The Pull of the Stars(71)

Bridie, I said. (Trying not to weep.)

It’s probably there still.

None of this dirt is yours, I told her. You’re as clean as rain.

She kissed me, but on the forehead this time.

Voices on the roof behind us; strangers coming out of the same small door we had.

Bridie and I lurched apart.

I said in a loud and false voice, Well, I suppose we’d better get some breakfast.

(I promised myself that there’d be more time for kisses and for telling all the stories.)

By the time Bridie and I collected our blankets and picked our way past the orderlies, they were lighting their cigarettes and agreeing with each other that it would be over any day now. Uprisings in various German cities, the tossing down of bayonets, secret negotiations, the kaiser on the very brink of abdication…

I hoped the dark hid my flush.

Fancy a smoke, girls?

No, thanks, I told him politely. I held the door for Bridie but she stumbled into the jamb. Careful!

She laughed. Clumsy me.

I said, That’s what we get for staying up all night out in the cold.

But I found I was wide awake, entirely alert.

On the main staircase, as we went by the big windows, I looked down at the electric beams of a motor launch creeping by. No, a motor hearse. Another funeral, then; the day’s cavalcade was starting up before sunrise. As if some dread angel were flying from house to house, and there was no mark one could put on one’s lintel to persuade him to pass over.

Two haggard older doctors passed us as they plodded upstairs.

One of them said, I was pulled over for having only one light on my car, and I found myself rather hoping they’d send me to jail so I could have a rest.

The other’s laugh had a hysterical edge to it. I must admit, I’m sucking Forced March like barley sugar.

When they’d passed, Bridie asked me, What’s Forced March?

Pills supplied to soldiers, or anyone who needs to stay awake and sharp. Powdered kola nuts and cocaine.

Her eyebrows went up. Do you take them, Julia?

No. I tried once, but I got a racing heartbeat and the shakes.

She covered a long yawn.

Are you shattered, Bridie?

Not a bit.

In the lavatory, we splashed our faces with water, and she bent down and lapped at the stream from the tap, puppyish.

At the mirror, using my comb to neaten myself, I met my eyes. I was old enough to know my own mind, surely, and to be aware of what I was doing. But I seemed to have stumbled into love like a pothole in the night.

On the landing, yesterday’s poster hooked my attention:

WOULD THEY BE DEAD IF THEY STAYED IN BED?



I had an impulse to rip it down, but that probably constituted conduct unbecoming to a nurse as well as treason.

Yes, they’d be bloody dead, I ranted silently. Dead in their beds or at their kitchen tables eating their onion a day. Dead on the tram or falling down in the street, whenever the bone man happened to catch up with them. Blame the germs, the unburied corpses, the dust of war, the random circulation of wind and weather, the Lord God Almighty. Blame the stars. Just don’t blame the dead, because none of them wished this on themselves.

In the basement canteen, Bridie and I lined up for porridge.

She didn’t want any sausage; she seemed fuelled by hilarity this morning.

I asked her in a low voice, What’s the worst that could happen if you just never went back to the motherhouse?

Sure where would I go, Julia?

I had an idea. I wanted to ask her to come home with me tonight and meet Tim. But would that sound rash, even unhinged? I couldn’t decide how to phrase it; the words died on my lips. I told her, I’ll think of something.

Yoo-hoo, you’re in early.

Gladys! I blinked at my pal from Eye and Ear. All I could add was Yes.

She asked, Keeping your chin up?

Rather.

Gladys frowned a little as if she sensed something off about me this morning. She sipped her coffee. Her eyes didn’t even go past me to the young woman with the cracked shoes; she wouldn’t have had any reason to guess that Bridie Sweeney was anything to me.

The queue loosened ahead of us.

I took two steps forward and gave Gladys a wave. Well, ta-ta.

When she’d left, I wondered how I should have introduced Bridie.

And what in the world would Gladys have thought if she’d seen us kissing on the roof? More than that, what would she have done?

I’d stepped so far away from my old life, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back.

When Bridie and I entered Maternity/Fever together, Sister Luke looked up from the desk. She didn’t like our being friendly, that much was obvious. She asked, Well rested, I hope, the pair of you?

I assured her that we were. If she didn’t know about the nurses’ dormitory having been shut, I wasn’t going to mention it.

The small room stank of eucalyptus. Honor White was out of view behind a steam tent of sheets, but I could hear her coughing. Her baby was in his crib, bundled legs stirring.

Sister Luke reported that he’d taken his first two bottles all right.

I had to grant the nun this much—her prejudices didn’t get in the way of her looking after patients.

Bridie poured herself a glassful from the jug of boiled water and drained it with a gasp. Then she set to work tidying up the ward like an old hand.