When the Lights Come on Again

by Maggie Craig

  Less than a fortnight after having her appendix out, the woman had quietly put her dressing gown over her nightie, walked down the stairs from the surgical ward, along the corridor and out of the door, shuffling up the road in her slippers. The girls caught her red-handed, happily tucking into a cheese beano and declaring defiantly that she’d had enough baked cod - ‘that doesnae taste o’ anything at all’ - to last her a lifetime.

  Mr Rossi maintained that he would have escorted the lady back down the road in due course, but only after she had finished her meal. Liz put her hands on her hips.

  ‘Mr Rossi, really! She’s supposed to be on a special diet.’

  He shrugged. ‘But Elisabetta, can I help it if the poor woman was starving to death? How come you not feed your patients in that place?’ He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘How come a bella ragazza like you is so cruel to poor sick people?’

  She tried to look severe, but she was as susceptible to the charm as anyone else. It was completely indiscriminate. Any woman from nine to ninety was a bella ragazza - a beautiful girl. Any woman with a pulse, Cordelia Maclntyre said.

  Liz took the continental courtesy and accepted it for what it was - a novelty, at any rate. As a rule, the male population of Clydebank didn’t go around paying extravagant compliments to their female counterparts. Most of them, thought Liz wryly, wouldn’t know a compliment if it came up and hit them in the face.

  How she felt about Aldo Rossi’s son was a different matter entirely. As she got to know him better, she could see there was a lot more to him than good looks and a winning smile. And she liked him. She liked him a lot.

  She admired the way he chose to see humour in almost every situation. She was touched by how protective he was towards his father. That was nice to watch. He was nice to watch, moving efficiently about the café, cheerfully serving meals and snacks and coffees.

  He was unfailingly charming to Liz. Whether that charm was as indiscriminate as his father’s was another question. No new girlfriend had appeared. Liz didn’t flatter herself that he was waiting for her to change her mind, but she wondered, all the same. Sometimes there was an odd little look or a sideways smile or an enquiring tilt of the head. Was she imagining what the question might be?

  She had to keep reminding herself that he was as out of bounds as he’d ever been. Although she also wondered how long she could go on believing that.

  “The thing is,’ Adam was saying, ‘people go down the road there expecting to be cured of whatever ails them.’ He waved an elegant hand in the direction of the Infirmary. ‘But when it comes down to it, what an awful lot of people actually need is a prescription for fresh air, good food and better housing.’

  Liz listened attentively. Sometimes the café was better than a lecture theatre. She had learned a lot from these sorts of conversations. Very occasionally, it got embarrassing, like when she and Cordelia had come in to find a discussion going on about the mechanics of menstruation. It had taken the boys a good five minutes to realize they were there. There had been a lot of coughing and shifting of position and red faces when they did.

  ‘What we need is an improvement in living conditions all round,’ said Jim Barclay, another of the medical students.

  ‘And better-equipped hospitals,’ chipped in Mario. Finance was a perennial problem. The voluntary hospital system, dependent on donations, wasn’t an ideal one. Discussion often centred on the pressing need to create some sort of national health care provision - for rich and poor alike.

  ‘But Adam,’ Cordelia broke in, ‘you say that the doctor’s bag of tricks isn’t very large, but what about this new wonder drug that we hear about? Surely that will make a huge difference in the treatment of infection?’

  ‘Penicillin will save lives,’ said Jim Barclay solemnly. ‘No question about it’

  ‘When we finally get it,’ said Adam in disgust. ‘The problem is that Professor Fleming hasn’t been given the research resources he should have had. It’s damnable. He made the breakthrough discovery in nineteen-twenty-eight. Nineteen-twenty-eight,’ he repeated, ‘and we’re still waiting.’

  ‘At least we’ve seen the development of sulphonamides in the last year,’ put in Jim. “They’re proving effective against some infections.’

  ‘That’s true,’ conceded Adam thoughtfully.

  ‘Sulphonamides?’ asked Cordelia.

  ‘I think they’re also called M and Bs,’ Liz told her. ‘They come in tablet form. Who developed them?’ she asked.

  ‘Various people,’ said Jim Barclay. ‘I believe it was a German chemist who did a lot of the pioneering work.’

  ‘You mean not everything coming out of Germany is bad?’ It was Cordelia who had spoken. Liz looked at her in surprise. Her voice had been more than dry: almost bitter. She saw a look pass between the Honourable Miss Maclntyre and Adam and wondered briefly what that was all about.

  Twenty minutes later, on her feet and ready to depart, Liz was watching her friends with an indulgent eye. It was like Adam had said. People couldn’t seem to simply say goodbye and go. As soon as they thought about taking their leave of each other, they seemed to find several fascinating new topics of conversation.

  Standing waiting for the log jam at the door to clear, she glanced up at the photograph of Mrs Rossi.

  ‘She was my mother,’ came a voice.

  Embarrassed, Liz turned and smiled shyly at him. He stretched up for the picture and handed it down to her. ‘There. Now you can see her properly.’

  Touched that he had taken the trouble, Liz studied the photograph. ‘She was fair-haired?’

  ‘Yes. I get my colouring from my father. Most of my looks, in fact. I don’t think I look at all like her.’

  ‘Och, I don’t know,’ Liz said, examining the face in the photograph and then glancing up at him. ‘There’s something about the mouth that you’ve got too.’

  ‘D’you really think so?’ He came to stand behind her, looking down at the picture.

  ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘Is this how you remember her?’

  ‘Yes, except that she looks a bit serious. I remember her as being funny, always laughing and telling Carlo and me stories. She never made a difference between him and me. And she didn’t have her troubles to seek, as they say, but she always chose to see the funny side of life.’

  ‘Like her son,’ said Liz softly, tilting her head back and looking at him over her shoulder. She seemed to be staring straight at his mouth. She hadn’t realized how close together they were standing.

  His voice was as soft as her own. ‘And here was me thinking you didn’t appreciate any of my good qualities.’

  Their eyes met and locked.

  ‘Liz...’

  She thrust the picture into his hands.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said breathlessly, and headed for the door.

  The University and the Infirmary couldn’t have been more convenient for each other. There was an internal gate between the grounds of the two institutions and a path which led from the Uni up on Gilmorehill down to the hospital.

  The gate was a handy short cut for the medical students. Some of the senior professors, doctors and nursing staff thought it was a bit too handy, especially for the nurses’ home, situated with the Preliminary Training School on the University Avenue side of the Infirmary.

  However much their elders disapproved, remembering perhaps the hot blood of their own youth, human nature was human nature. Liz smiled as she listened to the story of an escapade which had occurred earlier in the week. After an illicit late-night date with her boyfriend, one of the probationers had got back into the nurses’ home by climbing through a window she’d asked her friends to leave open for her.

  So far, so good. However, the window was in a small scullery at the back of the building, above a deep sink used for soaking clothes. The friends of the pupil nurse had thought it a brilliant idea to fill it full of cold water...

  ‘I’d have killed them,’ said Cord
elia solemnly.

  ‘She very nearly did,’ said Naomi Richardson, the student nurse who was relating the story to a mixed group of probationers and volunteer nurses sitting around a table in the nurses’ dining room. As individuals got to know each other, the barriers between the two factions were gradually breaking down. ‘They tried to convince her they were only trying to cool her down after her date, but she’s still gunning for them apparently!’

  ‘Well, I suppose they might have had a point,’ said one of the volunteers. ‘I imagine a girl would need some cooling off after a date with certain people. Like Mario Rossi, for example. Don’t you think so, MacMillan?’

  Somebody giggled. The rest of them were grinning at her like idiots.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not in any position to comment,’ said Liz loftily. ‘Shouldn’t we be getting back to the sewing room?’

  ‘Tell it to the marines, MacMillan,’ said Naomi drily.

  Four of the volunteers had been dispatched to the sewing room that morning to make up what seemed to Liz like several hundred yards of blackout material into curtains and screens. The Infirmary had a lot of windows.

  A depressing task in itself, the stiffness of the cloth they were sewing made it a tiresome one too. Having spent all morning doing it, it was only half an hour after lunch when everyone began complaining that their fingers were aching again - just as Sister MacLean arrived to see how they were getting on.

  The permanent seamstresses weren’t in on a Saturday, and the four sewing machines in the room were sitting idle. The volunteers had been told at the start of their stint that they weren’t to touch them. That didn’t make any sense to Liz.

  ‘Why can’t we do this on the sewing machines? Isn’t it a waste of effort doing it by hand?’

  ‘It keeps you well out of our way, MacMillan,’ came the lilting, if unforgiving, reply, ‘so that we can get on with the business of looking after the patients. Added to which, I don’t want any complaints on Monday morning from the sewing room staff that they’ve had amateurs playing with their machines. You might break something.’

  There was silence for a minute or two after Sister MacLean left. Then, with a groan, one of the girls threw her needle and thread down in disgust.

  ‘My fingers are like pin cushions! Hey, MacMillan, see when you storm the barricades, can I come with you?’

  There were murmurs of assent. Cordelia Maclntyre’s voice rang out.

  ‘You can count me in too. This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. Especially with four perfectly serviceable sewing machines sitting there.’

  Liz gave her a polite smile. She was still thinking about the teasing comments the other girls had made about Mario and her, and she remembered what Eddie had said when she had first told him she knew how he felt about Helen. Is it that obvious?

  Twenty-one

  Eddie was devastated, so upset their grandfather didn’t have the heart to say I told you so. It was the beginning of the last week in August and the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact had just been announced. Hitler and Stalin, arch enemies ideologically and in every other way, had agreed not to go to war with each other.

  ‘How could they?’ he kept saying. ‘How could they?’ Sitting beside him in Peter MacMillan’s flat, Helen reached for his hand. He tried to give her a smile in response, but it was a pathetic effort.

  ‘Aye, lad,’ said Peter sympathetically. ‘Betrayal always cuts deep.’

  Helen looked anxiously up at Liz and Peter. ‘What will it mean?’ she asked. ‘For this country, I mean?’

  ‘It means that we can’t rely on the Russians for help,’ said Peter. ‘When it comes to the crunch – which can only be weeks away - Britain and France will have to stand alone.’ He gazed sadly at the three young people. ‘I’d hoped your generation wouldn’t have to go through this,’ he muttered, ‘but it hasnae turned out that way.’

  He’d joined the ARP in the spring, persuaded by a friend that he wasn’t too old to do his bit. As the man had said: ‘The young lads will all be marched off, Peter. They’ll need old fogies like us on the home front.’

  Peter MacMillan had thought of his firstborn, dead in the mud and blood and suffering of Passchendaele. He had thought of his beloved Eddie and of the Canadian grandsons he had never met... and then he had tried not to let his thoughts travel any further.

  ‘New medical journal?’ Liz asked, not recognizing the colourful cover of the magazine Adam was reading. She’d come on duty to find him in the kitchen of the ward to which she’d been allocated today, putting his feet up and having a break.

  It had been a hell of a week. With everyone saying the war was now only days away, plans for the evacuation of hospital patients who were well enough to be moved had swung hurriedly into action. It had taken some organizing. Everybody had mucked in to help, including the medical students. Those with cars, like Adam, had helped with the transportation of the patients. Others had acted as ambulance escorts for the more serious cases. Then there had been all the blackout screens and curtains to be put up.

  Slouched in an upright chair, his long legs stretched out on another, Adam had been intently reading when she had come in. Standing up to greet her, he laughed.

  ‘Not a new medical journal. A new comic. Well, I think it’s been out for about a year. Mario loaned it to me. It’s called The Beano and it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever read in my entire life.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ she replied, getting ready to help serve the lunches for the few patients who remained in the hospital. ‘I suppose you need some respite from all those great medical tomes you have to read.’

  He and Mario had a long road ahead of them. Gaining their medical degree from the University wasn’t the end of the story by any means. Until they had done a year as hospital residents, living and working on the premises, they wouldn’t be considered fully qualified.

  Even if they decided to become general practitioners, they had to complete several more years of hospital work. If they did their first residency in medicine, they might try to get an appointment as a junior house officer on the surgical side, or vice versa.

  Mario had told everyone that his aim was to work his way up through the surgical specialities, first to a registrar’s post, then a senior registrar’s. He made no secret of his ambition to reach the top of the tree: consultant surgeon.

  ‘Can you imagine having those hands working on you?’ Naomi Richardson had breathed.

  ‘You’d be anaesthetized, you dope,’ had come the robust reply.

  That daft exchange had stayed in Liz’s head longer than it should have. She was thinking about it now, while she was putting out the lunches.

  ‘MacMillan?’

  ‘Mmm?’ she responded, not bothering to turn round.

  ‘You wouldn’t fancy the flicks tonight, would you? I could offer you a Flash Gordon film: Mars Attacks the Earth. Take our minds off that other forthcoming attraction: Germany Attacks Poor Wee Us.’

  ‘Sorry, Adam,’ she said, away in a world of her own. She hadn’t even noticed the joke. That private world seemed to have only one other inhabitant: Mario Rossi. ‘I’m a bit tired. It’s been a busy week. Maybe another time? Tell the others I’m sorry, won’t you?’

  She turned and gave him an absent-minded smile in apology, but he was already reading the comic again.

  ‘Nae bother,’ he muttered politely.

  Liz smiled fondly at his bowed head. They all pronounced it the Glasgow way. Nae bother. It had become their catch-phrase.

  Liz glanced at the clock behind Miss Gilchrist’s head. An hour to go. She wondered why the minutes seemed to slow down at the end of the day - because you were desperate to get out of the place, she supposed. Her time at the Infirmary always went past quickly. Time flies when you’re having fun.

  Oh, jings, she was talking nonsense to herself. She must be tired, and the busy week wasn’t over yet.

  On Friday the evacuation of
thousands of children to places of safety was scheduled to begin. Mr Murray had agreed to give Liz the day off so she could help. She’d been allocated to a train taking some children down the Ayrshire coast.

  A wasp flew in through the open windows of the office. Predictably, Miss Gilchrist leaped up from her chair and started having hysterics. Apart from Liz, everyone else decided to join in.

  In the name of the wee man! Jumping up and down and waving your arms like some sort of demented windmill was a sure-fire way of getting stung. If you kept still the beastie usually moved on. It did, buzzing out the way it had buzzed in, and the occupants of the room settled down once again to their work.

  ‘Och, don’t close the windows, Miss Gilchrist. It’s real hot in here.’

  That was the office boy, uncomfortable in his stiff collar and tie. Liz had overheard a snatch of conversation during her lunch break.

  ‘How can they be going to declare war when the weather’s so lovely and warm?’

  Eric Mitchell was studying a list of ship movements on the Clyde. ‘I see the Athenia leaves Princes’ Dock at midday on Friday. Rats deserting the sinking ship,’ he sneered. The Donaldson Line passenger ship did a regular North Atlantic run. The demand for tickets for this particular crossing had been high.

  Miss Gilchrist looked up from her work. ‘I don’t think you should say that, Mr Mitchell. Many of them will be Canadians and Americans trying to get home before it all starts. You can hardly blame them.’

  I’d go if it was me, Liz thought. No question about it. She yawned. Catching a disapproving glance from Miss Gilchrist, she hastily covered her mouth with her hand. She’d better have a few early nights this week. She’d need all her energy for Friday. A train full of wee horrors, no doubt.

  The appeal for helpers had been targeted at women and girls, but someone had suggested that a few men would come in handy in case the wee boys got raucous. Jim Barclay and Adam had volunteered. They’d both be on Liz’s train. Cordelia too, she expected. She and Adam usually went together.