the dress she was wearing looked as if it had come straight from the pages of an expensive fashion magazine.
‘It’s all such a bore, isn’t it?’ she said smiling wryly now that she had secured our attention. She offered her hand to me and I took it thinking she seemed nice enough in her way. ‘I’m Eleanor Ross, by the way.’
‘I’m Kathy and this is Ally – Alice Bowyer.’
‘I’m not in the least bored,’ Ally retorted with a sparkle in her eyes. I could sense her hostility towards the other girl immediately. ‘Why did you join if you didn’t want to come?’
‘Daddy insisted,’ she replied and pulled a face. ‘It’s good for his public image to have a daughter doing her bit. I’m lucky. He chased my poor brother into the Navy as soon as this stupid war started. Paul hates every moment of it. He’s a talented musician and that’s all he wants to do, but he wasn’t given a choice.’
‘What does Daddy do?’ Ally asked in an acid tone.
‘He’s a parliamentary secretary,’ Eleanor replied. ‘Very patriotic and filthy rich. One daren’t refuse to do as he asks or one might be cut off without a penny.’
‘And that would be dreadful for one, wouldn’t it?’ Ally glared at her with dislike. ‘Come on, Kathy. We don’t want to bother with her sort. She doesn’t belong with the rest of us.’
Ally took my arm and marched me away down the path some of the other girls had already taken. I glanced back at Eleanor Ross feeling a bit sorry for her. She looked unhappy and was vainly struggling with three heavy suitcases. I was considering whether to risk Ally’s disapproval and help her when a young man in a white coat approached Eleanor. He was good-looking, tall, had dark hair and clean-cut features that immediately triggered something in my memory.
‘Let me give you a hand?’ he offered. ‘You’ll never get all this stuff to the Dower House alone. You’ve brought rather a lot, haven’t you?’
‘I wasn’t sure what I would need.’ She gave him a flashing smile. ‘This is very kind of you, Mr …?’
‘Dr,’ he corrected. ‘I’m not a consultant so you call me doctor – Tom O’Rourke off duty.’
Ally had looked back to see what had caught my interest. She scowled as she saw the very attractive man speaking to Eleanor.
‘Trust her to get her claws into a terrific-looking bloke five minutes after we get here! That sort always know how to get their own way.’
‘I think I know him,’ I said as we started walking again. I could hear Eleanor talking to Dr Tom O’Rourke as they followed behind, though I couldn’t quite catch what they were saying because they were trailing some way back down the path. ‘I’m not sure, because I haven’t seen him for ages, but I think he used to live near me at home. I know his sister well. She’s always been really nice to me, because she delivered me when I was born.’
Ally gave me a curious glance. ‘You’ll have to introduce me when you get a chance. We can’t let Miss Stuck Up Madam get all the best men, can we?’
‘What about your boyfriend? I thought you were thinking about marrying him?’
‘That’s when the war is over,’ she said and grinned naughtily. ‘I intend to have some fun in the meantime. Mike doesn’t expect me to sit at home and twiddle my thumbs every night – and if he does he’s mistaken.’
I smiled and let the subject drop. I was in no position to introduce her to Tom O’Rourke. He probably wouldn’t remember me. I was still a snotty-nosed kid at school when he’d gone off to college. I remembered people talking about it, saying he was lucky to be alive because of the illness he’d had in childhood. The family was well liked and they had all wished him luck. He’d obviously done all right for himself, and it was an odd sort of coincidence me coming to train at this particular hospital.
I forgot about Dr O’Rourke as we arrived at the Dower House to find it a scene of friendly chaos and confusion. When some of the fuss had died down, we discovered that there were only three rooms to accommodate ten newcomers. It meant that we would be three to a bedroom and one of us was going to have to share with the senior nurses, which was something no one seemed to want to do, hence the argument.
The first girls to arrive had sorted themselves out apart from one girl who was looking for two others to share. She looked at us uncertainly as we signed the register.
‘Will you share with me?’ she asked. ‘There is one other girl to come but she hasn’t turned up yet.’
‘Oh, she’s busy chatting to one of the doctors,’ Ally said. ‘Yes, we’ll share – won’t we, Kathy? What’s your name?’
‘Sally – Sally Baker,’ she said and looked relieved. ‘I don’t want to go in with the seniors. They are bound to be superior and look down on us, especially those who were nursing before the war. Apparently, they think we’re all useless.’
‘I suppose we are for a start,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to learn, Sally – but I agree it is better to be with other recruits. We can all cry on each other’s shoulder when Matron ticks us off.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’ She smiled shyly. ‘I’m so nervous – are you? I’m sure I shall make lots of mistakes, and I do want to do well. I’ve got two brothers in the Army, and a … friend.’
‘We’ve all got someone out there,’ Ally said. ‘But even if we hadn’t, we would want to help. I hope they are going to let us do something useful and not just scrub floors.’
‘There will be plenty of that,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve got the key. Shall we go up now and see what the room is like?’
Ally followed her to the foot of the stairs. I glanced back and saw that Eleanor Ross had just arrived and was being told the situation. She caught up with me as I began to climb the stairs.
‘You couldn’t give me a hand with one of these cases, Kathy?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I took the case she offered; it was very heavy and I grimaced. ‘What on earth have you got in here?’
‘Clothes and books,’ she said and looked apologetic. ‘I thought it might be as well to have something to read in the evenings. It’s bound to be deadly dull. Dr O’Rourke says there’s a Military base a few miles down the road and they give a dance every month and invite us over, but apart from that there’s nothing much. Just a trip to the pub or dinner if you’re lucky, and the occasional film show over at the base again. But that’s bound to be something we’ve seen in London months ago, of course.’
‘I expect we’ll be too busy and too tired to think about anything else for a while anyway,’ I said and laughed as I saw her expression. ‘Oh, poor Eleanor. This is awful for you, isn’t it? It really wasn’t fair of your father to make you do this.’
I was surprised to see a faint flush in her cheeks.
‘Take no notice of my moaning, Kathy. I don’t mean half of what I say. I expect I shall enjoy it all once I get started – and it’s probably time I did something for someone else. Daddy says I’m spoiled and I expect he’s perfectly right.’
At the top of the stairs we paused and she thanked me for my help before we parted. ‘I can manage these now, thanks. I hope we’ll be friends?’ she said hesitantly. ‘I know your friend Ally doesn’t approve of me.’
‘Ally’s all right. She’ll change her mind when she gets to know you.’
We parted and I hurried after the others. The room was furnished with three beds, each with a small cupboard for our possessions, and a rather spotty mirror on the wall.
Ally had already bagged the bed at the far end. Sally asked me which of the other two I wanted and I told her to take her pick. She chose the middle, which left me near the door.
‘What