Dear Delia,
The cubs would absolutely adore a session on building dens! Perhaps when you return (if you still want to be involved with the group, I certainly don't mean to pressure you) we could work it into some sort of camping activity. It would be no easy thing to come up with sufficient activities for a wilderness badge in the middle of London, but perhaps we could muster up a tent or two to pitch in the community centre. I believe Fred has an old one somewhere in the shed at Nonnatus. It is probably half chewed away by rats and moths by now, but it would do if we were only putting it up indoors and I imagine the boys would find it a bit more impressive than bed sheets.
In any case they would almost certainly find it more interesting than the last activity we did! Fred decided it would be a good idea to have them all learn different types of knots and brought along a box of bits of string and a book on knot tying. I think he pictured them all making complicated sailors knots and building swings and pulleys and goodness knows what else – all far beyond the capacity of our available resources of course. In reality it turned out that Fred doesn't actually know any particularly unusual sorts of knots, so after twenty minutes of puzzling over the dense, incomprehensible instructions in the book (it had one or two pictures but they were about as informative as if toddler had scribbled them at random) we gave up and I taught them to make cats cradles instead. They went along with it as well as can be expected for such energetic youngsters, but it certainly wasn't the height of entertainment for anyone present and I suspect we will need to do something that involves a bit of running around next week to make up for it!
I'm so pleased you're enjoying your work! I imagine your patients all adore you if you sit and read to them and play games. If I were in hospital I'd want to have a nurse like you taking care of me. You are quite right, being idle would be by far the worst part of the whole ordeal and having someone to talk to outside of hospital visiting hours would make the experience much more bearable. It's only since I came to Nonnatus House that I've realized how much better I like community nursing than working in a hospital – there is so much more scope for listening to the individual needs of the patient rather than expending all ones effort on the look of things. After working to my own instincts so much of the time it seems almost laughable that we should expend time and effort going round the ward kicking the wheels of all the beds to make sure they're facing the same direction when that time could be better spent actually talking to the patients in our care. Even if it is just a few words of small talk it at least gives people a chance to feel as though they are still human beings and not just a box to be ticked on a chore list.
As it happens I have been seconded to The London for the week, so the difference in the way community and hospital nurses work is currently at the forefront of my mind. As you may have guessed, I am finding it rather difficult to adjust back to working under the strict regime of nursing on a ward! I've actually broken a rule or two already, but only when it really seemed necessary. After all, when faced with a terrified little boy of three with a great gash on his head half the length of my hand, how could I not make him a balloon out of a spare glove to stop him crying? I know wasting equipment that way is not looked upon kindly, but the poor little thing was half out of his mind with pain and terribly afraid of having all these strange people poking at him. Having the balloon to play with distracted him enough to allow us to check for concussion and give him the stitches he needed, and by the time he left he was smiling bravely and clutching the inflated glove as if he'd just won a prize. It seemed to me a much better way of dealing with the situation than having the parents hold him down!
In spite of the fact that I am chaffing a little under the strict rules I am actually rather glad to be here, at least on a short term basis. You see, I have been allocated to the A&E Department, and I'm not sure if you'll know it or not, but that is where you worked when you were at The London. I am on friendly enough terms with everyone here in my own right of course (after all I only worked upstairs and have done a share of emergency department work when needed), but most of the A&E girls only really know me as being your particular friend. On my arrival I felt almost like a minor celebrity because throughout the first hour or so of my shift every other nurse on the floor and even one or two of the trainee doctors (anyone more senior would of course consider it beneath their dignity to even notice who was nursing for them) found some excuse to come up to me and quietly asked after you. They are all desperate for your return – it seems you have made quite an impression! The nurses all spoke wistfully of how you were able to make even the most difficult patients - from drunken Dock workers with broken noses pouring blood to frightened little children with pens jammed in their eye sockets, stop hollering and sit still so Doctor could have a look. As for the medical students, it seems you were something of a hero to a few of them and kept them out of trouble by subtly supplying the sorts of details that Doctors are supposed to know, but that nurses almost inevitably know better.
After my first shift I was called into the Sister's office and was fully expecting that I was about to get in trouble over the 'wasting clinical supplies' issue, but instead Sister Reed wanted to talk about you. She spent a minute or two on small talk about how I was getting along at Nonnatus House and how I was finding being back at The London, which rather surprised me because she isn't generally given to idle chitchat. But then she got round to what she really wanted to know and it all made sense.
'I have been given to understand that you are in contact with Miss Busby, Nurse Mount? I haven't heard news of her since she was discharged from our care, and I'm sure you remember what a grave state she was in at that time. I don't like to see any of my girls coming in on the other side of the stethoscope as it were, but Nurse Busby was one of my best and it was quite a blow to the department to lose her. Certainly she didn't always have the strictest regard for the rules, she was rather like you in that respect'
there she broke off and gave me a stern look: 'I'm sure I needn't remind you that surgical gloves are medical equipment and not toys'. Her expression softened almost to a smile as she continued so I knew I wasn't really being scolded. 'But like you she always did it with the patients' welfare at heart, and as in the case of your little head trauma patient this afternoon, her methods usually turned out to have better results than doing things strictly by the book. So I was hoping you might tell me Nurse Mount, how is Nurse Busby doing now? Might we have cause to look forward to her return?'
I hope you don't think it too presumptuous of me (after all it isn't really my place to disclose such things without asking you first), but I told her I thought you were doing extremely well and mentioned that you had started work in your local cottage hospital with a view to returning to The London at some future date. She tried to maintain her professional expression but I could tell she was delighted by the news (I get the impression that she is really very fond of you Deels, and that she has been fretting over your condition), and once I had been dismissed and was about to leave she called back to me 'Oh and Nurse Mount? Do tell Delia I send my regards and very much hope to see her returned to us soon. Her old job is waiting for her just as soon as she is ready to take it up again'.
I thought it might please you to know that you are very much remembered and missed here, and not just by Sister Reed and myself. All the other nurses (none of whom seem the slightest bit inclined to give each other odd nicknames thank goodness) have asked me to pass on their fond regards as well, so although now you may be struggling a little with the rather unusual companionship of your colleagues I have no doubt that you will have quite a queue of people wanting to catch up with you after work when you return to London!
Winnie and Nerys sound almost unbelievable. I'm sure they are perfectly sweet people without a malicious thought between them, but I wouldn't quite know how to respond to a grown woman who referred to herself as Neenaw. (Please promise never to start calling me 'PeePee'; I simply don't believe I would cope). And don't worry; you will always be Deels to me (is it alright to call you Deels? I shouldn't have assumed that just because it was before it still would be. Please tell me if you would prefer Delia! I won't think you the least bit waspish for it, it is your name after all and you should be the one to decide how it's used). I couldn't bring myself to call you DaffadownDilly in any case and besides, when you are being dreadful is usually when we have most fun! I love your unusual ideas and mischievous sense of humour and you are certainly no more dreadful than me. In fact, I think you are really a rather nicer person than I am.
And I am absolutely delighted to hear that your memories of nursing are coming back! This will make is so much easier for you to get back into working full time. With that and the glowing recommendations from both your current employer (who also just so happens to be the physician who has been managing your care so there will be no conflict of opinions there) and Sister Reed at The London you should be able to walk into any job you want and have them consider themselves lucky to get such a kind and dedicated nurse! I know it must be difficult with your mother – her expectations are so at odds with who you are. But in spite of her protective instincts I always got the impression (from how you spoke to me of her when you were here) that she was actually rather proud of what you'd made of your life and was coming to terms with your need for independence before your accident. Of course what happened will be a setback to that, but it sounds as though you are both making very positive steps in understanding each other's perspective, so perhaps when you leave this time it needn't really feel like parting at all. And it isn't the same as last time you moved away from home. This time you aren't moving to a strange city far from everything you know. You have friends here who care about you and will look out for you. Perhaps that will make the idea of your going a little easier for her? (I can offer her my personal guarantee that I will never pressure you to date unsuitable young men or take you to 'dens of iniquity' or any of the other things mothers tend to worry go on in London!).
Are your dreams of London any clearer than they were to begin with? You said you thought you had dreamt of me… do you remember anything of the details of that dream? Sorry, you needn't answer that if you'd rather not. Does it seem horribly nosy of me to ask? I suppose it is just a hint of narcissism, wanting to know that your only memory of me isn't some horribly embarrassing incident (such as the time I had to be rescued from under a mountain of no-longer-clean linen when I failed to notice that my pinafore had caught on a loose nail and I pulled the whole shelf of blankets down on top of me).
I certainly hope we won't meet the walrus from Alice in wonderland on the pier! I seem to remember him being rather a dark character and certainly not someone one ought to take a stroll with. But don't worry; I am well versed in Lewis Carroll poems, should the need for them arise. We studied the book at some length in my younger days at school and the combination of bizarre surrealism and darkness always rather appealed to me above the simpler, straightforward moral tales we were so often made to read. I think the line you were looking for was 'and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings' (though the rhyme is part of a much longer poem) – just in case he should return to your dreams demanding an answer!
Love,
Patsy
... ... ...
My Dearest Deels,
You dreamt of me! I can't help feeling rather excited about that, though I'm not sure which makes me more nervous – the idea that is was truly a memory or that it was just a dream. After all, you didn't tell me about what you saw… was that a deliberate omission because you saw something you were uncomfortable with or was it simply too jumbled to express clearly? Will you tell me, I wonder, when you start remembering bits of our time together properly? I'm a little concerned that it will be horribly confusing for you. But I do feel as though we have grown close again over the past weeks of letter writing even without your memories of the time before - perhaps even enough so that I might dare to hope that it won't come as too much of a shock to you when you remember enough to understand everything. After all, we have been here before, have we not?
Forgive me for saying so but in a lot of ways you seemed so unworldly to me when we met (I don't mean that as an insult - your ability to view the world and all its people as essentially good in spite of evidence to the contrary are part of what I love about you) that I was afraid you would be scandalized by the very idea of two women loving each other in that way. But when we did eventually confess that our feelings for each other went deeper than simple friendship you weren't fazed in the slightest by the notion of being 'a queer'. In fact, it didn't even seem to register to you. Your delight that I felt the same way seemed completely untempered by apprehension over what the world would think of us and you threw yourself into my arms without a hint of self consciousness. In spite of all the need for caution you have never seemed to think of us as being anything other than two people in love – no labels, no shame to our secret and for the most part, no regrets.
You told me later that when you first started to recognize your feelings for what they were and to believe that such a thing were possible you felt nothing so much as relief, because up until then you had been afraid that you were incapable of love. You told me that throughout your teens you had worried that you were broken somehow because you still preferred to read or swim or play games long after your friends had started to spend all their time discussing boys or preparing for their next date. It almost broke my heart to hear your stories of how you'd tried so hard to 'fix' yourself and take an interest in boys, as though you weren't perfect the way you were.
I'm not sure you'd have believed it of me Deels, but I have actually been talking over some of this with Trixie. I didn't plan to- I haven't brought up the subject since we climbed out of Sister Monica Joan's the blanket hideaway, but since we had talked about it I was a little less secretive over your letters and the other night I was sitting up in bed reading over your latest reply. For the first time I didn't take your letter off somewhere to read by myself and although I had thought Trixie utterly absorbed in her night time beauty routine (I don't know how she has the patience of an evening for all those creams and curlers and goodness knows what else) she must have noticed what I was doing because as soon as the letter was folded back into its envelope she glanced over her shoulder at me and said 'you look pleased, what news from Delia? Does she remember something?'
I confess I was a little startled, I am so used to keeping this a secret and speaking in careful code about my feelings that I hadn't quite prepared for Trixie asking so casually, as if this were any other relationship (I suppose part of me still expects her to be uncomfortable with it for all her words of support last time). She must have noticed my hesitation because she came and sat on the foot of my bed. 'Come along Patsy and tell auntie Trixie all about it. Everyone's fast asleep so you needn't be afraid of being overheard. If I can't sort out my own love life you might at least let me live vicariously through yours!'
'Oh Trixie, I'm not sure I even HAVE a love life… no, she doesn't remember yet, but she's starting to get back early memories of training, before she transferred to the London. And… well, she says she dreamt about me. Or she thinks she did, but she didn't tell me any of the details so I can't be sure if it was really a memory'.
'Oh PATSY, that's so exciting! You really ought to tell her you know. Or at least drop a few hints. Otherwise poor Delia will just think she's having those dreams because she's head over heels for you without realizing you feel the same. You can't let her think it's unrequited! You need to let her know that those really ARE memories and not just love sick fantasies!'
What Trixie said rather hit the mark. I have spent so much time agonizing over this very thing and I know all my reasons for not telling you make sense… but now a part of me is wondering if in reality I am simply holding back because I'm afraid, and I know you deserve better than that. Perhaps Trixie is right. After all things are different now your memories are coming back to you. It seems likely that one way or another you will recall the way things used to be, and if you still have feelings for me I would hate you to think it one sided. I don't ever want you to feel you are broken again.
I love you Deels.
Yours,
Patsy