Where the Heart Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bethnal Green, and indeed, her own Stepney background, had taught her far more than she could ever learn from a textbook. She’d become resourceful and versatile, learning to improvise and be resilient – and to listen to her patients and not treat them just as cases to be dealt with and recorded in her book. Her work often entailed washing hair, cutting nails and cleaning dentures, or teaching someone how to brush their teeth, get rid of head lice, and bathe properly, encouraging them to use the public baths more frequently to combat the infections that were rife in the slums.
    Julie had been waylaid by Sadie’s family after her delivery, and then by the warden who needed help with some of the casualties. She’d spent another two hours dressing wounds inflicted by flying shrapnel and falling masonry, and had then helped one poor, bewildered old man find his way back home. She’d returned to the hostel just before dawn and had wearily traipsed up the stairs and tiptoed into the bedroom to drag off her coat and cap, kick off her shoes, and collapse on her bed. She’d fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
    Julie therefore wasn’t feeling at her best as she and Lily clattered down the stairs the next morningin their ordinary clothes with their bags. She’d had very little sleep before being woken for breakfast, and despite the two cups of strong tea she’d had with her porridge, she still felt slightly disorientated and rumpled.
    ‘I ’ate Mondays,’ muttered Lily as she followed Julie into the deserted sluice. It seemed they were the first down for the Monday morning ritual of cleaning their bags and instruments.
    They placed their bags on the scrubbed table and opened them before taking the soap, nail brush and towel from the outside pocket. ‘So do I,’ muttered Julie, as she joined her friend at the sink and vigorously washed her hands and nails in the hot water. ‘I feel really uncomfortable asking people how much money they’ve got and how they spend it when it’s clear they’re struggling. Two and sixpence is a lot to pay, even if you are earning, and although some only have to pay thruppence for medical care, it can still make a big difference to the household bills.’
    ‘I can barely look them in the eye when I go round with me receipt book and money tin.’ Lily began to unpack her bag, setting the bottles, jars and tins and packets of gauze and sterilised dressings on the disinfected table.
    ‘I’m always relieved when a new patient either has a provident scheme to pay the bill or simply ain’t got two pennies to rub together,’ replied Julie with a sigh. ‘At least the very poorest don’t have to pay – but it’s horrible turning up on the doorsteprattling me tin after some poor woman’s just collected her wages after a long week’s slog in a factory.’
    ‘I remember me mum scrabbling about for pennies when the district nurse called. Dad likes ’is drink, and she was forever going through ’is pockets when ’e’d passed out.’ Lily grinned. ‘’E never knew, and never found the tin she’d hidden up the chimney, neither. There was only ever a few coppers in it, but they was a lifesaver most weeks.’
    Julie nodded with understanding, although things had been very different in her house. Bert Harris always came straight home with his pay packet and handed it to Flo, who took what she needed and left him enough for his beer, pipe tobacco, and nightly copy of the
Evening Standard
.
    They worked in silence for a while, scrupulously washing all their instruments in hot soapy water before replenishing the stocks in their bottles, jars and tins, and changing the white cotton lining in the bag for a clean one. Then, when everything was neat and tidy, they set to work polishing the black leather bags with Cherry Blossom boot polish until they shone.
    ‘How’s your Franny coming along? She looked about to pop when I saw her the other day.’
    ‘I called in on her yesterday