that they’d been let out to go house to house at such a time; I’d have thought all doors would be shut. I tried to remember what it was the old ones used to sprinkle on us children at Halloween in the part of the country where Tim and I had grown up.
A tall boy blared at me. His bugle was dented, scarred with solder, plating all worn away at the mouthpiece. Was his father a returned veteran, perhaps? Or a dead one, of course, his bugle sent home in his place. Or perhaps I was being sentimental, and the boy had won it off another in a bet.
The younger lads clashed saucepan lids. Apples and nuts, missus!
The miniature ghost cried, Go on, would you ever have an old apple or a nut for the party?
He sounded drunk to me. (Quite plausible, since many people believed alcohol could keep the flu at bay.) I dug into my purse for a halfpenny even though he’d called me missus instead of miss.
He blew me a phantom kiss over his shoulder.
Clearly to a child I looked well past thirty. I thought of Delia Garrett calling me spinster. Nursing was like being under a spell: you went in very young and came out older than any span of years could make you.
I asked myself whether I minded about tomorrow’s birthday. The real question was whether I was going to regret it if I never got married. But how could I possibly know for sure until it was too late? Which wasn’t reason enough to do it, to throw myself headlong at every half-viable prospect the way some women did. Regret seemed all too likely either way.
When I let myself into the narrow terraced house, it smelled cold. Candle stubs burnt in jam jars.
My brother was scratching his magpie’s glossy head at the table.
I thought of the old rhyme for counting magpies. One for sorrow, two for joy.
Evening, Tim.
He nodded.
Odd how one took conversation for granted. A ribbon held taut between two people—until it was cut.
I mentioned too perkily: Rather a red-letter day. Sister Finnigan was needed up in Maternity, so yours truly found herself promoted to acting ward sister.
Tim’s eyebrows jogged up and down.
I had an awful habit of making up for my brother’s lack of chatter by doubling my own. I put my bag down and peeled off my coat and cape. The trick was not to ask questions, or only safe ones to which I could guess the answers. How’s your bird?
(I didn’t know if he’d given it a name in his head.)
Tim didn’t meet my eyes very often, but he could manage a half smile.
In the summer he’d found the enormous creature in the alley, grounded by a banjaxed leg. He’d bought it a rusty rabbit hutch to roost in and kept the door tied open with a piece of string so it could come and go as it pleased. Its sheeny green tail was always knocking things over. The magpie also did its business wherever it liked, and whenever I complained it was a menace, Tim pretended not to hear.
I’d been looking forward to something hot tonight, but clearly the gas was off. What about the water? I tried the tap—only a dribble. Damn and blast it!
It was a luxury to let myself curse off shift. To shed the guise of Nurse Power and be Julia.
Tim had a saucepan still hot on the Primus stove; he lit the kerosene flame to bring the water back to the boil for tea. I pushed aside the notebook that was always on the kitchen table for writing notes. Mine were frequent and chatty; Tim’s rare and sparse. (Whatever was locking his throat had the same grip on his writing hand.)
I remarked into the silence, Awfully busy today. I lost one patient, from convulsions.
Tim shook his head in sympathy. He tugged at the touchwood charm on its chain around his neck as if wishing protection for me.
The week he’d joined up I’d given him the creepy charm half in jest—an imp with a swollen head of oak and an attenuated brass body. Some soldiers called it a fumsup because of the two thumbs perpetually turned up, for luck, on the tiny arms that went up and down. The only features left on Tim’s touchwood were two staring eyes; I supposed the rest of its face had been rubbed away by his fretful thumb. I thought of Honor White with her holy beads doubled around