by Lane, Lizzie
‘Apparently she’s been in labour for days,’ Sister Betty explained.
‘Oh Lord.’
Magda saw the red hair before she’d seen the face. The woman lying in agony was her old friend Susan.
At first Magda thought the very worst. ‘Susan,’ she said, bending low so that only her old friend could hear her. ‘Did you try to get rid of it?’
Susan’s face contorted with pain before she answered. ‘No. I want this baby. I want it, Magda.’
Magda heard the urgency in her friend’s voice and believed her. She did not question why this one was so important. She had an awful feeling she might know the reason. A diphtheria epidemic had taken many children from East End homes. She wasn’t going to ask Susan if her children had succumbed to the devastating disease; but guessed she already knew the answer.
Magda felt Susan’s stomach and followed it up with an internal inspection.
‘Can you tell whether me hat’s on straight,’ Susan quipped, wincing even as she made the joke.
‘Just lie quiet, old friend. I can feel the baby’s feet. Both engaged.’
‘Whoops!’
Susan grimaced again.
Magda did her best to reassure her. ‘It won’t be the first baby to present feet first.’
The truth was that it wouldn’t be easy, but as luck would have it by the time they got to the delivery room, the child had finally positioned itself half decently. They were in with a chance.
‘Presenting bottom first,’ she said to Susan. ‘But I think I can turn it round.’
To Sister Betty, she said, ‘Forceps I think. Let’s get this baby born then we can all get home in time for Christmas dinner.’
Chapter Forty-five
Venetia
The woman wearing a fur coat marched determinedly through the reception area of Queen Mary’s Hospital. She was escorted by a middle-aged man who had the look of wealth about him. His hair was grey, his bearing distinguished. Every so often he encircled the woman’s waist with a protective arm, almost as though he were signalling that he would protect her against all comers.
A few of the medical staff thought that face, the glossy hair, the dark grey eyes were familiar.
The building was far from immaculate, dark brown walls swallowing the meagre light from the conical shades hanging from long brown wires.
Someone had made the effort of putting up a few paper chains and a cut-out sign saying Merry Christmas.
The sound of carols being sung could be heard from the side wards where medical staff, from cleaners to doctors, were doing their best to spread some seasonal cheer.
‘Excuse me.’
The big man in the handsome clothes had taken off his hat and was addressing one of the nursing staff.
‘Do you know where we can find Magdalena Brodie? Excuse us, but we’re not sure whether she’s a patient or a nurse. We think possibly the former.’
The nurse looked from the handsome man to the glamorous woman. ‘I think you mean Doctor Brodie.’
Venetia shook her head. ‘That can’t be her,’ she murmured. ‘Doctors are men – mostly – aren’t they?’
George looked amused. ‘In Ireland there might not be too many women doctors, but I think you’ll find they’re a growing strength around here.’
Venetia’s jaw dropped. To think that her sister was a doctor. Certainly not the scarlet woman her grandparents had forbidden her to mention.
‘Is she here?’
The nurse frowned. ‘I’m not sure if she’s still here. She was supposed to go off duty at six. But I’ll check for you if you like.’
Venetia said she would be most grateful.
She stood waiting, shifting from one foot to the other. What if her sister didn’t want to see her? What if Anna Marie had been in touch and told her the shameful episode of her going to St Bernadette’s. She might also know about the baby.
Suddenly she got cold feet.
‘George. I think I should go.’
He looked taken aback, but being a sensitive man and desperately in love with the vivacious Venetia Bella, he gave in to her every whim.
‘Whatever you want to do, sweetheart. Whatever you want to do.’
By the time Magda came out from the delivery room, having helped Susan bring a fine baby boy into the world, her visitors had left.
‘Did they give a name?’
The nurse who told her she’d had visitors shook her head. ‘No, but …’ She paused as something crossed her mind.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, deciding that the doctor looked too tired to bother with her impression that the woman had similar looks to the doctor.
‘I’m off now,’ said Magda, her coat draped around her shoulders and her Gladstone bag hanging heavy from one hand. ‘Even though it’s Christmas Eve, ring me if you need me. I do have a telephone now so don’t hesitate to use it.’
The nurse said she would ring if any emergency arose.
‘Merry Christmas, Doctor Brodie.’
‘Merry Christmas,’ Magda responded.
Outside she took a breath of fresh air and paused for a moment, looking up at a navy blue sky that sparkled with stars. It was hard to believe that the country was at war on such a beautiful night as this. So quiet. So peaceful.
Daniel was outside waiting for her. She smiled at him. ‘I’ve just delivered an old friend of a new baby. Very apt, don’t you think?’
He kissed her then helped her into her coat. ‘Come on. It’s cold, but once you’ve got your coat on we can go carol singing if you like. Which carol shall we sing?’
Her smile widened. ‘I’ve just delivered a baby boy. It has to be “Silent Night, Holy Night”.’
It took some effort for George to persuade Venetia to return to the hospital.
‘I’m scared,’ she whispered, then gave a little nervous laugh. ‘And to think I can stand up in front of an audience and not feel the slightest bit nervous. But meeting my sister after all this time …’
He took hold of her elbow. ‘Come on. I’ll be with you in case you fluff your lines.’
The lighting in the impressive hallway of Queen Mary’s was more subdued than it had been earlier. Venetia walked slowly forward, the tapping of her high heels echoing off the painted walls.
A nurse, her winged headdress fluttering slightly in the breeze, looked up. Instead of asking what she wanted, instead of referring back to the notes she was perusing, their eyes met and locked.
‘I know you,’ said Venetia, suddenly feeling far less nervous.
‘I always knew,’ said the nursing sister, her silver buckle defining her status. ‘You two look so alike. Doctor Brodie and you.’
‘Sister Elizabeth,’ breathed Venetia.
‘I left the order. I’m now Sister Betty.’
Even once she had all the information, the nerves refused to quieten. ‘What will I say? What should I do?’
‘You have to face her. You can’t stay here,’ he said, defining the hotel room they were staying in with a wave of his hand.
She nodded.
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ he said.
‘Anything that might help, suggest away,’ she responded.
‘The leading lady at the Ilchester has dropped out with a touch of flu. It’s only a small venue off Covent Garden, but if you took over the part and we sent tickets to your family …’
Magda put down the phone, her hands tightening over it as though disinclined to let go.
Daniel was eyeing her with a pained expression. ‘Don’t tell me. There’s an emergency and you have to go in.’
Magda looked at him with the most disbelieving expression imaginable.
‘It wasn’t Sister Betty?’ He looked extremely hopeful.
She nodded. ‘Yes. It was. It seems my family have found me. Venetia has been to the hospital. She didn’t say when she was coming, but she’s sure to arrive at some point.’
Daniel wrapped his arms around her.
‘Tell me,’ he said, rubbing her back as though trying to soothe an imagined pain.
‘I feel scared. I don’t feel as though they’re going to be like family at all. They … we … are grown up. We’re not children any more. We’re strangers.’
He shook his head and pressed her against him.
‘You will be strangers. For a while. But you never used to be before you were separated, and it stands to reason that you won’t be from now on. And what about the letters and cards you wrote them? If they read them they’ll know everything about the child that used to be you.’
‘I forgot about the letters. That’s what studying to be a doctor does for you.’
At the sound of a car rolling over the cobbles they looked out of the window.
Magda’s breath caught in her throat. ‘It has to be them,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I hope they won’t be disappointed.’
‘Of course they won’t.’
They made their way down the stairs to the garage that had once been a stable. Daniel turned off the lights before opening the double doors. The cold air, suffused with a hint of London fog, rushed in. The car, its headlights dimmed to wartime diffusion, rolled over the cobbles and came to a stop.
Magda stood there, hands clasped together, wanting to see the people inside the car, but seeing nothing in the all-encompassing darkness.
‘I feel as though I’m on the stage,’ she whispered.
‘You are. It’s the performance you’ve always longed for. The grand reunion.’
The figure she saw was drowned in darkness. There was a man with her.
Magda and Danny stood aside to let them in.
‘You must be freezing,’ said Magda.
‘Yes. Doctor Brodie.’
Our voices sound hollow and unreal, thought Magda, as though we are strangers, not family at all.
Anna Marie came round from the other side of the car. She too stood and stared.
Once safely behind closed doors and drawn curtains, Danny turned on the light.
The two girls stared at each other.
‘You look like our mother,’ Anna Marie blurted, then burst into tears. The two young women hugged each other. ‘And you look like Venetia,’ Anna Marie added through her tears.
So where was Venetia, Magda wondered. She was the sister who had turned up at the hospital. Had she changed her mind about seeing her? Surely, if she was going to make herself known, she would have done so by now?
Two tickets for a play at the Ilchester arrived by taxi the next morning.
‘For a Doctor Brodie and friend,’ said the taxi driver who brought them.
‘I didn’t order them,’ Daniel said.
‘The leading lady is Venetia Bella.’
‘Ah!’
They were escorted to a private box of plush red upholstery. Rumour had it that the old roué King Edward VII had entertained numerous of his ladies there.
Magda and Daniel had it to themselves. A bottle of champagne was brought.
‘Compliments of Mr Anderson.’
Magda and Daniel decided that neither of them knew a Mr Anderson, so presumed he was something to do with Venetia.
The play might have been more enjoyable if Magda had been able to concentrate. As it was, the moment Venetia came on stage, she couldn’t take her eyes off her. She was so different from her twin, Anna Marie, and yet so familiar, almost a mirror image of Magda herself.
On occasion their eyes met, Venetia from the floodlit stage, and Magda, her older sister, looking down at her from the semi-gloom of the private box.
Her heart racing, Magda held onto Daniel’s hand, unaware she was gripping so tightly until he gently loosened her fingers.
The play was girl meets boy, boy leaves girl, girl as woman catches up with man who now feels differently than he once had.
When finally the lead role was gazing into her man’s eyes, telling him that she still loved him, the words she spoke might just as well have been spoken for the two of them.
‘… even whilst we were apart, I never stopped thinking of you and how it would be when we were reunited, sure in my heart that we would never be parted again …’
To Magda it really did seem as though her sister was speaking directly to her. Daniel confirmed it.
‘She’s speaking to you,’ he whispered.
He was right and in that moment Magda knew that her sister had been as nervous as she was to meet again. It had been so many years since they’d last seen each other. They’d been children, frightened little girls torn from each other to proceed in the world as best they could.
The stage was Venetia’s medium, the place where she could best express her true feelings. She really was telling her sister that her heart was full to overflowing with joy – just as Magda’s was.
Sometimes Magda would dream that somebody was knocking at the door of the house in Prince Albert Mews and, when she opened it, her little brother Michael was standing there. She knew her father had told him about Edward Street. It wasn’t impossible to trace her through that infamous address. However, Michael only appeared at the door in her dream, never when she was awake.
‘I’m presuming he’s happy with his lot,’ Magda said to Danny. ‘I suppose that’s all that matters. And I do have most of my family back.’
Michael was the missing one; there was nobody else, or at least she didn’t think there was until a windy March day when the clouds were scudding across the sky like frightened sheep.
A child patient was brought into the hospital by his doting father, a man of late middle age with a carefree look about him and wearing the much patched and darned jacket of a seaman.
‘There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with this child,’ the man was told by a harassed Sister Betty.
‘There isn’t. I just wanted to reacquaint myself with the famous Doctor Brodie.’
Sister Betty tucked in her chin and threw him a forbidding look. On spotting Doctor Brodie herself, the middle-aged man swept past her.
‘Magda!’
Magda spun round and almost fainted – as though she’d seen a ghost – which in a manner it seemed she had.
‘Uncle James!’
‘Somebody down at the docks said they’d been fixed up by a woman doctor by the name of Brodie. I had to see if it was you.’
Magda stood shaking her head in disbelief, looking from the man to the boy and back again. ‘Uncle Jim. We were told you’d drowned.’
He flushed bright red and shook his head. ‘No. Not exactly. Years ago, I met a girl called Sally and we got on just fine. I got a friend to come round and tell your Aunt Bridget that I’d drowned at sea. It was worth giving up the money saved with the Sailors’ Benevolent Society just for a bit of happiness. Now, if what I hear is true and the old mare – pardon me – is burning in hell, I’d like to make Sally and my offspring legitimate.’
Magda shook her head in disbelief and couldn’t stop giggling like a silly girl. ‘I should have known when I smelled the Sunlight soap.’
Uncle James looked puzzled.
Magda couldn’t help the wide grin. ‘On the last occasion you came home drunk, I took your boots off. Your socks smelled of Sunlight soap. Somebody was washing your socks for you.’
He grinned broadly. ‘She always did take care of me, right from the first.’
‘Like Danny. The man I’m marrying. Will you give me away, Uncle Jim?’
‘You bet I will! Couldn’t be more pleased, and if you’re ever along White City way, we could go to the dogs together. Might even win a few bob.’
Chapter Forty-six
Magda and Danny
August and the austerity of a wartime wedding was counteracted by the balmy weather.
Danny had joined up just as
he said he would, and German bombers had dropped their first raid on London. The phoney war and the days of testing air-raid sirens was over. The war was now for real and affected everybody.
Doctors as well as fighting men were being conscripted at lightning speed and emergency hospital stations were being established anywhere that could take over a hundred beds. More doctors were needed and those in authority didn’t care much about gender – just about having enough.
Evacuating Dunkirk had resulted in a flood of injured men. And now there was bombing and the prospect of civilians injured in huge numbers. Never had trained staff been so in demand.
Their wedding was to be at eleven o’clock. There were so many things on Magda’s mind that she just didn’t have the time to be nervous. With the exception of Michael, her family were reunited. She’d received a letter from her father explaining that he couldn’t possibly come back to England. The postmark had been Montevideo.
‘You always did want a proper uniform.’
Magda brushed her hand over his shoulder. There was nothing there to be brushed away; she just wanted to touch him, to make sure that this wasn’t all a dream and that Daniel Rossi, now an army lieutenant, was not an apparition.
He smiled at her nervously, his fingers drumming against her arm before handing her over to Uncle Jim who was looking big, bluff and happy to be there with his wife, Sally.
He was about to head to where the best man and the vicar awaited, when Magda grabbed his arm.
‘You do have the ring?’
He nodded vigorously. ‘Oh yes. That is, Stanley has it.’
Stanley was one of his police officer friends who had also left the force to take up an appointment as first lieutenant on a Royal Navy corvette.
‘You don’t mind that it’s a bit dusty and that there’s no music …’
‘I don’t mind at all.’
The truth was that a falling bomb had blown off one of the flying buttresses that had supported the nave of St Mark’s for centuries. The dust had been cleared in time for the service but a residue remained.