Snow Angels: An emotional Christmas read from the Sunday Times bestseller (The Lovely Lane Series Book 5)

by Nadine Dorries

  Roland pulled up the candlewick cover and placed it around his wife’s shoulders. The fire may have been lit, but it was an old house and the high ceilings meant that keeping warm was a constant effort. ‘Don’t you worry about me. I will visit the doctors’ residence and then drag my brother out to the Grapes for a pint and a bit of lunch. I’m looking forward to catching up with him. I spoke to Oliver on the phone when I was in work today,’ Victoria looked puzzled, ‘I speak to him once a week to see how my little brother is doing, and he said that Teddy was still a miserable toad. I reckon there’s a competition for that title now in our family.’ He pushed her hair behind her ear and kissed her gently on the temple.

  Victoria smiled weakly through her tears. ‘I’m pathetic, aren’t I?’

  Roland pulled her to him. ‘No, darling, you are pregnant, not pathetic. There is a slight difference. And I’ll tell you what, tomorrow is Saturday so no office and we can leave straight after breakfast and take a leisurely drive over. We’ll be there for eleven, stay for supper – I’m sure someone will feed us – and be back home by bedtime. What do you think?’

  Victoria lay her hand on top of his. ‘I’m missing everyone so much. I know that when the baby arrives I’ll be too busy to be missing anyone or anything, but right now I feel as though I need my friends around me.’

  Roland placed his arms around his wife’s shoulders. ‘I know, Vic, and honestly, don’t worry, you will be fine. Aunt Minnie will be recovered soon enough and be here for Christmas, so we’ll have the party just as planned. It will all be just absolutely fine.’

  *

  Mrs Duffy had pushed the night-time drinks trolley along the corridor from the kitchen to the television room where the nurses had gathered to watch the news. Her bag was ready by the front door. She would serve the drinks and one of the nurses would clear them away when she went to catch her bus home. They didn’t know that she knew that Nurse Beth stood and watched her from behind the curtains every night until she was happy that Mrs Duffy was safely on the bus home.

  ‘Drinks, everyone,’ she said as she dragged the trolley through the door. Pammy was lying on the floor in front of the fire reading a magazine and most of the probationers were sitting with their heads in their notes and testing each other ready for the following morning’s exam. It was coming to the end of the probationers’ first twelve-week session in the school and the following week would see many of them on the wards for the first time.

  ‘Come along, nurses, time to stop that. I’ve done Horlicks and hot chocolate tonight.’ She pushed the trolley against the wall.

  ‘Here, let me do that,’ said Dana. ‘I’ll serve and you go and get the bus.’

  Beth came into the room in her dressing gown, her hair wrapped in a towel. ‘Oh, just in time,’ she said as the phone rang in the laundry room next door. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Duffy, I’ll get it.’

  The television was on low in the background and the news began as Mrs Duffy and Dana began to ask the probationer nurses what they would like to drink.

  ‘Oh, would you look at that,’ said Mrs Duffy. ‘He’s just said that snow is expected.’

  ‘When?’ asked Dana as they all fell silent and watched the screen.

  ‘Tomorrow. Well, no point in thinking it will be a white Christmas; it will all be gone in days and all we will have left is the sludge.’

  Dana picked up the Horlicks jug and using the extra-long spoon, stirred the white paste from the bottom round and round until golden fragments of husks floated to the surface. It reminded her of home, of fields of oats and wheat and she lifted the jug to breathe in the steam. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said as she began to pour the Horlicks into a cup, ‘it may snow for more than one day.’ And then her face dropped. ‘Oh, I hope not! Poor Victoria doesn’t want it to snow before the party.’

  Two minutes later, Beth returned. ‘Well, you will never guess what,’ she announced as she walked back into the room. ‘Victoria is coming over tomorrow. It’s Saturday and so Roland is going to drop her here and then she’s coming to Pammy’s house with the rest of us who are off so I’m going to call in on my split shift.’

  Mrs Duffy tutted and shook her head. ‘Well, let’s hope that weather man was wrong – because if it does snow, Victoria won’t be going anywhere.’

  *

  Emily and Dessie sat in Matron’s sitting room, with Dr Gaskell in the chair next to the fire with Louis on his knee. Louis was biting down hard on the key to Dr Gaskell’s car and the atmosphere in the room was heavy, the set of Matron’s jaw tight.

  ‘I know her only too well, Emily, and this is no easy task. She is hardly likely to take any notice of me because she’s the sort of person who survives by considering herself to be superior to everyone she meets, even me. Oh, why did you not tell me?’ she asked.

  Emily stared at the handkerchief that she was winding round and round in her hand. Dessie, even though they were in Matron’s office, slipped his arm around her shoulders. They were sitting next to each other on the sofa, Matron on the chair opposite to Dr Gaskell.

  ‘You are going to have to see Miss Devonshire, Matron,’ said Dr Gaskell. ‘You are going to have to tell her that the hospital needed Emily. That we are slap bang in the fifties, with so much change happening, new nurses arriving from Ireland any day now who will all need to be trained. It’s all changed, hasn’t it, young man?’ He was now speaking to Louis, who looked up at him, grinning, and tried to insert the car key into the doctor’s own mouth. ‘Not now, I’ll eat the keys later,’ he said kindly as he gently moved his hand away.

  ‘I let you down,’ Emily half-spoke the words, half-whispered. They were words she had hoped she would never have to say to the woman she had grown to regard as a mother, the person she respected most in all the world. ‘You deserved better from me and so did Dessie. I’ve let you both down.’ Her tears ran afresh.

  ‘You could never let either of us down. You have been the best mother any child could ever have wanted. And the best nurse tutor any hospital could have wanted or needed. Emily, I am not cross about you not telling me, although I really wish you had. I could probably have argued your case the day you took him home. Remember, the Strawberry Fields baby unit was full at the time and we had all the cards in our hands. However, that was then. Now we have to find a way out – and there is one aspect in all of this I am the most worried about—’ She fell silent as Elsie opened the door that connected Matron’s apartment to the small kitchen at the rear.

  ‘Do you need me for anything else, Matron?’ asked Elsie.

  Matron looked startled. ‘Elsie, I thought you had gone half an hour ago. Go home, it’s getting late.’

  ‘I will. Do you need any help with the little fella, Emily? Want me to take him to ours and you collect him on your way home?’

  As if he knew what Elsie had said, Louis pulled himself up onto his feet and began gabbling excitedly. ‘I think he agrees with me,’ said Elsie as she walked over and put out her arms and picked him up. Everyone in the room laughed. ‘I’ll get him ready,’ said Elsie.

  A few minutes later, as she put Louis’ coat on in the kitchen, she heard Matron say, ‘It’s the letter of complaint that is the problem. Whoever has sent this has been watching you very carefully. I am happy to say that he was here, in my rooms in the hospital, being looked after by an army of doting women, but that does not alter the fact that he was being pushed out in his pram, late at night. I can add context and meaning, but I cannot alter the facts. This letter stating that he is being brought up by a variety of people twists the meaning, but not the evidence. I’m afraid it is a dangerous complaint because it is largely based on truth.’

  Elsie listened to every word. ‘Well, I never,’ she said to Louis as she carried him to the pram that was parked at the bottom of the steps leading to Matron’s apartment, ‘who would ever make a complaint about your mammy, young man?’

  As she strode out to the back gates that led to the dock streets, she was entirely u
naware that she was being watched. Ida and Eva were standing at the classroom window, Ida leaning on her mop handle and smoking, watching as she went.

  ‘See that?’ Ida said. ‘That poor little beggar doesn’t even sleep in his own house half of the time. She’s probably taking him home to hers so those two can go gallivanting about. You wouldn’t credit it, would you? I hope someone has seen the letter I’ve sent.’

  ‘What letter?’ Eva had her face placed against the glass, her eyes fixed on her son, trying to catch a glimpse over the canopy that covered most of him. All she could see was a little hand, grasping the top as he used the canopy to try pull himself up.

  ‘I’ve written a stinker to the children’s services. About just that!’ She jabbed her finger, towards Elsie. ‘He’s being dragged up. That kid deserves better.’

  Eva turned to face Ida. ‘What did you say,’ she asked, ‘in the letter?’

  Ida pulled hard on her cigarette and blew her smoke into the air. ‘I said that they should be doing more to find his real mother. That he wasn’t being brought up proper. That his real mother might have been sick, or the baby might have been kidnapped. Seems to me the police around here haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘And – and do you really think that – that he should be with his real mother?’

  Ida furrowed her brow. ‘I do, Eva love. All babies should be with their real mother, of course they should. What mother would want a child raised by the likes of Biddy Kennedy and Elsie and the entire army of staff in a hospital? Not many, I can tell you. That’s not an upbringing – it’s an extension of being a patient and not right at all.’

  Eva reached into her apron pocket and, pulling out the green weighing slip, handed it to Ida.

  ‘What’s that?’ Ida asked.

  Eva took out another page, from the hospital notes and waited for Ida to take it from her hand. ‘It’s his clinic notes,’ whispered Eva. ‘He’s not being looked after properly by anyone. He’s losing weight and they are lying about him seeing the doctor. She doesn’t even take him to the baby clinic! She pretends to, but I was watching and she didn’t. They have made it all up.’

  Ida looked at the notes and gasped. ‘Eva, love, what are you doing with these notes? Why were you watching?’ Ida felt her mouth go dry; something was very wrong and she suspected she was about to find out what. She studied Eva’s face, the sallow skin, the brown eyes, the whites of her eyes tinged with yellow, her dark hair – and it was as if she had received a shock as she made the connection. But before she could voice the suspicions hovering around the edge of her thoughts, Eva put her out of her misery. ‘Ida, he’s my baby.’

  Eva had played this moment over in her mind on the ship over so many times. She had practised the words, wondered how she would feel, only in her own rehearsals she had been talking to a policeman. She had thought she would cry, shake, be unable to speak, but there were none of the emotions she had thought would trip her up and rob her of the words she required to explain herself. She felt calm, in control. And she knew that here she had someone she thought may help her, who could be on her side.

  ‘I am the mother who left him,’ she said, ‘only I didn’t leave him. Ida, I am Jewish, from Poland. We fled before the war and hid and we were fleeing again from the Stalinist agents after the war. They caught up with us and my guardian, Benjamin, he wouldn’t let me stay. The woman, his contact, she was at the customs hall to meet us and she gave me a tablet. I thought it was for the pain and I took it – but it wasn’t for the pain, it drugged me. She told Benjamin that she would call the police, that someone would go and find my baby right away.’ She began to cry.

  Ida blinked, rapidly. ‘Oh, Holy Mary Mother of God, I can see the resemblance! No one in their right mind would doubt that you are his real mother. He looks like you. But are you sure that’s what happened? It all sounds pretty bloody fantastical to me?’

  Eva nodded as she took her handkerchief out of her pocket. It occurred to Ida that even if she called the police there and then, Eva wouldn’t move a muscle to resist. She was weak and done with running, that much was obvious. Ida needed time to think and the half-mopped floor would not wait.

  ‘Eva,’ she said, ‘we are both off tomorrow night. After your sleep, come to my house – I’ll write the address down – and we will decide what to do. Bertie will be at the pub so it will only be us. If you’re his mother, you should have your baby. And I’ll get the priest to help us – he’ll know what to do. Hah, that’ll teach him to pull a face at me in the confessional like he did when I told him I had written my letter, I could feel it, so I could. But here, have you got anywhere to live?’

  ‘Only the Seaman’s Stop,’ said Eva, and she thought of Malcolm, of how Melly was leaving him, of how she could take her place. If she could get her baby back, she didn’t think Malcolm would throw her out. She could feel a warmth in Malcolm and maybe it could be more… no, she knew it could. Since she’d seen the letters piled up under the lamp, she’d known Jacob had no intention of returning, had probably already forgotten her. So unlike Malcolm, who had made her feel welcome, looked at her with a mixture of pity and respect in his eyes. He made her feel safe, cared for, secure. She dared to hope that there might be a future there.

  ‘I’ll come,’ she whispered. ‘I will.’

  Ida’s eyes were bright, her face alight. ‘Good. Right, now let’s clean this place or we’ll both be sacked. And don’t you worry – we’ll get you your baby back. And now I know what the hell is wrong with you with all your fainting and malarkey… it’s distress at being separated from your own son.’

  Ida was turning the mop in the bucket, wringing out the dirty water. Eva picked up her own and began mopping under a desk. Is that all the pains were? That she was distressed at being separated from her baby? In her heart, she thought not. The pains had begun a week after his birth, which she remembered vividly. Maja, trying not to panic, Louis coming quickly. Too quickly. The tears that had been left to heal without stitches and the pain – the pain which had just never gone away. If it hadn’t been for the pain, she would never have taken the pill in the customs hall. She would have run, but at the wrong time, the worst time, she had been desperate to stop the pain and, as a result, lost her son. She lifted her head from her mopping and looked out of the window to see Emily and Dessie hurrying up the back path, Dessie with his arm around Emily and for the first time, she felt hopeful. Ida would help her. Soon, she would have her son back.

  ‘I’m just popping into the sitting room,’ said Ida. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  The phone book sat on Emily’s desk next to her phone. Ida knew the name of the woman from children’s services, they had given that out on the phone, but would not give her a home address. ‘There can’t be many Devonshires around this part of Liverpool,’ she said to herself, and she was right, there was just one. She took a pencil out of the pot on Emily’s desk, and a piece of paper from a pad and scribbled down the phone number and address.

  *

  ‘Right, you pop to Elsie’s and I’ll go to the pub and bring back a pint in my pot and a gin and orange squash for you. I think we have something to celebrate tonight.’ He cupped his wife’s face in his hands and he kissed her.

  ‘Dessie, not in public,’ said Emily as she pulled away.

  Her husband grinned. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Emily, but you just did make everything right, didn’t you?’

  ‘I hope so. The fact that Dr Gaskell and Matron are going to see her together has to be a good sign, doesn’t it. It’s a big thing, them offering to do that. She won’t say no to them and she will believe them.’ Emily gave a big sigh and felt the weight fall from her shoulders. ‘No one says no to Dr Gaskell. He knew my mam and my dad, you know.’

  ‘I know he did,’ said Dessie as he pulled her into him. ‘That’s why Dr Gaskell will make this work for you. And like the rest of us, he loves Louis too.’

  Emily pushed Dessie away. ‘Yes, and you are keeping him away f
rom me with all this chatter. Go on, Mr Big Talk. Go and get us a drink and I’ll be home with him in ten minutes. I promised Elsie I would let her know what happened. Biddy gave him mashed potato with gravy for lunch and you should have seen how fast it went down – he loved it. There’s some in the pram for him, with mashed carrots. Is egg and chips okay for you?’

  Dessie roared with laughter. ‘It is. I know my place. Best steak gravy for our baby boy, egg and chips for me.’

  Emily turned in through Elsie’s back gate. She had never felt as relaxed as she did right now because she was free from the lie she had told Matron all those months ago. As she lifted the latch to Elsie’s kitchen, her son, sitting on Elsie’s lap, babbled out to her and put out his arms.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. That’s good timing, because I need to stir up a bit of chocolate to put on a cake to take to Mavis’s and there’s no way I could do that with this wriggler around!’

  Emily was stirring a bowl of cake mix, looked up and smiled.

  ‘I couldn’t help overhearing,’ she said. ‘Is it all sorted? Will you be able to stay at the hospital?’

  Emily nodded. ‘I think so. I’m sure, I mean. Matron and Dr Gaskell are going to see the lady from children’s services and tell them what a happy little boy he is, aren’t you?’ She kissed her son on the temple and hugged him into her.

  Elsie said, ‘Emily, I heard about the complaint – if I find out who that was, I’ll skin them alive. How dare they! God knows, we all love this lad to bits.’

  ‘Do you know what, Elsie, I don’t care. I have every faith in the plan Matron and Dr Gaskell have put together. He said he would go further if he had to, that he and his wife loved this little one. Matron also said that as I had been working and doing such a good job so far, there was no reason for me to stop, and I’m delighted about that, not least because I love singing the carols around the wards at Christmas time. It’s funny what you realise you will miss when you are faced with it.’