Emily stood at her desk. ‘Right, well, I will speak to Dessie. We’ll organize a group of staff to go to the ward at maybe twelve o’clock to see her. Everyone can bring a little something and we’ll make it a thank you party for her. You know she loves teddies – I have one that I won at the fair, I’ll take her that. Matron is asking Doreen to track down that little girl she looked after for over two years and loved so much – Laura Thomas, I think her name was – and the police are trying to trace a niece and nephew she lost touch with, her sister’s children, though Matron tells me the sister died some years ago. I didn’t even know she had any family.’
Biddy walked back over to Emily’s desk and sat down. Her expression was grave. ‘There’s something you need to know,’ she said, ‘and something I want to do.’
Emily knew from both the tone and the look that this was serious. If experience had taught her anything, it was that she would end up doing whatever it was that Biddy had in mind, regardless of whether she approved or not.
*
As the nurses approached St George’s Hall, all they could see was a mass of people and uniforms spreading right across St George’s Place and William Brown Street and across to Lime Street Station. Politely pushing their way through the crowd, they heard a lot of whispered comments behind them:
‘It’s the angels from St Angelus.’
‘As good as angels they are too. They looked after my father at the end…’
The comments brought smiles to the nurses’ faces. Being appreciated was what kept them going through difficult days on the wards.
With a sigh of relief, Aileen spotted their choirmaster and shouted, ‘This way, everyone.’ Breathless from her last-minute dash to round them all up, she asked, ‘Where do you want us to stand?’
‘On the front steps.’ The choirmaster beamed down at her. ‘Everyone here is highly valued, but the audience hold you ladies close to their hearts.’
Aileen beamed. ‘Come along, nurses, on this step, please,’ she shouted. And then, as she turned to run up the steps herself, she saw Freddie. Her plan instantly flew out of her mind.
‘Oh, hello,’ he stuttered, his cheeks flushing. ‘I… er… didn’t think you would come. You weren’t at the rehearsal or the party.’ He coughed and fiddled with his scarf, then collected himself. ‘I understand though. You must think very badly of me.’
Aileen made herself look him in the eye. She shook her head, searched for the right words. ‘Me think badly of you?’ Her heart was thumping now. ‘No! That’s not it at all!’ The words came tumbling out in a rush, and she had to say them quick, before anything else interrupted them. ‘I was waiting… hoping you would… The reason I couldn’t come was because my mother was admitted to hospital. I sent a message with Emily Haycock, didn’t you get it?’
‘Shall we stand here, Sister?’ a voice called out to Aileen.
‘Yes, please, just there.’
‘All line up, everyone, please. Am I talking to myself?’ The choirmaster was trying his best to assemble people on the steps. ‘This is like herding cats,’ he shouted down to the firemen, who were flirting with the shop-girls pouring out of the stores on Church Street and down to the hall.
Aileen turned back to Freddie, who had a huge grin on his face. ‘Emily didn’t tell you?’ she asked again.
At that moment they both heard a familiar voice calling out, ‘Sister Paige! Aileen!’ and as they turned around, Emily sprinted up the steps and was next to them. ‘Oh God, please don’t hate me – I am so sorry. Freddie, Aileen’s mother was taken into hospital earlier this week and I was supposed to have told you and so much has happened I don’t know where the hours went and I forgot. I just forgot!’ She threw her arms in the air and almost screeched the last few words.
Both Aileen and Freddie began to laugh, as much with relief as anything else.
‘That’s all right,’ said Aileen. She looked across at Freddie. ‘It explains a lot, but I think we’ll be OK now.’
‘Phew, thank goodness for that. Thought I’d stopped fate in its tracks there.’
Aileen blushed, but Freddie didn’t. He continued grinning; in fact he couldn’t stop.
‘Anyway, one more thing, when you leave here and return to the hospital for the night-time carols, make sure you go to ward four, won’t you? We’re arranging something for Tappsy tomorrow, but Matron doesn’t want her to miss out on tonight. Everything is to be as normal as possible.’
‘We’ll do better than that,’ said Aileen. ‘What’s the point of singing at the ward doors when she’s the only patient? We’ll go in and sing around her bed.’
Tears sprang into the eyes of both women and neither could say much more. Emily reached out and grabbed Aileen’s hand. ‘Bless you,’ she said, her voice thick with tears.
They squeezed each other’s hands tightly as their eyes met. This was for no one else to share. One of their own, a ward sister at their beloved St Angelus, was at the end of her life and they all knew what their responsibilities were, from Matron to the ward sisters to the domestics. Tappsy would die knowing she was cherished.
Emily hurried back down the steps to Dessie as the choirmaster shouted out, ‘Nurses on the first step, police officers on the second, tenors to the right, altos to the left, firemen on the top. Please take your places now.’
The air buzzed with excitement and chatter as the crowd waited. Knots of people gathered around the braziers in the concourse where vendors were roasting chestnuts.
Freddie, now standing behind Aileen, whispered in her ear. ‘Shall I come to the hospital with you after this is over?’
Aileen turned around and the smile she gave him let him know his answer. She’d spent the whole day thinking about her plan, imagining it, refining it, and now here it was. Without her doing anything at all, it was all happening just as she’d hoped. An image of her fallen hero, David, flashed into her mind. He was smiling, egging her on and she didn’t feel sad or even guilty. ‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘I have to sing on the wards first, though – it’s traditional, what we always do.’ She felt his hand squeeze her shoulder.
‘I’ll wait. I’m happy to wait for you for as long as it takes,’ he whispered.
The crowd fell silent. The orchestra began tuning their instruments and then slowly the cacophony quieted as one by one the flutes, violins and then the harp stuttered to an expectant hush, awaiting the sign from their conductor. The choirmaster and the conductor looked towards each other and nodded.
Aileen noticed that it suddenly felt much warmer. She wondered was it the braziers that were lit all over William Brown Street and St George’s Place. The night had been bitter, but that hadn’t dampened their spirits – every one of them, amateur singers and professional musicians alike, had been looking forward to this evening for a long time. It was the perfect way to begin Liverpool’s Christmas celebrations.
The violins began, alone. The haunting sound of the strings rose into the night sky and then came a piercingly beautiful voice singing the opening bars of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. Aileen watched as the first snowflake floated down and landed on her dark cape and she thought to herself, this is the happiest moment of my life.
24
It was eight o’clock when the nurses assembled outside ward one and began to sing. They had split into two groups, dividing the wards between them. The night nurse looked up from the desk where she had been writing her report and smiled as the sound of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ floated down the ward. The traditional last carol was ‘Silent Night’ and she looked around to see which of her patients were still awake, waiting.
She and the two nurses she was on duty with walked to the end of the ward to greet the small choral group. They stepped in among them and, sharing the songsheets, sang with them. ‘Wonderful,’ said Sister as they finished. ‘What a lovely way for our patients to fall asleep. Merry Christmas, everyone,’ she said as the singers moved over to ward two.
As she made her way back down
the ward to the desk and the lamp, Mrs Paige called out to her. ‘Was my daughter with those nurses, Sister? Only I know she sings with the choir and she hasn’t been in. I thought maybe that was her?’
‘No, Mrs Paige, I think she’s gone upstairs to her ward with the second group, to sing to the children. Listen – can you hear them?’
Mrs Paige stopped and turned her head to the side and they both heard the muffled sound of singing floating down from the ward above. ‘Yes, I can,’ she said. ‘Fancy that! Yes. Will the night staff mind the children being awake?’
The night nurse smiled. ‘Oh no. Many of them will be asleep already, but those that aren’t will enjoy it, and besides, they have a special patient on ward four, an adult. Someone who isn’t very well. They’ll be putting on a special show for her.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Paige.
Night Nurse noticed that Mrs Paige’s attitude wasn’t quite as abrasive as it had been on previous nights.
‘Who is the patient?’ she asked.
Night Nurse sat on the bed, but only after she’d looked around first to make sure no one was watching. ‘She is a very special lady, a sister at this hospital. She’s spent her whole life looking after others and she’s known for always thinking of others first. There’s no one quite like her and because of that, almost everyone who works at this hospital is pulling together to ensure she has a very special Christmas Day.’
Mrs Paige felt a pain in her heart. The night nurse was describing a woman who could not be more unlike herself, and her own daughter had chosen to go upstairs and sing to this apparently saintly being rather than come and sing in the ward where she was a patient.
‘It’s beginning to snow,’ the nurse said. ‘Getting really heavy. I hope the buses are running in the morning or it’s a long walk for me. Shall I fetch you a cup of tea? I have a drop of medicinal brandy in the cupboard – how about I put a splash of that in to help you sleep.’
And for the first time in her life Mrs Paige answered, ‘Only if it’s not too much trouble, Nurse.’
*
Matron had made it clear that she wouldn’t leave Sister Tapps until after the carol singers had come round, even though she’d placed a night nurse on specialling duty. She was sitting by the side of the bed, filling in a fluid intake and output chart, and watching with dismay as Sister Tapps’s kidney function did exactly as Dr Mackintosh had predicted; it was diminishing as Tappsy dozed.
Matron’s head shot up as she heard the ward doors open and the footsteps of the eight nurses, with Sister Paige at their head, tiptoeing down the dark ward.
‘Do you still want us?’ asked Sister Paige.
Matron glanced at her sleeping patient. She was about to answer ‘No,’ when Tappsy woke and asked, ‘Is that Laura?’
Matron stood up and fixed her pillows and spoke to her with so much love and tenderness, as if Tappsy were her child. ‘No, it’s Sister Paige. She’s brought the nurses to sing some carols to you. Would you like that, my dear?’
‘Oh, yes, please.’
Sister Tapps tried to push herself up the bed and Aileen immediately dashed to the other side of her. Without any need for words, she and Matron linked their arms behind her back and weaved their fingers together under her knees. Making a cradle of human limbs and digits, they moved her up the bed, keeping her clear of the bedding so as not to drag her skin on the draw sheet below.
Both their faces were close to Tappsy’s as they leant over her and she looked into them, one to the other. Aileen could see that her pupils were dilated and her eyes bright. The diamorphine was doing its work as she smiled at them both.
‘What are you doing here now, ’tis the middle of the night,’ she said as she laid the flat of her hand against Aileen’s cheek. ‘Oh, would you look at her,’ she said to Matron. ‘Who would have known she’d grow up to be such a fine colleen. The face on her, she’d take the eyes out of any man’s head, she would. Blind them with her beauty.’
‘Isn’t that the truth,’ said Matron as she rubbed Sister Tapps’s back with a gentleness Aileen had never seen in her before. She smiled benevolently at Aileen. ‘Sister Paige always was one of your favourites, wasn’t she, Sister Tapps? Even when she was a patient here as a little girl, long before she became a nurse.’
Tappsy grinned. ‘Aye, she was that. Are you here for the singing?’ she asked Aileen.
Aileen found she could not control the tears that had rushed to her eyes or the tightening of her throat. Unable to answer without betraying her emotions and letting Matron down, she drew herself upright and turned away from Tappsy as she swiped at the tears with the back of her hand.
Matron threw her a look full of understanding and covered for her. ‘She is – they all are. Let me pull up my chair before you start, nurses,’ she said, putting on her brightest voice so that there was not even a hint that her heart was breaking. And then, looking over at the thin, frail form of Tappsy in the bed, she did something she had never done in her entire nursing career: she walked back to the bed and said, ‘Move over, Sister Tapps.’
Tappsy grinned as she grabbed her hand. ‘Oh, get away with you,’ she said. ‘You’ll be getting me into trouble with Matron.’
Matron didn’t know or care who Tappsy thought she was or who she was talking to. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t about her feelings. Tappsy was pain-free, comfortable, smiling and happy, and her job was to keep her like that for as long as she could, right to the end. That was her personal challenge.
She noticed that Tappsy’s head was sinking deep into the feather pillow she’d brought in from her own rooms and that her eyes were growing heavy. ‘Just the one,’ she whispered to the nurses, holding up a single finger.
Aileen nodded. Her throat was tight, her eyes prickled and her shoulders were on the point of heaving with sobs, but she steeled herself and took a deep, shuddering breath. She felt seven pairs of tear-filled eyes being turned towards her, waiting for their cue. ‘“Silent Night”,’ she said.
They began in their softest voices, each nurse with her eyes fixed on Tappsy, wanting her to appreciate every note as she lay there smiling, seemingly listening while at the same time somewhere lost in her happy thoughts. Matron held her hand and gently caressed it. It wasn’t until they reached the last line, ‘Sleep in heavenly peace,’ that their voices faltered and their tears threatened to break. But it was no matter: Tappsy was now asleep, the smile still on her face.
*
Biddy had taken two buses and she was cold. She held the piece of paper out in front of her, scanned the road and looked for the numbers on the doors.
The bus conductor had known exactly where the address was. ‘I’ll drop you before the stop,’ he’d said. ‘But you’ll need to walk up to the Jolly Miller to get the bus back.’
Biddy thanked him profusely.
‘It’s Christmas, love,’ he replied.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Biddy as she dismounted, determined to achieve what she’d set out to do. Now that she was here in a part of Liverpool she had never set foot in before, her confidence was deserting her. ‘Come on, you,’ she said out loud. ‘You’ve not come all the way here for nothing.’
Five minutes later she was lifting the latch on a gate she had never opened, walking down a path she had never trodden and knocking on a door she had never seen before.
A young woman aged about eighteen opened the door.
‘Can I step inside, please?’ asked Biddy, looking around nervously. ‘I’m from St Angelus.’
25
The feeling that comes just once a year and is special to Christmas morning was as strong on ward three as it was in every home in Liverpool. Even those children who were too ill to return home rallied when they opened their eyes and saw a stocking on the end of their bed.
‘Will you all calm down!’ said Night Staff Nurse as she stood in the middle of the bay, half leaning into the medicine trolley, trying to weigh out and dispense the morning medicines. As she walked
into Louis’s room, carrying his antibiotics, vitamin pills and iron tonic, she almost shrieked out in laughter. Louis was holding the bar on the side of his cot and had heaved himself up. He was bouncing on his stick-thin legs with all his might, his nappy hanging around his ankles and a full bowel movement trodden into the bottom sheet and smeared all over his body.
‘Oh Holy Mary, mother of God,’ she shrieked. ‘Nurse!’
An exhausted nurse nearing the end of her twelve-hour shift dashed into the cubicle. ‘Yes, Staff,’ she said, before the smell hit her nostrils and her eyes processed what had happened. Her hand flew to her mouth in shock. ‘Oh, would you look at the state of him. I bathed him and changed him not ten minutes since.’
Night Staff smiled. ‘Well, Sister Paige will be here in fifteen minutes by my reckoning.’ She craned her neck to take a better look at the ward clock above the door. ‘You had better get a move on.’
‘Yes, Staff,’ said the nurse. She loosened the bottom sheet from the cot and wrapping it around Louis like a mummy scooped him up and carried him out of the room. ‘Come on you, you little terror,’ she said, laughing as Louis began to object. ‘I’ll take him to the sluice and I’ll run the sink in there.’
‘Yes, do. I can’t think of any other way to manage him,’ said Staff. ‘I’ll lock up my trolley, fetch the dirty linen basket and the Dettol and wash the bed down for you. Louis, you are a little pain in the rear end these days. Who would have thought that a week ago.’
Half an hour later, day and night nurses were in the office together, wishing each other a merry Christmas. Branna was setting up the long table in the bay as a dining table ready for when the guests arrived. It was a Christmas Day tradition that Matron, Sister Haycock, Dr and Mrs Walker, and the board members all gathered in the ward for a glass of sherry, and then, lo and behold, Father Christmas would arrive, to the great excitement of the children. The turkey would be sent up from the kitchens and Dr Walker would carve it for Matron before he and his wife returned home to their own children.
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