Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-nine
It was late and I was alone on the German ward.
I had added coal to both stoves and delivered hot cocoa to those who could hold a cup.
I was making a round of those who couldn’t when the boy in bed four indicated he needed the urinal.
I held it for him, his two arms in slings and useless for a time, then I heard the door of the ward open.
I turned, expecting a sister, but it was Iso.
‘You’ll do,’ I said to her before she could explain her arrival so late in the evening. The urinal was heavy in my hand and I remember thinking the liquid was probably warmer than the drink beside his bed. ‘Pull up a chair and get some cocoa into him before it’s completely cold.’
Did she try to speak? Perhaps, but I cut her off by turning towards the storeroom.
I emptied the urinal and took longer than I might have to wash my hands then dry them, to rub lanolin into the cracks.
I dug my fingers into my sacrum to relieve the ache in my lower back – a normal ache.
It had returned with the prickling of desire, and I welcomed it.
My finger found a point of pain and I pressed harder.
Iso was out there, with the boy in bed four; I could take a moment.
I checked my face in the small mirror that hung inside the locker and tucked loose strands of hair back under the cap they had escaped from. I went back onto the ward.
The boy in bed four had finished his cocoa and lain back against his pillows.
Iso rose and straightened his covers then she rested one hand on his crown.
She was short and matronly and when he turned his face in her direction I imagined he wanted to nestle into her breast. I half expected her to cradle his head and hold him against her, but she didn’t.
‘Shouldn’t you be home in bed?’ I asked, then I remembered it was cinema night. ‘Did they enjoy the film?’
I don’t recall her answer because as I asked the question she pulled an envelope from her pocket.
I stopped breathing.
If it was of no importance she would not have brought it. She would not have had it. Someone had sought her out and given her the letter. One of the debs from my hut, most likely; they all knew what I’d been waiting for, what I’d given up on.
It was either very good news or very bad. If I’d taken a moment to look at her face I would have known, but my eyes were glued to the envelope.
Iso came closer and I moved back. Then all of a sudden she was holding my arm and pressing the envelope into my palm and I could see my name in his familiar handwriting.
It is in the Red Cross box and seeing it again, after all these years, brings every detail back, clear and unadulterated.
I drew in a great gulp of air then searched for the postage mark.
It was dated three days earlier. Still, I expected some trick of the war – Bill might have addressed the envelope before writing a letter and the pages inside might be covered in the scrawl of his lieutenant, full of past tense, Bill was…
Iso took the envelope back and opened it herself.
I couldn’t bear to see the pages being removed, to have my thoughts confirmed, so I finally looked at her face.
She was smiling, and as she scanned the first few lines her smile widened.
She stopped reading and looked at me. Her eyes swam with my reflection.
She nodded and my arms lost their leaden weight.
I reached for the letter; it was all present tense and familiar.
‘Fucking bastard,’ I said. ‘I’ll kill him next time I see him.’ And salt tears and snot ran in rivulets.
The Redcaps delivered their prisoner and I held myself in check. When they were gone I flew down the aisle of the ward and embraced him to a small chorus of cheers.
Hugo was stunned. Rigid. He scanned the ward.
‘It’s just us,’ I said.
He looked at Iso.
‘Our ally.’
Still, he couldn’t relax and he held me at arm’s length. ‘The patients,’ he said.
‘They’re on our side, by the sound of things.’
‘What has happened?’
I took the letter from my apron. ‘It’s from Bill.’
‘He is alive?’
‘He was three days ago.’
Then we danced. That is all I wrote.
It’s hard to say how it started. It wasn’t a deliberate invitation from Hugo, but his hand was on my waist and one of the patients had started whistling.
The tune was vaguely familiar and my body began to move.
It had been so long since I’d danced but I felt celebratory.
Bill’s letter was in my pocket and other patients began to sing.
I did not know the words but I do now. It was a song from A Waltz Dream by Oscar Straus, and I can sing it in German.
But that came later, much later, when the desire to remember overwhelmed me.
I took up Hugo’s free hand and led him to the aisle between the beds as if it were a dance floor.
At some point he took over, and I realised he had danced before, and often.
His body could not resist even as his mind protested.
In that moment I knew something about him that I had not known before and questions came to my mind, unbidden.
Did his wife like to dance? How well did she fit against him?
But I did not ask. I could feel his hand on the small of my back, holding me close, creating a shape that Iso might have drawn with quick fluid lines, and I knew that no one else would fit so well.
It is a detail that would tempt me back to that time, again and again, as the years stretched out beyond him.
‘Nurse Taylor!’
It was Alison. Hugo broke away, but I was revived and my joy refused to be extinguished. I have a memory of taking a final turn, though surely even I would not have been so bold in the face of Alison’s wrath.
Iso approached her and must have told her of the letter. Alison’s fury subsided but the tension in her face remained.
She spoke to Hugo. ‘Your duties, doctor. Return to them now if you want to return to them tomorrow.’ Then she spoke to me. ‘You are creating more than an impression, Nurse Taylor.’