The Nightingale Nurses

by Donna Douglas

  ‘Never mind that now!’ Ruby cut her off. ‘What happened?’ she asked Dora. ‘Why is Nick here?’

  Dora licked her dry lips. ‘He was injured . . . a policeman set about him.’

  Ruby stared at her, blank-faced. ‘What policeman? Where?’

  ‘On the protest.’

  ‘The protest?’ Ruby stopped for a moment, uncomprehending. ‘What was Nick doing on the protest?’

  Dora lowered her gaze to the floor. ‘He came looking for me.’

  ‘So this is all your fault, then?’ The other girl’s voice was cold.

  Dora nodded, her heart heavy with guilt. Ruby was right, there was nothing more she could say about it. If it hadn’t been for her, Nick would never have been in Cable Street, and none of this would have happened.

  ‘I knew it!’ Lettie spat. ‘You shouldn’t even be here. You’ve got no right. My Ruby’s his legal wife, you’re nothing to him!’

  ‘Leave it, Mum,’ Ruby said wearily, but Lettie was in full flow and there was no stopping her.

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, running after a married man! See what you’ve done? See what trouble you’ve caused?’

  ‘I said, leave it. I ain’t exactly been whiter than white myself, have I?’ Ruby snapped. She turned back to Dora. ‘How bad is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything because I’m not family.’ She ignored Lettie’s grunt of disapproval. ‘But it’s not good. His back is damaged, and there’s a risk of internal bleeding, too. He was talking all right in the ambulance, but his pulse was weak so there’s a risk he might go into shock—’

  Ruby took a deep breath. ‘So he might die, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ruby. I wish I did.’

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Lettie started up again, filling the silence. ‘None of this would have happened if you’d left him alone,’ she squawked. ‘He was happy with my Ruby—’

  ‘Go home, Mum,’ Ruby said, eyes still fixed on Dora.

  ‘What?’ Lettie’s eyes bulged in outrage. ‘Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere! If anyone’s leaving, it should be her!’ She jabbed an accusing finger at Dora.

  ‘Please, Mum. This ain’t helping anyone, is it?’ Ruby turned to her. ‘I’d rather wait by myself, if you don’t mind?’

  Lettie pursed her lips. ‘All right then, I’ll go,’ she huffed. ‘But I won’t forget this,’ she added, shooting them both a warning look. ‘Of all the ungrateful . . . and after I gave up my Sunday afternoon to traipse all the way over here!’ They heard her grumbling all the way across the waiting room, until the doors finally closed behind her.

  Ruby’s mouth twisted. ‘Anyone would think she’d come from the North Pole!’

  ‘She’s right, though. I should go.’ Dora got to her feet, but Ruby stopped her.

  ‘Don’t think you’re leaving me here by myself,’ she said. ‘We’re sitting this out together, you and me.’

  Dora read the unspoken message in her blue eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘It ain’t a question of thanking me,’ Ruby said, sitting down next to her. ‘Truth is, I’ve never liked hospitals.’ She shuddered. ‘And besides, you know your way round this place better than I do. And you know what to say to doctors. You’ve always been the clever one,’ she said, sending Dora a sidelong look.

  ‘And you’ve always been the pretty one!’ Dora smiled, remembering what they always used to say to each other when they were at school.

  ‘Much good it’s done me,’ Ruby sighed, looking down at the chipped scarlet polish on her fingernails. ‘Maybe if I’d been as clever as you I wouldn’t have got myself into this mess.’

  Dora put her hand out. Ruby looked at it, then at Dora. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she reached for it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Me too,’ Dora said.

  ‘Still mates?’ Ruby gave her a shaky smile.

  ‘Always.’

  They were both silent for a moment. Then Ruby said, ‘He’ll be all right, won’t he?’

  Dora dragged in a deep breath. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Ruby asked.

  Dora stared into her friend’s helpless face. There were so many times she had hated Ruby, but looking at her now she couldn’t feel anything but pity. All Ruby had done was try to fight for the man she loved, and Dora couldn’t blame her for that.

  She squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘We wait,’ she said. ‘And hope. It’s all we can do, Rube.’

  It was as if Fate didn’t want Helen to sit her State Finals.

  First their train was delayed by a fallen tree on the line. Then, when they finally reached London, there was no taxi to be found anywhere.

  ‘We might as well give up, we’re never going to get all the way to Hampstead in time,’ Helen said as they stood on the pavement, scanning up and down the street.

  ‘We’ll get there,’ her mother said grimly. ‘I told you I’d see to it that you sat this examination, and I meant it. Even if we have to travel there on the back of a coal wagon.’

  A mental picture of her mother perched on top of some sacks of coal, handbag clutched tightly on her lap, made Helen smile in spite of her nerves.

  Finally they found a cab to take them to St Jude’s.

  ‘The patron saint of lost causes,’ Helen murmured, as her mother paid the driver. ‘How appropriate.’

  ‘Do be quiet, Helen,’ Constance snapped. ‘Go and get changed into your uniform while I get you registered.’

  The clock was striking a quarter to eleven and sets of nurses, all in the uniforms of their various hospitals, were already filing into the examination room. Helen changed hurriedly in the nurses’ cloakroom, her hands shaking so much she could barely manage to fasten her collar stud.

  Help me, Charlie, please, she prayed silently to her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Dawson?’ She turned around. Brenda Bevan stood before her looking neat in her blue striped uniform. Helen’s knees buckled in relief at the sight of a friendly face. ‘Here, let me.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Helen lifted her chin for Brenda to fasten her collar stud.

  ‘Terrifying, isn’t it?’ Brenda said. ‘I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s too late to turn back now, isn’t it?’ Brenda finished fastening her stud and stepped back. ‘I’m glad you decided to come,’ she said.

  ‘So am I,’ Helen replied.

  As she walked up the wide green-painted passageway towards the examination room, Helen could already hear her mother’s voice raised in indignation at the far end.

  ‘What do you mean, she’s not registered?’ Constance stood at a table outside the doors to the room, berating the man who sat behind it. ‘Of course her name is on the list. Check it again.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Helen asked, coming up to join them.

  The clerk looked up at her. ‘I’ve just been explaining to your mother, you can’t register for the examination because your name is not on my list of candidates.’

  ‘Then your list is wrong, isn’t it?’ Constance said, tight-lipped.

  ‘Perhaps the hospital didn’t put my name forward because they didn’t think I wanted to sit the exam?’ Helen suggested to her mother.

  ‘No, but I did. I telephoned the examination office last Thursday. Oh, don’t gawp at me like that, Helen,’ Constance dismissed her impatiently. ‘I knew you would see sense eventually.’

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ Helen laughed, too amused to be angry. What was the point? Constance Tremayne would never change.

  Her mother turned back to the clerk. ‘There has obviously been some mistake,’ she said, in the voice she always used when she believed she was talking to a simpleton. ‘Let me speak to someone in authority.’

  The man drew himself up in his seat. ‘The Chief Examiner is busy,’ he sniffed.

  ‘Not too busy to speak to me, I
’m sure,’ she said. ‘Please inform the Chief Examiner that Constance Tremayne, Trustee of the Florence Nightingale Hospital, is here and would like to speak to him.’

  The man looked unimpressed. ‘I told you, the Chief Examiner is busy.’

  Helen saw her mother quivering with suppressed fury, and wondered if the man knew how close he was to being throttled. ‘Do you know who I am?’ hissed Constance.

  ‘No, but I know who she is.’

  They looked up. A woman stood in the doorway to the examination room, tall, thin and ramrod-straight. Helen didn’t recognise her at first in her dark grey uniform, her tight light brown curls concealed under a starched bonnet.

  ‘Mrs Forster?’ She blinked in surprise.

  ‘Hello, Helen. I told you I used to be a nurse, didn’t I?’ Mrs Forster smiled, her dark brown eyes twinkling. ‘But I wasn’t sure if it would be fair to tell you I’m Chief Examiner now.’

  ‘I was just explaining to this person – Mrs Forster, that it isn’t possible for her daughter to sit the State Final Examination because her name isn’t on the list,’ the clerk explained.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we could make an exception for Nurse Dawson.’ Mrs Forster sent her a smile of understanding. ‘Come along, my dear, the written paper is just about to start. I will sort out all the paperwork for you before the practical examination.’

  As she followed Mrs Forster into the examination room, Helen heard her mother berating the hapless clerk.

  ‘You see,’ she was saying, ‘if you’d only done as I told you earlier, we could have all saved ourselves a great deal of time.’

  The examination room was a cavernous space, like a cathedral, with a pitched ceiling that seemed to go upwards for ever. Sunshine streamed in through the high windows, illuminating dancing dust particles.

  Nurses were already sitting at small desks, set out in neat regimented lines that reached as far as Helen’s eyes could see. At the back of the room, she could make out the blue striped uniforms of the rest of the Nightingale set, Brenda Bevan amongst them.

  Mrs Forster directed her to an empty desk near the door and placed an examination paper face down in front of her. Helen stared at it, feeling sick.

  This was a mistake, she should never have come. How could she ever have imagined she was ready to take an exam? Her brain was suddenly a fog of jumbled facts, none of them making any sense.

  The clock struck eleven. ‘You may turn over your papers, Nurses,’ Mrs Forster instructed, her voice echoing around the room.

  There was a rustling sound. Helen picked up one corner of her exam paper as if it were a venomous snake, flipped it over and read the first question.

  Which drugs or agents could be locally applied to check haemorrhage?

  Suddenly she was transported back to the summer. Perching on Nellie Dawson’s moquette settee, preparing a cold compress while Charlie helped her revise.

  She smiled, feeling her confidence trickling back. Perhaps she could do this after all.

  Thank you, Charlie, she thought, picking up her pen.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  NICK OPENED HIS eyes to a blinding white light and a smell of carbolic and polish. It took him a full moment to work out that he was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by screens.

  He tried to move, and instantly everything hurt. From his thudding temples to his painful ribs, there wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t in agony. Except for his legs. He couldn’t move them.

  Panic surged through him until he looked down and saw that he was heavily bandaged from the waist down, and held fast in some kind of complicated sling contraption, which in turn was attached to an overhead frame. He didn’t know whether that was more or less alarming than being paralysed.

  He closed his eyes against the blinding pain in his head. When he opened them again, Sister Blake’s smiling face swam into focus above him.

  ‘You’re awake at last. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Like I’ve just gone ten rounds with Max Baer.’

  ‘I’m not really surprised. You took quite a beating. The doctor had to put you under general anaesthetic while he set your fractured pelvis.’

  Nick’s eyes widened. ‘I fractured my pelvis?’

  ‘I told you you took a beating, didn’t I?’

  He tried to breathe in, but it felt as if he had several daggers buried in his breastbone. ‘Will I live?’

  Sister Blake pretended to consider this. ‘Luckily it was a simple fracture, and there was no damage to the visceral organs,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid you won’t be up and about for a few weeks, but yes, I reckon you’ll live.’ She checked his pulse. ‘Do you feel sick at all?’ He shook his head, then wished he hadn’t as the room rolled like a ship around him. ‘Your pulse is very strong now, so that’s a good sign.’

  She set his hand down on the bed. ‘Do you think you’re well enough to receive a visitor? Only there’s someone who’s very anxious to see you.’

  He turned his head, his gaze following Sister Blake as she slipped out between the screens. ‘Dora?’ No sooner had the name left his lips than the curtains parted and Ruby appeared.

  ‘Hello, Nick,’ she said.

  ‘Ruby.’ He thought he’d hidden his disappointment well, but her expression was wry as she looked down at him.

  ‘Sorry, were you expecting someone else?’ she asked, mock innocent.

  Nick didn’t reply. Ruby looked him up and down. ‘Blimey, I wouldn’t like to see the other bloke!’ she commented.

  Nick grimaced. ‘For once I reckon I came off worst.’

  ‘At least you’re alive, that’s the main thing.’ She sat down on the chair beside his bed. ‘We were all so worried about you.’

  He managed a smile. ‘It was nice of you to come.’

  ‘Well, don’t get too excited, I haven’t come to mop your brow or anything.’ Her tone changed, becoming brittle and businesslike. ‘I just wanted to let you know I’m leaving the flat, going back to live with Mum.’ She pulled a set of keys out of her bag and put them down on the locker. ‘The place is all yours if you want it.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Nick said. ‘That flat was always your dream, not mine.’

  ‘A bit like our marriage then!’ she said, with a trace of bitterness.

  ‘Ruby—’

  ‘It’s all right, I haven’t come here to get all miserable. I finished crying over spilled milk a long time ago.’ She gave him a tense smile. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t move back to Griffin Street. I don’t know if I could stand bumping into you in the back yard every day!’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll find lodgings somewhere, once I’m back on my feet.’

  ‘That’s all right then.’ Ruby’s mouth twisted. ‘I mean, it could get awkward, couldn’t it, if you’re chasing up the stairs all the time, begging me to take you back!’

  Nick smiled. Even after everything they’d been through, she could still make him laugh.

  But Ruby wasn’t laughing as she looked down at him. Her large blue eyes were swimming with tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted out. ‘I never meant to hurt you, you have to understand that. It was the last thing I wanted.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Look at me, blubbing like a baby. I’ll ruin my make-up if I’m not careful.’

  He watched her mopping her eyes with her handkerchief, being so careful not to smudge her make-up. She wasn’t perfect, but she was a lovely girl and she deserved to be happy.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you care?’

  ‘Of course I care.’

  He reached out for her, but she pulled away. ‘Don’t you dare go soft on me, Nick Riley!’ she warned.

  She slid off her wedding ring and put it down on the locker beside the keys.

  ‘Keep it,’ he said.

  ‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’ She looked at it for a moment, her face wistful. ‘Besides, I expect Dad
or the boys would only take it down to the pop shop and pawn it!’

  She stood up to leave. ‘Well, I’d best be off. Don’t want to wear out my welcome, do I?’ She looked down at him. ‘But there was one more thing before I go. It’s about Dora.’

  He eyed her warily. ‘What about her?’

  ‘I just wanted you to know, she never wanted to keep that secret. She wanted to tell you the minute she found out, but I begged her not to. You were right, Nick, she’s a good friend. Probably better than I deserve.’ Ruby smiled bravely. ‘I just thought you’d want to know that,’ she said softly.

  ‘Thank you.’ Nick watched her gathering up her belongings. ‘Be happy, Rube,’ he said.

  She gave him a sad smile. ‘I’ll try,’ she promised.

  She slipped out through the screens, and he heard her voice saying, ‘He’s all yours.’ Then Dora appeared, dressed in her uniform. Her freckled skin was as pale as her starched white cap, her green eyes anxious.

  She looked so straight-laced and formal, Nick’s heart started to pound. She’d changed her mind, he thought. That moment out on Cable Street where she’d kissed him had been a wild, heat-of-the-moment thing. Now she was wondering how to break it to him . . .

  He swallowed hard, determined not to make a fool of himself a second time.

  ‘Don’t ask me how I’m feeling,’ he warned. ‘I’ve only been awake ten minutes, and I’m already sick of it.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ she said briskly, reaching for the chart at the end of his bed.

  ‘And is that the only reason you’re interested?’ he asked.

  He saw the smile kindling in her eyes and suddenly realised she was as unsure as he was. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  Relief flooded through him. ‘So I didn’t dream it, then? Only I thought I might be imagining what happened – because of the pain, or something.’

  ‘No, you didn’t dream it.’

  He watched as she bustled around, straightening the bedclothes around the frame. ‘So you’re working on this ward, then?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m on nights.’

  He grinned. ‘Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, then? Reckon you can put up with me?’

  He caught the mischievous glint in her eyes. ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’