‘I’m so tired, I nearly fell asleep when I was feeding a patient this morning. I would have done, I reckon, if she hadn’t given me a nudge in the ribs to warn me that Staff Nurse Rodgers was watching me,’ Jennifer moaned.
Those members of Grace’s set who were on ‘days’ rather than ‘nights’ were sitting huddled over the fire in the junior nurses’ sitting room, snatching a much-needed few minutes of relaxation after their evening meal.
‘That’s nothing. Three patients on my ward were sick after breakfast this morning, and Sister had me scrubbing their sheets and nightgowns. I thought I was going to throw up myself, I did,’ said Doreen.
‘I’ve heard that at least four girls from other sets have left, saying that they thought they were supposed to be training as nurses, not working as skivvies,’ Iris told them.
Grace was so exhausted that she would quite happily have let the complaints of the others wash over her unregarded if Hannah hadn’t nudged her and demanded, ‘What about you, Grace? How are you doing on Men’s Surgical?’
Grace stifled a yawn and told them ruefully, ‘Staff Nurse had me and the other junior doing five bed baths this morning, and they all went and got you-know-whats.’
The others all laughed.
They might have been on the wards for just over a month but it seemed a lifetime ago since they had been in PTS, with its male torso minus any sexual organs. Grace might be able to laugh now at the shock it had given her on her first week on the ward the first time she had been instructed to give a patient a bed bath. Both her face and the poor patient’s had been bright red when the unfamiliar male arrangement of ‘bits’ had suddenly stiffened into an erection.
Staff Nurse, who must have been watching, had called her over to the large desk in the middle of the ward afterwards and calmly explained the workings of the male anatomy to her, advising her that the male patients, much to their own embarrassment, tended to get erections when pretty nurses bed bathed them, and that it was a fact of nursing life that Grace would have to get used to. On the other hand, Staff Nurse had added firmly, if any male patient suggested that she do anything with that erection, she was to walk away and report him to a more senior nurse immediately.
The routine of the hospital wards, with its temperature, pulse and breathing rate charts, its timed-to-the-second visits from stern-faced doctors and consultants, who never ever acknowledged the existence of the most junior nurses, plus the fearsomeness of staff nurses and sisters, might now be familiar to them, but they all agreed that the exhaustion caused by the amount of physically hard and often dirty work they were required to do had proved far harder to adjust to.
‘Me hands are red raw from cleaning floors and scrubbing sheets,’ Doreen complained. ‘And me feet feel like they’re on fire after walking up and down that ruddy ward. They were that swollen last night I thought I’d have to sleep in me stockings and shoes.’
‘On fire?’ Iris chivvied her. ‘You’re lucky. Mine are half frozen, and covered in chilblains.’
It was the coldest winter that anyone could remember, although you wouldn’t have known it, since the Government had given orders that there was to be no weather reporting in the papers or by the BBC because, so rumour had it, it might be bad for morale.
All manner of things were ‘not being reported’, or so Teddy had told Grace when he had taken her to the pictures earlier in the week on her half-day off. And yet on the other hand there were constant ‘Chinese whispers’ about Hitler’s imminent invasion, and there had definitely been sightings of enemy reconnaissance planes over Liverpool, as well as an attempt to destroy the Forth Bridge, with bombs dropped in Scotland.
But worst of all for a city like Liverpool to bear was the increasingly bad news about the number of British vessels being torpedoed and sunk. Everyone in the city knew how much the whole country relied on safe passage of the convoys crisscrossing the Atlantic and bringing home much-needed supplies for the war effort; and virtually everyone in the city also had or knew of someone who had a family member on board those ships.
The bombing raids they had been warned to expect might not have materialised, the stored cardboard coffins may not have been needed as yet, but death had still come to the streets of Liverpool and mourners were still weeping for those they had lost.
The cinema newsreels, of course, focused on those things that would boost the country’s morale rather than damage it; scenes of the routing of the Graf Spee; of British troops abroad enjoying ENSA-sponsored shows; cheery WVS workers manning tea urns, and happy evacuated children frolicking in a sunny countryside.
Just seeing that sunshine had made Grace long for its warmth. Everyone was saying that they couldn’t remember there being such a bitterly cold winter. Even in the cinema it was so cold that Grace had half hoped that Teddy might put his arm around her once they were inside, but he hadn’t.
They had several patients on the ward who had been injured in accidents caused by the icy roads, and when Grace had gone home on her full day off to visit her family her mother had told her that her father was complaining about the weather stopping him from working on his allotment.
Although officially, as trainee nurses, they were supposed to have one half-day and one full day off a week, as Grace had discovered, with all the studying they still had to do, more often than not that time off was spent in their rooms poring over notes and books.
She was reminded of what Teddy had told her about news being held back when she went on duty one the morning in early February.
As soon as daily prayers were over, Staff Nurse Reid informed them that they had received eight new patients overnight, four of them in beds on the ward itself and four more in the much smaller side wards, normally reserved for paying patients or special cases needing individual nursing.
The hospital had been built on the Florence Nightingale principle, the so-called Nightingale wards having high ceilings and tall windows to facilitate the flow of the fresh air, which Florence Nightingale had considered important in defeating the spread of infection and aiding patients’ recovery. The beds had to be a certain distance apart, with the wheels turned inwards to allow for proper cleaning and to prevent the spread of cross infection. Heavy screens were pulled around a bed should the patient need privacy. Ward Sister sat at a table in the middle of the ward, keeping a steely eye on her domain.
The nurses’ home at the hospital was attached to the main hospital via an underground tunnel, the entrance to which was guarded by an extremely fierce porter.
‘It’s going to be like living in a convent,’ Lillian had complained when they had first arrived earlier in the month.
‘Ah ha, now we know why you’re so keen to date a doctor,’ Hannah had joked with a grin. ‘It’s because you think they’re the only men that will get anywhere near the place.’
They might have finished their initial three-month training but in hospital hierarchy terms they were still the lowest of the low as had been made clear to them from the first moment they set foot on the wards.
Grace’s first duty of the morning was to help serve the patients their breakfasts.
‘We had some Merchant Navy lads brought in last night off one of the convoy ships,’ the junior nurse going off duty managed to whisper confidentially to her as they changed shifts. ‘In a real bad way they are, an’all. Got torpedoed by the Germans.’
There wasn’t time for her to say any more. Screens were drawn around four of the beds on the ward and the doors closed to the side wards, and Sister told Grace that she was not to take breakfast to those patients.
After breakfast came the inevitable ‘bottle’ round, and then the collection and removal of the bottles to the sluice room ready for the urine to be tested for ‘sugar’, albumin or blood, depending on what was written on the patient’s chart.
Then after that came the first of the many ‘locker’ rounds of the day, for which Grace had to set a trolley with a basin of carbolic, a cloth, a small pail for rubbish and a large jug of fresh water. Each locker top had to be wiped with carbolic. Any rubbish such as papers had to be removed, ashtrays had to be emptied and wiped, and finally the patient’s drinking glass had to be filled with water.
All the patients’ lockers were supposed to be finished by the time of the first nurses’ coffee break. During her first week it had taken Grace nearly half as long again as it should have done to complete this task but now she could work quickly and smoothly and still find time to chat to the patients as she did so, taking the letters she was given for posting and exchanging banter with those men who were well enough to want to indulge in it.
Several patients were recovering from serious operations and Grace always tried to spend a little more time with them. Today, though, even those patients who had seemed the most poorly were now making an effort to be more chipper and were asking anxiously after the new arrivals.
‘Heard as how one poor lad has lost both his legs,’ said old Mr Whitehead, in a wheezy whisper.
Grace’s hand shook slightly as she filled his water glass.
There had been several occasions since she had come on the ward, when the things she had seen – and smelled – had made her stomach heave, but the thought of some poor young man losing his limbs still shocked her.
It was a relief in many ways to be told not to go near the small side wards, although Grace couldn’t help but notice the number of white-coated doctors and surgeons coming on to the ward to see the new patients.
By dinnertime Grace was more than ready for a break. It was her half-day off, and she’d promised to meet Teddy after she’d had her dinner, but since she was starting ‘nights’ from seven o’clock, she had decided against doing anything other than snatching a bit of fresh air and some much-needed ‘extra’ sleep.
Nurses weren’t allowed to leave the hospital grounds wearing their uniform, but since she would be seeing Teddy in the hospital grounds Grace had not bothered to get changed. Huddling into her cloak, she made her way carefully across the icy yard to where Teddy had parked his ambulance, her breath coming in white puffs on the frosty air.
Teddy had obviously been on the look-out for her because he opened the door and climbed out of the cab, coming to meet her, rubbing his hands and then blowing on them to ward off the cold.
‘It’s soooo cold,’ Grace complained, her smile turning to a concerned frown when Teddy started to cough.
‘It’s all right, it’s just the cold air getting on me chest,’ he reassured her.
‘I can’t stay long,’ Grace told him. ‘I start nights tonight.’
‘You’ll have them poor sods that came off that convoy on your ward. One of the lads was telling us about them this morning. In a bad way, they are, by all accounts. Makes my blood boil when daft folk complain about a bit of rationing. They’d sing a different song if it were their kin wot was sailing with the convoys.’
‘I don’t think people always understand – about the rationing, I mean.’
Teddy smiled at her. ‘That’s typical of you, Grace; you never want to think badly of anyone. Well, one day you’re going to have to if ruddy Hitler gets his way.’ He gave a frustrated sigh. ‘It really narks me, not being allowed to join up and do me bit.’
‘But you are doing your bit, Teddy,’ Grace protested. ‘My dad says that one of the biggest mistakes they made in the last war was making all the young men enlist and that’s why this time they’ve said that there’s got to be reserved occupations.’
She could see that Teddy wasn’t looking convinced. Grace shivered. Although she tried not to worry, sometimes it was hard not to feel afraid when other people were talking about how things would be if Hitler invaded and took over the country.
‘Is your Luke still writing to that flighty piece from your set?’ Teddy asked her abruptly.
Grace had been surprised when Luke had told her in one of his letters that he was writing regularly to Lillian, especially when Lillian herself hadn’t said anything to Grace about it.
‘Told you so,’ had been Hannah’s comment when Grace had confided in her. ‘It won’t last, mind, at least not on her part, not once she gets that doctor she’s wanting in her sights. She’ll drop your brother like a hot potato then, just you wait and see.’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Grace told Teddy. ‘Why?’
‘I saw her going into Lyons with a chap the other day when I was driving past, that’s all.’
‘He was probably just a friend,’ Grace felt bound to defend the other girl. ‘And anyway, she and Luke are only writing to one another, nothing more.’
‘Some chaps place a lot of store on that kind of thing.’
What was Teddy trying to say? Grace looked at him uncertainly.
‘She can’t be serious about anyone, not with us all only just starting out on our training. None of us can,’ she reminded Teddy.
‘You’d better get back if you want a couple of hours’ sleep before you start on nights,’ he warned her, looking significantly at his watch.
‘Oh heavens, you’re right.’ Grace reached up to hug him. His chin and nose were turning blue with the cold and she supposed her own must be doing the same.
The other girls teased her about her relationship with Teddy, wanting to know if they were going steady and then shaking their heads when she told them that it wasn’t something they had discussed.
‘It’s not natural, that isn’t. Stands to reason that if a lad is asking you out all the time he must have summat in mind,’ Iris had told her forthrightly.
‘Teddy knows how important my training is to me, and we know that we have to stay single if we want to be nurses. We’re just friends, that’s all,’ Grace had responded firmly.
She knew, though, that they weren’t entirely convinced and the truth was that she wasn’t entirely convinced herself either. It wasn’t that she wanted Teddy to ask her to be his girl or say that he loved her, but it did seem funny that he never made any attempt to, well, do the kind of things she had heard other girls saying their dates did. Of course, it was a good thing that Teddy respected her and treated her properly, but surely there was nothing wrong in him putting his arm around her in the pictures, or perhaps kissing her good night?
Teddy was a decent sort and she ought to be grateful for that, Grace told herself sternly after they had said their goodbyes and she was on her way back to the nurses’ home.
Because she was now on nights and would be changing shifts with the girls on days, Grace was already eating when Hannah joined her at the table. Whilst the sisters had their own dining room, the junior nurses ate in the same room as the seniors and the staff nurses, although each rank had its own separate area of the room.
‘We’ve had one of the merchant seamen from your ward in theatre today,’ she told Grace as she tucked into her shepherd’s pie. ‘He’d got frostbite in his toes on account of being in the water when his ship went down, and Mr Stewart had to amputate them in case he got blood poisoning. Poor chap, he’s in a very bad way – and not the only one, by all accounts.’
Hannah loved working in the operating theatre, and Grace suspected that she would ultimately choose to specialise in theatre work. Her comments, though, coupled with Grace’s own tiredness, had made Grace feel slightly nauseous.
The rest of their set were filling up the table, all of them, except Lillian, who was also now on nights, chattering about their day.
‘Shepherd’s pie again,’ said Lillian, shuddering as she sat down.
‘Well, with any luck you’ll soon have that new doctor you’ve bin making eyes at all week taking you out for dinner,’ Doreen ribbed her goodnaturedly.
‘What do you mean, making eyes at him? I’ve been doing no such thing,’ Lillian denied sharply.
‘Well, from what I’ve heard, you’ll be wasting your time if you have because he’s already spoken for, and engaged to a girl down in London,’ Jennifer announced, sliding into the last empty seat in time to join the conversation. ‘And I collected your letters for you seeing as I was coming past anyway. Looks like Grace’s brother is still pretty keen on you: there’s three letters here from him.’
‘I don’t know why he keeps writing to me, because I’ve told him I haven’t got time to keep writing back. Some people just can’t seem to take a hint, though,’ said Lillian.
Grace could feel her face burning with a mixture of anger on Luke’s behalf and embarrassment on her own, at the open contempt in Lillian’s voice. She pushed away her unfinished meal and stood up, too angry and upset to trust herself to say anything.
Hannah caught up with her halfway down the corridor, catching hold of her arm and saying comfortingly, ‘That was a rotten thing of Lillian to say, but take no notice. My guess is that she’s made a bit of a fool of herself over this new doctor, and he’s told her that he isn’t interested, so now she’s taking it out on everyone else.’
‘I just wish that Luke had never met her and it’s my fault that he did. I never thought that he’d be silly enough—’ Grace broke off and shook her head. ‘You did warn me, I know, but I thought he’d see through her like we have.’
‘Men aren’t like us,’ Hannah told her wisely, ‘All it takes to pull the wool over their eyes sometimes is a pretty girl letting them think she’s in love with them. And, of course, it’s so much worse during wartime. It might be a good idea, though, if you were to write to him and drop him a hint, for his own sake.’
‘I’ve tried that already,’ Grace admitted, ‘but so far as he’s concerned, she’s the sweetest kindest girl ever and he can’t believe I could think they may not be suited.’ Grace gave a small sigh. ‘I suppose I could have a word with my mother, but I don’t want to worry her …’
What she didn’t want to say even to Hannah, who was probably her closest friend out of the whole group, was that from what he had said in his letters to her Luke genuinely believed that Lillian was far more committed to him than Grace knew her to be. So much so, in fact, that he had even talked of them becoming engaged just as soon as the war was over.
‘Lillian should have been straight with him from the start instead of leading him on. Now, of course, she’ll be worried about how it’s going to look if she sends him a Dear John letter whilst he’s away. If you ask me that’s why she’s acting the way she is, and hinting that she never encouraged him in the first place,’ said Hannah.
Grace sighed. She knew that what Hannah was saying was probably true.
She was still thinking about Luke and all the other young men like him for whom letters from their loved ones were so important when she went on to the ward. Even here in hospital, letters from their families were important to the men. Grace had seen the expectant look on their faces when the post was brought in and the disappointment when there was nothing for them.
The blackout coverings had already been put in place over the windows, which were now latticed with sticky tape to protect the patients from flying glass if the hospital were to be bombed, and the ward was shadowed and quiet. But that did not mean that there wasn’t plenty of work for her to do, Grace recognised, as Sister raised her head.
‘Lockers I think first, Campion, and then Staff Nurse Willetts will show you how to change Mr Simmonds’ dressing.’
‘Yes, Sister.’
Alfred Simmonds had been on the ward longer than anyone else. He had a nasty ulcerous sore on his leg that needed twice-daily dressing and which Grace had heard was ultimately unlikely ever really to heal.
‘He should be in a chronic infirmary ward really,’ Staff Nurse Willetts had told her, ‘but Sister reckons it would be the end of him if he was to leave here.’
Twice daily he was given M and B tablets, as the only medication available against blood poisoning was known, and the smell of the bandages that were removed from his leg and which it was Grace’s job to take away to the sluice room were enough to make her stomach heave.
There were screens around one of the beds, and Sister herself had disappeared behind them, a sure sign that the patient in the bed was poorly.
Seeing Grace looking toward it, Staff Nurse Willetts told her grimly, ‘We’ve got one of the merchant seamen in there. He had his operation earlier, and he’s not too well, poor chap. Now let’s go and see how you manage with Mr Simmonds’ ulcer, shall we?’
Cleaning Mr Simmonds’ leg was every bit as unpleasant as Grace had expected, but he was a kind man and he didn’t wince at all, despite the fact that Grace knew she must be hurting him. Her hands were trembling dreadfully by the time she had finished and his leg was finally rebandaged to Staff Nurse Willetts’ satisfaction. It was all very well practising bandaging and getting good marks; actually having to do it in reality was a very different matter, and Grace shuddered to think of what Staff might write in the plain cardboard-covered book all the junior nurses had to present to their seniors for their report every time they undertook a new procedure.
‘Now I want you to give Mr Simmonds his M and B. Can you remember the dosage?’
‘Two,’ Grace started to say and then changed it quickly to a three when she saw Mr Simmonds raising three fingers behind Staff’s back.
‘Good.’ Staff gave an approving nod of her head. ‘I’m glad to see you’re paying attention, Campion. Dr Lewis only increased the dosage yesterday.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Once Mr Simmonds has had his medication, and you’ve given out the urine bottles, you can go off for your break.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ Grace responded meekly.
The M and B tablets were huge and she wouldn’t have wanted to swallow one herself, but Mr Simmonds, bless him, was as good as gold, winking at her when she thanked him for helping her earlier and telling her that he wouldn’t mind a glass of whisky to help the pills go down.
Grace shook her head reprovingly. He knew as well as she did that alcohol was forbidden on the wards, although the patients were always trying to get some smuggled in by their visitors.
‘Always check the parcels that visitors bring in, Nurse,’ Staff Nurse Reid had told Grace on her first day on the ward. ‘Remove them from the visitors and take them straight to the sluice room for proper inspection.’
‘You’d be surprised the tricks the patients get up to,’ one of the other junior nurses had told Grace. ‘I had one a while ago that tried to sneak in some beer in a hot-water bottle.’
Grace had carefully loaded all the urine bottles onto the trolley and was just wheeling it past the curtained off bed when she thought she heard a sound from behind the curtains. She stopped the trolley and listened and heard it again, a sort of dripping noise. She looked towards the table in the centre of the room where the night sister and the staff nurse were working.
Staff Nurse looked up and, although Grace hadn’t said anything, she got up and came over to her demanding quietly, ‘What is it, Nurse? Why aren’t you giving out the bottles? The visitors will be here soon.’
‘I thought I heard something,’ Grace told her, feeling more foolish and uncomfortable by the second as she looked towards the screens.
Staff Nurse looked too. ‘Continue with your duties,’ she instructed Grace, before disappearing behind the screens, only to reappear again very quickly, so quickly in fact that Grace hadn’t had time to move.
It was an absolute rule that no nurse ever ran in sight of the patients, no matter what the emergency, so as not to panic or upset them, but Grace had never seen anyone move as swiftly as Staff Nurse did now as she went to the desk and then returned to the patient, accompanied by Sister, both of them gliding at such a speed that it was as though their feet didn’t even touch the floor.
Within seconds a doctor had been summoned and within minutes after that, the patient was being wheeled out of the ward.
‘Wonder what’s up wi’ him,’ one of the other men mused as Grace handed him his bottle.
Grace had to wait until she had come back from her break to find out. Staff was waiting for her as she walked into the ward and told her to follow her into the sluice room.
Once they were behind the closed door she told Grace approvingly, ‘That was very quick of you to spot that something was wrong, Campion. The patient had started to haemorrhage. He’s had to go back down to theatre, but with any luck he should be all right. However, next time you spot something don’t just stand there looking green, waiting for someone to notice. The patients get upset if they think that something’s wrong with someone. The correct procedure would have been for you to walk over to the desk and inform either myself or Sister of your concern.’
‘Yes, Staff,’ Grace agreed woodenly.
Bella glowered bad temperedly, as she stared round the shabby-looking school hall, with its smell of cold and damp and its hard wooden benches. She hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, and she wouldn’t have been here if it hadn’t been for Alan’s mother sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted and volunteering her spare rooms as billets for refugees. Her spare rooms, mind, not Alan’s mother’s own spare rooms. It was because of that that she, Bella, was here in this freezing cold school hall along with all the other householders who had been asked to come along and be matched up with the Polish refugees who had arrived in the area, and for whom the local council needed to find accommodation.
Alan’s mother had only volunteered her because Mr Parker was on the council and Alan’s parents wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing, thought Bella crossly.
The refugees were a sorry-looking bunch, mostly family groups of shabbily dressed men and women clutching grubby bundles with even grubbier-looking children clinging to their side. Some of the men looked positively disreputable, and Bella wasn’t surprised to see her mother-in-law’s friends making a beeline for the few refugees who seemed to be on their own – older women, in the main, who looked too exhausted and beaten down by what they had endured to be much trouble.
Bella had already told both her own mother and Alan, in no uncertain terms, what she felt about what she was being forced to do. Her mother naturally had been sympathetic and had agreed with her that Alan’s mother had a nerve volunteering her, but she had also reminded Bella that the Government could force her to provide billets for the refugees, if she didn’t volunteer, and that at least by volunteering she could have some say in who she had.
‘What you want to do is look for a strong sturdy woman who could do the rough work for you, darling,’ her mother had told her. ‘But make sure that she hasn’t got any children.’
Alan, typically, had sided completely with his mother, and had added fuel to the fire of Bella’s irritation by going on about all the voluntary work Trixie was doing, as well as working full time in the Parker family’s office.
Bella scowled now, remembering how furious she had been when she had learned that her fatherin-law had given Trixie a job answering the telephone and typing letters in his office.
‘What’s he asked her for?’ she had demanded, when Alan had told her. ‘I could have done that, and I’m sure the customers would much rather look at me than at Trixie.’
‘You?’ Alan had retaliated nastily. ‘You can’t even type. Trixie’s a proper shorthand typist. She’s got her head screwed on firmly, and she’s a lot pleasanter to be with than you are.’
Bella had been too furious to say anything, but she had poured out her fury to her mother later.
‘It’s Alan’s mother that’s gone and got her working there. I just know she has. She’s never liked me. Well, she can wish that Alan had married her precious Trixie as much as she likes, but it won’t do her any good because it’s me that’s his wife.’
A young woman with four small children all clinging to her looked pleadingly at Bella. Determinedly, Bella looked away, ignoring the desperate anxiety in her gaze.
She could see an older woman standing on her own. One of Alan’s mother’s friends was also studying her. Bella made up her mind. Determinedly she pushed her way to the desk, ignoring the fact that the three WVS women manning it were all already occupied with other householders, and announced firmly, to the one closest to her, ‘I’ll take that woman over there.’
The woman who had already been speaking to the WVS volunteer behind the desk looked crossly at Bella but Bella ignored her. The WVS volunteer sighed and reached for a fresh form.
‘Very well. And you are …?’
Bella gave her details, imperiously beckoning over the refugee she had chosen.
‘She’d better be able to speak English,’ she told the WVS worker, who had now turned to the refugee and was speaking to her slowly and politely, for all the world as though she was a proper person and not someone who was only here because of the war, Bella thought contemptuously. It seemed that the Polish woman could speak English, although not very well.
It was horribly unpleasant in the hall, and Bella couldn’t wait to get home. She would have to tell the woman to have a bath and make sure she washed all her clothes. She had been horrified when her mother had warned her that she must check to make sure that she didn’t need delousing.
‘Please sign this,’ the WVS woman told Bella, handing her a form.
Impatiently Bella signed it. ‘Do I have to take her with me now?’ she asked.
‘Yes, please.’ The WVS volunteer turned back to the waiting woman, and told her, ‘You and your daughter will both be billeted with Mrs Parker. She will take you home with her now.’
Her daughter? Bella stared at the WVS worker in furious outrage. ‘I never said anything about taking two of them.’
Was that triumphant dislike she could see in the volunteer’s eyes as she told her calmly, ‘Well, you’ve signed for them both, my dear, so I’m afraid you have no alternative. Next,’ she called out determinedly, ignoring Bella’s fury.
Two of them! Just what she hadn’t wanted, and she had been tricked into having them, she knew she had, Bella fumed as she glared at the two women who were now standing huddled together watching her.
The daughter was as plain and unprepossessing as the mother, both of them sallow-faced, with brown eyes and limp brown hair. They were as thin as sticks, and their clothes looked like rags. Bella was ashamed to be seen with them, even if they were only refugees and nothing really to do with her at all. How dreadful it was that these wretched refugees should have come over here like this, expecting to be taken into decent people’s homes, and how wrong of the British Government to force people to accept them.
By rights Alan should have been here to help her with them instead of expecting her to manage on her own. It was his mother’s fault, after all, that she had been landed with them, Bella decided crossly, ignoring the two women following her as she walked quickly home, hugging the warmth of her fur coat around her, her feet snug inside the thick fleecy boots her mother had bought for her.
Luckily, because of his business, her father was able to get a regular supply of coal and had had the good sense to stock up with it down at his business premises so that Bella was able to keep two good fires burning in the house, which was more than Alan’s mother was able to do, she thought smugly as she turned her key in the front door.
‘You two are to go down there,’ she told the two refugees, indicating the pathway that led to the back door of the house. She wasn’t going to allow them to use the front door.
When she had let them into the back kitchen, Bella made them stand there whilst she went to telephone her mother.
‘But, Mummy, you’ll have to come round,’ she insisted. ‘Daddy can drive you. I can’t let them go upstairs until I’m sure they haven’t got you-know-what.’
Having persuaded her mother to come round, Bella went into the kitchen and lit a cigarette, sitting down at the table so that she could watch her unwanted lodgers through the open door.
Half an hour passed, by which time Bella had smoked another cigarette and made herself a cup of tea, without bothering to offer her lodgers one.
The daughter looked angrily at her and said fiercely, ‘My mother is very tired. Where is her bedroom, please? She needs to have some rest.’
Bella stubbed out her cigarette. The cheek of it – making demands as though she had every right to do so.
‘I don’t care how tired she is. She’s not going anywhere until I’ve made sure that she’s fit to sleep in one of my beds.’
‘Fit?’ The girl looked puzzled. ‘But I have just said that she is not fit. She is tired.’
‘Look, I’ve just told you, she isn’t going anywhere—’ Bella broke off when she heard the doorbell.
‘They’re in the back kitchen,’ she told her mother after she had let her parents in.
‘Where’s Alan?’ her father asked sharply. ‘This is his responsibility, not ours.’
‘He’s still at work,’ Bella told them. ‘He’s always at work. Just wait until you see them, Mummy. They’re virtually dressed in rags. No wonder Hitler doesn’t want them.’
Bella could see from the expression on the daughter’s face that she had heard her. Good! She needed to know how lucky she was instead of looking at Bella with that proud angry look on her face.
‘Do they speak any English?’ Vi looked uncertainly at Bella.
‘We do speak English but my mother speaks less than me.’
Vi and Bella exchanged looks.
‘What are their names, Bella?’ Vi asked, still ignoring the refugees.
Bella began to shrug but the daughter spoke up again, saying proudly, ‘I am Bettina Polanski and my mother is Mrs Maria Polanski.’
‘I didn’t realise there were two of them,’ Bella told her mother. ‘And by the looks of her the older one isn’t going to be much good at doing my cleaning.’
‘Well, let’s get them bathed first, darling. It’s a pity there isn’t one of those old-fashioned tin baths, like the poor have.’ Raising her voice, she looked at the refugees.
‘You will both have to have baths and wash your hair, and your clothes will have to be washed before you can wear them again. I’ve brought them some things to wear in the meantime. Luckily Mrs Forrest had left some things with me for the Red Cross.’
‘Come along, the bathroom is this way.’
‘My mother is hungry. She needs food before anything else. We were told we would be given a meal and a comfortable bed. Your government has told us this and said that it will pay for us to have these things; they did not say that we would be treated like this.’
‘You can’t expect my daughter to make you a meal at this time of night.’
The older woman turned to her daughter and said something in Polish. Her voice was quiet and as tired as her expression. The daughter looked bitterly at Bella before very gently taking her mother’s arm and guiding her through the kitchen and into the hallway as they followed Bella’s mother.
‘But are you sure that they didn’t have any … anything?’ Bella asked her mother anxiously for the umpteenth time. ‘It’s all very well saying that they’ve both had a bath and that you’ll get their clothes laundered, but …’ Bella shuddered theatrically. ‘I can’t bear to think of having to have them here in my lovely house. It just isn’t fair.’
‘At least it’s only two women, Bella,’ Vi tried to comfort her. ‘No children, thank heavens.’
Bella certainly wasn’t prepared to give up two bedrooms to them, and had told them that they would have to share. Heavens, for all she knew they probably slept in a cowshed or something wherever it was they had come from, she thought.
‘I do hope they aren’t going to make a nuisance of themselves, Mummy,’ she told her mother now. ‘The cheek of it, actually asking for food.’
‘Well, yes, darling, but the Government has said that they must be given their meals, but that doesn’t mean that you should have to put yourself out for them. The girl looks healthy and strong. I dare say between them she and her mother can do all the cleaning and the cooking. It’s the least they can do for you, after all the trouble they’re putting you to. I should suggest it to them in the morning, if I were you.’
Bella’s face brightened a little. She hated cooking, and the thought of having someone to take over her domestic responsibilities was certainly appealing.