A Caring Heart

by Margaret Carr

  ‘I see. Well thank you for this little chat, but I must get on.’ She laid a hand on the older woman’s arm. ‘Jack’s recovery will take a long time, Mrs Lewis but he’ll improve, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Thank you, Nurse.’

  * * *

  At morning surgery the following Monday she asked Doctor Turnbull if she could have a word. She brought him up to date on Duncan Lewis’s ulcer then went on to mention Jack.

  He hummed and hawed for a while then he looked over the top of his glasses and asked, ‘You’re going to take up this psychiatric clap trap, are you, Nurse?’

  ‘Of course not, Doctor.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. You don’t need me to tell you that men are being shot at and blown up every day. Unfortunately it’s what war is all about. Frequently they are patched up and sent out again unless they end up like this lad in which case there is nothing to be done but learn to live with it. It’s no good reminding him that he should be glad to be alive when so many of his friends are not.’

  ‘But he wants to die and has asked his father to help him.’

  ‘Then it’s to be hoped his father has more sense. Time, that’s the great healer, give him time to adapt.’

  For once she disagreed with the doctor’s summation of the situation. In this case she felt sure that time would only worsen Jack Lewis’s depression.

  On her next visit to the farm the track up from the road was near impassable. It had rained all night and the unsurfaced track was like a waterfall. She had been soaked twice on her morning rounds and dried off each time by the kindness of her patients’ families. Now, as she skittered and slithered her way up the track getting soaked through once more, she finally gave up riding and dismounting from the bike continued to push it against the roaring water.

  Not caring where the geese were she let herself in through the gate and across the yard to the back door of the farmhouse. Mrs Lewis frowned as she greeted her.

  ‘Oh dear, Nurse. You shouldn’t have come up here today.’

  Isobel smiled. ‘I had other patients to see Mrs Lewis, but I must admit I wouldn’t have minded borrowing the doctor’s car just for today.’

  ‘Duncan’s bringing the sheep down for the lambing. If you take your coat off I’ll put it in front of the range here to dry.’

  ‘Thank you. How is Jack?’

  ‘Just the same, he’s eaten hardly anything, though I’ve made him all his old favourite things, game pie, suet pudding, and one of my bran cakes. He used to love a bit of that with a piece of cheese.’ Her eyes began to fill and she turned away.

  Isobel shook off her uniform coat and hat, rubbed her short blonde hair with the towel the woman had given her and sighed. ‘Well why don’t I pop in and see him while I wait for Duncan.’

  ‘You know where he is.’

  Isobel nodded and headed down the passage to the front room. She tapped on the door and walked in.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just a chat, I’m waiting for your father. He has a nasty ulcer that needs attending to.’

  ‘So I believe, and if I was any use at all I would be out there helping him.’

  ‘So why aren’t you?’

  He turned towards her and lifting his mouth on the good side of his face, gave a half smile. ‘What do you suggest I would be good for? I could hammer in a fence post with my false leg I suppose,’ he said, rapping the said leg with the walking stick he kept near to hand. ‘Or perhaps I could just sit there and count sheep.’

  Isobel sat herself on the end of the bed and faced him across the room. ‘Well self pity won’t help him, and you are right he does need help.’

  Just for a moment the bleakness in his gaze frightened her, and then he flung his stick across the room and turned his back on her.

  ‘OK, so you need to get your strength back first.’ She spoke quietly. ‘Does the leg still bother you?’ All she got was a grunt in response, but the lift of his chin told her that it did. ‘You need to eat, little and often and exercise. I’ll speak to your mother and see that she doesn’t overdo your meals, if you promise to exercise more.’

  Getting up from the bed she walked over to where the stick lay on the floor and picking it up took it back to him. He accepted it without a word then turned to stare out of the window.

  Duncan was home when she returned to the kitchen and both parents turned towards her as she entered the room. ‘A little homemade broth or a coddled egg, small light meals little and often, Mrs Lewis. Leave the suet dumplings and pies until he’s a bit stronger.’

  Then turning back to Duncan she said, ushering him into the chair, ‘If you could just find something he could do to help out on the farm, it might stop him brooding about himself.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty to do when the lambing starts, but I don’t want to pressure the lad.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s about to let you pressurise him into anything, but he needs to be active. So anything you can get him to do will help. And see if you can’t have a word with one or two of those friends of his to let them know he is home. You don’t have to ask them around just make them aware of the situation and leave it up to them.’

  ‘Right-oh, Nurse,’ he said, as Isobel got to work on his leg.

  Her damp coat lay heavy on her shoulders as she said her goodbyes and headed off down the slippery track back to the road and the village.

  AN ACCIDENT ON THE FARM

  Jack knew he was being unfair to his parents but he couldn’t help himself. He raged inwardly at the injustices in life. Why must the Almighty take his leg, when it left him so useless that he might as well be dead?

  His mother knocked on the door and came into the room carrying a bowl of soup and a cup of tea. She placed them on the small table by the bed and gave him one of her gentle smiles that made his eyes glaze with unshed tears. It was all he could do to turn his back and stare out of the window.

  At least in the hospital he had been one of many, his nightmares subdued by tablets. Here at home he was afraid to sleep for fear of screaming. What little memory he had of that fatal return journey, after being hit from ground fire and losing an engine, he had tried to bury in the reality of his fight to keep the old girl aloft. His co-pilot was dead, his crew depending on him alone to get them home.

  Moving over to the table he ate the soup and drank the tea.

  When he closed his eyes he was back there under the stars, smarting air from a hole in the window cooling his over-heated face. Voices in his head urging him onward. His journey was timeless for he never landed. Waking up to the reality of life was when the screaming began. Never being sure of whether awake or asleep the crying was a hellish nightmare filled with the urgency and fear of what awaited him.

  It was morning when his father came to ask if he would lead the horse in after Duncan and the old shepherd, Ned Craig, had unloaded some feed for the sheep. ‘I’d have brought him back myself but Ned wants me to give him a hand over the top and the lad isn’t here yet.’

  Jack turned from the window where he had been watching the sun breaking through what had promised to be a miserable day. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He hadn’t left the room since his arrival. Now here was his dad asking him for help. He found himself nodding and reaching for his jacket. Slowly he followed his father from the room.

  * * *

  Bobby Dunn was back on the moor, the local policeman, Constable Burns told Isobel some days later. ‘He walked out of the hospital without as much as a bye your leave, Nurse. How he got back here heaven alone knows, but back he is, he was seen not half-an-hour ago by the postie.’

  ‘Oh no, that place of his isn’t fit for pigs let alone a sick man.’

  ‘I’ll be having a word with him, but I can’t force him to go back to the hospital if he doesn’t want to.’

  ‘Well somebody will have to do something about that shack, who does it belong to?’

  ‘I’ll be making enquiries.’

  The news spread around the villa
ge so fast that when Isobel entered the surgery that morning Doctor Turnbull announced stiffly that Bobby Dunn couldn’t have been that ill when he was back so soon. Isobel knew he was in a grouch because he had failed to give Bobby the benefit of the doubt when the man had complained of a bad stomach.

  * * *

  That afternoon, while she was making herself a cup of tea, a crash and a thud had her hurrying through to her front room where a rock lay on her living room floor with broken glass all around it. ‘What on earth,’ she gasped. Figures flashed past her window to the clatter of passing feet and dissenting voices.

  Isobel rushed to her front door and flinging it open stepped out into the garden. The street was remarkable empty for five-fifteen on a midweek afternoon.

  Kids, she thought angrily, stepping back inside to survey the damage. She removed the stone and swept up the glass before going off to find something to cover the hole with until she could persuade Macky, the local odd job man to replace the window.

  Later, as she passed the Anderson shelters in the allotments on her way to evening surgery she noticed children playing and it struck her then that the shadows passing her window at the time of the rock incident had been rather too large to have been children. It was just a passing thought and was gone by the time she entered a near empty waiting room.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she asked Doctor Turnbull.

  The doctor was scribbling away at his desk and didn’t raise his head as he said, ‘Be thankful for small mercies, Nurse.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  Darkness had fallen by the time she hurried along to the little shop on the corner of the street. The Mackenzies lived above the shop and while his wife ran the business, Macky worked when he felt like it, with odd jobs here and there. His great excuse was the part he played in the Home Guard, though no bombs or Germans had made there way to Thornbury as yet.

  The shop was shut and Isobel was on the point of rattling on the street door when who should come along the street but Macky and some of his Home Guard friends. About to open her mouth, Macky called to her from down the road.

  ‘Ah, Nurse. Just the person we were looking for. Sorry about the window, it was an accident. I’ll be up in the morning to fix it.’ The other men with him were nodding their heads in agreement.

  Isobel could hardly believe her ears. ‘Accident? You mean you threw that rock through my window? Why on earth would you do such a thing?’

  ‘It wasn’t meant see,’ one of the others piped up. ‘We were chasing that dolt, Bobby Dunn.’

  Isobel stared at them through the dusk. ‘You were what?’

  ‘He’s back in the village, Nurse, and the wives are going mad they don’t want him back here, he’s always hanging around the school kitchens and folks’ bins. And that filthy old coat he wears could stand up by itself.’

  A tall man at the back said, ‘Kids are always hanging around him teasing him with one thing or another, so when our Sam got the nits it didn’t take any guessing to know where they had come from.’

  ‘That’s rubbish, anyone can get hair lice,’ Isobel said, feeling her skin begin to crawl at the very thought of them. ‘Bobby is not a well man, for you to be hounding him is cruel. I have already asked Constable Burns to look into the matter, so any more rocks flying around and he will know where to come.’ Turning her back on them she stomped off down the road.

  * * *

  The next day Isobel was cycling out of the village on her rounds. As she reached the turn off for the farm she saw Duncan and his horse and cart approaching from the opposite direction. When it drew near she saw it was Jack not Duncan in the driving seat. He stopped and scowling down at her said, ‘Throw your machine on and climb aboard, I’ll give you a lift up.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she called, lifting the bike onto the back of the open cart and jumping up behind it. ‘I’m pleased to see you’re out and about,’ she shouted, straightening her cap and jiggling around to make herself more comfortable as the cart bounced and jerked over the humps and hollows of the track.

  Soon they made their way into the safety of the farmyard, only to be surrounded by geese. Isobel was contemplating throwing the bike at them and making a run for the kitchen doorway when Jack came around and lifting down her bicycle stood waiting for her to drop to the ground.

  Gingerly she let herself slide slowly to the ground watching warily for any threatened attack on her ankles. She took the handlebars from a grim faced Jack and edged slowly away from him. The geese had been known to attack the tyres of her bicycle on occasion which was why she now usually left it outside the gate. A sudden noise behind her had the geese scattering with fluttering wings and angry cries and Isobel bolted for the safety of the farmhouse.

  ‘You did that deliberately,’ she accused Jack as he entered the kitchen a short while later.

  She was just finishing off bandaging Duncan’s leg. Duncan looked up surprised. ‘Who did what deliberately?’

  Mrs Lewis coming in from the passage smiled. ‘Nurse Ross is afraid of the geese and Jack chased them.’

  Duncan cocked an eyebrow at Isobel as Jack limped over to the sink to wash his hands. Isobel rose from her task and stood alongside him waiting her turn. His mother handed him a towel. He has the hands of an artist Isobel thought, as she watched him shake the water from his long fingers and take the towel.

  When he was finished he handed the towel to her and her heart did a tumble at the simple intimacy of the gesture. Though he was still terribly thin his mother assured her he was eating better.

  ‘Just like you said, Nurse, little and often,’ she said after the inner door had closed behind him.

  ‘He’ll be all right now,’ Duncan said. ‘He wasn’t too happy the first time I asked him to give me a hand, but as long as I don’t make too much of it he’s OK.’

  Isobel’s twice-weekly visits to Pine Tree Farm were on Tuesdays and Fridays and followed by a call on Mrs Foster, a worker at Hill Farm, on the opposite side of the valley. The ride up was winding but not as steep as the Pine Tree Road, and much smoother.

  The maternity case was not going well. The widow had been allowed to keep her tied cottage on account that she worked the land. Today when Isobel arrived the pregnant woman was feeding the cows in the byre. Her youngest sat in a nearby manger while the other two played in the straw on the floor.

  ‘How are you, Mrs Foster?’

  ‘Tired, Nurse,’ she said, stopping what she was doing and leaning on the pitchfork.

  ‘I thought the doctor warned you the last time.’

  ‘I know, Nurse. I’ve always fallen quick. My hubby used to say he couldn’t hang his trousers on the bedpost afore I’d be off again.’ She was a tall middle-aged woman with badly swollen legs and red hair tied back with binder twine. ‘I’m right glad Farmer Heron sent word to Doctor Turnbull mind. He’s right good to work for, Farmer Heron. Many would have sent me and the kids packing when my man died a couple of months back, but he let me stay on. I’m a good worker though, if I say it myself and I have a good neighbour who doesn’t mind helping me with the kiddies.’

  ‘Are you eating properly?’ Isobel asked, keeping one eye on the precariously seated youngster in the manger who was chewing hard on the dolly peg in its fists.

  ‘I’m fine, Nurse. They killed a pig next door a while since and let me have a piece, a good bit of belly pork and tatties and you can’t go far wrong.’ She gave a hearty laugh. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you a cup of tea cos we’re right out at the moment on account of the rationing.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs Foster. I’ll let you get on with your work.’

  As Isobel cycled away she was far from happy at the situation, but there was little she could do about it other than to keep an eye on how the woman coped.

  Two more visits then she would be finished for the weekend and if she was lucky there may be some communication from Alan.

  Originally he had been stationed down south but six months ago he had been brough
t up north and now was stationed somewhere in Yorkshire, so she was hopeful of seeing more of him.

  Churchill was in the sulks and although he came forward to greet her on her return he refused to be cuddled. This was all because he had been kept indoors until the woman who lived next door to the church had swept up the poison and promised Constable Burns she would refrain from laying down poison again. The constable had made enquires about Bobby’s shack from the landowners and discovered that it had at one time been used as a keeper’s cottage. However, when the new cottage was built the old one had been forgotten, which was when Bobby had moved in.

  Some days after the incident of the stone through her window, Isobel heard that the shack had been burnt to the ground. Who was responsible she never discovered but it meant that Bobby was taken into the workhouse. Macky had replaced the glass in her window and she was looking forward to a peaceful weekend.

  Sunday morning arrived chilly but bright and Isobel, disappointed at not having had word of Alan, decided to go for a walk. She would have liked to own a dog. Mr Churchill was a wonderful pet but more like a pair of comfy slippers rather than a walking companion. She made her way up onto the moors where the air was fresh and clear. The wind tugged her hair and the pewits dived and called their shrill cry. Rabbits scampered around a grassy hillock riddled with warrens.

  As she moved on up the hill and into the shaded cover of pine trees she watched a herd of deer crossing the path above her. The movement of birds and small mammals crackled in the undergrowth around her and the tops of the trees whispered in the wind overhead.

  A bare piece of ground to her right was bathed in light and as she glanced at the wonderful picture it made with shafts of sunlight slanting through the branches, a shadow moved across the space.

  Coming to a halt, she frowned, wondering if her eyes had deceived her. Another walker perhaps, but for some reason she didn’t think so. Curious, she moved forward. Now she could see other things in the clearing, a rough shelter, a dead fire, a line of what looked like a variety of bottles and jars. Could it be a hide for someone watching wildlife? No, they would hardly be likely to have a fire if that was the case.