Norman was about to place an entire half a sandwich into his mouth. ‘I would say so, because if you don’t, there is only one thing going to happen and that is sweet Fanny Adams and you will be left swinging your truncheon all on your own.’ He began to laugh, a long, dirty laugh, and his shoulders heaved up and down as he did so.
Freddie looked at him in disgust.
As Norman stopped laughing, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His face was flushed red and his eyes were bright. ‘Oh, where’s your sense of humour, Freddie? My, you have it bad, don’t you? Look, if you don’t ask again, you have no chance, me old son. Do it. Find her at your rehearsal thing and ask her straight up. Say, “This is me last offer, Sister Paige. I won’t be asking again.”’
Freddie grinned, visibly cheered by Norman’s endorsement of his own instincts. ‘Right, I don’t understand any of this, but that is what I will do. I know she likes me, Norm, I can see it in her – like it’s in me, you know. It’s there, the spark everyone talks about. I’ve never had it before, but you know, when we talk, it’s as if we talk to each other every day. It’s like she’s not Sister Paige but someone I’ve known for ages.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Norman between bites. ‘Just be prepared for a broken heart, my lad. I told you, she’s top drawer, that one. So are you, mind, but she is a bit special, everyone says so. Oi, any ciggies in your pocket? My advice doesn’t come for free, you know. And go and fetch me a cuppa, there’s a good lad.’
*
Gina had only been home from the Paiges’ for an hour or so when her mam came clattering through the back door, humming to herself and in good spirits after her meeting with the other St Angelus domestics round at Maisie Tanner’s.
Sister Paige had got back from the hospital later than usual, but Gina didn’t mind. Her mam had told her that Aileen had one of the most important jobs at St Angelus and that Gina was to do her best to help her in whatever way she could. ‘She can’t be saving babies’ lives as well as scrubbing her own floors – that’s your job and what she pays you for,’ Branna had told her.
Gina would have loved to be the one saving babies’ lives and not the floor scrubber. She loved babies. When the day was done and she pulled the bed covers over her shoulders, she closed her eyes and saw the face of her future child. She dreamt about the clothes it would wear and the pram she would buy. She longed for the day when she would become a mother and, as a natural consequence of that, an independent woman of substance, with her own home and her own life, doing things her way.
There were so many new things coming into the shops, she could barely wait. Gina was the opposite of her mother – she drooled over ornaments, frivolous cushions and lampshades with fringes. Every week, something she could never have imagined appeared in Blacklers’ windows. But wait she had to. She had promised her mam that she wouldn’t court anyone until she was past her seventeenth birthday. There were enough lads locally to choose from and that was something else she thought about as she drifted off to sleep. Which one would it be? In the meantime, she scrubbed floors.
Branna set her empty basket on the kitchen table and shot a concerned glance at her daughter. ‘Hello, love, you all right? You look done in. Has that Mrs Paige been giving you the runaround again?’
Gina nodded and rolled her eyes. ‘God, Mam, she’s a right old witch. An evil woman, she is. You should see and hear the way she talks to Sister Paige and carries on about being “a poorly woman”. I swear to God, there is nothing wrong with her.’
Branna had lost no time in getting on with her chores and was already wiping down the kitchen table. She walked over to the sink to shake out the crumbs from the dishcloth. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, love – she is a poorly woman, there’s no doubt about that. No one is right again after a stroke, Gina. A stroke is a stroke and most people die from them.’
‘Oh, I know that, Mam. What I mean is, she’s not a well woman, but, well…’ Gina hesitated. She had thought it would be a good idea to tell Branna, but now she just felt mean. It was one thing to know what Mrs Paige did and keep it in her own head, another altogether to say it out loud.
‘It’s just that she’s not as poorly as she makes out. I swear it – I’ve watched her. She pretends she can’t move in the chair, but then as soon as Sister Paige leaves for work, she’s up and out of that chair as fast as you like.’
Branna placed her hands on her hips. ‘No! You are kidding me, Gina, aren’t you? That can’t be right. It’s common knowledge she’s lost the proper use of one of her legs and one of her arms, so unless she’s hopping across the floor – and I’m guessing she isn’t – then she can’t be. And, besides, what about when you are on your day off, when Sister Paige is there on her own, she must see her do that too. It can’t just be you she’s hopping around for.’
‘She’s not hopping, Mam, you eejit.’ Gina was giggling now at the thought of the grumpy Mrs Paige hopping across her bedroom floor. ‘She is walking, Mam, I tell you. Oh, not perfect, mind, and she does use the stick, but she can put some weight on that bad leg, and she does walk. And she’s quick too. I wondered about when I’m not there too, but I don’t think she does it then.’
Branna was perplexed. She had no idea what to make of her daughter’s revelation and a series of thoughts were flashing through her mind, the first of which was: if Mrs Paige could walk, why was Aileen having to pay for someone to sit with her?
‘How do you know this, Gina, because surely if she’s keeping it secret from Sister Paige, she’ll be keeping it secret from you too?’
‘Mam, I know because the keyhole in her bedroom door is a great big thing and when I polished it the other day, I took the key out and put it on the table next to the door on the landing.’
‘Pass me those dishes while you talk,’ said Branna. ‘I want to get to bed soon, my feet are killing me.’ She shuffled over to the sink and filled the enamel bowl as Gina carried the dishes over.
They both worked at cleaning jobs all day, but when they were at home, they shared everything. As Branna often said, cleaning their own home was as nothing compared to St Angelus. ‘We don’t have much, which means there’s not a lot to polish,’ was her common refrain, and she wasn’t lying. Branna wasn’t interested in material possessions and the house was almost bare of ornamentation or frills. There was nothing tolerated in her house that didn’t have a useful purpose, just a selection of ornaments depicting the Stations of the Cross on the mantelpiece, a clock and a mirror over the fire in the parlour, the minimum of furniture, and a mere two rugs that needed beating.
Gina let the dishes slide from her hands into the bowl and turned away to collect the teacups. ‘Anyway, sometime later she rang the bell and I was on the landing, standing on the chair, cleaning the big window. She must have thought I was downstairs in the scullery and would have to run back up. I heard her clomping about and I don’t know what came over me, but I could see the key was still on the table, so I got off the chair, bent down and had a look through the keyhole. And, Mam, it’s the size of my hand, so I know what I saw, and there she was, hobbling back from the window to the chair, as fast as you like.’
‘Get the tea towel,’ said Branna, up to her elbows in soapy water. ‘You can dry and talk at the same time.’ Looking sideways at Gina, she asked, ‘Did she know you’d seen her?’
‘No!’ Gina shot back, shocked. ‘If she had, I think she’d have got Sister Paige to sack me. She’s not a bit like Sister Paige – really mean she is. Never says thank you or please and I’ve never heard anyone moan so much. I’m glad in a way that she’s stuck to her room, otherwise I would have to be creeping around her all day long.’
Branna passed the last plate to Gina. ‘Does that other daughter of hers ever come to visit? The one who lives in the Old Roan. Does she know she walks about?’
‘That’s their Josie. She comes and has lunch with Mrs Paige once a week and do you know, she’s as bad as the mother. I feel so sorry for Sister Paige, you should hear ho
w they talk about her. So mean, they are. The sister has married well and, my God, can’t you tell. That’s all the mother cares about – a right money-grabber she is.’
‘Most people are, Gina. You will learn that in life. For almost everyone, money is more important than family or faith. Although it beats me why she should be so concerned. They live in a nice house and seem to be very comfortable.’
‘Oh no, I don’t think they are.’ Gina stacked the dried plates on to the shelf on the press. ‘That’s something else I overheard. Mrs Paige was telling Josie that they needed all of Sister Paige’s wages to pay the bills, and she said, “There’s very little left, Josie. If Aileen had ever got married and moved away, I would have had to sell this place. I wouldn’t want any strange man to have lived here. Married to Aileen or not.”’
‘Well, well, well, just shows you, you never know, do you,’ said Branna, a thoughtful look on her face.
‘Mam, do you think I should tell Sister Paige that I saw her mother moving around like a good’un?’ Gina folded the wet tea towel and laid it across the bar of the range. Then she crossed her arms and leant against the blackened metal door and warmed her backside.
‘Cup of tea before bed?’ Branna held the kettle up.
‘Please. What do you think? Should I?’
Branna filled the kettle, placed it on the range, folded her own arms and leant against the bar right next to her daughter, their arms touching. Mother and daughter: workers, survivors, confidantes. ‘Hmm. Let me think a second.’
Gina watched her mam. She could almost hear the cogs in her brain turning.
‘The thing is, Gina, you have to weigh up all of the options. If you tell Sister Paige and she believes you and is happy to know, then nothing really alters for you. But if she isn’t happy and doesn’t believe you, you could be out of a job. My advice is to keep your own counsel. But I tell you what, I’ll ask the mafia. We’re having a night of making stars and moons around at Maisie’s house in a day or two – to help decorate the children’s ward for Christmas. Matron wants us to enter a competition and she’s asked everyone to help. Would you believe it, so close to Christmas! We decided on it tonight – we’re going to do the Christmas Eve sky with the Star of Bethlehem for the shepherds to follow. Dessie and Jake are going to pin them all up on to the ceiling for us.’
‘Oh, that sounds lovely,’ said Gina. ‘Mam, are we going to be all right for Christmas – for money?’ she added nervously. ‘With Da having being off sick from the docks for so long.’
Branna put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘Well, I’m not going to lie to you, if we didn’t have your money coming in, it would be hard. But no, I’ve been paying into the clubs religiously, every week. Never missed one, so we’re going to have a whopper of a turkey and all the trimmings, and you would not believe the amount of fancy things coming into the shop and I’ve got almost five pounds in me club book.’
Gina grinned from ear to ear. ‘Does me da know?’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling and the room above, where her father had taken himself to bed as soon as he’d finished eating, having exhausted himself coughing.
‘Behave! Tell him? He’d go down there, carrying on and demanding they give it back to him. He’d be shouting and saying by rights it was his – you know what he’s like – and then he’d spend it in the pub and on fags in one night, what I took a year to save. Not bleedin’ likely.’ Branna gave her daughter a squeeze. ‘Why don’t you come to the shop with me after work tomorrow and choose the Christmas treats? I’m going to be calling in there every day now on my way home from work to make sure I’ve got everything in. I can only carry so much at a time and I’m not telling your father. I’m hiding it all in the copper boiler in the scullery. We’ll get all the fresh stuff on Christmas Eve and pick up the meat then too – that way he can say what the hell he likes ’cause I’ll have spent the bleedin’ lot.’
Gina grinned. Her and her mam outwitted her da every single day. They were a team and Gina loved it.
‘I can’t, Mam. Sister Paige is singing in the Christmas choir and they’re all getting together for a big rehearsal,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be late tomorrow because she’s asked me to cover for her while she’s gone.’
‘Well at least that’s something nice poor Sister Paige can look forward to,’ said Branna. ‘Anyway, it’s better to keep yourself to yourself, queen. Only tell your mam, no one else. I’ll consult the mafia girls and see what they think, eh? They might think of a way we can let her know, like. Stop her being so worried.’
The kettle began to whistle behind them and they both lunged forward together, away from the range, united as always, mother and daughter acting as one.
11
Matron could hear the telephone ringing as she mounted the stairs from the main reception area of St Angelus to her accommodation on the first floor. Blackie trotted obediently at her heels, grumpier than usual, having spent his day in the care of Elsie, Matron’s housekeeper. Having known him since he was a puppy, Elsie took none of Blackie’s nonsense and Blackie was never happy about that.
‘Come along, slow coach.’ Matron tugged at his lead and chivvied him up the last few steps as she removed her keys from her coat pocket with her free hand. Once through the door, she dropped the lead to the floor and hurried to the black Bakelite phone that stood on the hall table. It was almost dancing with irritation as it rang out.
‘Hello? Matron’s rooms.’ She pressed the phone to her ear and held her breath in her throat as she waited for a reply. It was 8.30 p.m. No one ever rang her at that time unless there was a problem.
‘Oh, Sister Haycock, it’s you!’ she exclaimed, audibly relieved. ‘I thought it was Night Sister.’ She would not admit it even to herself as she began to breathe normally again, but her heart had been thumping with the dread of it being Night Sister on the phone, about to tell her that baby Louis had passed away.
During her time as matron hundreds of children had died at St Angelus. Her wards had seen countless cases of whooping cough, pneumonia, rheumatic fever and polio, not to mention the litany of infectious diseases that had a disproportionate impact on the poor, already weakened as they were by bad diets, and cold, damp, rat-infested slum housing. But antibiotics were now becoming freely available and things were changing. Premature death was not the routine outcome it had once been and she wondered whether the greater number of more hopeful prognoses had eroded her natural defences, leaving her more vulnerable and emotional.
Over the years, she had learnt to deal with the inevitable sadness that came with the death of a child and to move on to care for the living. She had become inured to the acute pain and grief in a parent’s eyes – she had had to. She had seen nurses brought to the point of sobbing, and sometimes she had to send them back to Lovely Lane, to the care of Mrs Duffy. Left on the children’s ward, they were no use to anyone and certainly not to the surviving children who were poorly and afraid. Those nurses always returned the following morning, remorseful and slightly ashamed. Some she would find outside her door, wanting to apologize for having become so distraught, and although she put on her most professional face, she understood. Some of the children had been with them for months and the nurses couldn’t help but form a bond – it was only natural, but she couldn’t say that. She always accepted the apologies, assured them it would not be held against them on their performance record and wrote a thank you note to Mrs Duffy. There would never be another Sister Tapps. She would guard against that at all costs.
But Louis… He had touched a cord in her and it was a shock to realize that she dreaded hearing the all but inevitable news that he had passed.
Emily began to speak. ‘Matron, I’ve just been round at the Tanners’ house, and it seems that the domestics all know about baby Louis. Biddy has asked me to find out whether or not Father Brennan has been sent for. You know what they’re like…’ Her voice tailed off. It was her own secret that she was a non-believer herself; life had been too cru
el for her to have taken a different course.
‘I had thought about sending for the priest, you know. I always do. It was just so busy on children’s today, and, you know, at times we thought he was about to rally, but then…’ Matron’s own voice faltered. ‘I think, maybe, sadly, I am just in denial with this little one. I keep on expecting him to pull through.’
Emily could sense the sadness in Matron’s voice. This was a new experience – she’d never heard it there before. ‘Would you like me to come to the ward, Matron?’ Emily didn’t like to mention that Noleen Delaney, the most devout woman who worked at the hospital, had already hot-footed it to tell the priest that he was needed. ‘I can see to Father Brennan, and besides, I have two bags of baby clothes Mrs Tanner has sent that would fit him, if he makes it.’
Matron was about to ask how Mrs Tanner knew. She trusted Nurse Tanner, she knew she wouldn’t have told her mother, and besides, she’d been on the ward for a straight twelve hours before heading back to Lovely Lane with Nurse Harper – she would have had no time to tell anyone anything. Matron opened her mouth and closed it again. There was no use her asking for the unexplainable to be explained. The goings-on in St Angelus were sometimes beyond her. She had to accept that she wasn’t the only one with the interests of the hospital at heart, and sometimes she was very definitely kept in the dark. ‘Well… are you sure you wouldn’t mind doing that, Sister Haycock?’ she asked.
‘Of course I don’t mind. Look, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll tell Night Sister I’ll stay until the morning. It’s my day off tomorrow, as it happens, so that makes it even easier.’
Matron could barely hide her relief. ‘Thank you. It won’t be long before the plight of this poor child gets out, one way or the other, but thank you. I will away to bed now.’
‘You do that, Matron, because you need your rest. Goodnight.’
*
Emily stepped out of the phone box and hurried straight to Dessie’s house. She stopped there just long enough to place the brown paper bags of baby clothes in a wicker basket and to lay the table for Dessie’s breakfast. She pulled her hood up over her hair, scooped up the basket, scribbled a note for Dessie and propped it up against the jar of homemade marmalade which she set next to his plate and knife. He would find it when he got back from the pub.
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