‘Oh, I enjoy staying in. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just what I like. We are all different,’ she had said so often to her husband as she packed him off out of the door to attend yet another social function, alone. ‘Too much effort. I can’t leave Oliver. And it’s you everyone wants to speak to.’
Her excuses rang in her ears. She had no idea when or how she had changed. She only knew that she had slipped so far, that knocking on the door of the nurses’ home had become an impossible thing for her to do.
‘Oh, my gosh, you scared me,’ she said as she almost physically jumped again as a scruffy grey dog came and sat at her side. ‘Where did you come from?’ she asked looking around. The grey hound, stared up at her and then he whined and looked pointedly towards the sidedoor to the garden, and then straight back at her. She laughed. ‘Goodness me, you are telling me where to go,’ she said. He gave a little bark and then placed his paw firmly on the top of her foot. ‘Look at you, even you have more confidence than me,’ she said and was overcome with an urge to bend down and throw her arms around his neck. ‘Will you take me in?’ she whispered. He bent his head and licked her hand. He was the scruffiest-looking dog she had ever seen in her life. Steel grey fur, flat on his back, in tufts around his neck and ears.
‘His name’s Scamp,’ said a friendly voice she didn’t recognise and before her stood a gentle-looking woman with soft white hair, drying her hands on her apron. The dog barked again, in obvious excitement. ‘He gets excited,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘He just ran off with the butter wrapper in his mouth out of the back door. Scamp, would you stop and go away, now? Hello, you’re Mrs Gaskell, aren’t you? I do apologise for that scruffy great lump meeting you at the door. Watch your coat, there’ll be grease all over his face.’
From the gloom of the unlit hallway, Mavis appeared at her side. ‘And she’s not talking about Gracie, either.’ Mrs Gaskell blinked, somewhat surprised, as Mavis began to giggle and elbowed Mrs Duffy in the ribs. She looked over her shoulder and then whispered conspiratorially, ‘Only kidding, it’s just Gracie’s not Mrs Duffy’s favourite, is she, Mrs Duffy?’
Mrs Duffy had no time to answer as Scamp, for no known reason, began to bark at the hedge at the bottom of the steps and then leapt down the steps almost in one spring, still barking furiously. Mrs Gaskell heard a muted scream and, without waiting for further instructions, ran back down the steps and after Scamp. She called out his name and, miraculously, he stopped and ran back to her. Mrs Gaskell bent down and took hold of his collar before he thought of making a second run for it. She looked up and saw the back of a woman disappearing through the gates of the park.
‘Well, at least you stopped, you are a naughty boy,’ she said. ‘Come along.’ She half-walked and half-stooped back to the nurses’ home to be met by Mrs Duffy at the bottom of the steps.
‘Oh, thank you,’ she said as she glared at Scamp. ‘That dog living here is the divil’s own work. We were so nervous about you coming and embarrassed that you would have a bad impression of us and look, Scamp did it all for me. What will you think?’
For the first time Doris Gaskell smiled. ‘You were nervous of me? I was nervous about coming!’ she blurted out.
Mrs Duffy looked surprised as she marched Scamp up the steps as Mavis reappeared with Doreen who had Scamp’s lead in her hand. Gracie hovered behind.
‘Too late for that,’ said Mrs Duffy, ‘Mrs Gaskell here got him. What or who was it he was after? I bet it was that cat from the funeral parlour.’
‘I saw the back of a woman going into the park, but I’m not sure he was after her, I think he just scared her because she ran in through the gates.’ She placed her hand on Scamp’s head and stroked him. ‘There, there, shhh, don’t bark.’
Mrs Duffy bent down and clipped the lead to Scamp’s collar. ‘Scamp, where have you been. Honestly that dog, some days he goes missing for hours. It’s a good job the parkie knows where he lives! It will have been Gracie’s fault, leaving the side gate open. She opened it this morning. Honestly, she is a liability.’ She stood and Mrs Gaskell felt a stab of envy at how sprightly she was. ‘Welcome to the mad house,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘I hope you don’t go back home and tell your husband you got an awful welcome here. Let’s get into the kitchen and close the door, before Scamp starts chasing cars down the road and taking chunks out of the tyres – and I don’t know about you, but I’m desperate for a cup of tea.’
Mrs Gaskell, without a word spoken, fell into line behind Mrs Duffy and took a deep breath. This was not going to be as bad as she thought. The whistle of the kettle and the sound of Mavis beating eggs and sugar together guided them towards the kitchen.
‘Oh, you made it! I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had got back on the bus with all that commotion,’ said Mavis. ‘Come on in, we’ve been expecting you. Let Dr Gaskell’s wife past, Doreen.’
There it was again. ‘Dr Gaskell’s wife.’ That was how everyone at Matron’s drinks party had introduced her. She had a name and no one ever used it. Was that when she had lost the essence of who it was she was, when people stopped calling her Doris and used the moniker, the doctor’s wife, instead?
‘The kettle has just boiled and while you lot have been faffing about outside, I’ve got the first batch in. This is going to be just great, isn’t it, Mrs Duffy? We’ll have the WVS ready for Christmas in no time at this rate. I’ve never had so much help. Sit yourself down, Mrs Gaskell. You’ve been on the bus, so tea first for you before we put you to work.’
Doreen was at her side now and held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, I work in outpatients and I see your husband every day. I’m always telling him to go home, I am.’ She smiled, and it was such a gentle smile it calmed Mrs Gaskell’s rapidly beating heart.
‘Oh, I think he’s mentioned you, Doreen,’ she said and she knew in an instant that Doreen could see the thin film of perspiration on her top lip, knew that her heart was racing madly.
Doreen winked. ‘Here, let me take your coat,’ she said and Mrs Gaskell allowed her coat to slip down her arms, watched as Doreen walked out of the kitchen and hung the coat in the hallway. Only she knew that in the pocket sat her little friend, waiting, in hiding, just in case… Mavis arrived at her side, holding a clean cup and saucer and slipped her arm though hers.
‘Now I really want to know – are your mince pies as good as your husband says they are? He tells me your baking is amazing and your Oliver, he’s always winding me up, he is. “I’ll just test if it’s as good as my mum’s.” he says when they call in after outpatients – and honest to God, you would think a plague of locusts had passed through on their way to the Holy Land, not just the St Angelus housemen, by the time they finish. Mind you, I shouldn’t complain; our Pammy and her Anthony – he’s a doctor at the hospital too – they eat me out of house and home every Sunday. That lad was that thin he was when he and our Pammy began dating; he didn’t know what a good roast dinner was until he came to our house. At least you can see him now when he comes in through the door. You know, I think he’s mates with your Oliver. He’s a lovely lad, isn’t he?’
Doris took a deep breath, she was going to be okay. She realised Mavis could talk for Liverpool and she wouldn’t have to contribute much as a result. She had felt Doreen touch her soul with her smile and Mrs Duffy, she had no sides to her and her only obvious beef appeared to be an irritation with the young girl who had disappeared, Gracie. Other than baking cakes, and that was something she could do very well, without any effort at all, these ladies were not going to demand anything from her. As she sat in the chair, Madge leant over and poured her tea.
‘Do you know any of the ladies who work up at the hospital?’ she asked, pointedly and Mrs Gaskell shook her head. ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ said Madge, and pulled out a chair opposite her, ‘they are a good lot. Don’t know where I would be without them, I live on my own, you see.’
Mrs Gaskell felt overcome with an urge to reply, ‘So do I.’ It wasn’t true and would sound
barking mad if she did, but that was how it sometimes felt.
‘Anyway, Mrs Gaskell,’ it was Mavis again, ‘about your mince pies…’
‘It’s Doris,’ she said and the room fell quiet until Doreen broke the silence.
‘Doris. That’s my mum’s name, that’s nice.’
Doreen sprang up to the sideboard and came back with a pen and paper. ‘Right, ladies, let’s make a list. We have promised to take mince pies to Victoria’s party and we need them for the carol concert and outpatients too, so we had better start on numbers. Doris, thank God you are here because really, I don’t think we could have managed without you.’
Doreen began to write out the list, Doris picked up her teacup and realised, for the first time in a long while, that she felt happy.
*
Emily Horton flicked the brake on the pram as she reached the bottom of the steps to the Lovely Lane home and peeped over the top of the canopy. Louis was fast asleep, his arms raised above his head, his face turned to the side, a half-smile on his lips as the corners twitched up at the sides. Her heart melted and she spent longer looking at him than she knew was normal.
‘It’s because he’s such a surprise,’ she had explained to Dessie who only that morning had asked her why she stared at their young son for so long. ‘He just turned up in our lives and I didn’t have the nine months before to get used to the idea. It’s a miracle he’s here. Sometimes, when I’m looking at him, I feel as though I’ve been holding my breath.’
Dessie had stroked his wife’s hair and smiled down at her. He felt as though he had been holding his breath for every minute of every month he had been theirs, but he would never say so. Emily had been so blinded with happiness when they had first brought Louis home from the hospital that she had been oblivious to his many notes of caution, his words of warning, his desperate attempt to prevent his wife – and him – from falling too deeply in love with a child who was not their own and would not be until all the checks and paperwork had been completed. It had only occurred to Dessie in the past few weeks that the burning love they felt for Louis had been essential. How else would they have found the patience needed to bring him back to health? To nurture the flesh on his bones to fill out and pad him enough to stop them fearing they might accidentally break a bone when they changed him, to conjure a smile to appear on his face – and more than anything, to see the light that appeared in his eyes which in itself told them the worst was over. He was safe.
But while Dessie fell more and more in love with their son as each day passed, just recently he had kept one eye over his shoulder because he knew he had not imagined the woman he had seen at the top of their street outside the fish shop and then, from the bedroom window, outside their back gate, hovering in the entry, her manner furtive. His first thought had become a question he had asked himself over and over: is that Louis’ mother? For there was not a man, woman or child he did not know on the dock streets. He had served with most of the men, attended the christenings of the children and mourned the fallen at mass each Sunday. But the woman in the entry was a stranger… He decided to say nothing to Emily – why worry her more than she was already?
*
Emily had no trouble in bouncing the pram up the steps and tugging at the bell pull. She had slept badly, her mind running riot. Miss Devonshire had agreed to speak to Matron before she made her decision, but for the first time ever the prospect of Matron’s intervention did not fill Emily or Dessie with courage.
‘She’s just going through the motions, before she takes him off us,’ Emily had cried in the early hours of the morning, and for the first time ever, Dessie, wrapped in his own thoughts of impending doom, was entirely unable to comfort her.
*
Mavis hadn’t hesitated for even a second when Emily had asked for her help in finding ways to get Doris Gaskell out of the house and involved.
‘Look, I can’t say why, and this has to be strictly regarded in a professional capacity, but I need your help,’ Dr William had said to Emily, and Emily had repeated almost the same words back to Mavis.
‘Dr William needs our help, and it has to be strictly between us.’
Emily knew that Mavis had no bonds of patient confidentiality to tie her – and as Mrs Gaskell wasn’t a St Angelus patient, neither did she. She was aware that there would be some discussion amongst the domestics and housekeepers, however, in St Angelus, but Dr Gaskell was as close to God as any living person could be and there would be no unkindness or animosity – everyone would want to help.
‘What can I do, I just run the WVS? Our Pammy might be a nurse, but I’m no doctor,’ Mavis had said.
‘I know, Mavis, but we just need to get her out of the house, Dr William said. You know what Dr Gaskell is like, he’s always so busy. Anyway, is there anything you can do?’
Mavis had been a wonder and hadn’t hesitated. ‘Are you asking me could I do with an extra pair of hands to get this hospital ready for Christmas? You do know, don’t you, that I’m running all kinds over here and have an army to feed?’
Emily had taken her hand. ‘I know and I can’t say why, because I don’t know why, but all I do know is that we are needed to help someone and that’s enough for me. We have to get her out of the house, give her a purpose, make her feel part of the St Angelus family. Can you help?’
‘Well, Emily, she’s not one of us, is she? I mean, she’s a doctor’s wife, isn’t she?’
Emily understood; Mavis was unlikely to meet a doctor’s wife down at the bingo. ‘She is, but she’s still a woman in need and she is a part of us, so is there any way you can think of getting her involved?’
‘Are you serious? I’ve got no end of jobs I can give her to do. Eh, I’ll tell you what, Dr Gaskell is always telling me she’s a smashing baker. Why don’t I ask her to help out with the baking? And I’m not kidding, Emily, I could do with it. It won’t be us helping her, it’ll be the other way around.’
Now Emily, inside the Lovely Lane kitchen, marvelled at the magic that was Mavis.
‘Well, would you look at this, Louis,’ said Emily as she sat on the armchair in the breakfast room. Her voice was timorous and trembling, but no one noticed. ‘It’s like a cake factory in here.’ Louis was perched on her knee as she slipped his pram coat down his arms and Doris Gaskell was standing on the other side of the table measuring currants into a bowl. She stopped what she was doing for a moment to look over and smile at the baby she knew as much as anyone about. She remembered the newsreader on their small television reading out the details from his sheet of paper, and the headlines in the paper had screamed THE MYSTERIOUS ABANDONED BABY.
‘He’s well-loved,’ she said to Emily who beamed at her.
‘Thank you, he is. He really is.’ And she pulled Louis into her and held him tight. Too tight, Doris had thought. It was as if she thought someone was going to snatch him from her arms. Mavis was placing a tray with the first batch of small individual Christmas cakes into the oven and Mrs Duffy was pouring Emily a cup of tea.
‘What will I get for the baby, Emily? Have you a bottle in the pram?’ Emily reached down to the bag she had unclipped from the base of the pram handles and dropped at her feet and retrieved a glass bottle of formula milk. At the sight of it, Louis pulled himself free and began to bounce up and down on her knee excitedly. ‘Hang on, little fella,’ Mrs Duffy said, ‘just let me warm it up in a jug of hot water first. Oh, would you look at him! Remember when we used to give him his milk on a teaspoon? No one would believe it now, would they?’
Emily pulled Louis into her again and Doris saw the tears running down her cheeks. She hesitated, unsure, and looked to Mavis who was squinting at the knobs on the gas cooker.
‘God in heaven, Mrs Duffy, I think I preferred the range. It’s like Churchill’s war rooms in here with all this equipment.’
Mrs Duffy was twirling the glass bottle of formula around in a pot jug. Doreen had gone to find Gracie, who they had all forgotten about, to tell her to come
into the kitchen for a break, having first persuaded Mrs Duffy that it was the right thing to do, that taking a tray to Gracie was the wrong one. So Doris Gaskell placed the mixing bowl on the table, wiped her hands on a tea towel and, taking a hesitant look about her, walked over to Emily.
‘Here, let me take him,’ she said gently as she put out her arms and lifted Louis, who was more than willing to be picked up. ‘Mavis, you are needed here,’ she said, with a little more urgency in her voice. She lifted Louis up onto her shoulder, and because Emily was so obviously distressed, she pushed down the smile that had wanted to jump onto her lips. The smell of him, the feel of him, the love in him as, pressing his knees into her chest, he looked into her face and smiled. This was what used to make her happy. Caring for Oliver. That was the last time she had felt truly wanted or needed or even worthwhile.
‘What’s up, love?’ Mavis looked sharply at her and following the direction of her eyes down to Emily, flew from the cooker to Emily’s side.
Doris took Louis over to Mrs Duffy and bounced him on her hip as she watched Mrs Duffy tip the bottle and test the temperature on the inside of her wrist.
‘Oh, he’s there,’ said Mrs Duffy as she looked up – and immediately knew something was wrong. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
Doris nodded to where Mavis stood with her arms wrapped around a sobbing Emily. ‘Here, give me the bottle,’ said Doris. ‘You see to Emily and I’ll look after him.’
Mrs Duffy didn’t argue and rushed to Emily’s side. Doris pulled out the old wooden rocking chair, adorned with two almost threadbare, feather-filled tapestry cushions from next to the cooker, and sat down with Louis. No encouragement was needed as, familiar with the chair, the rocking and the routine, Louis almost threw himself onto his back and put both hands up for the bottle. He reminded her so much of Oliver.
Snow Angels: An emotional Christmas read from the Sunday Times bestseller (The Lovely Lane Series Book 5) Page 17