notes referred mostly to someone called Ed, and Gemma presumed Alice must be referring to the injured Captain, Woodhall. But why would Alice write the notes on the back of Lieutenant Peter Conway’s letters?
Distracted by footsteps, Gemma wondered how long had she been engrossed in Alice’s story? She noticed that the fire was lit, which she was sure it hadn’t been earlier. Gemma looked up to see Tom walking into the kitchen.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said, aware she had been unsociable.
“It’s no problem. I don’t mind being ignored,” he smiled. Holding up a mug, he added. “I hope you don’t mind, if I made myself a coffee. I can make you one, if you like?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s fine, thank you. I should be getting on with work, too,” she said guiltily as she stood up.
“Why? Carry on reading your letters. I’d be interested to hear what they’re about.”
“I shouldn’t really,” she said, wondering why she found it so difficult to sit quietly in someone else’s company.
“Rubbish. You read on. I’ve got to get back to work. I don’t want to let my client down.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “I don’t want her sacking me before I’ve finished.”
Amused by his gentle teasing, Gemma held out the letter for him to see. “Alice was a nurse, like me,” she explained. “I was comparing how different our lives must be, despite similar work.”
He took the letter and scanned it quickly. “I can’t see that it would be that different. If you worked in a trauma unit, then isn’t that really what she was doing?” He handed her back the letter a little abruptly.
Gemma was disappointed that he hadn’t taken the time to read it properly. “I suppose so,” she said. “Although I could at least get away from the day’s drama. She lived on site, so there was no real relief from it.”
“That’s true.”
Gemma told him about the notes added to the back of most of the letters. “I had a sneaky look at a few from the other bundle and most of those have notes, too. I’m not sure why yet. They seem to be like diary entries, but without the dates.”
“Maybe they were parts of her story she recalled afterwards.”
Gemma assumed that to be the case. “Or she might have written on the backs of the letters because she knew the information would be hidden away.”
“Possibly,” he pushed up his sleeves. “It’s intriguing.”
Gemma agreed, even though she could see Tom was only being polite about the letters. He could be squeamish, she thought, aware that not everyone had the stomach she did for gore. Tom was a bit of an enigma to her. Always easy going, but with a haunted air about him that she hadn’t worked out yet. “Still,” she said. “No need for me to ignore you when I invite you inside for a coffee.”
“You weren’t,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
She heard him washing his mug in the sink. Returning to the living room, he glanced at the open tin containing the letters. “You won’t miss having a television,” he said. “Not with all those to keep you busy. You can tell me more about what you’ve discovered so far, if you want?”
Gemma put the letter she was holding down onto the table next to her. She picked up her mug, nodding as she took a sip.
“That’s probably cold by now.”
It was, but she barely noticed. “It’s fine, thanks,” she said, not wishing to lose her chance to share her excitement with someone. “I don’t know why these letters were hidden here,” she looked around the room, trying to picture how is must have looked one hundred years before. “I assume Alice must have lived here at some point?” When Tom waited for her to continue, she added. “When I said she was a nurse, she really was a VAD.”
Tom shook his head. “Volunteer?”
She motioned for him to take a seat. “Yes, a VAD was a voluntary nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment. The women who enrolled had to be at least twenty-three. So far, I’ve discovered that Alice was stationed at one of the casualty clearing stations near Doullens. I don’t know where exactly, but I believe there must have been a lot of them around, as it’s near to the Somme area.”
“It is,” Tom said. “She must have been a brave lady,” he added staring into the flames of the fire.
“Very. They all were.” Gemma took another sip of her tepid drink. “When you think of some of the horrendous injuries they came across, on a daily basis, too.” She thought of some of the horrors she had been expected to cope with at the trauma unit. “I’ve seen some devastating injuries in my time, but I think war is another matter entirely. The injuries would have been far worse and back then there was a constant stream of injured men needing medical treatment.” She shook her head thoughtfully. “It doesn’t get any better either, I don’t think.”
“Hmm,” he swallowed and stood up. “I’d better get on. I don’t want it to get dark before I’ve had a chance to really make some headway today.”
“Okay, sure,” Gemma said, aware his mood had slipped, but unsure why. As she watched him go through to the back of the house, she had a feeling that the letters had disturbed Tom in some way. Was there a reason talking about the war or her work made him uneasy? She never failed to be impressed by the almost magical differences doctors made to some patients, even those in the trauma unit since she’d began working there. However, she was aware that some people, most, probably, didn’t like to think of such things.
Gemma watched him go outside and close the door behind him. She finished her drink and thought back to two months ago and her last day at work. She still felt sick when she recalled her shock at discovering that the man she’d thought herself in love with had not only lied to her about being single but was in front of her on a trolley, dying. One day, she hoped to discover her lost love of nursing, but she couldn’t see it happening for a long time yet. If ever.
Gemma swallowed the lump forming in her throat. All her yearning to be a nurse followed by years of training, dashed away. Maybe she just wasn’t cut out to deal with traumatised people. It wasn’t as if she had experience of opening up herself. She wondered if it was the loss of a life-long dream that upset her most or walking out of her job. No money coming in, no purpose.
She recalled her dad’s serious expression when he’d sat her down to tell her of his idea about her coming to Doullens to renovate the farmhouse. She couldn’t help wondering if her dad had wanted her to come to France for her own good, or simply to appease her mother and get her out of the house.
She had always been the cuckoo in her parent’s love nest and it stung whenever anyone joked about a baby being a mistake. She assumed most won their parents around to be cherished in the end, but Gemma wasn’t sure what that must feel like. She shook her head, enough wallowing. She was a strong, independent woman and renovating this place was going to prove it to herself as well as her parents. You had to reach the bottom to rise again, didn’t you?
Gemma folded the two letters she had been reading back into their envelopes. She slipped them at the back of the bundle, to keep everything in order, determined to savour every one. She was determined not to miss out any of Alice’s letters by getting them muddled.
Tom had been right, she thought as she washed her mug, she did have a lot to read. It would keep her mind off everything that had happened in Brighton and her parent’s rejection. She felt like she had made a new friend in Alice, albeit one she would never meet. She couldn’t wait to discover more about the woman’s life.
Gemma tidied away her letters and washed the kitchen floor. Hearing Tom working outside, she couldn’t think of a reason not to go and speak to him. When she found him, he was up the ladder checking the roof above the barn. Gemma opened her mouth to speak, when Tom reached forward to