in war, she was a nurse. Every woman here was a nurse. Of course they all went, bar those few whom Matron intercepted at the door. ‘You, you and you – come with me, please.' Whatever it was, whatever they came back with, she wouldn't be unprepared.

Ruth tried not to be superstitious, but she still had a bad feeling about this. She thought Matron was right, nursing would be needed. Nursing at least. Bombs didn't just go off, not spontaneously. Even in places that stored weaponry and explosives.

Places that
used
weaponry and explosives. There were armed men around her, she noticed, in the general rush. Pushing themselves to the front now, as people spilled out into the courtyard. Either they had been on guard already, or else they'd thought to arm themselves from caches she hadn't placed yet. Either way, that was the male response, the military mind. They weren't thinking about casualties.

There was a fire in the stable block. They could see it clearly through the arch beneath the clock tower, that guttering yellow light that can never mean anything else.

Someone was already calling for water, for buckets, for hoses. The male response, the military mind: something to be grateful for. It meant she could just go on, through the arch to the source of the fire.

Someone seized her elbow, tried to stop her, ‘Sister, no  . . .'

The male response, the military mind. Sometimes it just needed to be stamped on.

She said, ‘I am a nurse. Do you imagine there is no one hurt through there?' As he hesitated, she shrugged him off and strode on.

Through the shadows, and into the light.

Not the first – and blessedly, someone was already seeing to the horses. Of course the fire had made them frantic. If others hadn't been ahead of her, she might have felt obliged. As it was, she could do her more proper job: turn into the light, head towards the fire.

Others were ahead of her there too. Doing their more proper job, fighting the flames. She took one glance in through the open stable door to see bales of straw ablaze and wooden partitions catching, men at work with blankets and buckets.

She needn't worry about any of that. There were men enough in there. And one out here, calling, beckoning. ‘Sister, if you would  . . .'

Of course she would. This was what she'd come for. Just the one victim, apparently, dragged ruthlessly out of the stable and laid on the bricks of the yard. One man kneeling over him, duty-bound until she got there, helpless to do anything but stay.

It was hard to make assessments in the dark, but this wasn't the first time. There had been bombs and bodies in the London streets, catching her unawares, never quite off duty.

She might have sent for a lamp, but there really was no need. Firelight was good enough. ‘Fetch blankets,' she said, ‘and a stretcher party. No – send them, don't bring them. When they're on their way, find Matron. Tell her we'll need the theatre, and a surgeon ready. Go.'

There was actually a blanket already, that she'd tossed back to make her inspection. A horse blanket, she rather thought. That didn't matter, but it was sodden with blood, which mattered rather a lot. Her patient had lost a hand, newly and entirely. The heat of the blast that took it had cauterized the stump of his wrist somewhat, but not enough.

‘What do you need, Sister?' A voice above her, another man being sensible, seeing a need. She could bless the military mind.

‘Your tie,' she said shortly. And then, as she fashioned a swift and ruthless tourniquet, ‘And your jacket.' Anything to keep her patient warm, until the stretcher came. In the dark on rough brick she couldn't tell how much blood he'd lost in the yard here, never mind how much before that in the stable. He was deep in shock and deeply, deeply cold. She'd sacrifice her own jacket too, if she were wearing one, if the stretcher party didn't show soon. All she had was the cape of her uniform, short and impractical and suddenly infuriating. What was the point of the wretched thing, if it was no use in an emergency? She might send this accommodating man for more horse blankets, and perhaps a rein or a bridle strap, a length of leather to make a better tourniquet. But she shouldn't need any of that, the house was right there, how long could it take to find a couple of orderlies and a stretcher? In a hospital?

Astonishingly, he was trying to speak, her patient. She had thought him sunk too far, perhaps too far to recover, even, though she would do everything she could in any case. But here he was, half pushing himself up on the one elbow, staring at her with wide, appalled eyes, working his mouth dreadfully.

His face had that almost-accustomed hollow where a nose should have, must once have been. She couldn't tell how harmed his voice had been before smoke and shock and pain got into it, but it was a reedy scratch now, barely comprehensible.

And yet he was trying so hard, it seemed so important. She read his lips by firelight as much as heard his words. Perhaps more.

Either way. He said, ‘I was falling, falling  . . . I couldn't stop falling.'

And he seemed so scared at the memory, and it drove a bitter nail through her bones.

Oh, Peter  . . .

SIX

M
en came, with a stretcher and blankets and Matron too, organized and decisive. There was nothing now for Ruth to do. Not needed in surgery, not wanted at the stable – where Major Black had arrived to take charge of the firefighting, organized and decisive and coldly, blisteringly furious – she walked out slowly through the carriage arch, feeling for every step, her head swimming with smoke and dark and aftershock.

And shock itself, shock too, the true thing. Visions of her own sorrow – which she had thought private, secret, not for sharing – suddenly reaching out to snare others, to bring them to destruction.

To hurt them, worse than ever it had yet hurt her.

She was, apparently, shivering. She only realized that because of the way she was walking, hunched over with her arms wrapped around herself, soft fabric beneath her palms and chill shuddering flesh, her own flesh under that.

‘Here.'

A weight on her shoulders, a sense of warmth, smells of tobacco and, yes, bay rum; a man's jacket, it should have been Peter's and if ever she was to be confused or transported now would be the time and yet she was entirely clear for once, lifting her head and looking around and finding Colonel Treadgold in his shirtsleeves.

‘Oh,' she said, ‘you shouldn't  . . .'

‘Nor should you,' he said, mock-sternly, frowning above that absurd moustache. ‘Where's your cape, Sister Taylor?'

She glanced back over her shoulder, perhaps a little wildly. She had apparently slipped it off after all, though she didn't remember. It must be back there in the blood and the smoke and the pumped water, under all those loud men's clumsy feet, unless it had been whisked away on the stretcher, still inadequately trying to cover that poor man in his pain.

‘Well, never mind,' the colonel said. ‘It was a foolish garment anyway. We don't use them here, you will have noticed that. See the quartermaster in the morning, he'll kit you out with our own togs. Which are designed, so Matron informs me, for comfort and practicality and nothing more. Meanwhile, are you feeling as pointless as I am? Set adrift, nothing to do, neither use nor ornament?'

She had apparently been bereft of the power of speech. All she could do was goggle at him.

‘It's one of the privileges of rank,' he confided, ‘to stand back and let your juniors take over. Come you in with me, we'll have a noggin and let all this pass by. It'll do them good to run around and shout a lot.'

‘Shouldn't you be  . . . Won't they need you in theatre? Sir?' Ah, there was her voice now. Thick and awkward, full of blood and smoke. And impertinence, that too. She needed to cough, and hoped he might take that for apology.

‘No, no. Not for simple butchery. Nothing I can do that Captain Felton can't. Matron's got her eye on him, in any case. She'll see that all's done for the best. My best move right now is to keep out of his way and hers. Your best move, too. It's our solemn duty to be both available and unnecessary. So long as people know where to look for us, we should be safe; and someone's sure to notice. As you told me yourself, this is a hospital. Someone always notices. I couldn't be private if I wanted to, so I don't even try.'

Deliberately or otherwise, he was making it sound quite solitary, this life he led. The loneliness of command. It was a cliché, she supposed, but that didn't make it untrue. That there were other officers – Aesculapius, Major Black – who seemed to take precedence despite their rank, who mattered more here despite the colonel's achievements: that could only underline his isolation. Above them all and a little cut off, not quite able to make the decisions that would matter most. Tonight was emblematic, almost. He was the finest surgeon in the hospital, he was the senior officer, and all of that required him to stand aside and let others do what was needed. What he himself was all too obviously itching to do.

She could feel sorry for him, all too easily. If that wasn't another impertinence.

If it wasn't what he wanted her to do. He might be just as manipulative as Major Dorian, in his different way. A big woofly moustache and an eccentric taste for cider didn't make him a fool outside his own competence. She might do well to remember that.

Still, she didn't mind being manipulated if he was looking for allies. She was on his side in any case. Assuming that there actually were two camps here, his and Major Black's: the ward and the training ground, the home front and the war, recovery and redeployment. Healing and killing. She knew where she stood.

There, at least, she did. On that safe ground. Otherwise she felt wretchedly, sickeningly at sea. Her mind was off-kilter, veering wildly, like a compass in a storm. Except that it kept coming back – like a compass in a storm – to point the same way, to the one thing,
Peter
 . . .