Chapter 44
Cora was sent to the nurses’ room to recover from the shock. The nurse gave her two cigarettes to calm her nerves, and made her a cup of strong tea. After a short break she took her to sit with Enid until her husband came.
Enid came back to consciousness in the factory surgery.
She let out a high-pitched whine of pain and she raised her right hand to her face where the shards of metal were bristling her skin.
‘Hold her still, can’t you,’ the doctor said.
‘Is it a blackout?’ Enid asked fretfully. ‘Don’t touch my face! Wait till the lights come on again.’
‘No, love, it’s not a blackout.’
‘Put the light on,’ she croaked. ‘It’s hard to see.’
Cora stood in the doorway with her fists clenched under her throat, tears for Enid rolling down her burning cheeks.
‘Don’t you worry about us,’ the doctor said. ‘We’re managing fine.’
‘Les? Is that you?’
‘Sorry, love.’
‘Where’s Les? My heart hurts,’ she said with difficulty before being swallowed up by the night again.
In the pellets section, Gladdie and Megan heard the blow-up. Stifling their screams in case the vibrations caused a chain reaction, the machines rumbled on, the radio blared out and the smell of chemicals and dirty smoke drifted in the air and hung on the ceiling as the first-aiders ran to help.
‘I knew it was Enid as soon as I heard the blow-up,’ Gladdie said to Cora while they waited in the surgery after their shift ended.
They were waiting for Temperance to come.
‘The funny thing is, I don’t remember feeling any emotion, do you?
Just a numb sense of shock, knowing that it was going to happen one day, that it was bound to end like this, violently and badly.
This happened because this happened, like a bomb dropping. ’
‘Me too,’ Cora agreed superstitiously. But she thought it was because they’d found Enid in Les’s car.
Gladdie turned to look at her strangely, blinking.
‘Poor Enid. I dread to think how Temperance is going to take it.’ Above the top of the bandage, Enid’s red hair had burnt to a dry frizz.
The lower part of her face was red raw, smoothed over with white ointment.
The bandage was covering her eyes like a blindfold. Her hands were bandaged too.
When Temperance came in he stared at her, dumb with the horror of what had happened to her. ‘Oh, Enid,’ he said.
When he spoke to her she struggled to sit up. ‘Temperance,’ she said, slurring her words. ‘You still love me, don’t you? Take this dressing off so I can see you.’
‘Leave it on for now, love,’ he said.
‘But it’s too dark. I hate the dark,’ she said pitifully.
Temperance looked for some part of her to touch, to comfort her. He cupped his hand under her elbow.
‘You still love me, don’t you?’ she asked him again, speaking with difficulty, and before he could answer she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You mustn’t worry about anything,’ Temperance said firmly. ‘Just get better, that’s the main thing.’
‘Ask them to uncover my eyes, will you?’
‘Yes, I’ll ask.’
Enid was quiet for a moment and then she relaxed and slipped into sleep.
They tiptoed out of the ward, afraid to wake her.
Cora lifted her burning face to the balm of the cold wind.
‘Poor old girl,’ Temperance said, keeping his head low against the icy wind. ‘My lovely girl.’
And he started to cry.