Page 122 of The Ship of Brides
‘Go home, I suppose. I couldn’t while there was... but now, I suppose, it can be like nothing happened. None of it happened. My parents didn’t want me to come anyway.’ Her voice was thin and cold.
‘You will be all right, you know.’
In her reaction to this, there was just a hint then of the old Avice: the superciliousness that told Frances that what she had said, what she was, were worthless. Avice dropped the letter on to the bedcover. The way she looked at Frances now was naked, unembarrassed. ‘How do you carry on living,’ she asked, ‘with all that hanging over you? All that disgrace?’
Frances understood that, for once, the words were not as harsh as they sounded. Beneath Avice’s pallid complexion, there was genuine curiosity in her eyes. She chose her words carefully. ‘I suppose I’ve discovered... we all carry something. Some burden of shame.’
Frances reached under the girl, pulled out the towel and checked the size of the stain. She hid it discreetly, then handed her another.
Avice shifted on the bed. ‘And yours has been lifted. Because you found someone prepared to take you on. Despite your – your history.’
‘I’m not ashamed of who I am, Avice.’
Frances picked up the soiled items for the WSO to take to the laundry. Then she sat down on the bed. ‘You might as well know. I’ve done one thing in my life that I’m ashamed of. And that wasn’t it.’
The Australian Army Nursing Service had set up a recruiting depot in Wayville, near the camp hospital. She had been a trainee nurse for some time at the Sydney Showground Hospital, had worked for a good family in Brisbane to finance her training, and now, single, medically fit, without dependants and with a glowing reference from her matron, the newly formed Australian General Hospital was keen to take her. She had had to lie about her age, but the knowing look the CO had given her when she calculated her new date of birth told her she wasn’t the first. There was a war on, after all.
Joining the AGH, she said, had been like coming home. The sisters were stoic, capable, cheerful, compassionate and, above all, professional. They were the first people she had ever met who accepted her as she was, appreciated her effort and dedication. They came from all over Australia and had no interest in her history. Most had a reason for their lack of a husband, of dependants, and it was rarely one they wanted to dwell on. Besides, the necessities of their job meant they lived from day to day, in the present.
She had never tried to contact her mother. She thought it probably betrayed a rather ruthless streak in her personality, but even that hard knowledge about herself did not tempt her to change her mind.
Over several years they had served together in Northfield, Port Moresby and, lastly, in Morotai, where she had met Chalkie. During that time she had learnt that what had happened to her was not the worst thing that could happen to a person, not when you considered the cruelties inflicted in the name of war. She had held dying men, dressed wounds that had made her want to retch, cleaned out stinking latrines, washed foul sheets, and helped erect tents that were threadbare from overuse and mould. She thought she had never been as happy in her life.
Men had fallen for her. It was almost par for the course in the hospital – many of them had not seen a girl for some time. A few kind words, a smile, and they bestowed on you all sorts of qualities you might or might not have. She had assumed Chalkie was one of those. She thought, in his delirium, that it was possible he could not see past her smile. He asked her to marry him at least once a day and, as with the others, she had paid him little attention. She would never marry.
Until the day the gunner arrived.
‘Was he the man you fell in love with?’
‘No. The one who recognised me.’ Here she swallowed. ‘He came from the same unit that had been stationed by the hotel where I had lived all those years ago. And I knew there would be a time when I had to leave Australia, that it would be the only way I could ever get away from...’ She paused. ‘So I decided to say yes.’
‘Did he know? Your husband?’
Frances’s hands had rested quietly in her lap. Now her fingers linked, separated, linked again. ‘The first few weeks when I knew him he was delirious half the time. He knew my face. Some days he thought we were already married. He occasionally called me Violet. Someone told me that was the name of his late sister. Sometimes, late at night, he would ask me to hold his hand and sing to him. When the pain got very bad, I did, even though I have a terrible voice.’ She allowed herself a small smile. ‘I never knew a man as gentle. The night I told him I would marry him, he cried with happiness.’
Avice’s eyes closed with pain, and Frances waited until the cramp had passed. Then she continued, her voice clear in the darkening room. ‘He had this CO, Captain Baillie, who knew Chalkie had no family. He knew, too, that I had nothing much to gain from the marriage, and that in simple terms it would make him happy. So he said yes where, I suppose, plenty wouldn’t. It wasn’t very honourable on my part, I suppose, but I did care for him.’
‘And you knew you would get your passage out.’
‘Yes.’ A half smile played across her lips. ‘Ironic, really, isn’t it? A girl with my history marrying the only man who never laid a finger on me.’
‘But at least you kept your reputation intact.’
‘No. That didn’t happen.’ Frances fingered her skirt, the same grubby, salt-hardened one she had worn on the lifeboat. ‘A few days before Chalkie and I were married I was sitting outside the mess camp, washing bandages, when that gunner came up and –’ she choked ‘– tried to put his hand up my skirt. I screamed, and hit his face quite hard. It was the only way I could get him off. But the other nurses ran out and he told them it was all I was good for. That he had known me in Aynsville. That was the decider, see? It was such a small town, and I had told them where I came from. They knew it had to be true.’ She paused. ‘I think it would have been easier for them if he had told them I’d killed someone.’
‘Did anyone tell Chalkie?’
‘No. But I think that was out of sympathy for him. Oh, some chose to ignore it. I suppose when you’ve been so near death people’s reputations cease to matter. But they all knew how he felt about me, and he was fragile. The men are loyal to each other... It comes out in strange ways sometimes.’
‘But the nurses did what I did in judging you?’
‘Most of them, yes. I think the matron took a different view. We’d worked together for a long time. She knew me – she knew me as something else. She just told me I should make the most of what he had given me. Not many people get a second chance in life.’
Avice lay down and stared at the ceiling. ‘I suppose she was right. No one has to know. No one has to know... anything.’
Frances raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. ‘Even after all this?’
Avice shrugged. ‘England’s a big place. There are a lot of people. And Chalkie will look after you now.’
