Summer 1955, I began my training. All alone, I'd just moved from Singapore. You didn't know that yet, obviously, you didn't even know me. I'd spent the last few months before my training holed up in a room, reading any medical article I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, this rendered me pale as a ghost, and so used to my own company that I felt I could do away with other people entirely. That is no longer the case.
The first day of training was torturous – people whispering behind my back, mocking my accent. I can hardly imagine what it must've been like for you, what with you being new from Wales. I'd sat near the front in the second lecture, hoping to avoid the rowdy back row, well, everyone really, but you sat next to me, looking as nervous as I felt. I couldn't have that, not with my vow to be nice to everyone, so I shot you a reassuring smile and turned back to my notes. After, I'd hoped to go back to my room and read about yet another obscure medical case that I almost certainly wouldn't encounter, but you cornered me and took me to a café down the road. How you knew about it is still beyond me, especially as you told me that that was your first day in London, except for when you were 7. You either had the best memory ever, or it was pure luck. The café was called The Silver Buckle, it was warm and inviting, and I didn't know it then, but that would be our place for years to come.
Spring 1956, I didn't know but my life was about to change. Everything about my past came tumbling out to you in an alcohol-induced burst of courage that was in no way suited the bland backdrop of your room in the Nurse's Home. Such an occasion should have had a more monumental location, don't you think? I told you about my time in a prisoner of war camp, about my mum and sister, about my distant, useless father. You listened carefully to what I had to say, and when I was done your eyes burned with the intensity of a thousand suns. "So nobody has truly cared for you in the last 25 years?" you asked. I shook my head. "I care," you'd said boldly. We'd been dancing around each other for months, both metaphorically and literally. Our eyes always locked when we were dancing with men, and they locked over revision, and over coffee, and over exam halls and lectures and anywhere you could imagine. "We can't keep dancing around this," you said to me on that warm evening, "I love you." You jumped backwards like I'd hit you, as soon as you'd said it. "I love you too," I'd been sure to say it quietly enough that nobody else would hear through the walls, if for whatever reason they had been eavesdropping on us, but loud enough that you would definitely hear. You pulled me closer, and our bodies melted together, like they were meant to be.
Winter 1958, we passed our training. We were fully fledged nurses, at last! You were working on paediatrics, the perfect placement for your sunny disposition, and I was on male surgical, the perfect home for my discipline, except not really. I hated it, my nursing abilities were being devalued by insufferable doctors like Dr Tracey. I couldn't stick with it. Even the patients told me I was being wasted somewhere like that. I don't know what steered me towards that florists in Chelsea, but that's where I went. Luckily for you, skill at arranging bed linen doesn't transfer to flowers, and they never even considered having me. I broke down and told you, through glasses of whiskey, that evening, and you held me close while I sobbed for what I thought was a failed career choice in nursing. By some kind of divine intervention (I still don't believe in God, but what else could it have been?), the next week we had Jenny Lee from Nonnatus House with us. She planted the seed of midwifery in my brain, and it stuck there and grew as big as a great oak tree. I handed in my leave to the London without even thinking twice. Oh, how I wish I had thought twice. You cried and cried (and denied it, but I heard you through the walls), and I wish I could go back in time and remind myself of you. But I didn't think, and I began my midwifery training.
Autumn 1959, and I moved to Nonnatus. You cried like we were going to be oceans apart, instead of only streets. I missed you terribly for the first few weeks, and I thought my roommate terribly vain, but I settled in quickly, no doubt about it. The nuns of the order were as efficient as they needed to be, and I knew that midwifery was my true calling. Nonnatus House radiated love and happiness, everything that I hadn't found on the Male Surgical ward. The sheer joy of seeing a new family, or an experienced mother with her newest family member, was comparable to nothing. In contrast, the heavy disappointment I felt at not being able to show you open affection like that was weighing down my every step. It wasn't all happy, midwifery, the technology wasn't and isn't advanced enough to save every mother and baby. That still gets me. There was the time when Abigail Bissette and her poor husband Terrence lost their dear baby girl. Undiagnosed twins softened the blow, but their hearts were irreparably broken. I was the senior midwife on that occasion, holding the fort while Barbara crumbled silently in the kitchen. As soon as I could leave, I ran straight for you at the Nurse's Home. I knew still which floorboards creaked, when Matron made the rounds, and I crept to your room. I sobbed and sobbed, for Mrs Bissette, for the unnamed baby, for us. I thought the tears would never end, but at five AM the next day, I felt stronger. I snuck out so neither of us would risk the consequences of being caught, and pedalled silently back to Nonnatus House.
Spring 1960, we had our first proper fight. It was such a contrast to the second home we'd found in The Silver Buckle. You were angry because we couldn't get married, and although I wasn't showing it, I was angry too. "Wouldn't it be easier to do what everyone so bloody insists and just get married?" you questioned. Tears pricked at my eyes as what you'd said sunk in. You wanted to leave me for a more acceptable, more normal life with a man. I opened my mouth to talk, but I was interrupted by a pretentious man asking if he could buy two pretty ladies a cake. "We don't like cake," you'd said, and stormed out. Stunned, I followed you. You were halfway down the road before I'd managed to catch you up. I spun you round by the elbow. "You don't really want to get married, do you?" I'd asked. It felt stupid. You'd been so certain in the café, so sure of yourself, and you looked up at me with tears in your stormy eyes and said decisively, "Yes, I do. More than anything." Worry filled my head and I felt faint. "To you, you fool, but I can't, so that's that." And you turned and walked away. I stared uselessly after you, and reluctantly turned towards my own destination. Your words rang in my ears, "I feel as though we're ghosts, half with each other but mostly without," as I walked blindly home. I slumped into bed, ignoring my roommate's questioning eyes, and attempted unsuccessfully to fall asleep.
The Halloween Parade was a huge event, but I wasn't expecting to see you there. In fact, after our fight, I wasn't expecting to see you anywhere. I thought you'd be doing everything in your power to stay away from me, but when you showed up in your Saint John's Ambulance uniform, my heart melted. You saw past me and still came for the Cubs. I knew you wouldn't want to speak to me, but I had to make up for what I'd done, or rather not done, at the café. "We're not ghosts," I'd said, "And we won't live as we were. We'll find a way to be together, I promise" I didn't know how, but I knew we'd pull through. And, we did.
Summer 1960, we were browsing for flats. "Women live together all the time," you had told me, although it had done nothing to calm my nerves. I was absolutely sure someone would pick up on us. "Not even a nun would bat an eyelid," you said when we found the perfect flat. The thumbs up you gave me from the phone in the corner of the café marked the start of a new, albeit very short, chapter of our lives. Soon enough, we were checking out the flat. An ugly vase has been left by the previous owners, and your eyes sparkled as you told me all about what kinds of flowers we were going to have in it, and the smells you were going to wake up to. "I want yellow walls in here," you'd told me, very decisively. We packed up our celebratory picnic, and headed outside. I was heading to get you a set of keys cut, and you were on duty at the London. You were going to be very late, so I lent you my bike. Another decision I wish I could go back in time and change. You sped round the corner and straight into an oncoming van. It knocked you clean off the bike, and into the road. A head trauma, causing severe amnesia and seizures.
I'd visited you in the hospital, you might remember, and you asked if I was a nurse. There was grit still in your cuts, and I suggested that you get a nurse to clean it with a spot of disinfectant. Then you asked if I was your friend. I said I was. You asked if I had many friends. I didn't. I still don't. Your mother came in, and you asked if she could help me. "Can you help this woman, Mam?" you'd asked, "She says she's my friend, and it's making her cry." Your broken, tiny voice was enough to reduce anyone to tears, and I left you there with your inconsolable mother, lying uselessly on the hospital bed. The next day I came back, and you mother told me that the specialist had recommended you move back to Wales. Who was I to argue with a specialist? I wish I had. And then your mother whisked you off to Wales. That was the last I saw of you, Delia Busby. You asked me for the story of us, and here it is. My past is full of wishes and should haves, but my future will be full of you.