The Angels of Lovely Lane (27 page)

‘Oh, yes, Nurse Tanner. She is resident at the Lovely Lane home, isn’t she? The nurse whose corner you fought with Mr Scriven? He has asked me to keep an eye on that particular young lady.’ Matron looked smug and Emily felt sick. ‘As a member of the board, he has every right to do so.’

Emily wondered if she had just made things worse for Pammy. Matron, realizing she was on stronger ground, forged on.

‘He would very much like to know how she performs once she is let loose on the patients. He is very concerned that we are allowing our standards to drop and I have to agree. She is the first nurse we have taken from the dock road. Mr Scriven thought you had gone quite mad.’

Emily felt her colour rise and took a deep breath before she spoke. Only the dog knew she was a hair’s breadth away from losing her temper. Neither Matron nor any of the board members knew that the place of her birth and her true home had been only yards away from Pammy Tanner’s. Emily swore to herself that one day she would let Matron and Mr Scriven know exactly where she originated from, but when she did, it would be at a moment of her choosing. Revenge was a dish best served cold.

‘Are you telling me that you approve of the way Sister Antrobus intimidates probationer nurses with nothing more than her temper and an irrational bad mood? Do you think there is a place in modern nursing for such an overbearing and high-handed attitude?’

‘I don’t agree with your assessment of Sister Antrobus one little bit, Sister Haycock. If
style
is what you have come here to discuss with me, I am afraid you have wasted your time and mine. Given Mr Scriven’s concern, I am delighted Nurse Tanner will begin her training on ward two. If she hasn’t got what it takes, we will know sooner rather than later and she won’t waste any more of our time.’

Emily had had enough. The ignorance and prejudice were beginning to suffocate her. She knew Matron was unmovable. Without another word, she stood and walked to the door. As she turned the handle, she plucked up an extra thread of courage and turned back.

‘I’m afraid that if Sister Antrobus intimidates Nurse Tanner and I find myself with yet another nurse leaving before she has finished her probationary training, then I shall have to call an emergency meeting of the trustees to discuss Sister Antrobus’s position. We invest a great deal in our probationer nurses. One loss alone costs the hospital a considerable amount of money, not to speak of the investment in time and effort that Sister Ryan and I dedicate to each course and each nurse. In the same way you will be watching Nurse Tanner, I shall be watching Sister Antrobus. She has frightened away her last probationer nurse. I cannot stand by and watch it happen again.’

With that, Emily opened the door and left the room to sudden barks from Blackie, who left his basket and flew across the floor towards the rapidly closing door. Emily almost leant against the other side. Her heart was beating hard, drops of perspiration had broken out on her top lip and there was only one place she wanted to be: with Biddy back in the school of nursing. Despite the trembling of her knees, she flew down the stairs and across the hospital grounds. No one ever stood up to Matron and she wasn’t sure if she would be made to pay in some way for what she had just said.

*

‘Well, I never. You gave her what for then,’ said Biddy as she poured them both a cup of tea in the kitchen after hearing every detail of the encounter.

‘I don’t know about that, but I’ve done what I can for Nurse Tanner. Now we just have to pray.’

‘Don’t worry about that little girl,’ said Biddy. ‘I’ve already asked Branna to keep an eye on her. She’s the cleaner on ward two, and she comes from Waterford. Her mammy’s sister’s son married a girl who was a Brogan. Isn’t that just the thing, with us having a Nurse Brogan? I’ve told her, Nurse Tanner is the best of friends with Nurse Brogan, so Branna will keep a good watch out for her, and if things go wrong, she’ll make sure I know about it pretty quickly.’

Emily laughed. ‘You and your Irish Mafia. You’re everywhere.’

‘Ah, well, don’t begrudge us that now, we have to be. We’ve been through a lot, so we have. We all have to look out for each other.’

Emily remembered the notices she had read when looking for lodgings. Time and again the adverts read
No Irish
. Emily knew exactly what Biddy meant.

As Biddy busied herself about the kitchen, Emily drank her tea and looked out of the window towards the main building and the wards. The sky had darkened and the rain had begun to fall heavily. She would leave herself before she would stand by and see another nurse driven from St Angelus in tears, abandoning a career she had been born to. If it came to that, she would take Sister Antrobus down with her. And whatever the outcome, Maisie Tanner’s daughter would survive.

‘Mr Gaskell came while you were out, the younger one, that is. He left an envelope on your desk so he did.’

‘Oh, yes. That will be the lecture notes he wants me to take a look at.’

‘Really,’ said Biddy, narrowing her eyes and fixing Emily with a meaningful stare. ‘Are you sure about that? Because the thing is, he came twice before I could persuade him to agree to leave the envelope. Mighty keen he was to give it to you in person, if you ask me.’

Emily blushed. Biddy held her like a rabbit in the headlights as she tried to think of a suitable response. ‘Well, I shall prove it to you,’ she said at last, marching towards her desk. She masked her disappointment as she extracted four sheets of paper from the envelope. ‘See, Biddy? Lecture notes, just as I said.’

Biddy was clearing away the tea things as she spoke. ‘That’s as maybe, but I’m no fool. He was keen to see you, and Dr Gaskell strikes me as a man in a dreadful hurry. I wouldn’t keep him hanging around too long.’

Emily pretended to look offended as she placed the lecture notes in her desk drawer, ready to read later. She knew Biddy was right, but she had given so much of herself to her career that there had been no time for men, and besides, what man would take her once he knew her secret, what her life was really like? Would honour her obligation as his own? None, she was quite sure of that. She had made her decision, her bed and her promises, and now she had to keep them. She had little time left if she ever wanted a child. She knew that, and in her heart she also knew that she had sacrificed one love for another. She would never know the joy of holding her own baby in her arms.

Emily bit her lip. There was nothing she could do. She was trapped. She glanced at the ornate radiator and saw that they were gone, and looking at her shelf she spied the brown paper bag. Inside, would be the pyjamas, folded and ironed.

‘I did them while you were gone,’ said Biddy. ‘You don’t have to tell me, it’s none of my business, but if there is anything I can do to help, you know where I am.’

Emily blushed and looked back down at her desk. ‘Thank you, Biddy.’ Her voice was the faintest whisper.

‘Eh, did you know there’s no limit on cocoa powder from this week? We can use the vouchers for something else. They’ve gone mad in the kitchens. I’ll go and fetch us a couple of slices of the chocolate Victoria sandwich Cook has made. She’s putting cocoa in everything. There’ll be a dusting on the rashers at tea.’

Emily smiled. She knew exactly what Biddy was doing. She had skilfully changed the subject, respecting Emily’s secret. ‘Chocolate Victoria sandwich? I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

‘Well, in ten minutes from now you won’t be able to stop yourself from talking about it,’ Biddy shouted back from the stairwell.

Dessie stood at the bottom of the stairs with a brown canvas toolbag in his hand. Biddy had told him that Sister Haycock’s sitting-room door wouldn’t close properly and he had arrived to fix it, the first free moment he had. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help himself. He had had no idea Oliver Gaskell was sweet on Sister Haycock. But of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? thought Dessie. What man wouldn’t be? You are a fool, man, he told himself. Why would a woman like her be interested in a man like you? The truth was that Dessie had admired Emily Haycock since first setting eyes upon her, but each time he thought he might ask her to join him for tea at the Lyons Corner House in Church Street he was crippled by one thought.
Why would a woman like her want to be seen out with a man like me?

‘I’m here, Biddy,’ he shouted out, as he placed his boot on the wooden stair Biddy had scrubbed only that morning. His steps were heavier and slower than they would have been only five minutes earlier, weighed down by the disappointment resting in his heart.

*

That afternoon, Biddy arrived home later than usual and found Elsie waiting on her doorstep.

‘Jesus, aren’t ye the lucky one, only needing to work this morning,’ she said. ‘I was lucky to be out the door by four today and I was on the overhead railway at half five on me way in this morning. I thought the day would never end. Been waiting long, have ye?’

‘I knew you were on your way, Biddy. Dessie came down the street half an hour since and he said you was on the same bus as he was, but that you were off to the shop.’

‘Did he now?’ said Biddy, as she put her key in the lock. ‘Sure, I can’t sneeze without you all knowing me business, can I?’ She was only half joking and Elsie knew it.

‘Oh, don’t take on, Biddy. I was only after a natter. Tell me, when you went into the shop, were they all talking about our Martha and Jake and asking whether they’re courting?’

‘No, they were not. They were talking about the price of fish. It might surprise you to know there are some people in Liverpool who have no notion that your Martha is courting Jake and that he has an electric washer mangle machine on order from Blackler’s for that house of his. Is that what you want to tell me, because I already heard it from Dessie this morning. Does this mean you won’t be coming down to the Clare Street wash house with me on Saturdays any more?’

‘Of course I will. There’ll be no gossip to be had in our Martha’s kitchen and besides, when would I get to see everyone?’

Since the day Martha and Jake had been courting, Elsie had spoken of nothing else except the possibility that they might one day wed and it was beginning to drive Biddy to distraction. The fact that Dessie had already imparted the riveting, all important electric washer mangle news had taken the wind clean out of her sails. Elsie had little in her life to look forward to. A wedding and an electric washer mangle for Martha would be enough to keep her bragging down at the Claire Street wash house for a year.

Biddy felt slightly guilty at the sight of her friend’s crestfallen face. She knew that Elsie would have been waiting all day to tell her. An electric mangle was very big news. ‘Fancy a cuppa then?’ She knew full well that this was the best way to get around Elsie’s disappointment.

‘Aye, go one, if you’re having one.’

‘Ye know I am, and that the back door is always open. Ye could have had the kettle on by now, ye lazy mare.’

The front door creaked open, letting them both into the narrow, dark hallway. They were met by the wail of the fatter-than-was-good-for-him black cat, who darted from the shadows and pressed himself up against Biddy’s legs.

‘Ah, would ye come here, little fella,’ she said, putting her heavy shopping bag down on the dark brown lino and bending down to stroke him. She had given the stray a home soon after she began having children. They had all long since left, but the old faithful cat sat on her lap at night and kept her company, and in return for his loyalty Biddy looked after him well and fed him half of every biscuit she ate.

‘I have a bit of Spam for ye in my bag,’ she murmured now as she picked up the string holdall and walked into the kitchen.

‘Did you take that from the hospital?’ asked Elsie in an accusatory tone.

‘I did. It was being thrown in the pig bin. No harm in a bit of leftovers coming here for the cat.’

Elsie didn’t like cats. She begrudged this one the large slice of Spam she saw Biddy take out of her bag. ‘Would have done nicely for my tea, that, with a few taters,’ she said as she watched Biddy purr over the animal. Elsie liked dogs even less than cats since Blackie had bitten her.

‘We had your Sister Haycock in Matron’s office today,’ she said. ‘I had my ear to the door. Gave Matron what for, she did. Sister Haycock did well to get out of the room before the dog went for her. Vicious, nasty little thing that it is.’ As she spoke, Elsie reached down and stroked her leg where the bite had almost healed although the skin was still red and sore.

‘Aye, well, she’s not daft, that one, so she isn’t and I’ll tell you this, she holds her ground.’

‘I’ve heard her mother was the same,’ said Elsie, ‘until she got sick, that was. Dessie tells me that bomb on George Street, it was more like a silver bullet, putting her mother out of her misery. But for the others, her little brothers God rest their souls, it was different altogether.’ Elsie crossed herself as she spoke. ‘Imagine, terrible. Those poor little ’uns.’

Dessie was the source and keeper of all gossip. The porter’s lodge was the hub of hospital news and even Matron could occasionally be seen entering or leaving, in an attempt to gather her own intelligence.

‘Sure, I’ve not mentioned the bomb to her meself,’ said Biddy. ‘She never has to me, either. I’d like to, mind. There are some days when that poor woman looks like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and there’s no man to speak of, ye know. I’ve not asked as much, but she would have mentioned someone, for sure. Told me she’s in lodgings. She won’t live in the Lovely Lane home, or in the accommodation in the hospital, where she could have her own room and a sitting room if she wanted. She said that if she did, it would be uncomfortable for the nurses.’

‘No such luck for me,’ Elsie snorted. ‘No sign of Matron ever leaving her rooms at the hospital. I’ll be cleaning those until I drop.’ Matron’s rooms were situated above the main entrance to the hospital, and from her windows she could see every person who entered and left St Angelus. ‘And she’s entertaining on Friday. I had to do the shopping this morning, as well as lay the table and polish the dining room for her. Our Martha has it much easier.’