Amy by Peggy Savage

policeman over the head with her umbrella. She laughed softly and Helen looked up at her.
    ‘I was thinking about the marches,’ she said.
    Helen waved the comb in the air. ‘Votes for women!’
    ‘Not much chance of that,’ Amy said, ‘while the war’s on.’
    ‘Soon after then.’ Helen fingered the badge that she persisted in pinning to her lapel. ‘You know our motto; deeds not words. Surely they can’t stop us after this. They’ll have more deeds than they can count.’ She held up a lock of Amy’s hair and struggled with the comb. ‘It’s men, isn’t it? They’re always fighting, one way or another. If women were in charge things would be different, wouldn’t they?’
    I don’t know, Amy thought. I don’t know if it would be better. I don’t know anything any more. Trying to understand all the problems in the world was like trying to grasp a handful of water, chaotic, uncontrollable.
    Would women be any different? Her mind went home again to a dinner party before the war started. She and her father had been invited to the Poulsons, across the road.
    ‘We must go to war,’ Mr Poulson said. Amy remembered him piling his plate with food, dabbing with his napkin at the gravy on his chin. ‘Can’t let the Hun have his own way. No knowing what that would lead to.’
    Her father had been grave and quiet, too polite to disagree, and appalled, as Amy well knew, at the thought of any war, at the thought of his boys at school.
    ‘I think it would be a very good thing,’ Mrs Poulson said. The rings on her fingers glittered in the candlelight. ‘A war now and again is good for the boys. Stiffens them up a bit. They’re getting too soft.’
    The day came back to her, the stench, the courage. Too soft! My God! Helen was still talking. ‘It’s men, men, men,’ she said. ‘Everything is always men. It’s time women had a go.’
    There was a knock at the door and Helen went to open it. ‘Good afternoon, Sister,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’
    The sister stepped into the room, her cap and apron crisp and shining white. ‘I’m looking for Amy.’
    Amy got up from the stool. ‘I’m here, Sister.’
    ‘Oh Amy.’ Sister looked contrite. ‘Would you do a couple of hours’ duty on the officers’ ward this evening? I know you must be tired and I’m sorry to ask but one of the nurses isn’t well. We’re just hoping it isn’t influenza. That would go through the place like wildfire. We’ve put her in isolation.’
    Amy nodded. ‘Of course.’
    ‘Good girl. Have you had something to eat?’
    Amy shook her head. ‘No, not yet.’
    ‘Well have an early supper. It shouldn’t be too busy. We’ve only had one officer admission today – the one you brought in. He’s in theatre now, I think. Eight o’clock.’
    ‘Very well, Sister, I’ll be there.’
    After she had gone Amy groaned. ‘I was hoping for an early night.’
    Helen grinned. ‘Deeds, not words.’
     
    Amy coiled her hair up into a neat bun again. She put on a clean uniform and walked downstairs to the dining-room. She ate her shepherd’s pie and drank her tea. There was only one new officer then, her lieutenant. He was in theatre. His leg!
    She finished her meal. She had an hour before she was on duty. She felt a need to be outside in the open air, a strange feeling of claustrophobia in this huge hotel. She went upstairs for her hat – Matron was very insistent that a hat should always be worn outside.
    She walked slowly down the wide street. The occasional passers-by smiled at her; the men raised their hats. The claustrophobia, the feeling of suffocation, had nothing to do with space, she knew that. It was a constriction of the mind, the absolute denial of everything that she wanted to do. She was caged, pacing, straining at the bars. She should have been in theatre with the lieutenant and all the other men, doing her job. She walked and the feeling eased. The strained faces of the passers by brought her back to the job she had to