Not one of the girls bothered to do her personal laundry at the end of a shift. They were all too worn out, and besides, if they left out their laundry in a prominent place, it was almost certain that Mrs Duffy would put it through the twin tub for them and their clean clothes would be hanging on the overhead airer when they came home. Dana imagined what her mammy would say if she ever even saw a twin tub. ‘You would go mad with the jealousy if you saw it,’ she’d said to her the last time she’d called. Sure enough, as she opened the laundry-room door, her nostrils were assailed by the smell of clean cotton and washing powder. The room was steamy and damp in a comforting way that reminded her of the kitchen back home.
Dana sat herself on the edge of the wooden table that stood against the wall and was piled high with dried laundry waiting to be ironed. For a brief moment she collapsed back on to the pile and laid her head on the clean clothes.
‘Oh, how much do I need a holiday?’ she said. Her time at St Angelus had been the hardest period of her life. The episode with Patrick, who’d followed her from back home to Liverpool, had been draining. Her new affair with Teddy was exhilarating, despite their earlier misunderstandings. With her eyes closed, she imagined herself in Teddy’s car, motoring along country lanes, as free as birds. Going wherever and doing whatever they liked. ‘God, wouldn’t that be just grand,’ she whispered to the ceiling.
Sitting upright, she heard Mrs Duffy approach and open the door.
‘Dana, it’s you. I had a mad moment there and thought someone might be doing some ironing. But not a bit of it. You girls, you wash your clothes, but nothing gets ironed. It seems to me that your clothes must only ever get worn once.’
Mrs Duffy was standing with her hands on her hips, surveying the mountain of ironing on the table. Dana smiled. They both knew that Mrs Duffy liked to protest, but really she loved doing the ironing. Over the following week, the mountain would diminish and the ironed clothes would quietly arrive on the end of their beds, neatly folded.
Dana smiled at the pile on the table. ‘Has the day finally come when you’re going to tell us all off? Tell you what, I’m going to phone Mammy and as soon as I’ve finished, I’ll make a start.’
‘No you will not,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘You are exhausted. Get away, I’ll be doing it tomorrow when you’re all on the wards.’
‘Mrs Duffy, we can’t win!’ Dana exclaimed with mock indignation.
‘Oh, get away, having a moan is my only pleasure in life. Don’t deny an old woman that, will you.’
Dana grinned as the door closed behind Mrs Duffy and then she heard her shouting at Scamp. ‘Get yourself down off that sofa! How many times do I have to tell you?’ Then came the patter of Scamp’s feet down the corridor.
Dana waited and, sure enough, a moment later she heard him sneak up the stairs, then the creak of Victoria’s door as it pushed open and the sigh of the bed springs above her. Scamp’s favourite place was on the end of Victoria’s bed.
Dana dialled the number to the post office in Belmullet. She should just catch Mrs Brock, the postmistress, before she shut. The shops in Liverpool had closed two hours since, but that wasn’t the way in Mayo. The shops were open as long as the owners were awake, given that almost everyone lived either above or at the back of their business.
The number rang out only twice before it was answered. ‘Dana, ’tis you,’ Mrs Brock sang down the line to her. Normally, Dana couldn’t stand the woman. Today, unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. Mrs Brock was known for her nosey ways, her spreading of the news received in a telegram around the shop almost before her post boy had leant his bicycle against the wall of whatever cottage or farm he was delivering it to.
‘Oh God, what will I do now. Mr Joyce is in his shop, shall I send him in the van to fetch yer mammy, will ye ring back in ten minutes, will ye now?’
It was as if she had never left. Listening to the voice of Mrs Brock brought so much back. The smell of the peat and the sound of the cows. Nostalgia washed over her like the breeze off the Atlantic, not half an hour’s walk away from her own front door. It had been so long. The months appeared to have been erased from her memory the continuous rain, the never-ending hard work, the expectation of a life of drudgery.
Dana agreed that she would call back in ten minutes. As she waited, she sat on the table and swung her legs backwards and forwards, picturing what she knew would be taking place right at that moment in her village. One of the boys playing football in the street would have been called over by Mrs Brock and told to fetch Mr Joyce from his shop. ‘Come here now, would ye, ’tis an emergency, I have a message for the Brogans.’
This was a public service that each child carried out, without resentment or question. Everyone mucked in. ‘Tell Mr Joyce I have urgent news,’ she would say, and the boy would run as fast as his legs would carry him the full hundred yards to Joyce’s shop, holding on to his cap, dust and stones flying as he went.
Mr Joyce would take off his coat, lay it down on the counter, lift his jacket down from the peg and hurry out of the door as fast as his rheumatism would let him. ‘I have left the boy in charge of the shop,’ he would pant to Mrs Brock as the bell jangled above the post-office door. It had happened to all of them on more than one occasion, even Dana, running messages and watching the shop.
‘No helping yourself to anything now, just guard the door and tell anyone who happens to call that I’m with Mrs Brock and will be back presently.’ This was indisputable – no one hung around with Mrs Brock any longer than was necessary.
As soon as Mr Joyce’s back disappeared through the post-office door, whichever boy it was would have run around his counter and stuffed a liquorice lace or two in his pocket. Dana remembered when she and Patrick were guarding the shop and Mr Joyce had caught Patrick red-handed as the liquorice lace slid through the hole in his shorts pocket and down his leg.
Mr Joyce would have hurried back out of the post office in a flash and jumped into his van to go and pick up Dana’s mammy and transport her back to the telephone. It will make her day, all the excitement, thought Dana. She will be talking about her phone call for a week. ‘Did ye hear, Dana telephoned all the way from Liverpool, did ye?’
They all loved receiving a telephone call. Dana could see her mammy gabbing away excitedly to Mr Joyce, deliberating on what the urgency of the call could be. Her thoughts travelled the road with them. Her mammy would be sitting on the bench, her feet nestling in cabbage leaves and pig feed, her chatter veering between elation and panic that something was wrong. Mr Joyce would respond with either ‘That would be grand now,’ or ‘Sure, why would ye be getting yerself all worked up, ’twill be nothing but a nice surprise.’
Dana remembered the conversation she had had with her mammy. ‘No sex before marriage, Dana, will ye promise me that?’ And Dana, always keen to please her mammy, had indeed promised her that. But that was in rural Ireland. Life was very different over there. Here in Liverpool, Dana was amazed at how bold Victoria was with the girls. Completely open about the fact that she and Roland were at it every five minutes. Granted, Victoria was the only one who was, but she was also the only nurse in a serious relationship, just like Dana. Or at least she thought hers was serious. Maybe she should have promised her mammy that she’d have no sex ‘in Ireland’ before marriage, but her mammy wasn’t daft.
‘I know the ways of men, Dana,’ she’d said before Dana had left for Liverpool, ‘and I don’t want ye making the mistakes I have made.’ There’d been no explanation of what her mistakes had been or how, if she had her time again, she would avoid them. Dana did know, though, that somewhere in the foothills of her mother’s youth stood Mr Joyce. It had taken her a year as a nurse to understand that her mother valued her maternal role more than any other. She had come to realize that her sole aim was to keep Dana safe from the vagaries of everyday life, out of the hands of lustful men, and to help fulfil the dream she’d never quite managed to live herself. In order to do
that, she had to maintain her authority and keep her own indiscretions to herself. Dana hoped that one day she would pass a mark in the sand – maybe when she was married and had her own children – and that then her mother would be open and honest with her.
She looked up at the clock on the laundry-room wall. She could practically hear the handbrake being yanked up on Mr Joyce’s van. She heard the van door slam and the bell over the door of the post office jangle. She picked up the telephone and dialled.
Within seconds, she could hear her mother’s voice crackling down the line.
‘Dana, ’tis you, oh God, Mr Joyce said it was and I said, no, she wouldn’t waste the money on a long-distance telephone call. Is everything all right, is it? Are ye coming home? What boat will ye be on? Mr Joyce has said he will be waiting there for ye if ye are; he’ll shut the shop if he has to and he said he would drive all the way to Dublin if ye get the later boat. He would have ye home by midnight and now don’t ye be worrying about all that business with Patrick. He’s never set foot back home since he went to Liverpool.’
Dana now knew for sure that people back home didn’t know that Patrick had been arrested as a peeping Tom and had served time in Walton Gaol. He probably assumed she would have told everyone and was now too ashamed to return and face the music. As it was, she hadn’t told anyone. It was at least a relief to know that if she did go home, she wouldn’t have to face him.
‘Did ye know that Siobhan has had a baby, yes, she did, such a beautiful baby boy. Wait until I tell her you will be home for yer holidays. God, the town will be out to meet ye.’
Dana could barely slip a word in sideways other than to confirm that yes, she was going home, as expected, and that Mr Joyce would be meeting her from the train in Galway and would transport her back home. As her mother babbled on about the kids, the farm, her father, every one of their neighbours, her friends, the doctor’s new wife, the priest’s housekeeper’s stay in hospital and the failings of the new farmhand, it became obvious that there was nothing on the planet, alive or dead, that could stop the momentum of Dana’s visit home and her mother’s expectations. Mammy had decided it was happening and that was that.
As she made her way up to her room she felt deflated. She would have to tell Teddy. There was no way she could take him home. He would hate it. The rain, the mud, the smell, the cows, the kids in the streets, in the town, the bog, the peat, the men who drank too much and fought with fists and boots and then talked after. The priest. The smallness of it all. Mass.
Her mother’s world would be thrown into orbit if she took Teddy home. The absolute assumption from such a visit would be that they were to be married. Her mother would have a conversation arranged with the priest and the village hall booked before they had even unpacked their suitcases.
There was also the worry that Teddy would look at her through new eyes when he saw her life as it had been before she had arrived in Liverpool. Her family and friends were country people, but not like country people from England. They lived their life slightly closer to the earth. To each other. To God. And no matter how many people Dana met and mixed with, how many of their airs and manners she adopted as her own, she would always be Dana from the farm at heart.
She assumed that Teddy would return to Bolton for his holidays, to his late parents’ house. He would stay with Roland and kick his heels at home. Precious time they could have spent together would be wasted as she met her family obligations.
Dana decided she needed a bath to make herself feel better. I’ll wash my hair and put it in curlers for the evening and then it will look nice for tomorrow, she thought. It was always Dana’s way to make herself busy and to look for a positive. There’s nothing for it, I will have to make sure Teddy can see what he’s going to be missing when I’m back home in Ireland for the two weeks.
As she sat in front of her mirror, she heard the footsteps of nurses returning from their shift pounding up the stairs. The voice of Mrs Duffy followed them. ‘I’ve bacon and boiled potatoes with a grilled tomato for each of you for supper. I’ve covered the potatoes in salt and butter and the bacon’s almost ready, so don’t dally up there now.’
Dana saw a face she barely recognized in the mirror. It was her face, but not the eighteen-year-old face that had arrived in Lovely Lane over a year ago. That had been the face of a child. The eyes that looked back at her were almost the eyes of a woman, but not quite.
*
While Dana was running the bath, unbeknown to her, Teddy was in a travel agent’s on Dunhill Street.
‘I’m looking for a nice hotel in the Lake District, for two weeks. Starting at the end of June. Or in Scotland maybe? Somewhere nice and remote. Where we can take long walks, eat nice food, enjoy romantic views. You get the gist?’
‘Oh, certainly, sir,’ said the travel agent. ‘We have a number of hotels on our books. Is this a special surprise for your wife?’
‘Yes,’ said Teddy, brimming with confidence. ‘She has no idea, but she will be totally delighted when she finds out. It is a very special surprise.’
24
The following evening, Teddy parked his car a hundred yards down the road from the nurses’ home, just as he always did when he was waiting for Dana to check out with Mrs Duffy. This process invariably took some time.
‘We used to have the late-pass system here, you know, but I said to Matron, what is the point? They are always back before I leave and besides, if they weren’t, I would wait, and not one of them would make me miss my bus home.’
Mrs Duffy repeated the conversation she’d had with Matron on VE Day every time Dana went out for the evening.
‘She had partaken of a few, had Matron, and I have cursed meself ever since that I didn’t ask her for a pay rise too. She would have given me anything I asked for on that day. As it was, I got her to scrap the late passes, increase the jam ration and promise me that as soon as we could get our hands on fabric again, the rooms could have new curtains.’
Dana never displayed a shred of impatience as she listened and then, giving Mrs Duffy a peck on the cheek and a reassuring ‘I will be back before the last bus,’ she escaped.
The sight of Teddy waiting in his pale blue shiny Humber made her heart skip a beat. As always, the thought that it couldn’t last flitted through her mind before she placed her hand on the door.
‘Wow, get you,’ said Teddy, leaning over to give her a peck on the cheek as she slipped into the pale tan leather front seat. ‘You look amazing and you smell delicious.’
He buried his face in Dana’s neck and inhaled noisily. Dana pushed him away with her hand, giggling as she did so.
She wanted to tell him there and then that they would not be able to spend the holidays together as she knew he had hoped. The words were on the tip of her tongue, but something held her back. Teddy had made it clear to Dana that he thought the importance of their relationship cancelled out any prior obligations she might have had to her mammy and her family. That her life had changed and they could not expect her to honour promises she had made before she had even set foot in Liverpool. They had so little off-duty time together that they could not waste the chance to spend two whole weeks in each other’s company.
‘I’ve booked us a table in the restaurant on Bold Street,’ said Teddy. ‘My girl is a princess and she should be treated like one.’
‘A princess, me? You wouldn’t think that if you saw me helping with the milking on the farm back home. I look about as far from a princess as anyone could imagine.’
Dana thought this might be her opportunity, but as always he failed to grasp the chance to talk about her home or the farm. Sitting up straight, he took in the empty road ahead, turned over the engine, looked in the side mirror and, slipping the car into gear, pulled out and motored on up Lovely Lane.
Dana loosened her headscarf and resolved to tell him the news over dinner. As they passed the park, she stole a look at his side profile and thought that it was a sight she would never tire of. She l
oved to watch him when he was preoccupied with driving, when he couldn’t look at her. She had often watched him from a distance on the wards, talking to a patient or in conference with the consultant and other doctors. Observing him from the periphery of his life was where she felt most comfortable.
‘To think, I had never even been inside a restaurant until you took me,’ she said as she turned slightly in her seat to face him. ‘Get me now, acting as though I’ve been doing it all me life. Shall I light you a ciggie?’
‘Please. I’m getting in the holiday mood. Thought I would give you a taste of what’s to come every night for the two weeks we are on holiday,’ Teddy said as he reached out his hand to take the lit cigarette from Dana.
She lowered her eyes and inhaled deeply on her cigarette as she felt her heart sink.
*
Beth Harper was on her ward, working a split shift. From the window of the dayroom, she saw Teddy’s distinctive blue car as it sped along the road below. The dayroom had the most enormous bay windows and faced south, giving patients maximum light when they were recovering. The walking patients liked to sit and enjoy a cigarette in front of the fireplace, where an array of chairs were placed in a semi-circle with a small table between them. Beth surveyed the room and judged it to be spotless and tidy after the hustle and bustle of the day. The ward was settling down for the evening and Beth was pleased that they had completed all their jobs with almost five minutes to go. Backs and beds, doctors’ visits, bottles and pans, lockers and tables, samples, drugs, drips, and dressing rounds all over and done with. Finished. Patients were sitting upright against starched and plumped pillows in pristine beds with eighteen-inch turndowns, glancing nervously towards the ward doors. All eyes were fixed on the giant clock. The atmosphere in the ward was shot through with anticipation.
The Children of Lovely Lane Page 30