A five-hundred-yard walk brought them to a sad, dilapidated wooden house that had a verandah across its front. Matron’s use of the word “cottage” had led them to expect something small and dainty, but this looked more like a barn squashed to one storey by a steam hammer. And if Superintendent Campbell had incurred “considerable cost” in refurbishing it, then even Edda’s eagle eye failed to see where. To compound the building’s unsuitability, it had been partitioned off in sections that gave it the interior of a block of flats, and the four new-style trainee nurses were not plentifully endowed with space — or comfort.
“Latimer and Faulding, you’ll share this bedroom. Scobie and Treadby share that one. The two rooms you can access are this bathroom and that kitchen. My quarters are through that locked door cutting off the rest of the hall. Once I’m in them, I am not to be disturbed. I’ll leave you to unpack your cases.”
And off she went, through the locked hall door.
“Well, starve the lizards!” said Kitty feebly.
“Pretty austere,” said Tufts, sighing. They were standing in the kitchen, a small apartment serviced by a gas stove but nothing else labour-saving.
Grace was priming herself for a bout of tears, gazing wet-eyed at the small wooden table and four hard wooden chairs around it. “I don’t believe it!” she whimpered. “No common room except four hard chairs in a kitchen!”
“If you cry, Grace, I’ll personally feed you to the dogs,” said Tufts, running a gloved fingertip along the top margin of the stove. She grimaced. “I could forgive the lack of a new coat of paint, but no one has cleaned our quarters properly.”
“Then that’s our first job,” said Edda, sounding remarkably happy. “Just think, girls! They don’t want us here.”
Three pairs of eyes flew to Kitty, the fragile one — how would she take this news she had to know, and the sooner the better?
“Bugger the lot of them, then!” Kitty said in a strong voice. “I’m darned if a Latimer is going to be beaten by a parcel of over-complacent female dogs!”
“Bitches, you mean,” said Edda.
Kitty giggled. “What they don’t know is that they’re in the amateur league when it comes to bitches. We’ve had a lifetime of Mama, who could teach Matron lessons in bitchery.”
Tears dried, Grace stared at Kitty in wonder. “You’re not down in the dumps?” she asked.
“Not so far,” Kitty said, grinning. “I’m too dazzled at the thought that I’m finally leading a life of my own.”
“What do you think of Matron, Edda?” Tufts asked.
Grace answered. “A battleship in full sail, so she’s accustomed to firing salvos at things so far away she can’t even see them on the horizon.”
“I’d rather say that to her, we mean extra work” from Tufts. “According to Mrs. Enid Treadby, Matron took this job to round off her career in a place where she could afford to retire.”
“Why save that gem to tell us now?” Edda asked. “It’s vital information, Tufts!”
“I never think of repeating gossip — I can’t help it, Eds, honestly! You know that.”
“Yes, I do, and I’m sorry for flying at you — Grace, stop bawling like a motherless calf!”
“Matron is a detestable woman, and so is Sister Bainbridge,” Grace said through sobs, tears running down her face. “Oh, why didn’t Daddy send us to a Sydney hospital to train?”
“Because in Corunda Daddy is someone important, so he can keep an eye on us,” Tufts said. “Sore bums from hard chairs, girls, and no common room. I wonder if there’s a hot water heater hiding anywhere? This is a hospital, after all.”
“No hot water in this kitchen,” said Edda, grimacing.
Kitty came out of the bedroom she was to share with Tufts, holding up a green-and-white-striped object so starched that it resembled a sheet of cardboard. Clenching her right fist, she began to punch its two layers apart. A laugh escaped. “This is as bad as punching the hide off a slaughtered lamb.” Putting the dress down, she produced a sheet of white cardboard. “I think when this is punched apart it will be the apron.” She laid into it with her fist. “Oh, look! It must wrap right around and over the uniform — only the sleeves will show. But I realise why our stockings are homely, knitted black wool.”
In the midst of repairing her lipstick and powder, Grace looked up. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Oh, Grace, don’t be so thick! Why do you think Matron delivered us that sermon on nuns and chastity and prostitutes? She was really saying that for the next three years we have no sex, even if statistically we are female. No flirting with any of the doctors, Grace, whatever else you do. Matron Newdigate would forgive your killing a patient far ahead of your conducting yourself like a whore. That’s why we’re going to be wearing ugly uniforms and thick, knitted black stockings. I’d be willing to bet that no touch of lipstick or powder will be allowed either.”
“Cry again, Grace, and you’re dead!” Edda snapped.
“I want to go home!”
“No, you don’t!”
“I loathe cleaning up messes.” Then Grace brightened. “Still, by the time I’m twenty-one I’ll be registered, and able to do all sorts of things without permission. Such as marry whoever I want, and vote in the elections.”
“I suspect the hardest thing we’ll have to do is learn to get along with the other nurses,” Edda said thoughtfully. “I mean, who are they? None of us has ever been in hospital, nor do our parents mix with hospital people. I found Matron’s instructions to tone ourselves down ominous. I inferred that she meant we are a distinct cut above the other nurses socially and educationally. The last thing in the world we’ve ever been is snobby — Daddy would be appalled, especially with Mama as an example.” She sighed. “But unfortunately people tend to judge books by their covers.”
Tufts aired her knowledge of local facts yet again. “The nurses are all from the West End, and rough as bags,” she said.
“Well, we start by removing phrases like ‘rough as bags’ from our speech,” said Edda — oh, Tufts could be exasperating! The trouble was that she wasn’t a talker, so none of the others expected her silence to conceal information.
“I always thought using a dinner napkin added dreadfully to the laundry,” Kitty said cheerfully. “I mean, you can wipe your mouth with your hand, and if your nose is runny, you have your sleeve to wipe it on.”
“Very true,” said Edda gravely. “We’d better get in training to wipe mouths and noses as well as wounds, for I very much doubt there will be dinner napkins. Men’s handkerchiefs too, girls. No wisp of lace.” She huffed. “Fool things anyway, women’s hankies.”
Kitty cleared her throat loudly. “I know I get down in the dumps, girls, but I’m not a coward. No amount of West End nastiness is going to defeat me. Nursing doesn’t attract me the way it does you, Edda, because for you it’s the next-best thing to Medicine. But I think I can grow to love it.”
“Good girl, Kitty!” Edda cried, applauding the little speech. In front of her very eyes Kitty was unloading the cargo of childhood. She’s going to get properly better, thought Edda, I know it in my bones. So frank about Maude, so aware of the dangers lurking anywhere in Maude’s vicinity. After Maude, West Enders were nothings.
“I’m long past my grief at not being able to do Medicine,” Edda said now to Kitty, worried that her plight was being exaggerated in Kitty’s mind. “Nursing is more sensible, and our new-style training means we won’t be ignoramuses who know how to bandage, but not why. Think of me as an old war horse — the slightest whiff of ether has me whinnying and stamping the ground. In a hospital I’m alive!”
“Speaking of whinnying and stamping the ground, does Jack Thurlow know you’re going nursing?” Tufts asked slyly.
The shaft went wide; Edda grinned. “Of course he does. And his heart isn’t broken any more than mine is. The hardest part will be keeping Fatima exercised up to Jack’s expectations. I daresay I’ll be riding more on my own in future.”
