Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [108]
Grace just did not know what to say. His revelations were so very different from anything she might have expected, and so much more painful. She’d been acting like a silly girl fretting over a lad not wanting to kiss her, when all the time poor Teddy was facing what he was. A huge wave of emotion rolled over her and sucked her down into its undertow. She looked at Teddy, wanting to tell him how much she wished things were different. She tried imagining how she would feel if she was in his shoes, but couldn’t. It frightened her to think what it must be like and how much he must want to live as she would herself. Love for him filled her. Not so much a woman’s love for a man, as a human love for another human that was truly caring and giving.
He was still holding her hands. She lifted one of his to her face and placed her cheek against it. It felt so cold.
‘I am your girl, Teddy, whether you want me to be or not.’
Suddenly he was holding her and kissing her, not as she had imagined but just like they did in the films, his mouth hard against her own, his heart thudding into her chest. Too hard? That fear came between her and his kiss, her anxiety for him making her ache to be able to protect him and keep him safe.
It was hard to go on the ward and act as though everything was normal after what Teddy had told her, but Grace knew that she must. He had made up his mind, Teddy had said, that he intended to live as though there was nothing wrong with him, and Grace knew that he had meant that.
It made her heart ache to know that he had wanted them only to be friends because he had wanted to protect her, and it had made it ache even more when he had admitted to her that he could very easily fall in love with her, and that she was not to fall in love with him.
‘I mean what I said,’ he had insisted. ‘If it does happen and I go, then I don’t want you spoiling the rest of your life thinking that you owe it to me not to fall in love with anyone else. And don’t try telling me that you aren’t that sort,’ cos I know you too well.’
‘But if they could do something for your heart …’ Grace had protested.
‘They can’t,’ he had answered her. ‘The doc has already told me that. He can’t say either how long I’ve got, only that it will be longer if I rest up all the time and, like I said, I’m not doing that.’
She had desperately wanted to beg him to be careful but she had known that she mustn’t and that that was not what he wanted. What he wanted was to be treated like a man and not an invalid, and Grace wasn’t sure if she had the womanly strength to do that.
Since it was her first night back on nights, she knew from past experience that she would be struggling to stay awake by the time it got to three and four in the morning. It got easier after the first few nights, of course.
The now familiar routine of the ward absorbed her, demanding her physical and mental attention. Visiting time came and went; lockers had to be cleaned and water glasses refilled, bottles had to be taken round, charts had to be written up and Night Sister herself had to be accompanied on her ward round, and then finally at last it was time for Grace to take her tea break.
The dining room was always quieter on nights, even though the same number of nurses were there as were on days. No one wanted to say much and when they did, voices were lower. Somehow nights were like that.
Back on the ward it was time for the patients’ medication.
Her first patient was Harry, and Grace frowned as she checked his chart.
‘It says half a gram of morphia, Staff.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Staff Nurse Reid confirmed. ‘Dr Lewis has increased his dosage. He’s in a lot of pain, poor boy, and it doesn’t look as though his amputation wounds are healing as well as they might.’
Grace knew what that meant, even if the putrid smell of his wounds whenever they changed his bandages had not told