Call Nurse Jenny by Maggie Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

feel?’
    ‘Explain!’ His voice was still slurred. ‘Don’t think she’d understand. Only hears what she wants to hear. Diff’rent for Louise. She’s a girl. She’s nat’rally happy to cling to her mother. But me. Got to let go. Let it go on too long. Should’ve volunteered for the Territorials last year, but she talked me out of it. Scared then at me going off and getting m’self killed. Everyone was panicking a bit at that time. But now she can see it’s inev … inevitable she’s doing her damnedest to see me in the best possible situation, going into an officer cadet training college, getting a safe job. But I don’t want a safe job. I’d have liked to become an officer, but
I
wanted to sort it out.
I
wanted to. She’s spoiled that for me. Now, Freddy’s got married and joined up. Dennis – that soft idiot – is having a go. Suddenly I’m still a boy in a world of men, and it’s shaken me. I decided I wouldn’t sign on under her rules – thinking she can sort it all out for me. I’m going to wait ’til I’m called up, take my chances.’
    ‘That could be rough on you,’ Jenny said. ‘You’d just be in the ranks.’
    ‘Exactly. I want to rough it, start from the first rung for a change, on my own. If I get a couple of stripes, it’ll be on my own merit. If I get as far as a commission, it’ll be my own doing. I probably will get a commission – my education – but it won’t be my mother getting me there. I want to do it all on my own, and if … if …’
    He broke off. ‘Oh, God, I feel sick.’
    In sudden urgency, he leaned towards the kerb and retched quietly.
    ‘You see, Mumsy?’ Jenny cried first thing next morning at breakfast after relating Matthew’s explanation for not apparently leaping headlong into the forces, her faith in his intentions now unshakeable. ‘He isn’t a coward. He simply wants to do things his way.’
    Mrs Ross’s smile was one of sad experience. ‘Doing things his way could be biting off more than he can chew. He’s always been used to the soft life by all accounts. He’ll be in for a shock, I should imagine.’
    ‘So will a lot of men,’ Jenny said firmly. ‘They’ll have to get used to it. I can’t see why he should be any different. He’ll learn to adapt, like most people do when there’s no going back. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a side of Matthew no one ever saw before.’
    ‘Well, we shall see, I suppose.’
    ‘Yes, we shall,’ Jenny stated with conviction, rising from the breakfast table to start clearing away, confident in the eventual fulfilment of her conviction. She didn’t have to wait for long.
    Two weeks prior to Christmas, the autumn having been so uneventful it hardly seemed they were having a war at all – people were calling it the phoney war, the funny war, even the bore war, and some evacuees were even returning home – Jenny opened the door to a knock. There he stood, one leather-gloved hand clutching a small suitcase, his overcoat collar turned up against the chill wind, the well-cut suit beneath soon to be exchanged for the rough khaki of a private in the Royal Corps of Signals. His smile was wide, his long narrow eyes bright. He looked as though he had been given a birthday present.
    ‘Thought I’d pop over to say cheerio.’
    Not knowing what to say, all she said was, ‘Come in out of the cold for a second,’ and all but dragged him across the doorstep as her mother came from the living room to wish him well and invite him to come and sit by the fire for a moment.
    ‘It’s warm in there, Matthew. There’s such a draught from the door.’
    ‘No thanks, Mrs Ross,’ he said as Jenny dutifully closed the door a little. ‘Got a train to catch. Just thought I’d say a quick goodbye to Jen … Jenny.’
    Despite the miserable feeling inside her at Matthew’s going, Jenny couldn’t help but smile at the hasty correction before her mother as the woman melted discreetly back into the living room, leaving the