The Nightingale Girls

by Donna Douglas

  ‘Why? It’s what I’d do. What good is a crippled husband to her? Better to end it now than go on with it out of pity, I say.’

  ‘If she loves him, she’ll stay with him whatever happens.’

  ‘Then she’s daft. He’ll drag her down and ruin her life.’ Amy appeared at the far end of the basement, cigarette in hand. ‘Think about it. He’ll never be able to work or provide for his family. And as for wanting to go to bed with someone like that—’ She shuddered. ‘No, she’s better off finding a real man who can look after her.’

  ‘Charlie is a real man!’

  Helen felt herself blushing as she blurted out the words. Amy’s brows rose questioningly.

  ‘It’s Charlie now, is it? You really are interested in him, aren’t you? Fancy that – the oh-so-perfect Tremayne falling for a patient. Bet your mother wouldn’t like that.’ She smiled wickedly. ‘Maybe someone should tell her? Give you a taste of your own medicine.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Helen protested.

  ‘Oh, don’t look so panic-stricken. We’re not all tell-tales like you.’ Amy took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘Anyway, you’ll get your chance with him soon enough. Trust me, I know about these things. I bet you sixpence she’ll finish with him today.’ She looked up at Helen through a curling plume of smoke. ‘Have you found those decorations yet? Better get a move on before Sister She-devil sends someone down to look for us.’

  I’d find it a lot quicker if you were helping me, Helen thought.

  She finally located the battered, dust-covered cardboard box on a top shelf at the far end of the basement.

  ‘About time, too.’ Amy stubbed out her cigarette and tossed it into the stoke hole as Helen appeared, staggering under its weight. ‘And you’ve got dust all over your apron,’ she added casually. ‘Sister isn’t going to be too pleased about that.’

  Visiting time wasn’t yet over by the time they returned to the ward, but Charlie Denton’s fiancée had already gone.

  Staff Nurse Lund intercepted Helen as she was changing her apron. ‘Can you keep an eye on Mr Denton, Tremayne? We think he might have had some bad news.’

  Helen’s heart sank. Ignoring the knowing look Amy sent her, she went over to Charlie Denton’s bed.

  A newspaper lay open at the crossword page, but he wasn’t looking at it. One look at his hollow-eyed face, and Helen knew Amy Hollins was right.

  She offered the only comfort she could. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Denton?’

  He turned to look at her, his smile wobbling. ‘No, thanks, Nurse. But I wouldn’t mind something a bit stronger, if you’ve got it?’

  ‘Why? Has something happened?’

  ‘You could say that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Sal’s called off the engagement.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, she was nice enough about it. Shed a few tears, said how sorry she was and all that. But the bottom line is, she reckons she can’t cope with the idea of me being disabled. Doesn’t want a cripple for a husband.’ He pleated the sheet between his fingers. ‘Can’t say I blame her. I’m not looking forward to it much myself.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Denton, I’m so sorry.’ Helen fought the urge to reach for his hand. ‘Perhaps when she’s had time to think about it, she’ll realise she’s made a mistake?’

  ‘I doubt it, Nurse T. From the sound of it, she’s already found someone else.’

  ‘Do you know who it is?’

  He nodded. ‘One of my best friends, as it happens.’ He tried to smile, but his voice was thick with emotion. ‘I don’t really blame her. Sal’s young, full of life. She wants someone who can take her out dancing, someone who can provide for a family. And let’s face it, I’m never going to trip the light fantastic around the People’s Palace any more, am I? No, it’s better that she finds someone who can look after her. And I know my mate Sam will do that. I’d like to think my Sally will be well looked after.’ He opened his hand. A ring with a tiny diamond chip glinted in his palm. ‘Although I don’t suppose she is my Sally any more, is she?’

  Helen felt a lump rising in her throat. But before she could say any more, Sister Holmes summoned her to help decorate the tree.

  Charlie Denton smiled wanly. ‘You’d best get on, Nurse. I’ve taken up too much of your time. That tree won’t decorate itself, will it?’

  Helen had been looking forward to decorating the Christmas tree. But now, as she perched on a chair to hang glittering stars from its branches, she had never felt less festive in her whole life. She kept stealing glances over at Charlie. Mr O’Sullivan in the next bed was trying to regale him with the details of his recent operation. But even though Charlie was smiling and nodding, she could tell he wasn’t listening to a word.

  ‘I do wish you’d pay attention, Tremayne,’ Sister Holmes scolded, as another bauble shattered on the ground. ‘If you drop anything else it will come out of your pay.’

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ Helen said miserably.

  Amy sidled up to her smugly, a glass angel in her hand.

  ‘Told you, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘That’s a tanner you owe me.’

  Helen ignored her. Turn the other cheek, the Bible said. But sometimes the urge to shove Amy’s face in a bedpan was almost overwhelming.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘DUNNO ABOUT BEING a White Christmas, but I reckon it’s going to be a wet one!’

  Nanna Winnie peered through the net curtains at the rainwashed back yard. It had been pouring down for days, and even though it was only mid-afternoon the sky was a sullen grey that promised no relief.

  But it was Christmas Eve, and not even the constant rain could dampen Dora’s spirits as she sat at the kitchen table with her mother, slicing carrots for their tea.

  It was the first time in seven weeks that she had been home. Most nurses didn’t get the luxury of Christmas Day off once they were on the wards, so she was making the most of this chance while she was still training.

  It felt good to be able to relax back into the comforting familiarity of home. The kitchen was cosy and festive, festooned with bright paper chains and sprigs of holly. A welcoming fire crackled in the grate, filling the room with light and warmth. Dora and her mum had been busy cleaning all day to get the house ready for Christmas, and now as they sat down to prepare the tea, the air was filled with the smell of Mansion Polish, mingling with the delicious aroma of mince pies baking in the oven.

  ‘When will they be ready?’ Bea asked for the third time. She was playing schools with Little Alfie in front of the fire. He was her only pupil and she was bossily making him do his letters on an old piece of slate.

  ‘Give us a chance, they’ve only just gone in!’ her mum laughed.

  ‘But I’m hungry!’

  ‘You’re always hungry. I dunno where you put it all. You must have hollow legs,’ Nanna grumbled.

  Little Alfie looked up suddenly, his round face anxious. ‘Father Christmas?’ he said hopefully. At two years old, he was just getting used to the idea of Christmas and stockings and presents.

  ‘Not yet, Alfie.’ Josie ruffled his hair. ‘He won’t come till you’re fast asleep. You have to leave a pillow case at the end of the bed, and then while you’re asleep he’ll come down the chimney and bring your presents.’

  ‘I’m not sure he’s real,’ Bea announced in a loud voice. ‘Terry Jacobs at school says he’s just made up.’

  ‘If he hears you saying you don’t believe in him then he definitely won’t come,’ Dora warned her.

  She and Josie smiled at each other. She was relieved that her worries about Alf getting his hands on her sister had been for nothing. Josie was the same happy, carefree girl she’d always been.

  ‘I reckon we’ve all heard enough about what Terry Jacobs thinks,’ her grandmother put in.

  Rose smiled across the table at Dora. ‘I bet this must seem like a mad house, after that nice, quiet nurses’ home of yours?’ she said.

  ‘It’s different,’ Dora agreed. ‘But I�
��ve missed being here.’

  ‘Do you have to work really hard?’ Josie asked.

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Hard work, my backside! Sitting at a desk all day isn’t what I’d call real work,’ Nanna Winnie said.

  ‘It’s not just sitting behind a desk, Nanna. We have to practise all sorts of stuff, too. Taking temperatures, and samples, and changing dressings.’

  ‘The glue factory. Now that’s what I call real work,’ Nanna grumbled on, not listening. ‘You spend ten hours a day boiling down animal bones, then you’ll know you’ve done a hard day’s graft.’

  ‘Go and put the kettle on, Mum, for Gawd’s sake. I’m spitting feathers.’ Rose rolled her eyes at Dora as Nanna shuffled off. ‘Take no notice of her, girl. She’s as proud as punch about you being a nurse. You should hear her telling all the neighbours. I don’t think there’s a single person in Bethnal Green who doesn’t know you’re the next Florence Nightingale!’

  Dora was silent, thinking of her textbooks. She was barely scraping by in the weekly tests through lack of studying, and Sister Parker had more or less told her that if she didn’t get her books within the next two weeks she would fail preliminary training completely. She’d been pushing the thought from her mind, but she knew she had to do something about the problem soon.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Her mother was watching her anxiously.

  Dora forced herself to smile. ‘It’s nothing, Mum.’ She refused to allow her worries to ruin anyone’s Christmas. There was nothing she could do about them anyway.

  Nanna Winnie brought the tea in, and as they drank it Dora told them all about the other girls in her set.

  ‘They all sound a bit posh to me’. Nanna Winnie sucked on a digestive biscuit. Her false teeth had been giving her gyp again.

  ‘They are a bit,’ Dora admitted. ‘One of the girls I share a room with is an earl’s daughter.’

  ‘Never?’ Nanna Winnie stopped eating, her biscuit halfway to her mouth.

  ‘It’s true. Her name’s Lady Amelia and she lives in a castle down in Kent. Her father owns a lot of the hop farms down there, too.’

  ‘Imagine that! I bet we’ve been hopping down on one of his farms, don’t you, Mum?’ Rose said.

  Nanna looked doubtful. ‘What does an earl’s daughter want to be wiping people’s backsides for, then?’

  ‘Search me, Nan.’ Dora was mystified too. She’d tried asking her about it, but Millie had gone into a long explanation she didn’t follow about wanting to be independent and make her own way in the world before she married some rich lord.

  As if there was anything good about working your fingers to the bone, Dora thought. She knew a few women who would gladly give it up for a life of idle luxury and no bills to worry about.

  ‘Hello, what’s he doing out there?’ Nanna said, twitching back the net curtain to peer outside.

  ‘Who? Who’s out there?’ Bea was first at the window, pressing her nose against the steamy glass to see. ‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. ‘It’s only Danny Riley.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Just sitting on the coal shed. He does it sometimes.’ Bea went back to bossing Little Alfie.

  ‘In the rain?’ Dora said.

  Bea shrugged. ‘I don’t think he notices. It’s ’cos he’s funny in the head.’

  ‘Beatrice Doyle! You’d better not let his brother hear you saying that!’ Rose said.

  ‘Why not? It’s true. Anyway, Nanna says it.’

  ‘I do not!’ Nanna Winnie looked indignant.

  ‘You do! You said—’

  ‘That’s enough. I don’t care who said it, I don’t want it repeated,’ Rose said firmly. ‘The poor boy’s got enough to cope with, without the likes of us going round calling him names.’

  Dora pulled back the net curtain and peered through the rain streaming down the window pane. Danny Riley sat on top of next door’s coal shed, his knees tucked under his chin, staring with vacant, glassy eyes, oblivious to the rain that plastered his hair to his face.

  Dora caught his eye and waved. He gave her a shy, lopsided smile and ducked his head away.

  ‘Poor little bleeder,’ Nanna said. ‘When I think about what a bright little boy he used to be, running around playing games in the street with our Josie.’

  He was fifteen years old, but he had the mind of a child. No one really knew what had happened to make Danny Riley the way he was. His mum June always said it was an accident, a bad fall when he was eleven years old. Whatever it was, it caused bleeding in his brain that had almost killed him.

  As usual in Griffin Street, there were rumours. Everyone knew June’s husband Reg had been handy with his fists. But whatever had happened to poor little Danny, it must have terrified his father because the day his son was rushed to hospital Reg had disappeared, never to be seen again.

  ‘He can’t sit out there in the rain, he’ll catch his death,’ Rose declared. ‘Call him in, Dora.’

  She went to the back door and called out to him through the rain, ‘Where’s your mum, Danny?’

  ‘Out shopping.’

  ‘Shopping, my eye! Down the pub, more like!’ Nanna Winnie muttered from inside the house.

  Dora ignored her. ‘Do you want to come in and get warm by our fire?’ she said.

  He eyed her warily from beneath his dripping fringe. ‘Nick says I’m not to go nowhere with no one.’

  ‘Nick won’t mind you being with us. Come inside and dry off,’ Dora coaxed him. ‘We’ll listen out for Nick coming home and let him know where you are.’

  Reluctantly, Danny slithered down from his perch and edged through the gap in the broken fence. He stood dripping on the kitchen rug, a forlorn sight with his bony wrists poking out of the shrunken sleeves of his jersey.

  ‘Come on, Danny, let’s get that jumper off you,’ Rose said. ‘Josie, run and fetch one of Alf’s old shirts from the mending.’

  Five minutes later Danny was huddled by the fire, steam rising gently from his sodden trousers. Alf’s shirt swamped his scrawny frame.

  ‘Ugh, he smells!’ Bea whispered loudly, her nose wrinkling.

  ‘So would you, if your mother didn’t look after you properly,’ Rose hissed back. ‘Now be quiet, or Father Christmas might decide to give this house the go-by!’ She beamed at Danny. ‘Time for those mince pies to come out of the oven, I reckon. Are you hungry, Danny?’

  He nodded, his eyes round in his pale, narrow face. A thin trail of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Look at him,’ Nanna said pityingly as he tucked into a hot mince pie. ‘I wonder when the poor little sod last had a decent meal? He’s all skin and bone.’

  Danny ate half the pie, then pulled a grubby handkerchief out of his pocket.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Bea watched, fascinated, as he wrapped the other half of the pie in the handkerchief and tried to stuff it in his trouser pocket.

  He noticed them all watching him, and a deep flush spread up his face. ‘It’s for Nick,’ he explained in a quiet, fearful voice.

  ‘It’s all right, ducks, you can finish that one. We’ll give one to Nick when he gets in,’ Dora reassured him.

  Danny ate the rest of his pie happily while he watched Bea and Little Alfie play schools.

  ‘Do you want to play?’ Bea asked.

  Danny eyed the piece of slate she offered him and shook his head. ‘I’m not g-good at reading or writing,’ he stammered.

  ‘I’ll teach you,’ she said.

  ‘Why don’t we play something else?’ Dora suggested quickly, seeing his look of fear. The last thing a timid boy like Danny needed was her bold as brass sister bullying him. ‘How about Snakes and Ladders?’

  Dora sat with Danny and helped him. He liked rolling the dice and watched her with round, curious eyes as she carefully counted out the squares for him. Every time anyone reached a snake or a ladder he would let out a bellowing laugh and clap his hands.

  As he began to rel
ax, he started to chatter.

  ‘My brother is going to fight Max Baer,’ he whispered to Dora.

  ‘Oh, yes? Who’s he when he’s at home?’ Dora rattled the dice in her hands. Probably some local lad who’d caused offence, if she knew Nick Riley.

  ‘He’s a boxer. The best in the world, Nick s-says. Except f-for him.’ He beamed proudly.

  ‘Your Nick’s good with his fists, I’ll give him that.’ There weren’t many men who would willingly take him on in a fight. She threw the dice. ‘Another six,’ she said. ‘You must be lucky, Danny.’

  ‘And we’re going to live in a big house in America, and we’ll have a car, and Nick’s going to pay a doctor to get me straight. But it’s a secret so you’re not allowed to tell Mum,’ Danny confided in a loud whisper.

  ‘Right. Best not say any more then, eh, ducks?’ Dora whispered back, as Bea leant in closer to listen.

  The game was almost over when they heard the Rileys’ front door bang, followed by Nick’s heavy footsteps thundering down the passage next door.

  ‘These walls are like paper,’ Nanna Winnie grumbled. ‘You can hear everyone’s business.’

  ‘As if that that ever worried you!’ Rose laughed.

  ‘Sounds like your brother’s home.’ Dora got to her feet. ‘Better go and let him know where you are.’

  She went out into the yard just as Nick came flying out of his back door, his face white. ‘Have you see Danny?’

  ‘He’s with us. He was sitting out in the rain, so we brought him in—’

  But Nick had already vaulted the broken-down fence between them and shouldered past her into their kitchen.

  Danny saw his brother and his face split into a big grin. ‘I’m playing a game. I’m winning, look!’

  ‘Never mind that. What have I told you about wandering off on your own?’ Nick snapped.

  ‘He was safe with us,’ Dora said.

  Nick ignored her, his gaze focused on his brother.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got to go,’ he ordered.

  Danny’s grin turned into a stubborn pout. ‘I’m playing,’ he insisted.

  ‘And I’m saying come home now!’