by Annie Murray
‘Who says she’s ready to give up?’ Rachel said. ‘It’d be the death of her.’
They were all haunted by the sight of Gladys, that morning they had moved out of the yard, standing in the road, looking suddenly very small, watching them drive away in Dad’s new car. She didn’t wave.
The car was parked outside now. Dad had wanted something flash and American but he’d come home with the old grey Standard vanguard in the back of which he could pile a lot of sale stuff for the market.
‘She could take over mine,’ Danny said, getting excited. ‘I’ll start something new.’
Melly was sick of everyone talking over her head. What if I don’t want any of these things? she thought. Just as she was about to argue, to her surprise, her mother said:
‘P’r’aps Melly ought to get another job, to start. Get some other experience – in an office or a shop.’
Danny looked impatient. ‘What’s the point of that?’
‘The point of that,’ Rachel argued, ‘is to give her a chance to do something different – something a bit more, I dunno . . .’
‘You sound just like your flaming mother now,’ Danny said, slamming his teacup on to the saucer. ‘You mean summat more respectable – selling ladies’ make-up or perfume.’ His tone was mocking. ‘Like Peggy wanted you to do instead of marrying someone common like me.’
Melly watched Mom and Dad square up for a ding-dong. She saw the word ‘Yes’ forming on her mother’s lips and before she could come out with it, Melly interrupted.
‘I don’t want to work in a shop and I don’t want the market. I want to be a nurse.’
There was a shocked silence. Only seven-year-old Kev muttered, ‘Nursie-nursie,’ with a grin on his face, to break the awkwardness of it.
‘Shut up, Kev,’ Melly said. ‘You don’t even know what a nurse is.’
‘I do!’ he shouted.
‘A nurse?’ Rachel said, her brow wrinkling. ‘You’re not still on about that?’
As she said it, Melly realized that being a nurse was what she had always wanted – not that anyone had ever asked. Kev was so clever that his new school were already talking about him taking the eleven plus for the grammar school. No one ever mentioned her. Bitterly, she felt like the house dogsbody.
She looked down into her lap, blushing. It was a tender admission, in front of all these incredulous faces. She wanted someone to be on her side and say, ‘Oh, Melly, you’d make a wonderful nurse!’
‘A nurse?’ her father said, in a scoffing tone. ‘What the hell’d you want to do that for? It ain’t for people like us. And any road, it’s all wiping arses and being ordered around by old harridans.’
‘Danny,’ Rachel said crossly.
Melly looked up, amazed to hear that Mom seemed to be taking her side.
‘Melly – would be – a good . . .’ Tommy started saying but no one let him finish.
Mom said, ‘You don’t want to be a nurse, Melly. You don’t know anything about it.’
‘I do . . .’ This was not very true. She had barely any notion of what was needed or how to apply or anything, but the more they went on at her the more certain she became that this was exactly what she wanted.
‘But I don’t want you just going on the market as if that’s the only thing.’ Rachel looked round the table. ‘You go and get another job for a bit and see if you want the market after that.’
‘Well, you’d better want it.’ Danny sounded resentful. ‘It’s our livelihood – it’s what keeps you in shoe leather, wench.’
Melly wanted to open her mouth and shout, Why don’t you listen to me? Why don’t you ask me what I want instead of bossing me around all the time? But she knew it wouldn’t get her anywhere and Kev and Ricky would just laugh and tease her about it. She didn’t say another word and in bed that night she wept, quietly, not wanting anyone to hear her. Why didn’t they listen? All Dad could ever see was the market and Mom wasn’t really on her side.
The worst of it was, although she did like the idea of being a nurse, she had no idea what to do about it or who she could ask. Even as she lay there she was half resigned to giving up the idea. Maybe Dad was right. People like them didn’t do things like that. She’d have to go and work in Woollie’s like Cissy used to.
With no encouragement from anyone at home she began to lose heart in the idea that she might be a nurse, putting it down as a silly childhood dream. She thought about talking to Auntie about it, or to Lil, but she was afraid that they might be just as bad as Mom and Dad.
It was only a few days after the end of term when she finally left school, that she met someone, as if sent from heaven, who changed everything.
She was strolling back from the shops, along Harborne Park Road. It was a warm, hazy day and her mind had wandered off into a dream world. She found herself thinking about Reggie Morrison, even though she tried not to. Since the Morrisons had moved to Moseley they had been over numerous times to see their huge house with a long garden, four floors, an enormous, cosy kitchen and windows that seemed to hold half the sky. Dolly was very excited to see them every time they came. Gladys said Dolly was lonely over there. It was not easy to make friends.
‘It feels like old times with all of you here,’ she said, every time they went. And she laid out an enormous feast of scones and cakes and pints of tea.
Only once was Reggie there. Since moving across town he had had a bit of luck. Instead of working in a factory he had been taken on to train as a gardener in Kings Heath Park. He seemed calmer, happier; he had filled out again and looked solid and strong. Even though he still walked with a pronounced limp, he appeared to be well able to do the job. Melly only exchanged a few words with him. He seemed removed from them all, as if he had grown into another life.
Wistfully now, she thought of Cissy and Teddy. The age gap between herself and Reggie was nothing compared with theirs, but she didn’t have whatever it was that Cissy had, that made men mad for her. For a moment she imagined living the sort of life Cissy had, only with Reggie. It didn’t feel real at all.
As she walked along, a bicycle passed her on the road. When it drew ahead, she saw that it was ridden by a nurse in a navy coat and hat, pedalling steadily along, looking around her as if in search of something.
Melly’s heart started to beat faster. Even seeing one of them in a uniform filled her with longing. Could she ask her about how she too could become a nurse?
But the district nurse was cycling on ahead and Melly realized she was not going to be able to catch up, let alone stop her. She would just have to look out for another nurse in the area. But then, before reaching the corner, the nurse braked, steered her bicycle into the kerb, climbed off and looked around again. As Melly approached she was reading the road sign on the opposite corner.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to Melly as she came close. ‘Am I right in thinking I’m near Albert Road?’
She was a young woman, wearing steel-rimmed glasses. She looked kind, Melly thought, though hot and flustered.
‘Yes,’ Melly said eagerly. ‘It’s just round the corner there. I’ll show you.’
‘Thank goodness – I’m nearer than I thought,’ she said, panting. ‘I might as well walk the rest. I’m new on this patch and it’s a nuisance having to keep getting a map out. There’s an old gentleman I’ve got to visit and then I’ve got to go all the way back into town. You get strong legs in this job!’
Melly thought that the woman, pushing her heavy bicycle along, was going to natter non-stop all the way and leave her no chance. When she paused to draw breath Melly had to dive in.
‘Miss?’
‘Yes?’ The nurse looked at her with amused eyes.
‘How d’you get to be a nurse? I mean, where d’you start?’
‘Why?’ Her face grew more serious. ‘Do you want to be a nurse, dear?’
‘I . . .’ She blushed. It was so odd for someone to listen and take her seriously that she hardly knew what to say. ‘I think so.’
‘Fifteen – nearly.’
‘I see. Well, you’re a bit young as yet. You can’t start training properly until you’re over eighteen, you see. And you have to apply to a hospital. So as you live round here you might go to, let’s see – the Dudley Road, perhaps? Or Selly Oak?’ She considered for a moment.
‘I think sometimes they take on junior nurses at sixteen, to be dogsbodies really. You could do that. But if I were you I’d get another job and see how you like that. It’s good to know about other things. I used to work with horses – much easier than people, I can tell you!’ She chuckled again. ‘If you still want to be a nurse when you’re a bit older, you could, couldn’t you?’
Melly stared at her with adoration. She made it all sound so easy. Above all, she made it sound possible.
‘So why do you think you want to be a nurse?’
‘Because . . .’ She was blushing again. Because . . . She thought nurses were wonderful. They did things for other people. They were kind and made people better. ‘I like looking after people,’ she said, thinking guiltily of Sandra, probably screaming her head off at home. It wasn’t always true! But she knew it was what she wanted.
They reached Albert Road and the nurse looked at the house numbers.
‘I need to go further down. You needn’t come out of your way. But best of luck, dear. Just remember – you can find out from one of the hospitals how to apply. Write to them. My mother was a nurse so I didn’t have to find out. Or the library perhaps . . .’ She was walking away. ‘I’m sure you’ll make a splendid nurse!’
Melly held this glowing coal of encouragement inside her. Even if Mom didn’t want her to leave home, even if she did have to do some other job until she was old enough, it felt like the thing she was meant to do – whatever they said.
VI
1959-60
Thirty
October 1959
Melly stood in front of her mother in the back room, the letter held between her trembling fingers.
She was to go for an interview at the General hospital, somewhere in the middle of Birmingham.
‘You’re not on about that again?’ Rachel snapped at her, bending to pick up her youngest child, who would be three in a couple of months, who was yelling at the top of his lungs. ‘Pack it in, Alan – stop that blarting!’
She hauled the little lad up into her arms, his plumpness contrasting with her own skinniness. ‘Just give it up, Melly – you don’t want to go getting into all that, not at your age.’
Melly felt rage flame in her. ‘At my age?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘What d’you mean? I’m eighteen, not sixty-five! What you mean is, you don’t want me to do it. You don’t care what I want!’
She had become harder over the years, she could feel it. It wasn’t something she liked about herself, but why the hell should she stick around to look after Mom’s kids – no one asked her to have them, did they?
Rachel stared at her with unmistakeable hostility over Alan’s tear-stained face. He was quietening now, sensing that something else was going on around him. He reached an arm out for Melly but she did not move towards him.
‘You’ve got that nice job at Chad Valley,’ Rachel said. ‘What’s wrong with that? I thought you liked it?’
‘It’s all right – I don’t mind it.’ Her voice rose with impatience. ‘But I had to do something, didn’t I? They won’t take you for nursing until you’re eighteen.’
‘But you don’t know anything about it.’ Mom seemed to be reaching for every argument she could find. Because she wanted a skivvy at home, Melly thought. ‘And what about that nice lad, Paul? You’d never see him.’
‘Mom.’ Melly stared down at the crumb-strewn quarry tiles, straining not to lose her temper. After all, if she was going to be a nurse, her temper was something she was going to have to rein in. ‘Paul’s more of a mate.’ Paul was nice enough for a night out at the flicks, but there was no more to it, not for her. She raised her head in defiance. ‘They say I have to go to the General – for an interview.’
‘Well, what about Tommy?’
‘What about him? Tommy’s all right. He’ll have a job of his own soon.’ Her temper nearly got the better of her then. ‘Since when does Tommy need me for anything? It’s Sandra and Alan you really want help with. But you’re their mom, not me.’ She bit back the words, I never asked you to have them . . .
Her mother stared at her. ‘You’re getting above yourself these days, my girl. And I don’t know what your father will say.’
‘Yes, you do. And so do I.’ Melly turned away. ‘But whatever he says, it’s my life, not his – or yours. I’m going – so don’t try and stop me.’
Over the past three years her determination to be a nurse had grown. Not that these years hadn’t been fun in some ways. Her first jobs after leaving school were in a grocer’s shop and then a laundry. And most Saturdays she worked the Rag Market as well.
After a year she decided to go for something new. She applied to work in the toy factory at Chad Valley. When she first arrived she had been assembling colourful tin spinning tops. She found everybody friendly. A middle-aged lady called Elsie had taken her under her wing to begin with. Elsie had been at Chad Valley all her working life and she told Melly all about when the firm had made little dolls of the royal princesses in 1936 and the princesses even came for a sitting. She also told her how she had spent most of the war making tent poles and it was lovely when they went back to making all the new toys.
That Christmas, Melly had spent some of her wages on the game Escalado for the family. It still gave her a warm feeling remembering that Christmas, all of them playing the horse-racing game, taking it in turns to whizz the handle round to move the horses along, which Tommy could manage as well as the others. Kevin and Ricky had loved it and Dad as well. Sandra had sat cackling at the sight of them all laughing and yelling on their horses to win.
Buying the game still felt like one of the best things she had ever done. And she did like Chad Valley. But she did not want to be like Elsie, still there in her fifties. She wanted more. And she had an ambition of her own.
Things had moved on for the family. Unlike the years in Aston when they hardly went further than the middle of town, things had branched out. For a start they were back and forth visiting Gladys in Aston and the Morrisons in Moseley.
Tommy, now sixteen, was one of the small chosen number at Carlson House who had been encouraged to sit some O-levels and he was working hard for those. Kevin had taken the eleven plus and got into the grammar school. Mom and Dad had not been too sure about that but she was the one who had stood up for Kevin. They weren’t a family who could not afford the uniform, were they? Why not let him go?
Sometimes it felt as if Mom and Dad – and Gladys when they consulted her – were against anything anyone tried to do to better themselves. All they knew about was selling things and they were not very open-minded about anything else.
Kevin, who was the liveliest and sparkiest boy in the family, was thriving at the grammar school. He was clever, quick, and good at sport. Melly secretly found courage in Kevin. He didn’t fret about whether he was good enough or clever enough. He just got on with it.
Well, Melly thought, if Kev’s that clever, maybe I’m a bit clever too.
And she was meant to be a nurse – wasn’t she?
Thirty-One
February 1960
Melly carried her suitcase downstairs that cold, bleak morning.
The case was a cheap thing she had bought from the market and it now contained her few clothes and belongings. It felt momentous, exciting and, all of a sudden, sad. She felt herself well up as she watched her feet, in the new black lace-up shoes she had bought in preparation, take each step downwards towards her fate.
She paused for a moment, near the bottom. Was she doing the wrong thing, leaving like this? In those seconds her familiar home seemed so precious, all the everyday things that made a
family life. She knew that as soon as she left, things would never be the same again. What if she stayed, gave it all up and went back to Chad Valley, having an on-and-off sort of friendship with steady old Paul, carrying on with things as they were?
But the very thought made her feel shut in and depressed. No – she had to do something else with her life while she had the chance!
Earlier she had said goodbye to Tommy. He had done very well at Carlson House. The operation on his left leg had straightened it a fraction, though he was still in pain some of the time, but he could walk, slowly, painfully, with a stick when necessary. The school were currently looking for a firm who might take him on as a bookkeeper, once he had done his exams.
It was a long time since Melly felt that Tommy actually needed her in the special way he had since she was little. But now he looked her in the eye and hugged her clumsily with his good arm.
‘You know, sis,’ he said in his quiet, slow way. ‘You’ll make – a really – good nurse.’
Looking into his earnest face, as he worked to finish the sentence, Melly felt a great rush of love for her little brother and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Bye, sis. Good – luck. Don’t – be a – stranger – will you?’
‘Course I won’t.’ She gave him a watery smile and squeezed his arm. ‘Good luck to you as well.’
Her other brothers said hurried goodbyes on their way out to school, Ricky, who was eight, not really taking in that she would not be home again. Kev understood but was in a gruff, eleven-year-old rush to get out of the house.
Dad had gone out early this morning. Only Mom was left with Sandra and Alan. Mom was sitting at the table, the midday dinner cleared away.
‘Well,’ Melly said. She was due to arrive at two. ‘Time I was off.’
Her mother stood up. Melly saw that while she had been upstairs packing, Mom had changed into one of her best dresses, in royal blue wool. She had swept her hair and pinned it into a sleek pleat. Melly was struck by how nice she looked, how much younger suddenly.