The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  Pammy had also seen the location of her room as an advantage. ‘Do you reckon I will be able to sneak people in and out, with me being so close to the front door too?’

  ‘My God, are you serious?’ asked Dana, shocked. ‘Like who would ye be thinking of? Who would you want to sneak in?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind one of those medical students for a start.’

  And that was the last word anyone spoke until they arrived at the school of nursing. Thoughts preoccupied with surviving mortuary Friday.

  *

  ‘They all look a bit squeamish and they have yet to set foot inside the door,’ Biddy said as she brought Emily’s morning tea. ‘Not one of them has taken her cape off. One of the poor things is even shivering. Getting themselves all worked up, they are in there. You look after that Irish girl, now. She’s a dote, that one, though some of the others need a lesson in manners. I heard that Celia Forsyth, the one from Cheshire, giving out to the others about her. I’ll tell ye what, if I hear her again, she’ll be getting the sharp edge of my tongue. She has no nature, that one. Full of herself she is.’

  Emily folded the morning paper and put it down on her desk. ‘Trouble is, Biddy, this first week brings out the best and the worst in our new nurses. I think that Celia Forsyth has been rather spoilt at home, and now she’s here she is out of her depth and it makes her behave in a way she may not ordinarily do. Dana, the Irish girl, has a good group around her. She’ll survive. Don’t worry, I’ve marked Nurse Forsyth’s card. I will only tolerate arrogance and churlishness for so long, but for now, it’s her first week. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘That’s your trouble, you know,’ said Biddy, with a frown. ‘You see the good in everyone, and I would say that was a curse. You want to try and shake that off. I don’t think it’s a good quality for a woman in your position.’

  Emily smiled at Biddy. She had taken to monitoring the odour on a daily basis and noted that this morning it wasn’t so bad. That conversation needed to be had, but it would involve convincing Biddy to agree to an appointment with Dr Jackson and Emily knew that wouldn’t be easy.

  ‘Right, now, tea down and I’m off into the classroom for the pre-mortuary pep talk. I’ll let the porter know we are off, in case I need a stretcher back.’

  ‘It won’t be the first time, if you do,’ said Biddy, clearing the tea things back on to the tray. ‘I just hope I win on the bet.’

  Emily tried her best to look as though she disapproved. ‘I hope you haven’t told the mortuary attendants to walk like zombies again, Biddy. If someone faints and hurts herself, I would be responsible.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. When have I ever done that?’ Biddy now had her back to Emily, as she began to carry the tray out of the room. Emily couldn’t see the smile on her face, but she knew it was there.

  *

  The mortuary block stood some distance away from the hospital, at the opposite end of the car park. The building had been hurriedly erected as a temporary measure during the war, with grand plans for a replacement as soon as the hostilities were over. The grand plans had never materialized and the asbestos-lined square building had simply been added to over the past eight years to create a more imposing, larger, greyer square building.

  ‘They say the men who work in the mortuary are really weird,’ Pammy whispered to the others. ‘Some say they are into black magic and suck the blood from the corpses when they arrive at the mortuary. Our Lorraine, she said that you can tell if a corpse has had the blood sucked out because they will be white, like zombies.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Pammy. There’s no such thing as zombies,’ said Victoria. Celia Forsyth was walking directly behind, chatting to Beth, and Pammy overheard heard her say, ‘Not zombies, eh? Then they must be Irish. Easy mistake.’

  Pammy looked at Dana, but she was deep in conversation with Victoria and hadn’t heard. Pammy turned round and fell into step between Beth and Celia. ‘Oi you, I know who that comment was aimed at. Make one more like that and you will be very, very sorry. Did you hear me?’

  If Dana or Victoria had heard her, they would have thought that she had gone quite mad. Her voice was cold and intimidating as well as loaded with meaning. She had grown up on the streets and was a fighter. She was also loyal to her friends.

  Beth gave an uncomfortable cough. ‘Steady on, Nurse Tanner,’ she said.

  Pammy swung round. ‘Don’t you go telling me to steady on. You had better decide which camp you are in, miss, because you can’t be in both.’

  ‘May I ask why I will be sorry?’ Celia Forsyth raised her eyebrows. ‘And who says so? On what authority will I be made to feel sorry? You and whose army? Your little bog jumper over there?’ Celia Forsyth spoke the last few words louder and aimed them at Dana.

  Pammy began to boil, but she could tell Celia was not quite as confident as she had been only a moment before and Beth was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  She took a deep breath before she waded back in. ‘Listen here, I don’t need any authority, or any army, girl. I’ve seen you and the way you look down your nose at Dana. Do it one more time, just once, and you will have me to answer to. Bog jumper, eh? Don’t be so free with your name-calling, or some of us might have to use a few ourselves. You’re not perfect, miss. From Cheshire are you? We have names for you Cheshire lot here in Liverpool, you thick woollyback. Kissed any sheep lately?’

  Celia Forsyth blushed red with anger as some of the nurses walking around them began to snigger and the word ‘woollyback’ was repeated down the line. Celia had been trying very hard to make an impression on her peers. She was irritated to not have been born in the more stylish suburbs of London as many of the nurses had been, which she felt automatically carried a badge of sophistication, or in a country pile like Victoria. Celia’s family were post-war northern industrialists and had done very well, but Celia was only too aware that new money was frowned upon in true society. Her parents were as far removed from farming as it was possible to be and only lived in Cheshire to put distance between their home and the smog of Liverpool. Celia smarted at the word ‘woollyback’. Nothing Pammy said could have insulted her more.

  ‘Say that again,’ she hissed, threateningly, but there was no time for Pammy to respond as a hush rippled through the chattering nurses. An eerie calm descended as they came to a halt in front of the door to the mortuary.

  Hearts missed beats. Throats seized as a man, stooped and bearded, with glasses as thick as the bottom of a milk bottle, slowly opened the creaking door. Each nurse instinctively pulled her cape tighter across her body and tucked her arms inside as he said in a low, menacing tone, loaded with a promise of impending doom, ‘Good morning, nurses.’

  ‘God,’ Pammy whispered. ‘It’s worse than I thought.’ Dana instinctively reached out for Victoria’s hand. Victoria squeezed Dana’s back and the two girls shuffled closer to each other. Beth was the only one among them who looked calm, but then Beth hadn’t told any of them this wouldn’t be the first time she had seen a dead body. Beth had played her cards close to her chest. She had often helped out as a volunteer at the army base hospital and had absorbed everything she had seen and heard, like a sponge.

  ‘I’ve got a plan,’ Dana whispered to Victoria. ‘Let’s close our eyes. That way, we see nothing at all.’

  ‘That’s a jolly good plan,’ whispered Victoria back. ‘No one will be looking at us. I’ll hold on to the back of Pammy’s cape and she can lead us in.’

  ‘Would you look at that man.’ Dana nodded at the mortuary attendant, slowly dragging his leg behind him as he walked ahead of them. Suddenly he stopped and turned to face the group of nurses. A few of the girls at the front let out a shocked squeal followed by a nervous laugh. For a moment, they thought he had forgotten what to say, but then he spoke in a voice that was slow and heavy.

  ‘Will the last nurse in through the door close it behind you and bolt it. We don’t want any of the corpses escaping, or one of you young lad
ies making a run for it.’ Another nervous laugh rippled through the anteroom.

  Sister Haycock frowned. ‘Move forward please, nurses,’ she shouted from the back, in a louder and brighter voice than usual.

  ‘Come along, get a move on,’ said Sister Ryan with an impatient efficiency, pushing the reluctant nurses forward.

  The nurses unwillingly shuffled after the attendant into a large and very cold room. Many were now openly holding on to each other’s capes and huddling together for the sake of touching someone alive who felt exactly the same as they did. The chilly temperature in the room quickly penetrated their bones.

  ‘Sister Ryan will explain the mortuary service along with Mr Nightlinger here,’ Emily’s voice rang out. ‘Mr Nightlinger works in the mortuary and has done so for the past forty years, haven’t you, Mr Nightlinger?’

  Mr Nightlinger didn’t speak. He nodded, slowly looking at all of the nurses in turn and terrifying each one as he did so.

  ‘Today we have brought you here as an introduction to the premises and the process of transfer from the wards. To show you what happens after you have completed last offices on a patient. You need to know, so that you can pass the information on to relatives and friends who may have reason to attend the mortuary. There will be some occasions when you will be required to accompany a porter yourself. This happens more often when you are on night duty and there are fewer porters around. I have no idea why, but the porters refuse to enter the mortuary alone.’

  A sharp intake of breath swept the room. Sister Ryan, unperturbed, continued. ‘It may be late at night and we don’t want you losing your nerve then. This is why we find it so useful to familiarize you with the building now. Take a look around you. Remember what you see. This is your first time here, and the next time you visit I want you to feel confident and knowledgeable. You may well be looking after patients on the final stages of their journey before they are transferred to the chapel of rest. Performing last offices is a great honour, as I am sure you understand.’

  Sister Ryan gazed pointedly at the rows of metal doors. She might have been studying the smile of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. ‘Right, those are the fridges in which the bodies are stored until the undertaker takes them away. Mr Nightlinger will show you a cadaver in a moment.’

  Another audible group intake of breath. This time tighter, sharper and more fearful.

  Any minute now, thought Emily, as she threw Sister Ryan a ‘here we go’ glance. The trouble was that nurse training began at the age of eighteen. An age when most girls appeared to possess a heightened sense of drama. It was inherent in almost every probationer.

  ‘In your tenth week we study the heart and then we shall return to attend and observe a post mortem. The coroner is very obliging and, along with Sister Haycock, will take you through that procedure. You will see the various chambers of the heart and the detail of the thoracic cavity, first hand and close up. This will be incredibly beneficial to your understanding of the body and how it works, and prepare you for your time in the operating theatre. The sounds and the smells, in addition to dealing with the end of life for the first time, will all be slightly new and difficult to cope with, but today we are just going to have a look round and open a few fridges so that you can pass the test of seeing a dead body for the first time.’

  Sister Ryan stopped talking to make sure everyone was still standing, then:

  ‘Mr Nightlinger, open a fridge, would you, and let the girls see their first cadaver.’

  Mr Nightlinger had been perched on a wooden stool while Sister Ryan spoke. He slipped from the stool with no great hurry and walked towards a small square metal door. With a flourish, and with a movement so rapid that he took the girls by surprise, he pulled the fridge handle down. A body shot out among them on well-oiled runners. The screams of twenty-one nurses filled the air. Mr Nightlinger always presented the grimmest body he had in store. This one was an elderly tramp. Despite the best efforts of the mortuary staff and the frosty paleness of his skin, he did not look contented or serene.

  A grin slowly spread across Mr Nightlinger’s face just as a loud thud announced that one of the girls had passed out cold.

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ said Pammy to Dana, as they turned round to see who it was. ‘What comes around goes around, eh?’

  Behind them, Nurse Celia Forsyth lay flat on her back on the cold grey tiled floor.

  Chapter eleven

  Jake and Martha left the cinema hand in hand. Jake had sat with his arm around Martha’s shoulder throughout the film. He felt more like a man than he had ever done before.

  ‘That Diana Dors, did you see her hair?’ Martha’s voice was full of excitement. ‘Everything about her was so sophisticated. I’ll never be like that, Jake. My hair will never shine like that. It was so beautiful.’

  It hadn’t exactly been Diana Dors’s hair or her sophistication that had impressed Jake. There were moments in the film when he had to remember to check that his mouth wasn’t hanging open, but he was keeping quiet. He didn’t want to do or say anything that would make his Martha feel less than the beautiful princess he thought she was.

  ‘She was very pretty, but not as pretty as you, Martha. She has a long way to go there yet to catch you up.’

  Martha squealed. ‘Jake, you are full of the blarney sometimes. Honest to God, you are.’

  Jake grinned and hugged Martha to him. ‘I’m not. I just don’t think there is any woman in Liverpool as pretty as you, that’s all. I’ve always thought so. Ever since you came off your three-wheeler when you were a toddler and hit the kerb with your mouth. Do you remember that?’

  Martha groaned. ‘Do you know, my gum still feels sore sometimes.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You knocked out every one of your front baby teeth and the ones that were left, they all turned black. Pretty as a picture you were. I led you with one hand and dragged the bike with the other, all the way to your front door. Yer mam, she almost had a fit when she saw you and all the blood pouring down the front of your dress.’

  Martha giggled. ‘She did, but that’s the reason she likes you, Jake, because you looked after me. My mam never forgets a good turn.’

  Jake felt his heart swell. Maybe it was because of that day, at age six when Martha had first made him feel like a man. The day she had turned her babyish face towards him and cried for help. Jake sometimes felt overcome by feelings of protectiveness when he was around Martha.

  ‘I want to do that for ever, Martha. Protect you.’

  Martha buried her face in his shoulder as they walked along in step. ‘Don’t let anyone hear you say that, Jake Berry,’ she said. ‘Someone might think you were proposing to me.’

  Jake held Martha out at arm’s length. That had certainly not been his intention when he collected Martha from her front door to take her to the picture house. In fact, it was something he thought would be at least another year down the line, when he had done the house up and had somewhere to take his new bride, but in a flash he was seized by the moment and before he could stop himself, the words were out.

  ‘Martha, I am,’ he said, surprising himself as much as Martha. ‘I am proposing to you,’ and in the middle of a busy moonlit street Jake dropped on to one knee. ‘Martha O’Brien, will you marry me?’ He almost laughed out loud at himself.

  For a moment, Martha was so stunned, she could not respond.

  ‘Go on, love, say yes.’ A couple walking past them had stopped and were watching with amused grins on their faces, and now a small crowd of people leaving the Odeon began to gather around them. Jake began to feel very self-conscious as Martha, embarrassed and thrilled, began to giggle.

  ‘Martha, will you answer me? Would you look at the cut of me, kneeling on the floor, me knees gone numb.’

  Martha hesitated no longer. Without any idea she was saying yes to a man of some means, she put Jake out of his misery. ‘I will, Jake Berry, yes, I will.’

  Rising to his feet, Jake removed his cap and kissed his new
fiancée. It took a moment for them to realize they were being applauded by a crowd of cinema-goers.

  ‘That was better than the film, that, mate,’ shouted one man, as he clapped.

  ‘Make sure he always brings you tea in bed, love,’ called his wife.

  ‘May your first born be male,’ shouted another. But Martha and Jake were lost in the bliss of the moment and the anticipation of a life ahead.

  *

  In Lovely Lane, Mrs Duffy had advised the girls to make the most of their weekends off, because once they were on the wards a free Sunday would be a rare treat. Off-duty preferences and requests were always granted to qualified staff first and then nurses who were further up the training ladder; new probationers were last on the list.

  ‘The thing is, you have to bite your lip and get through the first year without complaining,’ Mrs Duffy told Dana and Victoria, as they helped her clear away the hot chocolate mugs so that she could leave promptly.

  The last thing Mrs Duffy liked to do each night was to ensure the catch was down on the front door before she left. During the day the door was left unlocked, for nurses coming to and from the hospital and for the cleaning maids. ‘Let me hear the chain slide now,’ she would shout through the letter box to whichever nurses on the other side had been persuaded to engage in the exaggerated performance of dropping the catch and slipping the bolt and chain across. ‘Good girls,’ they would hear her say once satisfied her charges were locked up as safely as chickens in a coop.

  What Mrs Duffy didn’t know was that as much as she cared for her nurses, they cared for her back. They also had their own ritual, within the sitting room. ‘Mrs Duffy is leaving,’ the nurse on door and chain duty would yell down the corridor. This was the code for whoever was in the sitting room to put down her book or knitting and leave the warmth of the fire to stand discreetly behind the long dark velvet curtains in order to peep through the nets, which Mrs Duffy prided herself on keeping snow white, and watch her as she descended the steps to wait at the bus stop on the opposite side of the road, directly outside the park gates. The nurse on Mrs Duffy duty stood at the window until Mrs Duffy was seated on the bus and watched as it pulled away.