by Annie Groves
‘Right, I must be on my way,’ she said, wondering if she would be allocated to this patient again.
The woman nodded in the gloom. ‘Go on then, bugger off. See yerself out.’
Alice turned, having expected nothing other. As she opened the door, the woman called out again.
‘Meant to say. Thank you, Nurse. I know it’s not a pretty sight. So thank you.’
Alice bit back her gasp of surprise. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry, we’ll get you on the mend in no time.’
Cycling off to her next patient, she reflected that those few unexpected words of thanks had meant more to her than many of the loud outpourings of gratitude from easier patients. Perhaps Pauline’s gran wasn’t so bad after all. She would hang on to that moment to lift her spirits in the dark days to come.
‘You look as if you got something on your mind, Bill.’ Ron came out of the warehouse and pulled a face at his colleague. ‘What’s up?’
Billy raised his eyebrows. ‘What, as well as night after night of being kept up by the raids, idiots who won’t go into their shelters and think they know best, and half our goods here being set on fire and no use to anybody? Leaving us to try to sort out the mess?’
‘Just thought you looked a bit down in the dumps,’ Ron said. ‘Want a cuppa?’
‘Yeah, all right.’ Billy knew it wasn’t Ron’s fault, but he was short-tempered that morning. Yes, it was down to lack of sleep and all the reasons he’d given his mate, but on top of that was the astonishing news that Kathleen had told him yesterday when she had waylaid him outside the big church around the corner from Jeeves Street. At first he hadn’t believed her, but her evident distress had convinced him before long.
He had tried to allay her fears, pointing out that Ray was a man on the run. ‘Why does he think he’s safe staying with you?’ he had asked. ‘Why not go to his mother’s? At least she loves him.’
‘I know, I wondered that,’ she’d said, twisting her hands together. ‘You’d think he’d be noticed at once on my street, but he seems prepared to risk it. It’s because of the money. He’s got one over on me, whereas if his ma decided to hand him in, there’d be no comeback on her. Or any of her neighbours could shop him but she’d be no worse off. It’s me who stands to lose the most. So I’m the easy target.’
Billy had gazed at her sorrowful face and felt his heart melting all over again. ‘You leave it with me,’ he said. ‘He won’t hurt you any more, Kath. I’ll make sure of it.’ He had all but taken her in his arms there and then, but the sirens had wailed and there had been no chance to. Every time he drew close to her, he was foiled. So he had to help her in whatever way he could. She had nobody else to turn to and he could not let her suffer. The very thought of it tore him in two.
‘How’s your Alfie coming along? Have you heard any more?’ he asked now, accepting a steaming mug of tea.
Ron launched into an account of Alfie’s latest news, as dictated in a letter written by the pretty nurse with the dark hair.
It was towards the end of their lunch hour that Billy spotted his most unreliable colleague, Bertie. He was striding along the wharf with a face like thunder. Normally Billy would have given him a wide berth in that mood, but today that wasn’t a choice. He matched the other man’s pace and Bertie rounded on him.
‘What d’you want, Billy? I’m busy, so get out of my way.’
Billy did not back down. ‘I need a word with you,’ he said steadily.
‘Then you’ll have to walk along with me, I got somewhere to get to in a hurry.’ Bertie started off again and Billy kept up, the wind off the water ruffling his hair. Dust whipped around their feet.
‘Ray’s back, isn’t he?’ Billy said.
Bertie stopped and turned to him. ‘What do you mean? Ray died at Dunkirk.’
Billy supposed he should have expected Bertie to deny it, but he didn’t have time to waste. ‘No he didn’t, and you know it. He’s been living in Poplar, but now he’s been bombed out and is back causing trouble. Where is he? Are you hiding him?’
‘Me!’ Bertie abruptly dropped his pretence of not knowing. ‘You got to be joking. Ma would kill me.’
Typical, thought Billy. Bertie was happy to lie about Ray but he was still afraid of his mother. ‘So he hasn’t been cutting you in on his latest deals, then,’ he said, taking a guess at how Ray had been making his living since reappearing in the docklands.
‘His deals!’ Bertie was incensed, responding to the provocation better than Billy could have hoped. ‘He’s in no position to do his own deals, is he? He has to rely on mine. He does what I tell him to, not the other way around.’
‘I see,’ said Billy.
‘Don’t you be getting the idea that he’s in charge,’ snarled Bertie, his pride deeply hurt at the suggestion. ‘I’m the brains around here. All he gets are the crumbs from my table.’
‘And what are they?’ Billy asked curiously.
Bertie rounded on him again. ‘Well, I can tell you what they aren’t, for a start. They aren’t acids what certain people near here would pay good money for. You had to go sticking your nose in there, didn’t you? Playing the hero, rescuing that kiddie and that tall nurse. Yes, I heard all about it. I was all for making the pair of you pay for that, but it was too risky, might have blown my cover. All the same, you can consider yourselves lucky. Next time I might not be so generous.’
‘Don’t you dare hurt Belinda.’ Billy was horrified. He knew she had been moments away from being burnt by that spilt acid in the yard. She’d only been doing her job. That would mean nothing to someone like Bertie. He put his black-market profits above everything.
‘Oh, Belinda, is it? Touched a nerve, have I?’ Bertie crowed. ‘You’re more of a ladies’ man than I thought, Billy. Course we all know you been sniffing around Ray’s woman for ages, but nice to hear you got a backup plan now she’s got her old man back.’
Billy bit his lip hard so he would not react. He counted to ten. ‘So where is Ray?’
Bertie had had enough. ‘Nowhere that concerns you. Why would I tell you, when I need him to button his mouth? Can’t have him blabbing all my business to the likes of you. Now get out of my way, I got enough on my plate without you bothering me.’ He wheeled around and strode off.
Billy watched him go. While he hadn’t managed to learn Ray’s exact whereabouts, Bertie had given away more than he realised. Ray and Bertie were working together; that was no surprise, but it was useful to have it confirmed. Ray was not living with Bertie, though, and from Kathleen’s description it sounded as if he was roughing it somewhere. There were plenty of places to hide around the docks, but as he had complained to Ron earlier, the docks were prime targets for the enemy’s bombs. Plenty had already been damaged. No wonder Ray wanted to move into the comparative safety of his wife’s flat.
If Bertie was planning on siphoning off some of the incoming goods, as was his habit, or even storing his own around the dockside warehouses, no wonder he was in a bad temper. He had already lost one of his safe houses when the acid was discovered. He must be under pressure from all sides. Billy decided to watch the man more closely. If he was this much on edge, it might not be long before he cracked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bridget was gradually mastering the strange habits of her bicycle. She had been well warned by everybody in the home about it, how all the bikes were unlike any she might have learnt on back in Ireland. ‘They have minds of their own and there’s not a thing you can do about it,’ Edith had cautioned her. ‘You have to make the most of it and then it won’t be so bad.’
Bridget had laughed at the tradition of every nurse putting something personal on her own handlebars, the quicker to identify her bike in the communal rack. You didn’t want to get stuck riding someone else’s, which would have its own tricky habits. Bad enough coping with yours. Mary showed her the scrap of blue ribbon she had tied on hers, and Bridget had immediately gone for a piece of green lace. ‘Green for
Ireland – then you’ll know whose it is,’ she pointed out. ‘Sorry, Ellen – you’ll have to find something else.’
Now the little fragment of lace blew in the early evening breeze as she came closer to Victory Walk. It had been a long day and the final visit had gone on for what felt like hours. An old man had been hurt in one of the raids and needed his wound seen to, but he was reluctant to let her leave. She had realised he was simply lonely. His sons had been called up and his daughters-in-law and their children evacuated. He told her she was the only person he had seen to talk to all day, and she didn’t have the heart to leave him immediately after that.
So now she was late. ‘Ellen had better have saved me something to eat,’ she muttered under her breath. The streets were quiet now that most sensible folk were in having their tea. She had passed a couple of WVS vans, the women preparing to hand hot drinks to the ARP wardens and whoever else might be called out this evening: fire-watchers and the like. Otherwise the day was winding down. She was just wondering what tonight’s meal was likely to be when the dreaded sound of the siren began.
Bridget was tempted to risk it and try and make it back to the nurses’ home, but common sense told her she was too far away. She cast around for the best place to go. Then she recognised a side road; she knew it was where Dr Patcham lived, as she had had to visit the surgery in his house on a few occasions. He had a shelter in a secure basement – she could go there. She liked the kindly old doctor, whom everyone had welcomed back with relief once his unpopular latest locum had left.
Someone was putting up the blackout blinds as she approached and, moments later, the door opened. It was his housekeeper, who immediately remembered the freckle-faced nurse before her. ‘Ah, Miss O’Doyle, isn’t it? Come in at once. You don’t want to be out on the streets in these raids. We can’t lose any of our highly trained nurses, can we?’ She ushered Bridget inside.
Bridget was astonished to see the surgery was full, and recognised one of the patients, Millicent from near Cricketfield Road. Dr Patcham rose from his desk. ‘Excellent! Help is at hand!’ he exclaimed, moving across the room to greet her at a speed that belied his years. In other circumstances he would have been thinking of his retirement but, with so many younger doctors going into the armed services, that was out of the question.
In the distance, there was a distinctive bang. The bombing had started.
‘You are just in time,’ he went on, his white eyebrows twitching. ‘Out of the bombs and into our clinic.’
Bridget suppressed a shiver as another, louder explosion went off. ‘What clinic is this?’ she asked, struggling to maintain her calm, but knowing she had to. Nurses could not be seen to panic.
‘Ah, of course, you won’t have been back to Victory Walk to see my memo.’ He turned and waved expansively at the patients sitting waiting on a variety of chairs around the room. ‘What with all the raids, many people aren’t in their homes for their regular morning appointments, and their daily schedules are disrupted. So I’ve opened an evening clinic to ensure they can have their injections. Not ideal, but better than missing a day, wouldn’t you say?’
Bridget had a horrible realisation what she had just walked into. ‘Wh … what injections?’
‘Why, insulin of course. This is the diabetic clinic. These poor people have to adjust their eating patterns on top of everything else, and yet without the injections … well, I don’t have to tell you. I can see at least one of the people here knows you.’
‘Oh yes, Doctor, Nurse O’Doyle is very good, very reassuring.’ Millicent spoke up from the corner.
Bridget wanted nothing more than to run out of the door. She would take her chance with the bombs, make it back to the haven of the refuge room, settle in with Ellen and Alice and Edith. But she could see that Dr Patcham would not be best pleased. Moreover, with the number of patients waiting, she could tell that in fact her arrival was a godsend. The old man would be working until heaven knew what time if he had to do this on his own. ‘R … right,’ she said. ‘I’d better wash my hands.’ There, she’d said it. She had committed to helping, despite her fear of the syringes.
As she emerged from the little cloakroom, more loud bangs reverberated through the elegant old house, shaking the Victorian mirrors and finely polished dark furniture. The housekeeper apologised, but had to turn off the electricity and gas. ‘I’ll bring the Tilley lamps,’ she promised.
So, by the flickering flames of the improvised lighting, Bridget worked her way through the patients, administering insulin as more and more bombs fell. Flashes of orange from outside lit the room from where a square of blackout material had been dislodged. The housekeeper tried in vain to pin it back but found the window frame was too damaged. ‘Keep away from there,’ Bridget called in alarm. ‘You don’t want to be caught by breaking glass. Better that a little light escapes – in all that fire outside, it’s the least of anyone’s worries.’ The housekeeper nodded and hastily moved to an inside wall.
‘Why don’t you take all the patients who have had their insulin down to the basement?’ the doctor suggested to the shaking woman, who, evidently glad of something to do, led a row of people out of the room and down the corridor.
‘Not long now,’ Dr Patcham said cheerily, and Bridget wondered where he got his energy from. He was bustling around like a man half his age, indefatigably cheerful, calming the frightened patients who were shivering too much to inject. Her admiration for him doubled. Straightening her shoulders, she knew she had to emulate him. There simply was no space for her previous nervousness; there was too much to do.
As swiftly as possible, she worked her way to the last patient, Millicent.
‘I’m so glad it is you, Nurse O’Doyle!’ the woman said, grasping her arm. ‘I know you are all specially qualified, but you are my favourite, though I shouldn’t say.’
‘Now, really!’ Bridget laughed it off in embarrassment. ‘Tell me, how is your nephew?’ As she talked, she swiftly administered the insulin.
Millicent beamed in delight, her face visible in the light from the Tilley lamp. ‘Oh, very well indeed. How good of you to remember. See, that is typical of you. Thank you so much.’ She rolled her sleeve back down and rose.
‘Come, Nurse, we’ll all go down to the basement now,’ the doctor said, having treated his last patient as well. ‘Much the safest place. None of us is to leave until the all clear. My housekeeper has extra stores of tea for emergencies just such as this.’ He escorted them down to the basement door, and both patients went in.
‘Just one moment, Nurse.’ He stepped a little away from the opening and turned to Bridget. ‘I wanted to take the chance in this lull between bombs to thank you. We’ve never had so many patients in the surgery. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t turned up when you did.’
Before Bridget could reply, the loudest explosion of the evening rocked the building, the very walls seeming to shake. Dr Patcham stumbled, and his glasses fell and broke. Bridget bent to pick them up.
‘Dash it.’ For a moment he looked his age, in the shadowy light. Then his customary cheerfulness returned. ‘No matter, I have others. In my mahogany desk upstairs. That was my grandfather’s – it will take more than a bomb to wreck that.’ He exhaled heavily. ‘As I was saying, Nurse – no, hear me out, indulge an old man if you will. I confess, it’s hard to remain calm under such circumstances. Your steady demeanour was an inspiration this evening. The way you conducted yourself made me believe that I too could maintain an encouraging manner, reassure the patients.’
Bridget gasped aloud and brought her hand to her mouth. ‘But … but … that’s how I felt. I’m a mass of nerves underneath, but I saw how you were with the patients and made my mind up to be like that too.’
Dr Patcham let out a guffaw of laughter, and his tweed jacket shook. ‘See what a good team we make, Nurse! Of course you’re afraid. I’m afraid, and I’ve been through a war already. Doesn’t matter. As long as you can keep your head and t
reat your patients, you can be as afraid as you like. That shows you are human. But make no mistake, Nurse, you did sterling work tonight, in conditions that would have floored many a man. Now come and have a well-deserved cup of tea.’
Bewildered but buoyed up by his words, Bridget followed him into the big basement, suddenly aware that in all the terror of the falling bombs, her fear of syringes had faded.
Flo stood in her doorway, waving at Gillian, who was facing backwards in the big pram. Little Alan was out of sight, closely swaddled for his first ever trip outside. Mattie was pushing the pram like the expert she was, fully recovered from the rigours of his birth, and Kathleen was alongside with a toddling Brian on his new woollen reins. ‘Look after them!’ Flo called cheerily as Kathleen turned.
‘I will!’ Kathleen shouted back. They were only going as far as the small local park but it was a big step for Mattie and Alan.
Flo went back inside and reached for the key she had seen Kathleen leave on the ledge by the coat hooks. She knew it was sneaky but she wanted to give the young woman a surprise. After all, she was almost like another daughter to Flo, and her own mother never gave her treats of any kind. Flo had baked an extra little carrot cake, and wanted to decorate it in Kathleen’s kitchen. She was going to arrange pieces of dried fruit on top to spell ‘Thank You’, inspired by the lemon-peel arrangement those nice nurses had produced for Joe’s homecoming. Swiftly she gathered her things in a wicker basket and hurried around the corner to Jeeves Place. It shouldn’t take long.
Somehow both Jeeves Street and Jeeves Place were still unscathed by the raids, unlike plenty of places nearby. The roads were quiet. Many people would be snatching forty winks to compensate for all the disturbed nights of sleep. Flo wondered if she could do the same once she got back, before the children returned and the house became noisy again.