A Nurse's Duty

by Maggie Hope

  ‘You wanted to get away as much as I did,’ he whispered. ‘You want me, don’t you?’

  Karen nodded, though the only longing she really had was for a quiet lie-down. She stood quietly, leaning against the wall of the passage, and Dave pushed home the bolt of the door. Dimly, through her dizzyness, Karen was surprised. No one bolted the door in the rows or at least not often. And if they did, it wouldn’t be at six o’clock on a warm summer’s evening.

  Dave turned to her and took her in his arms. Limply she laid her head on his shoulder. They could sit down on the settle now, she thought, sit down quietly and have a cuddle. But suddenly pain shot through her as his hand closed on her breast, squeezing it hard in his strong fingers. At the same time he thrust his knee between her legs, scrabbling at her skirt, pulling it up over her thighs.

  ‘Dave! Dave, I don’t feel well,’ she protested.

  He laughed. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. I’ve heard about wives who have headaches every time their man fancies a bit but you’re starting early, aren’t you? Don’t think you’ll get away with that, me lass.’ He pulled at the buttons of her dress. ‘Howay, get this thing off,’ he snapped impatiently, sounding like someone else altogether than the boy who had courted her for so long.

  ‘Dave, at least wait until we get upstairs,’ said Karen.

  ‘What for? We’re wed now, we’ll do what I say. I’m the boss. And I say we’ll do it where the hell I like!’

  Karen’s eyes opened wide. There was no swearing in her father’s house and this was the first time she had heard Dave swear. She looked up at him to protest but when she saw his expression she thought better of it and began taking off her dress.

  ‘And the shift an’ all,’ he commanded. Slowly she pulled off her shift and stood before him in her long cotton knickers. She stared at him, her face a blank. She wouldn’t deign to let him see how shocked she was.

  ‘Bye, you’re a bonny lass,’ he said huskily, and pulled the string of her knickers so that they fell to the ground. He lifted her up and laid her on the stairs and took her there, with edge of the tread pressing so painfully into her back that the other pain, when it came, was a mere shadow of the one in her spine, the one which intensified with each thrust of his body. She was almost passing out when the weight on her eased and he got to his feet, grunting. Carefully, she sat forward and put her hands over her face.

  ‘Howay, lass, get out a couple of me mam’s glasses and we’ll celebrate. We still have most of that rum.’

  Karen looked at him, amazed at how normal his voice sounded. He was buttoning his flies. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his trousers, she realized. Stiffly she got to her feet and picked up her shift and pulled it over her head, wincing as she felt the bruise on her back.

  ‘Aw, come on, lass, there’s nowt the matter wi’ you. They say it’s always hard for a lass the first time,’ Dave said easily. He had noticed her wince. ‘How about those glasses?’ He turned his back on her and walked into the kitchen where he sat down before the fire. Whistling tunelessly between his teeth, he watched her go to the press and bring out a small glass.

  ‘I won’t have any, I don’t think, Dave.’

  ‘Suit yourself. All the more for me,’ he answered indifferently, and poured out a brimming glass from the bottle he took from his pocket. The smell of rum filled the room and Karen had difficulty stopping herself from gagging. She felt tired to death. Though the pain in her back had settled down to a dull throbbing, her breasts felt tender and raw. She looked at the clock on the wall, thinking for a moment it had stopped. It couldn’t possibly be just ten past six. But the clock ticked loudly and she sat down abruptly in the chair opposite her new husband and gazed into the fire.

  Karen woke early the following morning feeling far too hot and uncomfortably sticky. She turned over on her back and flung off the bedclothes. The movement disturbed Dave and he grunted in his sleep but did not wake.

  She turned her head and gazed at his face. Her husband, she thought. It felt strange. She moved her back slightly and felt a twinge from the bruise, but it wasn’t so bad. She touched her breasts experimentally; they were tender and the nipples sore. She sighed. Maybe she would just have to get used to them being like that. Why had no one told her what to expect when she got married? She felt betrayed. Not even Kezia had breathed a word and even though it was a shameful, embarrassing thing to talk about, surely she could have at least hinted at it?

  Dave had fallen asleep before the fire the night before and in the end Karen had gone up to bed on her own though she couldn’t sleep. Sometime in the night Dave had come upstairs and climbed into bed and taken her into his arms. But it had been better that time, Dave had said it would be. He had been slower, more gentle, more like the Dave she knew now the rum had worn off. Karen frowned, remembering. He had withdrawn himself from her just as pleasurable sensations began to run through her, leaving her feeling flat and vaguely dissatisfied as she wiped her suddenly damp belly with the hem of her nightie.

  She was leaning on one elbow looking down at him when he opened his eyes and grinned at her.

  ‘Can’t stop mooning over me, can you, pet?’ he joked, and pulled her down on top of him. ‘Got a taste for it now, have you? Well, if you’re ready I’m ready. Ever-ready Dave, that’s my name.’

  ‘Dave!’ she protested, pulling away. ‘It’s morning already, time we were downstairs. Anyway, you know we have to be careful. We don’t want to start a baby – not when I’m going to start training, do we?’ For at least she knew it was this secret act between a man and his wife which gave them babies. That much she had learned from the whispering at school, even though she hadn’t known what the act was.

  Dave laughed. ‘Eeh, Karen, for a lass that’s going to be a nurse you know nowt, you don’t. We won’t start a bairn.’

  She was puzzled. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why, it’s not how many times we do it, it’s what goes in. And what doesn’t go in cannot come out, can it?’

  She was still puzzled, and her face showed it. He laughed again.

  ‘But, Dave, it did go –’

  And then she thought of the sticky stuff on her belly and something clicked in her mind and she collapsed on the bed, blushing furiously. Dave was so … so coarse. And as he talked about such private things he didn’t sound loving, he sounded almost contemptuous. He took her again now, swiftly, without any regard for how she might be feeling, and a knot of resentment grew in her. She felt used, soiled. Was marriage always like this?

  ‘It’s not right. I never thought a lass of mine would want to live a lie like this.’ Thomas Knight gazed sternly at Karen, his Bible held against the front of his black serge Sunday suit.

  ‘I’m sorry, Da, but I wrote and said I would go and I’m going to,’ said Karen. ‘It’s not a proper lie, I’m just not saying anything.’

  ‘Lies are lies, Karen.’ The wall clock struck the hour and Mr Knight moved to the door. ‘I have no time to argue now. I’m on the Lord’s work and I’ve never been late for a meeting yet. But I cannot ask God’s blessing on your new life nor give you my own.’ Without saying goodbye he strode off. Karen’s lower lip trembled but her resolve was unshaken. She was going to go. She was a married woman now and her husband didn’t mind her going, that was the important thing. Thinking of Dave, her depression deepened.

  He seemed so different, so off-hand he could hardly be bothered to talk to her. She dreaded the times when they were in the house alone and he demanded sex, no matter if she was busy or what time of day it was. And all the time she would be listening for his mother’s return, terrified she would find them half-dressed before the kitchen fire for that was his preferred place for ‘making love’. Even in bed she was aware all the time of his mother being just the other side of the thin bedroom wall. Karen sighed as she walked back to the Mitchells’ and opened the front door.

  ‘A fine thing, an’ all, going off to Newcastle when you should be here, seeing to my lad,’ said Mrs Mitc
hell as she walked in.

  ‘Dave wants me to go, Mother,’ said Karen, and the older woman sniffed. Karen pinned on her hat and picked up her luggage.

  ‘It’s not that I mind seeing to him –’ Mrs Mitchell was saying when Joe knocked on the door.

  ‘I have to go now, I’ll miss my train else,’ Karen said quickly, and escaped into the street.

  ‘It’s a wife’s place –’ Mrs Mitchell shouted after her but Karen hardly heard.

  ‘Old witch,’ said Joe as he took her luggage. Her spirits rose immediately and her excitement with it. She wanted to go and she wasn’t hurting anyone else by doing it either, she told herself.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right, pet,’ said Joe, and nodded vigorously. She felt a surge of gratitude to him. He at least wanted to see her off and wish her well.

  The first weeks in the hospital went by in a whirl of learning rules and scrubbing floors and making beds and taking them to bits again and re-doing them.

  ‘As Miss Nightingale wrote’ became a phrase that followed Karen all day and even into her dreams. Miss Nightingale had evidently given precise instructions on bed-making as well as every other possible aspect of a nurse’s work.

  ‘Miss Nightingale said that a good nurse can attend to a patient’s needs without disturbing that patient.’

  ‘Miss Nightingale said that a nurse who rustles is the bane of the patient. Unnecessary noise will do more harm to a patient than all the medicine in the world will do him good.’

  ‘Miss Nightingale said that a good nurse will do …’

  ‘Miss Nightingale said that a good nurse will be …’

  Miss Nightingale was a paragon, all right, Karen thought grimly as she fell into bed utterly exhausted and with her hands red and chapped from scrubbing anything and everything with disinfectant. Why, they were in a worse condition than when she had worked in the kitchen at Oaklands. She rubbed glycerine and olive oil into them night after night, wincing as the glycerine bit into the cuts but persevering in an attempt to heal them. If I had been doing real nursing it wouldn’t have mattered, she thought wearily, but so far all she was allowed to do was skivvy after the more senior probationers, not to mention Staff Nurse or Sister.

  But at last she had a day off and was able to travel home to Morton Main. She rose at six o’clock as usual and took an early train for Dave would be at home this morning as he was on night shift. In any case, she had to be back at the hospital by eight-thirty in the evening and she wanted as much time as possible at home. She had written to Dave and told him when she would be coming and he was waiting for her outside the station, somewhat to her surprise.

  ‘By, you look grand in that cloak and cap, pet, you really look like somebody,’ he said admiringly as she came out. Of course he hadn’t been waiting on the platform. ‘It’s a waste of money buying a platform ticket just for the sake of a couple of minutes extra,’ he explained as he gave her a quick peck on the cheek after first looking round to make sure no one who knew him was there.

  She looked up at him, thinking he looked grand too, with his fair good looks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about him though. Surely it couldn’t just be because she was home for the day?

  ‘I’m going to emigrate, Karen,’ he burst out without any preamble. ‘Me and your Joe and some of the other lads … we’re off to Australia next month.’

  ‘Emigrate?’ Karen stared up at him stupidly. She couldn’t believe she had heard him aright. ‘What do you mean, emigrate?’

  ‘We’re going to Australia, Karen.’

  ‘Australia? I can’t go to Australia, I’ve just started my training!’

  There was a tiny silence as Dave looked down at her, his face curiously blank.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean … Aw, come on, Karen, let’s get off home. Me mam’s out visiting her sister up at Houghton, we have the house to ourselves.’ Dave strode out of the station and on to the road leading to Morton Main so that Karen had to hurry to keep up with him.

  ‘You were joking, weren’t you? About Australia, I mean,’ she panted as she caught up at last.

  ‘Never mind now, we’ll talk after,’ said Dave, looking down at her, and she saw his eyes take on that curiously intent look and knew what it meant.

  The minute they got inside the house Dave took her swiftly and, for Karen at least, with no joy at all, on the mat in the kitchen. It was over in two minutes and afterwards she raised herself painfully and rubbed her shoulder blade which had slipped off the mat and been in contact with the hard stone floor. Carefully, she pulled her drawers on and straightened her skirt and all the time she was weeping softly inside her head. Then she remembered what he had said and turned to face him.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘tell me about Australia.’

  Chapter Four

  THE TRAIN FROM Newcastle puffed to a halt in Durham Station and Karen climbed down on to the platform. Quietly she waited for the steam and smoke to clear, peering at the group of people clustered round a pile of obviously new basket-weave boxes, crammed full and tied round with an assortment of leather belts. No one had noticed her yet.

  They were waiting for a train going down country, but not this one; this one only went as far as Darlington, and the journey these young men were embarking upon was much further than that, she thought bleakly. They were going to the other side of the world.

  Content not to be noticed for a minute, she watched them. There were nine of them altogether, all from her home village, all dressed in their Sunday suits and with fresh-washed white shirts gleaming with starch and boots polished to such a shine they reflected the faces of their owners. And there was a cluster of mothers and sisters and sweethearts with an air of brittle cheerfulness about them. They smiled bravely and chattered and took the least excuse to touch the young men, hold their hands, pat their cheeks.

  Some of the men were impatient, anxious to be off, Karen noticed. They were casting glances at the local train still standing on the platform, wanting it to be away so that there would be nothing to stop the Liverpool train from coming into the station.

  Karen stood apart. Now that the time had come she found herself fighting to keep her composure. Dave and Joe, she thought forlornly, feeling that she was being deserted by both of them though she knew it was silly to think like that. As she stood, biting her cheek, the wind caught in her nurse’s cloak, billowing the material out in a bell and she clutched it closer to her, shivering suddenly. She wished that the Liverpool train would come in quickly, that it was over. At least when they were gone she would be free of this feeling of desolation, this silly hope that it was all a mistake, Dave and Joe were playing a joke on her. She jumped when Joe looked straight at her over Mam’s head and spoke her name.

  ‘Karen? What are you standing there for? Howay, come and give us a hug. You’re not letting us go off to Australia without so much as a hug?’

  Karen smiled quickly and moved forward to be enveloped in a tight circle of her family. She kissed her frail mother who was struggling to hold on to her own composure. And then her father, tall and stern, grey-haired and with a hectic colour in his cheeks betraying the presence of the lung disease which plagued so many of the men of Morton Main. And Kezia, strong and practical, was there of course. There was no sign of Jemima though Karen had thought she would manage to get home to say goodbye to Joe.

  ‘Wish me luck, Karen,’ Joe said softly, and she gazed up into her brother’s strong, intelligent face, a face so like her own with its dark eyes and frame of almost black hair.

  ‘Oh, I do, I do, Joe,’ she mumbled and looked away quickly so that he did not see the tears ready to brim. And there was Dave, just lifting his head from his mother’s and staring straight at her so that she felt a tiny pang of guilt that she had not gone to him first.

  ‘Dave,’ she said, disengaging herself from her family and going to him. Dave, her husband of so short a time it still felt strange to think o
f him as such. Dave, who was going to Australia to make his fortune.

  ‘So you came, then,’ sniffed Mrs Mitchell. She glared at Karen, her expression mirroring her firmly held opinion that Dave was only going to Australia to get away from his wife and it was the wife’s fault.

  ‘Of course I came, Mrs Mitchell,’ Karen replied. ‘I got the after noon off from the hospital specially.’

  She spoke to the older woman but she was looking at her husband.

  Dave stepped forward and took her hands in his and held them to him in that way he had, smiling down at her with his lop-sided grin, his head cocked on one side. And though she told herself he was emigrating for her sake as well as his own, she still felt a sense of betrayal.

  ‘I must go straight back to Newcastle,’ she said, looking down at his hands on hers, not wanting to lose hold of her resentment. Wasn’t he going away for God knows how long? Hadn’t he fooled her enough already?

  ‘But not yet, not before we catch the train,’ said Dave, drawing her away from his mother and the rest of the party from the village.

  ‘Look at me, Karen,’ he murmured, ‘look at me.’

  Reluctantly, she raised her gaze to his face. She looked at the light blue eyes and the fair, almost red hair; the freckled face. Dave was a handsome man, she thought with one part of her mind; with another she was thinking, Dave is my husband and he is leaving for the other side of the world. He didn’t even consult me before he booked his passage on the emigrant ship. What will people think? The resentment welled up in her.

  ‘I’ll send for you, Karen, I promise I will,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll find a house, you’ll see, then as soon as you finish your training you can come out. Nurses are needed in Australia just as much as they are here.’