The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  The arrival of Lorraine hadn’t been the only calamity that had drawn on the resources of the women of Arthur Street. The strongest women Pammy had ever encountered. The bomb on George Street had pulled the community even closer together. Toddlers had been orphaned, adults widowed and children killed before they could even put on their shoes to run to the shelter. The birth of Lorraine on that dreadful night had seemed almost symbolic. She had arrived in the midst of chaos and reminded them all that there was hope. Pammy still shivered when she thought of those days. She remembered long, tearful faces, mounds of rubble and the clouds of dust that had hung over the streets for days. George Street remained almost unaltered from that day to this. It had been razed to the ground and still was nothing more than derelict land and piles of rubble.

  She could also recall the nights of concern and anxiety. The times they scraped money together for the doctor. In the early days, her nana would knock on doors in the street to ask for help, and she never had to travel far. Everyone gave for the doctor to visit a poorly child. The coming of the NHS and free health care had been a blessing because often, while Lorraine grew, the doctor had to be called in the middle of the night. Lorraine got sicker than any other child on the street when she was younger. Often the doctor called in every day, a luxury they could never have afforded before the establishment of the NHS. However, Lorraine was a tough little fighter and she survived.

  ‘Was she a war baby?’ asked Staff Nurse Bates.

  ‘Yes, she came just as our streets took the worst bombing of the war. Trust our Lorraine. Always likes to make a fuss. Too close to the docks, we were. Me mam had her in the shelter, where she was stuck all night. I was only a kid at the time, but it was an awful night, that. Awful.’

  ‘Does she get her own way a lot, then?’ asked Staff Nurse Bates, smiling because she could see that Pammy obviously thought the world of Lorraine. ‘Your mam probably feels she’s very lucky to have her. Do you remember much about that night? Where were you?’

  ‘I can remember some of it, but I wasn’t with Mam, because I was at home with me nana when the siren went off. We ran down to the end of our street to the shelter that was nearest. Me mam was at the shop on the other end, nearer to the docks, so she was separated from us. I reckon that’s why our kid’s such a tough nut.’

  ‘Wow, that’s very dramatic,’ said Staff Nurse Bates. ‘Were there people with her?’

  ‘D’you know what, I don’t really know, but I s’pose there must have been.’ Pammy leant on the trolley with her elbows on the sheets as Staff Nurse Bates reached up to the top shelf for fresh pillows. ‘Me mam never talks about what actually happened and I don’t suppose I’ve ever asked. Not the kind of thing you talk about, is it? To be honest, you’d think the war had never even happened on our street. No one ever talks about it, despite the fact that everyone walks past the rubble to the docks and back.’

  ‘That’s not just on your street, Pammy. I think with the King dying and the new Queen, new beginnings and all that, no one wants to talk about the past.’

  As Staff Nurse Bates balanced on a step and passed linen down to Pammy, Pammy remembered that her mother had carried Lorraine against her chest for months. Tucked inside her jumper and held up with a scarf. ‘It’s the closest I can get to popping her back in,’ her mother had explained, when a jealous Pammy had complained.

  Pammy and Staff Nurse Bates parted ways, Pammy to head down the ward, Staff Nurse Bates into the cubicle to make it ready for their expected patient. Half an hour later, Pammy was at the ward door, holding a wheelchair and saying goodbye to Mrs Toft, who was in the process of being discharged.

  ‘How lovely that you are here on my last day, nurse.’ Mrs Toft beamed. ‘Almost a year of my life I’ve spent on this ward and you are one of the angels I will remember the best. I won’t forget your kindness. Or the other angels’.’

  ‘I won’t forget you either, Mrs Toft,’ said Pammy. ‘You were my very first bed bath and I think it’s lovely that I get to say goodbye to you. It may have taken a year, but just look at how well you have done. Now, let me check. You have got all your medication in that brown paper bag, haven’t you? Any worries, get your Tom to ring the ward office and we will explain everything to him.’

  ‘I have, nurse, everything. Staff Nurse brought them to my bed this morning and explained them. It’s only painkillers, you know. That and some vitamin drops. There’s nothing more medical science can do for me. It’s only thanks to all you lovely nurses and doctors and everyone that I am going home at all. It’s no surprise people call you angels.’

  ‘And you,’ said Pammy. ‘Half of it has been you, wanting to get better as much as you did. We couldn’t have done it without you.’

  Mrs Toft took Pammy’s hand. ‘You won’t see me in here again, nurse,’ she said. ‘If the cancer comes back, I’m staying at home. I’m done with hospitals now. A year away from our Tom has been too much for me. We had enough of being apart during the war. Seven years he was away and he spent two of those in a hospital. Can you imagine that? Twice as long as I have been in here. Terrible that, all that time we’ve wasted. We want to be together now. Done with hospitals we are. To think, I used to never stop moaning about the old bugger. Life’s short, you know; it’s meant to be. You won’t see me back here.’

  Pammy smiled and, bending down, gave Mrs Toft a big hug. ‘We don’t want to see you back in here, either,’ she said. ‘And it’s not coming back. It isn’t. I know you, you won’t let it. You’ve years ahead of you yet.’

  She turned the wheelchair round and the ambulance driver took the handles from her. ‘I’ve been told I have to watch this one, nurse, is that right?’ he said to Pammy with a wink. ‘Dessie down in the porters’ lodge told me that she can get a bit fresh and eats ambulance drivers for breakfast, but not until she’s felt the size of their muscles first. She’s a bit fussy, I’ve heard.’

  Mrs Toft laughed so hard, Pammy thought that if they weren’t careful she would be back in her bed sooner than they had anticipated.

  ‘Don’t worry about me though, nurse,’ he went on. ‘I’ve put a jumper on this morning, so she can’t get at the buttons on me shirt.’ Tears of laughter almost leapt from Mrs Toft’s eyes. Pammy thought they might need to give her oxygen if he carried on.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you saw the size of her Tom.’

  Now the ambulance driver laughed and swept Mrs Toft and the wheelchair around and away down the long wooden corridor to home.

  ‘Bye then,’ shouted Pammy to the retreating raised hand.

  ‘Go on then, one last wave,’ said the ambulance driver, swinging the wheelchair round to face Pammy before performing a perfect pirouette towards the exit and the waiting ambulance.

  Just as she was about to go back into the ward, Pammy saw Dessie pushing a trolley from the opposite direction. A nurse from Casualty ran alongside him, holding a set of case notes and carrying a glass drip bottle. Pammy immediately noted the look of concern on their faces and in a fast heel-toe trot made her way to the cubicle and Staff Nurse Bates.

  ‘She’s on her way,’ she said. ‘I can see them coming down the corridor.’

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than the ward doors burst open. ‘Straight into cubicle one,’ said Staff Nurse Bates, and the trolley immediately swung left into the cubicle. Seconds later, the nurse and the new Casualty doctor Anthony Mackintosh hurried in behind them. ‘Close the door,’ snapped Dr Mackintosh to Dessie. ‘The fewer people who know about this sorry mess, the less chance there is of the police at the door. Who’s in charge here?’

  ‘I am,’ said Staff Nurse Bates.

  ‘We have no idea how she got to the hospital in this state. She just turned up on a chair in the waiting room. We have no name or age, nothing. She seems to be mute and it looks as though an amateur abortionist has inserted a catheter through the cervix and then tried to flush the foetus out with a mixture of carbolic
and water. I have nothing to go on other than the burns and the smell. When will these witches realize, that if a lay person wants to kill a developed foetus they have to kill the mother first? If it was so easy, there would be no need for caesarean sections. We could deliver babies on demand.’

  Pammy and Staff could tell he was angry.

  Just as Dr Mackintosh finished speaking, the patient came round and began to scream. It was the most terrifying noise Pammy had ever heard. She felt her own internal organs crunch in response and her arms prickled with goosebumps. The girl screamed again, long, pitiful, horrifying. It chilled the air as the patients in the ward ceased to chatter and silence fell.

  Pammy must have looked as scared as she felt.

  ‘Her uterus has been distended,’ whispered the nurse from Casualty, who was still holding the drip bottle. ‘It’s the most painful thing any human being can experience, to have a hollow organ distended. Though this one seems to have a seven-month-old baby inside. A curse of women, of course. Couldn’t happen to a man.’

  When the screaming subsided, the doctor took the patient’s pulse. His brow furrowed as he concentrated.

  ‘We have listened to the foetal heart in Casualty,’ he said. ‘Amazingly, it’s still beating, but it’s too fast. The foetus is distressed and so is the mother. She has stopped bleeding, but only just, and this baby is definitely coming, and why wouldn’t it? It can’t feel very safe in there with someone trying to force carbolic water down its mouth. Probably fancies its chances a little better on the outside. But we have seven births on Maternity today, so there’s no room up there.’

  ‘So, she’s around twenty-eight weeks, then?’ asked Staff Nurse Bates.

  ‘Aye, she is, twenty-eight weeks and alive. It’s a miracle. The procedure she has been through can induce primary obstetric shock and it’s instant. Blood pressure falls into their boots and they end up in heart failure. She is so young, too, to have survived such an ordeal, but let’s not count our chickens, eh? We’ve a long way to go till this young girl is out of the woods. Her bladder may have been perforated, her bowel even. It’s too soon to tell. She is in the danger zone at present, and all we really know is that there’s a premature baby on the way who is so distressed it will probably be dead before delivery, and that for some reason this young girl desperately wanted to be rid of it.’

  ‘Are there any internal injuries we should know about?’

  ‘Oh, aye, the carbolic solution the abortionist used to flush out the baby was far too concentrated. The girl is burnt and blistered to bits internally and probably the lining of the uterus is in the same state. The abortionist managed to break in through the amniotic sac, but the cervix is rock hard.’

  ‘How do you know she didn’t do it herself?’

  ‘I don’t, for sure, but can you imagine any woman being able to do this to herself? At the very least, the baby, if it lives, will be blistered and probably blind.’ Pammy thought the doctor was about to cry.

  The patient opened her eyes and focused on Pammy. Her pain appeared to have ebbed and a feeling of calm momentarily filled the room.

  ‘Do we know how long?’ Staff Nurse Bates asked the Casualty nurse.

  ‘We don’t, I’m afraid. It could be twenty minutes or twenty hours. Look, I’m taking a patient up to Maternity in a minute. I’ll see if they have a spare midwife who can come down and help, but with deliveries on the way in it’s not likely. I don’t know what they’ve put in the water in Liverpool. The number of pregnant women coming into St Angelus is ridiculous and almost more than we can cope with. Who was it who decided that hospital was a safer place than home to give birth? They must have been mad.’

  Half an hour later, the room was calmer as Pammy, left alone with the patient, checked her charts were in order.

  ‘Hello there,’ she said to the frightened young girl, who looked vulnerable and frail. Her skin was pale. Beads of perspiration stood proud on her top lip and across her eyebrows. Pammy slipped her hand into hers. It was cold and damp.

  ‘Well, you are the mystery one. You just turned up out of nowhere and had no one with you, they said, and in the pain you were in too. Was there really no one with you? Come on then, love, what’s your name at least?’

  The girl looked at her through wide and frightened eyes but didn’t speak a word.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want to. Don’t worry. You just catch your breath and take your time. Tell you what, shall I fetch you a cuppa? A piece of toast? Something nice and warm?’

  Pammy saw the girl’s eyes fill with tears. ‘Hey, come on,’ she said, and although it was against Sister Antrobus’s very strict rules she sat on the side of the bed and took both the girl’s hands in her own.

  ‘Don’t cry, love. I know this is awful and I don’t know all the details, but Mr Scriven is the consultant on this ward and he’s the top man on call today. He’s the best, so they say. He will come and see you soon, I’m sure.’

  Pammy wasn’t really sure she actually believed this. Mr Scriven had a reputation for being less than charming towards his patients, but she desperately wanted to say something to reassure this young girl, to wipe away the look of terror from her eyes. But her words had the opposite effect.

  At the mention of Mr Scriven’s name, the patient clasped Pammy’s hand. ‘No,’ she hissed. She could say no more before she was seized by another contraction.

  This girl was too young to go through this, thought Pammy. The pain was just too severe. Something was definitely wrong. ‘There, there, my love,’ she whispered. ‘Breathe and blow through your mouth, and it will pass quickly. The doctors will be here soon.’

  Pammy’s kindness seemed only to make things worse. The girl let out a stifled sob.

  Pammy peered inside her bag, to check for a nightdress or toiletries. Had she expected to be admitted? There were no overnight things and the ring on her wedding finger was almost falling off. If Pammy had to guess, she would say it was neither gold nor the girl’s. It looked more like a curtain ring from Woolworths and Pammy wouldn’t have minded betting that it was.

  ‘Do you want to talk to me?’ she asked in a tender voice. ‘I won’t say anything to anyone. Everything here is strictly confidential, if that’s what you’re worried about. Cross me heart.’ She made a sign of the cross on her chest and smiled at the girl. ‘You look to me like you need a shoulder to cry on.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m not allowed.’ Again, the young girl emitted a stifled sob.

  ‘Oh, God, come here, queen,’ said Pammy as she scooped her up into her arms.

  The gesture released a flood of tears and the girl sobbed violently in Pammy’s arms. Pammy knew that if Sister Antrobus walked into the room, or even if Staff Nurse were to catch her hugging this young patient, they would disapprove of such a personal display of comfort. Her actions were unprofessional. She knew it and she didn’t care.

  ‘I’m frightened.’ The words sounded tortured and pathetic and were whispered into Pammy’s shoulder.

  Once the first torrent of tears had subsided, Pammy held the girl a little away from her, while still holding her gently by the arms.

  ‘Do you have a mam? Is there anyone I can contact to let them know you’re here, in St Angelus? What’s your name, queen? Are you going to tell me?’

  The girl shook her head, with such conviction that Pammy realized there was no point in pressing her.

  ‘OK. Well look, I’m going to leave you for one minute, to find out what you can eat and drink and get you a bedpan, but I will be back in a jiffy, so don’t worry.’

  She plumped up the pillows with one hand, supporting her patient with the other, and laid her back with tenderness.

  As Pammy headed to the office in search of Staff Nurse Bates, the senior staff nurse marched past her with the drugs trolley.

  ‘Have you seen Branna?’ she asked in a voice loaded with new-found self-importance. ‘That woman treats ward two as a social club. She never stops chatting to t
he patients and when she isn’t wasting time doing that, she’s harvesting gossip from the porters’ lodge.’

  ‘The ward is lovely and clean though,’ said Pammy, looking down at the shining floor.

  Staff Nurse sniffed and looked down her nose. ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, Nurse Tanner. If you see Branna, please tell her I’m looking for her.’

  Feeling deflated, Pammy walked into the office just as Staff Nurse Bates put down the phone. ‘God, I can’t believe it. She’s almost as bad as the Anteater. She’s just near bitten me nose off.’

  ‘Yes, well, never mind Miss Bossy Knickers. She’s only a year ahead of me and I get it too. I’ve just spoken to Sister on Casualty. Our mystery patient arrived on her own. They didn’t notice her until someone saw her sitting crying on one of the seats. There was a puddle of blood under the seat, apparently. Mr Scriven is being very evasive on the telephone. His light has been up for ever and he only just called me. Said he’ll be down presently.’

  ‘What do we do then?’ asked Pammy. ‘She wouldn’t tell me anything either, but she’s just had a good cry.’

  ‘I’m damned if I know. I’ve never had a nameless patient before. Let’s start with the usual procedures. You set up the examination trolley for when the doctor arrives. Put a jug of chlorhexidine solution on it while we wait for our masters to let us know what’s going on and who this poor terrified creature is. They’re sending a delivery pack down from Maternity. Keep an eye on the drip, it’s there to keep a vein open in case they need to give her any drugs.’

  ‘A delivery pack?’ asked Pammy with a hint of surprise in her voice.

  ‘Yes, well, we are delivering a baby. She is at twenty-eight weeks’ gestation, or thereabouts. No one can say if this baby will be born dead or alive. Your Lorraine survived. This one may do and could be your first delivery.’

  Pammy rushed to set up her trolley in the clean utility room, as she had been taught. She mentally checked off each item and prayed there was nothing she had forgotten as she counted out her speculums.