Chapter 24 Elsie
Elsie
There were only two of us in the shelter because Mr Gold was at work again. I thought it was a very strange office job he had, which involved him staying out all night, but everything was strange nowadays.
It was freezing cold, so Mrs Gold and I were huddled together under a blanket, both of us with our winter coats and hats on. We looked like Eskimos, she said, and I remembered a picture in an old book my mother used to read to me and agreed.
‘Show me this note then,’ she said. ‘I’m dying to see what it says.’
I pulled the book out from under the blanket and arranged it across our laps, leafing through to find the right page. Mrs Gold moved the lantern so it shone brightly on the paper and I read the note aloud.
‘Oh my,’ she said, her eyes shining in the candlelight. ‘This is really romantic.’
I wasn’t so sure. ‘Is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I was worried, you know. Worried that somehow it might have been Jackson who wrote the note.’
‘The odd chap who’s always hanging around?’
I nodded. ‘He seems to be fixated on me for some reason.’ I gave a little self-conscious giggle even though I didn’t think it was funny.
‘He was annoyed that Mr Gold gave me a lift to the hospital, and then he came to meet me from the hospital and walked me home. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had somehow got hold of the book and written the message to me. ’
Mrs Gold frowned. ‘He’s a strange one all right. Nice enough on the surface but he always strikes me as slightly sinister. But it seems a bit of a stretch to think he’d have weaselled his way into the hospital to write you a note.’
‘He gets everywhere,’ I said darkly. ‘The night Nelly got injured in the raid. He was just standing out there on the street. I thought I’d imagined it, but he told me later he’d been there.
It’s like he thinks he needs to be looking out for me all the time.
As if he …’ I trailed off, not wanting to say it.
‘As if he owns you?’ Mrs Gold said. ‘I’ve known chaps like that before. Give him a wide berth is my advice. Maybe he’ll join up? He’s the right age.’
‘He tried, but he failed the medical. He said he was going to try again, though.’
‘Well hopefully they’ll let him in this time. They probably need all the help they can get, those poor buggers, with so many casualties …’
Her words hung heavily in the air and she put her head back in exasperation. ‘Lord, I’m sorry, Elsie. I didn’t mean he’d be replacing your brother.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly. I just want Jackson to leave me alone.’
Mrs Gold nodded in understanding and bent her head to examine the note more closely. The writing was small and not easy to read in the dim light. ‘He says he’s a patient.’
‘I know, but I thought perhaps if it was Jackson, he could have just fibbed that he was a patient.’
‘He doesn’t strike me as the duplicitous type,’ Mrs Gold said, thoughtfully.
‘I feel if this note had come from him, he’d have signed it in large letters across the page.
Plus, someone who wasn’t a patient would have no reason to keep quiet.
You wouldn’t get into trouble for having a sweetheart who was nothing to do with the hospital, presumably? ’
She was right. I told her so and she grinned. ‘I think this note has come from someone else. Someone with genuine feelings for you. Do you know who it could be?’
I felt my cheeks burn because I was still wondering – hoping – if it could be Harry. I thought about him all the time and I’d felt a real connection to him. The only thing I didn’t know was whether he felt the same.
‘You do!’ Mrs Gold said in triumph. ‘Have you spoken to this man?’
I nodded. ‘A little.’
‘Then I have an idea. Why not ask him to tell you something you talked about that only you and he would know.’
‘That’s clever,’ I said. ‘You’re clever.’
‘I like puzzles.’
‘I can see that.’
‘So what are you going to write?’
‘Perhaps I’ll just say that I want to be sure who he is, and then ask about our conversation.’
‘What if someone else reads it? Would that be a problem?’
‘He stuck the pages together round the edges,’ I said. ‘I think he used tea to dampen the paper and make it stick. He stuck a little scrap of paper out of the top so I’d know it was for me.’ I felt absurdly proud of my crafty correspondent.
‘Now who’s the clever one?’ Mrs Gold nudged me. ‘Do you have a pencil?’
*
With my message to the mystery writer carefully etched on the page below his, in writing that was just as tiny and neat as that above, I sealed the pages together again.
And when I went to the hospital the following day, I took the book with me.
Close to the entrance I spotted Frank the porter. Perfect.
‘Frank, do me a favour would you?’ I called. He came over, looking more rested than he had for a few weeks.
‘What do you need, love?’
‘Could you drop the book off somewhere as you’re going round the hospital?’ I tried to act casual. ‘There are still lots of people who’ve not written in it.’
‘Course I can.’ He grinned at me. ‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘It’s not been to ward 8 at all yet,’ I said, thinking about how I could let everyone write in it, and also ensure it got back to the huts just in case my mystery writer was indeed Harry. ‘But it doesn’t matter too much where you start it off because there are new patients arriving all the time.’
‘We had some new arrivals in the huts overnight,’ Frank said, nodding. ‘I’ve just started my shift but apparently there are some pilots that have been brought in. More burns, by the sound of it.’
I made a face, thinking of Nelly’s moans as she prepared for her treatment. ‘So many burns.’
‘It’s the dogfights,’ Frank said. ‘I think they’ll be sent on this time because they’re worse than the other lot. But reckon it won’t be long before we get more in. Those huts are getting lots of use.’
‘Poor sods.’ It was a sobering thought that the new wards were already full.
It seemed to me that things would get worse before they got better.
If they ever got better. I stared at my feet, thinking about all the sisters like me who’d lost brothers, and children who’d lost fathers, and wives who’d lost husbands.
‘That’s where I was heading now actually.’
‘Where?’ I looked up at Frank.
‘The huts.’
My gloom lifted a little bit.
‘Well, perhaps they’d like to write if they’re up to it,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Frank.’
‘No problem at all, Elsie.’ He took the book I was holding out, and put it on the trolley he was pushing, which was laden with bandages and saline for baths and bottles of iodine. I felt a bit sick knowing what was in store for those men.
He gave me a jaunty wave, then disappeared off through the door.
We’d had lots of new patients overnight, brought down from East London, so I was very busy all day and didn’t get a moment to think about the book. Which was a blessing really, I thought. For me and my patients.
After I’d handed over to the night shift, I went to try and track down the book, which wasn’t hard because Frank appeared, holding it aloft triumphantly.
‘Got loads more to write in it,’ he said. ‘There was even a bit of a tussle at one point. Everyone’s really keen to get involved. I wondered …’ He stopped.
‘Do you want to write in it, Frank?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but I wondered if it was just for the patients?’
‘Not at all,’ I reassured him. ‘Do it now, if you like?’ I was itching to see if my mystery letter-writer had replied but even so, I wanted Frank to have a chance to write his own message.
‘Not today,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a think about what I want to say. I might jot down some thoughts about working here, during all this.’
‘That would be perfect.’
He handed me the book and I thanked him, and headed off to see Nelly.
She was the same. Her nurses had propped her up a bit so she was more upright.
I suspected it was to help her breathe because she was still on oxygen and her breathing was slow and laboured thanks to the smoke she’d inhaled, and her airway being burned.
But it made her look more “with it” despite her white face covering and her body still being swathed in bandages.
She was awake when I crept into her room and I was glad.
‘How are you today?’
She gave me a thumbs-up sign with her hand, like the pilots did in their cockpits, and I grinned, pulling her chart out from the end of her bed and scanning it quickly.
She was still on a high dose of pain relief, but they’d reduced her sedation during the day.
What worried me slightly was that nothing was happening really.
Nelly wasn’t being transferred to a different hospital like the new pilots were, which made me think the doctors were still nervous to move her.
I turned the page in her notes, trying to see if there was anything in there that would give me a clue about what the doctors had planned, but Nelly tapped her hand on the bed impatiently, so I shut her notes instead.
‘I’ve got the book,’ I said. ‘I wrote a note to him, a sort of test to see if I could work out who he is, but I’ve not looked to see if he’s replied yet.’
Nelly tapped on the bed again.
‘I wish you could talk,’ I said. ‘I miss hearing your voice.’
She gestured to herself with her finger, and I thought she was saying “me too”. But that gave me an idea.
‘I don’t want to tire you out, Nell,’ I said. ‘But what about if I write out the alphabet in the book and you can point to the letters and spell out words?’
She did a thumbs up again so quickly I turned to a clean page in the book and wrote large letters from A to Z.
‘Now we can chat,’ I said.
I moved my chair closer to her and held the book near her hand. With an amount of difficulty that made me wince for her, Nelly spelled out “R … E … A … D”.
‘Bossy,’ I said. ‘All right, then.’
Leafing through the pages I found the one that was sealed, slid my hand inside to open it and flattened out the paper, feeling my heart thump. And there, under my writing, was another message.
‘He’s replied,’ I said. ‘Oh, Lord. I can’t look. What if it’s Jackson?’
Nelly put her hand against mine in reassurance and feeling calmer I dropped my gaze to the writing.
‘The first day we met, we spoke about my uncle,’ I read. So pleased I could have got to my feet and done a little dance right there and then, I beamed at Nelly. ‘We spoke about his uncle,’ I declared. ‘I know exactly who this is!’
Nelly tapped the bed furiously, until I brought the page of the book with the letters on back to her. “W … H … O,” she spelled.
‘It’s Harry,’ I said, hugging myself in delight. ‘Lovely, sweet Harry the airman. You were right.’
Nelly gave the tiniest nod, which was about all she could manage, with her head bandaged as it was. She was trying her best to stay awake, I could tell, but she was flagging.
‘I’m wearing you out,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
She tapped the bed again and I moved the book towards her. She breathed in, and it sounded so painful that I winced.
“D … Y … I … N … G,” she tapped.
Full of horror and sadness, I stared at her.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, Nell. You’re not dying.
You’re going to get better and come home and we can have fun the way we always have.
’ My voice shook as I said the words, because for the first time since the raid, I understood, that they weren’t true.
Nelly was very weak and she was very badly injured and even with the doctors and nurses all doing their best to care for her, I didn’t think she would ever come home again.
‘Anyway,’ I said, trying to keep my tone light. ‘You are the expert in matters of the heart. I need your help with this Harry business, because I don’t have a clue.’ I tried to laugh but it was shrill and echoed round the room. Nelly turned her face away from me.
‘I’ll go.’ I leaned over and kissed her, feeling completely desolate.
It was so unfair that my vibrant, funny friend was ebbing away from me.
That Nelly, who would have loved to be a real part of these notes and this mystery romance – if that’s what it was – couldn’t even tell me what she thought.
There had been many times during our friendship when I’d been despairing about Nelly’s tendency to fall in love at the drop of a hat, but now I wished with all my heart that she’d one day do that again.
Looking at her now, her whole body wrapped in bandages, and her breath laboured and whimpering, it seemed unlikely.
‘You’re going to come home, Nell,’ I whispered fiercely. But I knew I was lying.