The Pull of the Stars(5)

His friend said, Better than turning them away, I suppose.

I glanced around, and it struck me that we were a botched lot. Several of these doctors were distinctly elderly, but the hospital needed them to stay on till the end of the war, filling in for younger ones who’d enlisted. I saw doctors and nurses who’d been sent home from the front with some harm done but not enough for a full service pension, so here they were again despite their limps and scars, asthma, migraines, colitis, malarial episodes, or TB; one nurse from Children’s Surgical struggled with a chronic conviction that insects were crawling all over her.

I was two from the head of the line now. My stomach rumbled.

Julia!

I smiled at Gladys Horgan, squeezing towards me through the knot of bodies at the food table. We’d been great pals during training almost a decade ago, though we’d seen less of each other once I went into midwifery and she into eye and ear. Some of our class had ended up working in private hospitals or nursing homes; between those who’d left to marry or who’d quit due to painful feet or nerve strain, there weren’t many of us still around. Gladys lived in at the hospital with a gang of other nurses, and I lodged with Tim, which was another thing that had divided us, I suppose; when I went off shift, my first thought was always for my brother.

Gladys scolded: Shouldn’t you be on leave?

Nixed at the eleventh hour.

Ah, of course it would be. Well, soldier on.

You too, Gladys.

Must rush, she said. Oh, there’s instant coffee.

I made a face.

Have you tried it?

Once, for the novelty, but it’s nasty stuff.

Whatever keeps me going…Gladys drained her cup, smacked her lips, and left the mug on the dirty-dishes table.

I didn’t want to stay without anyone to talk to, so I collected some watery cocoa and a slice of war bread, which was always dark but varied in its adulterations—barley, oats, and rye, certainly, but one might find soya in there too, beans, sago, even the odd chip of wood.

To make up some of the time I’d lost finding orderlies to bring Anonymous down to the mortuary, I ate and drank as I climbed the stairs. Matron (currently in Women’s Fever) would have been appalled by the lapse in manners. As Tim would have said—if he were able to say anything these days—everything was entirely arsewise.

Full day had broken without my noticing; the late October light stabbed in the east-facing windows.

I put the last of the bread in my mouth as I went through the door that bore a handwritten label: Maternity/Fever. Not a proper ward, just a supply room converted last month when it became clear to our superiors that not only were expectant women catching this grippe in alarmingly high numbers, but it was particularly hazardous to them and their babies.

The ward sister was a lay nurse like myself. Sister Finnigan had overseen my diploma in midwifery, and I’d been flattered last week when she’d chosen me to staff this tiny room with her. Patients admitted with the flu who were well on in pregnancy got sent here, and Maternity, up on the second floor, transferred down any women who had fevers, body aches, or a cough.

We’d had no actual deliveries yet, which Sister Finnigan said was a sign of divine mercy, given that our facilities were so primitive. There was a line from our training manual that always stuck in my head: For a woman with child, the surroundings should be such as will promote serenity. Well, this makeshift ward was more conducive to irritation; it was cramped, with battery-powered lamps on each bedside cupboard instead of electric night-lights. At least we had a sink and a window for air, but there was no fireplace, so we had to keep our patients warm by bundling them up.

We’d had only two metal cots at first, but we’d crammed in a third so we wouldn’t have to turn away Eileen Devine. My eyes went straight to her bed, in the middle, between Ita Noonan, who was snoring, and Delia Garrett, who (in a dressing jacket, a wrap, and a scarf) was reading. But the middle cot was empty, with fresh bedding pulled tight.

The crust of bread turned to a pebble in my throat. The barrow woman was too ill to have been discharged, surely?

From over her magazine, Delia Garrett gave me an angry stare.

The night nurse heaved herself off the chair. Nurse Power, she said.

Sister Luke.

The Church considered it immodest for nuns to serve in lying-in wards, but given the shortage of midwives, Matron—who happened to be from the same religious order as Sister Luke—had managed to persuade their higher-ups to lend this experienced general nurse to Maternity/Fever. For the duration, as everyone said.

I found I couldn’t control my voice enough to ask about Eileen Devine. I drained the cocoa that now tasted like bile and rinsed the cup at the sink. Is Sister Finnigan not in yet?

The nun pointed one finger at the ceiling and said, Called to Maternity.

It had the ring of one of Groyne’s playful synonyms for death.

Sister Luke adjusted the elastic band of her eye patch, a puppet pulling its own strings. Like quite a few nuns, she’d volunteered at the front, and shrapnel had sent her home with one eye gone. Between her veil and her white mask, the only skin showing was the hinterland around the other eye.

She came over to me now and nodded at the stripped cot. Poor Mrs. Devine slipped into a coma around two a.m. and expired at half past five, requiescat in pace.

She sketched a cross on the stiff, snow-white guimpe that covered her broad chest.