Dear Patsy,

Do you truly mean it? I honestly haven't hurt anyone? Oh Pats I could kiss you I'm that glad! I know I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions the way I did but I talked myself into it and once I was worked up I was just so utterly convinced that I couldn't imagine any other explanation. I drafted half a dozen letters to the family of the blonde nurse expressing my grief and regret for what had happened, and all the time not only was she alive and well, she was you! If I hadn't had such a tense week and upset so many people with my dark mood over the last few days it would be almost comical to think how very wrong I got it.

But oh dear, I'm afraid I really have upset people. Winnie and Nerys aren't speaking to me anymore unless it is strictly necessary on the ward (and then it's 'Nurse Busby', even when we are well out of earshot of the patients). At least Nerys isn't. Winnie still speaks if I approach her, but only in a whisper and she flinches whenever I catch her eye as if she's expecting to be hit, which is much worse than Nerys' silent glares. I truly didn't mean to snap at her but I've been feeling so horribly upset and guilty these past few days and Nerys and Winnie's brand of bubbly good cheer has been rather jarring. I almost didn't go in for my shift at all the day I posted your letter, but after all I wasn't ill, and I reminded myself of all the horrors nurses must have worked through during the war – losing family and friends and never knowing if their loved ones away fighting were safe, but still turning up every day to tend their patients no matter their own circumstances. So I followed the advice I feel sure you would have given me, put a brave face on it and carried on. At first I thought it was going to be fine – I arrived at the hospital early and I was even feeling optimistic that caring for people who were ill might help assuage my guilt just a little. And I think it really would have been alright if it was just the patients I had to deal with, but I was on shift with Winnie that day. Of course the poor girl had no way of knowing how I was feeling, what happened wasn't her fault at all, really.

I was pinning on my cap in the Nurses' room when Winnie came skipping in (that isn't a turn of phrase, she actually skipped like Dorothy on the yellow brick road – goodness knows what Sister Davies would have said if she'd seen such behaviour from a nurse in uniform, but luckily for Winnie she was safely ensconced in her office). She danced up behind me and threw her arms around me so enthusiastically that she knocked my hands as they were setting the final pins in place and sent my hair tumbling back down over my shoulders and my cap fluttering to the ground like an injured butterfly.
'Oooh Dilly you look grumpy-wumpy today. Why so glum my sweet Daffy chum?'
'Oh it's nothing really Winnie, I've just-'
But she wasn't really listening and stopped me with a pouting look 'no no no, Dilly I told you! We're friends; that means you get to call me Pooh Bear. I'm only Winnie to my parents. Well, and boys, but-' she broke off and giggled 'well boys, they hardly count do they?'
'Alright, fine Wi- Pooh Bear. I'm just working through some difficult memories at the moment, that's all'.
'Well let's turn that frowny-face around and then you'll feel better. No one can feel sad when their mouth is smiling!' She was still standing behind me with her chin perched on my shoulder watching me in the mirror, and as she said that last bit she reached round to put a finger in each corner of my mouth and pulled it into a silly grin shape. I'm afraid that was just too much for me and I only just contained the urge to bite her fingers. Instead I shook my head to dislodge her hands and shrugged her off me rather more brusquely than was really necessary 'for heaven's sake Winnie Gordon, you are a grown woman. Would you please stop prodding at me and let me be. Good grief can you not see that I just need some space? You can't force a body to be happy!'.
I felt mean as soon as the words were out and I saw her leap away from me. It was as though the kitten she had just been stuffing into dolls clothes had morphed into a tiger and tried to bite her arm off. Oh Pats, she looked so betrayed, as though it had never occurred to her that anyone in the world could be so cruel as I had just been to someone who was, after all, only trying to help. Her big brown eyes filled with tears and she backed off so quickly she almost collided with the door frame.
She barely spoke a word to me all the rest of the day and she must have met Nerys for lunch because when I saw her at the end of the day she didn't give me her usual two handed wave or sing out 'good evening Daffo-Dilly! Where's Pooh Bear?' as she normally would when I came out first. Instead she just glared hard at me and marched straight past into the building in search of her friend.

Thank goodness I am still only working three days a week and I have only had to make it through one shift since that day (with Nerys), though I have seen Winnie and Nerys out about the village once or twice and each time they have very pointedly averted their eyes and almost imperceptibly increased their pace to make it clear that I shouldn't think myself off the hook. I tried to apologise as soon as I said it of course, but I was still feeling so dreadful and it made me too weary to try very hard with them just then, so until now I have just let them be cross. There is still a part of me that thinks it is ridiculous for grown up women to behave in such a manner, but now I know that I didn't cause the accident and best of all that all the people I love are well, I am feeling almost euphoric with relief and quite ready to be Dilly and play nice again (especially when my return to London finally seems to be within reach, so I know I shan't be stuck being Dilly forever!). So today I went out and bought a little teddy bear with curly fur and big soppy eyes to give Winnie as an apology present. I even went so far as to get out my old water colours and paint her a card with a picture of a cross eyed teddy holding a big bunch of daffodils and the words 'I'm beary sorry I was cross' on the front (oh Pats please don't judge me too harshly! I know it is the most trite, insipid gesture imaginable but for Winnie I think it will be just right and for all their faults I don't want to upset the two people who have been nicest to me here, or lose them as friends).

Patsy… you don't really think you were to blame for my getting hurt do you? It may have been your bicycle but you certainly aren't to blame for my poor cycling skills. I'd hate to think you've been feeling as guilty over this as I have felt for these last few days, especially when it must have been simply dreadful for you anyway. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you and I don't even have most of our memories yet. How much worse must it have been for you? So please, please don't blame yourself! If anything it would have been more likely had I been on foot, I'd have been in such a blind hurry to be on time!

I'm so sorry they wouldn't tell you anything after the accident. I don't see why you can't assign a pal as next of kin - why should it only be bonds of blood or marriage that count after all? It would have made so much more sense if they could have called you when I was taken to the hospital. Of course I'd have wanted mam to know, but she was so far away it was hours and hours before she could get there and if it was as you say and they truly thought I wouldn't survive, I might have been dead before she'd reached me, while you were only minutes away.
But although it means I can't have your ring on my finger to declare you my family to the world, I am still glad you are Patsy and not Patrick. If you had been a chap I'm sure we never would have had half the fun we've had together and I wouldn't give up those memories for anything!

That's the other thing - I DO have memories of us together now! Only the early ones, but it's such fun getting to see our whole friendship developing all over again! I remember the day we met properly for the first time. Do you recall? All that time I had spent keeping an eye out for you on the wards and round the hospital (even on the street when I passed the Nurses' home), and when it came to it I was taken quite by surprise.

I'd been at The London maybe two or three weeks and I'd become acquainted with the other girls I worked with – at least enough so that I had someone to sit with during breaks and to tell me if my stocking seams were crooked, but I didn't feel quite like I was really one of them yet so I was thrilled when they asked me along to a dance they were attending one evening. As luck would have it I wasn't on shift until the following afternoon so I agreed gladly and hardly noticed the casual 'bring your chap along' that was added to the end of the invitation. What I didn't realize was that Dot and Gertie had both recently starting seeing young men and were viewing this as a chance for a date. It seemed alright at first because Trudy arrived to pick me up as dateless as I was, and for the first 15 minutes or so of the dance we sat together and chatted companionably while the other two were off with their chaps, but when I asked if she fancied dancing (the music was lively and seemed not the sort to really require a partner) she laughed and shook her head as if she found me charmingly naive. 'Oh Delia, have you never done this before? Of course we mustn't dance! We just sit here and watch the dancing with a hopeful look. It works every time, we're bound to get asked soon. Yes look, there's a chap watching us, he'll come over in a minute. If we were actually dancing he could hardly come and ask us to dance could he? Look tell you what, since this is clearly your first time you can have first dibs. You smile invitingly, I'll pretend to be looking for something in my bag, that way he'll talk to you not me when he comes over. All you have to do is smile and nod to whatever he says'.

I suppose maybe I was naive because I'd had no idea that we had been sitting there as part of a calculated ploy to get a man interested. The boy who was even then approaching, just as Trudy had said he would was handsome enough I suppose, but I wasn't the least bit interested in dancing with him. I had come out to get to know my colleagues, not flirt with junior police officers! But Trudy was watching me expectantly and for some reason I found myself taking his hand and going off to the dance floor when he asked me. The hand in question was rather clammy and the man (whose name was Ernie) spent the entire length of that song and the next telling me about his new car and the relative merits of different types of engine and tyres as if he expected me to be terribly impressed, but honestly I couldn't make head nor tail of any of it. As soon as seemed polite I extricated myself and, pleading a blister, went back to the table. By that time Trudy had found a partner of her own of course, but sitting alone seemed preferable to any more car talk and I had no real desire to flirt with any of the men present, so I rebuffed the advances of the few other lads who came to ask and waited for my friends to come back. And waited.

By about 9.15 I was bored of sitting alone and was feeling just about ready to call it a night and head back to the boarding house. I was just looking round for Trudy, all ready to make my excuses and bid her goodnight, when I spotted Ernie standing at the bar. He was quite a bit the worse for drink now and was leering over a pretty blonde girl who was sitting there alone. She was leaning away from the proprietary hand he had placed on her knee and clearly wanted him to leave her be, but he didn't seem to be taking the hint. I actually got as far as standing up and preparing to march over there to fend him off with a few sharp words and, if necessary, a well placed slap but it turned out I wasn't needed because at that moment the girl straightened up and turned to him with a look of such absolute contempt that he backed off a step in surprise. I wasn't close enough to hear what she said to him but a moment later he had removed the offending hand, moved back to a respectful distance and appeared to apologise to the girl before making his slightly unsteady way back to his table of jeering friends.

I'd been watching the scene unfold from a few yards away, utterly impressed, but it wasn't until the girl turned back to the bar that I saw her profile and realized that she was familiar. It was you, that same girl I'd been looking for ever since she lent me her pen on my first day! I was so excited to finally have found you that I forgot that you might not remember me from the one lecture we had sat together in and went and slid into the recently vacated seat beside you at the bar without another thought. At first you turned to me with a stern frown, obviously thinking Ernie had given in to his friends' taunts and come back for another go (I can remember thinking how I'd hate to be a badly behaved patient on your ward and be subjected to such a look!). But when you saw it was me your expression changed to one of genuine warmth and welcome and I couldn't help bursting out 'oh it really is you! I'm so glad! I was almost ready to hire a private investigator to track you down. I can't tell you how tricky it is trying to find someone when all you know about them is that they have a nice smile and carry an extra pen to lectures!'. Then I remembered that you might not know what I was talking about so I added 'oh, I mean… hello, I'm Delia. I think we met in a lecture once and I've been hoping to run into you. May I sit here?' (though of course I already was). I was probably grinning at you like a fool, but you beamed back as if we'd known each other forever and said 'hallo Delia, my name's Patience, but everyone calls me Patsy. It's lovely to finally meet you properly!'

After that I didn't mind that the girls I had come with seemed to have all but abandoned me. I stayed sitting at the bar with you instead, exchanging stories from the wards and swapping the rumours we had both heard about things that had happened in the hospital before we started, all of which more senior students had solemnly sworn were true as gospel (the patient that had, over the course of four days, managed to steal and eat 300 cotton swabs for no discernible reason and who had only been fingered as the culprit when his bedpan was found to be full of white fluff. The Matron who had drunk too much sherry one Christmas and had ended up singing 'ode to joy' at the top of her lungs and trying to waltz round the ward with a hernia patient after midnight). We ended up laughing so much I hardly noticed the time passing.

We seemed to have so much more in common than the other girls I had made friends with. Dot and Gertie and Trudy were wonderful fun and I would certainly love to see them again if they are still at The London, but they didn't seem to want to be nurses for the same reasons I did and it made me feel as though I had to tone down my enthusiasm for everything I was learning in their company (when I asked them what had made them join Trudy declared 'nurses marry doctors, everyone knows that!' Dot said 'it's the uniforms. Chaps go quite moony for a girl in uniform!' Gertie just shrugged and said 'it was this or sewing school and I never could get the hang of button holes'. I'm sure they must have had SOME sense of vocation or they wouldn't have stuck with such a job, but their answers disappointed me even so).

I know we met up quite often after that on our free afternoons, for a pot of tea and scones or even just a walk in the park, but the time I remember most clearly is the day I finally got to move into the Nurses' home. I had been warned that a pipe had burst in what was to be my room shortly before I arrived (which was why there was such a delay in getting my place) and as such the carpet had been removed and their might still be rather a musty smell. I was delighted to be moving in with the other nurses, but a little apprehensive from the description. In all honesty I was expecting a grim little cell with bare dusty floorboards and a smell of rot. Instead I hauled my suitcase up the last flight of stairs and nudged the door bearing my name open to find you standing on a chair re-hanging the curtains in a spotlessly clean room that smelt slightly of polish and bleach and not a bit of damp.
'Morning morning! These were a little water marked I'm afraid, but I've given them a good wash and the floors have had a decent going over as well. The rug is from my room as the floor seemed a little chilly without it, but if you don't like it I'll take it away again. I was going to get flowers to make the place a little less austere, but I'm afraid I didn't have time in the end. I did manage to get my hands on an excellent bottle of scotch, a couple of the biggest éclairs you have ever seen and a spanking new deck of cards though. I thought perhaps you might like to have a little house warming after our shift tonight? I know I found my first night here a little strange, so perhaps the company would be welcome?'
It was quite a bare little room, but at that moment nothing had ever seemed further from austere. All I saw was the meticulously scrubbed and polished floor with its bright, inviting rug beside the bed, the freshly washed curtains and you making it all happen, and it was the friendliest place I had ever been.

Do you think we might share a flat again one day? I understand completely if this whole affair has put you off the idea, but the notion of getting to spend every day with my best friend just seems so wonderful, I'd hate to think this accident had spoiled it forever and I suppose I've been thinking that if you were willing to move out of Nonnatus House once, maybe you could be again.
Just think of it Pats. Our very own flat! We could talk and talk, and maybe get a record player, and there would be no curfews as there were in the Nurses' home (not that we obeyed them of course, but in our own flat we wouldn't even have to sneak into each other's rooms after lights out). It would be such fun! And of course I would bring my jug to put on our very own windowsill and this time I'd be the one to buy you flowers to put in it (they are still coming every two weeks, a new assortment of beautiful colours that cheer me up no end whenever I see them).

Do say you'll think about it?

Love,
Delia

... ... ...

Dear Pats,

Somehow it never for a moment occurred to me that your sadness might just be for me and not caused by some other, tangential tragedy. Of course I knew that you cared for me and were sorry for what had happened – you've been such an unfailingly good friend since I was hurt that there's no way I could have doubted it; but even so I never dreamt that I was so valued by you, even as I came to realise how important you were to me. Now it seems that my eventual recall of our friendship in its entirety is inevitable, I am impatient for it, because I think... I know that when it returns, everything else... all those feelings I've been unable to make sense of... will fall into place. There is something about us that goes beyond the ordinary Pats, and whatever shared experience between us has caused it, I want to know.

I've taken to carrying your photo round with me in my pocket, to remind me of you, and hopefully to help push my brain into making those last few missing connections. I like having you with me. I wish I was with you for real.

Love,
Delia