‘You’re very kind,’ he said. ‘Do you enjoy being a nurse? Seems a frightful job to me.’

‘Oh yes – on the whole.’ I told him of my longer-term plans. I found that he asked a great many questions, and that by the time I left I had told him a surprising amount about myself, my work and my family. I supposed he was at ease asking questions. It was his job, after all. His eyes watched me with intent interest. To my surprise I realized I was enjoying the conversation. I found myself telling him I was engaged, which seemed the easiest way of explaining my relationship with Angus.

‘Ah,’ Douglas said. ‘That explains it. Your face has a kind of glow about it.’

I smiled wryly. In fact I was feeling pretty washed out and tired sitting there after a few restless hours of sleep.

‘Must be the light of love I can see – lucky fellow.’ For a split second as he said these words Douglas appeared vulnerable.

‘You don’t have anyone?’

He gave an odd laugh, somehow apologetic. ‘Me? Good heavens no.’

Unsure what to say next I felt I ought to leave. I stood up, suddenly reluctant to go. As we shook hands I smiled, and Douglas made a rueful attempt to do the same. ‘Well, good luck. Don’t risk too much for your reporting will you?’

He said goodbye with a strange solemnity. I turned at the door as I left, half pretending I was just glancing round the ward, and saw he was still watching me. I raised my hand in a wave. As I walked downstairs from the ward I mused over the fact that I had told him far more about myself than I had imagined possible, and that about him I knew almost nothing.

Chapter 13

Olivia stopped writing to me in any meaningful way in November 1940. After sending a letter faithfully once or twice a week, she scarcely wrote now from one month to the next, and when she did, it was a note on a single sheet, brief and frothy, as if suddenly for a few seconds she had remembered me. At first I was baffled. She’d been home on leave for a week back in the summer and we’d had a very jolly time together, laughing almost as much as when we were children. It was an escape from the war, looking at the light side of things and finding the jokes.

Livy had looked healthy and full of life, showing off her uniform – ‘It’s definitely the smartest in the women’s services. Not like that awful drab ATS garb!’ – playing the piano, and we’d gone out dancing . . . And suddenly this oddness.

‘Dearest Katie,’ she wrote in December that year,

Guess what – I’ve been reposted! More responsibility, or so they tell me, though it doesn’t feel too arduous as yet. All in all though a new, big adventure.

How are things in grim old Birmingham? Life here is such a lark – as I’m sure I’ve said. I can’t think why I didn’t join up at the earliest opportunity! My life before the war seems deathly when I think back on it now. Of course we’re working fearfully hard as well, but I scarcely have a night in, except when we have to – dreary domestic nights which are a rule of the service. But at least it’s a chance to reset my hair!