Now it all came back to her. She was at the North Hackney Queen’s Nurses home on Victory Walk, in Dalston. This was her little attic room, and the reason it was so dark was that the blackout blind was firmly in place. The country was at war, and had been for nearly a year. It was warm as it was summer, and from the birdsong outside it was already dawn. Slowly she sat up and shook her head, trying to wake up.
Her dream lingered on the fringes of her mind. The details had gone but the sensation of happiness – of being cared for – remained, and she smiled in the darkness, savouring that comforting and thrilling feeling. Somebody loved her and she loved them back.
Then she remembered and cried out despite herself. Harry was gone. Harry Banham, the most handsome and wonderful man in the world, had not made it back from Dunkirk, and she was alone. Her dream had lied. There was nobody to hug her, to hold her and tell her how beautiful she was. There was no golden future for the couple who’d attracted envious glances wherever they’d gone. The life they’d so recently begun to plan was never going to happen. Sobs came from her throat and dimly she realised that she started most of her days like this, waking in the hope of seeing Harry and then coming back to reality with a sickening bump.
Her alarm clock began to ring and she reached automatically to silence it, then crept across the rag rug to the window and pulled back a corner of the blind. Sunshine edged its way into the little room, revealing that it was far from luxurious but had all the essentials. The room of a woman who had a job to do.
Edith turned to her wardrobe. The full-length mirror on its door reflected her slight figure, with her short, dark hair sticking up from where she’d slept on it. Her dark eyes took it in and she automatically smoothed it back down. Then she took out her uniform, shaking out the creases. Time to start the day. No matter that her heart was still raw from recent bereavement. Plenty of others were in the same boat. She had to carry on as normal and do what was required of her. After all, she was a nurse.
‘Gladys, whatever are you doing?’
Edith arrived downstairs for breakfast to be greeted by her colleague, Mary Perkins, complaining loudly. Mary had never been one for waking up in the best of tempers and now her voice rose over the clattering of saucepans and pots being stacked on the lino floor of the storeroom, which was squeezed between the stairs and the large area they all used as a canteen and common room.
Gladys, who helped out their cook and with general domestic duties, stood up and pushed her lank brown hair from her eyes. Even though the morning was still young she looked as if she’d already been up for hours.
‘We got to hand over all our scrap metal,’ she said. ‘The government says so. There’s going to be a collection or we can take it to the council. So I’m sorting out all our old pots what aren’t no real use any more.’
‘Yes, but can’t you do so quietly?’ Mary wailed. ‘Surely they can’t need it right now? The council depots won’t even be open, and I’ll bet all their staff are still safely asleep, like anybody sensible would be.’
Gladys shook her head. ‘I got other things to do later. So I thought I’d get on and do this now, then it will be one job done and ticked off me list.’
Edith nodded to herself. This time last year, Gladys wouldn’t have said boo to a goose, but she’d changed in the months in between, gaining in confidence and learning to read. Now she was standing up to Mary, who had a heart of gold, but was used to a lifetime of speaking sharply to servants.
‘Come on,’ Edith said, not wanting to start the day with a row. ‘I’m starving. Let’s have some toast.’ She steered Mary away and over to a vacant dining table, as Gladys resumed her sorting and stacking.
Mary plonked herself down on the hard wooden chair, which made her rich brown curls bounce around her cross face, and allowed Edith to fetch her some toast and a cup of tea. ‘It’s too bad,’ she grumbled.
‘What? That Gladys has to get up even earlier than usual to clear out the broken saucepans?’ Edith thought that was a bit much, even for Mary.
Mary shook her head. ‘No, of course not. I know I’m being silly.’ She sighed as she smeared a small amount of butter across the toast. ‘It’s nothing to do with Gladys really. It’s Charles.’
Edith raised her eyebrows in sympathy, even though she sometimes envied Mary for the fact that her boyfriend was still alive and so she really didn’t have much to complain about. However, she liked to hear about what her friend’s beau was doing, partly because he was a captain in the army and generally knew what was going on in the wider world, even if he wasn’t permitted to tell them the half of it. ‘What’s wrong, then? Spill the beans.’
Mary crunched into her toast and took a second slice. It would take more than a minor argument to make her lose her appetite. She finished her mouthful and looked up, her expression changing from annoyed to sad. ‘Well, of course I hardly see him, he’s so busy. Then, when we do manage to find an evening when he’s not on duty, he’s so preoccupied that I sometimes wonder if he hears a word I say.’ She patted one of her curls into place. ‘Yesterday I spent ages doing my hair, wearing my nicest silk blouse and making sure I looked my very best to cheer him up. Boost his morale and all that. But he didn’t even notice. Didn’t say a thing.’
Edith set down her own piece of toast. ‘I expect he did and just didn’t want to mention it,’ she suggested.
‘But I want him to mention it!’ Mary cried, her usually bright blue eyes now filled with irritation. ‘It took me ages, and you know how hard it’s becoming to buy nice makeup and find a way to make your favourite perfume last. I don’t want to let him down when he takes me to lovely restaurants.’
‘Of course,’ said Edith, although her experience of lovely restaurants was nonexistent. Harry used to take her to a local pub, the Duke’s Arms, or one of the nearby cinemas, and that was all they had needed.
‘He keeps going on about the threat of Hitler invading,’ Mary confided. ‘I tell him, he won’t. He wouldn’t dare. Mr Churchill will defend us. That’s what he’s promised to do and I believe him. There’s no need to worry on that score. Charles won’t tell me any details but he looks so tired and drawn, poor lamb. Yesterday he couldn’t even spare the time for a proper meal. We just went to the hotel bar nearest to his office and had a quick supper there. Not that it wasn’t lovely,’ she added loyally.
‘I bet it was,’ said Edith. Mary had been adamant up until the actual outbreak of hostilities that there wasn’t going to be a war, that Mr Chamberlain would stop it. So Edith didn’t have any great faith in her friend’s abilities to predict the future. Yet she could not fault her for steadfastness and optimism, qualities which might be very important in the days to come, if her own worst fears of invasion came true.
‘I’m beginning to think he’s a bit of a fusspot,’ Mary admitted. ‘He was so carefree and fun when we first met, and now his mind is always on something else, I can just tell.’ She reached for the marmalade and carefully helped herself to a small amount, to leave enough for whoever sat at the table next. Nobody could slather it on their toast any more, the ingredients were too scarce. Sugar had been rationed since the start of the year and oranges had all but disappeared.
‘Well, he’s got an important job to do,’ Edith pointed out. She checked her watch. ‘As have we.’
Hastily Mary finished off the last of her breakfast. ‘I’d better go and restock my Gladstone bag. I didn’t get around to it last night, what with preparing to go out with Charles. I don’t want to run short of anything.’
Edith