The journey had looked fairly simple. A bus into Winchester, then a train to Aldershot. And then another bus to the hospital. She’d allowed twice the time she’d theoretically need, because trains were often cancelled, always late. She didn’t mind. She’d have crawled on her hands and knees, willingly, happily, all the way if she’d had to.
She got up at six, so as to have lots of time to get ready, and do things like washing her hair and pressing her skirt. She’d bought a new lipstick, rather extravagantly, and she took the bottle of Yardley Lavender Water her mother and sister had given her for Christmas out of her underwear drawer – you had to store perfume in the dark to keep it fresh – and dabbed it on in all the right places. She’d read somewhere that you should apply perfume to wherever you’d like to be kissed. That was quite good guidance. Not that there’d be much scope for kissing in the hospital ward, but – well, Tom would want her to smell nice. He always noticed that, he said.
It was a horrible day; not that she cared. Wet and windy and cold; a classic February day. She left the house soon after eight, and half ran to the bus stop. She was lucky; the bus was more or less on time and so was the train. It was packed, absolutely packed full, almost entirely with soldiers. Aldershot was a big military town and base. The men were mostly very cheerful and noisy, delighted to be with a pretty girl, chatting her up, asking her where she was going, really interested when she told them; a few of them had mates out in the desert, they told her, and that it was Monty’s Desert Rats, as they were called, who were winning the war out there. She felt fiercely proud to be in some way representing them.
Half an hour out of Aldershot the train stopped for almost an hour; when it started again it crawled jerkily along. The guard fought his way along the train to tell them it was a signal failure. Laura looked at her watch. Only one o’clock – she still had two hours. According to the timetable it was only a half-hour ride.
They arrived in Aldershot at one fifteen. The soldiers said goodbye and made their way towards a fleet of trucks waiting for them. She spotted the bus shelter and found a queue so long she was standing out in the rain. Well, never mind, she had her umbrella. She put it up; but the wind promptly blew it inside out. She decided she’d be better without it, and pulled the hood of her macintosh over her head.
Quarter of an hour passed, half; no sign of the bus. At two o’clock someone arriving at the station on a bicycle called that it had been cancelled. Laura began to panic. She went back into the station, asked the station master how far it was to the hospital; three or four miles, he said, the other side of town. She tried to keep her voice calm, said did he have any idea when the next bus might come. He said he didn’t. Laura, most uncharacteristically, burst into tears.
There was one thing he was quite sure of: she wouldn’t be late. Not after three years. She’d have left with hours to spare: she had told him she would in her last letter.
Do you think I would waste one second of the time we’ll have? she wrote. I will be there, as the clock strikes three. Earlier, if they’ll let me in.
He knew they, or rather Sister, wouldn’t. She was unbelievably strict about visiting hours. About everything, of course. Heaven help you if you spilt so much as a drop of tea on your clean sheets, or didn’t finish the disgusting food that was supposed to be so good for you, or even asked for painkilling drugs before they were due. Or tried to read under the bedclothes with a torch. He’d done that once, unable to sleep, and one of the probationers had lent him her torch. Sister, doing a late, unexpected round, caught him at it; the probationer was practically asked to leave and he was given very short shrift, told his book would be confiscated if he ever did such a thing again. And with visiting hours – well. On the dot of three, the doors opened, and at half past four they closed again, everyone having been ordered out five minutes previously. No one ever questioned it.
At three Laura would be there. The first through the door, he knew, her large brown eyes looking for him – he had told her where his bed was, five down from the door on the right. And he would watch her, coming towards him, not in his imagination as so often she had been, but for real, the real Laura, his Laura, and he would hold out his hands and she would reach him and take them and he dared think no further.
The station master looked at her. Pretty little thing. Her story was a sad one. He’d heard it so often, variations anyway. Small, private, personal sadnesses, frustrations, rage. Part of war, as inevitable as the bombs. Usually he shrugged, said he was sorry, nothing he could do, advised a cup of tea and patience. But somehow, this one – standing there, so pretty, so despairing, crying . . .
‘I could lend you a bike, I suppose,’ he said slowly. ‘Got a couple of spares out the back, case we have to get somewhere quickly, signal failure or something. Long as you promise to bring it back.’
Somehow, the last hour passed: quarter to three, ten to, five to; he sat up, parade-ground straight, his heart beating violently, an odd drumming in his ears. He hardly dared blink lest he might miss a moment of her. Soon, so soon, one minute, thirty seconds . . . he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, waiting, waiting . . . Now . . .
Three. A nurse opened the door. Agonisingly slowly. At last, at last . . . Laura, Laura . . .
The bike was rusty and the pedals kept sticking. But to Laura, it was perfection: a chariot of fire to take her to Tom, to her love. She rode it a couple of times round the station yard, wobbling at first, then settling into it. The saddle was very wet; she could feel the moisture seeping right through to her knickers. She didn’t care. She could do it, she wouldn’t be late for him, she couldn’t be late for him.
She wasn’t the first. Nor the second. Nor even the last. People poured in; but she wasn’t among them. She just wasn’t there. He felt sick. Angry. Not with her, but with the not-there-ness of her. Where? Why? Oh, but it was only five minutes. Perhaps she had gone to the wrong ward. The wrong floor. It was a big hospital. If someone could go to find her . . . Near to tears, he called a probationer over.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please, Laura hasn’t come, she’s lost somewhere in the hospital, she must be, she wouldn’t be late. Please help me.’
She looked at her watch, then at him, smiled.
‘Tom,’ she said, ‘it’s only five past three. That’s not late, it’s nothing, it’s—’
‘It’s not nothing to me,’ he said, ‘or to her. She’d be here, if she was all right, I know she would. Could you just see if she’s outside in the corridor, looking for the ward? Or maybe upstairs, it’s very confusing here, all the floors . . .’
The nurse looked at him. He felt a tear roll down his cheek and brushed it angrily away.
‘Please,’ he said again.