Nightingales on Call (9 page)

‘Effie.’ The girl’s face brightened and she wiped her face on her sleeve. She scrambled to her feet and held out her hand. She was as tall and leggy as a colt, and towered over Jess. ‘I’m pleased to meet you . . .?’

‘Jess.’ She felt awkward as she shook the other girl’s hand. ‘I can show you the way to the Nightingale, if you like?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Thank gawd for that!’ The shopkeeper rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘I thought she was going to be stuck on my doorstep till Kingdom Come!’

‘But what about my bag?’ Effie said.

‘There’s not much we can do about that for now.’ Jess shrugged. ‘But let’s get you to the Nightingale, shall we?’

Effie cheered up on the way to the hospital. She bounced along beside Jess, chattering all the while. ‘I can’t wait to see my sisters,’ she said, her sadness seemingly forgotten. ‘Katie’s written me so many letters, telling me all about the larks she gets up to. It sounds so much more fun than our village in Ireland.’ She turned to Jess. ‘Are you a nurse too?’

Jess lowered her gaze. ‘No, I’m a maid in the students’ home.’

She stiffened, waiting for Effie to turn snooty. But she just smiled and said, ‘So we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, then? That’s grand. I was worried I wouldn’t have any friends, but now I’ve met you.’

And I daresay you won’t want to know me in a week or two, Jess thought. ‘I expect you’ll make lots of new friends in your set.’

‘I hope so,’ Effie replied. ‘I really want to have some fun.’

Jess thought about the grey, exhausted faces that greeted her in the hall every evening, and the weary feet that could barely drag themselves up the stairs. ‘I think you’ll be expected to work hard, too.’

‘Ah, I’m sure it won’t be that difficult,’ Effie dismissed.

They approached the gates to the Nightingale, and Jess felt a touch of pride as Effie admired the grand Georgian building. ‘It looks so much bigger than when I came for my interview,’ she said. ‘Although I suppose then I was too nervous to notice anything!’

Jess directed her to the Porters’ Lodge to sign in.

‘And where are your bags?’ Mr Hopkins asked, looking around. ‘Or will your things be coming later?’

Effie’s lip trembled. ‘They were stolen!’ she blurted out. ‘My clothes, my shoes, my watch – everything is gone!’

‘Come on,’ Jess said quickly, seeing the startled expression on the Head Porter’s face. ‘Let’s get you to the nurses’ home.’

But Effie had suddenly remembered her predicament again, and this time she couldn’t be consoled.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell my sisters,’ she said. ‘I expect they’ll say it’s my fault for being foolish.’

‘You were trusting, not foolish,’ Jess soothed her.

‘Well, I wish I’d never trusted that boy, that’s for sure. But he seemed so friendly!’

‘You’ll have to tell the police,’ Jess said.

‘That’s a good idea.’ Effie nodded. ‘Katie’s boyfriend is a policeman, he’ll know what to do. And it shouldn’t be too hard to find the culprit. Not with that birthmark of his . . .’

Jess stiffened. ‘Birthmark?’ she heard herself say faintly.

Effie nodded. ‘Just here, on his cheek.’ She pointed to the spot. ‘Almost like a fingerprint, I’d say. Ah, now, I remember this courtyard.’ She stopped and looked around. ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that there are all these buildings behind the one at the front? It’s like a . . . what do you call it? You know, out at sea.’

‘An iceberg,’ Jess said faintly, her thoughts elsewhere.

‘That’s it. An iceberg.’ Effie stood beside the plane tree in the centre of the courtyard, gawping around at the buildings that surrounded them. ‘I’m never going to find my way around this place. I swear to God, it’s bigger than my whole village.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’ Jess took her sleeve, tugging her towards the archway that led to the nurses’ accommodation. ‘Right, now all you have to do is go through there and down to the end of the path, and you’ll see the students’ home straight ahead of you. You can’t miss it. I expect Sister Sutton will be looking out for you.’

Effie stared at her, blue eyes round with dismay. ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’

Jess shook her head. ‘I’ve just remembered, there’s someone I need to see.’

IT DIDN’T TAKE
her long to find the culprit.

Typical Cyril, he didn’t even have the sense to hide. Jess found him in the back yard of their tenement, going through Effie’s suitcase, his face alight with greed.

He looked up sharply when she let herself in the back gate. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He turned away and carried on going through the suitcase.

‘What’s that you got?’

‘It’s mine.’ He hunched his narrow shoulders over it, like a starving dog guarding a bone.

‘And since when have you been wearing these?’ Jess reached past him and snatched up a pair of flannel knickers. ‘You thieving little sod! You can’t keep your hands to yourself, can you?’

She elbowed him to one side and started putting the things back in the case. Cyril stared at her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking this back where it belongs.’

‘No, you ain’t!’ He sprang at her, but Jess dodged and cuffed him round the ear. He made another grab for her, but she tripped him and he went sprawling headlong on the cobbles. He landed heavily on his knees with a yelp of pain.

‘Oi, what’s all the racket?’ Gladys appeared at the back door, cigarette in hand. ‘Oh, it’s you. I thought I said you weren’t welcome round here any more?’

‘Don’t worry, I ain’t stopping. I just came to get this.’ Jess fastened the catch on the suitcase.

‘It’s mine!’ Cyril whined, still clutching his knee. ‘I – I won it in a bet!’ He turned to his mother. ‘I was going to sell it, Mum, to make some money. I came by it fair and square, honest!’

‘Honest? Don’t make me laugh!’ Jess retorted.

Gladys looked from one to the other, dragging on her cigarette, her rouged cheeks sucked in as if she would draw the very life out of it.

‘You leave that suitcase where it is,’ she said finally. ‘If my son said he didn’t nick it, then that’s good enough for me. You’re nothing but a troublemaker, Jess Jago. We don’t want you round here no more!’

‘All right then, if that’s what you want.’ Jess folded her arms across her chest. ‘But I’m warning you, the girl it belongs to is talking to the rozzers this very minute. She got a good look at you, don’t forget,’ she said to Cyril. ‘Shouldn’t take them too long to find a kid with a birthmark like yours round here, should it? I expect they’ll give you three months’ hard labour, at least.’

Cyril’s gaze flew to his mother, full of alarm. ‘Mum?’

Jess looked at her stepmother. Gladys’ mouth thinned, her eyes calculating. ‘Take the suitcase,’ she snapped.

‘But, Mum—’

‘You heard me!’ Gladys turned on Cyril. ‘Do you think I need any more trouble? My old man’s already in jail, I don’t need you behind bars too.’ She took another drag on her cigarette and aimed a stream of smoke into the air. ‘And as for you,’ she wheeled towards Jess, ‘you can sling your hook, before I set the dog on you!’

Her stepmother’s harsh voice followed her as she dragged the case through the gate out into the alleyway. ‘You’ve forgotten where your loyalties lie, Jess Jago. You think those posh girls are bothered about you? You’re only fit to skivvy after them. You’ll never be friends, you’re not one of them. You’ll see, they won’t want to know you in the end.’

Meanwhile, Effie was in her new room, listening to her sister Katie telling her over and over again how stupid she had been. As if she didn’t know.

‘I can’t believe it!’ She paced around Effie as she sat miserably on the bed, eyes downcast. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I warned you. Don’t talk to strangers, I said. And what’s the first thing you did? You gave all your worldly possessions away to one!’

‘I thought he was helping me.’

‘Helping himself, you mean!’ Katie gave a derisive snort. ‘Honest to God, Effie, how could you be so daft?’

‘I know! You don’t have to go on about it!’ Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she was determined not to cry any more. She hardly ever cried at home. But somehow since she’d arrived in London she hadn’t been able to stop. So much for a big, exciting adventure!

Surely today couldn’t get any worse? She had already had a bruising encounter with the Home Sister. Effie had thought Katie was exaggerating when she complained about Sister Sutton in her letters home. Effie had expected her to be like their mother, cuddly and comforting. She’d thought she might be offered tea and cake and at least a bit of sympathy after her horrible ordeal. But instead the vicious old woman had shouted at her to dry her eyes, told her she didn’t have time for Irish girls and their nonsense, then ushered her to a room with instructions that she should settle in, change into her uniform and report for supper at eight o’clock. And to top it all, her stupid dog had tried to bite Effie when she tried to pet it.

And now Katie was being awful to her, too. Back at home they’d always been best friends, much to the despair of their mother and stuffy older sisters. But Effie had hardly recognised Katie when she’d walked into their room in her prim starched uniform. London and the Nightingale had changed her. She was nearly as bossy as their big sister Bridget, and that was saying something.

The exhaustion of her long journey overcame Effie then, and she buried her face in her hands. She heard Katie sigh, and then felt her arm come around her shoulders.

‘I’m sorry for getting so cross with you,’ she said. ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all. I don’t know what Mammy is going to say about this either.’

Effie looked up sharply. ‘You can’t tell her!’

‘She’ll find out in the end.’

Effie let out a despairing sigh. Katie was right; their mother might be hundreds and hundreds of miles away but she had a sixth sense where her daughters were concerned. Especially Effie.

‘She’ll make me come home, I know she will.’ Mammy O’Hara hadn’t wanted her to leave Killarney in the first place. Effie was her baby, the last to leave the nest. Mammy had cried every day since Effie received her acceptance letter from Matron.

‘All right, we won’t tell her yet,’ Katie promised. ‘But you have to be more careful, Effie.’

‘I – I haven’t got anything left to be careful with!’ The realisation hit her again. She had nothing to her name, no shoes, no clothes, none of the pretty dresses or the keepsakes she’d brought from home. They’d all gone. ‘Oh, Katie, what am I going to do?’

‘Shhh, it’s all right. I can lend you some clothes.’

Effie eyed her sister warily. Katie was at least a head shorter than her, and a great deal plumper. Effie couldn’t imagine ever wearing one of her sister’s dresses. ‘I’ll look like a fool!’ she blurted out.

‘Well, you are a fool.’ Katie stood up. ‘Now cheer up. Let’s get you into your uniform before Sister Sutton starts chasing you.’

Effie was glad of Katie’s help then as she pulled it on. The dress felt thick and cumbersome, its calico lining scratching against her skin. And the starched collar and cuffs she had to attach were as hard as cardboard.

‘It’s so heavy,’ she complained. ‘I’ll be sweating like a pig if I have to wear this all day.’

‘You’ll get used to it. But you’ll need to be a bit quicker with those cuffs,’ Katie observed as she watched her sister fiddling with the studs. ‘You have to take them off when you’re doing any cleaning, or washing a patient. But you need to put them on again when you serve meals, or when the doctor is doing his rounds.’

‘Honestly, what difference does it make if a doctor sees me with my sleeves rolled up?’ Effie laughed, but Katie sent her a dark look.

‘Don’t you let the ward sisters hear you talking like that,’ she warned. ‘And it’s best to take a clean apron with you whenever you go on a ward,’ she went on. ‘You’re bound to need it, and the sisters are never pleased if you have to go off and fetch one.’

Effie pulled a face. All Katie seemed to talk about was Sister this and Sister that. She was already fed up with hearing about them all. Surely no one could be that bad?

She scrutinised her reflection in the mirror, not liking what she saw. The uniform couldn’t have been less alluring if it tried. Her dark hair was all hidden away underneath a monstrous starched cap, and the blue-striped dress covered every other inch of her, from the high collar down to just above her ankles. ‘Honest to God, Katie, the nuns at Saint Bernadette’s get away with more than this!’ she complained. ‘Surely it would look better if I just took it up a little—’

She started to hitch the skirt up towards her knees, but Katie stopped her. ‘Don’t,’ she warned. ‘Sister Sutton will notice, believe me. She regularly measures our hems to make sure they’re no more than ten inches from the ground.’

Effie sighed. ‘How am I ever going to get a handsome doctor to fall in love with me while I’m looking like this?’

‘Don’t let any of the sisters hear you talking like that, either!’ her sister laughed. ‘You’re there to care for the patients, Nurse O’Hara, not pursue your romantic interests,’ she mimicked a stern voice. ‘Besides, no doctor is going to look at you anyway when your apron’s covered in vomit and you’ve got a sputum mug in each hand!’

As Effie glowered at her reflection, Katie explained what she could expect to be doing for the next few months. She would spend three months in Preliminary Training, or PTS, with the Sister Tutor, where she would learn all kinds of boring things like cleaning and cooking. From the way Katie described it, it sounded worse than being at home.

Then, if she passed her test at the end of PTS, she would finally be allocated to a ward. Over the next three years she would work on each ward in the hospital for three months each so she could learn all the skills she needed, and then she would take her State Final exams.

‘But for the first year, you’ll mainly be cleaning and doing bedpans and all the filthy jobs no one else wants,’ Katie told her. ‘That’s why the probationers are called dirty pros.’

Effie was hardly listening. She could hear voices and laughter outside in the corridor, and the scuffle of footsteps going from room to room. The other new girls were all settling in, getting to know each other. Effie longed to join them, but instead she was stuck listening to her sister’s dreary lecture.