‘Sister Paige, you are needed back on ward three as soon as possible, please.’ She strode over towards the curtains and, grabbing them by the top, flung them back.
‘I’m afraid I can’t, Sister Antrobus,’ said Aileen. ‘This is my mother, she was brought in with a suspected stroke and I am going to have to get her back home.’ The words were painful and for the first time Aileen knew how her father must have felt. The shame was inside of her; it shrank her from within, making her feel belittled and sick. She worried that her professionalism had been compromised and it hurt her deeply.
Sister Antrobus folded her arms across her wide expanse of navy-blue dress and supported her ample chest. ‘Home? Suspected stroke? Suspected by whom?’
Aileen stopped speaking and looked down, expecting her forceful mother to reply for her. After all, it was what she had done for all of Aileen’s life: spoken for her, made her decisions. But for the first time since she could remember, her mother was almost speechless and her expression resembled that of a fish.
‘It was me,’ Mrs Paige stuttered, far less confident now than she had been when shouting at Doreen or cajoling Aileen. ‘I have had one before, I know exactly what it feels like.’
‘Quite right,’ said Sister Antrobus. ‘You are the only one who does know what it feels like when you have a stroke, and as far as I’m concerned, if you were alarmed enough to call an ambulance, then I am quite sure you need to be admitted for observation. We can’t be too careful about these things, can we?’
‘Oh, no, that won’t be necessary,’ said Mrs Paige, finding her voice and her courage all at the same time. ‘My daughter here will be looking after me, and after all she is a qualified nurse, and a ward sister, just like you.’
‘Oh no, I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ said Sister Antrobus. ‘We have sent Sister Tapps home for Christmas and your daughter is the only paediatric ward sister in the hospital. We will have to admit you, Mrs Paige, otherwise you’ll be sent home alone, for the whole of Christmas. You see, Mrs Paige, it’s like this: Matron has sent me down here to tell Sister Paige that instead of going home for Christmas, could she stay in Sister Tapps’s room in the sisters’ accommodation, until she returns from her holiday. Starting the day after tomorrow. Absolutely no one in St Angelus says no to Matron, do they, Sister Paige? She really is the boss.’
Aileen nodded, slowly.
Sister Antrobus had looked straight into Mrs Paige’s eyes as she’d said those last few words, daring her to raise an objection, half hoping she would. She was disappointed. The woman went down like a deflated balloon. Sister Antrobus could see her mind working through it all as the expression on her face moved from disbelief to a frown to the mildest semblance of resistance. She spluttered and attempted a few incoherent words, but to no avail. Sister Antrobus gave a good impression of not listening to a word of it and instead of responding turned to see which porter had just come through the casualty doors.
‘Bryan,’ she said as he walked in with Doreen, pushing a wheelchair back into the long queue of chairs lined up just inside the doors, ‘could you take Mrs Paige down to ward one, please. Sister Paige, you had better get back upstairs. I’m afraid you’ll need to work late tonight, because of everything that’s gone on. You can bring your mother’s things in tomorrow – we can put her in a hospital gown for tonight.’
Mrs Paige made one last attempt to object. ‘But I don’t need to be in hospital if I have a daughter who is a ward sister, and the doctor said—’
‘Oh yes you do, Mrs Paige. It’s the doctor’s orders. I have just overheard him talking to Matron on the telephone. They are both very much in agreement. We need to keep a very special eye on you. We don’t like this sort of thing, not at all. You never know, it could have been a warning and that is the very reason we are keeping you in. We are going to give you very special treatment – so special that I am going to nurse you myself, right through Christmas.’
19
Biddy knocked on the front door. She only walked round the back of a house if she was a regular visitor, and this was her first time at the Dohertys’. She’d been standing there for no more than twenty seconds before a small crowd of grubby faces gathered around her.
‘Who d’ya want, missus?’ asked a particularly dirty little boy. His shoes had no laces and there were holes in the toes and a grey sock poked through.
‘Are you from the hospital?’ asked the slightly older girl next to him with red ribbons in her hair. ‘Is Angela dead?’
Biddy took a sixpence out of her pocket. ‘Here you go. Get some sweets,’ she said.
It was as though she had waved a wand. The children scattered, racing off towards the Dock Road and the sweet shop. They’d known by the look of Biddy that she was Irish and the chance of her purse being opened was high.
Biddy spotted a man walking on the opposite side of the road and recognized him immediately as the son of her friend Kathleen. ‘Hello, Jerry!’ she shouted over. ‘Do you know if the Dohertys are in?’
‘Oh aye. Hello, Biddy. Just knock harder,’ Jerry shouted back. ‘It’ll be the twins’ bath-time – they make enough noise to raise the dead.’
Biddy raised her hand in thanks and knocked again. This time she heard a response from within.
‘Is that someone at the door, Maura, is it?’ It was a man’s voice.
‘How would I know, Tommy? Get off your big fat arse and go and look, would you.’
Biddy heard the shuffle of feet along the lino on the opposite side of the door. While she waited she studied the scrubbed step, the clean windowsill, the freshly washed front door and the polished brass knocker. Her gaze travelled to the parlour window and the net curtains, which were pristine and white. Biddy liked Maura before she’d even met her. She could tell she was a kindred spirit. They were both women with a sense of pride, members of a select club who maintained standards despite the daily battle against the grime from the docks. They made certain that every member of the family understood what was expected and, just as importantly, ensured that their homes would never be mistaken for the homes of slatterns or women of ill repute.
Maura’s was clearly a God-fearing home, as the statue of Jesus on the cross in the windowsill testified. Biddy would bet Maura attended Mass twice a day, flying there in her curlers when she heard the call of the bells. She sensed that Tommy was also the sort who came straight home on a Friday night and put his wages on the table, waiting to have his spends returned before he dared disappear and join the other dockers down at the pub.
Suddenly the door was flung open. ‘Oh, hello. How are ye?’ Tommy, wearing his vest, trousers and a cap, looked puzzled to find a rotund lady, minus curlers and clutching a large handbag, on his doorstep.
Biddy noticed that the vest he wore was free from stains. ‘I’m well, so I am. I’ve come to see Maura,’ she said. ‘I’m a friend of Kathleen’s. You must be Tommy.’
At the mention of Kathleen’s name, a grin spread across Tommy’s face and the door was opened wider. ‘Well come on away inside, would ye. Maura is just bathing the twins.’
The hallway was so narrow, it was almost impossible for Tommy to turn around and so he waddled into the kitchen ahead of Biddy, shouting, ‘Evening, Peggy,’ over his shoulder.
Biddy turned to close the front door and wondered why Tommy was calling her Peggy. But then she saw that the woman from the house next door – which, by contrast, could not have been described as clean – had come out on to her front step and was already trying to peer down the Dohertys’ hallway after her. She was presumably the woman Tommy had been addressing. Peggy opened her mouth to speak, but Biddy pretended not to see her and closed the door in her face. She knew Peggy’s type only too well. She would have been about to invent a spurious excuse to follow her inside, only to leave even before Biddy did and immediately report to the neighbours why she’d been there, along with any number of exaggerated details.
As Biddy entered the kitchen, Maura looked up from t
he tin bath in front of the fire in which she was bathing two young boys. One of them was full of energy, kicking about in protest as Maura attempted to douse his head with water; his twin, the exact same in looks and stature but seemingly the opposite in personality, sat still with his hands in his lap, looking forlorn and perhaps wishing that his brother would be still so that it could all be over. Through his dripping fringe he squinted up at Biddy. At the end of the bath, perched on a small wooden stool, was a little girl, whom Biddy presumed was Maura and Tommy’s eldest, Kitty. She was holding out a grey towel, threadbare and holey in places but clean-looking nonetheless.
‘Friend of Kathleen’s here, Maura,’ said Tommy by way of announcement. He made his way to the chair in front of the fire and, lifting the cushion, extracted his newspaper from beneath it.
Maura, drying her hands on her apron, pushed herself up from her knees and on to her feet. ‘Oh hello,’ she said. ‘Is Kathleen all right?’
‘Oh aye, she’s fine. My name’s Biddy and I’m after calling for her to go to the bingo. I work up at the hospital and I was on ward three today, with your little girl, Angela.’
Silence descended on the room; even the noisy twin ceased objecting to being lifted out of the tub and into the towel Kitty was holding. It felt as though the clock had stopped, along with time itself, as Tommy slowly laid his newspaper back on his knee with one hand and with the other held the stump of a cigarette he’d been trying to light midway to his mouth. Maura, who could say nothing in response, just stood with her mouth half open, her eyes frozen in fear, staring at Biddy. The statue of Our Lady looked down on her from the shelf over the range above her head and Kitty blinked as she thought she saw it smile.
‘She’s asked me to send a message,’ said Biddy, ‘to say that she’s doing just grand and breathing much better and she can’t wait to see ye all at visiting the day after tomorrow.’
A noise escaped from Maura that sounded like a gasp. Her hand flew to her mouth and tears filled her eyes. As much as she tried to remain composed in front of this stranger, this angel bearing good news, she failed. Seconds later, with Tommy at her side and his arm around her shoulders, all the tears, fears and pent-up emotion she had been forced to hide for the sake of her other children found release. Kitty, speechless, grinned from ear to ear as she towel-dried her concerned-looking brother’s hair.
*
As Biddy left the Doherty house and made her way to Kathleen’s, she felt both disturbed and elated. They’d all heard stories about parents who found it hard to leave the hospital even though they weren’t allowed on the ward. In some cases, when a child was really very ill, the parents would spend half of their day at the WVS post, just in case. Maisie had plenty of tales to tell and had attended the funerals of more children whose parents she had befriended than Biddy thought could possibly be good for her.
Some mothers never left until the hospital lights were switched off and the army of night cleaners arrived, believing that their child would be able to sense that they were near. Biddy knew of one neighbour who’d lost weight and been physically ill during the week she’d had to leave her son at St Angelus. Relief only ever came once the parents finally got to meet Sister Tapps, on visiting day. She was such a reassuring presence that subsequent weeks tended to be not so agonizing.
‘You are late, missus,’ said Kathleen as Biddy walked through her back door.
‘I am that,’ said Biddy. ‘I was just giving some good news to your woman, Maura, about Angela.’
‘How is she?’ asked Kathleen as she tied her headscarf in the mirror over the fireplace. ‘Maura has been out of her mind all week, it’s been terrible. I’ve spent as much time over there as I have in me own house, trying to keep her going. I wouldn’t mind, but Angela is such a crier, you’d think she’d be glad of the peace.’
‘Aye, some of them are,’ said Biddy. ‘But I’ve heard there are women with a dozen kids who get that upset when they’re apart. There are some that think the more kids you have, the less you feel for each one. I’m not kidding. At least we have Sister Paige on ward three now. The old sister, Sister Carter, she had terrible ways. When a child died she would make the nurses bathe them, lay them out and dress them in a shroud before the parents were allowed in. As though the parents cared how their children looked. By the time a mother got her little one back in her arms, the body was cold. Who knows how many little ones died alone, behind a screen, with no one holding their hand when the angel came. Terrible, it was. She was a right scold, that sister.’
Kathleen shook her head. ‘God, isn’t it awful, and if they were cold, the soul would have flown. Why have you tolerated it, Biddy? You’re right, it has to change, but what power do you have anyway?’
Biddy shrugged. ‘I have no clue. I’m just the housekeeper in the nursing school.’
‘I’ll tell you what I do know,’ said Kathleen, ‘if we don’t get a move on, we’ll be late for the bingo.’
And the trials and traumas of children separated from their parents were forgotten for now as Biddy and Kathleen ran for the bus.
*
Freddie stood outside on the red sandstone steps of the Anglican cathedral waiting for Aileen to arrive. His eyes focused on every huddled and shadowy form that hurried up St James Mount towards the warm orange glow of the candlelight within. He even stared hopefully at the area to the side of the main doors, near where the workmen’s wheelbarrows and tools were stacked, just in case she’d lost her way in the dark. He wondered briefly when the repairs to the bomb-damaged Lady Chapel would be completed; it had been more than a decade already, but it seemed nothing went quickly when it came to the building of the cathedral. There were still sections that hadn’t even been finished in the first place, let alone the bits that got damaged in the war. Many thought it might never be done.
The sleet was becoming more forceful and as the wind blew, the icy blast stung his eyes, forcing him to blink as he squinted repeatedly into the distance, only to be disappointed as someone, anyone but Aileen, dashed past him and in through the door.
‘Blimey, what a night,’ said one lady as she almost knocked him over, her head bent in an attempt to keep her hair dry under her hood. The Mersey squalls were so ferocious, umbrellas were of no use.
‘Flamin’ buses. Thought I was late,’ said a chap he recognized as being part of the firemen’s choir.
When he saw the nurses from ward three tripping up the steps, wrapped in their capes, he almost dared himself to ask one of them where Aileen was, but he thought Aileen might not appreciate him doing that, revealing their private business to the nurses on her ward.
‘God, what you doing out here, Freddie? It’s freezing,’ said Pammy as she shook the sleet from her cape.
‘I’m just having a ciggie,’ he replied. He wasn’t surprised to see Dr Mackintosh running up behind Pammy and Beth. It was hardly a secret that he and Pammy were madly in love, a fact that even Matron seemed to tolerate.
Freddie took much ribbing from his fellow police officers as they arrived, and he pretended to be lighting up another cigarette to avoid having to follow them in. Every time he heard a set of running footsteps in the distance his heart leapt in anticipation then sank again when Aileen failed to materialize.
He almost visibly jumped at the sudden opening of the door behind him. ‘Here you are, still here.’ One of the tenors from the police choir had come to look for him. ‘We were just about to begin and one of the nurses said you were out here. You know how mein Führer hates us to be late.’
Freddie half smiled at the reference to Hitler. There was barely a citizen of Liverpool who missed an opportunity to belittle or laugh at the man who had wreaked such havoc on their city and caused them all so much misery. The choirmaster was elderly, bald and not much over five foot tall; he wore half-moon spectacles and his love of God and his devotion to worship through music was obvious to all. He was as far from a representation of Hitler as it was possible to be. Churchill had been so ri
ght: their city may have been damaged, but the spirit of the people of Liverpool remained unconquered.
‘I’m coming,’ said Freddie reluctantly as he cast one last pleading glance backwards into the dark, towards the city. There were no more scurrying feet. The last latecomer had arrived and with a heavy heart he realized that what had happened today had almost certainly changed things between them. Aileen had obviously decided that it was their fault that Louis had gone missing. They were to blame, or rather, knowing Aileen – and he thought that even though he could count their conversations on two hands, he already knew her as well as he knew himself – she would be blaming herself. That was what he would do, and weren’t they just the same, two halves of one whole? It was him, he was to blame as it was he who had kissed and distracted her. She must surely see that she was entirely innocent. Louis’s disappearance was nothing to do with Aileen. She would obviously never forgive him, and he would never forgive himself.
He’d asked one of the police officers on the cathedral steps whether there’d been any news from the hospital. ‘You mean about that baby you found? Not a whisper, mate. That little lad, he’s back with his mam, he wasn’t even reported missing in the first place.’
Freddie didn’t bother to argue. It seemed that all his colleagues were of the same opinion and that the case was now closed. It dawned on him that as long as Louis was missing, Aileen would be lost to him. His future was over before it had begun and as he walked into the cathedral he found it difficult to blink back the tears that threatened to run down his cheeks.
‘Nearly started without you there, Freddie,’ said Pammy as he walked past her standing on the end of her row. She winked and grinned at him as he found his place and, taking the deepest breath, he forced back a smile of his own.
Candles burnt brightly all around them – on the windowsills, in the aisle and encircling the chancel. It was as freezing as always, but even though it was as cold inside as it was outdoors, the flickering flames gave the impression of warmth, taking the edge off and making it possible for him to open the carol sheet he’d been handed as he came in. The wood, the stained glass, the candles – everything shone expectantly. All that could be heard was the clearing of throats, the flicking over of the score and the shuffling of feet. And then there was nothing but silence as they waited.
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