Burden of Memory by Vicki Delany Read Free Book Online

offered her a glass of water. “You’re old, Miss Madison, old and arthritic and no one cares what happened in the war anymore.”
    Moira swallowed the pills in a gulp. Her eyes brimmed but she would not allow the tears to flow.

Chapter Four
    The Canadian Army General Hospital Number 15 was assigned to the site of a brand-new British Army hospital in Bramshott, Surrey. The hospital, in fact, was so brand-new that it wasn’t actually finished. The nurses stepped over gaps in the partially-laid flooring as they moved through the wards in their working uniform of white shoulder length wimple—a memory of the days when nurses were also nuns—white apron over a plain dark dress with a double row of buttons, stiff white collar and cuffs. The sound of hammering and sawing accompanied them on their rounds.
    At first the hospital was rather a pleasant place. The work was not hard. There were a few casualties from training incidents, but most of the patients were either ill or accident victims. There were a disproportionate number of accident victims. The enthusiastic Canadian boys were having a great deal of trouble managing their army motorcycles on the narrow English lanes, particularly at night under blackout conditions.
    But all in all, it was not much different than the nursing Moira had done in Canada. The accommodation was surprisingly nice, close to the hospital, only two women to a room (tiny and damp though it might be), meals served in their own mess. And the social life was beyond compare. Women surrounded by a sea of men, they were constantly being invited to parties and events held either in the town or any one of the many nearby military bases of numerous nationalities.
    Unlike a good many sons and daughters of privileged families, Moira had always known that she was gifted only through an accident of birth. And that the attention her youthful self received at dances and parties back home had much less to do with her own wit and charm than her family’s influence and wealth. But here, where no one knew who her grandfather was, or that her father could seal a million dollar contract on a handshake, it was lovely to watch the other girls, from the working class suburbs of Montreal and Winnipeg or the farms of the Prairies or the fishing villages of the Maritimes, delighting in the attention. And it was nice also, she admitted to herself, to be asked to dance because some fellow liked her rather than because of how much money or influence her grandfather and father might have.
    The only thing about which the women had to complain, and most of that was good-natured, was the quite dreadful food. Plentiful but dull in the extreme. Meals were identical from one day to the next, a tiny quantity of tough meat, lots of potatoes, boiled to the point of dissolution, and limp vegetables. Not much in the way of fresh vegetables (fresh fruit even rarer), dairy products, or eggs.
    Moira Madison thought that for every morning of her life she had been served an egg. Sometimes the eggs were soft-boiled and presented in a beautiful china cup, alongside slim fingers of toast or fluffy scones and pots of homemade preserves, taken in the morning room which overlooked the roses of her mother’s prize winning garden. Or they might be fried to the consistency of rubber and served with burnt bacon and toast that had been sitting in the kitchen for ages before being brought to table, as they were in her rooms at Nursing College. If she had been asked, at home in Canada, if she would miss her morning egg, she would have laughed until her thin shoulders shook and her eyes teared with humor.
    After only a few weeks at Bramshott, Moira Madison thought that she might well kill for a simple boiled egg.
    But the work was light and the Sisters had plenty of free time. Time to write long letters home, travel into the nearest village, or explore the countryside.
    The bell hanging over the door sounded feeble indeed as she entered the village shop.