Nightingale (31 page)

Claire helplessly read another page.

Witnesses thought that Smithson (division) of the ANZAC mounted division was out all the day that Wren was lost, not coming in till the following morning, and that he might know something about him. Smithson is 4th or 5th reinforcement. Witness Smithson thought Wren was felled during the Es Salt raid. Described him as a handsome fellow from South Australia.

Reference Trooper T W Smithson 1 A.L.H. Squad B.

Montazah Hospital Alexandria

E.M. Foster

6.12.17

She read the first line of the final page through her helpless tears and then could not read on.

He was one of my mates. I saw him shot.

Claire watched her hand shake as she placed the sheaf of papers onto the tray, heedless of how the pages landed across the small sugar basin and milk jug. Although she considered folding herself into the empty chair conveniently nearby, she turned and walked away from Eugenie's anguished glance and stepped down from the patio. The sun was bright but its fragile warmth of early spring couldn't touch the chilling pain that was wracking Claire's body. Talons of bleak, aching fury grappled their way through the blur of disbelief until the weight of her sorrow felt so burdensome it forced her knees to bend and Claire sank in a slow, collapsing motion to the damp lawn.

Jolly birdsong cruelly continued and she was eye to eye with a dancing white daisy that seemed to throw all the brightness and hope of a new spring back in her face. She could hear Eugenie calling to her but she needed a few moments to gather up the pain, turn it all back neatly like a well-folded sheet that nurses were so adept at achieving with sharp creases and perfect lines. She needed to pack the hurt away and accept that she'd been building a future on make-believe. Rifki had been right. Jamie's and her ridiculous promise was always a dream, nothing more. She'd seen what war could wreak and she'd been involved daily in what bullets and shrapnel, bombs and firepower could do to flesh. Dear, sweet, affectionate Jamie. Forces more powerful than their pact had pushed them apart, kept them apart and now shattered their chance to come together again.

‘Hopeless . . . helpless . . . hapless,' she murmured beneath her breath, echoing an alliteration game she used to play with her father.

Let's see who runs out of words first
, he'd laugh.
All the words have to begin with the same letter and relate to the original situation
. She had never beaten him until the last time they'd played on the way to the hospital in Hobart before he died. He hadn't run out of words. He'd run out of hope. This is how she felt now and just as she wanted to fold in on herself, Claire felt strong arms embrace her and she smelled the curiously spiced fragrance that she had come to associate with Eugenie's housekeeper.

‘Let me help you. You'll catch your death in this damp grass.'

‘Maybe catching my death is a good thing, Joy.' She was surprised she could talk.

Joy's voice broke into her musing. ‘Nonsense! Come along now, help me and push up.' Claire obeyed. ‘There you go.' She was back on her feet but a tremor began, she didn't know from where; it seemed to radiate from her core and soon her entire body was trembling. ‘This is shock, Claire. You of all people know it. And for shock you need quiet, warmth, and I've always believed tea works wonders but I've never known why.'

‘It's the sugar,' Claire replied, feeling entirely disconnected as Joy supported her. ‘What is that smell?'

Joy seemed to know precisely to what she referred. ‘It's tincture of benzoin, sometimes called Friar's Balsam.'

‘Ah, they're different, of course.'

‘Yes and this one has rosewater.'

Of course it does. Attar of roses
. It was haunting her. ‘Are you using it as a styptic?' Claire found it easier not to confront the envelope or its contents, or her pain. It was far easier to discuss Joy's ailment.

‘No, my hands react poorly to soap. I'm using it on chapping to prevent blisters,' Joy said, making small talk as she guided Claire back to the patio step.

‘They say you learn something new each day.'

‘So they do.' The housekeeper soothed.

‘And I've learned today that the man I want to marry is dead,' she replied in a tone to match her final word. She gently shook off Joy's hands.

‘Claire Nightingale, if I had the strength I would wash out your mouth with my highly scented lavender soap,' Eugenie threatened from her chair. In her hands she waved the leaves of the letters. ‘Nothing in here
confirms
he's dead.'

Eugenie's look of disgust dragged her from the self-pity she so badly wanted to lay down in. ‘Did we read the same pages, Eugenie?' Claire gasped as she arrived back onto the patio, shoulders slumped and the trembling more intense.

‘Unless I'm blind, we did. But clearly I have perspective that you lack. You're presuming more than what is given here,' Eugenie continued. ‘These are unofficial accounts. They have no body, no proof, just statements of war-weary men more than capable of confusing one trooper for another.'

‘Tell me how you read it differently,' Claire whispered.

‘I will, but first let's go inside. I can't watch you shiver like that a moment longer. Joy?'

‘Leave everything,' the housekeeper replied. ‘Claire needs tea.'

Claire
. Since when had Joy started calling her by her first name? It sounded pleasant, comforting even, as though suddenly she had family pressing around her. She let them fuss, Eugenie giving directions while Joy settled them both into the sitting room and lit a gas fire. The sunshine had fooled them.

‘Claire, listen to me.' She raised her gaze at Joy's voice. ‘I don't know what is in those pages, but I've experienced enough pain of this nature in my time to assure you that unless the Red Cross or the military clearly confirms in writing the sighting of your young man's body and can confidently identify him, then don't give up hope.' She nodded before turning. ‘I'll get a pot of tea,' she announced softly and left the room.

‘I hope what Joy just said is getting through to you because all I'm reading here are accounts.'

‘His family accepts them. They're witness accounts,' Claire groaned.

‘And where does it say anyone witnessed the death of Trooper James Wren?'

‘The last —'

‘Unless I can't read English the last one says he was seen
shot
. It doesn't say killed.'

‘You're reading into the words, Eugenie.'

‘And I could argue that you are also! We're reading them differently, though.'

‘What would you have me do?'

‘Anything but give up, dear Claire. Now, unless I'm mistaken, today is 27 March, yes?'

She nodded miserably. It was only her sense of good manners that was keeping her pinned to the armchair. She wanted to run from the room; she was convinced now that this episode of her life was not meant to end happily ever after. The heavens had conspired to allow her to glimpse a potential life but the universe had already clued Claire to its intentions during her teen years. It had moulded her to expect a bleak future and had first taught her how to cope with death and loneliness and sorrow; then it had trained her as a nurse and sent her to war so she faced nothing but death and despair. It had teased her with Jamie, tested her with Rifki, and now it was showing her how cruel it could be in taking both from her.

‘. . . organise a car for you,' Eugenie muttered.

She blinked. ‘Pardon?'

‘To London.'

‘London?' Joy arrived with the tea tray and Claire no longer minded that the housekeeper shared her conversations.

‘The Langham, Claire!' Eugenie said with a tone of admonishment.

‘And punish myself just a fraction more?'

Eugenie held up a warning finger as Joy seemed to hesitate between pouring and remaining statue-still between the two women. ‘He made a promise.'

‘Oh, Eugenie, aren't these letters and all the anguished waiting sufficient torture?' she wept, finally breaking down. ‘It's enough!'

‘There's nothing final about what those letters say. Even the Red Cross explains that nothing is official.'

‘Witness accounts,' Claire growled through her tears.

‘I don't blame the Wren family for reading it as final. Heaven knows my heart breaks for them. But witnesses can be wrong in war. Fatigued, hungry, parched, fearful soldiers are disoriented, memories get muddled, facts distorted . . .'

‘Or maybe it
was
Jamie,' she challenged, her voice dull, eyes cast downwards. She sniffed. ‘And you're not prepared to accept it.'

Eugenie sighed with obvious disappointment. ‘No, I am not at all prepared to accept it. I say you give that young man who loves you the benefit of the doubt and you make sure you keep that date with him. For all you know it's the promise of seeing you again and holding you again that has kept him alive through all the terrifying situations he's encountered.'

No one said anything and Joy remained still. The clock on the mantelpiece monotonously ticked away the seconds of her life as Claire considered the potential for yet more pain if she kept the meeting. The fire guttered as though there was a break in the gas supply, and she heard Eugenie clear her throat gently as the silence lengthened. ‘Why give up on him now?'

She closed her eyes and cast her mind towards Jamie, reaching to see his handsome features against his tanned complexion and his slightly crooked smile. Amazing that now in the presence of his death she could see him clearly in her mind's eye. But then Jamie's vision dissolved and she was left with Rifki Shahin's face, which was neither smiling nor sad.

Eugenie had lost patience with her, it seemed. She was waving away all the tea paraphernalia. ‘Joy, please call Bertie Cartwright and tell him to get out his Daimler. And please fetch my wheelchair.'

‘Mrs Lester, I —'

‘Do as I bid, please, Joy. Claire, I know you've only recently arrived and I suspect you need to lie down and gather your wits, but so help me I need to jolt you out of this morbid mindset. Minutes ago you arrived here so rejuvenated and happy, so come with me; let me show you something.'

________

Claire sat in astonishment as she bounced along in a superbly glamorous car, whose bright-red paint – polished to a high gloss – reflected Radlett's thin, winter sunlight off mirrors and brass, making her wince. Joy had walked ahead with the wheelchair, complaining that this cold air was not at all good for Mrs Lester. Meanwhile Eugenie seemed perky and fresh, wrapped up from head to toe in voluminous shawls and rugs so that she looked like a child in a papoose.

Bertie Cartwright was a ruddy-faced, genteel fellow who clearly had more money than notion for what to do with it and Claire liked him immediately for his ability to keep up a non-stop stream of apologies for everything from why he hadn't gone to war to why his passengers might be ‘smelling a bit of oil in the back'. Claire was perched in what Bertie called the dickie seat.

‘Just over twenty-two horsepower this beauty is, Miss Nightingale.'

‘That sounds like it can go fast, Mr Cartwright,' she replied, pulling her scarf tighter, knowing it was what he wanted to hear.

‘Well,' he chortled, ‘enough to make that gorgeous golden hair of yours blow in this wind. I say, do call me Bertie, by the way,' he added over his shoulder, lifting a hand covered in a glove that came halfway up his arm to protect his tweed jacket and voluminous driving overcoat.

She found a smile for his sweetness and he stole a shy glance returning a grin from pudgy cheeks below his oversized driving goggles that sat below a huge tweed flat cap. He looked vaguely ridiculous but helplessly endearing.

‘Eugenie,' she yelled over the sound of the car. ‘Where are we going, exactly?'

‘You'll see. It's barely another minute away but I think it's important.'

Claire sat back, sighing to herself, and while the distraction had been welcome for this last half hour, she now reconfronted the despair of the letter that she'd read. It was back with all of its black vengeance of pain. She deliberately forced her mind to wander down another pathway as Bertie expertly cornered away from Watling Street and up the hill towards woodland, to wonder what Eugenie could possibly think was important here.

________

‘Now, if you don't mind waiting back with Bertie and his car, Joy, I do believe Claire can take me from here,' Eugenie said, settling in comfortably to her wheelchair.

Joy stomped away back through fallen leaves on the tiny path a few feet away to where Bertie had managed to negotiate his vehicle. Claire bent down. ‘Really, Eugenie, what are you up to?'

‘Straight ahead, dearest.' She pointed.

‘To where?' Claire could see only trees.

‘That lovely big old beech. Push hard or I'm quite likely to get stuck in these leaves.'

It took effort to push Eugenie's wheelchair deeper into the woodland and by the time they arrived at where she directed Claire was breathing hard and happy for the release of the tension, both physically and emotionally.

‘Here?' she asked breathlessly.

‘Yes, darling, now get me up.'

The wood smelled of damp earth and slowly rotting leaf-fall. It wasn't disagreeable. To Claire it smelled of peace and the cycle of life. She looked over at the sound of a rustle and saw a bright-eyed red squirrel dash away, seemingly oblivious to their presence, and she recognised the loud song of finches. These were pleasant thoughts but they were disrupted by Eugenie's struggling.

‘Eugenie, please —'

‘Don't patronise me, Claire dear, I am not long for this world, and I didn't think I'd have a chance to see this again. I'm unbearably happy to share this moment with you of all people, so indulge me and help me to walk, will you, or shall I do it myself?' She waved at Claire impatiently. ‘I will never be strong enough, or my body willing enough, to attempt this again.'