‘I have money for food, Mam. I’ll be going to the shops now, what will we have? Fried ’tatoes and rashers?’
He looked at the table. On a broken dish sat the remains of some rancid butter and there was a stack of dirty plates smeared with food that was weeks old. He smelt the familiar putrid smell of maggots, writhing away in the food waste that had been thrown under the sink. He couldn’t even ask Biddy to come and help his mam, as good as she had been to him. Having seen the inside of Biddy’s house, he felt shame like he had never experienced before. The filth in his house was too much for a woman of Biddy’s age to take on and even if she wanted to, she would struggle to get the other women to help her.
Tomorrow would be a new start for Lorcan down at the hospital. Tonight, though, he would try and do something with the house. Finding a brush in the yard, he began to pull the rubbish out from under the sink where his mother had let it pile up for months.
‘I thought you were going to the shop?’ said his mam from deep within their only armchair.
He looked at her face and thought that at least there was some colour now.
‘What time will J.T. be home?’ she asked.
Lorcan didn’t answer.
‘I am off to the shop, Mam, and I’m going to buy some Aunt Sally to clean the floor when I’m there. But first I’m going to get all of this into the bin and then I’ll call to the chip van for speed and get us some chips and a saveloy.’
Once he’d brushed the floor and piled all the rubbish and maggots out into the yard, he decided to push as much as he could into the old metal bin and put a match to it. He would mop the floor later on. Resentment towards his mother, a rare feeling, all but filled him, but it vanished as quickly as it had come. Lorcan loved his mam. There was something simple about her and she needed him now. He had to protect her. Biddy would help him if he asked, she had made that clear.
‘I’ve got work, Mam. Dessie is taking me on down at the hospital. Did he tell you that when he brought you home this morning?’
His mother looked at him confusedly. ‘No, he didn’t say anything.’
Lorcan knew that Dessie would have told her when he’d fetched her home from the cells. Kept her informed. But she had already forgotten.
‘Well, now, isn’t that grand. Isn’t that just grand that Dessie has taken you on.’
Lorcan placed a cup of tea in his mother’s hand. ‘I’m off to the chip van now, Mam.’
As he made his way down the back path, he heard her talking to herself. She had already forgotten that he’d said he was on his way out and it seemed that she had no recollection of having spent a night in a cell. For that at least, Lorcan was grateful.
He threw a match on the rubbish in the yard and waited for the flames to catch and burn high. He had already decided to call into Biddy’s and ask if could he buy her something from the chippy, as a thank you for helping him out. Yesterday he was a boy still at school. Today he was a man, about to start work.
Sister Theresa had not objected to his leaving when Biddy had taken him down to the school. He had got the impression she was relieved that there was a better path for him to follow than that of his brothers. She had always been kind to him. He had heard her on more than one occasion talking to the other nuns and comparing him favourably to his brothers. They had all been brought up the same. Like his brothers before him, he was dirty and not very bright, and the hunger in his belly often made it hard for him to concentrate. The potential that another Ryan might steal from the Lord was always there. Sister Theresa knew that and yet she had never once held the sins of his brothers against him.
He poked the fire with a stick and as he watched the green smoke rise and the rubbish burn, he knew that his life was about to change. As he smashed the stinking rubbish down into the flames, he vowed that he would never work for any of the Bevans. He would never let Dessie and Biddy down.
4
The nurses from the Lovely Lane home walked purposefully up the road towards St Angelus. Today was special and every person who worked in the hospital had been eagerly anticipating it. It was the official opening of the new operating-theatre suite, a dedicated block of prefabricated units that had arrived on the back of a number of trucks and threw into sad relief the soot-stained buildings that made up the remainder of St Angelus. The nurses were excited at the chance to finally get a proper look at the new theatres, which were sealed from floor to ceiling and kitted out with every mod con. There would then be several days of familiarization as the transition from the old theatres was completed.
Much to their surprise, Pammy Tanner, Victoria Baker and Beth Harper had all been placed on operating-theatre training together. They were the undisputed favourites of Sister Emily Haycock, who’d told them, ‘I cannot think of three nurses I would rather have for the trainee nurse allocation. If Nurse Brogan were here, she would be with you too.’
Dana Brogan was in Bolton, where she was ensconced in the Davenport family home, caring for Teddy. Her job now, as Matron had informed her, was to assist in the rehabilitation of a very impatient and stubborn young man. Matron had sent her off with her blessing. ‘We are going to need that young man back as soon as possible. I consider sending you with him to be a way of ensuring he eats and exercises well and does not do anything foolish to hinder his recovery.’ She had paused and raised her eyebrows as she looked at Dana across the top of her reading glasses. Her unspoken message was crystal clear, that this assignment was work, not pleasure. ‘Of course, it’s a decision made possible by the fact that Dr Davenport’s brother also lives at home.’
Dana had been delighted. It would have been hard to bear if some other nurse had been sent to care for her Teddy. However, it did mean that she was not able to share the placement on theatre with her closest friends.
‘I am afraid, though, that you won’t all be together at the same time,’ Sister Haycock had told the other three nurses. ‘There will be a mix of nights and days.’
They were standing in her office, waiting to hear the rest of her news, which would confirm whether or not the rumours flying around the hospital were true.
‘Theatre Sister is in charge of commissioning the new operating theatres, and who better than my three star trainees to work with her. You all have the measure of her and know the drill, and what’s more, Matron agreed with me.’
Oh God, no. That single thought ran through three brains in succession. Theatre Sister had a reputation for being firmer than most.
‘Nurse Tanner, we may need you to float between the new theatre suite and casualty until everything is up to speed and we have a full operating list on the go. But I’m sure you won’t mind that one little bit, will you?’ She flashed a brief smile at Pammy. ‘I know it won’t be easy for you all, but I hope you understand that I am trusting you and bestowing the honour upon you of being the first group of second years ever to be placed on theatre.’
The nurses grinned, this time with pride. All doubts about having to work with Theatre Sister were dispelled. After all, she can’t be as bad as Sister Antrobus.
Emily beamed back at them. She’d been doing that a lot lately. It was a poorly kept secret at St Angelus that Emily Haycock and Dessie Horton were in the throes of a grand, passionate love affair the like of which few had witnessed before, even in a much younger couple, never mind a pair who were both past thirty.
It was thanks to Nurse Tanner’s mam, Maisie, that the two had finally got together. Dessie had worshipped Emily from the porter’s lodge for years. He had seen her walk past every morning on her way to the school of nursing until one day he finally made his move. Emily and Maisie had known each other from when Emily had lived in George Street. She lost her mam and younger brothers in the bombing. Only her stepfather, Alf, survived, because her mam had sent him out of the house to find Emily just moments before the house took a direct hit. Emily had grieved deeply from that day, but since she’d fallen in love with Dessie, a difference had come over her.
E
veryone could see what pleasure they took from each other’s company; they found it difficult to contain their feelings in front of their workmates and neighbours. But this outpouring of new love had begun causing problems for Father Brennan and his parishioners down at St Chad’s. So much of a problem, he had asked Dessie to stay behind after confession.
‘You know what I’m going to be saying, don’t you, Dessie?’ Father Brennan had said, and Dessie had had the good grace to look embarrassed. After his frank confession, he certainly needed to.
‘I know, Father, of course I do. I’m just scared of rushing her and it’s the practicalities, they get in the way. She was living in a room in the hospital, next door to Sister Antrobus… I had to take her in.’
Father Brennan waved Dessie’s words away with his hands. ‘You don’t need to be explaining to me, Dessie, you have just done that in your confession. But you are causing a bit of a fuss around here. I have women complaining to me and I can only quieten wagging tongues for so long. Think of Emily, she will hear it all soon. Hattie Lloyd never stops giving out.’
‘Don’t worry, Father, I know what has to be done.’ And, Dessie did, he just needed to be sure Emily would agree.
Pammy Tanner blushed because Emily Haycock, madly in love herself, now instantly recognized it in others. She had been covertly referring to the fact that Pammy was dating Dr Mackintosh, the casualty registrar. Despite her best efforts, Pammy grinned inanely every time anyone mentioned him. Not a day went by when she didn’t look at him and find herself unable to believe her luck. He was bumbling and kindly, not flash or full of himself like many of the medical students. And he was not even remotely like Oliver Gaskell, the consultant on obs and gynae, whom Pammy loathed.
Pammy had made the dreadful mistake of falling for the dashing Oliver Gaskell at her first ever doctors’ dance. She had very quickly learnt the lesson of many nurses before her, a lesson she now shared as often as she could. ‘New consultants think they are more important than God himself. They think they can wrap any nurse around their little finger. Don’t let them, I tell you! The moment they put a stethoscope around their necks, some of them change into monsters who would break your hearts in a flash.’ Pammy said this to every new probationer nurse who came on to any ward she was working on. Some listened, most did not.
‘You can’t keep putting everyone off him,’ Beth had chided her only the day before. ‘It makes it sound as though you’re bitter. Stop doing it. See the way that poor probationer has just looked at you?’
The two of them were making up a bed together on male medical.
‘Nurse Harper…’ Pammy stuffed a feather pillow into its case far harder than was necessary. ‘Have you forgotten poor Nurse Moran already?’
Beth looked sheepish as she smoothed her hand over the bed and began to fold back the top sheet to the regulation eighteen inches. Something they could now all do by eye alone to the nearest quarter of an inch. ‘Pass me the rule from the trolley,’ she said, trying to change the subject. ‘I want this turndown to be exact. Sister is in a bad mood today and knowing my luck she will measure it.’
Pammy reached her arm behind her, lifted the eighteen-inch rule and almost slapped it, a little too hard, into Beth’s outstretched hand. ‘Don’t change the subject, Nurse Harper. Besides, you haven’t been using the rule for weeks, we all know your turndowns are near perfect. Go on, answer me then. Nurse Moran, where is she?’
Beth looked uncomfortable. The hospital had been alight with gossip only weeks before, that the hapless Irish probationer nurse had fled from the nurses’ home in the dead of night. She had not been heard from since.
‘She was last seen outside the doctors’ residence,’ said Pammy, ‘asking everyone who went in or out to fetch Oliver Gaskell and tell him she desperately needed to speak to him. In tears, she was, and did he come out and see her? No, he did not, despite the fact that he was in his room, hiding, like the mealy-mouthed, yellow custardy coward he is. And my poor Anthony had to pick up the pieces. He said she was a wreck but determined to get the boat back home to Ireland. Took her in the car, he did, with her case, down to the Pier Head so that she could catch the midnight boat. He wanted to take her to Matron, but she wouldn’t go. She cried so much, he gave up and took her where she asked, but you mustn’t tell anyone. Anthony could lose his job if Matron found out. Awful, it was. Anthony feels terrible. She promised him she would write to let him know she got home OK and bless her, he stopped worrying the day the letter arrived. Everyone thinks she was pregnant and do you know what that means to a girl from the country in Ireland?’
Beth snatched the pillow from Pammy, who was almost holding it to her chest.
‘Anthony said those poor girls usually flee over here, to escape the punishments heaped on them, but Nurse Moran, with no one to talk to other than Oliver Gaskell and God himself, ran home. The poor kid. That’s why I warn every probationer I can. And you, Nurse Harper, you should do the same.’
The bed head crashed against the frame as Pammy released the catch without grace in the midst of her agitation. Conversations which included the mention of Oliver Gaskell made her blood boil.
‘But we don’t know she was pregnant,’ Beth remonstrated.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, why else would she have scarpered in such a rush?’
‘I suppose you must be right.’ Beth lifted the fob watch on her apron and glanced at the time. ‘Thank goodness, coffee time. Saved by the urns.’
Pammy walked around to Beth’s side of the bed as Beth smoothed the counterpane and the pillows to perfection. Their job was finished and for a second she linked her arm through her friend’s.
‘I’m not having a go, Beth,’ she whispered as she looked around. It was a sin to address a nurse by anything other than her surname. Even the pair of twin sisters working at St Angelus had to do the same, much to everyone’s amusement. ‘I just don’t want to see any other poor nurse taken in like I was. I think he could be dangerous. He’s nothing like his lovely da.’
Beth nodded her agreement. This at least was true. Every nurse in St Angelus adored the kindly, fatherly Dr Gaskell. It was difficult to adore him more than his patients did, however.
As Pammy said the word ‘dangerous’, a thrill had run through Beth and for a brief second she closed her eyes as her tummy flipped. She didn’t say a word to Pammy. Instead, she kept her gaze down. Beth was the quietest of the group and she was quite convinced the others didn’t even consider that she might want a boyfriend of her own. But she had her own secret and Pammy was the last person she would ever want to share it with.
Pammy squeezed her arm. ‘Look, I know you haven’t had a boyfriend yet and it’s hard to understand, but we nurses have to stick together and look after each other, don’t we? We have a responsibility towards the probationers, knowing what we do. And trust me, Nurse Harper, I know him. I’m right on this one.’
Beth looked up at Pammy and smiled. ‘I know. Don’t worry, I will warn all newcomers well away from the handsome and charming but extremely dastardly and dangerous Oliver Gaskell.’
Pammy grinned and wagged her finger. ‘And don’t ever forget the dangerous.’ She laughed and gave Beth a playful push.
The two friends walked towards the ward doors where the nurses on first coffee break were waiting, cloaks hugged close to keep out the draught in the long corridor, impatient to head off down to the greasy spoon.
*
On this important morning, as they made their way to the new theatres, their previous day’s conversation regarding Oliver Gaskell was entirely forgotten, by Pammy at least. Not so much by Beth. Pammy’s words had haunted her the previous night and kept her awake for hours as she tossed and turned.
‘So, it is true, Theatre Sister did walk out,’ said Victoria, interrupting Beth’s daydreaming. ‘Apparently she was furious when it was suggested that her old theatres had to close down, but no one knows why. Stormed out of Matron’s office, she did.’
‘Wel
l, she must have been seventy if she was a day. Mind you, I’m not sure who is the worst, the old theatre sister or Sister Pokey. They will have to appoint someone new, Pokey can’t look after casualty and the theatres, although I suppose she’s been alternating between the two for long enough now.’
The girls walked on in silence as Pammy prattled away. The morning was bright and breezy. Winter was in the air and the fallen leaves had turned to mulch, quieting their footsteps as they went. Pammy changed the subject to her Anthony. ‘We’re off to the pictures later this week,’ she said. ‘He’s only got four nights off all month. It’s really not fair.’
It was no surprise that the steady, pragmatic and caring Dr Mackintosh appealed to the firebrand Scouser Pammy. He was the perfect balance to her scatty and chatty nature. There were no sides to Pammy. No game playing or secrets. ‘Our Pammy, you’ll never have to wonder what that one’s thinking. She’s more down to earth than a graveyard shovel,’ her father Stanley often said.
Dr Anthony Mackintosh loved Pammy’s openness and frankness. He loved her whole noisy, chaotic, happy family, and he especially loved her mam, Maisie, who fed him dinners like he hadn’t tasted since he left Edinburgh when he qualified as a doctor. As an only child, the son of a son of the manse, raised in a lochside village of twenty-three inhabitants, he had embraced the bouncing Tanner home without any problem whatsoever. Having endured years of isolation and loneliness, when he looked at his bubbly, cheeky, beautiful Pammy, he couldn’t believe his luck.
As the girls stood on the kerb about to cross the road, a familiar van pulled up beside them. The passenger window was down and the girls ducked to look inside. Jake, Dessie’s deputy porter, was driving, and Bryan Delaney was in the passenger seat.
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 9