Christmas Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  Josie didn’t knock on her mother’s door but let herself in and strode across the room to the chair. Her mother began laboriously making her way back from the window, where she’d been trying to see who was ringing the bell.

  ‘Oh, Mother, really! You don’t have to put on such an act with me. I’m quite aware your walking’s not as bad as you make out. It’s Aileen and that girl, Gina, you need to keep in the dark.’

  Mrs Paige quickened her pace and as she neared her chair began to walk almost normally. ‘It is not an easy task, I can tell you, having to keep up this pretence,’ she said. ‘One day I will forget.’

  ‘No, you won’t, Mother. You know it’s in your interest, and we don’t want any more notions of you coming to live with me, do we? We all know, you can’t abide the children. I have a very busy husband, and little Timothy and Susan to look after. If you ask me, Aileen has the easier life. Now, has she discussed Christmas Day with you?’

  Mrs Paige looked defensive as she sank into her armchair. Josie was difficult at the best of times, but she could tell by her body language alone that today she was about to be more stubborn and demanding than normal. She tried to inject some maternal authority into her voice. ‘I have no idea what she is doing at Christmas; it will be the same as always, won’t it? She always works on Christmas Day. That hospital is her life and now she’s a ward sister she’ll want more than ever to be there on Christmas Day.’

  Josie did not look happy with this response. ‘That is as maybe, but I am afraid, Mother, this year it has to be different. We have been invited to the home of James’s boss for pre-lunch drinks on Christmas morning and it is not an optional invitation. We have to go, and that means we can’t be here to spend it with you. So you had better find some way to make sure that Aileen is here and doesn’t go to work. There is no way she could protest that her job is more important than my husband’s.’

  ‘And how do you propose I manage that?’ said Mrs Paige incredulously.

  ‘I really don’t know, Mother, but you have worked wonders for a very long time now, keeping Aileen here, pretending you can’t walk. Getting her to stay at home on Christmas Day should be no problem at all.’

  They both heard the sound of Gina’s footsteps on the stairs and Josie swiftly changed the subject.

  ‘Anyway, I saw just the hat I needed in Lee’s…’ was all Gina heard as she tapped on the door.

  *

  Biddy Kennedy sat in Maisie Tanner’s parlour beneath a cascade of turquoise-and-cream-striped satin, holding a pair of scissors in one hand and a tape measure in the other. Maisie had been busy working in the parlour all afternoon, and a few hours ago little Stanley had delivered her a message in his usual manner.

  ‘Mam! Mam!’ he yelled through the front-door letter box, his eyes pressed into the opening and peering into the small dark hallway.

  Being in the middle of pinning a hem and with a mouth full of dressmaker’s pins, Maisie was unable to reply straight away.

  Impatient at not receiving an immediate response and annoyed that his mother hadn’t immediately appeared in the kitchen doorway, little Stanley grabbed the letter-box flap with both hands, shoved it upwards, put his mouth where his eyes had been and yelled once again into the dark void, at the top of his lungs. ‘Mam! Mam!’

  Maisie’s pins flew from her mouth and landed in her lap as she struggled to extricate herself from under the yards of curtain material. ‘Stanley, I’m coming! What is it?’ she yelled back as she opened the parlour door and brushed the shreds of fabric from her apron.

  ‘Mam!’ Little Stanley was very relieved to see her. If she hadn’t been at home, he’d have had to run down to the shop and see if she was there instead, and that could have been disastrous. Biddy had called him out of a game of football that he and the other boys were playing on the old bombsite and he was terrified that his mates wouldn’t let him back in goal if he was gone for too long. ‘Biddy says there’s a meeting tonight and shall she tell them to all come to ours?’

  Maisie placed her hands on her hips. ‘A meeting, a week before Christmas? Is she serious?’ She took the five paces to the front door and flung it open, causing little Stanley to almost fall into the hallway. The key dangling on the piece of string inside the door swung like a pendulum, knocking against the wall, then the door and back again. ‘Did she say what it was about?’ She leant on the door frame and slipped her hands into her apron pocket. ‘Oh, come here you,’ she said, ‘you can hardly see your face for the dirt. It’s freezing out here and you’ve got no scarf on.’ She grabbed little Stanley by his jumper and, extracting her handkerchief from her apron pocket with her other hand, attempted to spit on it and wipe his mouth.

  ‘Mam, get off me,’ he squealed as he pulled backwards. ‘Mam, I’m in goal!’ He expected her to fully understand the importance of this comment. ‘Give me a jam butty to run back with, quick, Mam.’

  ‘Oh, come on then.’ Maisie abandoned trying to remove half of the street from her son’s face and turned to walk towards the back kitchen. ‘Close that door. You can go back the long way, down the entry, and don’t use the front door again for a message.’

  Two minutes later, Maisie was washing the jam from her fingers and watching the retreating back of her precious son through the kitchen window. She rapped her wet knuckles on the glass. With his mouth stuffed full of bread and jam and his hand on the back gate, little Stanley turned towards her. ‘Don’t forget to knock on at Biddy’s and tell her that I said yes.’

  ‘Aw, Mam, do I have to?’ shouted Stanley, glancing anxiously up the entry and wishing he had made a faster getaway.

  ‘Yes, you do, if you don’t want your backside smacking when you get back for your tea. And don’t be late, I’ve a lot to do and I’m back at the hospital in the morning.’

  Life had altered in the Tanner household since she’d started working at St Angelus. It had happened by chance, when someone had asked Emily one night if Maisie could cover for one of the WVS ladies who’d fallen ill, and that was it, Maisie was still there and now almost running the place.

  The back gate crashed shut and Maisie smiled. Little Stanley was her scallywag, her cheeky, mischief-making son and best friend to his da. She would never let a living soul know, but he was also her favourite.

  Biddy had been the first to arrive for the meeting, as usual. She was now sitting in the parlour while Maisie, who was in almost the same position she’d been in when little Stanley had turned up, finished off a hem of the curtains she was making for a customer on Princess Avenue. Dressmaking was the job she was paid for. Everyone in the Tanner house had a job; some had two. Even little Stanley had a paper round and earned his own pocket money.

  ‘Would you look at that fabric,’ said Biddy. ‘Isn’t it just fabulous. To think, not so long ago you couldn’t get a bit of material for love nor money, not unless it came from the Far East and fell off the back of the Norry. And then everyone was fed up with the kids walking round dressed like little Chinamen.’

  Maisie glanced up at her friend, all sixteen stone of her, as she sat scratching the bright red scalp in between her tightly wound wire curlers. She tried to remember whether she’d ever seen Biddy looking glamorous. The image eluded her. Biddy had looked just the same before the war as she did now.

  ‘Well, the others will be here soon, Biddy, so you go and carry some glasses through to the kitchen from in here.’ Maisie nodded her head towards the glass cabinet which had once been her mother’s pride and joy. Two of the panes of glass were broken, from the blast of ’41. More than a decade had passed since and if Maisie had a pound for every time big Stanley had said to her, ‘I’ll get that fixed this week, love,’ when he walked into the room, she would be a very rich woman and could give up making curtains for half the smart houses in Liverpool. ‘And in the kitchen cupboard at the bottom of the press there’s a bottle of Golden Shite. I was keeping it for Christmas, but what the hell, let’s have it tonight, it’s close enough.’

&nb
sp; ‘No, it’s not,’ said Biddy. ‘Still a week to go. You can have a cup of tea and on Christmas Eve you’ll thank me for saving it.’

  ‘No, Biddy, we don’t have to because there’s two bottles in the press. So do as you’re told in my house, missus. I’m in charge here. Go and get the sherry out, I need one after the day I’ve had. I swear to God, I got lost under this fabric this morning and couldn’t find a way out. Almost panicked, I did. If our little Stan hadn’t come with your message, I could have been lost for ever. Honest to God, I was nearly late for my shift at the hospital.’

  Maisie was grinning and it crossed Biddy’s mind that she was the only woman she knew who was almost always smiling. ‘I heard you had a bit of drama, what with Maura Doherty coming in with her younger daughter. She had a turn, didn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, God, it was awful. Do you know them? Sat in the pushchair one minute, the child was, and the next, the mother, Maura, took her off for her appointment and then I got a phone call from Sister Tapps asking me to send the father and their Kitty up to ward four. Did you hear how she was? I said to their Tommy, call in on your way out and let me know how she is, but he was probably too busy, what with everything that was going on. And they’ve others, haven’t they? That poor woman.’

  Biddy opened the parlour door and, clasping the handle, chuckled at the sign pinned on to it. It had been put there by little Stanley and was written in a child’s hand, in capital letters: OUT OF BOUNDS. NO ONE ALLOWED IN HERE OR ELSE DEATH BY WALKING THE GANGPLANK.

  Maisie looked up and saw Biddy’s face. ‘That’s our Stanley. What’s he like! A case, he is. If I’ve got curtain material all over the parlour, I’m not having anyone coming anywhere near it. It’s good satin, that – this lady hasn’t skimped. One finger mark on it and it’s ruined. I didn’t even ask him to write it, Biddy. The minute I told him how important it was that no one came in here, he ran off to make the sign. He’s such a love is our little Stanley.’

  Maisie’s dressmaker’s dummy had been brought down from her bedroom when her sewing business had begun to take off and it stood in the corner of the parlour draped in fabric. The studded brown leather furniture had not been seen for some time as the entire room was now covered in pieces of tissue paper, lace and fabric. She looked around her as Biddy left. When she finished this set of curtains, hopefully in a couple of days’ time, she would clear everything away and rediscover her parlour. She would decorate it and put up the tree. As she thought about the lights she had bought weeks ago with her earnings and stored away, a shiver of happiness ran through her.

  Biddy found the Golden Knight sherry in the bottom of the press, hidden behind the flour, and seeing that there were indeed two bottles, she took one out and opened it. The pub sold more bottles of Golden Knight, known locally as Golden Shite, over the counter to women to take home than it served in the pub by the glass.

  ‘Right, that’s all I can do for tonight anyway,’ said Maisie as she followed Biddy into the kitchen. ‘My eyes can only manage a couple of hours at a time once I have to put the electric light on. Who else is coming tonight?’

  ‘Elsie is on her way, and a few of the others, I hope.’

  The back door flew open and a cold breeze ripped through the kitchen. ‘And I’m here,’ said Madge.

  Maisie bent and threw a shovelful of coal on to the fire. With all the comings and goings and the door being opened every few minutes, the temperature would drop in no time.

  ‘And Noleen is following me. I just caught sight of her at the bottom of the entry. There can’t be a meeting around here unless we all come, Maisie – you know that.’

  Maisie laughed. ‘I should have known. And no one even knows yet that I’ve opened the sherry.’

  Just then the back door opened again and Noleen walked in, followed by Branna. ‘Look what we’ve brought with us, ladies.’ Noleen held up a bottle. ‘Branna and I went halves and we bought a bottle of the Golden—’

  ‘Ooh, lovely, that’s two of them then,’ said Biddy, interrupting her. ‘We’re in for a good night. Anyone seen soft girl, Elsie?’

  ‘Who are you calling soft girl?’ said Elsie as she appeared in the doorway. ‘Not me, I hope, because I bet I’m the only one who’s brought any food.’

  She was carrying a plate and Branna looked at it sceptically. ‘Is that cheese?’ she asked, eyes wide.

  ‘Of course it’s bleedin’ cheese. Jesus, it’s not hard to guess why people call you Irish stupid, is it?’

  ‘But it’s red. Cheese is not red,’ said Biddy.

  ‘Well that’s where you’re wrong. It is if it’s called Red Leicester. It’s coming into the shops everywhere round here now and, believe me, it’s lovely on one of those Ritz crackers.’ Elsie produced a box of Ritz crackers from under a tea towel in her wicker basket. ‘Anyway, try for yourself. We are very adventurous in our house, you know. Martha’s Jake, he loves his exotic food.’

  Elsie laid the plate down in the middle of the table as Biddy set out the glasses and Maisie filled them with the amber liquid.

  ‘Our Gina can’t make it tonight,’ said Branna. ‘She’s still up at the Paiges’ house, waiting for Sister Paige to get home from the hospital. Can’t leave that old harridan of a mother on her own, it seems.’

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ said Maisie. ‘She could have given us some ideas for the Christmas decorating competition Biddy tells me we all have to help with. She’s good with her hands is Gina.’

  Biddy picked up on Maisie’s comment. ‘Sister Haycock had a word with me today.’ Emily Haycock was Biddy’s boss and she would only ever refer to her as Sister Haycock, even outside of the hospital. The only person to call her Emily was Maisie, who had known her since she was a child. ‘That’s why I called the meeting. Matron has asked the girls on children’s to organize it, but they are mad busy on kids’ ward right now, busier than they have ever been. They’re transferring all of the kids from ward four who won’t be home in time for Christmas on to ward three now.’

  ‘Is that because of Sister Tapps?’ asked Branna. ‘That’s not happened before.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Biddy. ‘I suppose it must be.’

  ‘That poor woman,’ said Madge. ‘It must be seven years ago since all that upset with the polio child – surely to God she should have moved on by now.’

  Maisie began pouring the sherry from the bottle into the remaining unfilled glasses. ‘That’s what happens to some women when they’ve no children of their own – they become attached to other people’s.’

  ‘I wish I’d known what she was missing in her life,’ said Biddy. ‘I’d have sent mine to her the minute they were born.’

  Laughter ran around the room, but the atmosphere had become more serious as they discussed Sister Tapps. ‘What was the girl’s name again?’ asked Maisie. ‘The one she became so attached to.’

  ‘Laura,’ said Madge. ‘She was eleven years old. Had long blonde hair that Sister Tapps brushed every day. She was a polio case. With Tappsy in ward four for two years, she was. Came in when she was nine, frail and withdrawn – and they say that the girl’s parents never bothered much when she was in there. Her mother was one of the few who never complained about only being allowed to visit once a week. Mainly because she only visited about once a month, if little Laura was lucky.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Branna. ‘I was cleaning on there. I saw it all happen the day little Laura was discharged, and I heard all the screaming too. Broke my heart, it did, I tell you. There wasn’t a person working at St Angelus that day who didn’t shed a tear. Everyone knew her – the porters, even old Cook in the kitchen. Sister Tapps used to get Cook to come all the way up to the ward to tempt Laura with things she’d asked her to make specially.’

  Branna’s eyes clouded over as she took a sip of her sherry. ‘She was crying, poor little Laura, sobbing, putting her hands out, and her mother had to drag her along the floor, all the way down the main corridor. They were almost in a tussle and not one
person went to help her because, really, everyone wanted Laura to break free and get back to Tappsy. Screaming for Tappsy, Laura was. Matron was there. She put her hands on Sister Tapps’s shoulders and held her fast and I swear to God, if she hadn’t, Tappsy would have run after that child and wrenched her from her mother’s arms.’

  They had all heard the story before, and from Branna’s lips. But no matter how often they heard it, it always had the same impact; every heart around the table broke a little for the woman who had dedicated her life to making children well. A childless woman who had broken the golden rule and lost her heart.

  ‘They were wailing in the ward kitchen, not because little Laura had got better and was heading home, but because everyone knew that Sister Tapps was a broken woman now. It felt different. We all just knew and no one thought she would ever be the same again. Two years and she never took a day off. She got that child up every morning and put her to bed every night. Carried her in her arms around the ward, she did, until the child got the use back in her legs. Laura Thomas, her name was, and I can tell you this, she was as attached to Sister Tapps as Sister Tapps was to her – loved her like a mother she did, for two whole years. That’s what cut everyone up so much. The fact that she had awful cruel parents who couldn’t give a fig whether she lived or died. No two parents could have cared less about a poorly child, and her pitiful god-awful screams, all the way down the corridor, and at Christmas too.’

  The room fell quiet as they all lifted their sherry glasses in contemplation. Biddy crossed herself in silent prayer.

  ‘Is Sister Haycock coming then?’ asked Madge eventually. ‘As she’s given us all this extra work to do, on top of everything else.’

  *

  Emily Haycock had been a stickler about time-keeping throughout her life – until she and Dessie Horton became smitten with each other. Now she struggled to be on time for anything other than work. She seemed to spend her life in the shadows, sneaking between the sisters’ accommodation block at St Angelus and Dessie’s house, which was rather unfortunately situated next door to one of the nosiest women on the dockside streets, Hattie Lloyd.