The Nightingale Sisters (3 page)

‘I’ll talk to her,’ Dora said.

‘It won’t do any good. She’ll just smile and tell you she’s managing, as usual. You know what she’s like.’

The rest of the evening dragged by. While revellers laughed and sang and fell over cursing in the street outside, Dora did her best to keep her family’s spirits up with board games and singing along to the wireless.

Rose sat by the fire, her head down, going through the mending by the weak gaslight. No surgeon could ever stitch as beautifully as she could, Dora thought. Rose could turn a worn shirt cuff or mend a hole in a dress as if it had never been there.

She went over to her. ‘I’ve got something for you, Mum.’ She reached into her pocket, pulled out two pound notes and pressed them into her mother’s hand. ‘It’s not much, but it should at least buy some coal or keep the rent man happy.’

‘But this is a month’s wages for you. I can’t take all your money, love.’ Rose tried to give it back to her.

‘I’ll be earning a bit more now I’ve finished my first year of training,’ said Dora, hearing the desperate brightness in her own voice. ‘And it’s not like I’ve got anything to spend it on, what with my board and lodgings all found at the nurses’ home.’

‘Well, if you’re sure . . .?’ Rose looked down at the notes in her hand. ‘I can’t pretend it won’t come in handy.’ She put down her mending and smiled up at Dora. ‘What would I do without a daughter like you?’

‘I wish I could do more,’ Dora sighed. ‘Student nurses don’t earn very much, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes, but one day you’ll be one of them ward sisters, won’t you?’

‘Give us a chance! I’ve got to get through two more years’ training first. And then, if I get through my exams, I have to be a staff nurse, and then—’

‘You’ll do it, love. You got this far, didn’t you?’

‘True.’ Though there were those who still thought little Dora Doyle, the working-class girl from the back streets of Bethnal Green, had no place to be training as a nurse alongside all the respectable, middle-class students. Over the past year she’d proved most of them wrong, but it was a constant struggle.

‘I’m proud of you, love. I really am. Here, give your mum a cuddle.’ As Rose reached up to hug her, Dora felt her mother’s bones jutting sharply under her clothes. Was she eating properly? Years ago, before Alf came along, she had known her mother go without to make sure her kids were fed.

When the old clock on the kitchen mantel struck half-past eleven, Dora slung her coat over her shoulders and went out into the backyard to listen out for the bells of St Paul’s ringing in the New Year across the rooftops of East London.

As she threw open the back door, a slice of light from the kitchen picked out a young couple standing in a passionate clinch beside the fence next door. Mortified, Dora quickly tried to retreat, but it was too late.

‘All right, Dor? Happy New Year!’ Her best friend Ruby Pike greeted her cheerfully as she adjusted the buttons on her blouse. Blonde curls escaped from her elaborately teased hairdo.

‘Happy New Year.’ She could barely bring herself to look at Ruby’s boyfriend Nick Riley. It might have been Dora herself in his arms now if she hadn’t been too scared to let him kiss her last year. ‘I thought you’d be down the pub, seeing the New Year in?’

‘My lot are all there. And Nick’s mum, of course.’ Ruby rolled her eyes meaningfully. Everyone knew it was a rare day that June Riley wasn’t propping up a bar somewhere in Bethnal Green. ‘We were supposed to be going up to St Paul’s, but Nick won’t leave Danny.’

Dora glanced at Nick, who was still trying to rub Ruby’s smudged lipstick off his cheek.

‘He gets frightened when he’s on his own,’ he muttered.

‘He’s sixteen, Nick,’ Ruby sighed. ‘Same age as my brothers.’

‘But he’s not like your brothers, is he?’

Ruby pulled an exasperated face, but Dora understood why Nick was so reluctant. He was very protective of his younger brother. A few years earlier, Danny had suffered a terrible accident which had left him brain-damaged. The rumour was that he’d been beaten by their vicious bully of a father, who was so scared of what he’d done that he’d run away afterwards. But like the lives of so many people in Griffin Street, no one ever knew the full story.

‘I’ll look after him, if you like?’ Dora offered. ‘We’re not doing much, so he might as well come in and sit with us.’

‘We couldn’t—’ Nick started to refuse, but Ruby jumped in eagerly.

‘Would you? That’d be smashing, wouldn’t it, Nick?’ She curled her arm through his and looked up at him appealingly.

‘If you’re sure?’ Nick met Dora’s gaze properly for the first time. Even by the dim light spilling from the kitchen, he made her knees weaken. He towered over her, tall and broad-shouldered, his tousled dark hair falling into his eyes.

When had she realised she was in love with him? Dora couldn’t decide, but whenever it was, it was too late. He was Ruby’s now. And Ruby was never going to give him up.

Not that he’d want her to, Dora was certain. Ruby was everything she wasn’t – blonde, buxom, and as glamorous as a Hollywood movie star. Just the type of girl someone like Nick Riley would want on his arm.

He probably broke out in a cold sweat every time he remembered how close he’d come to settling for a homely girl with frizzy ginger hair, Dora thought.

‘He’ll be fine with us,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t look like we’ve got much choice, does it?’ she added wryly, as Ruby darted inside to call Danny before anyone changed their mind.

‘You could come with us?’ Nick offered.

Dora smiled. She could just imagine Ruby’s face if she tagged along. ‘What do they say? Three’s a crowd.’

Before he could reply Ruby came back out of the house, ushering Danny in front of her. He emerged shyly, his head bent and shoulders hunched. But his worried expression cleared when he saw Dora.

‘Y’see? I told you,’ Ruby said. ‘You should have seen his face when I said you were here. If you ask me, our Danny’s got a bit of a soft spot for you, Dor. Ain’t that right, Danny boy?’

She flung her arm around his skinny shoulders in a rough hug and ruffled his pale hair, making him squirm and flinch.

‘Leave him be. You know he doesn’t like anyone touching him,’ Nick said gruffly.

‘Not like his brother, eh?’ Ruby winked at him.

Nick ignored her as he helped Danny through the narrow gap in the fence where the slats had broken and weeds had grown up in their place. It was a gap Dora and Ruby had regularly used over the years as they went between their houses.

‘All right, Danny?’ Dora greeted him with a smile. He nodded and ducked his head shyly. It was the same every time they met, as if she had to win his confidence all over again.

‘Now you’re sure you’re going to be all right?’ Nick asked his brother.

‘He’ll be fine. Stop fussing like an old woman, or we’ll miss all the excitement.’ Ruby tugged on his arm, dragging him away.

Dora watched them hurry hand in hand down the alleyway, Ruby’s excited laughter still echoing on the frosty night air after they had disappeared. Then she turned to Danny.

‘All right, love? Shall we go in and get warm by the fire?’

‘I like looking at the stars.’ Danny shivered beside her, his pale face turned up towards the inky black night sky. ‘Y-Your Josie’s been t-teaching me their names.’ He pointed his long finger skywards. ‘That one there . . . that’s the P-plough.’

‘Is that right?’ Dora peered upwards. ‘It looks more like an old pan to me.’

‘And that one is c-called Orion,’ he went on. ‘He’s m-meant to be a man with a sword.’

Dora listened patiently as he pointed out more constellations in the sky. She’d often seen Danny perched on top of the coal bunker staring into space. Now she knew what he’d been looking at.

‘You remembered all their names, Danny. Good for you,’ she said. He gave a lopsided smile, proud of himself.

‘D-do you think they have stars like this in Am-America, Dora?’ he asked.

‘I expect so, Dan. Why, are you going to do some star gazing when you get there?’

Danny nodded. ‘N-Nick says he’s going to buy me a tel-tel—’ His face twisted as he struggled with the word.

‘A telescope, you mean? Lucky you. That’ll cost a few bob, I bet.’

‘Nick s-says he’ll have the m-money, once he’s World Ch-champion.’

‘I’m sure he will.’ She wondered if Nick had told Ruby about his secret plan to move to America with Danny once he’d saved up enough cash from his boxing. Like Dora, he dreamt of making a better life for himself. She was sure her friend Ruby would have something to say about it, once she found out.

But perhaps Ruby would approve? Somehow Dora could imagine her being right at home over there, rubbing shoulders with all her favourite Hollywood stars, like Claudette Colbert and Myrna Loy.

Dora sighed up at the sky. And meanwhile she’d probably still be here in Griffin Street, trying to stop her family from falling apart.

The bells of St Paul’s suddenly rang out, breaking the stillness of the night air. A roar went up from the locals at the Rose and Crown as they spilled into the street, all trying to outdo each other with a loud and drunken rendition of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, welcoming in the start of 1936.

‘Happy N-New Year, Dora,’ Danny said.

Dora turned to smile back at him. ‘I hope so, love,’ she said.

ONE HOUR INTO
her duty on the first day of the New Year, Lady Amelia Charlotte Benedict, or Millie as she preferred to call herself, was being violently sick in the sluice.

Oh God. She stared down at the gaping hole in the middle of the sink, her fingers clutching the cold stone rim for support. The chilly January air that whistled through the open grating did nothing to cool the sweat that prickled on her skin.

She shouldn’t have run away like that. Yes, the stench had been overpowering and the sight that greeted her when she threw off that bedcover had been truly disgusting, but a real nurse would never have done what she had.

The memory of Sister Hyde’s startled expression as Millie charged past her up the length of the ward, one hand clamped over her mouth, was enough to send her retching over the sink again.

She heard the sluice door open behind her and groaned in dread, bracing herself to hear Sister Hyde’s voice ringing out. Sister needed little excuse to remind Millie of her shortcomings. She could lecture her for half an hour if she swept the ward in the wrong direction, so heaven only knew what she would make of her abandoning a patient to rush off and be sick.

But mercifully it was only Millie’s room mate, Helen Tremayne. The pair of them had been assigned to Female Chronics together although Helen was in the year above, and superior to Millie in every other way, too.

‘Sister sent me to find out where you’d gone.’

‘Is she very angry?’ Millie whispered.

‘She certainly wasn’t smiling when I left her.’ As she crouched over the sink Millie saw Helen’s stout black shoes, polished to military perfection as usual, come into view beside hers. ‘You shouldn’t have left Mrs Church, you know. No wonder Sister loses patience with you.’

‘I couldn’t help it!’ Millie looked up at her friend, wincing as the bright lights of the sluice pricked her watering eyes. ‘You didn’t see the state she was in. It was horrible!’

‘That’s Messy Bessie for you.’

Bessie Church, or ‘Messy Bessie’ as the nurses nicknamed her, was a very sad case, an elderly woman who had lost her wits years ago. She was usually a placid old soul, but despite endless pleading – and a few stiff words from Sister – she still couldn’t or wouldn’t use a bedpan, preferring to let nature take its course and leave the nurses to worry about cleaning it up.

And this morning, much to her dismay, Millie had been given that particular job. She had arrived for duty feeling fragile, so cleaning up an incontinent patient was the last thing she needed.

Just the thought of it made her stomach roil again. She felt her cap sliding off her head as she threw herself over the sluice, and barely managed to rescue it before it ended up down the plug hole.

‘You know you’ve only got yourself to blame,’ Helen’s voice echoed painfully in her ears. ‘You wouldn’t be in this state if you hadn’t been out all night.’

‘Shh! Sister will hear you. I wasn’t out all night anyway.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘I don’t know . . . about two?’

‘Actually, it was nearer four.’

‘Was it? Oh dear.’ Millie bent down and rested her head on the edge of the sink, letting the cool stone soothe her fevered brow. ‘I rather lost track of time, I’m afraid.’

She’d lost track of quite a lot, unfortunately. Including how many Martinis she’d had.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t kill yourself when you came through our window. You shouldn’t climb up drainpipes in that state, it’s far too dangerous.’

‘It’s fine. I’ve done it lots of times.’

‘You only have to break your neck once.’

Satisfied her stomach was finally settling, Millie sank to the floor leant back against the cold tiled wall and started to pin her cap back in place.

‘It was New Year’s Eve, Tremayne. Don’t tell me you weren’t tempted to sneak out and celebrate with your Charlie?’

‘Certainly not.’ Helen blushed at the mention of her boyfriend’s name. It never ceased to amaze Millie that the oh so perfect Nurse Tremayne had actually come down off her pedestal long enough to fall in love.

And with someone so gloriously unsuitable, too. Charlie was an absolute sweetie, but he was an apprentice carpenter and his father ran a fruit and veg stall. Helen’s mother had been utterly livid.

‘I studied until lights out, then went straight to sleep,’ Helen went on primly.

‘On New Year’s Eve?’

‘I have the State Final this year. I need to study if I’m going to pass.’

‘But that’s not for months!’

‘I suppose you think I should leave everything until the last minute, like you do?’

Millie grinned at her through a mouthful of hairpins. Helen had changed a lot since they’d first met, but she could still be an awful prig sometimes.

As if she realised what her friend was thinking, Helen smiled reluctantly. ‘So what did you get up to last night?’ she asked. ‘I hope it was worth this morning’s agony?’