Nightingales on Call (8 page)

After nearly a month Jess had started to get to know the individual students. Not personally – Sister Sutton would never allow that – but she had built up a picture of them from seeing them in the passageways and cleaning up after them. Dusting photographs told her the Irish girl on the first floor had lots of sisters, and a sweetheart who was a policeman. Tidying piles of
Picturegoer
and bottles of hydrogen peroxide under a bed told her the blonde on the second floor loved Clark Gable and secretly bleached her hair. And all the belongings strewn on the chest of drawers in this room told her the fair-haired, nicely spoken girl was very scatty indeed.

Jess smiled to herself as she put the girl’s jewellery carefully back into its box. She didn’t mind too much about tidying up after her. At least the fair-haired girl and her ginger friend were always pleasant to Jess, and greeted her whenever they passed. Not like some of the girls, who walked right past her as if she was no more worth their attention than the grandfather clock in the hall.

She reached under the bed to check for dust, and her hand touched something heavy. A book.

Jess pulled it out and dusted off the green cloth cover with her hand.
A Complete System of Nursing
by E. Millicent Ashdown, read the gold letters on the spine.

She flicked through it. There were hundreds of pages of text, interspersed with pictures of people in various splints and bandages.

Did the nurses really have to learn all this? wondered Jess. No wonder they always looked so tired.

She sank down on the fair-haired girl’s bed, and started to read. There were a lot of long words in the book, most of which Jess couldn’t untangle, but it was utterly fascinating, like looking through a window into a strange new world.

But this was real, not fictional. This was all about the human body, and how it worked. Jess flicked through the pages faster and faster, taking it all in, soaking up the information like a sponge. And all the while her mind was working, thinking what a privilege it must be to be able to go to lectures and learn so much every day.

She jumped at the sound of heavy footsteps creaking up the stairs. She barely had time to slip the book under the pillow and scramble to her feet when the door opened and Sister Sutton stood there, Sparky at her feet.

‘Good gracious, girl, what are you doing here?’ She eyed Jess. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be your half-day today?’

‘Yes, but I wanted to make sure everything was done,’ Jess replied, stepping slightly to one side so Sister Sutton couldn’t see the corner of the book sticking out from under the pillow. ‘I know we’ll be busy when the new students arrive, so I don’t mind staying.’

‘That won’t be necessary, child.’ Sister Sutton folded her fat hands in front of her and looked around. ‘Are you sure you’ve done everything? Polished the banisters? Tidied the linen cupboard?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Did you clean the bathrooms properly? I hope you haven’t been slapdash.’

‘You can inspect them if you like,’ Jess said.

Sister Sutton stiffened, her chins wobbling. ‘I most certainly will, you can be sure of that. I don’t need you to tell me my job, girl.’

She bustled off down the stairs, Sparky trotting after her, his nose in the air. Jess followed meekly behind.

She waited tensely as Sister Sutton walked around, running her finger along the tops of the doors and the windowsills.

‘As you can see, I managed to scrub those marks off the taps,’ offered Jess, breaking the silence. ‘It took a bit of elbow grease, but I did it.’

Sister Sutton sniffed. ‘I suppose you’ve done a passable job,’ she conceded, then added, ‘although you might have used a little more elbow grease on those tiles.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Jess tried not to smile. How typical! She could have been up all night scrubbing those tiles and Sister Sutton would still have found fault.

But Jess had learned not to take offence. It was just the Home Sister’s way.

‘Now get off with you,’ Sister Sutton said. ‘And see you return by five,’ she added. ‘I daresay there will be plenty to do when the new girls arrive.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘And Jess?’

She turned. ‘Yes, Sister?’

‘Are you aware your month’s trial is up at the end of this week?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Jess swallowed hard. She had been aware of little else for several days.

Sister Sutton paused. ‘I can see no reason why we shouldn’t make the arrangement permanent,’ she said. ‘If that is acceptable to you?’

Jess fought to stop herself from smiling with relief. ‘Yes, Sister,’ she said. ‘It is.’

‘Very well. Then I will see you at five o’clock sharp.’

Her mother was right, Effie O’Hara thought. The East End of London was very different from Killarney.

As she stepped off the bus in Wapping, the sights, sounds and smells of the city rushed in to fill her senses. The air was alive with the sound of shouting, street vendors selling their wares and the scream of seagulls wheeling overhead around the nearby docks. Distant factory chimneys belched smoke into the grimy sky. Even the sun that had been so clear and brilliant over the fields and lanes as she left Ireland cast no more than a dismal grey light over the damp city streets.

And all those people . . . Effie had never seen so many, not even on the busiest market day in Killarney. The drab tide pushed and nudged past her as she stood on the corner, her bags at her feet.

Effie felt her optimism fading. It was only the thought of facing her mother that stopped her getting straight back on the bus and catching the next boat home.

She squared her shoulders. This won’t do, Euphemia O’Hara, she told herself. You wanted life, and here it is. Besides, once she reached the Nightingale Hospital, she would have her sisters to look after her.

All she had to do was find her way there.

But it seemed so different from when she’d come for her interview two months earlier. Then her mother had been with her, and her sister Bridget had met them from the station and brought them in a taxi, and Effie hadn’t had to worry about anything.

‘You lost, Miss?’

A voice behind her made her start. She swung round. A boy stood behind her. He was about twelve years old, with untidy tufts of mud-brown hair sticking out from under his shabby cap.

‘I’m looking for the Florence Nightingale Hospital.’ She tried not to stare at the birthmark on the boy’s cheek. Her mother was always telling her off for gawping.

‘I know it. I’m going that way myself, as it happens. I could show you the way?’

Effie hesitated. He was just a child, not the kind of stranger her mother and sisters had warned her about.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be very kind.’

‘Right you are, then.’ He picked up her heavy bag with ease and started briskly down the road. Effie bobbed along behind, doing her best to keep up with him.

He talked as fast as he walked, chattering to her over his shoulder. His cockney accent was so strong Effie could barely understand him. She was too out of breath to keep up a conversation anyway.

‘This way, Miss.’ The boy dodged around a corner and ducked into a narrow alleyway. Grim, blackened walls running with damp rose on either side of them, leaving only a thin strip of dull daylight high above to show the way. ‘Now you don’t want to be coming this way by yourself. It’s not safe,’ he warned. ‘But you’re all right with me. I know my way around, see.’

Something scuttled past in the gloom, inches from her foot. Effie let out a shriek and quickened her pace, her shoes skidding on the slimy cobbles.

They emerged into a busy market, a narrow street lined with stalls and teeming with people. It was a welcome burst of noise and activity after the deadened silence of the alleyway. Effie had never seen anything so lively and colourful. On one side people picked up and argued over second-hand clothes spread out on canvas sheets across the pavement. On the other were stalls selling fruit and veg and all kinds of seafood. The sharp, salty smell mingled with the aroma of fried onions.

It was all so overwhelming, Effie found it hard to keep her eyes fixed on the boy’s cap as it bobbed along ahead of her, cutting easily through the crowd which swiftly closed behind like waves in the wake of a ship, pushing her further and further back.

‘Oh, please wait!’ she called out, but her voice was lost in the din. The boy glanced back over his shoulder, searching for her. Effie waved to him and he nodded, but a moment later he was gone.

Effie craned her neck, looking this way and that, but he had disappeared.

She chewed her lip. How could she be so stupid? Her mother was always telling her off for being a dreamer, and now she had managed to get herself totally lost.

She searched for the boy for a few minutes, but it was no use. She sat down on the doorstep of a shop and tried to think. The best thing to do was to stay put and wait for him to find her, she decided. Wandering around, they could miss each other for hours in a crowded place like this.

Jess hadn’t meant to visit the bookstall again, but once she reached the market she couldn’t help herself.

The stallholder’s son was there, dawdling against the wall, smoking as usual. He smiled and dropped his cigarette on to the cobbles when he saw her.

‘Hello again,’ he greeted her cheerily. ‘Read any good books lately?’

‘I might have.’

He reached under the stall and brought out the copy of
Great Expectations
. ‘You know this is still here, waiting for you.’

‘No one’s bought it yet, then?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m keeping it especially for you.’

She tightened her lips to stop herself from smiling. ‘And I told you, I don’t take anything I ain’t paid for.’

‘Suit yourself. Are you always this contrary, Jess Jago?’

She stiffened. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘I might have been asking around about you.’

Jess glanced over her shoulder at the other stallholders. ‘I’m sure everyone’s been falling over themselves to tell you what my family’s like?’

He shrugged. ‘They have, but I don’t take any notice. I prefer to make up my own mind about people.’ He sent her a long, considering look. ‘My name’s Sam, by the way. Sam Cordwainer.’

‘I wasn’t aware I’d asked.’

‘No, but I thought I’d tell you anyway. So you know what to call me when I take you out.’

Jess was so surprised she couldn’t help laughing. ‘You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?’

‘I think a lot of you.’ He cocked his head. ‘So what do you say? Can I take you out one night?’

Jess picked up a book and flicked through it for something to do. ‘Can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m busy.’

‘But we haven’t set a date yet!’

‘Whenever it is, I’ll still be busy.’

Sam grinned. ‘Playing hard to get, are you?’

‘If that’s what you want to think.’ She closed the book and handed it back to him. ‘Anyway, I can’t stand round here talking to you all day long. I’ve got more important things to do with my time.’

‘If you say so. But you’ll be back,’ he predicted.

‘Of course I will.’ She smiled sweetly at him. ‘This is the only second-hand bookstall in Bethnal Green.’

As she walked away, Sam called after her, ‘You’ll see. You won’t be able to resist my charm for ever!’

Of course she didn’t have anything to do with her time except wander around the market, trying to stay out of Sam’s line of sight. As she wandered among the stalls Jess kept sneaking looks over at him. He was standing behind his display of books, that soppy grin of his all over his face, charming the customers. She noticed how he perked up whenever a woman went by, how his gaze followed them. They didn’t seem to be falling for his daft patter any more than Jess had.

She bought an apple turnover from the baker’s, and started back across the market. It had started to rain again, sending cold drips down the back of her collar. She abandoned her plan to go to the park and decided to hurry back to her room instead. With any luck she could finish another chapter of her book before it was time to return to duty.

She was heading down Bethnal Green Road when she heard a commotion coming from outside the pie and mash shop on the corner.

‘But I’m waiting for someone!’ a girl’s voice said.

‘Then you’ll have to wait somewhere else. You’ve been sat on my doorstep this past half hour.’

As Jess drew closer, she saw the proprietor of the pie shop, a giant of a woman, towering over a young girl who sat at her feet. The girl wasn’t much older than Jess. She was wrapped in a heavy raincoat, a beret perched on top of her dripping dark curls. There was something oddly familiar about her.

‘But I can’t leave,’ she explained in a gentle Irish voice. ‘Otherwise the boy won’t know where to find me.’

The woman frowned. ‘What boy?’

‘The one who kindly offered me directions to the Nightingale Hospital. I’m going to be a nurse there, you see. But we got separated in the crowd.’

‘Did you now?’ The woman folded her arms across her chest. ‘And I suppose you let him carry your bags for you, too?’

‘How did you know that?’

The woman gave a shout of laughter. ‘Blimey, love, how green are you?’ she roared. ‘You didn’t lose him – he lost you. Good and proper, by the sound of it.’

‘But I don’t understand. Why would he—’ The girl hesitated for a moment. ‘You mean he stole my bag?’

The woman nodded. ‘Sorry, ducks, but I reckon that’s the last you’ll see of him or your bag. Was there much in it?’

‘Everything I have.’ The girl’s voice was choked. ‘Oh, God, and I’ve only been in London two hours. My sisters are going to kill me!’

Sisters! Jess suddenly realised why this girl seemed so familiar. She turned and walked back to where the Irish girl was still sitting stubbornly on the step, hugging her knees.

‘Excuse me, your name wouldn’t be O’Hara by any chance, would it?’ asked Jess.

The girl looked up, her blue eyes swimming with tears. ‘How did you know?’

‘I work at the hospital. I recognised you from a photograph your sister has.’ Jess searched her memory, mentally scanning the list she had seen pinned up in the hall. ‘You must be – Euphemia?’