family were ranged around the fireplace, doing anything but looking at it. Dora’s mum Rose was mending shirts, while her younger sisters Josie and Bea played cards and Nanna Winnie peeled potatoes while sitting in her old rocking chair. The only one who genuinely paid no attention was Little Alfie, who played with his wooden train on the rug instead.
Her mother pushed the mending off her lap and shot to her feet as soon as Dora walked in. ‘There you are, love,’ she greeted her with a fixed smile. ‘Had a good day? I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’
‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake!’ Nanna Winnie rolled her eyes and dropped another potato in the pan of water at her feet. ‘Dora, open that bleeding letter and put your mother out of her misery or we shall never get any peace in this house. She’s been on pins all day.’
Dora pulled out the letter from behind the clock and stared down at the Nightingale’s crest: the silhouette of a woman carrying a lamp. The thick cream envelope felt heavy. Her heart started to flutter in her chest.
‘Can I read it on my own?’ she asked her mother. She knew it would be bad news and she needed time to compose herself before she faced her family.
‘No, you bleeding cannot!’ Nanna Winnie snapped. ‘We haven’t sat here all afternoon so you can go and—’
‘Of course you can, love.’ Rose Doyle shot her mother a silencing look. ‘You just take your time.’
‘But don’t be too long about it,’ her grandmother warned. ‘I told you we should have steamed it open,’ Dora heard Nanna Winnie saying as she let herself out of the back door. ‘She would never have known if we was careful.’
Their narrow strip of back yard was sunless and damp, overshadowed by a high brick wall that separated it from the railway line high above. Dora took refuge in the privy at the end. The cold October wind whistled through the gaps in the old wooden door as she sat on the weathered pine seat and read her letter by the fading evening light.
Dear Miss Doyle,
The Board of Governors of the Nightingale’s Teaching Hospital is pleased to inform you that you have been accepted in their three-year programme leading to State Registration. Please report to Sister Sutton at the Junior Nurses’ Home on Tuesday, 6 November 1934 after 4 p.m. Enclosed is a list of equipment you must bring with you. You will also need to send us the following measurements for your uniform, which will be waiting for you when you arrive . . .
A train rumbled past, rattling the privy door and shaking the ground under her feet, while Dora read the words over and over again, right down to the signature: Kathleen Fox (Matron). Then she snatched up the envelope and checked the address, just to make sure it had come to the right person.
She lowered the letter and stared ahead of her at the yellowing squares of newspaper stuck on a rusty nail on the back of the door. From somewhere outside she could hear their neighbour June Riley singing tunelessly. The sound seemed to be coming from miles away. None of it felt real.
When she finally emerged she found her mother in the yard, sweeping the cracked paving slabs, her eyes fixed on the privy door. She froze when she saw Dora.
‘Well?’ she said.
Dora nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Rose Doyle gave a yelp of joy and dropped her birch broom with a clatter.
‘You did it!’ she cried, putting her arm around Dora. ‘Oh, Dor, I’m so proud of you!’
The rest of the family, who had been gathered around the back door, came out of the house and suddenly Dora was lost in a clamour of jumping, cheering and hugs. Nanna Winnie looked on from the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.
‘I don’t know why she’s bothering,’ she grumbled. ‘The glue factory was good enough for you and me, Rosie. Why does she have to be different?’
Next door, June Riley flung open the back door and stuck her head out, her thin face framed by a halo of spiky curlers. ‘Hello, what’s all the ruck about?’
‘Our Dora’s going to be a nurse,’ Rose called back, loudly enough for the rest of the street to hear.
June rushed out into the back yard in her dressing gown and slippers and stepped over the section of fence where the slats had broken, into the Doyles’ back yard.