A Wartime Nurse Read Online Free Page A

the shop, and the shop girl had tittered and the jeweller had coughed drily and sent her into the back on some pretext or other.
    They went into Binn’s tea room and had spam fritters and chips and jam roly-poly and custard, and Theda was proud when all heads turned to look at the handsome, brave paratrooper sergeant and his girl.
    Afterwards they went back to the station and took the local train, which wound its way through Aycliffe and Heighington and stopped at Shildon. They sat with their hands clasped all the way and anyone looking in their compartment for a seat changed their mind and left the young couple alone, standing in the corridor if they had to.
    At Shildon, they got down from the train in the old station. ‘The first passenger station in the world,’ said Alan proudly. They walked their different ways then, he to tell his mother and father he was engaged to be married and Theda taking the Eden bus to Winton Colliery and then going in at the back door of the house in West Row to display her ring.
    ‘Nobody asked me,’ growled Matt.
    ‘I’m sorry, Da. Alan only has two weeks, and we wanted to get used to the idea before he has to go back. And it was so handy, being in Darlington; we could look at all the jewellers.’
    ‘Oh, Da, don’t be old-fashioned!’ cried Clara. ‘I think it’s grand, Theda. Congratulations, I wish you all the best, I do an’ all.’ And she flung her arms around Theda and hugged her, and after a moment so did her mother and father.
    ‘You’re not getting married yet though, are you?’ asked Mam. ‘Not for the duration, anyway.’
    ‘Oh, Mam, we haven’t even discussed it yet. But I promise we won’t go off and do anything daft like getting a special licence and going to the Register Office. No, we’ll have a proper chapel wedding when the time comes.’
    Theda suddenly thought that she didn’t really know what Alan’s thoughts were on the wedding; he could have completely opposite ideas. But he wouldn’t, she told herself. She felt she knew him so well now. Sometimes you learned more about a person through what they wrote than what they said, she told herself.
    ‘We haven’t even met the fella,’ commented Chuck when he came in.
    ‘No,’ said Mam, ‘but Mrs Andrews down the row knows the family and she says the Prices are good, decent folk and his father’s a foreman at the Railway Waggon Works. Alan has a good job, too, to come back to after the war, like.’
    Theda gazed at her in amazement.
    ‘Well,’ said Matt, ‘you didn’t think we wouldn’t make enquiries about a lad you were going out with, did you?’ But of course, Theda hadn’t even thought about it.
    Alan came down from Shildon for tea to meet the family and they seemed perfectly happy with him, at least Mam kept persuading him to have some more tea, or another piece of her eggless sponge cake, and he had a great conversation with Matt and Chuck about the progress of the war. Afterwards, he and Theda sat in the front room on their own, a privilege allowed to a newly engaged couple.
    ‘We could go away for a few days – why not?’ said Alan, lifting his head from her neck where he had been nuzzling her soft skin. He looked as bemused with love as she felt, thought Theda, hot and bothered and shivery and melting, all at the same time. But she thought he must be joking and just smiled and kissed him again.
    ‘No, I mean it, why can’t we? We could go to . . . oh, Windemere, or Blackpool, or even just up the dales for a few days. Why not?’
    Theda sat up straight. ‘Alan, you know my parents would never allow us to – not to go away together. Let’s just be happy as we are. We’ll probably be married this time next year. The war won’t last so long now, will it?’
    He got to his feet and walked over to the window and his going left a coolness where he had been, close beside her. ‘But why not? We’re engaged now, why can’t we go away together? You’re all I’ve thought about