Letters from Alice

by Petrina Banfield

  The almoner slowly shook her head. ‘It just never occurred to me.’

  ‘No, well, I suspect there is a lot you don’t know about Winnie. And I suppose her funny ways are more easily tolerated if you understand what drives her.’ Alice frowned. The fundraiser gave her an appraising look. ‘It’s not for me to share private information, but did you ever consider that, privileged as she may be in some ways, perhaps she has her own demons to wrestle with?’

  ‘She lives in Artillery Mansions, and clearly doesn’t need an income. It seems to me that she has little to complain about.’

  Artillery Mansions was a grand block of stylish apartments located in Victoria Street, in the central London district of Westminster.

  ‘Well, maybe if you tried talking to her.’ He glanced away for a moment. When he looked back he said: ‘You’re so driven, Alice, and I admire that about you, but I sometimes think you’re a little naive. Need doesn’t always come dressed in rags, you know. Sometimes it’s cloaked in lace and pearls.’

  Alice kept her gaze on him as the waiter served their meal. Above them was a sliding roof that, on warm summer evenings, afforded diners a view of the London starlit sky. ‘So, what do you make of Frank?’ she asked a few minutes later, as Alexander twisted the claws from a lobster.

  The philanthropist teased some pale orange meat from the legs using his fork and then focussed on the middle distance, considering as he chewed. ‘I would say he’s a man more suited to manual labours than anything of a cerebral nature,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘How he’s made it in the business world I really cannot fathom, though buying and selling is not beyond the ability of the greatest of oafs, when it comes down to it. I suppose he’s one of those half-wits you can rub along quite nicely with, as long as you’re expecting neither sense nor intellect.’

  Alice grinned. ‘And Sidney?’

  Alexander dabbed his mouth with his napkin. ‘Coarseness in a person will always find a way to seep through, no matter what company they keep.’

  Alice widened her eyes at that, but Alexander waved his napkin. ‘I jest. The man has a good heart, I suppose.’

  Alice went on to express her love for her role as almoner, her appreciation of the insight she gained into family life and the hope that through the course of each day, echoing the sentiments of St Thomas’s Hospital almoner, Anne Cummins, she had done more good than harm.

  ‘And yet still there are those not entirely convinced of the value of your work?’

  ‘And there’s the rub,’ Alice said, proceeding between mouthfuls of steamed herring and potatoes to discuss the frustrations of her role; the ever increasing paperwork, the reluctance of some of the medical staff to take her seriously. ‘Take Dr Harland, for example,’ she said, lowering her cutlery to her plate.

  ‘The chest chap?’

  She nodded. ‘If ever there was a more pig-headed man …’ She paused, looking at Alexander. He remained silent. Eventually, Alice said: ‘I suppose you are going to tell me that I have him all wrong as well?’

  The fundraiser raised his brow and dabbed his fingers on a napkin. Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘He’s a man like any other as far as I can tell,’ Alexander said, patting his mouth. ‘A bit brutish in appearance I would say, but I hardly know him well enough to venture an opinion on his character.’

  ‘Well, I do. And I find him obstructive, obtuse and, half the time, absent from his post.’

  ‘I suspect a number of our doctors manipulate the system,’ Alexander said, pulling the tail from the body of the lobster and slicing neat incisions into the underbelly.

  ‘There is more to it than that,’ Alice pressed. ‘And part of my role is to ensure that the hospital is not defrauded, either by patients or staff.’

  Alexander nodded. ‘Indeed. Well, you almoners do an exceptional job, as far as I’m concerned.’

  Alice gave him a half-smile. ‘I think there are some who would rather we vanished into thin air. But I’m going to get to the bottom of why that is, no matter how long it takes.’

  The fundraiser opened his mouth to speak but then shook his head and picked away at the soft flesh of the lobster with his knife, peeling it away from the protective shell.

  A severe frost settled over the capital on the evening of 13 January, and the pavements of Gray’s Inn Road were icy as Alexander accompanied Alice home. It was almost 1 a.m. when he kissed her cheek outside the door leading to the nurses’ home and then disappeared from view. It was as she turned to go inside that she was grabbed roughly by the arm. Alice swung around with widened eyes. The imposing form of Dr Harland was standing near the shadowy doorway, his dark, irregular features even more grizzled than usual. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘I beg your pardon?!’ Alice pulled out of his grip and stared at him with disdain.

  The doctor leaned his face close to hers. ‘I said, what the hell are you up to?’

  Alice gaped at him. ‘I hardly think that’s any of your business, doctor,’ she said scornfully, ‘but since we’re having this conversation, where is it you disappear to when you’re supposed to be on duty?’

  The doctor’s expression altered, wariness replacing fury. He took a small step backwards. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, I suspect that you do,’ she said in a quiet tone. ‘And if you think that sending me threatening notes is going to frighten me off, you are very, very wrong.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Alice leaned towards him. ‘Daisy Redbourne is ten days old today and no one but you, I and Elizabeth know anything about what happened, apart from her own mother. Her birth must be registered, or is there some reason you are hiding her existence?’

  Dr Harland jabbed a forefinger at the air in front of her face. ‘You need to watch yourself, Alice Hudson.’

  The almoner stared after him as he stalked back to the main hospital building, an expression of shocked loathing on her face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Can you not see the immense advantage to a hospital when [an almoner] brings her expert knowledge to bear on the patient? Watch her at work a minute. Here comes a young girl of nineteen who has just seen the doctor. Incipient phthisis [consumption]. The doctor has ordered a quart of milk a day and fresh air in plenty. He might as well have ordered champagne and oysters and a sea voyage. All are impossible to a girl who is earning about five shillings a week by working from dark to dark at stitching dress shirts or evening blouses. Then the almoner gets to work …

  (E. W. Morris, Secretary of the London Hospital, 1910)

  Alice usually manned the watching room in the outpatients department at the beginning of the week, but three days later, on Monday, 16 January, she requested permission to work her way through the list of visits that had been neglected since the turn of the year.

  With Miss Campbell’s agreement, she left the Royal Free at just after 9.30 a.m. and travelled on the Great Western Railway line, her boots touching the icy platform of Wembley Hill station at a quarter to eleven. The exhibition gardens – a vast area that boasted football and cricket grounds, a large running track and a golf course, as well as a theatre, tea pagodas and bandstands – were located a short walk from the station. It was a place locals flocked to on cold winter days; parents sipping hot drinks while their children skated across the frozen lake. In summer, couples strolled arm in arm through the ornamental gardens, women twirling parasols above their carefully styled hair. In the process of being built, the Empire Stadium (later to be known as Wembley Stadium) was to host its first sporting event just over a year later, in April 1923.

  By 11 a.m. Alice was running the gauntlet of leering labourers across the wasteland surrounding the park, where numerous building projects were in progress. Lifting her skirts and stepping over abandoned shovels and around upturned wheelbarrows, she ignored their smirks, stopping now and then to ask if any of them knew where Jimmy Rose worked.

&nbs
p; It was close to midday by the time she spoke to someone who showed more than a faint glimmer of recognition at Jimmy’s name. Standing a couple of inches shorter than Alice, with his balding head streaked with mud, the squat labourer slammed his shovel into the earth and rested his forearms on the handle. ‘You mean James? About so tall,’ he said, straightening up and raising one of his hands about a foot over his own head. ‘Stocky Irish fella, crop of dark hair?’

  ‘Sounds very much like him, yes. Do you work together?’

  The labourer chuckled and put on an affected accent. ‘You could say that, in a manner of speaking.’ Another labourer, tall and thin, appeared at that moment and stood next to him. They exchanged looks, and then the short man spoke again. ‘What does a nice-looking piece like you want with James?’

  Alice stared both of them down and then said: ‘I’d like to speak with his employer.’

  ‘She’d like to speak with his employer,’ the man parroted, nudging his co-worker with his elbow. They both looked at her, smirking, and then he added: ‘He’s away at the moment, love.’

  ‘When is he due back?’

  The tall labourer spoke for the first time. ‘Depends who’s asking.’ They both grinned again, their amusement fading at the appearance of another man in wellington boots who was holding a set of plans in one hand and a cigarette in the other. ‘This nice lady here’s looking for James,’ the short labourer said.

  The man, whose demeanour suggested he was in charge of the other two, ran his eyes over Alice and then mumbled: ‘Oh no, not another one!’

  Alice folded her arms and directed her attention to him. ‘I am not looking for James. I know exactly where he is. It is his employer I wish to speak to.’

  ‘He is the boss, darlin’,’ the foreman said. ‘Look, I suggest you come back in a week or so. He’ll probably be back by then.’ His eyes drifted down to the almoner’s midriff. ‘But don’t go expecting any support for you or the little’un.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Look, I’m assuming you’ve got yourself in a sticky situation, but you’re not going to get much satisfaction from James. He’s a man who prefers to take his pleasure and run, not that many of ’em let him get away with that.’

  Alice’s jaw dropped, but then she stilled. After a few moments she said: ‘So you’re telling me that Jimmy Rose is the foreman of this site?’

  ‘Nope, he’s not the foreman. I am. He’s the owner. And if you’re looking for maintenance, you’ll have to join the back of the queue, but I can guarantee you now that you won’t get a penny piece from him, darling, no matter how many kids you spawn.’

  With the exuberant voices of the Salvation Army’s marching band filling the air, the almoner spent the next couple of hours making house calls in the narrow alleys and crowded streets of Whitechapel. Her rapid footsteps and the briskness of her interactions suggested that she was furiously keen to wrap up the visits and get back to the Royal Free.

  It was a quarter past three when she finally made it back to the hospital, and almost half past by the time she reached the chest ward. ‘Ah, just the woman I need,’ Sister Nell Smith said, looking up from the charts spread over the main reception desk.

  ‘Give me a moment, Nell,’ Alice said, bypassing the high desk and strolling at pace to the double doors leading to the male ward.

  ‘Ah, here’s a sight to brighten any man’s day, so it is,’ Jimmy said cheerfully from his bed. He stubbed out his cigar on an ashtray on his side table, rested his hands in his lap and bestowed her with a cheeky grin.

  ‘Up,’ Alice commanded, reaching behind him and grabbing the pillows that he had been leaning against.

  ‘Wha-t?’ Jimmy exclaimed, falling sideways. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared up at her agog. ‘What did you do that for, darling?’ The other patients in the ward abandoned their cigarettes, cups of water and books to their own side tables and stared at the unfolding scene, their eyes goggling with intrigue.

  ‘I managed to locate your place of work at Wembley this morning,’ Alice said, tossing the pillows she was holding to the foot of the bed. Jimmy paled. He shifted himself upright and leaned against the metal bedstead, regarding her sheepishly. ‘And I had an interesting talk with some of the navvies there. I’m told that, besides your half-built restaurant, you own two houses, three cars and several pets.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

  James glanced around the ward. A showman by nature, he gave the almoner another grin and said: ‘Well, if you’re going to be picky about it.’

  There was a chorus of gasps and a couple of chuckles. One man in the far corner of the ward went into a coughing spasm. He banged his fist on his chest and fumbled in his bedside cabinet for his packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Picky?!’ Alice cried. ‘You’re using up valuable resources, Jimmy! Oh, I beg your pardon, I mean, James.’ Another patient guffawed. Alice moved closer to the bed and lowered her voice. ‘Why on earth would you do such a thing? When you have enough money to see any doctor you wish.’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, see. I wanted to see Dr Harland. Everyone for miles around knows he’s one of the best. And the care you get in this place is far superior to anything you’d find privately, no matter how much money you have.’

  Alice shook her head in apparent exasperation. Her eyes ran over the bed, and then she whisked several of the patient’s blankets away. ‘Come on,’ she snapped coldly, piling the woollen bundle on top of the pillows. She leaned down and pulled his tatty old bag out from under the bed.

  ‘Darlin’, what are you doing now?!’

  She plonked the bag on top of his bed next to the pile of pillows and blankets and then levelled her gaze on him. ‘You surely don’t think you’re going to stay here, do you? After this?!’

  Jimmy cupped his hands to his head. ‘I’m clinging onto life with my bare fingernails here! Hovering between heaven and hell, so I am. You can’t just throw me out in the middle of my treatment!’ A couple of patients had abandoned their own beds to gain a better view. They shuffled barefoot towards Jimmy’s bed in their night caps, grinning from ear to ear as the man coughed theatrically and gaped at the almoner.

  ‘Oh, come now, Jimmy, you have the constitution of a baboon. How else would you have found the stamina to keep so many ladies entertained?’

  Another series of guffaws broke out across the ward. Jimmy declined to respond. Instead, he stared open-mouthed as Alice opened the door to the cabinet beside his bed and began pulling out the clothes that were tucked away inside.

  ‘Oh no, don’t do that! Please! Look, tell you what. You’re a smart woman, so you are. I knew that when I first laid eyes on you. Obvious, so it was. So how’s about I make a deal with you?’

  Alice stilled, his clothes dangling from her arms. She narrowed her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance. ‘What sort of deal?’

  James clamoured for the blankets and pulled them back over his bare hairy legs. He leaned back against the iron headboard, took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘I’m prepared to make a donation.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll get the wife to dig out some bed linen and other bits and pieces. It’s all good-quality stuff, and you can have it for nothing.’

  Alice dropped the clothes on the bed and began stuffing them unceremoniously into the bag. Jimmy held out flattened hands and rose to his knees on the mattress. ‘Alright, alright! Tell me what you want from me!’

  The almoner paused in her packing and looked at him. ‘We’re hoping to open another mother and baby home in the near future, the capital outlay for which will be extensive. The Samaritan Fund is running low. And we have a long list of children who have never been to the coast.’

  Jimmy dragged his hands down his face and let out a strangled little moan. A few drops of perspiration glistened on his forehead. Eventually he swallowed hard and asked in a small voice: ‘So how much do you want?’

  ‘I would sa
y about five hundred would make a nice start.’

  ‘Five hundred?!’ Jimmy gaped at her. ‘You mean five hundred pounds?! Honest to God, woman, I haven’t got that sort of money going begging!’

  Alice rammed the rest of the clothes into the bag and grabbed the handles. ‘You’d better get some clothes on then, James, unless you’re happy to roam the streets of Holborn in your underwear.’

  Jimmy sank down onto his haunches, his shoulders sagging. ‘Alright, alright, you win! Five hundred it is. Now, for the love of God, woman, will you leave me be?!’

  Alice gave him a satisfied nod. ‘Look at it this way,’ she said, smiling demurely. ‘You’ll sleep more soundly in your bed tonight, knowing what a good deed it is you have done.’

  A slow clap from a patient in a nearby bed gained traction as Alice crossed the ward. By the time she’d reached the nurses’ station at the end of the ward, where a student nurse sat with her jaw dropped open, loud applause and hoots of laughter had broken out across the ward.

  The almoner grinned as she passed through the double doors at the end of the ward, but quickly grew serious as Sister Nell Smith ran down the corridor towards her, a wheeled trolley being pushed along by two concerned-looking nurses behind her. ‘Nell,’ the almoner said, but the nurse jogged past her, stopping when she reached the open doorway of a large side suite. ‘Risk of respiratory arrest,’ Nell called out briskly, gesturing for the nurses to move past her into the room. ‘Ten-year-old boy with severe breathing difficulties,’ she continued urgently. ‘His mother brought him in after finding him collapsed at home.’

  Alice spun around and caught up with Nell in the doorway. ‘I know the family,’ she said. ‘This is Billy Simpkins. I saw him on a home visit a couple of weeks ago.’

  The nurse didn’t answer, but beckoned Alice to join her in the room, where two young medical students and the nurses had surrounded the trolley. Billy was conscious and sitting upright on the unforgiving mattress, his shoulders up around his ears as he gasped for air. One of the students leaned close to the patient, trying to fix an oxygen mask over his mouth.