A Strong Hand to Hold. Anne Bennett
brought here too?’
‘She has,’ the nurse said. ‘Poor wee soul, but she’s far too ill to be interviewed. Too ill for visitors really.’
Jenny felt her heart sink. She settled herself into the wheelchair again and asked anxiously, ‘She will be all right though, won’t she?’
‘Let’s hope so,’ the nurse said, pushing Jenny back to her bed. ‘And at least they managed to save her legs.’
Jenny was glad about that, for she’d been worried about it. ‘Does she know about her family?’ she asked.
‘No,’ the nurse answered. ‘She’s not strong enough for news like that yet. Mind you, they won’t be able to hold out much longer. She’s asking all the time, so I’m told.’
And Jenny knew she would be.
But if Linda wasn’t well enough for visitors, Jenny had plenty. Even her mother had made the journey once and came in a taxi with her grandmother and Geraldine – and her sister-in-law, Jan, had also been. One day she was surprised by a visit from Babs and Lily from the office at Dunlops. They brought her a little basket of fruit donated by the greengrocer on the Tyburn Road, and a sack of papers that had her picture and a story of the rescue plastered all over them. Her mother and grandmother had talked about her in glowing terms and spoke of her considerate and conscientious attitude.
‘In spite of personal grief’ her mother was reported as having said, ‘for Jenny had just learnt of the death of her beloved brother, she reported for duty that night as usual. She is truly a remarkable girl.’ Underneath the reporter had written: Anthony O’Leary was shot down over France. He was one of our brave Battle of Britain pilots to whom we all owe so much.
The evening papers carried the interview with Jenny herself, and she was described as ‘a dainty, pint-sized girl with a lovely freckled face and a gorgeous shock of auburn curls, who, despite her size, had the heart of a lion.’
The whole thing embarrassed Jenny, yet she could see how proud Babs and Lily were of her. They said everyone at work felt the same way and had all signed the card they’d brought in. She knew her mother and grandmother would revel in the attention.
The next day Jenny had the bandages removed from her hands and Linda endured the first of her many operations. The nurses said she would be ready for visitors in a day or two. Jenny was anxious to see her, but she was also concerned about where Linda would go when she recovered. She’d passed on all that she’d learnt about Linda’s relations to the authorities, but had heard nothing of the outcome of any investigations they’d done.
In the end, it was Beattie who told her. Jenny had never seen Beattie looking so sad as she did one afternoon when she came in to see her. Beattie laid a packet of sweets on the bed, gave a sigh and said, ‘How are you ducks?’
‘I’m all right,’ Jenny said. ‘In better shape that you, I think. What on earth is the matter?’
‘Oh, it’s young Linda,’ Beattie said. ‘I popped up to see her first. Poor little bugger. She’s been told about her mom and brothers today.’ Beattie paused. ‘Apparently she went wild, yelling and screaming and lashing out at them all, throwing things.’ There were tears in Beattie’s eyes. ‘Had to be sedated again, the nurses were telling me.’ She looked at Jenny and tears ran down her face as she said, ‘How the bleeding hell will she stand it? Answer me that.’
Jenny couldn’t, and could only guess at the extent of the child’s grief. She’d suffered agonies over Anthony’s death, and even now if she thought about him for too long, the tears could flow. But to lose everyone in the world must be soul-destroying. ‘Let’s hope that whoever she goes to stay with has an understanding nature, and will help her cope,’ she said.
‘That’s another thing,’ Beattie said. ‘Not one of them can or will take her, ’cept the feller in Australia. You ever heard of a kiddie being sent to the other side of the world to a man or family she’s never seen. ‘Specially with all them bleeding U-boats around. She wouldn’t stand a chance. Remember that ship with all those kiddies on board, sunk on its way to America? Anyway the welfare people won’t wear it.’
But what about the aunt that lives in Basingstoke?’
‘She’d have her and willing, but hasn’t the room,’ Beattie said. ‘She came down to see her. A nice woman, but she was telling me she has eight boys already and they’re all living in a little two-bedroom place. All they could give her I expect when she was evacuated, and she really has no room for the child at all.’
‘That’s it then?’ Jenny said. ‘Where will she go?’
Beattie shrugged. ‘Orphanage I suppose,’ she said. ‘I’d take her like a shot if I hadn’t had my house blown up, ’cos she’s a great kid. But I can’t land her on my sister as well.’
‘No, I see that,’ Jenny said. ‘But, oh God Beattie, an orphanage!’
‘I know. Bloody awful.’
‘Tragic,’ said Jenny. She knew Linda, that brave free spirit, would never fit into the rigours of an orphanage. She knew they’d crush her. Who there would care that her world had been tom apart? She’d just be one of many.
Jenny felt very depressed when Beattie had left. She tossed and turned in bed all night.
And in the hour before dawn, as she lay tired, but too emotionally charged for sleep, she wondered for the first time if it wouldn’t have been better for Linda to have died with her mother and brothers. And she turned her face to the wall and sobbed.
‘How is she?’ Jenny asked the nurse at the door to the children’s ward.
The young Irish nurse shook her head, sadly. ‘Desperate,’ she said. ‘It breaks your heart, so it does, to see her.’
‘Is she sedated still?’
‘No,’ the young nurse said. ‘But sure, she might as well be. She lies as still as a statue, withdrawn into herself you know, and never speaks more than yes or no – that’s if you get her to talk at all.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘I’ll have to ask Matron,’ the nurse said. ‘But I’d say it can do no harm. You are the young lady who was rescued with her, aren’t you? I’ve seen your picture in the paper.’
Jenny nodded, blushing, unused to such fame, and she blushed still further when the nurse continued, ‘We all think you’re ever so brave – the whole hospital was talking about it.’ But then she noticed Jenny’s blushes and touching her on the arm, said, ‘I’ll just go and have a wee word with Matron.’
Matron agreed with the nurse that Jenny’s visit couldn’t harm Linda. ‘In fact, my dear,’ she said, her stern features relaxing for a second in the ghost of a smile, ‘you might be the one to make her take an interest in life again.’
Jenny doubted it as she looked at the child, as pale as the pillow she lay against. Her face was expressionless, her arms still by her sides. She seemed unaware of anything – the hospital side-room where she lay alone, the drip feeding into her arm, a cage protecting her legs at the bottom of the bed.
‘Linda,’ Jenny said gently.
The child turned her head and Jenny was shocked by the hopeless look in them. There was not a flicker of recognition; she was like the living dead. For a moment Jenny regretted rescuing the girl. Hadn’t she thought