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pushing the pill trolley before her.
    A poke in her leg, then another in her ribs. She opened one eye and the dark face of her roommate pushed the endless ward back into the unconscious.
    â€œGet up, you lazy sod. Why do I always have to shake you awake?”
    Anne extended one toe and withdrew it hastily. Freezing cold, as usual. Gloom enveloped her. It was impossible to live this way. The misery of getting up at the crack of dawn was unbearable.
    Her uniform lay on a chair by the bed. She grabbed it and slipped it on under the covers, shivering, while her roommate enacted the opposite feat in the next bed.
    â€œYou lucky thing, going to bed while I have to slog for twelve hours.”
    â€œDidn’t I just work twelve hours while you were in bed? You know the night shift is harder. We’re deprived of natural light.”
    â€œWell, you can pop outside now and absorb some of that charming grey,” smiled Anne, burrowing under her covers to scribble in her diary. It was important to jot down one’s thoughts, in case any of them turned out to be clever. One day, perhaps, she would be a famous writer, and she’d get up whenever she bloody well wanted. Then the world would clamour for snippets of her diary.
    November 1948
    Barely dawn and I must work again; cannot bear these dreadful long days. At least I manage to enjoy myself a bit in the evenings — had a lovely time last night. Drank tea with Dave and smoked his entire pack of cigarettes. Washed my face and ears (never seem to get any further these days!) and took my “leetle pill.” Actually I have trepidations about my intestines, which have given me no sign or feeling for days, and has there been a peculiar taste in my mouth? So now eating nothing but fruit, fruit and drinks for as long as I can manage. Yesterday I had a bowl of plums and custard (custard is excepted), also a bowl of damsons and cream (also excepted) and two sweet biscuits (ditto). I am allowed a piece of toast for breakfast. I went to the pub later on and sat drinking draft cider, smoking stubs and reading Walt Whitman. I wanted to embrace everything. John appeared and we talked of Italy in the summer and the places we will visit. Another idle dream perhaps. John never rests — his eyes are bloodshot and straining. I wonder if he sleeps in armchairs fully clad? He tells me he cannot live without me. There was a couple next to us who sat silently, and it made him feel ill at ease because we were talking and laughing. I would have been ill at ease had it been vice versa. There is a coarseness in me .
    Once she was on her feet drinking her first cup of tea and inhaling her first cigarette in the kitchen reserved for hospital staff, Anne felt better. She popped a couple of aspirin and surveyed the silent, huddled mass of nurses.
    â€œSandra, your skin looks so fresh this morning. How do you do it?”
    Sandra, who had been staring morosely into her cup of tea, couldn’t help feeling rather pleased.
    Anne continued without a break. “I do believe Doctor Moore is the assistant doctor in the operating room with us this afternoon, Judy. I’ve noticed him looking at you out of the corner of his eye.”
    â€œReally?” Judy asked in delight, “You think he looks at me?”
    â€œAbsolutely. That’s why he always makes you work opposite him, so he can ogle you across the operating table.”
    â€œOr so he can rub elbows with you, Smithie,” snorted another nurse.
    â€œI don’t know what you mean, Greta. Doctor Moore has never rubbed so much as a hair against me, unless it was through inattention because he was looking over the table so hard.” Judy’s pleasure filled Anne with such affection that she felt quite irritated with poor Doctor Moore for his superficial attraction to herself.
    Greta shot Anne a malicious look, as though she had caught her out in a lie, and Anne’s bubble of contentment