I passed the iron railings and looked into the barren yard. There were no flowers or plants, only thick rye grass – the bulbs had been dug up and eaten by the starving years ago – but my eye was caught by a gentleman roaming amongst the vagrants like Jesus at a leper colony. He was upright and open, bumbling almost, his gait quite different from the hunched and angry stoop of the unfortunate and desperate. I approached the railings to look more closely and was taken aback to see that it was none other than my newly appointed physician: Dr Shivershev. He was wearing a black billycock and a long black frock coat at least two sizes too large. His face was still unshaven. He walked from group to group, crouched down and talked to the bobbing heads. He must have felt my eyes on him because he suddenly swivelled in my direction, searching for something among the iron bars. I shrank away, pulled my bonnet down and scurried off in the direction of the Ten Bells.
I took an omnibus to St James’s Street and drifted into a milliner’s. Seeing Dr Shivershev had reminded me about my glove with the hole in the finger. I pushed past a gaggle of brightly feathered ladies yipping at a shop assistant and found myself overwhelmed by the rows of beads, ribbons, feathers and flowers in all colours. The bleary-eyed ghost I’d glimpsed earlier in her underground prison could very likely have been the one to cut and stitch and piece together some of those pretty fripperies. If the ladies had known the provenance of the pretty feathers and flowers they were posing with so delightedly in front of the mirror, they’d have run screaming.
I made my way to the back of the shop, mostly to get some space, and for the second time that day I saw someone in what I understood to be their wrong place. The scrunched-up figure had her face turned away, but the tiny waist and bouncing red ringlets could only belong to one person: beautiful, pert, little Nurse Mabel Mullens. For some reason I had the urge to rush over, tap her on the shoulder and say hello, as if, being outside the hospital, all our old gripes would be forgotten. But before I reached her, she scurried off.
She glanced over her shoulder at me, and we locked eyes for a second. I smiled at her, but she disappeared around the corner. Of course, it was obvious: we had never been friends, so why would she speak to me now? I exited the shop feeling lonely and rejected. I cursed Aisling. I wanted to blame her for everything at that moment.
I had only walked down the road for a few minutes when I felt a sharp tug on one of the wide sleeves of my dolman. When I turned around, there was Mabel, out of breath, panting on the pavement and wearing neither coat nor bonnet.
‘Su-san-nah…’ she said, as if trying out the sound of my name for the first time. ‘I can call you that now. No need for “Sister” any more, is there?’
We were blocking the pavement and the crowds tutted and brushed past us, but we didn’t move. I didn’t know what to say. Mabel was still small and pretty, maybe smaller than I remembered. She looked delicate, as if I could scoop her up in my hands. Her apple cheeks were hollow and she had a fading yellow bruise under her left eye.
‘Mabel, how are you?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ she said.
‘What am I meant to have heard?’
‘It is good to see you. You look well,’ she said.
She kept glancing behind her as if something might jump on her back, and shuffling from one foot to the other, her arms crossed over her chest against the cold.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘I can’t talk now. He watches us – the man who owns the shop. I can get away tomorrow, maybe for an hour or two. It would be good to speak properly. Shall I call on you?’
I realised what I had been too stupid to see: that Mabel was working in the milliner’s. For a girl to go from a nurse to a shop assistant was a considerable fall. I looked at her dress. It was clean but old and worn. She saw me looking and folded her arms tighter across herself.
‘I had to sell most of my clothes,’ she said, and I felt my face flush.
‘Yes, please come,’ I said, not sure I believed the words even as they left my lips. ‘If I tell you my address, will you remember it?’
Mabel laughed. ‘I only need the number,’ she said. ‘I know where you live, Susannah. All the nurses know where you live – we all gossip, you know this, we all know you married the handsome young surgeon from Chelsea.’
16
My troubled history with Mabel Mullens had much to do with Aisling’s dislike of her. There was one significant spat in particular, which happened during a lesson.
Mabel was sitting in front of me and Aisling. As usual, Aisling was leaning up on her elbows, swinging on her stool and whispering to me. She found it nigh on impossible to concentrate for long periods of time, especially in class. She was better at practical things, but when she was forced to sit, she would wriggle and distract me, which I found irritating. I helped Aisling with her theory and, later on, when our group of new nurses was unleashed on the public, she would teach me how to manage people. We were a good team.
Aisling also had a remarkable knack for never getting caught playing about. She had such an innocent-looking face that
