The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  Putting the folder of notes to one side of her desk, Emily picked up the paper Biddy had laid in front of her and scanned down the list of probationers. With a start, she came upon the name Pamela Tanner.

  ‘How could I have forgotten?’ she whispered. She traced the letters with her finger. ‘She looks so like her mother.’ She sat back in her chair, and as Biddy poked and rearranged the embers on the fire the memories of the worst day of her life came flooding back.

  ‘I’m off for the tea,’ Biddy said as she shuffled out of the office, but Emily didn’t reply. The familiar feeling of loneliness swamped her as she stared at Pammy’s name.

  She had been just a young woman when she had last laid eyes on Pammy’s mother, Maisie Tanner. Maisie with the cherry red lipstick and the wobbly lines drawn down the back of her white calves that looked nothing like a pair of stockings. Maisie from Arthur Street. They were like two peas from the same pod, Pammy and her mother. When Pammy had arrived for her initial interview, it had given Emily such a start that she had allowed Mr Scriven to lead with the interview. For a stupid moment, she had felt that maybe, knowing what she did, it was not her place to comment, or to question Pammy.

  Mr Scriven was a man deeply steeped in prejudice and Emily had decided, almost as soon as she had been appointed to her new job, that replacing him on the panel which appointed the potential new probationers would be close to the top of her list. Everyone on the board knew that if a nurse applying for a job at the hospital was black or Irish Mr Scriven would reject the application on that basis alone. The only Irish girls he did let through the process were the daughters of Dublin doctors, and even then they were denied state registration and remained at the hospital as enrolled nurses. Many fulfilled exactly the same role as a staff nurse. They were just less expensive to the hospital.

  Mr Scriven had been true to form on the morning of Pammy’s interview, attempting to exert his authority over Emily by constantly trying to undermine her. His disapproval of the composition of the list of candidates she had put through for interview came second only to the fact that she had been appointed as director of nursing in the first place, when despite his best efforts to block her appointment the board had overridden his recommendation.

  Within minutes Emily knew she had made a big mistake not to have led Pammy’s interview herself. She felt conflicted. Should she say, ‘When I was just a girl I knew her mother. We were together on the worst night of my life’? Mr Scriven had taken one look at Pammy’s letter and decided that a girl from Arthur Street had no place as a professional nurse. How little he knew, Emily thought, silently fuming at his whispered words to the other trustees on the panel, while Pammy sat before them, earnest and red-faced, sweating hands clasped in her lap.

  What had angered Emily more than what he had said was that almost the entire board of trustees, which met twice a year to interview potential probationer nurses, had nodded enthusiastically at his words of pious discrimination. All except elderly Dr Gaskell, who was also the chair of the Liverpool hospitals tuberculosis committee. It was obvious from his own look of dismay that he didn’t like Mr Scriven and his narrow-minded prejudices any more than Emily did.

  ‘She’s from the bombed-out houses down by the docks,’ Mr Scriven had blurted out. ‘Not our sort. Can’t let standards drop.’

  Anger had flashed through Emily. She had no issue with the quality of nurses at St Angelus. It was one of the finest and proudest hospitals in the country. She was both delighted and honoured that St Angelus had been selected by the minister of health to trial the new entry criteria for state registered nurses in the north of England. She would not have wanted to train anywhere else herself and felt a fierce loyalty to the hospital. However, it was a fact that the body of nursing staff was largely made up from one stratum of society. There were almost no nurses in the hospital who spoke with a Liverpool accent. She knew that if things had been different and it had been up to Mr Scriven, who had no idea where she was born, she might never have made it into St Angelus herself, and the thought made her smile.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. On the contrary, I think we very much need many more of her sort.’ Dr Gaskell had spoken. No one dared to challenge him. And he had supported Sister Haycock, just as he always did.

  She had voiced her concerns about the fact that hardly any of the nurses in St Angelus spoke with a local accent not long after she had taken up her post as the director of nurse training.

  ‘What in God’s name does it matter where you were born or how ye talk?’ asked Biddy, who thought that the best way to get along was to never cross authority.

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t matter, because we have a new national training structure and examination process. Because we are to be a flagship hospital in the new structure. We need the best. Not those who speak with the nicest accent. The war is long over now and any woman who wants to nurse should be given a chance. We have a new national health service and the demand for our services is soaring, which means we have to increase the number of nurses we train. That is why I am here, in this post. I would like to get to a point, Biddy, where nurses don’t have to leave their jobs, just because they want to marry. The training should be open to everyone. To all girls of all backgrounds and ages, and not just those seeking a doctor husband or a worthwhile occupation to wile away the time until they marry.’

  ‘Well, I see no harm in it meself. There are worse ways to meet a husband if you ask me.’

  Emily sighed in despair. ‘The top positions should not be held only by men and spinsters, just because they work to earn their own living. Oh, I know, I’m a spinster too. You don’t have to remind me.’

  ‘Look.’ Biddy was concerned. ‘Settle down a little first. Don’t ruffle any feathers. And about Mr Scriven, I can tell you this and as God is my judge I maybe shouldn’t, but I think you have a right to know. There was a man who wanted your job. Demobbed after the war he was and never settled since. Mr Scriven, he pushed like mad for him to get it. God, you have never seen anything like it. A golfing friend of his, he was. They had served together in North Africa in the medical corps, so Mr Scriven told Matron, and don’t ask me how I know that. I have to have some secrets.’ Emily was intrigued and didn’t interrupt Biddy’s flow.

  ‘Mr Scriven near exploded when the board chose you for the clinical director’s job. He couldn’t believe they would give a woman such an important role, and it being one of the first in the country. They had made him look a right eejit, after he’d promised the job to one of his friends. Probably felt ashamed. Put himself about as the big I am, I reckon, and fell flat on his face by promising something he didn’t have the power to give. God knows, he tried hard enough. Bought Matron a bottle of sherry. I felt like asking could I have a vote as well, thought I might get a bottle too.’

  Biddy roared with laughter at the sight of Emily’s expression. ‘Look, I probably shouldn’t tell you this.’ She put her hands on Emily’s desk and leaned forward. ‘You do know, don’t you, ’tis really me who runs this place. Everything is going to be fine, so stop yer worrying.’

  The two women grinned at each other. Emily had known only too well that Biddy was the first person she needed to get on side when she took up her post. As housekeeper, Biddy did indeed run the school of nursing. Control over the tea urn and the daily delivery from the hospital kitchens, as well as authority over the kitchen porters, was power indeed, as the new director of nursing Sister Emily Haycock discovered. Being appointed to such a prestigious position did not give her access to the kitchen, and, as Biddy knew, that was where the real power lay when you were dealing with hungry staff and probationer nurses.

  ‘I know that, Biddy. It was obvious from the day I arrived, but we have to put up some form of pretence here. Just don’t tell anyone, eh?’

  ‘Well, sure, I could do your job all right. There isn’t anything I don’t know.’ Biddy dropped her voice a little. ‘Look, I know this,’ she said. ‘You won by one vote. The twelve trustees were equal
ly divided, but Dr Gaskell, he had your back. Now I’m no mathematician, but it seems to me you need to tread very gently for a little while longer, just till your feet are well and truly under the table.’

  Emily had been dying to ask her, but had so far been unable to drum up the confidence, who had had the casting vote. Now she knew. Dr Gaskell.

  This morning, Emily remembered that conversation. She had taken Biddy’s advice. She had bided her time. A year had passed and she had won her first major battle, ensuring that Pamela Tanner from Arthur Street and the jolly Irish girl Dana Brogan had been included in this intake, and what a battle it had been. She had sorely ruffled feathers but she was also very confident. Mr Scriven and the trustees now knew for sure that she was very definitely no pushover.

  Emily left her desk and crossed the room to sit in one of the two brown and battered leather chairs in front of the fire. As she watched the flames, her mind wandered back to the last time she had seen Maisie Tanner. When Pammy had walked through the door of the interview room and smiled, it was as if she had stepped back in time, all those years ago. She promised herself there and then, she would do whatever she could to ensure that Nurse Tanner succeeded. At the very least, she owed that to Maisie. As she watched the flames lick up the chimney, Emily had no idea that before the year was out she would risk everything, including her own job, to keep that promise.

  Chapter ten

  ‘A penny for your thoughts.’

  Emily jumped at the sound of the unfamiliar male voice and turned to see the new gynaecologist and obstetrician, Mr Gaskell junior, standing in her doorway.

  She herself had been a member of his appointment committee. Dr Gaskell senior was her biggest ally. He was her best friend on the board and she was in his debt for the care he had once shown to her mother. She was quite sure that he did not remember her as the young girl he had patiently explained her mother’s condition to, but that suited Emily. Those days lived in a room in her heart. A room she visited when she was alone. She never wanted to talk about them to anyone, ever.

  She felt no guilt about how she had cast her vote on that long day of interviews. She had quickly cottoned on to the fact that the other candidates were from the past – 1920s-trained and steeped in the old-school ways and traditions. Mr Gaskell junior had served his time in the war, interrupted his own career progression by working in field hospitals, and was now well and truly ready to specialize. His father had helped her in defeating Mr Scriven, time after time, and she knew he would be on her side when the battle was fought to allow married nurses to remain in work at St Angelus. Now his own son, standing at least six feet and four inches tall, with thick auburn hair and hazel eyes just like his father’s, had arrived in her doorway.

  ‘Oh, they aren’t worth a penny,’ she laughed, and for the first time in many years she blushed under the interested gaze of a good-looking man.

  After the interview, she had tried to convince herself that only competence had influenced her decision. It had absolutely not been his tousled boyish locks or his charming manner. It hadn’t even been the sense of sadness, which his father had explained was a legacy from the war. When Emily looked at him, she detected something she could not put into words. It was a feeling that was familiar, but which she could no longer identify.

  ‘How have you settled in?’ she asked. ‘Is the room in the doctors’ residence adequate?’

  ‘Yes, well, thank you, and the room is fine. Although Mother would much rather I went home with Father every chance I got. But I don’t expect I shall be spending much time in the residence – I want to be in the hospital and working. I am ready for the challenge.’

  Emily laughed at his boyish enthusiasm, and raised her hand self-consciously to smooth her hair and tuck an errant curl behind her ear. ‘Goodness me, you are going to have an impact on Sister Antrobus, I can tell. Have you met her yet?’

  ‘No, not yet. I’m going through the motions of the paperwork at the moment. You did ask me during my interview if I would do some teaching, so I thought I would pop up to see when was it convenient to have a chat. I’m not familiar with the new nurses’ syllabus and I thought now would be a good time, before I get cracking on the wards, to find out exactly what it is you want me to teach.’

  ‘Were you familiar with the old syllabus?’ Emily half raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  It was now his turn to blush as he thrust his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Well, as you ask, no, not at all. Are you sure you want me to lecture?’

  They both laughed. ‘I’m very sure. I want my nurses to learn about the new methods. We aren’t in the nineteen thirties now, although if you spent a few minutes on ward two you could be forgiven for thinking you were. I know you are an advocate of some of the new thinking and we need that. You do know that on ward two, under Mr Scriven, ladies remain on bed rest for ten days following a simple D and C?’

  Oliver Gaskell hit his forehead in mock exasperation. ‘Well, it was the same all the way through my training. It was to do with hygiene and getting those poor women off their feet, although I’m not sure what happened to their children in the meantime. But you are right; we know so much more about the complications of prolonged bed rest now. The challenge is to convince others.’

  Every word he spoke was music to Emily’s ears. Dragging her eyes away from his face, she said, ‘I agree, but effecting change in St Angelus isn’t easy and needs to be set in motion from the top. I’m afraid Mr Scriven has just gone on as though everything is just as it was. It’s as if the war never happened.’

  Oliver weighed up his words as he spoke. ‘It barely did happen for him, did it?’ No one mentioned the fact that Mr Scriven had been sent abroad with the medical corps and returned after just months away, with an abdominal complaint. ‘It’s not just Mr Scriven, or indeed St Angelus. The war dominated everything for a long time. While we were on the front line, medical progress seems to have stalled back at home. Everything stood still. There were other priorities, such as tending to the injured. Some amazing work has been done in skin grafting and burns treatment, but now everyone is in a hurry to move faster and to change, change, change. It’s almost as though if everything alters, the past can be caught up with, erased even. To be honest, after my own hellish five years, I’m all for that.’

  Emily thought to herself that the past could never be erased. That for people like her, it could only be lived with as best they could.

  Biddy swung the office door open and came in backwards, carrying her tea tray. ‘They have all just filed into the classroom. Sister Ryan is settling them down. God, they made me laugh. The one called Pammy Tanner thought the dummies in the ward room were real. Can you imagine that? I’ve already placed my bet. Nurse Tanner will be the one who faints on mortuary day. If she can’t tell a dead body from a real one, what chance does she have?’ Biddy straightened up and started as she saw Oliver Gaskell. ‘Well, I never did. How in God’s name did you get in, through the window? I never heard anyone come up these stairs, I did not.’

  Oliver took the tray from Biddy. Emily noticed Biddy flush and bluster as he did so. His charm had no boundaries when it came to age, she thought.

  ‘Oh, well, it’s an easy mistake, Biddy. The dummies do look very lifelike.’ Emily hated them herself and couldn’t bear to touch them. The staring eyes, the wax-like faces, the heavy, flopping limbs all made her shudder. It was a relief that she had Sister Ryan to teach the elements of practical nursing.

  ‘Will I fetch another cup? Will I?’ Biddy looked from Emily to Oliver.

  ‘Well, I would love one, if you have time.’

  Emily didn’t have time. Biddy had just told her that the new nurses had filed into the classroom. They would all be on edge, nervous and anxious. Wondering what Sister Haycock would be like and what their morning would hold. She surprised herself, never mind Biddy, when she answered, ‘Yes, I have ten minutes. Biddy, could you fetch a cup and saucer, please?’

  Oliver watched Biddy go and then
turned to Emily. ‘Well, it sounds as if you are going to have your hands full with your Nurse Tanner.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t write off Nurse Tanner just yet, Mr Gaskell. You never know, she may have her own guardian angel at St Angelus and surprise us all.’

  *

  The Epidermis.

  The girls wrote the words Sister Haycock had written on the board very slowly and carefully on to the first page of the large notebook they had each been given. They sat in rows at the long wooden desks, the sound of pens scratching on paper almost drowned by the noise which came from the huge stove in the basement, which warmed the centre of the building and heated the noisy radiators in the large classroom. The large white clock on the wall ticked away the seconds as the probationers concentrated hard, trying to understand what it was they were writing down. The school of nursing had once been the laundry building attached to the workhouse and had retained an atmosphere of unease, which the girls had commented on as soon as they had arrived.

  ‘What did this place use to be?’ Dana had asked, as they walked down the corridor towards the classrooms. ‘Why are the windows so high that you can’t see out of them? Whoever fitted those had no notion of a view.’

  They peered into a mock examination cubicle with white enamel trolleys lined up along the wall, and popped their heads into a mock practical room. Along a bench stood various open drums, and metal tins holding instruments laid on a white cloth, like newly polished silver cutlery.

  ‘Oh, my,’ gasped Victoria as she scanned the equipment, horrified at the sight of everything, from a scalpel to a pair of forceps. ‘They look terrifying. Are we going to be using them on patients?’ Her stomach felt weak.

  ‘Well, of course we will,’ said Beth, who, having lost Celia Forsyth, had tagged along with the three girls. She spoke with a far from pleasant assurance in her voice. ‘Someone hasn’t laid them all out for their own benefit. Those drums are where we will have to pack equipment to be sent away to be sterilized. If I’m not mistaken, some of them are for theatre equipment and some for ward equipment. I think that room is for the second- and third-year nurses to use.’