House of Doors by Chaz Brenchley

have something, one way or another. Me, I shut myself away and crochet mittens for my cousin’s children. It gives me something to hope for; they’re too young for this war, and with luck they’ll never have to face one of their own  . . .’
    Somehow, passages and stairs had passed beneath their feet while the older woman talked. Here was Ruth’s own corridor, here her own room. Here she was still walking, going by.
    Two doors down, here was her new friend’s room, much like her own. Judith’s room. She must remember that.
    Some things it would be better to forget.
    Not this: sitting on Judith’s bed, just waiting. Waiting while the cocoa boiled, waiting for the cold to ebb from her body, the bitter dread from her mind. By the time there was a warm mug to fold her fingers round, her hands had almost stopped shaking.
    Her voice, too. She could shape an English sentence without choking, without shrilling, without breaking out in hysterics. She said, ‘I worry that I’m going mad, you see.’ There. It was out. What she dreaded, what this day was trying its utmost to confirm.
    â€˜That hardly seems likely. Sanity is a prerequisite in nursing sisters. Having two feet on the ground is one of the qualities we look for here.’ Judith’s voice was quiet, and mildly amused. At least she wasn’t being robust about it. If Ruth looked up, she thought she might see the twitch of a smile.
    She kept her eyes on the steam of the cocoa, on the dark skin slowly forming in the mug. She said, ‘It’s just, I keep seeing my husband. My dead husband. Since I came here.’ That wasn’t entirely true, nor entirely honest – it wasn’t all seeing, and there was the falling too, that sense of being drawn down in chase of him – but it seemed to cover the ground. If she didn’t mention what predated her arrival here, the wanting to die and the almost-resolve to put herself in situations where she might, where a bomb or a shell or a bullet could find her out. No need to mention that. That wasn’t a madness, it was a perfectly rational response to an intolerable life.
    â€˜Lord, girl, you turn up here with no sleep and an empty belly, you faint across our doorway –’ she’d always known that word of that would get around – ‘and come round to find yourself in a fair imitation of hell – and if you haven’t read Dante, then I really don’t recommend him, not for the duration – and you’re surprised to find your own private sorrow rising up to meet you? I’d only be surprised if it didn’t. We’re all widows and orphans here, it’s policy, and I think we’re all haunted.’
    â€˜Why would—?’
    â€˜I didn’t say it was a wise policy, did I? They do it because they think we’ll be as tough as they are, with the men. Nothing sentimental. They think because we’ve had it rough, they can depend on us to be rough ourselves. That doesn’t always follow, but they seem to have got it right, more or less, with us. We cope, at least.’
    Judith, what is it that we cope with? What do they do here, that demands so much more than professional nursing?
    It was on the tip of her tongue to ask. Perhaps she actually meant to. Her mouth was open, and she had the air. But then she listened to herself, and what she was saying was not that, no. It was confession still, again: ‘Only in the dark there, I thought I was holding him, I could smell him, exactly  . . .’
    After a moment, Judith said, ‘Did he use bay rum?’
    â€˜Yes, yes, he did.’ Fresh from shaving, impossibly smooth and soft of cheek, and the lingering scent of his lotion clinging to his skin, clinging to hers after she had kissed him.
    â€˜My dear, they all do, all these men. It’s a part of their uniform, they all need to smell the same. Which is why they all wear overcoats which