An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  When it was hot, though not nearly hot enough, she wrapped it in newspaper and set it between the freezing cold sheets. Then it was back to the fire for Nell, where she pulled the grips from her hair and let it tumble around her ears and neck for extra warmth. The frost took an age before its feathers and ferns even began to melt around the edges. Once it had, with quick, jerky movements she stripped off her coat, and much of the rest, apart from underwear and socks, which were to stay under her nightdress. She moved the brick to the foot of the mattress, spread her coat over the bed, which was already piled with blankets, and laid her shivering carcass upon the small patch of warmth. With the rest of the sheets still icy, she scrunched her body into a ball, occasionally pumping her legs up and down in an effort to generate more heat. And, somehow, she managed to sleep.

  By the time she awoke five hours later the fire was almost out, though just how wintry it was, she had yet to discover. Upon opening the outer door she was at once lashed by a blizzard that had, whilst she slept, already piled three foot of snow upon the pavements. One thing for sure, she could not endure such terrible conditions in these flimsy shoes. Slamming the door against the flurry of flakes, and leaving some to melt in the hall, she hared along it to knock on the landlady’s door.

  ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, Mrs Connell, but have you such a thing as a spare pair of wellies – or anything, actually, so’s I can get to work?’

  The middle-aged woman was clad in several layers, besides clutching a heavy shawl around her, and was obviously feeling the nip herself, hence her spontaneous offer. ‘Aye! You can borrow our Rodney’s. I never threw anything away after he died. You’ve got big feet, haven’t you …’

  Nell overlooked the insult with a smile. ‘Oh, are you sure?’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to want them, is he?’ sighed Mrs Connell, looking freshly bereaved over her fallen son as she turned away. ‘Hang on, I’ll get ’em.’

  The wellingtons were duly handed to Nell, along with some thick socks to go underneath, and a khaki scarf.

  ‘We’re not allowed to wear scarves with uniform,’ began Nell, removing her shoes to hop into the socks. Then she snatched the item gratefully. ‘Oh blow it! I’d rather get a rocketing than freeze to death.’

  And once her wellingtons were on, she wound the scarf around her head and neck, replaced her brimmed felt hat on top, put her shoes in a bag, and thanked Mrs Connell profusely before hurrying back to the outer door.

  Here, though, her rush was to end, for with the thick layer of snow and the continuing blizzard totally obscuring many landmarks, it was difficult to tell even where the kerb was in this swirling, dizzying world. Her workplace was set at a farther distance from her residence now, perhaps a mile or so, which had not caused much effort in the summer. Today, it might have been five hundred miles, as she trudged her way through that pristine nightmare, ironically to arrive dripping with perspiration at having so struggled.

  ‘Too cold to snow!’ With mockery in her eyes, she berated Jean Wintringham, who was already in the nurses’ room, trying to warm herself through as Nell entered in a trail of melting flakes. ‘Don’t ever apply to be a weather forecaster, Wince.’

  She was not to arrive last by any means, for it was another fifteen minutes before Beata stumbled in to join those who hugged the radiators. Now almost warmed up – though her soles felt a great deal thinner having removed the socks – Nell chuckled affectionately at the sight of her friend coated from head to foot in snow, and went to cup her cheeks. ‘If it isn’t Nanook of the North! You poor thing, how’s your frozen undercarriage – oh, lucky you, wearing trousers!’

  Too frozen to laugh in return, a stiff-necked Beata allowed her young friend to help in the disrobement of her outer gear. ‘I don’t know about wearing them, they’ve nearly been round me ankles three times! They’re our Joe’s old ones, he lent me them to keep warm. Blasted things, they’re more trouble than they’re worth. I’ve worked up a lather just trying to hang on to them.’ With Nell’s help, having now managed to peel off the trousers, she threw them aside.

  Nell acted as retriever. ‘You’re going to need them when it’s time to leave.’

  ‘Nay I won’t,’ answered Beata, pressing her stocky frame against a radiator. ‘We’ll all need a snow plough. They say there’s plenty more to come. Have ’em if you want. They’re too long for my little legs.’

  ‘Cut them down, then,’ advocated Nell, reluctant to deprive her friend, though coveting them really, which Beata was quick to spot.

  ‘I’m not the right shape for breeches,’ she insisted to her friend. ‘Go on, you have ’em.’

  And so Nell gladly accepted, folding the trousers into her locker for the journey home.

  Preceding this, though, there was a twelve-hour shift for Nell, throughout its entirety the snow continuing to swirl outside. Then, in the morning, dinner-cum-breakfast to be shared with nurses Kilmaster and Wintringham, during which they were to talk about the new sister, asking if anyone had seen her. No one had.

  However, it transpired that there was another new face to greet, when a young man bounced into the dining room, his effervescent smile a beacon of light. ‘Hell’s bells, it’s a lot warmer in here than out there!’ He swept off his hat to reveal floppy dark hair, and loosened his scarf before addressing the nurses. ‘Good morning all! I’m Doctor Barker.’ But with the reception less than enthusiastic, he faltered slightly. ‘I’m here to liaise with Doctor Parrish … it’s my first day, got a bit lost.’

  ‘You’re keen,’ Nell observed to the rather bumptious individual, with only half an eye on her as she picked at her unpalatable meal of herring and oatmeal. ‘He won’t be here for a good hour.’ Then, not wanting to give the impression that she and the others were hostile, she tilted her gentle smile up at him and explained, ‘You’ll have to forgive us, we’re just off night shift. You must be nervous enough about meeting your superior without our grumpy mugs.’

  But Doctor Barker did not seem unduly nervous, in fact he seemed full of himself as he threw his hat on a table and rubbed his hands upon viewing the nurses’ full bowls. ‘My, you live like fighting cocks!’

  Worn out, but still managing to conjure a jocund retort, Beata begged to differ. ‘You what? I’ve had enough fish to give me the brains to do your job, and enough lentils to blow the top off the Minster.’ Nell and the other nurse added their voices, whilst the young doctor merely laughed.

  ‘I suppose it must seem funny having dinner when you should be having breakfast,’ he conceded, obviously happy to hang around the young women.

  ‘What I’d give for a thick slice of white bread, plastered with butter,’ complained Nurse Wintringham. ‘Any bread at all, come to that.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Doctor Barker. Then he focused his interested gaze on the plate that sat on a counter. ‘Is that a suet pudding? Wouldn’t mind a helping of that to warm me up, if there’s one going.’

  ‘If you can find yourself a machete and hack through it, you’re welcome to a slice,’ invited Nell, hiding a glimmer as the young doctor advanced eagerly upon it with a knife.

  ‘Ye gods – it’s like the Rock of Gibraltar!’ Thwarted in his attempt to cut through the pudding, he turned to view them in amazement.

  The nurses guffawed. ‘Why do you think it’s sitting all forlorn down there?’ demanded a crinkly-eyed Beata. ‘If I ate that I’d never be able to walk home.’

  Still smiling, she then proceeded to relay a series of cautionary tales about the hopeless cook, during which Nell assumed a look of impishness and momentarily disappeared.

  ‘What’s she up to?’ Nurse Wintringham wondered laughingly to the others.

  They were to chat for a while until Nell scuttled back in, her hands crammed full and her face the incarnation of glee. Proceeding to drape cotton wool around the edges of the pudding to resemble waves, she then inserted a series of matchsticks all over it, so that now it looked like a mine bobbing out of the sea. But her pìece
de résistance came in the handwritten label propped against it: We Dive at Dawn.

  Doctor and nurses fell about cackling, others overhearing and coming to see what all the fun was about, which was most inopportune, for one of them happened to be the new sister.

  For a second they did not see her, all still poking fun at the object, until one by one they became aware of an icy emanation. Then, as each turned to meet the robust figure in the dark blue uniform, whose attitude was as brittle as her starched white apron, and whose face was like a speckled egg – and a hard-boiled egg at that – their eyes quickly lowered in respect, and they fell away to expose the three who were still tittering.

  Finally, Nell, Beata and the young doctor twirled around too, immediately losing their grins, for Sister Pike’s dark eyes held not the least spangle of fun, as she glared at the vandalised pudding and enquired:

  ‘Who is the architect of this?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister, it was me.’ The traces of a smile upon her gentle face, Nell was quick to assume blame, as others around her expediently withdrew.

  ‘I fail to see the hilarity of such behaviour! Not only do you insult the cook, who has gone to extreme lengths to cater for you in these dire times, but you show not the slightest regard for the fact that your childish antics have made it inedible for anyone else.’

  The gallant Doctor Barker stepped in. ‘With respect, Sister, it was inedible befo—’

  ‘And with respect, Doctor!’ interrupted the sister. ‘I would be obliged if you would leave the discipline of the nursing staff to me. You must have patients to see, let us not delay you.’

  With an apologetic look, both for the sister and the nurses, he backed from the room, hat in hand.

  Sister hardly noticed him leave, concentrating on those at the centre of the disturbance. ‘What are your names?’ When the subdued trio provided them, the speaker gave hers. ‘I am Sister Pike. Not the most auspicious of introductions, is it?’

  ‘No, Sister,’ they mumbled.

  ‘As for you, Nurse Spottiswood!’ The Pike regarded Nell as if she were a fluffy duckling to be devoured. ‘I should have assumed the last eight years of privation would have taught you the evils of wasting food, but it seems this is not so. Report yourself to Matron, immediately! The rest of you, get out!’

  Made to look silly and inexperienced, as if her devotion to duty counted for nought, a jaded Nell consigned herself to Matron’s office, to be given a rare dressing-down. Feeling that it had all been blown out of proportion, she was afterwards on her way to put on her outdoor clothes, when she was to encounter the young doctor again in one of the corridors.

  This time he was wearing a white coat and a stethoscope round his neck, though in the absence of any superior he did not stand on ceremony, and exclaimed impulsively to the nurse, ‘I’m so sorry for my part in your downfall! Were you hauled over the coals? If I hadn’t drawn attention to the pudding …’

  ‘Oh, don’t give it another thought.’ Nell’s eyes and voice forgave him, though more through a weariness to have this over and done with than due to any of the sexual attraction she saw in his own eyes.

  ‘So how long have you had to put up with that?’

  ‘The cooking? Since I came here last autumn.’

  He laughed and leaned an elbow against the wall, his mood flirtatious. ‘You deserve the Victoria Cross! Actually, I meant how long have you had to put up with Sister. Gosh, she’s a tartar, isn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, she only started this morning,’ said Nell.

  ‘Good grief, if that’s what she’s like on her first day …’ breathed the doctor, shaking his head, and adding that he found her most intimidating too, whilst his eyes examined the attractive dark-haired nurse.

  Nell smiled, but looked about to move on, saying she must lay her head down.

  ‘Hang on!’ He put out a hand to delay her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t invest you with the Victoria Cross, but could I reward you instead with a night out dancing?’

  She turned him down with a flat, ‘No, thank you. Nothing personal. It’s just that I lost someone very dear in the war.’

  Her meaning was unmistakable. The doctor’s amiable nod of acknowledgement told her she had no need to explain, though Nell thought she might have been a little too blunt in her rebuff. ‘Besides, I’m feeling decidedly shabby,’ she added, looking down at her nursing shoes, which were beyond redemption. She had managed to mend them until now, but the uppers had begun to split. With a decent pair costing more than three weeks’ wages, and most of the latter being taken in rent and coal, this meant there was no food on the shelf at home, and when she went to bed shortly it would be to remain there all day, no food to pass her lips until she returned here this evening.

  She did not tell the doctor this, though, as, with a cordial goodbye, she went on her way.

  Whether she told him or no, he would obviously not have been concerned, for when she glanced over her shoulder he was already flirting with another. Content for him to do so, Nell formed a quirk of her lips, then gave him not another thought as she went to don her armour against the freezing waste outside.

  Joe’s trousers were much darned and patched on the buttocks, and she fancied she must depict herself as an old tramp, what with these, along with her muffled throat and mouth, the long woollen socks and the over-large Wellingtons. But she was very glad of anything to keep out the cold, as she lurched through the even thicker layer of snow – so deep now that in parts it came over the top of her boots – and was even gladder when Mrs Connell shouted upon hearing her climb the stairs:

  ‘I’ve lit a fire for you!’

  ‘Oh, God bless you, how thoughtful,’ smiled Nell.

  But no. ‘Well, I didn’t want you stoking it halfway up the chimney,’ confessed her landlady. ‘You never know how long it’ll have to last with this strike business.’

  Replying glumly that this was true, a frozen Nell finally stumped up the rest of the stairs and into her room.

  The contents of the grate turned out to be more than adequate to warm this small space. Still panting, Nell peeled off her garments one by one, hung her coat on a hook, with a newspaper underneath to catch the melting snow, then stood her wellingtons on this same piece of paper, before making a cup of tea and parking herself by the fire. Having worked up quite a lather in ploughing her furrow, it was only her extremities that were really cold, these throbbing as they thawed too swiftly, and her nose beginning to stream. She was to remain there for a while with her cup of tea, staring into the flames whilst awaiting the pre-heated brick to warm her bed. Then, in a split second she was elevated to another place, for the heat of the fire, and of her own body, had begun to entice a familiar scent from the trousers she wore. The scent of a man. Allowing herself a moment of nostalgia over Bill, Nell hunched over and stroked the warm fabric that clothed her calf, her face adopting a sad little smile as she recalled their brief and lovely time together. Still thinking of him, she tossed back her tea and went to check on her bed. Then she pulled out her hairgrips, rapidly undressed, and jumped between the sheets, shivering and huddling up until she felt warm.

  Briefly, before she fell asleep, Nell hoped that this fall of snow would quickly thaw, as had the last. Little was she or any of her countrymen to guess that they faced the coldest winter of the century.

  11

  Once that first blizzard had ceased, even with such difficulty in getting to work, the terrible weather was merely a talking point at first, the dirty old city looking rather beautiful in its pristine cloak, its rivers frozen solid for people to lark upon, and sledges launched down the banks of the city walls. But with more violent storms on its tail, and snow continuing to pile up day after day, the foot-long icicles quickly began to lose their novelty. Power cuts were to follow. No coal, no industry. Within a week, the whole country had ground to a halt.

  Nell was almost at her wits’ end as to how to maintain warmth, the poverty of her room being eminently noticeable after coming f
rom the centrally heated hospital.

  ‘If only I could get rid of that bloody draught that whistles under my door,’ she complained to Beata, as both rugged up at the end of another shift, yet again to brave the icy world. ‘At least I could keep some of the warmth in. I’ve tried rolled-up newspaper, but it’s not pliable enough. I’d make a sausage out of old rags, if I wasn’t reduced to wearing them.’ Every single item of clothing was already being utilised, and still this was inadequate.

  ‘See me tomorrow,’ murmured Beata intriguingly. ‘I might have something for you.’

  ‘Something else? Why, you’ve been generous enough already …’ But Nell was fascinated enough to see what it might be.

  Until then, there was another glissade to endure.

  But on the following shift, Beata was to sidle up to her and hand over the promised item, wrapped in brown paper. ‘There you are! Don’t say I never give you owt.’

  Upon unwrapping the present, Nell’s eyes glistened with irony. ‘Thank you very much. I’m sure a green elephant will prove invaluable.’ Grinning widely, she examined the large stuffed toy.

  Beata clicked her tongue at the sarcasm, then explained, ‘If you unpick it, and jiggle it about a bit, it’ll make a nice door rug to keep out that draught. Don’t tell our Johnny, though. It came in an aid parcel from America.’

  Nell made an exclamation of reluctance. ‘Oh, I couldn’t take a toy meant for him …’

  ‘I’ll have it back then,’ Beata reached out.

  ‘You bloody well won’t!’ Nell laughed, and hastily rewrapped the elephant, lest some one else should purloin it. ‘Oh, thanks, Killie, you’re so good to me – and it won’t be wasted on any draught-stopper. I’ll get a lovely thick pair of mittens out of that.’ She sized up the elephant and exclaimed again, ‘I might even get a pair for both of us! You’ve only got little hands.’