A Wartime Nurse Read Free Page B

up in the corner of the hall. He bought her a coffee and afterwards they sat drinking the watery brew and talked and talked.
    ‘Just think, I might never have met you if I hadn’t been walking down the street in Nuneaton and wondering what to do with my forty-eight-hour pass,’ Alan commented after he had walked her to the back gate of her house in West Row at the end of the dance and kissed her softly on the lips. He held both her hands in his, not wanting to say goodnight, not yet.
    ‘Nuneaton?’ asked Theda, bemused.
    ‘That’s right. I was wondering where to go. Forty-eight hours wasn’t long enough to catch a train home and go back again, and anyway I hadn’t a docket. But there in front of me was a furniture van, Rutherford’s Removals , Close House , Shildon . I wasn’t lucky enough that he was going straight home, but he gave me a lift to Durham and there you were on the bus with an empty seat beside you. It must have been meant. I knew I would see you again, and here we are. I recognised you the minute I came into the hall.’
    Alan struck a pose in the manner of Charles Boyer. ‘It is our destiny, don’t try to fight it.’
    Theda laughed, even though half the boys she knew made the same quote at every opportunity. Oh, he was funny and attractive and it was so exciting to think that he was attracted to her too. She looked up at his face, though all she could see in the darkness was the shape of his head outlined by the starlit sky. Then she sobered as he drew her to him and bent his head to hers.
    ‘Eeh, our Theda, what are you doing standing there with a lad? Does your mam know you canoodle with soldiers?’
    Theda jumped back hurriedly as Clara’s voice came out of nowhere. She felt a twinge of guilt; she had forgotten all about her sister and Clara had probably been waiting to walk home with her. But she need not have worried; Clara was with their brother Chuck and Norma Musgrave. They did not linger but went on into the house, chatting and laughing.
    ‘I have to go in now,’ Theda said in the moment of silence after the door closed.
    ‘Can I see you tomorrow?’
    ‘No, I’m sorry. I have to be on duty in the afternoon and evening.’ It was her new job as a Staff Nurse. Her first – oh, everything was happening at once.
    ‘I’ll see you in the morning then. Oh, come on, Theda, what do you say? Ten o’clock? I’ll be going back on the last train tomorrow night and the Lord knows when I’ll be back.’
    As Theda hesitated, the back door opened and her mother looked out, letting a tiny beam of light into the yard.
    ‘Theda? Is that you? Howay in now.’ She closed the door at once because of the blackout regulations but the disapproval in her voice was evident.
    ‘I have to go,’ Theda whispered to Alan, and then, ‘All right then. I’ll meet you at the bottom of Eldon bank. Ten o’clock.’ And she fled indoors and up the stairs without looking back to face the amused glances of her brother and sister and the disapproving one of her mother. Once in bed she lay and hugged this strange and exciting feeling to her. She was going to see him tomorrow . . . by, it was grand! He was a lovely man.
    They walked along Old Eldon to the crossroads and waited hand in hand while the cows crossed the road and then they hid behind a barn and kissed. The farmer opened his mouth to tell them to move on and not forget to close the gate behind them, but there was something about them and instead he whistled up his dog and went on his way to inspect the green shoots in the pasture land which had had to be turned over to grain. The couple were young and judging by the lad’s uniform had enough to put up with without his bothering them.
    They had to go back to Winton, of course; there was Theda’s new job to prepare for. Alan waited for her at the end of the row and went with her to the town on the bus.
    ‘Don’t come any further,’ she said as they were passing the station. ‘You go back to