A Gift for the District Nurses

A GIFT FOR THE DISTRICT NURSES

Annie Groves

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

This e-book edition published 2020

Copyright © Annie Groves 2020

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2020

Cover photographs © Jonathan Ring (models), Lee Avison/Trevillion Images (street) and Shutterstock.com (all other images)

Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008402334

Ebook Edition © December 2020 ISBN: 9780008402396

Version: 2020-09-21

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all district nurses, past and present

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Annie Groves

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

January 1944

‘Would you like my seat, miss?’ The young man in army uniform stood up from his place in the corner of the already crowded railway carriage. ‘Nice girl like you doesn’t want to be standing all the way.’

Lily Chandler smiled in gratitude. She liked a show of manners. ‘Thank you,’ she said, bestowing a smile on him – a sergeant, she could see now she was a little closer to his khaki jacket. ‘That’s very kind.’ He was quite right, she thought. She certainly didn’t want to stand all the way from Liverpool’s Lime Street Station the entire length of the journey down to London. She intended to look her best the moment she stepped down onto the platform in the capital. New year, new life, she told herself.

Not that she needed to strengthen her resolution, she thought as she settled into the seat the sergeant had vacated. She smoothed the lapels of her maroon wool coat; a rare bargain, as many of her home city’s clothes shops had been destroyed in air raids earlier in the war. It suited her, she knew. It brought out the roses in her cheeks and contrasted with her hair. She counted herself fortunate to have been born a natural blonde. Not for her the desperate searching for bleach, or the hopeless task of hunting down lemons for their juice. She’d been dealt all the aces when it came to hair and complexion.

She almost broke into a private smile but then remembered that nobody liked a smug expression. It didn’t do to appear too pleased with yourself. It put people off. She’d have to be careful. Moving to a new place, with new colleagues, she’d have to try extra hard to be pleasant and make new friends. Everyone needed friends. She’d be starting from scratch somewhere nobody knew her. She’d have to be careful to get everything right.

There was a jolt as the train set off, and she quickly looked up at the rack overhead, where her suitcase was crammed in between army kitbags and leather grips. It seemed safe enough – it couldn’t possibly tumble down as all the luggage was so tightly packed. She might as well make use of the time to catch up on her beauty sleep. There was no way of knowing how long the journey would take. Besides, if she closed her eyes then there was less chance of being drawn into conversation. She didn’t fancy having to make small talk with strangers, for hours and hours. Or certainly not with a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears servicemen, little more than boys. That wasn’t to her taste at all.

Her parents had been sad to see her go but they could understand that she was doing it for the best. ‘Take care, love,’ her mother had said, anxiously gazing into her daughter’s determined face. ‘Stay away from Hitler’s bombs, won’t you? Promise me you won’t go doing anything daft.’

‘I promise.’ Lily had tried to reassure her mother, because it was simpler to do that than argue. Anyway, as if she would do anything daft. It wasn’t her habit.

Besides, they’d already come through the Liverpool Blitz. It wasn’t as if she was deliberately leaving safety to head into danger – they’d had plenty of that at home. The docks had been the main targets, and the city centre, but stray bombs had fallen all over the place, including in a neighbouring street. It had meant night after night of taking shelter in the church hall. Surely it couldn’t get much worse than what she’d already been through.

She had been glad to get Christmas over and done with, to be truthful. She’d got the impression that her mother had pulled out all the stops in a last-ditch effort to persuade her to stay. Lily was all too aware that there was little money to spare and yet her mother had produced a roast of sorts, with plenty of vegetables to disguise the lack of turkey, and even a small plum pudding. Her father had done the honours and carved the scrawny chicken, and then afterwards had poured brandy over the pudding and set it alight, as he’d done for as long as Lily could remember. She had dutifully oohed and aahed, as she didn’t want to upset them, but all the while she had been itching to leave.

Lily hadn’t stinted on presents for them, turning her bargain-hunting skills to full advantage. She had managed to find a warm woollen waistcoat for her father, who was prone to chest infections. For her mother she had followed a rumour of jewellery for sale, and tracked down somebody who had worked in the city centre until the shop was destroyed by a direct hit. Now he was selling privately, if you knew where to go. Lily had ventured out to a semi-detached house, in a somewhat better road than her own, and was relieved to see a selection of items she could just about afford. Her mother had gasped with delight when she had unwrapped a small velvet box – the paper carefully saved from last year – which contained a turquoise necklace. Lily had been glad. She did love her parents; but she didn’t want to end up living their lives. Guilty or not, she knew she had to leave for a better future. She deserved it, she told herself.

She gave a little shiver now, despite the crowded clamminess of the carriage. It was excitement, she told herself, not fear. There was nothing to be afraid of. She’d made her decision, applied for her transfer and that was that. She was needed where she was going; they’d be glad to have her. She would not look back. She was taking her future in her own hands and there was no room for doubt. That was all in the past.

Firmly, she shut her mind to the memories of the quiet celebrations with her family. Her parents weren’t musical but a friendly neighbour a few doors down had a piano, and invited them in to sing carols on Boxing Day. Lily had always felt a little embarrassed at this tradition, as nobody could sing very well and the neighbour’s dog usually snored loudly all the way through. It also smelled of wet dog and over-cooked vegetables rather noticeably. Yet her parents always reminded her that the offer was made out of kindness and you never knew when you would need a neighbour’s helping hand. Lily had squirmed; that was exactly the sort of thing she was moving away from.

It had been funny to bump into somebody she knew at the station just before her train had pulled in. He’d been coming back to visit his parents, carrying a bag obviously full of presents, having had to miss the festive season itself. ‘Where are you working now?’ she had asked, curious to hear about someone else who had made the break from family and all things familiar.

‘Oh, down south,’ he’d said, tapping his nose. ‘Loose lips sink ships, eh?’ She had nodded, realising he couldn’t really tell her precisely as he must be in the forces, despite his civilian clothes today. Then she’d told him what she was doing and he’d looked at her with keen interest. Not that kind of interest, she had soon recognised, as they continued to talk until her train was ready. Still, he was good company for the few minutes that they had, and she’d always liked him when they’d trained together. He wasn’t what many people would call handsome, but his intelligent looks grew on you. Such a shame he didn’t seem to be based in London. But she knew full well that plenty of doctors were attached to the airfields and naval ports along the south coast.

Absently she touched her fine wool collar once again. Soon it would be time to swap her elegant coat for something more practical. Carefully folded into her suitcase was a serviceable and warm navy cloak. That would be a vital part of her uniform where she was going. From tomorrow she would be a district nurse once again, but instead of working in the streets of Liverpool that she’d known for all her life, she’d be based in the East End. She didn’t have to check the formal piece of paper for the details because the address was instantly memorable: Victory Walk, Dalston.

Ruby Butler folded her arms and glared at her big sister. For two pins she’d have stamped her foot, but that was exactly the sort of behaviour that Beryl would pick up on, and use it as an excuse to call her childish. Not that she ever needed an excuse.

‘All I’m saying,’ Beryl complained for the fiftieth time, ‘is that I don’t see why you have to go traipsing right across London to work when you could do the exact same job right here. Aren’t we good enough for you?’

Ruby tsked in annoyance but refused to rise to the bait.

‘After all,’ Beryl went on, her voice high-pitched and relentless, ‘it isn’t as if you’ll spend the rest of your life working. You won’t want to do that for ever. It’s not what you’re made for. You’ll want to get married, same as the rest of us. You’ll meet someone like I did when I saw my Terry and that’ll be that.’

My Terry, my Terry. If Ruby had a penny for every time her sister dropped her husband’s name into the conversation, and always with that smug little expression on her smug little face, then she wouldn’t have needed to go out to work at all.

‘There aren’t many eligible men left around here, if you hadn’t noticed,’ she pointed out. That was putting it mildly. Everyone remotely fit had been sent off to fight, leaving those too young, old or sick. There were a few young men in reserved professions, but they tended to work all hours of the day and night and be too worn out to socialise. Well, Ruby knew exactly what that felt like.

‘No need to be snarky,’ Beryl retorted, most unfairly. ‘You wait till this war is over, and the place will be flooded by homecoming heroes, that’s what they’re saying. You’ll be swept off your feet. It won’t be long now. My Terry says that everything is going to plan with the army in Italy …’

‘Can’t wait,’ mumbled Ruby, fed up with her sister’s conviction that she knew best. That was how it had always been: Ruby was the baby of the family, with Beryl and her twin Colin ten years older, and they had never even considered that Ruby might have a mind of her own. Then when Beryl had met her Terry – who to Ruby’s mind was no great catch, being pasty-faced and short-sighted – it had become three against one. Four, if you counted their mother.

‘Come, Beryl, Ruby will have her reasons,’ their mother said now, belatedly riding to her youngest’s rescue, although with a tone of voice that made it clear she didn’t hold with those reasons, whatever they might be. ‘We’ll miss you, that’s all. It’s so far away. And going right to where all those bombs fell! It doesn’t seem right.’

Ruby pressed her fingernails hard into her forearms to keep from screaming. It was hot in the kitchen from where the range was heated up to cook their barley stew for tea, and the window was fogged with condensation from the kettle. Would she miss this? Her mother’s cooking, maybe. Not everything else that came with it.

‘We didn’t exactly avoid the bombs here,’ she commented. It was true. Hammersmith had suffered during the Blitz and the very next street to theirs had caught a high-explosive bomb, something none of them would ever forget. She didn’t want to go through that again, but she couldn’t stay here any longer.

She’d thought when she began her nurse’s training at the local hospital that, when she qualified, her family would finally respect her. Years of studying and practising had to count for something, surely – but as soon as she stepped through the front door to their house, it was as if she’d never left. Then she had gone on to do an extra period of specialist district-nurse training, a demanding role in which she’d dealt with life-or-death situations. It still made her nervous to think of the responsibility she’d been given. Yet her family continued to treat her like a baby.

It wasn’t that they didn’t love her. Quite the opposite, in fact. But that love came with a suffocating layer of protection that would have kept her safe indoors, wrapped in cotton wool, until the right man came along; someone who would also protect her to an overwhelmingly high degree. At least the war had meant she had to go out to work – it was the law.

Ruby had been terrified the first morning she’d gone to the hospital to start training. What if her mother and the twins were right – that she was too childish to do anything useful? Colin had just joined the navy and had received a hero’s send-off. In contrast, Beryl’s words to her that morning had been, ‘Well, don’t come running to me if you can’t cope.’

Ruby sighed at the memory. She’d had the chance to stay in West London as a district nurse, based at the local home, which was a short bus ride from her mother’s house. But to her mind that was not far enough. She had to put more distance between them, or she’d never gain the confidence she felt she so badly lacked. At the moment she felt like a fraud, going out into her patients’ homes, afraid that one of them would cotton on to her ignorance and point out that she wasn’t really a proper nurse. Every time she built up a reserve of resolution, a comment from her mother or, more likely, Beryl would raze it to the ground.

True to form, Beryl tutted as she went over to the range to stir the simmering stew. ‘Well, don’t come crying to us when you get homesick,’ she said loftily. ‘And you will, Ruby, you’re a real home bird and no mistake. I just hope they look after you when they realise.’

Ruby felt a stab of guilt. There were things about her home that she knew she would miss. The Christmas period had been full of moments that took her back to her childhood: fetching the ancient wooden box full of decorations, carefully taking them from their nests of newspaper, checking none had broken. Finding her favourite, the glass angel with the wonky wings. Making paper chains and pinning them across the parlour ceiling, her mother anxiously holding the chair she’d had to stand on to reach. Carols playing on the wireless and her mother singing along under her breath, not realising Ruby could hear. Even Beryl had been almost bearable, until Twelfth Night arrived and it was time to take all the decorations down again and stow them safely away.

Now her mother wiped anxious hands down her striped pinafore. ‘But you know you can always come back, Ruby,’ she said seriously. ‘You’ll always be my precious little girl, you know that.’

That was the whole trouble in a nutshell. Ruby took a deep breath. ‘I know,’ she said, smiling wanly at the careworn woman in front of her, old beyond her years. ‘It’s only a couple of bus rides away. I’m not going to Scotland or something. Or Italy,’ she added pointedly. ‘We could meet in the middle.’

Her mother instantly recoiled. ‘Oh, you know I don’t hold with going to the West End. You never know what sort of people will be there.’

‘Never mind, then.’ Ruby wondered if nervousness could be catching. Or passed down from mother to daughter. She had to fight it or she wouldn’t be able to do her job, and she desperately wanted to be a success. She’d got this far, after all.

Slowly, she walked from the kitchen, through the slightly shabby but immaculately clean hall, and headed upstairs. She had packing to do. Tomorrow, she would take those couple of buses, or as many as she needed to take if they were rerouted yet again, and make her way to the East End. She touched the pocket of her skirt for good luck, as it contained her letter from the nurses’ home on Victory Walk, Dalston.

CHAPTER TWO

‘If I say so myself, I’m quite pleased. That was a good idea of mine.’ Fiona Dewar, superintendent of the North Hackney Queen’s Nurses’ Association, stood back from the narrow wooden doorway with pride. ‘It may not be ideal but it’ll serve its purpose for now.’

Gwen, her dour-faced deputy, looked dubious. ‘It’s highly irregular.’

Fiona shot her a swift glance. ‘That’s as maybe. Needs must. This new girl is joining us and she has to sleep somewhere. If there’s no vacant bedroom then this is the next best thing.’

What had once been a large store cupboard and an underused alcove just off the main downstairs hallway had been knocked together to form a makeshift bedroom, large enough to fit a single bed but not much else. At least it had a window, although the view was of the bike rack in the back yard of the nurses’ home.

‘It will at least afford her a wee bit of privacy,’ Fiona pointed out. ‘I hope she’ll not be too cold. Still, it’s only temporary.’ She checked the newly installed electric light switch. ‘See, all mod cons. We’ll have to make the best of it.’

Gwen remained unconvinced. ‘If you say so. I hope it won’t affect her work. She might be disturbed by the other nurses going in and out of the district room.’

Fiona raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, we’ll just have to inform them that they are to re-equip their bags more quietly for now. They’re intelligent young women. I’m sure they can manage.’ She switched the light off again and nodded with satisfaction. ‘Come, we’ll go up to my office and make a note that all is ready for our new recruits. Whatever happens we cannot shirk the paperwork.’

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Gwen as she followed her diminutive colleague up the wide stairs to the first floor. Though in truth she was more of a stickler for the rules than any of them. Bombs might fall and fires might blaze, but Gwen would see to it that the proper regulations were adhered to.

Fiona led the way into the office, its shelves crammed with medical textbooks and files, bright in the sharp winter light. She swung herself into her wooden chair and Gwen took her usual place opposite the old wooden desk, polished to within an inch of its life, as Fiona picked up her fountain pen and made a note on the form placed in readiness in front of her.

‘At least we have one regular room for our other recruit,’ the superintendent said, blotting the dark blue ink.

Gwen nodded. ‘Who would have thought that Primrose would leave us to get married. After all her years of training. She seemed so steady. I’d have assumed she’d have carried on with us, no matter what.’

Fiona leant back and laughed. ‘Who would have thought you’d say such a thing, Gwen? Before the war you’d never have countenanced the idea of a nurse staying on after her wedding.’ Her eyes gleamed in merriment.

Gwen sighed, caught on the horns of the dilemma. Strictly speaking, all nurses were meant to cease work after getting married, but that rule had been enforced less and less as the war had gone on. Hospitals and district nursing organisations simply could not afford to lose young women with medical expertise, and besides, many of the new husbands were away, serving in the armed forces. Added to that, in many areas of the country – the East End being one of them – a young married couple would struggle to find a home of their own, as so much of the housing stock had suffered bomb damage. The result was, more and more nurses married their sweethearts and then returned to work, living in their respective nurses’ homes.

Gwen disapproved in principle but was forced to concede in practice. The real problem came when the inevitable consequence followed.

‘That’s as maybe,’ she admitted, accustomed to her friend’s teasing. ‘The fact remains that we must keep a careful eye on Nurse Gillespie – I mean Nurse Banham, as she is now. When is her baby due?’

Fiona thought for a moment. ‘Not until June, I believe. She’ll be fine for a while yet. She’s made of strong stuff, is Edith.’

Gwen nodded in acknowledgement. She could not argue with that; Edith would never have come through the past few years had she not been. Edith’s fiancé had gone missing at Dunkirk and everyone thought he had died, along with so many others. Then they had learned that he had been so badly injured he’d been unable to tell his rescuers who he was or where he was from. He had been discovered in hospital in Portsmouth, close to death and almost unrecognisable. It had taken many operations and changes of treatment before he miraculously recovered enough to marry Edith.

‘She’s hiding her morning sickness as best she can, but I’m not fooled,’ Gwen said now. ‘If she becomes too weak to perform her duties, we must step in. She won’t like it but it’s our job to protect both her and her baby. Also, we must protect our patients.’

‘Gwen.’ Fiona looked up sharply. ‘You’re not suggesting that our patients will object to their nurse being pregnant? I know it’s unusual but they’ll have to accept it.’

‘No, no,’ Gwen said hurriedly. ‘Besides, Edith is almost as tiny as you are. There’s no sign of her bump showing yet. What I meant was, the daily rounds of working on the district require physical exertion. Just riding those bikes takes considerable effort. I regret not obtaining new ones while they were still available. There’s no chance now.’ She shook her head and then returned to her main point. ‘The fact is, Edith might reach a stage where she’s simply not able to manage the physical side of the job. She’ll be the last to admit it – you know as well as I do how hard she drives herself. So that is when you or I must be prepared to step in.’