The Angels of Lovely Lane (31 page)

Beth had already worked out that she had made a big mistake, being friends with Celia. The loudness of Pammy drove her to distraction and she had thought that forming an alliance with Celia was her best bet, but she had seen that whereas Pammy, Victoria and Dana had been genuinely delighted when she won the PTS prize, the smile had not quite reached Celia’s eyes.

Tonight, Celia had herded her knitters, armed with their tapestry bags and needles, into the corner where she planned to deliver a lecture on blackberry stitch and to discuss the merits of a pattern she had seen in a magazine. Lizzie noticed some of the knitters straining over their yarn to see the screen in the corner of the room, and was sure they would much rather be sitting around the television with everyone else. All anyone could talk about was the new Queen Mother and her daughter, the Queen.

A nurse sat in front of Celia, holding a skein of wool in her hands while Celia wound it into a ball. As the nurse leant over to get a better look at the television, Celia dropped the ball of wool and snapped, ‘Nurse Skeet. Sit up.’

‘That one will make Matron one day,’ Pammy whispered to Victoria.

‘Let’s hope we’re far away when that happens then,’ Victoria whispered back.

‘My mother is posting me patterns so that we can knit some new clothes for the dolls on the children’s ward,’ said Celia in a deliberately loud voice, in order to do battle with the television and to irritate Lizzie. ‘I will of course first check with Matron that it will be acceptable for us to do so.’

Almost everyone ignored her. Many had discovered that ignoring Celia truly got her goat. Pammy had turned her attention back to studying Evelyn Pearce’s book on anatomy and physiology for nurses. Terrified of making a mistake on the ward and landing herself in Sister Antrobus’s bad books, she had glanced at the theatre list for the following day and written down what operations were being performed, by whom and in what order. She didn’t want to look like the first ward placement idiot she felt herself to be if someone asked her a question or spoke to her in acronyms.

Beth had moved slightly away from the rest of the knitting circle and was deep in a book, her needles lying idle. She was the most studious of the bunch, but could quite easily be jollied along into laying her work down. Some of the girls were dozing in their chairs, after a hard day on the wards. It was as much as some could do to keep their eyes open past supper but tonight, like Victoria, the majority were glued to the news.

Pammy lifted her head from her book and looked around the room for Dana. ‘Have you seen Dana, Vic ?’ she whispered. They often used their Christian names between each other, as long as no one outside their group could hear them. If Pammy had spoken in tones of any volume, she would have addressed her friend as Nurse Baker. First names
sotto voce
and titles in regular tones had quickly become the accepted norm.

Victoria appeared not to have heard her question, so Pammy repeated, ‘Do you know where Dana is? Is she sick, or what?’

‘I haven’t seen her since we walked home. In fact, one minute she was there, the next she was gone,’ Victoria replied. Pammy looked thoughtful.

‘Nurse Brogan isn’t feeling very well,’ said Mrs Duffy, interjecting. ‘It’s an exhausting ward, male surgical, having to lift those men up the bed all the time. She’s gone to catch up on some sleep.’

‘But she wasn’t at supper,’ said Pammy. ‘If she doesn’t eat, she won’t be able to haul anyone up the bed.’

‘Don’t you worry about Nurse Brogan,’ Mrs Duffy replied. ‘I’ll take her a drink and a biscuit up when I’ve finished in here. Sister Haycock is coming down tonight to have a chat with you all, see how you are getting on on the wards.’

This was no longer a terrifying prospect to the girls. Sister Haycock was everyone’s favourite sister by a country mile, and she often popped in during the evening to have a drink with them on her way home. They got to ask her as many questions as they liked. She always had time to listen and almost always made a point of asking Pammy how she was getting along.

Lizzie dived out of her seat and raised the volume on the television even louder. ‘Shh,’ she hissed as she collapsed back in her seat. The tinny and hissy voice of the announcer filled the room.

‘If I told our kids we watched the telly every night, they’d all be around here, Mrs Duffy,’ said Pammy.

Lizzie spotted an opportunity to save Mrs Duffy a job and walked over to the fire to poke it back into life, lifting the scuttle to pour on a few coals.

‘Well now, that makes me very sad,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘Maybe we should invite them around one morning when they are not at school?’

‘Would you not need Matron’s permission for that?’ Celia Forsyth’s voice cut across the room and silence fell. Victoria noticed that Mrs Duffy’s face flushed with colour as she stammered out a reply.

‘I hadn’t actually thought of asking Matron, It was just an idea...’

‘And a very kind one Mrs Duffy, said Victoria. I had never even seen a television until I came to live here.’

‘We don’t have one, and I don’t know anyone in our street who does,’ said Pammy. She was smarting at the kindness of Mrs Duffy’s thought and the embarrassment she suffered as a result of Celia’s comment.

‘Well, my father says that everyone should have one, said Beth. ‘I find it fascinating that we can actually see and hear Churchill. Such a great man. Daddy says everyone will own a television soon because people want to know what the government is up to. So many people love Churchill.’

‘There’s no argument there,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘He was a great man during the war, was Churchill. We would never have got through without him.’

The television was now showing a picture of a smiling Queen Elizabeth standing next to Prince Philip.

‘See? Everyone should be able to see those picture,’ said Beth. ‘Not just the lucky people like us.

‘Well, wouldn’t that be wonderful,’ said Mrs Duffy, who loved the Queen almost as much as she loved her job and her nurses.’

‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Celia Forsyth. ‘My father thinks that the masses owning televisions will bring about nothing but trouble. Could even bring the government down, he says. It will be the end of Churchill. The government will never let it happen.’

Victoria’s mouth fell open as she saw Mrs Duffy walk towards Celia with her drink held out. She saw it happen in slow motion, but by the time she had registered the impending disaster it was too late to shout a warning. As Mrs Duffy reached over to pass Celia her drink, her eyes turned towards the television screen, the cup slipped from its saucer, sailed through the air and discharged its contents all on to Celia’s lap, where they splattered all over her newly completed white matinee coat.

‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ Celia shouted, shooting up out of the chair and throwing the knitting on to the floor. ‘You stupid, stupid old woman.’

There was an audible gasp from the assembled nurses, and, for a moment, time seemed to stand still before Pammy and the others jumped up to help, not Celia, but Mrs Duffy. Celia looked as though she were about to burst with rage.

Mrs Duffy began to apologize. ‘I am so sorry. I will replace the wool and redo the knitting for you. All the time you have spent on that little coat, and it’s so beautiful, too. I am so sorry.’

Celia Forsyth knocked Mrs Duffy’s hand away and stormed out of the room, dripping cocoa. Not one person other than Mrs Duffy had looked at her.

‘I wouldn’t put up with being spoken to like that, Mrs Duffy,’ said Lizzie, as she helped the housekeeper to clean the chair. ‘I think that Nurse Forsyth needs to be sent to Matron for her rudeness. It was an accident, for goodness’ sake.’

Mrs Duffy’s voice trembled. ‘I can hardly send her to Matron, can I now, when it was me who spilled the drink and ruined her hours of hard work. No, it was my fault. Of course she’s angry. I would be angry if someone threw a cup of hot cocoa all over me and ruined my knitting. No, it was all my fault.’ Mrs Duffy held the matinee coat in her hand, looking distraught. ‘I will try to wash it as soon as I’ve got the dishes done.’

Pammy thought she saw Mrs Duffy’s eyes fill with tears as she collected the empty cups and moved the trolley out of the room. The girls looked at one another with expressions of disbelief. The only sounds were the fire hissing and the coals shifting in the grate.

‘Well, that was a bit out of order.’ Victoria broke the silence. ‘That little madam needs to get her comeuppance.’

‘She certainly does, Nurse Baker,’ said Lizzie. ‘I think some of us need to work on that. Her day will come, you mark my words.’ Lizzie had known Mrs Duffy for over two years and they had become close. Just at that moment, Lizzie could have followed Celia to her room and thumped her. ‘You lot, her so-called friends.’ Beth and the others in the knitting corner looked up, their needles lying redundant in their laps. No one had the nerve to continue knitting. ‘One of you had better run up those stairs and tell her not to come back down here tonight, because if she does she’ll have me to deal with. And now I’m going to help Mrs Duffy, who looks after us all every day, to wash up the cups. Is anyone coming with me?’

Beth jumped to her feet. ‘I will, Nurse.’ For a moment, everyone was stunned. Beth had been Celia’s closest companion.

‘Thank you.’ Lizzie shot a venomous look at the other nurses in the corner. They were looking mortified, and Pammy felt sorry for them. She knew they were as scared of Celia as most were of Matron.

‘Best way to deal with a bully is ignore them, and if that fails, bring them down a peg or two,’ her da, Stan, had often said. Pammy made a note that she and Lizzie needed to have a little chat about Celia Forsyth, soon.

Five minutes later, Pammy stood outside Dana’s door and knocked gently. ‘Dana? Are you feeling all right?’ There was not a sound from within, only silence. Pammy stepped back and looked at the bottom of the door. No light was visible and all was quiet.

‘Dana, are you asleep?’ She whispered what she knew to be a stupid question. If she were asleep, Dana wouldn’t be able to hear her or to answer. But Pammy was also aware that something was wrong. She had noticed a difference in the way Dana behaved as soon as they had begun to talk about their encounter with the doctors. Something must have upset her, Pammy thought. Dana wasn’t ill. Someone had upset her and she wouldn’t mind betting that yet again it was that bully, Celia Forsyth.

She made one more attempt to raise her friend. ‘Dana, Sister Haycock is coming to talk to us, to find out how we are getting on. You don’t want to miss her, do you?’

Receiving no reply and knowing that Dana would have loved to have seen Sister Haycock, she burned with anger as she walked back down the stairs to the kitchen to seek out Lizzie. It was time to make a plan. Ignoring Celia Forsyth had not worked.

*

Victoria only remembered the note in her pocket when she began to undress for bed. ‘Darn,’ she cursed as she slipped on her dressing gown and pattered along the corridor to Dana’s room. She slipped the note under the door, and smiled to herself. After this, she would have to trust Dana with her own secret. It was something she was more than looking forward to. Having to keep quiet about Roland had been difficult. She had also been careful not to speak of Baker Hall. It was time for her to become more open with her friends. Victoria now knew, leave for her intake would not be until the end of the summer and her new friends would find the fact that she had kept news of Roland from them difficult to understand. It was time to share her own secret and she would start with Dana.

Dana had been awake all along, and lay still in bed while she waited for the footsteps to recede. She had heard the note being pushed under her door, and when she was sure that there was no one outside her room she slipped out of bed to retrieve it.

Not wanting to turn on the light, she tiptoed to the window and read the note by the light of the moon and the reflected glow from the sulphur orange street light. The notepaper glowed gold as Dana made out the neatly written words.

Dana, I haven’t seen you since we got back to Lovely Lane so I’m writing this down to be sure I don’t forget. Teddy has told me that he is on call every night for the next month, and he has asked me to ask you would you meet him for a chat at the bottom of the theatre steps tomorrow night? He thinks he may have been overly boisterous today and says he did actually throw you into the dirty linen basket! I will tell no one. I have my own little secret. Let’s have a chat when you are feeling better
.

Dana couldn’t wait. She wanted to explode with excitement. She crept down the corridor to Victoria’s room. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, when Victoria opened the door. ‘It’s just that I thought you must be sweet on him, when I saw you giving him a kiss.’

An hour later, Dana was still sitting on Victoria’s bed while her friend spilled out the story of the troubles at Baker Hall. ‘And so, you see, Teddy’s brother is my Roland and someone I
am
very sweet on.’

‘Well, you must go home to see him.’

‘I will, but never mind me, more important is, what are you going to wear tomorrow night, when you meet Teddy?’

Within minutes, almost the entire contents of Victoria’s wardrobe had been emptied out on to her bed while Dana tried on one outfit after another.

‘I feel so awful that I hardly have any nice clothes to speak of,’ said Dana. ‘To think, I thought I was arriving in Liverpool with a wardrobe to match Jean Simmonds. Now I wouldn’t be seen dead in anything I own. God, I must be the only girl in Liverpool who owns a skirt hand-knitted by her mammy.’

Victoria laughed. ‘Well, you look lovely in my silk blouse and skirt. Here, borrow my pearls, too.’

Dana objected and pushed Victoria’s hand away. ‘I can’t have him thinking I’m someone I’m not, Victoria. I love you for offering, but I’m just a farm girl from Ireland. However much we object when Celia Forsyth says it, it is the truth. ’Tis who I am.’

Victoria was not about to challenge Dana’s pride and quietly laid the pearls back in their box. ‘You’re quite right,’ she said. ‘Shame on me. Anyway, it would be ridiculous to wear pearls for a chat. They are really for dinner or a dance. And now you’ll be awake all night with the excitement of it all. Get you, Dana Brogan, sneaking out for a date. What will your mammy say?’