The Pull of the Stars(44)

I asked myself whether I minded about tomorrow’s birthday. The real question was whether I was going to regret it if I never got married. But how could I possibly know for sure until it was too late? Which wasn’t reason enough to do it, to throw myself headlong at every half-viable prospect the way some women did. Regret seemed all too likely either way.

When I let myself into the narrow terraced house, it smelled cold. Candle stubs burnt in jam jars.

My brother was scratching his magpie’s glossy head at the table.

I thought of the old rhyme for counting magpies. One for sorrow, two for joy.

Evening, Tim.

He nodded.

Odd how one took conversation for granted. A ribbon held taut between two people—until it was cut.

I mentioned too perkily: Rather a red-letter day. Sister Finnigan was needed up in Maternity, so yours truly found herself promoted to acting ward sister.

Tim’s eyebrows jogged up and down.

I had an awful habit of making up for my brother’s lack of chatter by doubling my own. I put my bag down and peeled off my coat and cape. The trick was not to ask questions, or only safe ones to which I could guess the answers. How’s your bird?

(I didn’t know if he’d given it a name in his head.)

Tim didn’t meet my eyes very often, but he could manage a half smile.

In the summer he’d found the enormous creature in the alley, grounded by a banjaxed leg. He’d bought it a rusty rabbit hutch to roost in and kept the door tied open with a piece of string so it could come and go as it pleased. Its sheeny green tail was always knocking things over. The magpie also did its business wherever it liked, and whenever I complained it was a menace, Tim pretended not to hear.

I’d been looking forward to something hot tonight, but clearly the gas was off. What about the water? I tried the tap—only a dribble. Damn and blast it!

It was a luxury to let myself curse off shift. To shed the guise of Nurse Power and be Julia.

Tim had a saucepan still hot on the Primus stove; he lit the kerosene flame to bring the water back to the boil for tea. I pushed aside the notebook that was always on the kitchen table for writing notes. Mine were frequent and chatty; Tim’s rare and sparse. (Whatever was locking his throat had the same grip on his writing hand.) I remarked into the silence, Awfully busy today. I lost one patient, from convulsions.

Tim shook his head in sympathy. He tugged at the touchwood charm on its chain around his neck as if wishing protection for me.

The week he’d joined up I’d given him the creepy charm half in jest—an imp with a swollen head of oak and an attenuated brass body. Some soldiers called it a fumsup because of the two thumbs perpetually turned up, for luck, on the tiny arms that went up and down. The only features left on Tim’s touchwood were two staring eyes; I supposed the rest of its face had been rubbed away by his fretful thumb. I thought of Honor White with her holy beads doubled around her wrist; it wasn’t just servicemen who clung to amulets.

I added, But it could have gone very much worse, really.

I’d have liked to tell Tim about the odd redhead who’d helped me today. But an uneducated girl with cracked shoes, raised in a home, lodging at a convent—Bridie might sound as if she were the opening line of a joke. I couldn’t seem to find words for her.

Tim took saucepan lids off two plates and set them down at our places.

He’d waited all this long dark evening to eat tepid food with his big sister. But he didn’t care for gush, so all I said was Oh, Tim, you’ve outdone yourself. Runner beans!

Another faint smile.

Before the war my brother had been rather more quick-witted and chipper than I. Like Bridie, actually—a real spark to him.

So you must have been at the allotment today.

(We had only an eighth of an acre, but Tim worked wonders.)

Potatoes were as scarce as gold nuggets. Tonight’s ones were perfect dimpled globes, the size of acorns. Barely boiled, skin still crisp to the teeth.

I had a qualm. It’s wasteful not to leave them in the ground till they’re bigger, though, isn’t it?

My brother shrugged grandly.

There were onions too, of course; we had them coming out our ears. (The government would approve.) The lettuce was holed with a few slug bites but tasted ever so alive.

And look at this, celery! They’ve started selling it as a nerve cure, would you believe?

I thought that might amuse Tim. But his face stayed blank. Maybe the notion of shattered nerves hit too close to the bone.

At the military hospital, they’d called it war neurosis. It could take a bewildering variety of forms, and even civilians got it; there was that Englishwoman who’d lost her mind in an air raid and decapitated her child.

They’d dosed Tim with chloral to prevent the nightmares, or at least to make him forget the details when he woke up groggy; it gave him a perpetually queasy stomach. Massages to soothe, walks to invigorate, hypnosis to get my brother’s mind back on track; lessons in brush-making, carpentry, boot repair to make him useful.

Tim had been discharged after a few months since he was fairly able compared to so many others. The psychologist had admitted he could do nothing for the speechlessness, and they needed the bed. The prescription was rest, nourishment, and congenial occupation.

I’d weaned Tim very gradually off the sedative. These days he was less jumpy, though he still couldn’t stand crowds. Rather more able to eat, especially if I ate with him. I just had to trust that quiet and pottering about—gardening, shopping, cooking, cleaning, tending his magpie—would mend him in time.