The Nightingale Girls (22 page)

‘Well?’ he said.

‘In a hurry, aren’t you? Are you sure you didn’t nick it?’ The old man set down his magnifying glass and looked up at Nick. ‘It’s not a bad piece, I suppose. I’ll give you a pound for it.’

‘A quid? You must be joking! Anyone can see it’s worth more than that.’

‘They’re not standing here, though, are they? I am. And that’s my offer. So what do you say?’ Mr Solomon’s bright eyes fixed on him expectantly, waiting for his next move.

‘I say you’re a robbing . . .’

‘Now, now, Nicky boy, that’s no way to talk, is it?’ The old man looked more amused than insulted. He had been called a lot worse in his shop over the forty years he’d been trading in Bethnal Green. ‘Look, since your mother is such an old and valued customer of mine, I’ll be generous with you. How about I make it a nice round guinea?’

‘I need a fiver.’

‘Then you need your head looked at!’ Mr Solomon cackled. ‘Look, the chain’s a piece of cheap tat, worth next to nothing. The hamsa – well, it’s a nice piece, but nothing special. I’d be cutting my own throat if I offered you any more. I’m practically robbing myself as it is!’

I doubt that, Nick thought. If old Solomon was offering a guinea then it must be worth three times that at least.

Nick looked down at the charm lying on the green baize mat. Maybe a guinea would be enough for Dora to get her books secondhand?

But then he thought of the way she’d looked at him. ‘I trust you,’ she’d said. He couldn’t let her down.

‘Well?’ Mr Solomon’s bright brown eyes were fixed on him keenly. ‘Do we have a deal, Nicky boy?’

Nick looked from the charm to the old man and back again. ‘No chance.’ He picked it up off the counter. ‘I’d sooner chuck it in the Thames than let you have it.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The old man shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘But you’ll be back, I’m sure. Turn the sign round on your way out, will you? And give my regards to your mother,’ he called after Nick as he slammed the door behind him.

Nick walked back through the market. The traders were packing up their wares on to barrows, leaving only the wooden skeletons of their stalls behind. A little boy, eyes bright in his grimy face, oversized trousers rolled up to reveal worn out boots, dodged and weaved his way between them, swooping in under the stallholders’ feet and the rumbling barrow wheels to gather up the squashed, bruised fruit and veg that had fallen on the cobbles.

‘Watch it!’ one of the stallholders shouted, as he narrowly missed being run over to rescue an apple. ‘Do you want to get yourself killed, son?’

He picked an orange off the stall and tossed it to him. The boy caught it with one hand.

‘Thanks, Mister.’ He grinned cheekily and darted off, his bounty gathered up in the tails of his grubby shirt.

That was me once, Nick thought as he watched him go. Ducking and diving around the stalls, looking for something to bring home. Or roaming the streets, collecting bottles to get the deposit, or even shovelling up horse
manure to sell. Anything to earn a few pennies to keep his mum happy and his dad from using his fists.

Dora’s charm was still clenched in his hand. He’d let her down. She’d trusted him to get the money for her and he’d failed. He couldn’t bear to think of the disappointment in her eyes when he told her he hadn’t got the money for her books.

‘All right, Nick?’ He looked round. Ruby Pike was picking her way across the cobbles towards him, spectacular curves swaying. She was dressed up to the nines as usual, her blonde hair carefully waved. She looked as if she was coming back from a night out, not a day at work.

He carried on walking and she caught up with him. ‘Lovely day, innit? Not that I’ve seen much of it, stuck behind that machine all day. Honestly, it could be blowing a gale or anything outside, and we wouldn’t know about it . . .’ She chattered on, oblivious to the fact that Nick had stopped listening.

He was lost in his own thoughts, still thinking about Dora.

He would give her the money himself. It was as simple as that. He had always made a strict rule not to take anything out of his American fund, but he knew Dora would pay him back. And besides, his dream was still a long way off. Dora needed the money now or her dream would be over.

‘Are you listening to me, Nick Riley?’ Ruby blocked his path, hands planted on her rounded hips.

‘What?’

‘I knew it. You haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said, have you?’ Ruby pouted her full lips. ‘Here I am, giving you the chance that a lot of men round here would give their right arm for, and you’re not even
paying me a bit of attention. I’ve a good mind to tell you to forget it.’

‘Forget what?’ He frowned at her.

‘Taking me out, of course.’ She raked her scarlet-tipped hand through her blonde curls. ‘I’m free tonight, as it happens. Do you fancy taking me out dancing?’

‘I don’t like dancing.’

‘Maybe you just haven’t found the right partner?’ She flashed her eyes at him. Nick moved past her and went on walking.

Ruby fell into step beside him again. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘If you don’t fancy dancing, how about the pictures? They’re showing the new Errol Flynn down at The Rialto. I love Errol Flynn, don’t you?’ she sighed.

‘He’s not my type,’ Nick muttered.

Ruby laughed and batted him playfully on the arm. ‘Oh, you’re a funny one, you are, Nick Riley! Come on, let’s go to the pictures. I’ll even sit on the back row with you, if you like?’

He looked her up and down. She was everything a man could ever want, with her pin-up girl curves and saucy smile. She was right, there were a lot of men in Bethnal Green who would love to get an offer like that from Ruby Pike.

But not him.

‘Some other time,’ he said.

As he walked on, Ruby called after him, ‘How do you know there’ll be another time? I might change my mind, you know.’

But I won’t change mine, Nick thought as he headed home, Dora’s charm still clenched in his fist.

DORA SQUEEZED HER
eyes shut, trying to memorise the bones of the foot.

‘Calcaneus, talus, navicular, cuboid, cuneiforms, metatarsals, phalanges . . .’

She paused, trying to make the words sink in, but they just seemed to fall away into nothingness.

‘Each toe has three phalanges – proximal, middle, and distal – except the hallux, or big toe, which has only two – proximal, and distal. The hallux . . . proximal and distal . . .’

Across the room in the darkness she could hear Millie and Helen’s soft breathing as they stept. She longed for sleep too, but the PTS exams were two days away, and there was still so much to learn.

At least she had her books now. She’d been surprised when Nick gave her the money. Old Mr Solomon had been more generous than she’d hoped, giving her enough money to afford brand new books.

But that was where her luck had run out. The past week had been spent reading far into the night, trying desperately to catch up and cram her brain with all the information the other girls had been able to study for the past three months.

All the time, the picture of her family haunted her, smiling through their disappointment as they welcomed her back home. Just like Jennifer Bradley’s parents had as they bundled her into the car that day.

And then there was Alf. It didn’t even bear thinking about, being back under the same roof as him.

Dora lay back on the bed and rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty and sore from studying. How blissful it would be to just let them close and allow herself to drift away . . .

The squeak of the doorknob shocked her awake. She sat up quickly as the door opened and Alf Doyle stood there. His looming dark bulk filled the doorway.

Dora’s mouth went dry with fear. ‘Go away,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t belong here.’

Alf leered at her. ‘Not until I get what I’ve come for,’ he said softly. ‘You know what I’ve come for, don’t you, Dora love?’

He came towards her, undoing his belt. Dora shrank back against the hard wooden bedhead. ‘Leave me alone,’ she whimpered. ‘You don’t belong here. I need to study . . .’

‘I know what you need.’ His hands gripped her shoulders, pushing her down on the bed. She struggled against him, but his weight pressed down on her so she couldn’t breathe . . .

‘Doyle? Doyle, wake up.’

When she opened her eyes, it wasn’t Alf’s leering grin she saw, but the concerned faces of Millie and Helen looking down at her.

‘You had a nightmare,’ Millie told her kindly. ‘You were thrashing about and shouting.’

‘Sorry. Did I wake you?’

‘Us and half the mortuary too, I shouldn’t wonder.’ Helen padded back across the room to her own bed, yawning.

Dora gulped in a deep, calming breath and felt her racing heartbeat slowing down.

‘What were you dreaming about?’ Millie asked.

‘I don’t remember,’ she lied.

‘You kept telling someone to leave you alone?’

She saw Millie’s frown of concern and panicked. Had she given herself away? ‘It was probably something to do with the PTS test,’ she said. ‘I’ve been worrying about it a lot.’

‘Haven’t we all?’ Millie said.

‘Can we go back to sleep now?’ Helen mumbled sleepily from the other side of the room.

They went back to bed, and moments later Dora once again heard the soft breathing that told her her room-mates were fast asleep.

She lay awake, staring up at the ceiling. Tired though she was, she was too terrified to close her eyes in case she cried out again and gave herself away. Alf Doyle, she thought bitterly. Even now, he still made her too afraid to sleep.

The four sisters who filed into the student block could not have looked more unfriendly if they’d tried. The students watched them arrive from the window of the nurses’ home.

‘Is Sister Hyde with them?’ Millie whispered anxiously. ‘Oh, please God, don’t send her again. If I even see her in that examination room, I’ll just fall to pieces, I know it.’

‘I’m going to fail anyway,’ Katie groaned. ‘I’ll be the only O’Hara girl not to qualify. I’ll be sent back to Ireland and my mammy will die of shame.’

‘I don’t know what you’re all getting so worried about.’ Lucy, as ever, was perfectly calm and poised. ‘It’s only a couple of tests. You should pass it easily, as long as you’ve prepared.’

Dora was glad she wasn’t the only one who gave her a black look. Lucy’s perfection had started to grate on all of them over the past few days.

Sister Parker didn’t help their nerves, either, fussing over them like an anxious mother hen.

‘Make sure you arrive promptly for each of your tests, and don’t address the examiners unless addressed by them,’ she’d warned them over and over again. ‘Remember to bring a clean apron in case of accidents. And, Doyle, can you please do something about your hair?’

Dora tucked her curls under her cap. She could understand Sister Parker’s anxiety. It reflected badly on her if her students didn’t do well in PTS.

There were two days of tests for the students, a practical and oral test followed by a written examination. For days they had been practising their bandages, taking each other’s temperatures, checking pulses and respiration and swotting up on the bones and organs of the human body and their various functions. But as she made her way unsteadily to the student block with the seven other students from her set, Dora could feel all the knowledge she had worked so hard to cram into her head slowly ebbing out like a retreating tide.

They waited in the classroom to be called. Finally the first four were summoned, two into the kitchen and two into the practical area.

Millie followed her partner, Gladys Brennan, into the practical area as if she were going to the gallows. ‘I’m going to get a capelline bandage, I just know it,’ she hissed to Dora.

Dora smiled, but the smile was wiped off her face when she was summoned to the kitchen with Lucy Lane.

Why did it have to be her? she thought wretchedly as she followed her down the corridor. No matter how good she tried to be, Lucy would make her look hopeless by comparison. They were given the task of preparing
a meal for a patient on a Sippy diet. Lucy immediately knew what to do, moving with practised efficiency around the kitchen, pulling out pans, peeling vegetables and chopping up beef, while Dora stood motionless at the stove and tried to get her dull brain to think straight.

Slowly it started to come back to her. Sippy diet, that meant very bland, lots of milk and cream, suitable for a patient recovering from a gastric ulcer.

She mentally went through a list of suitable dishes. Boiled fish would be bland enough, with mashed potatoes and a spoonful of pureed vegetables, and junket to follow.

Lucy was already busy stirring something on the stove. Beef consommé, by the delicious smell filling the kitchen. Dora hoped her humble offering wouldn’t pale in comparison.

For the next few minutes they were both busy, working in purposeful silence while the sisters looked on from the other side of the room. They didn’t seem to be paying too much attention to their cooking, thank goodness; Dora knew she would be all thumbs if they’d stood over them all the time.

She had boiled her vegetables and potatoes, put her junket aside to set and was lighting the gas ready to cook her fish when she heard Lucy cry out. Dora turned around. Lucy was standing at the next stove, staring into the pan with a look of utter despair.

Dora’s eyes darted to the sisters, still conferring quietly at the far end of the room. ‘What’s wrong?’ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

Lucy tipped the pan towards her. The soup had boiled down to almost nothing, a couple of spoonfuls of rich brown syrup. ‘I must’ve lit the gas under the soup again, instead of under the vegetables. It’s ruined.’ Her usual composure had disappeared, and her voice was thick with tears.

Serves you right, Dora thought. She had a sudden mental image of the sisters looking into the pan, then putting a big cross next to Lucy Lane’s name. That would stop her bragging, she thought.

At the other end of the room the sisters were beginning to stir. Any moment they would look up and realise something had gone wrong.