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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Annie Groves 2018
Cover design by Holly Macdonald©HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photograph©Jonathan Ring (models); Trevillion Images (background)
Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008272210
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008272227
Version: 2018-05-09
June 1939
âAre you sure this is the right way?â asked Edith, putting her hand to her head as the early summer breeze threatened to blow her nurseâs hat into the dusty road. âWasnât it meant to be five minutes from the bus stop? I bet weâve walked for longer than that. My feet are killing me.â
Alice checked the piece of paper again. âI canât see where we could have gone wrong. Anyway, Edie, we havenât been walking for more than a few minutes. Donât take on so.â She looked down at her colleague with good humour â Edith barely reached her shoulder. âLetâs go to the next corner and see if we can spot it from there. If we see anyone we can ask.â
Edith grimaced but, left with little choice, gamely picked up her case once more and followed Alice, whose longer stride meant she was always slightly ahead. In her other hand she carried her precious nurseâs bag. The rows of terraced houses they passed all looked the same, three storeys high if you counted the big basements, with bay windows and steep stone steps, but narrow-fronted, built to fit a lot of people into a small space. They didnât have much in the way of front gardens, just an area where you could leave dustbins or reach the basement door. Still, Edith told herself, it wasnât as grim as the street she had grown up in, on the other side of the river in south London. This was bright in comparison. It wouldnât be too bad at all.
Alice came to a sudden halt and Edith nearly smacked into her. The taller young woman pointed at a street sign. âThere we are. Victory Walk.â
Edith looked up, pushing one of her stray dark curls out of her eyes. Try as she might they would never do as she wanted, and sheâd been in trouble with her previous matron because of that â and for numerous other reasons as well. âSo it is. Victory Walk. Suppose it was named after we won the Great War, though I bet the houses were built ages before that. Are we at this end?â
Alice looked at the houses on the corners. âNo, I donât think so. They said it was a bigger house and weâd know it straight away. Must be further along.â
Edith groaned as her shoulder protested at the weight of her case.
Alice smiled in sympathy. âBuck up, Edie. Not far now.â
âEasy for you to say, with your long legs,â Edith grumbled, but picked up her case once more. âIâm sure itâs further than five minutes â¦â
âIt wonât be. Not when we arenât carrying these great lumbering things,â Alice pointed out. âWeâll be on and off those buses in a jiffy. You can get to the West End as quickly as you like on your days off.â She paused as they got to the other end of the short road. âHere we are. They were right, thereâs no mistaking it.â
Both young women set down their cases and nursesâ bags and stood to take in the first sight of what would be their new home, and also the base for their work. It was in the style of the rest of the street but felt grander, being double-fronted, standing a little taller than the buildings around it, and there were attic windows too. The sign above the immaculate front door left no room for doubt that theyâd found what they were looking for: âNorth Hackney Queenâs Nurses Associationâ. This was why theyâd taken the bus to the east side of the city, and then up Kingsland Road, with its busy mix of shops, cafés, factories and cinemas. This is where they would live for the foreseeable future and from where they would go out into the local community as district nurses. Alice found she was tracing with her forefinger the shape of the Queenâs Nurse badge that she wore on a cord around her neck.