Page 34 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Thirty-Two

There’s a small group I recognise waiting for the bus: the doctor who stitched up my head, her little boy, her baby fussing in the pram, and Vittoria, sheltering under the branches of a meagre-looking tree a little way apart from the other travellers, who are pressed into the embrace of a large, dense yew.

Vittoria is holding a large, battered doctor’s bag that looks like it might weigh at least as much as she does, if not more.

‘Maia!’ Vittoria sees me and waves me over, shuffling up to make space for me in their patch of shade.

‘Maia!’ The little boy beams when he sees me. Racing to my side, he takes my hand. ‘I saved you.’

‘You did, kid.’ I smile at him, then remember the name his mother called him. ‘How’s it going, Qalbi?’

He beams at me, delighted. ‘You are funny,’ he says. That’s good enough for me.

‘Ah, it’s you. Let me see.’ The doctor takes my face firmly in her large hand, turns it this way and that as she scrutinises my cut. She seems pleased.

‘A few more days and the stitches can come out,’ she says, admiring her handiwork. ‘Healing nicely, no infection. The scar will be quite discreet. You will come to Floriana in three days, and I will remove the stitches.’ She releases my jaw and goes back to waiting.

The kid swings my arm back and forth. The baby starts to whimper and fuss in the deep pram and Vittoria sings to her, leaning over the hood. Her voice is high and thin, as sweet as a child’s. She is hardly more than one herself, after all.

‘Doctor?’ A young woman nervously approaches. ‘Will you take a look at my boy? He eats all we have but still grows thin.’

The doctor barely glances at the child. ‘Does he complain of an itching anus at night?’ she asks bluntly.

The young woman lowers her eyes and nods.

‘Threadworms – there are many cases in the children at present, especially the boys. They do not wash their hands. Castor oil – you have some?’

The young woman nods. ‘Yes, Doctor.’

‘Good. It is scarce. Castor oil, twice daily, and plenty of fluid to keep him hydrated. Repeat each day for a week at least, even if you stop seeing worms in his faeces. But you must give him water and milk and keep feeding him. Don’t allow him to dehydrate.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’ The young woman looks at her oblivious son as she takes his hand perhaps a little more gingerly than usual.

‘And you, boy.’ The doctor points at the child. ‘Wash your hands every time you defecate.’

His mother pulls him to the back of the crowd.

‘Not so hot on the bedside manner, is she?’ I murmur to Vittoria, who jiggles the pram with the heavy bag slung over one bent arm. We walk a little way from the doctor.‘Here, let me take that bag for a while.’

‘Oh no, Maia – the bag is my responsibility. You could rock baby Eugenie, though. See how she is red like a tomato with a face like Churchill? I know this face. Soon she will be screaming, and no ear will be safe.’

Eugenie’s name suits her, for though she is little, she is mighty. Somewhat reluctantly, I take the pram and try to wheel it back and forth. It’s heavy and stiff.

‘You must be much stronger than you look, Vittoria,’ I tell her.

‘I work all day and all night,’ she tells me. ‘But the doctor teaches me, and so, when the war is over, I will be a nurse somehow.’

‘And are things going well with your friend?’

Vittoria’s face falls, and I realise at once my mistake.

No one at the bus stop has greeted, smiled or even glanced at her.

Clearly, when she took up with lonely young servicemen with money in their pockets and a will to live all the life they had, she let go of the only thing she had left: her reputation.

‘Sorry.’ I bend closer to her. ‘I didn’t think.’

‘I am nothing to them.’ She lowers her eyes.

‘An outcast. And as for him, he . . .’ She turns her face away from me.

‘His plane went down yesterday. He is dead. No matter. My friends in the Gut have taken me in. I can work there a while, and I will be a nurse after the war. Life is not easy, but my friends . . . they know how to help me.’

She means her friends in the brothels of the Gut, I presume. They probably do know how to navigate life’s difficulties better than most.

I look down the road in the hope of seeing the dust cloud of the bus lumbering towards us, but the road is empty except for a heat haze that twists and distorts the landscape like a dream.

Eugenie is not keen on the way I rock her.

She is gulping air in preparation to caterwaul, so I scoop her out of the pram and pull a face at her, a trick I learnt from my mum, who never met a baby she couldn’t charm.

The baby’s plump mouth falls open, and she stares at me as if I am crazy, but at least the great lump forgets to cry.

When I blow a raspberry, she even smiles.

‘She likes you, see?’ the boy says. ‘We are all friends.’

‘We are, Qalbi.’

He hoots with delighted laughter.

The doctor glances at her watch and sighs.

Gesturing to me with one hand to pass her the baby, she unbuttons the front of her dress with the other.

With one swift movement, she latches Eugenie onto her breast, and the baby begins to feed as her mother stands in the heat.

Vittoria produces a shawl from the bag and drapes it over the baby’s head, covering any vestige of bare bosom.

The baby is heavy, the air is scalding, and yet the doctor stands unflinching, feeding her child. Perhaps people skills aren’t top of her list, but she is an impressive woman.

‘The bus.’ Vittoria points to the battered vehicle as it rattles and shakes to a juddering stop.

‘Vittoria, the pram please.’ The doctor gets on the bus, her baby at her breast. The little boy tugs at my arm to follow him.

‘You get on with your mummy,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll help Vittoria.’

Everyone streams past us to get onto the bus. Vittoria and I are last, but we’re just about able to jam the pram beside the driver and find space to stand between the seats.

‘You can always come to me,’ I tell the girl suddenly. ‘If you need someone to talk to, a friend or help, come to me.’

The smile that she gives me in return is so radiant, it breaks my heart. ‘You are a friend,’ she says happily. ‘A good friend. I am lucky.’

Her definition of luck and mine are completely different.