I had imagined that nursing would be exciting and rewarding, but I did not feel like a pioneer: it was more hernias and bedpans than adventure. I felt trapped by an invisible straitjacket, choked by thick black fog. I could not see any choices ahead of me, and yet they had to be there. I only knew to walk through my little existence, behaving as expected, while life passed me by. I’d spent most of it being such a good girl, waiting to be rewarded, and now I had the sudden realisation I was waiting for something that would never come.
With Aisling gone, my life felt so hollow and meaningless that ideas of ending it crept in. The thoughts came rapidly and uninvited, crawling up and whispering sweetly in my ear, a gentle oiling to an idea in the absence of any other. I wondered how much it would hurt if I jumped from Tower Bridge, late at night so no one would see me, if the water would be very cold, and how long it would take to die. One afternoon, an open window on one of the wards had sucked the curtain out. I went to pull it back and thought how easy it would be to throw myself out. I could already picture myself on the ground, smashed and broken, a bloody bag of sticks, free of the perpetual fear as to what would become of me.
Teaching a roomful of girls the principles of bandaging and how to pad splints and prepare surgical dressings required minimal physical effort and very little emotional investment, which was perfect as far as I was concerned. Paying probationers were the moonfaced girls from middle- and upper-middle-class families who could afford to shell out for training. They tended to be plain and doughy, with thick middles and nondescript features. When all clustered together and gawping at me, it was much like giving a lecture to a heap of boiled potatoes. They were the odd sisters from affluent families, devoid of obvious charm; they couldn’t sing, made clumsy dancers, and were in the habit of excitedly correcting each other. Lonely girls who clumped together, like bristles on a hairbrush. In other times they would have been sent to the convent. They reminded me of myself, which was why I found it hard to be kind to them, but they were a profitable source of income for the hospital. Once qualified, they would become the private nurses of aristocrats or other moneyed patients. The normal girls, like Aisling and myself, had to remain at the hospital for at least four years after training, and I was still in my first year. The thought of another three was overwhelming. The other option, of course, would be to get myself dismissed. I wasn’t keen on that idea; the thought of being branded a failure, even voluntarily, was not something my pride could bear.
On this particular morning, I had the potatoes gathered around an empty bed and had started to lecture them on how to give a bedridden patient a bath when I became aware of two men at the back of the group who were chattering away as I tried to give the lesson. Distracted by their low voices rumbling under my own, my temper rose. How rude and typical of doctors to disrupt something they had not been invited to. I kept throwing them stern looks, but they carried on, oblivious. I recognised one as a hospital governor, but the other, younger and taller, I didn’t recognise at all. When he burst out laughing and every one of the girls turned to look and started giggling, simply because they were in the proximity of a young man, I was furious.
‘Sirs,’ I said, ‘how fortunate it is that you have joined us. We were about to discuss the principles of bed washing, and as you can see, our bed is empty. Perhaps one of you kind gentlemen will volunteer?’ I patted the taut sheets.
There were gasps and twitching shoulders and my own cheeks began to burn. I had felt braver when the words were inside my head. The governor, an older man with an ostentatious waistcoat and a round stomach, flushed a deep purple and shuffled off, but the younger man didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He laughed along with the girls, seemingly enjoying the attention, and stood with both hands in his pockets, which I thought incredibly rude. He struck me as obnoxious and arrogant, and his broad smile showed far too many teeth, like a prehistoric exhibit at the museum.
The second time I saw him, and the first time we really met, I was sat reading on a bench in the garden of the crypt behind the hospital. Two well-polished shoes came into view, and when I looked up it was the young man with too many teeth, which he was flashing at me, though at least his hands were out of his pockets.
‘I feel I must give my apologies,’ he said and offered his hand.
I stood up to take it, caught off-guard, and glanced around, worried it might be meant for someone behind me.
His black whiskers were groomed with surgical precision, but it was his voice that felled me. Something clicked into place when I
