‘Is everything all right, Tilly?’ Rick asked as a slow smile played about his lips. They had been courting for a while now, and though they were happy enough, Tilly hadn’t felt that zing of breathless excitement when Rick put his arms around her as she had when … no, she mustn’t think of that any more. Drew had gone; he was in the past. Her future was a glorious journey of discovery. It was early days in her and Rick’s relationship and she didn’t want to rush things the way she had wanted to with Drew. Tilly nodded and gave a lazy smile back. She was tired now and she longed for the ease of her comfortable mattress back home, the pampering she knew she would receive from her mum and the welcome oblivion of sleep.
She hadn’t been home for months and had missed everybody terribly, but she couldn’t keep in touch with Mum or the girls while she had been training at a top-secret place known only as Station X.
Her work was strictly hush-hush and must never be spoken about to anybody, not even Mum. Maybe this would be her last leave before being sent somewhere else. Where that would be she did not know.
‘D’you fancy going to a dance tomorrow? Or would you prefer to have dinner at Quaglino’s?’ Rick asked. ‘Seeing as it’s your special birthday.’
Tilly surmised he wouldn’t choose to take her to such an exclusive, high-class establishment; Rick preferred singsongs around an old piano in a public bar. But the mere mention of the restaurant name once again brought back memories of Drew, and how he had held her hand across the table. Then their eyes had locked as she felt herself cocooned in the deepest fathoms of his soul as his forefinger lightly traced the outline of her face. That was the Christmas they vowed to be together for ever. But it wasn’t to be. She knew that now.
‘Hey, daydreamer, are you listening to me?’ Rick nudged her elbow and Tilly could feel the heat rise to her cheeks.
‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ she said hurriedly. She gave a self-conscious laugh, knowing that she didn’t feel the same way about Rick as she did about Drew. But she was a fool to continue having feelings for a man who obviously didn’t care about her at all, and could forget her so easily when he was with his own people. Maybe it had been a narrow escape, she mused. How awful would it have been if she had travelled all the way to America to be with Drew, only to find out he didn’t want her as much as he had said he did.
Looking out of the window, Tilly watched the countryside flashing past. Tomorrow was her twenty-first birthday and she would be legally old enough to call herself an adult and do exactly as she pleased. But would she? That was the question that was circling in her head.
She had made the decision to serve abroad so that she could decide once and for all what kind of person she truly was, and the last few months had proved to her that she had outgrown her youthful ways. Nobody, in this day and age, had dreams beyond living another day, she was sure. And her girlhood dreams of a wonderful white wedding were now just a dream …
‘Hey, sleepy head, we’re nearly there …’
Through half-closed lids Tilly saw Rick smiling at her from the seat opposite … How handsome he looked …
The news that Drew was getting married exploded all Sally’s hopes of him and Tilly ever getting back together again. She had heard from his nurses that he’d had many attractive young ladies visit him, and this was understandable, he being the son of one of America’s wealthiest families – he was bound to have elegant women around him.
However, Sally would always think of him as just … Drew. Drew, who was welcomed into Olive’s home, as all their sweethearts had been. Wilder, Dulcie’s beau, who had been killed after her sister got her claws into him and before Dulcie married David, or George before he lost his life at sea, even Ted, who treated Agnes more like a sister than his fiancée – Olive had welcomed them all. But Olive had watched none of them as closely as she had watched Drew, imagining at first that he would break her daughter’s heart. And it looked as if she had been right. Tilly had heard nothing from this young man from the day he left her to go back to America over a year ago.
On the advice of Drew’s father, Olive thought it best not to tell Tilly that Drew had been injured and was at death’s door: Tilly would be better off without the aggravation an invalid might cause. However, Sally knew how much in love the two young people had been, even if their parents had not, and she recognised how much they meant to each other. It shone from their souls every time they looked at each other, and she knew that they had eyes for nobody else in the room. So it was not surprising that the news of Drew’s impending nuptials caused Sally’s heart to sink now, as hopes of a happy ending for Tilly dwindled to nothing.
‘Well, look after yourself, Drew,’ Sally said, giving him a friendly hug. ‘It was a pleasure to have met you and I hope you are very happy.’ And before Sally could disgrace herself, she choked back her disappointment, and with a tear in her eye she gave Drew a quick peck on the cheek before hurriedly leaving the room.
Taking deep breaths, she headed towards her office at the end of Men’s Surgical and closed the door behind her. Picking up the cup of now tepid tea, which one of the young probationers had kindly made for her earlier, Sally sighed. It would have been so wonderful if Tilly could have had her fairy-tale romance. Who would have known how things would turn out at the start of the war, she thought as she recalled Tilly and Drew who, like the two star-crossed lovers Shakespeare had once written about, had been young and in love, and gave the impression that for them life would be happy ever after. If only life were like that, she thought.
Looking through the small office window onto the ward, Sally could clearly see Callum, his head resting at an angle on the immaculately starched pillow, his dark unruly hair unusually neat, combed back off his forehead, showing three faint surprise lines and a splay of laughter lines around the outer corner of his eyes. He looked peaceful now, Sally noticed. As she watched his restful slumber, allowing herself the luxury of prolonged observation, the ghost of past anger seeped from her heart. In another time, given the chance, she had so very easily fallen in love with Callum.
She experienced that zing of delight the first time she ever set eyes on him when Morag brought him from their native Scotland to her own home in Liverpool. She had never seen a man more handsome – and when he spoke: she remembered how the rich Celtic timbre of his voice washed over her and she thought she had died and gone to heaven.
Sally sighed for lost chances. That was then.
As she put back her cup on to the saucer she knew things were so much different now. She must put those silly thoughts from her head: they both led different lives now and the one person who had bound them together was gone.
Absent-mindedly picking up the patients’ notes that were awaiting her instruction, Sally heard the urgent tap on the office door and called for whoever it was to enter.
A young nurse came in and said in a quietly concerned tone, ‘Sister, I think you’d better come and have a look at this!’
Sally did not go haring down the ward between the regimented, iron beds as the young nurse had done; instead she followed at a more dignified pace and reached Callum’s bed almost at the same time.
‘What is it, Nurse?’ she said, watching the nurse gently easing back the covers from Callum’s chest. Sally observed that he didn’t move a muscle as his striped pyjamas were being opened. Moving forward, Sally watched as the nurse removed the surgical dressing that covered the wound where his appendix had been removed.
To her horror she noticed a vivid, puce-coloured wheel of infection surrounding the stitched area out of which a foul-smelling, pale green fluid oozed. Immediately Sally rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She didn’t need a thermometer to know that Callum had a raging temperature and she could hear the shallow rasp as air struggled