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Short Story > Sweet AwakeningsWhen I was seventeen in the early ‘60s, I left home for the first time and went south to Somerset to take up nurse training. It was to a large seaside town, with a good sized general hospital. I arrived with my friend Bess, our suitcases in hand, to be billeted in the Nurses’ Home, just up the road from the main Hospital. We were lucky to get a large room together, and settled in for the three year's training. All went smoothly for the first year, and then I became a second year student nurse, gaining a first floor room of my own, closer to the hospital, with a huge common room below, with TV, table tennis etc. Often there would be more nurses than chairs to sit and watch TV, and it was not uncommon for us to share one of the larger easy chairs. One evening, I found myself sharing with a first year nurse, and I must admit it did feel nice to be so cosy. Sue was tall and blonde, and very funny. We became friends, playing table tennis, and sharing that chair. One night, we were curled up watching Juke Box Jury or the like, when somehow our hands touched, out of sight, between us, and stayed touching, until they were locked together in a very sensuous grasp, which did things to me that I hadn’t felt before. Very strange in a room full of other young women, hopefully quite oblivious to us! I didn’t dwell on it, but it did happen several times afterwards, and it didn’t really dawn on me what these feelings were. Some time later, Sue and I were in my room, and we were innocently lying on my little bed, listening to a Johnny Mathis record. Again, I don’t know how, but we slowly - oh so slowly, got closer and closer, until our lips met. Explosions - no! I still didn’t realise the meaning of it all. It wasn’t until a few months later, when Sue and I were on night duty on the same ward. There were only the two of us to take care of the whole ward, and once we had settled the patients for the night, we would sit opposite each other at a table in the middle of the ward, with a small green light which pulled down from the ceiling. We were quiet this one night, and having finished all our nursing chores we sat and whispered nursing gossip to each other. Our eyes met and the electricity which emanated was a bolt out of the blue. I realised then where my path lay. When break time came, I had written a list of clues with a corresponding page number, line and letter etc, spelling out: ‘I love you’. I left the list and newspaper with her, and went for my break, hoping she would decipher correctly, and not be offended. When I came back, she had written a clue list, which she left with the newspaper, then went for her break. I slowly spelled out: ‘I love you too’. What a revelation! Well it all made sense to me then, though I hadn’t heard of such a thing before. When she came back from her break, we snuck out into the sluice, and there between two trolleys of patient’s flowers, we kissed as if there was no tomorrow. Then back into the ward, and back to being nurses. Until we got off duty..... |
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