I
She couldn't sleep. She lay tossing under the cold sheets and finally checked the clock by the faint light that fell on the nightstand. "2:00" Too early for her morning shift, and yet too late to find someone to talk to, to distract herself. She wrinkled her eyes shut. Like lightening, there were flashes of red, cut by white light, then something in the periphery, the end of a man's shoe, the glimmer of a bottle, the shards of glass, the scarlet pooling on the cream. A throbbing headache made her sit up. It was another migraine and they had been coming too frequently. She turned her lamplight on and reached under her bed, where she had stashed away the Campari. But her eyes fell on a sheet of paper.
"Feel better – P"
How had she known? The last time they'd met on the stairs, they were going in opposite directions, she had rushed in after she'd left Tom, and Patsy was going to start her late shift.
"Is everything all right?" She had wanted to go up quietly but she had walked towards her on the stairs. Her hand had brushed the back of her red cardigan, the warmth seeping through the layers of her dress. Her feet felt leaden. She looked down instead at the worn dark carpet and noticed a wet leaf that she must have brought in, having been stuck to her muddy shoe. She bent down to pick it up but came face to face with Patsy. She had crossed in front of her. They had risen up to stand together, their eyes tracing each other's faces. She didn't know what she had seen in Patsy's eyes, which were cloudy. She wanted to tell her then but everything would come out. So she had wrung herself free as her eyes had stung.
"I'm fine," she said, turning back before she ran upstairs, "You'll be late." She had gone straight to the bathroom in the hallway and locked herself, only coming out when the tears had dried. She had washed her face but refused to look in the mirror. She knew what she'd see – her eyes bloodshot, her cheeks swollen, her lips raw from her having bitten them as she was so used to doing all those years ago.
It had been too much. Once she understood how much little Gary was trying to protect himself and his younger sisters, how he'd held on to dignity even at so young an age, how scared he'd been for an adult to notice him, it had all come apart. Or had it? For she had known all along, hadn't she? And chosen to ignore it for fear of her own comfort. She nearly snorted at that. Comfort. She had run away from home and into the grueling work of midwifery, among all the risk and death and even threats from her superiors, into Poplar, with nuns who can be harsh as they are right, often distant but fiercely protective of her – for comfort? But now the migraine had kicked in, angry and insistent, and she knew she had to take something or sleep it off.
"In the hell that I grew up in, what was important was what we did, not some great show of sympathy and emotion."
Hadn't she said that once, when she had found her going through her things, the mementos she had hidden away in a tin box. Something about catching Patsy like that had made her own blood run cold. She thought about what she didn't have, how the last things she'd keep are things from home. But she hadn't told her that, then. She had just given her a reassuring smile and left her alone.
Could she have told her about today? A part of her wanted to, but then she wouldn't be able to stop. She'd have made her late for her shift and it wasn't an emergency anyway. Just another one of those moods she'd had, something Nurse Crane would scoff at, she was sure, as being indulgent and certainly nothing to be mended by a shot of Campari. No one would ridicule her, of course, but her "wallowing" was not exactly welcomed in Nonnatus. But come to think of it, neither did she welcome it herself. And yet, how could she forget? She'd lived it all as a child, and even though she'd believed she'd put it all away, being so much older and far from home and everything she knew, seeing the neglected children pushed her back.
She saw Beatrice, a girl in a faded dress, torn after one of his fits. Mum was away, she never knew where. But then, she was glad she was away. Mum wasn't a child who could run away to the fields or hide under the bed. Grown-ups needed their own hiding place. And her father? He was kind to her, when he was well. He had nice brown eyes, like Tom's.
She frowned. She had told Tom how she'd been so afraid as a child. He had listened patiently, put his arm around her, and told her he would like to rub all her grief away.
"You can't understand." And he couldn't. He may have seen a lot of hardship in his parish, but he hadn't lived it. It hadn't woken him up at night, left him cold and hungry, searching for someone to hold on to. His father had been a clergyman, they had a nice home in the country. His brothers and sisters were happily married and had children of their own. It seemed worlds away. Is that why she had gone to him, to escape, like all the other things she'd done?
She wanted to tell someone of the desolation, the secrets. Not the nice things about her, but the wreckage she'd left, the ties she'd severed, the memories she'd burnt, the needs she'd smothered. Sometimes she felt she elicited pity, the classic damsel in distress. And she had played it well too. Everyone knew she was pretty, that she needed protection, that she mustn't suffer. But she'd managed to leave, hadn't she? She was proud, a small part of her was proud still, for how far she'd come.
Her head was pounding furiously by now and she didn't want to be in her own bed. Somehow it seemed mocking, as if full of her taint.
She crossed to Patsy's side of the room and stopped. Although they had been roommates for what? A year? She hadn't gone to her space unbidden. Certainly not after that day when she had tried to borrow her pocket mirror and Patsy had become upset. Since then, she had drawn a circle around her bed, as if to say she couldn't cross it. She was careful about privacy, just as she had wanted others to give her. But even after their long work nights, full of stories, they had turned towards each other and whispered in the dark until one of them had fallen asleep. But now she saw Patsy's bed neatly covered by the bright green bedspread, the shade reminiscent of her eyes. Her nightstand was of the same design like hers but had no ornaments, not even a picture frame. It was probably in her tin box, probably under her bed, covered in shadows. She spotted her dressing gown on the floor near her wardrobe. She must have been in a hurry to leave for her shift, for Patsy was always neat. She picked up the dressing gown, the fabric plain and sturdy beneath her fingers, unlike the cool silk of her own. Going to hang it, she noticed that the wardrobe door slid open, revealing the neat rows of clothes. She didn't have too many, not like her, not like the expensive dresses and stiletto shoes that she collected. But the colors were bright and elegant. She had liked her red slacks, which hung within reach. She remembered how well it had fit Pasty, how it had clung to her, giving a softness to her angles. She touched it, still-warm and half-filled as if Patsy had just slipped out of them. She ran the length of its legs, the fibers smooth and inviting. She smelled the cologne that lingered still. But she had come to set things right, not to take away. She hadn't meant to intrude, so she put it away. She suddenly felt very weak and her legs gave away so she let herself fall on her bed. She rested her head on her pillow.
The room had stopped spinning. The walls looked different, the pattern on the wallpaper muted, the pink bare, crack-free, a clean slate. Had they put in a new one? Her eyes fell on the flowers in the vase, the fragrance light and soothing. There were sprigs of rosemary and thyme, her favorites. She couldn't stand other strong smells, had explained it only to a few people. They were bad for her migraines, was it gone now? It seemed so.
"Shall I take away the flowers?" Her voice was the same, soft, the edges calm, like the sureness of waves coming to shore, the water bubbling underneath. Had she asked her to read to her? They say your remembered things best just before you went to sleep. No, she didn't mind. In fact, the herbs were good for her, like a balm over her aches. Patsy put a hand on her forehead and she closed her eyes, letting herself be taken care of, surrendering to the safety of her touch. Her hand had lingered, her fingers slightly brushing her eye lashes. She was afraid of the cold outside, the darkness ahead. She placed a hand over hers.