However, when she ran her pen down the list of patients Sally’s mouth fell open and her fingers covered her lips to stop the startled exclamation escaping; it wouldn’t do to show the young probationers that, as experienced as Sister Tutor was, she too could be alarmed at a name on the list of patients.
Taking in a slow stream of calming air, Sally shook her head, realising she had to pull herself together and show the professional attitude that she had become renowned for.
‘Callum?’ Her voice was barely above a whisper. What on earth was he doing here? Surely, if he had been injured he would be in Haslar, the Royal Naval Hospital in Hampshire. Why had he been brought here? Straightening her dark blue uniform and making sure her white frilled cap was sitting straight, Sally took one last look in the mirror on her office wall and noticed that her cheeks were unusually pink.
‘Pull yourself together, Sister,’ she rebuked her reflection. ‘This is a hospital and you have work to do.’ But her hasty scolding did nothing to calm her racing heart. Taking another deep breath, she made her efficient, straight-backed way right down the middle of Nightingale ward, past the regimented row of pristine iron beds to Callum’s bedside.
‘Hello, Sal.’ Callum’s deep, rich voice sounded croaky. ‘I’ve been waiting to see you.’ He gave a half-smile and his heavy eyelids slowly closed, while Sally noted, as she had so often, that the luxuriantly thick, dark eyelashes resting on his cheeks were wasted on a man. And as he drifted off into an anaesthetised sleep she gazed at his handsome features, which were especially striking at rest. The glowing, golden tan told her that he had been somewhere exotic, and most certainly dangerous, and she tried to ignore the flip of her heart.
‘Dear Callum,’ Sally whispered as she lifted his wrist and took his strong pulse. She hadn’t seen him since he left baby Alice in her care, and even though he looked peaceful enough now she could tell by his sunken cheeks and cracked lips that he had been through a lot.
‘Bring me some lanolin, please, Nurse,’ Sally asked noticing that Callum’s swollen lips looked very sore. She felt a surge of … what? Pity? Regret at the way things turned out? She wasn’t sure. But one thing Sally did know, Callum would receive the best of attention while he was here – the same as every other patient in this hospital.
‘Appendicitis can get you any time,’ she whispered after dabbing the balm on his lips. Before she left his bedside she took one more look at the face of the man she had once loved with all of her heart. But she had been but a girl then. Things had changed a lot since that time. But as Sally turned from Callum’s bed, allowing him time to sleep and to heal, she recognised a familiar emotion … one she hadn’t felt for a long time.
Agnes was glad her shift was over. Having been persuaded that her services were of the utmost importance on the underground – and preventing her from realising her long-held dream of living in the countryside – Agnes had stayed on since Ted’s death, but she wasn’t finding it easy. At the start of every shift her pain seemed renewed, and more so last night, Ted’s birthday. It had been a long night and she was bone weary now.
Almost at the top of the Chancery Lane Underground steps, Agnes struggled to pick her way through the mass of people leaving the shelter for the day when she suddenly heard Ted’s voice calling her name. Not just recalling it – she actually heard it.
Looking up, Agnes saw him standing at the top of the stairwell. He beamed that smile she remembered so well and she felt her heart hammer in her chest. To other people Ted might have been a relatively ordinary-looking young bloke of middling height, but his blue eyes were the kindest she had ever seen. Immediately, she quickened her step towards him – so he could reach out, grab her hand and haul her to where he was standing.
‘Ted? Ted!’ Agnes looked around wildly before the familiar panic shot through her, reminding her that Ted was no longer alive. Nor was he waiting for her at the end of a busy shift. She blinked away acid tears that stung her eyes and brought a choking lump to her throat … Quickly, however, she wiped her eyes with the pad of her hand and made her way home, not only exhausted but delusional too. Every day was like this now, she realised; her grief had got to the point where she could hardly bear it. Ted had been the only love she had ever known and his sudden death had left a void she felt unable to fill. But coming here every day to the Underground railway where she worked in the ticket office was becoming too much to bear now.
The physical ache had not gone away as people said it would. And her life seemed to go from one empty day to another. Even though it had been almost six months since his tragic death, over in Bethnal Green, Agnes still felt it as deeply as if it had happened only yesterday. The horror of that awful tragedy was still as raw as the night she was called into the station master’s office and given the devastating news.
Her overwhelming loss brought back feelings of rejection; like the day Matron told her she was no longer needed at the orphanage when the children were being moved to the country for the duration of this terrible war. She would have loved to have gone with them.
The orphanage wasn’t just a place where she worked – it had been her home and her life from the day she was found in a shopping basket on the doorstep at only a few weeks old, wrapped in a shabby pink blanket.
Agnes recalled being so scared to meet her new landlady, Olive, a widow, who lived with her daughter and two other lodgers. Tilly turned out to be her best friend – the only one she had ever had with whom to share confidences and dreams for the future – but what future was there now since Tilly had joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service – the ATS – and Ted was never coming back? As she approached Olive’s house in Article Row, Agnes knew she had to buck her ideas up. She didn’t want Olive to fret over her any more. But her landlady was a canny woman who missed nothing.
‘Is something bothering you, Agnes?’ Olive asked kindly, pouring tea into two cups. She had just returned from the church hall where she had been sorting clothes into bundles for the Red Cross shop.
‘Since Ted died,’ Agnes said hesitantly, ‘I have felt lonelier than I ever was before.’ Even though Olive and the others had been extra specially kind, sometimes it just wasn’t enough.
‘You’ve been through a lot,’ Olive said as she pulled the chair from under the table and sat down while Agnes poured little more than a teaspoon of milk into her tea.
‘I’ll admit my nerves are shredded, Olive,’ she said, sipping the scalding liquid without flinching, ‘but don’t we all feel like that these days?’ She paused momentarily and Olive allowed her to gather her thoughts. ‘But it’s not because Ted died, if I’m really honest.’
Olive’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She knew that Agnes had idolised her fiancé.
‘That’s just it,’ Agnes said as if the realisation had only just dawned on her. ‘I did love Ted, but the thing that has been bothering me more than anything is that … I can be honest with you, Olive … I secretly dreaded the day we would be man and wife. As I said, I did love him – but I wasn’t in love with him – I valued him like a lost soul loves their rescuer.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ Olive said, her brows puckered, wondering if Agnes had truly lost all reason now.
‘He was the first man who ever spoke to me like a friend; he helped me settle in when I went to work on the underground … He was my guide and I was obliged to him, but you can’t build a life together on gratitude … And his mother!’ Agnes’s eyes widened, and Olive found her expression vaguely comical, but she did not even smile as Agnes continued earnestly.
‘I was constantly aware that any moment London would be attacked from the air and she could be dead, injured or incapacitated, and I know now that I only cared for Ted’s sake.’
‘Well, you weren’t