9
Lorcan studied the intravenous solution in the glass bottle as, drip by drip, it seeped into his mother’s flaccid white arm. Her breathing was steady and he hoped that was a good sign. He’d seen the nurse count her breaths in and out using her fob watch and then, seemingly happy with what she found, write a number down on the chart at the end of the bed.
He was alarmed by the volume of bandages and the size of her head, which was slightly elevated on a small pile of pillows. ‘That’s to keep the swelling draining the right way,’ the nurse had whispered to him as she slipped another pillow underneath. On his mam’s temple, a small stain of blood had leaked through the bandages and spread on to the crisp white pillow.
Lorcan knew his mother would hate the bandages. She panicked if she felt trapped. She didn’t even like to be upstairs in the house alone and would frequently open the back door, even on the coldest of days. ‘Just catching the air. Can’t breathe in here,’ she would say. He knew she would try to pull off the bandages and yank the drip out as soon she came to.
The nurse was so kind to him that when she spoke he thought she might be a real angel. As soon as she’d seen the look on his face, she had explained why there was such a lot of bandaging. ‘Don’t be worrying about the big bandages, it’s just to protect the area where the little piece of skull has been removed. It looks really dramatic, doesn’t it?’
Lorcan nodded. He still couldn’t speak. At first it had been through shyness, and fear of losing his mam. Now it was because he was scared that if he tried to say anything, a single word, he would lose control. The demons that were running around in his head would rush out as soon as he opened his mouth. He knew that it must have been one of the Bevans who had done this to his mother and that it was something to do with J.T. Was it punishment for him having refused to take part in the jump-over? He wanted to kill whoever it was with his own bare hands. No words would escape him, but an anger, a ferocious red fury, burnt within.
‘Look at you, you poor love.’ The staff nurse was talking to him again. Lorcan knew she was a staff nurse because of her pale blue uniform; it was different from the pink uniform the student nurses wore. Jake had explained the ranks and uniforms to him on his first day.
The nurse slipped a thermometer under his mother’s tongue and held her fob watch to time the minute. There was a waft of Dettol and something that smelt vaguely like flowers, but it was overlaid with a stronger smell that lifted up from the bandages and the blood. The nurse extracted the thermometer, shook it hard, placed it in a small enamel kidney dish filled with diluted white Dettol and wrote something else on the chart. ‘I’m just going to get the sphygmomanometer to take her blood pressure again,’ she said with another of her dazzling smiles, as if he would know what on earth she was talking about.
Lorcan lifted his gaze from his mother and through the narrow row of high-up windows he could see that night had finally turned into day. He had no idea of the actual time, but even though he had only worked at the hospital for a short period, the porter activity and the wicker baskets full of dirty linen being replaced by neatly folded and often still warm sheets and pillow cases told him that the new shifts had started. Lorcan had worked a whole day on linen duty just this week. Wards eight and nine were his responsibility. He had felt a huge sense of satisfaction at home time, leaving both linen cupboards stacked and stocked for the night nurses.
His mam sighed, distracting Lorcan from his thoughts. The nurse bustled back in and her presence instantly made him feel calmer. Her complexion was pink and powdery and her shiny blonde hair had been swept across her forehead and tucked under her frilled and starched cap. She was speaking and he focused on her lips as they moved.
‘You sit down and I shall go and fetch you a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits, put you back on your feet. You must have had a terrible shock. You looked wiped out, you poor thing. We’ll look after her for you and I’m on all day, I won’t leave her side, I promise.’
Lorcan felt the breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding leave his body in a rush. He wanted to get on to his knees and cry in gratitude for the kindness of the nurse he didn’t know, answering the prayers he had no idea he had been saying. She didn’t wait for him to reply but instead laid her hand on top of his for the briefest moment. It was warm and soft and damp from having been freshly washed, and it felt to Lorcan almost as though a real angel had folded her gossamer wings around him.
He had no idea he was hungry or thirsty until she reappeared with the steaming tea and the plate of biscuits. She left him alone to drink and eat, as if sensing that he would be able to do neither in her presence, and then seemed to know by instinct when he had finished. She came back in and checked his mother’s drip was still flowing freely. He could hear in the distance the sound of crockery clanking, the far-off wheels of a trolley making its way along the main corridor and the hushed voices of two men; porters, he assumed. Then the telephone in the office rang out and filled the ward with its shrill, repetitive tone.
‘I’ll be back.’ The staff nurse smiled as she left the cubicle. A moment later, she returned. ‘That was our very own Dessie Horton. He said he will be here soon for you, Lorcan. He’s going to take you home.’
Lorcan was touched that Dessie would do that and he felt stronger after the biscuits too. His hands had stopped shaking and he felt more composed. ‘Will Mammy be all right? Should I not stay?’
The nurse smiled at him again. ‘You can’t, Lorcan, I’m sorry. Sister would give me my marching orders if she saw you here. You’re not even supposed to be here now, really, but I know Sister won’t get to me on her rounds for a wee bit longer, so we’re safe for the moment.’
Dessie crept into the cubicle so quietly that neither Lorcan nor the staff nurse heard him. He was followed closely by the surgeon who had operated on his mother. The cubicle suddenly felt very small and full.
‘How are you doing, lad?’ Dessie whispered.
The surgeon walked over to his mother’s bed and, picking up her wrist, held it with the tips of his fingers to take her pulse as he studied the watch on his own wrist. ‘Amazingly, we managed to control the swelling pretty quickly,’ he said to the nurse, who had picked up the chart from the end of the bed and was standing with her pen at the ready, awaiting his instructions. ‘Her vital signs are steadying nicely.’ The surgeon looked back at his watch. ‘Perfect. Couldn’t have asked for better than that,’ he said as he laid her hand back down.
‘Does that mean she will be OK, doctor?’ said Dessie, instinctively posing the question Lorcan was too afraid to ask.
‘Well, there may be some residual brain damage, I’m afraid, but we won’t know that for a few weeks. As we can’t see inside a skull, we can’t tell what impact the bleed has had or which parts of the brain were affected. The X-rays simply tell us if there’s been a fracture to the skull, and that isn’t what causes the damage. For now we shall concentrate on nursing her through the effects of the surgery and getting her back on her feet. When everything has settled down we will conduct some neurological tests to assess the brain damage. If she makes it through the next forty-eight hours, and I think that is a very strong possibility, she’ll live. I don’t want to tempt fate, but I think your mother is probably a very lucky lady, Master Ryan.’
It was just too much for Lorcan to hear all at once. He had held so much in for hours that now he could barely control his reaction to the doctor’s words. A loud, anguished sob escaped his mouth.
Dessie placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said. ‘It’s time to take you home.’
When they reached the main entrance, Bryan called out to them. He had been running and was out of breath. ‘Dessie, Biddy sent me, the bizzies, they are at Mrs Ryan’s and so is Biddy. She says you are to take Lorcan straight there. Matron put a flea in their ear and sent them out of casualty. Told them they couldn’t wait there and to come back when Mrs Ryan was recovered. Right mad with them
she was.’
‘Good old Matron,’ said Dessie and he smiled for the first time that day. ‘Right, Bryan, listen. You come with me to Lorcan’s house. I’ll stay until the bizzies have gone and then I’d like you to come back and stay with Lorcan tonight. I’m going round to see your da with some news this evening, so I’ll help him with whatever he needs and you look after Lorcan. We don’t know if whoever did this will come back.’
‘I know, that’s what Biddy said. The bizzies are talking to Emily in the parlour, Dessie. She saw the bloke in the entry. She’s giving them a description.’
For a brief moment Dessie felt sick. What if whoever it was had attacked Emily instead, just for having seen him?
*
When they reached the Ryans’ house, Biddy was in the kitchen, placing an enamel dish of fried potatoes into the bread oven in the range. She started talking before Lorcan had taken his coat off.
‘Right, no messing about now, listen to me. Lorcan, the bizzies are in the parlour. Dessie, you take him in. Bryan, you get the first wash down in the scullery. I’m going to fry some eggs and there’s a bit of smoked haddock poaching in some milk to go with the ’tatoes. Lorcan, how’s your mammy now? Dessie, wash them hands, would you, you’ve no doubt been carting God knows what around.’ She took in Lorcan’s pathetic face as she spoke. There were white circles under his eyes from all his tears.
‘The doctor says he thinks she’s going to be OK.’ Lorcan sobbed again.
Biddy put out her arms and Lorcan fell into them, burying his head in her chest.
‘Well now, isn’t that grand news. Whoever doubted it? I didn’t. Your mother has had a hard life, Lorcan, she has survived worse. Now then, enough of this.’ She held him away from her. ‘All this is just an inconvenience to be got through and we will all come out the other side, none the worse. The Lord God will do his work. We got through the Blitz, didn’t we?’ She picked up the tea towel off the range and used it to close the oven door.
Dessie made no comment. No one ever mentioned the May Blitz. Not ever. Although they walked daily through the ruins of their former lives and over the graves of people they’d known and loved, no one ever spoke of it.
‘What a difference you have made to this place,’ said Biddy, changing the subject quickly before too many ghosts drifted into the room, bringing the memories of the smoke, the eternal dark, the dismembered bodies hanging from rooftops, the flames from the ship that took a direct hit, the relentless bombing raids on the streets and the bombs raining down on the docks, one of which had taken Dessie’s wife. ‘Clean as a whistle it is,’ she continued. ‘Goodness me, your mammy has a nice clean home to come to when she is discharged. Now, go on, into the parlour, and if those bizzies give you any trouble, come for me.’
Dessie winked at Biddy as he put his hand in the middle of Lorcan’s back and guided him through. She was forgiven for her faux pas and the ghosts melted away.
‘I’ll bring you some tea in,’ said Biddy. ‘Both of you. No more for the bizzies though, don’t want them staying all day now, do we. Get them away as fast as you can, Dessie.’ This was hissed in barely more than a whisper. Noise carried in a two-up two-down.
Just as the door to the parlour closed, Elsie dashed in through the back door, carrying a plate. ‘I’ve made a fly pie for the boys,’ she said. ‘Used up the last of me currants.’
‘Did you get them from down the docks?’ asked Biddy.
Elsie ignored the question. ‘Plumped up lovely with a bit of cold tea, they did. How is she, did they say?’
‘She will live but may have brain damage,’ said Biddy as she placed the fly pie on the press.
‘Jesus, how would anyone be able to tell?’ asked Elsie. ‘She was away with the fairies as it was.’
‘I have no idea, but would you look at the cut of this place and what a job this lad has done for his mother.’
Elsie looked around the floor. ‘You know, Biddy, the last time I came in here, my feet stuck to the floor, it was that bad. I haven’t been back since.’
‘No, well, I’ve not been one meself for making the casual visit. None of us have. But now she’s in hospital, we all have to, just as we would for anyone else. The lad needs us, Elsie. Time to marshal the troops. He’s done a grand job with this place, but we can get an army in and we’ll do better. You will see your face shine in this floor by the time we’ve finished.’
*
That evening, over in Vince Street, Noleen was on her way to St Chad’s and then on to work when Dessie passed her in the entry. ‘Oh, good to see you, Dessie,’ she said. ‘I got a message from one of the lads. How is Mrs Ryan? Is our Bryan at the house now? Is he helping young Lorcan?’
‘He is, Noleen. He’s a great help. I’m coming by to see Paddy, I have news for him.’
‘Well, I hope it’s good news. You know our Finn passed the eleven-plus? Have you ever heard the like? He has a place for the Waterloo Grammar. I can’t send him there, Dessie. We have no money for that. If I buy him a uniform, the others will have to go without shoes.’ Noleen’s voice began to rise.
Dessie cut her off and spoke quickly. ‘Well, that might be about to change, Noleen. I’m in to see Paddy with a bit of news. I have him a job.’
‘A job? Doing what, where? Paddy can’t work, Dessie. Who would take him on?’
Dessie laughed. ‘Give me a chance, Noleen, would you. It’s at St Angelus, a night job. Twelve pounds a week – good money. But, first I have to take him to visit Joe at the prosthetics clinic. Joe reckons he can work wonders and that Paddy shouldn’t be in as much pain as he is.’
Noleen crossed herself. Twelve pounds a week would transform the family fortunes. ‘That’s the rent and the bills, the food, everything covered right there,’ she whispered almost to herself, hardly believing it. ‘Who has given him the job?’
‘It’s Matron. We have new rules to abide by with the coal deliveries. He will be a night watchman. I gave him a glowing testimonial. Didn’t tell Matron what a moaning miserable bugger he is, because I wouldn’t now, would I.’ Dessie grinned, savouring the look on Noleen’s face. ‘Now I need to speak to Paddy, and soon, because if I’m not back home before lights out, Emily will divorce me before we are even married. Paddy starts his first night next Saturday and he gets double time from midnight until Sunday morning at seven when he clocks off, so there’s a bonus in the first week. Jake will collect him and drive him in the van down to Joe at the clinic.’
Noleen had changed colour, both from the news Dessie was imparting and from exhaustion. He could see her mind working overtime, grasping for the right things to say.
‘Well, whatever next,’ she whispered, almost to herself. ‘So much is changing so fast, Dessie.’
‘It is that. But that’s the way now, it seems to me. Do you not feel like we’ve all been in a dream since the war ended and now we’ve woken up all of a sudden?’
‘Like we have all only just stopped grieving, more like,’ Noleen replied.
Dessie couldn’t argue with that, it was an explanation as good as any other.
‘Noleen, I’m going to offer Paddy the job on one condition, that you take four nights a week off. Keep working at the hospital if you want to, but you have to go part time.’ She made to object, but Dessie was having none of it. ‘I don’t have to tell you, Noleen, what a pittance you night cleaners get paid.’ He sighed. ‘It’s because there are so many of you. The NHS hasn’t been so good with its pay for you women, has it? Cleaners and nurses alike. It’s a shocker, considering how you all kept the country fed and running in the war.’
As Noleen dared to think that she might be able to work fewer hours and spend more time in her own home, the thrill travelled through her and sent a flutter into the pit of her stomach. Was this too good to be true? Was Dessie about to tell her this was all a joke?
‘And don’t you be worrying about Finn. He will go to the grammar. Everyone is behind you on that. He’s the first child from a St Angelus family
to be offered a place and I’ll tell you this, you know how competitive this lot are, he won’t be the last. They’ll all be trying to get their kids in there the minute Finn walks down the road in his smart uniform.’
It felt to Noleen as though Dessie was speaking in a foreign language. She wanted to discuss it some more, but the peal of the distant bell was calling her to St Chad’s and Noleen never missed Mass. ‘I have to go, Dessie.’ The bell stopped ringing. ‘Oh God, I’m late.’ And without another word, she ran towards the church as though a devil chased at her back.
*
As Dessie entered the Delaneys’ kitchen, a scene of domestic contentment met him. It occurred to him that this was Noleen’s work – her perfect family, her domain – and that for Finn to attend the grammar was something new, beyond her control. When money was short, change was something to be feared.
Finn was lying on his front, sprawled out across the hearth with a book resting open on Paddy’s only foot and his chin in his hands. As usual, the other boys were nowhere to be seen and Dessie guessed they would be out with the other lads, kicking a ball about in the dark out on the bombed-out wasteland. Mary and Lorraine Tanner were at the kitchen table painting each other’s nails and a strong smell of solvent hit Dessie’s nostrils as soon as he stepped into the room. Paddy had the Liverpool Echo spread out on his knee and next to him was a half-drunk cup of tea, Noleen’s last act before she flew out of the door.
‘How are ye, Dessie? Is it Bryan you are after, because he’s over at the Ryans’ house helping Lorcan.’
‘I know that, Paddy, I asked him to go there. Finn, could you get any closer to that fire?’
Finn didn’t flick a muscle. He was so engrossed in his book, he was oblivious to the fact that Dessie had even entered the room. The side of his face nearer to the fire glowed red from the flames.
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 22