The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  She had no idea how she and her da would manage without Rita. If her own children were evacuated, how could they accept her help? Rita struggled every day, but she never failed to help out, and in return Emily did what she could for her, including watching her boys while Rita did shifts down at the munitions factory at the weekends. No doubt, if Rita’s children were away, she would increase her shifts to full time, and why shouldn’t she? But it would mean she would no longer be there when they needed her. These troubled thoughts had run through Emily’s mind since yesterday, but now she needed to run to the shop and collect up the kids before dark fell.

  ‘I’ll run for the messages quick, Mam. I’ll be back in half an hour.’

  Her mother smiled weakly. ‘You’re a good girl, Emily, the best. I’m lucky to have you.’ Emily kissed her on the brow and stood for a moment, breathing in the smell of hair that she dared not wash.

  Before she left for the shop, she popped her head round Rita’s back door. ‘Give me your coupons, quick. The shop has butter in.’

  ‘God, you’re a love,’ said Rita, taking the coupons out of a drawer. ‘How’s yer mam? I took her some pearl barley soup in at lunch time, but she didn’t want it.’ Her face was full of concern for Emily, whose two young brothers had run over and grabbed her knees as soon as she walked into the kitchen.

  ‘We’re having the best fun here, Emily. Do you want to play too? Rita says we have to listen to the radio later, because there is going to be news about the war and she wants to know where Uncle Jack is. Are you coming to listen?’ Richard jumped up and down and looked up at her with eager eyes.

  ‘I will when I’ve done the jobs, love,’ Emily said, smiling at Rita. ‘And once the tea is cleared away we can play a game ourselves tonight, at home. As long as we are not too noisy. Mam is on the sofa we moved into the kitchen this morning, and she would love that.’

  ‘Mammy’s on the sofa. Mammy’s getting better,’ shouted Richard as he jumped up and down in excitement. Satisfied, he ran back off to play with the other boys.

  ‘I was there when Dr Gaskell came, Emily,’ said Rita. ‘Your da asked me to sit in, when he had to pop into the club to get his rota for the blackout. He said your mam had been pretty bad this morning. The doctor gave her an injection for the pain and he left some medicine in a brown bottle on the dresser. She’s to have it when the pain gets too bad. He said he wants to talk to your mam and da in the morning and they have to meet him at St Angelus. I was thinking, perhaps you might want me to go with him if you can’t?’ Emily was about to protest, but Rita went on, ‘Maisie Tanner has offered to take the boys to school. She loves your little Richard, thinks he’s a dote, and if she does that I can easily go to St Angelus. The doctor said he wants someone to be with your mam and da to listen to what he has to say and remember for them afterwards, and I said well that’s not a problem, it will be Emily or me. What do you think, love? Can you go? Or shall I? I think the doctor wants yer mam to be looked after by the St Angelus nurses and I know there are none better. My own mam was in St Angelus and she loved those nurses. Angels from Lovely Lane she called them. They all live in that big white house opposite the park gates. You know the one?’

  Emily nodded. She herself had seen the nurses in their long skirts and capes and frilly hats, and when she was a little girl she thought she had never seen such pretty ladies. She had confided in no one, but all she had ever wanted to do was to become one of the angels. To wear the uniform and to look after people who were sick. But the war, Alfred’s being called up and then so badly wounded, her mother’s illness, two little boys to care for, her nursing duties at home, had all put a stop to that.

  ‘I’m going to leave work for good next Friday, Rita. I have to stay at home now. If Mam is taken into hospital, I can’t be at the factory all day. Can you go tomorrow and I’ll work out a week’s notice?’

  ‘Of course I can, love. If the doctor suggests she stays at St Angelus, I think it will be for the best. Your mam is going to need more help than we can give her soon. She will need those angels.’

  Tears welled up in Emily’s eyes. ‘Rita, is my mam going to die?’

  Rita dried her hands on her apron as she walked over to Emily. ‘Die? Of course not, love.’ She put her arms around the younger woman’s shoulders and hugged her. ‘She will be staying in St Angelus to be made better, just until there is a place in the sanatorium over the water, like Maisie Tanner’s mam. Now, come on, we have no time for crying, you and me. We have too much to do. Look, I’ve washed yer mam’s best nightie here and I’ve washed me own for her to take, too, for a spare. Pack those in her bag with some wash things and a headscarf to keep her hair nice. I was going to wash it for her – Alf and I, we had the range pumping out to keep the room warm, so the water was hot – but she wouldn’t let me. Truth is, I don’t think she could be bothered. Told us off for wasting the coke, she did. Wanted to save it until you kids got home to feel the benefit. Here’s me coupons; I’ll look after the kids. You go and get that bloody butter.’

  She handed over the ration books and gave Emily another hug. ‘Go on now. I’ll have some soup ready for when you get back. Then you can crack on next door.’

  *

  When Emily reached the shop, she found Maisie Tanner in the queue in front of her. Emily knew she had been at school with Rita and was now married to Stan Tanner, who was away fighting the war, and they had a little girl who was about five or six years old. The family lived with Maisie’s mam and dad, and Emily was both touched and grateful that she had offered to look after the boys.

  ‘Hiya, Emily. How’s yer mam, love?’ Maisie greeted her warmly. ‘I’ve told Rita, I can do anything you want to help, queen. It’ll be no problem. Me mam was only saying tonight, she remembers the time your mam took a load of the kids to the shore at Crosby with Betty. Half a streetful they took. You remember yer mam’s mate Betty? She’s in Wales now, you know, sitting out the war.’

  Emily did know. The Haycocks received a letter from Betty once a week, telling them they were mad for remaining in Liverpool and that the sea air in Trearddur Bay would be just what was needed for her mam’s chest to improve. Emily was beginning to wonder if she was right.

  ‘They pushed five kids in each pram and took them on and off the train. I’ll never know how they did it. God, it was a laugh. Our Brenda was one of the kids and she still remembers it. She’s never been since. Said she’ll never forget that day. I loved your mam, the poor thing.’

  Emily couldn’t answer. Maisie’s use of the past tense was all she heard. Loved? It seemed to her that Maisie, who wasn’t very much older than herself, was wiser than she could ever be. Maisie made Emily feel as though she knew nothing. Is that what marriage and children do to you, make you older and wiser?

  ‘Rita is going with Mam to see the doctor at St Angelus tomorrow,’ she said instead. ‘I’ve decided to work out my notice at the factory. I need to be at home. I can’t keep depending on others to help out.’

  ‘Well, it’s no trouble, but that’s smashing for your dad,’ Maisie replied. ‘You’re a good girl, Emily. Don’t you worry about a thing. It’s a great hospital, that St Angelus, you know. Some of the women on our street have started having their babies in there. My mam says they only go for the rest in bed. Seven days they make you stay, and they wash the baby and everything. You don’t have to lift a finger. The Angels’ Hotel, me mam calls it. She loved it in there, once she began to get better. I’d love our little Pammy to become one of those angels from Lovely Lane. God, I would be so proud I would burst if that happened. I think this one’s a lad, though. Never stops kicking, he doesn’t.’ Maisie laughed as she rubbed her belly. ‘I’m going to tell them to stop sending Stan home on leave. I don’t want another until this bloody war is over. Mind you, I suppose a year without is too long for any man and I don’t want our Stan getting wandering eyes, now do I?’

  Emily blushed to the roots of her hair, but even as she did so it occurred to her that her str
eet was full of angels.

  The neighbours were wonderful. They took it in turns to sit with her ma, cook for her, bathe her, nurse her. The entire neighbourhood was full of angels and one of the best was Maisie Tanner.

  The noise of the air-raid siren ripped through the air without any warning.

  ‘Run,’ screamed Maisie, as the sickening sound of an explosion made their ears ring as the shop window shattered and shards of glass filled the air. They had never heard or witnessed anything so terrifyingly close and for a split second everyone in the queue dropped their bags and, covering their faces with their hands, froze to the spot. A moment of silence followed as the last splinter of falling glass dropped to the floor. The shopkeeper was the first to move, yelling for everyone to leave.

  ‘We’re too close to the bloody docks here,’ Maisie said breathlessly as they ran back towards the street.

  ‘Here, into the shelter, Emily. Maisie, come on,’ shouted a neighbour. It was the man who partnered up with Emily’s da in the Home Guard, checking every house at night to ensure that everyone had shut their blackout curtains properly. Not a shaft of light passed either of them by. He was standing at the entrance to the communal shelter, already joking with the children as they ran in.

  ‘I can’t. I need to get back to the kids and me mam,’ Emily shouted back.

  ‘Wait, Emily.’ Maisie grabbed her by her hand. ‘Rita will take the kids to the shelter at the other end of Arthur Street and your da will get your mam down somehow. He’ll carry her if he has to. Me mam will take our Pammy, so we’re safest here. Come on, queen – it sounds really close this time, the little bastards.’

  Emily looked towards the shelter and then back down the street towards home. The bombs were falling early. She knew, if she sprinted fast, she would be home in less than three minutes.

  ‘They will all be under cover in a min. Best we do what Tom here says.’ The siren continued and Emily could hardly hear Maisie above the noise, but when the older woman suddenly grabbed her by the arm again she knew that this time it was not to reason with her. The grip was too hard and urgent. Maisie Tanner’s face was distorted in pain.

  ‘Is it the baby?’ asked Emily in alarm.

  Maisie nodded, and Emily watched the pain fade from her face as quickly as it had come. ‘It can’t be, though. I’m only seven months, and I know that’s right because I know when Stan was on leave. I’ll be all right. It will stop.’

  Emily had taken part in the street rehearsals run by the Home Guard half a dozen times. She knew that Rita and the boys would be stumbling along George Street towards the communal shelter any second now. Rita had a routine practised with the kids and they would probably already be on their way, the two younger boys piled into the pram with Richard and Henry standing on the carriage holding on to the handlebar while Rita pushed. They would be heading away from where she now stood. Rita would encourage the children to pretend that they were playing the train game. ‘Choo choo,’ the children’s voices would whisper into the dark. ‘All aboard the shelter train,’ Rita’s voice would ring back.

  Before they ducked into the entrance Maisie and Emily turned towards the sound of another explosion and looked down towards the river’s edge. The skyline was a vivid red from the flames which leapt into the air.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Emily, clasping her hand to her mouth. ‘It looks like one of the ships has been hit. The sky is on fire.’

  Maisie followed her gaze down towards the Mersey and was speechless.

  ‘Come on, girls. You coming in or what?’ Tom sounded nervous and was becoming impatient.

  And then came the stillness. The heavy, oppressive stillness during which no one spoke. The hairs on the back of Emily’s neck rose in fear as her skin tightened, and as she looked around her she saw that everyone had stopped and was standing, dead still, waiting. Then it came. The whistling sound that pierced her ears and an explosion so loud it deafened her, as George Street took a direct hit.

  *

  It was morning, cold and misty, and the fires still burned as she walked down the street she no longer recognized. In a daze, she refused to allow panic to take hold and tried her best to remain calm as she took deep breaths, in and out, in and out. The woman who had delivered Maisie’s baby girl – not the boy Maisie was convinced she was carrying – had run on ahead to Arthur Street, calling the name of Maisie’s mam, just as Maisie herself had done for most of the night. She had tried her hardest not to scream out in pain as they heard the bombs continually falling. Fear had gripped Emily’s heart during the long night while she sat holding Maisie’s hand. ‘It’s bad out there,’ one of the women had said.

  Tom, whose duty shelter they were in, replied, ‘It is, it’s bad.’

  Even though it was now daylight, the sky glowed a deep burnt orange through the airborne dust and smoke. The noise of a solitary woman shouting and running was surreal and confusing.

  ‘Where are the houses and the shop? Where has the shop gone?’ said Emily to no one. The fire tenders blocked her way down the street and the men working on the gas main shouted to her to stop.

  ‘Where are you going, love?’ a young man called out to her as she squeezed through the barrier which had already been erected. ‘Oi, stop. Are you mad or what? You can’t go down there.’

  ‘But I have to. I live there. I have to go home,’ Emily replied, in a daze. ‘Rita has the kids.’

  ‘You can’t do that, love. There’s been a direct hit on the street. It’s too dangerous.’ The man took her arm, looking at her with eyes loaded with sympathy. ‘Which side of the street did you live on, love?’ he went on.

  Emily turned to face him. ‘We live on our side,’ she said, confused. ‘This side.’ She was looking at where the houses had once stood, where now there seemed to be nothing but rubble, and that was when she saw her mother. She shook her head in disbelief. Her mind refused to accept what her eyes could see although it was there before her, as clear as the flames leaping from the pile of rubble that had once been their home. She rubbed her eyes. The dust and smoke were distorting her vision. This was a nightmare. She would wake. This could not be true. It could not be real, but it was. It was real. It was her mother.

  ‘Oh, God, no, no,’ Emily screamed, and a man she had never seen before, his face covered with dirt, emerged through the smoke and ran towards them.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ he shouted. ‘You need to get away from here. We have to make the gas mains secure first before anyone can go down the street. Does she live here?’ he asked the fireman who was holding Emily’s arm.

  Emily wasn’t listening. She was looking at the face of her mother, who was lying on the roof of the house opposite where their own had once stood. Her arm dangling, she was looking directly into the street, her eyes open, free of pain at last.

  ‘You all right, love? Seriously, I’m going to have to move you away from the gas.’ The man was in front of her now, but she could not turn her head to look at him.

  ‘Mam,’ she whispered.

  His eyes followed her own. ‘Jesus! Fecking hell,’ he muttered, putting his arm across her shoulder and trying to lead her away.

  ‘We have to get my mam. I’m coming, Mam,’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Richard! Henry! Richard!’ she screamed into the heap of dust and rubble. ‘Rita!’

  She tried to move forward, but now more hands were pulling her back.

  ‘Get her to the end of the street. Her da’s there, he’s still alive,’ she heard a voice say. ‘They won’t let him down here because of the gas.’

  ‘But Rita has the kids. She has to go with Mam to the hospital today. I’m coming, Mam. We’ll get you down now.’

  ‘Come on, love,’ said a man she recognized from the Home Guard. He put his arm around her, holding her tight, so she couldn’t move. ‘No one can do anything. You don’t need to go to any hospital now. No doctor can help. They’re all gone, love. Everyone in that row of houses. We’ve been searching through the rub
ble all night. There’s no one left except your da. He was on his way to fetch you when the bomb came down. Let’s get you back to your da.’

  She heard the conversations of firemen nearby, oblivious of her presence. The voices came from somewhere within the dust and flames, from the men searching the rubble.

  ‘It was a bad one. A big bastard. Reckon there’s a woman in here and maybe four or five kids, could be more, all dead.’ For a moment the smoke cleared, and Emily saw that the speaker was standing in what had only the previous evening been Rita’s kitchen.

  ‘I have her coupons,’ Emily whispered through her tears, knowing that, of the children he referred to, two were her own little brothers. ‘I have her coupons,’ she sobbed again.

  Chapter one

  St Angelus Hospital, Liverpool, December 1951

  St Angelus had begun life as a workhouse, proudly facing out towards the Mersey and across the Atlantic. It was built of a dark sandstone brick which had long since succumbed to smog and smoke and the dribbling black soot that ran down the exterior walls like icing on a cake. The many tall chimneys spewed out their lung-clogging smoulder from the basement furnaces which heated the Florence Nightingale wards.

  Through the centre of the hospital ran a long, polished corridor that began at the main entrance and ended at the back door. The theatre block, the school of nursing, the medical school, the mortuary and the kitchens were housed in separate buildings dotted around the grounds and had been built at varying times over the past two hundred years. Some were constructed of brick, some more recent post-war additions, such as the prosthetics clinic erected to meet the upsurge in demand for false limbs, had been hurriedly thrown together from prefabricated units and covered with tin roofs.