‘How do you propose to do that? This is out of the mafia’s league. They will wish her well, they are a bawdy lot at heart, especially Madge.’
‘No, this is not something for that lot. I can’t leave this to Biddy. There is only one person I can trust with this information and that’s Pammy Tanner. She is good friends with Beth Harper and she can put her straight. I am amazed that Nurse Harper isn’t aware of his reputation. Although perhaps I shouldn’t be – she’s so smart and sensible, she probably just keeps her head down and only concerns herself with studying and work. She suits those glasses she wears.’
‘She didn’t seem too shy to me, out there,’ said Dessie as he picked up the menu.
Emily had been staring out of the window as though expecting Beth and Oliver Gaskell to reappear. She looked down at the table and picked up a menu herself. ‘I think she has probably been caught off guard. I just hope she has her wits about her and knows how to say no if he tries to go too far.’
‘Oh, Emily, it’s Sunday afternoon, they are probably walking down by the Pier Head for a stroll. It’s one thing kissing in broad daylight, but… She is quite safe.’
Emily wasn’t so sure. Oliver Gaskell had a bottle of wine in his pocket. No self-respecting young lady would ever be seen drinking alcohol outdoors. They were taking that wine somewhere. ‘I would just feel much happier, Dessie, if Pammy Tanner knew. I’m going to speak to her tomorrow. Oh look, they are wheeling the trolley out and there’s the chocolate cake in the middle.’
Dessie took his reading glasses out of his jacket pocket to read the menu. ‘Let’s hope I’m as lucky and the Welsh rarebit is still on the tea menu,’ he said, Beth Harper and Oliver Gaskell now forgotten.
*
Oliver Gaskell removed Beth’s glasses and laid them carefully on his bedside table.
‘I can’t see now,’ she said nervously.
‘You don’t need to,’ he replied and then he kissed her again.
Just as her knees gave way, he moved her backwards and lowered her on to the bed. He undid the buttons of her skirt and slipped it over her hips and down her legs and off with such deft speed that Beth lifted her head and gasped. She was determined to lose her virginity to this man. Victoria wasn’t the only one who could manage that. But she was totally unaware of what would be involved.
He came back up towards her and kissed her ears, her neck. She didn’t care about anything any more. It was as though the real Beth Harper was still sitting at the entrance to his rooms and had not crossed the threshold. She had never known such an intense sensation, such pleasure. It was everything: her head swimming from the wine, the smell of him, the feel of the air on her naked skin, and then him against her, all of him touching all of her. All she wanted to do was respond to every kiss and every touch with greater passion and urgency.
He wanted her to be in control and so she lost her virginity not as she had imagined she would but astride him with him holding her hips, gently guiding her. And then he moved one of his hands on to her and she could bear it no longer as she crashed down on to him and let out a noise she was unaware she had made until he said, ‘Shush, tiger, you will bring the other doctors running in with a stretcher, wondering what on earth is going on.’ And instead of feeling embarrassed and shy, she collapsed off him and on to her side, laughing. He pulled her into him.
‘Did you… make that noise too?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘I’m afraid we will have to do it all over again.’
She pulled her head back and looked directly into his eyes. ‘Really?’ she asked, unable to keep the grin from her face.
‘Oh, yes, really,’ he replied. ‘But only if that is what you want.’
Beth closed her eyes and breathed in the unfamiliar smell of sex in the warm room. She waited for him to kiss her and when he didn’t, she opened them again. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘I am waiting for your reply,’ he said as he moved a curl of her hair away from her forehead.
‘Oh, well, yes, I do want it,’ she said. She wanted to say that she could not at that moment think of a day when she would not want it. Or a time when she would ever say no. But as he began to kiss her, she reminded herself that this was not how it was going to be. She would make the most of today, but she had made a promise to herself and it was one she had to keep. If the others knew where she was right now, they would never forgive her, especially Pammy. Her friends were everything to her, more important than any man. A man could leave you, a friend never would. A true friend was for ever. This was for one day only and she would enjoy every moment.
*
Victoria waited until the others were ready for bed before she headed to the phone in the laundry room.
‘Are you sure you are going to be all right?’ Pammy had asked her. ‘That was a nasty turn you had today.’
‘I am fine now, honestly. I feel much better, thanks. Look how much of your mam’s dinner I have just eaten, it totally restored me. I feel as right as rain, honestly. I’m just going to give Roland a call. He knows I’m not well and he’s a bit worried.’
‘My mam’s dinners would restore anyone,’ said Pammy proudly. ‘Beth should be back any minute now. I’ll pop her dinner into the range to keep warm for when she gets in. I am wiped out, so I’m going to have a bath and then read my Evelyn Pearce in bed. I feel so bad for Anthony having to work nights again. He never gets a proper night’s sleep, the poor man.’
‘He thinks the world of you, Pammy. He’s daft about you and he is the loveliest man.’
‘Do you think so?’ Pammy’s eyes instantly brightened and she clasped her hands together. ‘You know, Victoria, it’s so hard, isn’t it? I mean, I do love him, I am sure of that, but how do you know?’
Victoria leant against the wall and folded her arms. ‘Know what?’ she asked.
‘Well, whether he’s the one. He’s my first proper boyfriend and, you know, it’s not like it is with you and Roland. I daren’t, well, you know what I mean. If I got caught, me mam would never hold her head up in the street again. I just couldn’t take the risk and do that to them, so how do I actually know? I might not like it when we do…’ Pammy blushed and Victoria wanted to hug her.
‘Pammy, I am no expert and all I can say is if you love someone, it’s heavenly and natural and you have the best time. But I think you and Anthony are doing the right thing. If my mummy were still alive today, I think I’d be just the same as you are now. Roland and I, we have no one to answer to. No one really cares what we do, so it’s different.’
‘You lucky things,’ said Pammy.
‘No, Pammy, honestly, you are the lucky one. You have a wonderful mother and she is here and with you. You really are the lucky one.’
Five minutes later, Victoria dialled the number of the Davenport family home. It was a while before Roland answered and Victoria began to panic. But then the familiar click came down the line as Roland’s voice rang out.
‘Bolton 172.’
‘Roland, darling, I need you to come back to Liverpool.’
‘Well, I am happy to do that, but do you mean tonight? I am in court in the morning, you know that, or I would have been there today.’
‘No, just sometime within the next, er, week or so, if you could. After court one night, maybe?’
‘I will do what I can. I could see Teddy as well, cheer him up. I could stay in his room with him. Will you be able to come out for dinner?’
‘Yes, probably, if I’m on the early shift in theatre with Beth. I do have something important I need to discuss with you, my darling.’
Roland sounded concerned. ‘Can’t you tell me now? Why the secrecy?’
‘I can’t, Roland. All I can tell you is this: on the drive here, please think very, very seriously about how much you love me.’
Roland began to laugh, but the phone at the other end clicked before he could respond.
Victoria had put the phone down, which was just as well as she only just made i
t to the bucket that was kept in the laundry room before she saw Maisie Tanner’s dinner for the second time.
*
As Anthony donned his white coat in the changing room attached to casualty, ready to see to the first patients waiting, he smiled to himself at the events of the day. Maisie had cornered him in the kitchen when he had carried the plates out. ‘Close your ears, little Stanley,’ she had said and little Stanley had clamped both of his hands over his ears as Maisie had grabbed Anthony by the arm and pulled him into the scullery. ‘Anthony, love, what do you think? Did big Stan give you my message? Am I right? Victoria may have fainted, but she’s not ill, is she?’
‘Well, fainting isn’t normal, Mrs Tanner.’
‘No, love, I know.’ Maisie checked over her shoulder to make sure little Stanley wasn’t listening. ‘But it is normal when it’s not an illness but a condition. I’ve known loads of women to faint when the quickening came.’
Realization dawned on Anthony. He knew that local mothers set great store by the quickening. It was the point when they believed the heart of a foetus began to beat independently, when the foetus became endowed with a life of its own.
‘The quickening doesn’t happen until around twelve weeks, but she looks like someone who’s only two months gone.’
‘How can you tell just by looking at her?’ Anthony asked, failing to keep the incredulity out of his voice.
‘Well, it’s obvious. The morning sickness stops at twelve weeks, just before the quickening starts, and that one is still being very sick. I could smell it on her hair when I gave her the smelling salts. Eight weeks, I would say. And you call yourself a doctor.’ Maisie tutted and shook her head. ‘And you’ve told her, have you?’
Anthony nodded.
‘That’s for the best. The sooner she knows, the sooner she can tell her Roland and they can decide what they are going to do to get out of this mess they’ve got themselves into. And I’m warning you, Anthony, we won’t have that sort of news darkening our doorstep, do you hear me?’
Anthony got the message loud and clear. ‘Mrs Tanner, you are wasted in this kitchen, you should be working up at St Angelus. I don’t know why we bother sending our patients’ urine all the way to Sheffield when all that is really needed is for you to have a quick glance at them.’ He grinned.
‘Listen, son, I’ve been saying for years that I’m wasted in this house. That’s why I was so keen for our Pammy to be someone before she becomes a mother, to do something with her life. Every day when I go to the shops, someone tells me something nice about what our Pammy has done down the hospital and I say to our Stan, well, you know, being just a mam wasn’t a waste. Our Pammy might not have been a nurse if things had been different. I’m very proud of her, you know, Anthony.’
Anthony looked at Maisie wistfully and thought how much he missed his own mother. She had died before she had witnessed his passage from schoolboy to doctor.
‘I’m proud of you too, love,’ Maisie said.
Anthony’s heart warmed. She was not his own mother, but he felt a growing love for her all the same. If Pammy accepted him for her husband, he would have the best mother-in-law and the closest to a mother of his own that anyone could wish for.
14
Jake was standing at the back of the delivery lorry as he counted out the gas bottles being unloaded. ‘Take it easy,’ he shouted to the lads as they wheeled them down the ramp. ‘We don’t want any damaged thumbscrew valves. That gas is flammable, don’t forget.’ He turned towards the cab. ‘Have you got the flow meters?’ he shouted at the delivery driver.
‘I have, they are safe up here with me.’ The driver lifted his cap and slicked his hair back before replacing it and hanging his head out of the window.
Jake yelled out to Lorcan, who was wheeling one of the big bottles into the store. ‘Lorcan, you know which ones are the oxygen, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Jake, they are the black bottles and they have the big white zero on the side.’
Jake nodded. ‘That’s a good lad. Just don’t get them mixed up when you’re storing them.’
A major delivery arrived at St Angelus every day. All day long, vehicles trundled in and out, demanding attention, and as the hospital became busier, Jake found they were all working much harder. Twice a week it was the gas bottles for the wards and theatres. Liverpool being on the banks of a river and under a perpetual blanket of smog meant that the medical wards were full of patients with bad chests, so the demand for oxygen was huge. Everyone knew that piped oxygen was on Matron’s list of improvements. She’d already told Jake that a new maternity unit would lead the way and that she could then argue that the wards should be supplied at the same time. But she had to secure the maternity unit first and there’d been no news yet.
The deliveries of coal and coke came daily. The coke came directly from the gasworks and was delivered every night. It kept the stoke holes fired and the wards heated. The coal came direct from a city merchant’s. There was an open fire at the end of every ward, where the more mobile patients sat during the day, and the buckets were topped up four times a day by the porter’s lads.
In addition, there were morning and afternoon laundry collections and deliveries – the clean came in and the dirty went out – and then there were general stores, pharmaceuticals, fresh food and dressings.
Lorcan returned to the back of the lorry as Jake was checking off the nitrous oxide anaesthetic bottles with his clipboard.
‘Here, Lorcan, you go around to the cab and get the flow meters. We ordered a dozen and I want you to check they’re all OK. They gave us a broken one last week. Take them to the hut, check them and put them on the shelf marked flow valves.’
‘Yes, Jake,’ said Lorcan and he ran towards the cab.
‘Here you are, lad.’ The driver threw the packet of flow meters at Lorcan from the cab window. Lorcan was too slow and the meters landed at his feet. The driver leant out and looked back. ‘Pick them up quick, you stupid arse,’ he shouted.
Bending down, Lorcan scooped the valves wrapped in brown paper and string off the ground. He could hear a rattling sound inside the packet. ‘But are they all right?’ he asked.
‘Of course they are. One or two might be broken, but you’ve plenty of spares. Don’t say anything to miladdo back there or he’ll make me drive all the way back to Widnes to get some more and it’ll be docked off my pay.’
Lorcan was terrified. Telling Jake was exactly what he wanted to do.
The driver stared down at him. ‘If you are thinking of doing that, mate, I wouldn’t, if you know what I mean.’
Lorcan didn’t know what he meant, but he knew what trouble looked and felt like and above all else, he was desperate for a quiet life. The driver looked mean. Lorcan’s life was on the right track finally, his mam was improving and he was still living with Biddy, and the last thing he wanted was any trouble. He nodded, turned on his heels and ran to the hut. Once inside, he scanned the shelves and found the box marked flow valves. He took it down and saw that there were half a dozen or so already lying in the box. He opened the paper parcel carefully and to his surprise found that none of the glass tubes was broken. The rattling had been the loose peas inside the tubes which indicated how much oxygen was coming through. Everything looked intact.
He almost laughed out loud with relief as he lifted the box up on to the shelf, but his expression gradually turned to one of horror as, through the window, he caught sight of a familiar silhouette. A man with a beard was running away from the back of the ward his mother was on. Lorcan recognized the run. The man might have been wearing a hat and not a cap, but the distinctive long stride and fast pace were unmistakable. Lorcan knew that run all too well – he’d scampered in its wake a hundred times or more. It was J.T.
Lorcan would have struggled to identify his brother otherwise, as the bearded man in a smart suit and a hat, but it was definitely him. The sight of him made his skin prickle with sweat and he could hear his own heart pounding i
n his ears. He ducked down beneath the window, terrified that he might see him. What was J.T. doing there, at St Angelus? Was he looking for him? Maybe J.T. knew that Lorcan had told the police it must have been Kevin Bevan who’d attacked their mam. Maybe he was coming to punish him. Or perhaps he’d guessed that the keys to their house were in their mam’s handbag, in the locker beside her hospital bed, and he’d come to steal them. The police had insisted Lorcan lock the house up in case either the attacker or J.T. returned; they had called in their own locksmith and even paid for it. Lorcan hadn’t been back to the house. There had been no need.
He crouched there in the hut, frozen to the spot. He didn’t know what to do for the best. Who to tell? What to do?
Then came Jake’s voice, shouting, ‘Lorcan, where are you?’
*
Over on outpatients, Dana stood patiently next to Teddy’s wheelchair, waiting to see Mr Mabbutt. She was in uniform, so sitting down was out of the question. ‘It was good of him to ask for you to come before outpatients is officially open,’ she said.
She had left the Lovely Lane home early that morning, raced up to the casualty department, collected a wheelchair, steered it over to the doctors’ residence and collected a complaining Teddy, who objected to being pushed through the hospital in full view of everyone arriving for work and the ward windows. Dana felt so drained from trying to pacify him and so exhausted from pushing him, it was as though she had already done a day’s work before she had started. Teddy had kept his best face for his many well-wishers. They approached him with such obvious pleasure beaming from their faces, it would have been impossible for him to have remained grumpy for long.
‘Well, would you look at you! You took the eyes right out of me head,’ said Branna as she walked through outpatients on her way back from her break. ‘Don’t you be mollycoddling him now, do you hear?’ she said to Dana before she left. ‘Why do you think I will work only on the women’s ward? Men, they make dreadful patients and you only have to listen to Sister on orthopaedics to feel sorry for her. Some of the men up there are in plaster casts for months. Try to give her hell, they do, and their wives are even worse.’
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 29