‘Absolutely not.’ Mrs Gold stood up too. She took my hands in hers. ‘You listen to me, Elsie. You did the right thing with Nelly. She was suffering terribly, and you did the best thing for her. This is a war, and any man on the battlefield would have done the same.’
I nodded, feeling my racing heartbeat begin to calm.
‘We can sort this out,’ she assured me. ‘We can make this right.’
‘How?’ I wailed. ‘I killed my best friend. How can we ever make this right?’
‘You ended her suffering like the compassionate, caring nurse you are,’ she said firmly. ‘And I think deep down you know you did the right thing. Don’t you?’
I nodded. ‘She was in such awful pain.’
‘There we are.’ Mrs Gold was thinking hard. ‘We need to tell her family.’
‘Yes, I have a message for them.’ I put my hand to my head. ‘Nelly wrote it in the book, but I remember it. I can write to her mother.’
‘Or,’ said Mrs Gold, ‘you can go to Ireland and tell her yourself.’
It was such an outlandish suggestion that I almost laughed. ‘Of course I can’t go to Ireland. There’s a war on, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘Ireland isn’t in the war.’
I snorted. ‘How would I get there?’
‘Do you want to go?’
I thought about Nelly’s letters from home, about her enormousfamily and her mother’s conviction that there were plenty of jobs available in the hospitals in Ireland. Then I thought about how my nerves jangled every time I heard a thump, even if it was someone dropping something heavy. How tired I was from the nightly raids. How I’d lost Billy, and now Nelly, and how Harry wasn’t here, and I was alone. And I thought about Jackson and his threats. I knew no one would be likely to believe his accusations on their own, but if he somehow still had the book then things could be different.
Slowly, I nodded. ‘Could I work? Could I register as a nurse in Ireland?’
‘I don’t see that being a problem.’
‘I would feel bad, leaving the hospital and London when they need so much help.’
‘You’ve given more than your fair share to the war,’ Mrs Gold said. ‘I think you deserve a break.’
Suddenly, going to Ireland seemed like the answer to my prayers and I thought I couldn’t bear it if I couldn’t go. That I couldn’t stay in London for a second longer.
‘I want to go to Dublin,’ I said. ‘But how?’
‘We can get you on a ship. Merchant Navy probably.’
I stared at her, open-mouthed.
‘Don’t ask questions,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you the answers anyway.’
‘But …’
She gave me a little smile. ‘Don’t ask questions,’ she repeated. ‘So, are you going to Ireland?’
‘I am.’ But then a sudden thought occurred to me. ‘No. I’m not.’
‘Why ever not.’
I put my face in my hands. ‘I’m pregnant,’ I mumbled. ‘At least, I think I’m pregnant. I wrote to Harry and told him a few days ago.’
‘Has he replied?’
‘Not yet.’
