The Children of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  Lily smiled as he spoke and thought that she for one could imagine just that.

  Joe’s eyes widened. ‘He’s been living here, waiting for me?’ he wheezed.

  ‘Oh that’s right, little man, and shall I tell you something else? He’s the only doctor in this hospital to carry a bar of chocolate around in his pocket. The doctors who look after the threes and fours, they can’t get near the key for the chocolate cupboard.’

  Despite his obvious discomfort, Joe’s eyes had lit up and he was beaming from ear to ear. His face was a picture of wonderment.

  ‘You will see for yourself exactly what I mean,’ said Teddy to Lily, whose eyes had filled with tears of gratitude for nothing more than that he’d made Joe smile. She wanted to say to both Pammy and the doctor that they weren’t used to such kindness or attention. That never in his life had anyone other than Lily spoken so many kind words to little Joe or been as concerned as this doctor so obviously was.

  No sooner had the words left Teddy’s mouth than he heard Dr Mackintosh talking to Doreen. ‘Excuse me a moment, please,’ he said to Lily and disappeared beyond the curtains.

  Dr Mackintosh was scanning the entries in the big black book. He appeared dishevelled, with a stethoscope flung around his neck. He was unshaven, his shirt was crumpled and his copper hair was tousled.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said to Teddy. ‘I’ve been here since the day before yesterday. We have so many poorly bronchial babies on the ward. The air in Liverpool, it’s tough.’ His accent was Scottish and his voice was gentle and full of authority.

  ‘So I hear,’ Teddy replied. ‘I bet you’ll be glad when all this talk of a Clean Air Act for Liverpool comes to something.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put money on it happening any day soon,’ Dr Mackintosh replied. ‘It’s in the hands of the politicians. If London hadn’t had that dreadful smog, a Clean Air Act wouldn’t even be on the cards. They say four thousand people died in London as a result of that smog, but do you see any politicians asking how many people died in Liverpool? And even if it does become law, apparently it will be down to each city corporation to decide whether or not they accept it. If the children of local politicians had died as a result of the smog, it would have been passed by now.’

  Hearing that made Teddy furious. He’d heard quite a lot about the issue from Oliver Gaskell, whose father, Dr Gaskell, had spent the last year travelling up and down to London to give his expert opinion on it. He knew that Dr Gaskell was frustrated with the progress.

  ‘There’s a chap, an MP called Nabarro,’ said Dr Mackintosh. ‘He’s trying to push the government along by bringing in some sort of private bill. But right now we need to attend to this very important young man you have behind the curtain.’

  Both doctors walked back into the cubicle. Teddy smiled at little Joe and winked. Little Joe tried to wink back, but his breathing was so laboured it was all he could do to inhale.

  Dr Mackintosh examined little Joe thoroughly and spent what was actually minutes but felt like hours to Lily listening to his chest.

  Folding his stethoscope in half, he pushed it into his pocket and looked at Joe. ‘Right, young man, we have a little problem here. I’m going to need you to be admitted to St Angelus for a wee while.’

  Without waiting for a reply from Joe, he turned to Pammy and Dr Davenport. ‘I’m going to give him some aminophylline. Nurse, could you set up for an intravenous injection, please.’

  He then turned to address Lily. ‘Mother, would you like to step outside and we can have a little word.’

  Lily looked from Pammy to the doctor, a pleading expression in her eyes.

  Reading the signs, Pammy spoke for her. ‘This is his sister, Dr Mackintosh. Joe’s mother had left for work before Miss Lancashire here noticed Joe’s breathing was worse than usual.’

  ‘Really? With a wheeze as bad as that? How could your mother have slept a wink? He must have kept the whole street awake. How could she have not noticed?’

  Dr Mackintosh had been working in the casualty department at St Angelus since the end of the war. He had trained in Edinburgh and worked in Glasgow before travelling south to Liverpool during the war years. He had witnessed enough cases of neglect to have given him a sixth sense.

  ‘Our mam, she works hard, she’s a heavy sleeper,’ said Lily anxiously. She cast a glance at little Joe and hoped he wouldn’t say anything. She had used this line once before at the doctor’s and little Joe had piped up, ‘No that’s wrong, Lily. Our mam doesn’t go to work, she’s in bed.’

  Dr Mackintosh walked over to the seats and beckoned for Lily to sit down. ‘How long has he been like this?’ he asked, his voice brimming with gentle concern.

  Lily fumbled for an answer. Just as she was about to reply, Teddy’s voice rang out from a gap in the curtains. ‘Er, Dr Mackintosh, do you think you might have forgotten some-thing?’

  Dr Mackintosh looked at Teddy with a puzzled expression on his face. Teddy stared at the pocket in his doctor’s coat and nodded his head furiously. He had parted the curtains and was holding them from the inside. Lily thought he looked ridiculously funny, like a talking head hanging on to the outside of the curtains. Lily also thought Dr Mackintosh and Teddy were the kindest people she had ever met.

  ‘Forgotten something...?’ Dr Mackintosh furrowed his brow and then Lily watched as a twinkle lit up his eyes. ‘Ah, well now, excuse me,’ he said to her as he stood. ‘Have I got this right, is Joe a nearly-four-year-old? Yes, he is, I see now,’ he said, looking down at the sheet of paper he’d written on as he walked back behind the curtains.

  Joe nodded his head furiously.

  ‘Well now, you see, I wouldn’t have known that. You are a big man for four. I thought you were at least five. Dr Davenport will tell you, I’ve been waiting a very long time for a nearly-four-year-old to come into casualty because, you see, here in my pocket I’ve been carrying around with me a very special piece of chocolate for the next nearly-four-year-old who comes in. And it looks like that is you. Are you sure this young man is only nearly four years old, Dr Davenport, and you aren’t having me on? He looks like he’s clever and big enough for school to me.’

  Teddy put on a very grave face and picked up the notes Pammy had left on the side of the bed. ‘Well, Nurse Tanner has put down that he is nearly four, but you know what she’s like. You have to watch her,’ he said to little Joe. ‘Turn your back and her hand is down Dr Mackintosh’s pocket and nicking the chocolate as fast as you like. She’s been after that special chocolate for nearly-four-year-olds. Watch out, here she comes.’

  Dr Mackintosh pulled a Cadbury’s chocolate bar out of his pocket and snapped off a large chunk. ‘I have to keep some back,’ he said to little Joe. ‘Nearly-four-year-olds are like buses, you never know when the next one will come along.’

  Joe took the chocolate and turned it over and over in his hands, looking at it in wonder. Then, holding his arm out to Lily, he gasped between breaths, ‘Take it home for our Katie, Lily.’

  Again, tears filled Lily’s eyes. ‘I will not. You can keep it in your pocket for when you’re feeling better.’

  ‘Trolley is ready, Doctor,’ said Pammy as she bustled in behind the curtains.

  ‘Just one minute whilst I explain to Miss Lancashire here what it is I am about to do.’

  Anthony Mackintosh took Lily by the arm and led her back towards the hard wooden chairs. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Could you get this young lady a cup of tea, please. She will be here a wee while yet.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Pammy. ‘Right away.’

  ‘And a biscuit or two wouldn’t go amiss, Nurse, thank you. Now, what your brother has, we see often here in young children. He has no temperature, he isn’t sickening as such. There is an irregularity in the pattern of his breathing. He is struggling to exhale, to breathe out, and you may have noticed that his chest bone protrudes slightly, even at his young age, which we call a pigeon chest. The learned doctors in this land think that what your br
other has is a breathing condition that is psychosomatic, that is, it is all in his head. According to them, the wheeze you hear on the top of his breathing is actually the child crying out for his mother.’

  Anthony took in the expression that shot across Lily’s face. Nothing in these situations escaped his attention.

  ‘Now, it may interest you to know that I don’t hold with any of this, but in a funny way I have to, because I can’t prove it is anything else. My own suspicion is that there is something inflammatory, and certainly not infectious, going on, but I just can’t prove that.’

  Lily looked confused. Anthony leant forward on the seat. He felt sorry for this young woman. She obviously loved her little brother very much.

  ‘I’m sorry. I hope I’m not making this sound too confusing and complicated. Look, the wee lad needs an injection right now to help with his breathing. We have to give it to him very, very slowly, but when we have, I’d expect that he’ll be well enough to go home in a few days and he won’t be giving that chocolate to anyone, least of all his sister. But if he isn’t any better, I cannot let him go back home until I know the attack has stopped.’

  Lily smiled and as she did, Anthony Mackintosh’s heart leapt. Her hair was unbraided and hung in a voluminous, unkempt mass around her shoulders, framing her face and making her features look small and vulnerable and her eyes wide and apprehensive. He knew that there was a secret behind those eyes and for a split second he had an urge to know what it was. To know the real reason Joe had come in with his sister and not a parent.

  Pammy pushed a trolley towards them. On it was placed all the equipment she needed and a cup and saucer. ‘Here you go,’ she said to Lily. ‘I’ve put two sugars in the tea and two custard creams on the saucer too.’

  Just at that moment, Miss Van Gilder strode up. ‘Has casualty become a café now, may I ask?’ Her tone was so sharp that Lily wanted to drop the cup and saucer. Everyone felt the chill breeze that blew across the casualty unit with the arrival of the new assistant matron.

  Pammy suddenly remembered something the nurses had been talking about the week earlier. Beth Harper had said that Sister Emily Haycock from the nursing school had threatened to jump out of the window when she heard whom Matron had selected.

  Joe began to whimper. Assistant Matron’s tone had frightened him, even though she had not said a word to him directly and had spoken over his head, but as Lily came back around the curtains, her tea and biscuits abandoned under the condemning eyes of Miss Van Gilder, he held out both of his arms towards her.

  ‘This boy,’ Miss Van Gilder barked at Dr Mackintosh, ‘we all know this condition is a psychiatric problem, so why is he here? By that wheeze, I suspect that his mother is absent for much of the time. It is an established fact, Doctor, that the wheezing child uses the wheeze to gain attention. It is a cry for help and an indication that the mother is failing in her mothering duties.’

  Teddy thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Pammy instinctively moved towards the top of the bed, stroked little Joe’s hair back from his face and whispered, ‘There, there, now.’ As she did so, she looked at Lily with an expression that said, ‘Don’t worry, we are here.’

  Dr Mackintosh spoke. ‘Assistant Matron, I am well aware of the clinical opinion based on these symptoms. As the senior registrar at St Angelus, I don’t require your clinical analysis, thank you very much, and if you don’t mind, I would like to alleviate this little boy’s symptoms without delay. My opinion is that he has been breathing in this manner for far too long and if he continues, there may be consequences.’

  Assistant Matron puffed out her chest and pushed her glasses up her nose. Her dark navy dress, worn at the longer length, which had been common during the war, made her look even more severe. Her overly frilled cap on top of powder-black hair and steel-rimmed glasses failed to project any degree of femininity or compassion.

  ‘As you wish, Dr Mackintosh. You are indeed the senior registrar. However, if I believe that money and beds are being wasted on the feckless in this casualty unit, I shall have to report it to the board.’

  Anthony Mackintosh rose to his full height, which was a daunting six foot two inches. ‘That is entirely your prerogative, Assistant Matron. However, at this moment, mine is the treatment of some rather distressing symptoms being experienced by a nearly-four-year-old little boy. Although you could be forgiven for thinking he was five.’ Dr Mackintosh smiled at little Joe in an attempt to wipe away the look of fear which had flooded his face.

  ‘Dr Davenport, could you hand me the aminophylline, please. Nurse Tanner, let us find a vein now, shall we? It will take me about half an hour to administer this drug. It must be done very slowly. If given too quickly, it can lower the blood pressure to a dangerous level, which is why I would like his blood pressure taken every four minutes, please, Dr Davenport.’

  Miss Van Gilder had stomped off in a huff and Lily, entirely forgotten about as the doctors and Pammy focused all their care and attention on Joe, slumped down on to the wooden chair. She picked up the cup of tea; it was now cold, but she didn’t care. It had sugar in, which was a rare thing. Lily’s mother sold their sugar coupons to get money for alcohol. There was talk of the coupons ending soon and Lily couldn’t wait. One less income stream to be spent in the pub. The cold milky tea was the first thing to pass her lips since teatime the night before. She gulped it down and it tasted delicious. Taking the two custard creams from the saucer, she slipped them into her coat pocket to take home to Katie, as a treat.

  Dr Mackintosh took almost forty minutes to administer the aminophylline and when Lily was called back into the cubicle she noticed it had had an effect. Joe was breathing much more easily and his expression was free from panic.

  Dr Mackintosh washed his hands at the sink and as he dried them, he walked over to Lily. ‘As you can see, he has improved, but not as much as I would have hoped. I would still like to have him on the ward.’

  Lily didn’t know what to say. She was so grateful to this kind man who had made Joe laugh and the words that were tapping on her brain, demanding to be spoken, were simply not enough.

  Dr Mackintosh looked at Lily for what even he knew was too long.

  He was thirty and single and hadn’t had a girlfriend since his student days. His life since the war had ended had been entirely taken up by the study and practice of emergency medicine. Any number of the nurses he had encountered over the years could have been his wife by now, but he was someone who liked a challenge and felt that something worth having had to be worked for. He had been offered his uncle’s GP practice in Aberdeen six years ago but had opted to stay in emergency medicine instead. Its rapid pace of change excited him and he enjoyed trying to keep up with the daily uncovering of new diseases and drugs. Liverpool was one of the most demanding cities in the country to work in, with high levels of industry and poverty and a booming birth rate, and he loved it.

  He had met a hundred young boys like Joe, but the young woman who had accompanied her brother had stirred something in him. She was so earnest. So sincere. And her pride, well, that was plain to see and made her all the more intriguing.

  *

  Half an hour later, Lily was heading down towards the docks and the processing plant. If she was quick enough, she would have time to make up the pay packets and that would include her own. She would be able to get home with enough food for Katie’s tea and then back down to the hospital to visit Joe on the ward. She had been told she would be allowed to visit tonight and then the sister on the children’s ward would tell her when she could next visit. Nurse Tanner had said that might not be for another week, if little Joe was to be admitted for a long stay. Lily knew her mother wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered about how long Joe had to remain as an in-patient.

  Dr Mackintosh had been quite clear about his expectations and the long road ahead for Joe.

  ‘I’m going to keep him in here for at least a couple of weeks,’ he’d told her, ‘and, to be honest, with a
chest as pronounced as his, maybe longer. I have a friend who is a specialist in London who is visiting soon and I may ask him to take a look at Joe. He’s working on the theory that this could be an inflammatory condition, not psychosomatic, and I want to do anything I can to support him. And besides, I think Joe has an enhanced chance of getting better in here, where it’s warm and there’s good, hot food. Would you agree with me? I expect you have a tough time worrying about this young man, don’t you?’

  Lily had looked up at the gentle giant. She wanted to say so many things to him. That she didn’t know people like him existed. That if someone had told her that St Angelus could make Joe so much better, she would have brought him in long ago. But all she could manage was a faint ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You are very welcome. It’s my job, to make nearly-four-year-olds better.’

  A smile spread across Lily’s face. It was met by a smile appearing on Dr Mackintosh’s.

  Lily noticed that he had dark circles under his eyes, which were bloodshot. He looked exhausted, and yet he’d had so much time for Joe and been so patient with him. More than anyone else other than Lily had ever been.

  ‘I hope to see you visiting maybe, on the ward?’

  For a moment, Lily was taken aback. She hadn’t been aware that Dr Mackintosh was speaking to her. She nodded, feeling awkward and embarrassed. She thought of her mother coming to the hospital, demanding to see Joe, as she surely would as soon as she sobered up. She would turn his illness into a reason for people to take pity on her, for the neighbours to flock to her offering comfort and a spare shilling and a bottle to help. The thought that she would storm in here and sully this caring, calm atmosphere with her brashness was something Lily could not bear to contemplate.

  Her voice was filled with sadness as she replied, ‘I have to go to work now, but I’ll be back soon. Thank you, Doctor.’