Victoria’s cheeks turned pink and her eyes widened in alarm as she scrabbled to remember the date.
Anthony saw realization dawning and then he said, ‘I’m guessing it was about six to seven weeks ago?’
Victoria held her fingers up and appeared to be counting. Then she nodded.
‘Victoria, I believe you may be pregnant.’ As much as Stan had insisted to Anthony that Maisie had never been wrong about this, Anthony would not make his statement any more definite without first having it confirmed via a urine test. ‘To be certain, we will need a sample of your urine to send away for the Hogben Test.’
For a full fifteen seconds, Victoria lay there stock still without saying a word. Then she exhaled loudly and pulled a face. ‘So some poor toad will have to have my urine injected into it, the poor thing?’
Anthony looked relieved. ‘Well, at least you can smile. And yes, you’re right: if you are pregnant, “some poor toad” at the testing centre will respond to the relevant hormone in your urine and will spontaneously lay a few hundred eggs.’
‘I don’t think I can make sense of it yet, Anthony. It’s as if you’ve just told a patient in clinic and I’m simply the nurse waiting to squeeze a hand or offer a tissue.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘How long will it take for the results to come back?’
‘About two weeks, usually, but I can try and hurry it along for you. As you probably know, we use the testing centre in Sheffield – although the way Matron is campaigning these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had our own colony of Xenopus laevis toads at St Angelus before too long! It would certainly speed things up – and there’d be no more smelly accidents when the urine jars break in the post.’
Victoria wrinkled her nose in disgust.
The door opened as Pammy entered backwards, holding the tea tray out in front of her.
‘Here we go. Tea for my lovely man and a nice sugary one for you, Vic, and then Mam is coming in with our dinners. Just think, we can eat in peace today, eh? No kids scrabbling around. Even our Lorraine has disappeared down to the Delaneys’.’
Victoria tried to smile, but she felt more like fainting than ever now, at the thought she might be pregnant.
While Pammy poured the tea and gabbled away, Anthony squeezed Victoria’s hand. ‘Phone Roland,’ he mouthed to her as with the other hand he mimed dialling a phone and then putting it to his ear.
Victoria nodded, almost imperceptibly. She inclined her head in Pammy’s direction and mouthed back, ‘Don’t tell anyone.’
Anthony sent her one word back in response. ‘Never.’
‘Here we go,’ said Pammy as she stirred the sugar into Victoria’s tea and turned to face her. But as Victoria reached out to take the cup, her hand shook so violently that Pammy said, ‘Oh, wait, hang on, I’ll give it to you. You and me mam, you are both the same today. You need that sugar in your tea, miss. You will be much steadier once you have this and then your dinner down you.’
Victoria nodded. Get a grip, she thought to herself. No one must know. Smile. Drink the tea. Eat the food. Act normal. For the briefest second the image of her own mother came into her mind. It was summer and she was wearing her big billowy hat that she tied under her chin whenever the two of them pedalled off on their bikes, their baskets filled with dressings for the soldiers who had been medically discharged. The country lanes were perilous, full of pot holes and stones, and occasionally Victoria would fall off sideways and meet the road. Her mother would brush her down and straighten her skirts and then, looking her in the eye, she’d say, ‘Right, there’s my girl. All will be well, we must soldier on.’ She would plant a kiss on the end of Victoria’s nose and immediately all Victoria’s cares and embarrassment at having taken a tumble would fly away.
As Pammy fussed over Anthony, Victoria looked into the fire. Despite its warmth, she felt the coolness of her mother’s kiss on the tip of her nose. ‘Soldier on,’ she heard her whisper. ‘Soldier on.’
*
Beth walked towards the corner table in the Lyons Tea Rooms with a confidence in her step that she truly did not feel. She was convinced that every pair of eyes had turned and was watching with disapproval as she passed.
He was already sitting at the table and rose to greet her as she approached. ‘I wasn’t sure you would turn up,’ he said, and she noted that his voice sounded far less arrogant than it did when he was speaking as Mr Gaskell, obs and gynae consultant at St Angelus. ‘Thought you might not be the person I had you down as. That you might have had second thoughts and bailed on me.’
‘What kind of person would that be?’ asked Beth as she removed her gloves, popped them into her handbag and placed it on the floor beside the empty seat. She turned back to scan the room.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ve already checked. There is no one here from the hospital.’
Beth half smiled as he pulled the chair out for her to sit down. He had placed her so that she had her back to the room and could look out of the window, and he faced the other way. ‘I chose this place on purpose,’ he said. ‘It’s somewhere that people who work at the hospital don’t visit, but it’s busy enough that we won’t be noticed.’
Beth nodded. ‘That is very thoughtful. And do you bring all your young ladies here?’ she said as she arched her eyebrows.
He looked suitably wounded. ‘What on earth do you mean? I act like a gentleman at all times.’
‘Really?’ said Beth as she leant back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘Would poor Nurse Moran testify to that?’
His face flushed, but before he had the time to answer, the waitress approached. Beth studied the menu. She was only halfway down it when, to her surprise, he began to order.
‘Two steak Dianes,’ he said, ‘and a bottle of red wine. You only have one Bordeaux, so we will take that and—’
‘Excuse me.’ Beth’s voice was clear and firm. ‘I prefer to choose what I eat myself, if you don’t mind. I am very happy to pay for my own meal, if that’s a problem.’
For a brief moment he looked affronted, then puzzled. ‘Do you know what you want?’ he asked, with a mocking grin on his face.
‘Oh, I always know exactly what I want. No one decides anything for me.’ She snapped the leather-bound menu shut and looked at the waitress. ‘I will have the chicken chasseur, please.’
‘And is the red wine acceptable?’ he asked.
‘Oh, certainly, a very good choice,’ she said, sending him a beaming smile, which seemed to completely disarm him.
They passed the meal in amiable conversation, all things considered. Beth even managed to get him to open up about his work in the field hospital during the war. He also talked about his parents and his work, and then their chat came full circle, back to Nurse Moran.
‘I would very much like to know what happened there,’ said Beth.
‘Look, I know what you are getting at, but I don’t care what the rumours say, she was not pregnant, I can assure you of that. She was just not cut out to be a nurse and, frankly, she had so little confidence, she could barely function in a social setting. She became terribly clingy. Too clingy. And, in truth, I blame you lot in Lovely Lane.’
Beth almost laughed. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I hope you can back that statement up with more than just your own opinion.’
‘Oh, most certainly I can. She often told me she had no friends and that you all laughed at her. She said that she couldn’t bear to sit in the lounge with the new TV because no one other than Mrs Duffy spoke to her, and that she had made a terrible mistake even coming to Liverpool. She couldn’t get home to Ireland quickly enough. She was desperately lonely for home, where people were kind to her and she didn’t feel so different and put upon. She often cried herself to sleep, apparently.’
Beth rolled her eyes. Every probationer nurse felt homesick at one time or another. It was something they’d all had to get through. Nurse Moran had just needed to toughen up, be a bit less sensitive.
‘I felt bloo
dy sorry for her actually,’ Oliver Gaskell continued, ‘and I was very intrigued to finally meet you, Nurse Harper, because she told me that you were one of the cruellest and that you laughed at her the most. She was afraid of you and your officious manner. I once said to her, “Nurse Harper looks a decent sort, have you spoken to her?” And she told me you had once shouted at her most severely. Anyway, she is happy back at home now. She was a mere dalliance. There was no intimacy between us, if that is what you are implying with that look. I just felt sorry for her. She has begged me to visit her, but I’m frankly just not that interested. I don’t want to sound like too much of a cad here, but she was good for the old ego, you know, terribly doting and all that, and I felt that she needed the company. Frankly, I was worried about her. Loneliness can be a terrible thing.’
At that moment it was Beth who wanted to run away. She felt humiliated. The reason he had looked at her twice, dallied with her himself, was because Nurse Moran had complained so much about her. But she wasn’t cruel, that was a gross injustice. She remembered how once, in the middle of an emergency when Nurse Moran had done something stupid yet again, she had snapped at her. They had all laughed at her. Her antics on the wards had become legendary throughout the hospital. Even the porters had seen her as a good sport to play their practical jokes on, and they had, often.
Beth felt as though a brick had landed in her stomach. Her face burnt red with embarrassment. She instinctively knew he was telling the truth because if there was any probationer who had arrived at St Angelus and looked as though she was a fish out of water and without an ounce of staying power, it had been Nurse Moran. As Beth folded her napkin, she recalled something Mrs Duffy had once said about Nurse Moran being terribly homesick. He was telling the truth. She knew it as well as she knew that she had just eaten a delicious meal. ‘Oh, God,’ she said as she looked down at her plate. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Oliver removed his napkin from his lap and, folding it into four, placed it at the side of his plate. They had been talking for far longer than Beth had realized and there was now hardly anyone else left in the restaurant. The bottle of wine stood empty on the side of the table as if shouting out to them that it was time to leave.
‘Goodness me, it’s three thirty,’ Beth said.
He seemed equally keen to change the subject. ‘Yes, they are laying up for afternoon tea. I think they may want us to leave. But I would quite like the afternoon to continue – on a happier note and with no further mention of Nurse Moran. Now that I’ve had the chance to properly meet the famously officious Nurse Harper, I’d rather like to find out some more about this feisty, intelligent, challenging woman. What do you think?’
Beth was quite taken aback at his candour and before she could stop herself she asked, ‘What do you have in mind?’ She could have kicked herself for sounding too keen.
‘Well, the housekeeper at the doctors’ res has gone. She only works half a day on a Sunday. The res will be empty, with everyone out. Why don’t we take another bottle of that wine to my room?’
Beth watched his lips as they moved. The lips that had kissed her twice already. She didn’t need to be asked if she wanted them to kiss her again. She took a breath and, betraying neither her racing heart nor her cascading doubts, she answered, ‘Well, I am trying to think of a reason why not. However, being such an allegedly cruel individual, I’m not sure I deserve it.’
He raised his eyebrows and grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, but it is the truth as she explained it,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘Oh, I’m sure and I am stung by what you have said. However, I’m not going to mention it again other than to say that Nurse Moran was a bit of a dippy girl and yes, she did take some ribbing, from everyone, not just me. I am guessing that you have been a bit of a gentleman, saving her blushes. But the truth is, you are taking the blame in the most salacious way and you have to find a way to stop that because people are blaming you for the worst of reasons.’
‘Beth… I’m not going to call you Nurse Harper any more because when I finally persuade you to slip into my bed, it will sound rather perverse.’ She felt her stomach somersault and she wanted to reprimand him, but no words came. ‘One thing I have learnt from working in this hospital is that all things pass. As soon as there is someone else to move on to – and there will be very shortly, no doubt – no one will even remember Nurse Moran’s name.’
Beth knew he was right. ‘Well,’ she said, folding her napkin, ‘I’m not sure I believe you now. It appears you make some fairly wild assumptions and get certain things very wrong indeed.’
He grinned at her, well aware that she was referring to his assertion that she would be slipping into his bed.
‘The thing is, there isn’t any gossip at St Angelus just now, so the story of you and Nurse Moran will run and run because there is no one else to talk about.’ Even as Beth spoke those words a shiver ran down her spine. ‘I think we should take the wine,’ she added. She was going to need a bottle all to herself for Dutch courage.
Oliver showed no sign of surprise at her words as he beckoned the waitress. ‘I shall go and pay then,’ he said, ‘and collect the wine.’
‘Thank you,’ said Beth. ‘I will just pop to the bathroom.’
Washing her hands and looking into the mirror above the bathroom sink, Beth thought to herself, today, my girl, is the day you hang up your white socks, and you know it. You are going to lose your virginity. Victoria will no longer wear that crown. But when he tries to contact you after, you blank him, do you understand? This is the deal you make with yourself right now. Do you understand? Her eyes were talking to her reflection and burnt out of the mirror at her. Yes, she answered. Yes.
*
Emily and Dessie were struggling under the weight of their purchases from the Sunday market. Dessie carried two rugs, one under each arm, and Emily carried two brown-paper bags filled with ornaments and knickknacks for the makeover of Dessie’s home. Bryan had come to help them and under his arm swung a wooden stepladder that almost felled nearby shoppers every time he turned to address Dessie and Emily. In his other hand, he carried a coir mat.
‘Gosh, I’m gasping. Shall we call into the Lyons? It will be time for their afternoon tea soon,’ said Dessie. ‘How about it, Bryan? My treat for you coming to help. I would have had to borrow a pram from one of the women if you hadn’t come.’
Emily could have cried with relief. The last thing she felt like doing right now was cooking a dinner when they got back home. ‘It makes sense,’ she said. ‘That way we can just carry on quickly with the ceilings when we get back.’
‘I’m going to do the ceilings,’ said Bryan. ‘You aren’t allowed up this stepladder, Sister Haycock.’
‘Bryan, it’s Sunday, my name is Emily.’
‘Sorry. It just doesn’t feel right to call you that.’ Bryan was so grateful to Dessie for having got his da the job at the hospital, he would have decorated his entire house single-handedly if Dessie had let him. Paddy had worked his first shift the previous night and Bryan had immediately noticed the transformation in his father’s mood when he’d returned that morning. He knew that his mother would have an easier life now too and could do fewer night shifts and that was all down to Dessie as well.
‘They do the best Welsh rarebit in there,’ said Dessie. ‘They put beer in it and it’s on the afternoon menu.’
‘Forget that,’ said Emily, ‘I want the chocolate Victoria sandwich cake with the chocolate glaze on the top.’
Bryan was standing the stepladder up on the pavement. He really wanted the Welsh rarebit too. But as Emily finished speaking, she placed a restraining hand on Dessie’s arm.
‘What’s up, Emily, love?’ He turned towards her, thinking she had changed her mind. ‘There’s nowhere else open, and you don’t want to be cooking.’
‘Look,’ Emily hissed.
‘Where?’
‘There. Look who’s leaving the Lyons.’
Dessie looked across a
t the entrance and there as bold as brass was Oliver Gaskell with Beth Harper on his arm. From his coat pocket protruded the neck of a wine bottle and in broad daylight he stopped, stooped and kissed Beth full on the lips.
Dessie and Emily waited while the two lovers passed, oblivious to their audience.
Neither couple was aware that Bryan had just died inside. His secret burning crush for Nurse Harper had been extinguished before it had seen the light of day. The one joy in his life had been seeing her at the hospital, watching her, imagining what it would be like to kiss her. It was almost too much to witness another man, the rake of the hospital, kissing her in public like that.
‘Come on then, lad,’ said Dessie to Bryan as they made to walk towards the entrance.
‘No, not me, Dessie.’ Bryan shook Dessie’s arm away.
‘What do you mean, not you? You aren’t helping us without some reward.’
‘I don’t need any reward, Dessie. Anyway, Mam is cooking our dinner. Look, I’m taking this ladder back and the mat. Here, er, Emily, give me those knickknacks too. Dessie, put them in the string bag and hook them over the end of the ladder.’
There was no arguing with Bryan and in minutes he was off, walking down towards the Mersey with the two rugs trapped between the legs of the ladder and Emily’s bag swinging off the end.
‘What do you think of that then?’ asked Dessie as they sat down at the table Oliver and Beth had just vacated.
‘What, Bryan being such a good help or Nurse Harper and Oliver Gaskell?’
‘Well, not Bryan. He’s probably never ate in a café before and felt embarrassed. I never thought of that.’ Long ago, before Dessie had plucked up the courage to tell Emily how he felt about her, he had seen her out with Oliver Gaskell, in a very smart restaurant in Bold Street. They had never spoken of him, but he knew his Emily well enough to know that he, Dessie, had been her first lover and as far as he was concerned would also be her last.
‘I think only one thing,’ said Emily. ‘Beth Harper needs to be warned.’
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 28