Wartime for the District Nurses by Annie Groves

Author:Annie Groves [Annie Groves]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Alice could hardly believe that she was going out for two evenings in a row. The last time she’d done that was when she’d been with Mark, back in Liverpool, in those heady days when they’d told themselves that love would conquer all. That had been before he’d joined the International Brigade and set off to fight in the Spanish Civil War. It had turned out that love had come a poor second.

Of course going to the pictures with a group of friends was nothing at all like that, even if one of them was Joe. If she was honest, she wouldn’t have gone if he hadn’t been there. She’d seen the film already and would happily have opted for a night in. But she had no way of knowing when his next leave would be. If she was even more honest, she would far rather have spent the evening with him alone, talking like they used to. Yet she could hardly expect him to prefer that to a night out with his many friends.

‘Come on, Al. Get your skates on.’ Edith tapped on Alice’s doorframe, where she was leaning, waiting impatiently. ‘I’ve been on my feet all day as well, you know. There’s no excuse.’

Edith’s day had started badly when one of the patients who had been on the verge of recovery from a chest infection had taken a turn for the worse, and then it turned out Dr Patcham had taken a few days’ holiday, and his locum was totally unprepared. ‘Made me wish that Dr McGillicuddy was back,’ she’d confessed to Mary over dinner. ‘He took to Dalston like a duck to water. This one looks as if he’s never seen a tram before.’

‘Oh, that lovely Dr McGillicuddy used to brighten my day in so many ways,’ Mary had said longingly, and Edith had felt so sorry for her that she’d asked her along to the cinema as well.

Now Mary bounded along from her room at the end of the attic corridor. ‘Ready yet?’ she demanded cheerfully. ‘Oh, nice scarf, Edie. Goes with your eyes. When did you get that?’

‘Saw it in the market in between patients and I thought I deserved it after the morning I’d had,’ Edith confessed. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Al, I had a bit of time to spare and I wasn’t late for my next call or anything. It was hanging at the end of a stall and it called out to me, I swear.’ She patted the knot in it.

Alice picked up her old handbag and declared herself ready. She knew she didn’t look as smart as yesterday, now she was back to her serviceable pale blue shift dress, but it didn’t matter. It was just a night out with friends.

Kathleen could see the nurses approaching the cinema on busy Hackney Road, and breathed a sigh of relief that the tall dark-haired young woman wasn’t one of them. If there was anything between Billy and her, she really didn’t want to witness it on her first night out for so long.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.