Snow Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  Gracie bent her head to look closer. ‘It’s waving all over the place, I can’t tell what it is,’ she said and Louis kicked his legs against the enamel dish and blew bubbles at Pammy.

  ‘Yes, I know you can kick your legs,’ said Pammy, laughing. ‘Would you look at him, I swear to God, he’s the cheekiest baby ever. My mam says he’ll be speaking before he can walk and it’s because he spends so much time with so many adults talking to him. She said he’ll be telling his da to bugger off and asking him for a fag and a cuppa if he spends much more time in the porters’ hut with the fellas.’

  Pammy and Gracie both folded into peals of laughter, and were only outdone by Louis, who laughed with them and began kicking the scales even more violently, making the needle crash loudly from one end of the glass viewing screen to the other as Sister Antrobus swept through the doors.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘Clinic hasn’t started yet.’

  ‘Oh, I know, Sister,’ said Pammy, her voice not as confident as it had been only moments before. ‘We’re just helping out Sister Horton.’

  ‘Helping out Sister Horton? Where is she?’

  ‘She’s gone back to the school, Sister. I said I would drop Louis back.’

  ‘Did you now?’ said Sister Antrobus. ‘On whose authority? I thought I was in charge of this clinic. Or does Sister Horton think she will assume responsibility for the entire hospital given that Matron lets her do just as she likes?’

  Pammy felt her knees go weak beneath her. Everyone knew, Sister Antrobus had wanted the job as nurse tutor. They also knew she had strongly disapproved of Louis’ adoption and regarded it as an unforgivable case of hospital staff being unprofessional and overly emotional and had said as much to Matron.

  ‘I don’t think St Angelus should be written about in the Echo for any reason. No reporter should know that the child is here or that one of the staff is going to take him home,’ she had said in Matron’s office. ‘It makes us look very unprofessional. Strawberry Fields is where orphans belong and no one needs to know about it, either.’

  Matron had allowed Sister Antrobus to rant on, uninterrupted, and let her falter to a natural end before she spoke. ‘Nonsense. The head of children’s services has insisted that the discovery of the child has as much public exposure as is possible. They believe the mother may have delivered him alone and be in trouble. She could have retained products which, as we know, could cause extensive bleeding, infection and almost certain death if left untreated. As far as the child being transferred to Strawberry Fields, don’t you think he’s been through enough?’

  Sister Antrobus had left Matron’s office within moments. She knew Matron’s mood and was well aware that, on this, she would not be moved.

  Sister Antrobus held her arms out to take Louis. ‘I shall return him myself, give him here.’

  Pammy felt Louis stiffen in response. ‘I promised, I would do it, Sister. He knows me, you see. Sister Horton has a lecture and I’m to drop him with Mrs Duffy because he’s been with Biddy in Sister Horton’s sitting room all morning.’

  The colour rose in Sister Antrobus’s cheeks. A sister’s post with a sitting room was an honour in St Angelus, one she had been denied, all because of one slight misdemeanour. She felt as though Matron punished her every chance she got, entirely unaware that, in normal circumstances, she would have been sent packing altogether. An affair with a married consultant was not to be tolerated and it was only the fact that Sister Antrobus had very obviously been used that she was pitied rather than scorned for her poor judgement and lack of loyalty to Matron. Sister Antrobus bitterly resented the fact that Biddy, the housekeeper in the school of nursing, waited on Sister Horton hand and foot and now had also become a part-time carer of the child who, by rights, should have been transferred straight to Strawberry Fields children’s home and the proper process of adoption adhered to, so she was not about to take no for an answer.

  ‘Thank you, Nurse Tanner, I will take the boy.’

  Pammy reluctantly held out Louis to Sister Antrobus and watched helplessly as she marched out of outpatients, Louis over her shoulder, his little hands and arms reaching out to her, crying pitifully. She had let Sister Horton down. Pammy looked around; there was no sign of Gracie who had scarpered within seconds. Very wise, she thought and picked up Louis’ notes to write in the weight. Her pen hovered. What was it, she thought, and realised that they hadn’t fully decided the correct weight. She would have to guess. ‘Fifteen pounds, four ounces,’ she wrote in the column and, hurried and upset, failed to notice that the previous weight had been twenty pounds. She hurried over to clinic B where Doreen was in her booth and handed her the notes.

  ‘Baby Louis Horton, Doctor saw him early today,’ she said and winked at Doreen. ‘When you get the notes back, don’t write DNA in them. I’ve recorded the weight and he’s fighting fit.’

  ‘Oh, Doctor has seen him, has he? Really, that’s a surprise, because I’ve just seen him walking straight from the children’s ward into the doctors’ sitting room,’ said Doreen, smiling. ‘It’s all right, don’t look so worried, Nurse Tanner. I know the score. And they don’t have much longer to wait. Soon, Sister Horton won’t have to do this any more – he’ll be all hers and Dessie’s officially.’

  ‘We must have a party to celebrate,’ said Pammy, ‘a big one at Christmas to celebrate our own St Angelus baby. Oh, I’ve got to dash, left Gracie the new cleaner on her own.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Doreen as she held the notes open at the page the weight should have been recorded. ‘Where’s the weight sheet?’

  Pammy slammed the base of her palm onto her head. ‘Drat, I must have left it on the desk. Honestly, it’s one of those days today. I’ll bring it back over before I leave.’

  As Pammy passed through the connecting door between the two outpatients departments, the exit doors were swinging shut.

  ‘Gracie?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gracie from Dr Gaskell’s room.

  Pammy walked to the door. ‘Who just came in?’ she asked.

  Gracie was wiping down the high windowsills. ‘No one,’ said Gracie. ‘Or not that I know of, anyway. I didn’t see anyone. I thought I would start on Dr Gaskell’s room now. Is that all right?’ She looked worried, as though she had done something wrong.

  Pammy looked about her, the floor was wet and the smell pungent. ‘No, not at all. That’s smashing,’ she said as the phone on the desk began to ring. ‘Oh, God, I know who that will be. Biddy asking how come Sister Antrobus got her hands on Louis.’ As Pammy picked up the phone, preparing herself to explain, she failed to notice that the green weight sheet she had completed for Louis had disappeared from the desk.

  Chapter 6

  The brown glass bottle was hidden behind the egg cups; given that her husband possibly didn’t even know what shelf the egg cups lived on, it was a safe place to keep it. She placed it on the kitchen table, poured herself another cup of the now stewed tea and, unscrewing the lid, flicked out the blue tablet onto her hand. She went to place it on her tongue and then hesitated, looking at her little helper as she sat in the chair.

  ‘You need to get out of the house,’ her GP, Dr William, had told her. He was the reason she had attended Matron’s party – he had almost forced her to go. ‘These tablets will make you more of a prisoner, not less. They will stop you from feeling anxious and nervous, but they won’t cure it. I would never have prescribed this chlorpromazine for you – it’s just too new, not tried and tested enough. I have no idea why my predecessor gave it to you – and not only you. I have inherited other patients on this drug. Look, why don’t you come to the Christmas drinks party Matron is having for us? That will do you more good than one of these things. My wife has been invited, so I am sure you definitely have been. We would only have been invited as an afterthought as I’m just a GP, albeit the one with the highest number of your husband’s referrals.’

  He had been standing at her back to listen to her he
art, one hand on her shoulder. He stopped talking in order to concentrate and the stethoscope, cold on her skin, made goosebumps stand up on her back and arms. ‘I’m sorry, it’s cold,’ he said. Satisfied, he began to fold the stethoscope.

  ‘You have the highest number of referrals because you are a saint who cares for the poorest patients,’ she had said as she stood and tucked her blouse back into the waist of her skirt.

  He smiled. ‘They may be the poorest, but I can tell you this, they are by far the most interesting and rewarding. I’ll tell you some of my funnier stories if you come to Matron’s Christmas drinks.’ He had sat back down behind his desk and grinned up at her.

  ‘I-I can’t. I’ve never been to any of those things. Oliver was only young when she started having her little Christmas soirées for the doctors and their wives and I couldn’t go then; I had to look after him and, well, I just never did go. Besides, I think Matron prefers it if my husband is on his own. She’s got used to having him all to herself. Quite a pair they are… He can be her company for the evening if I am not there.’

  The silence that followed hung heavy in the air until he broke it with a bark that made her jump. ‘Nonsense, I won’t hear of it.’ He put his hands behind his head and, pushing on his feet, the captain’s chair slid back towards the door. Dr William had quickly developed a reputation for himself in the time he had been in Liverpool. Informal, unstuffy and kind, his bedside manner was in almost complete contrast to that of the majority of doctors who came from privileged backgrounds. The previous partner in the practice had regarded the poor as a species to be either despised or patronised.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I cannot tell you how much I disapprove of you being on this drug. There was an article in the Lancet which said that we don’t really know yet whether or not this substance is addictive, and there are some who believe it may be. It is true that it has enabled patients with severe malaise, who have been hospitalised, to be discharged back home – but that is not you. I would have asked you to get out of the house three times a day and walk instead. My predecessor was quite wrong – and even if you were an ideal case, I would always have sought a second opinion.’

  His eyes locked onto hers and he removed the buff slip of card from her notes. She felt a trickle of fear run down her spine; he was going to take her little helper away, the little blue pill that replaced the aching loneliness that lived in her belly with a soft, sleepy fog that she was always so reluctant to wake from, regardless of how many hours had passed.

  ‘Look, can we agree to do something radical? Decide on a plan of action?’ He flicked the top off his pen. ‘I will write you out another prescription if you come to Matron’s Christmas drinks party, is that a deal?’ She didn’t speak, she just nodded her head. ‘Excellent. And with this prescription we are going to replace one of your three tablets a day with a five-milligram for one week, and then replace two tablets a day. After a month, we will hopefully be down to two milligrams three times a day – and then we can wean you off.’

  ‘Take them away?’ She looked terrified and he saw it in her eyes.

  ‘Yes, but we will do it together and at your pace, so don’t worry.’

  He smiled at her and she felt relief wash over her as he wrote out the prescription. He wasn’t going to make her stop, not yet anyway. She could have her tablets today.

  ‘Can I ask, er, you won’t tell…’

  He looked up from writing out the prescription. ‘I won’t tell your husband, no. Absolutely not – just as long as you agree to work on this with me, which means we are aiming to get to a point whereby you don’t have to take these tablets any longer.’

  She had breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow was another day and she would deal with that when she came to it; for now, she was safe.

  She had kept to her end of the bargain, had gone to Matron’s drinks party, which had somehow led to her promising to meet Mavis Tanner at Lovely Lane. She just didn’t know how. She hadn’t expected the knock on her door, but it seemed that Mrs Tanner would not take no for an answer.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me knocking,’ she had said. ‘It’s just that I’m desperate for the help. The hospital is busier than ever this year, what with the new wards going up and Matron full of ideas. I’ll be honest with you, Mrs Gaskell, what with running the WVS and everything else, I can’t cope.’

  ‘But, w-why me?’ Doris Gaskell had stammered.

  Mavis didn’t hesitate. ‘Because every time your husband calls into the WVS for a cake, he always tells me how good yours are and your Oliver, he says to me, “You should get one of my mum’s pudding recipes, Mrs Tanner. She makes brilliant ones.” You have come highly recommended, Mrs Gaskell, by the two men who eat more of my cakes than the outpatients do.’

  Mrs Tanner spun a good line, but Doris Gaskell was not convinced. She had been played and she knew it and she felt ashamed that someone had felt there was a need to do that. It must have been Dr William. I have to do this myself, she thought as she stared into the fire and listened to the familiar sound of cars leaving driveways on their way to work. Soon the Avenue would be quiet. Deathly quiet.

  She rose from the table, took a vegetable knife from the drawer and, sitting back down, took her cup from the saucer, patted it dry with a tea towel and then placed her blue friend in the middle. She felt beads of perspiration break out on her top lip and her hands began to shake. She was going to leave the house, meet people, do something useful. She needed her friend for this, couldn’t do it without it. She took a long, deep breath and, when she felt calmer, placed the tip of the knife on the indented line that ran across the middle of the pill and applied careful pressure. It snapped in two and she picked up half, placed it on her tongue and threw the other half into the fire before she allowed the panic to return and tempt her to swallow the whole thing. The half of the pill she had thrown away combusted into a small green flame. She would do this herself and that had been the first step. The perspiration stood out in beads, all over her face. And she forced the panic that had returned in an instant and threatened to overcome her, back deep down.

  ‘There, there,’ she said as she screwed the lid back on the bottle, ‘you did it.’ And for the first time in many years she felt a sense of pride. She took a deep breath. ‘You have a lot to do today,’ she told herself, and suddenly realised that if she could just let herself, she might enjoy her day.

  *

  Roland Davenport took the last slice of toast from the toast rack, shoved the corner into his mouth while he struggled to pull his jacket over his arms and all the time his gaze never left his wife, Victoria, who sat at the kitchen table, reading The Times, one hand caressing her large full belly. It was a sound he had become accustomed to, the crackle of static between her warm hand and the fabric covering their child; like a wave on the shore, it was soothing and mesmerising.

  ‘There’s a frost on the moors,’ he said as he glanced out of the window out onto the horizon beyond the large garden. ‘You aren’t going out, are you? I think it’s going to be a bad winter; we need to keep an eye on that, you know, just in case… when the time comes…’

  She instantly detected the concern in his voice. ‘Roland, Bolton General is only half an hour away and this is our first baby – it will take forever to arrive. I’ve seen enough come through the doors of St Angelus to know what I’m talking about, honestly, and besides, the little sproglet isn’t due until well after Christmas. You must stop worrying.’ Victoria smiled up at her husband as her eyes popped wide and she flinched. ‘Ooh, that was funny,’ she said as her dressing gown parted and she placed both hands on her belly.

  ‘What, what is it?’ asked Roland as he fell to his knees next to her, the toast discarded.

  Victoria took a number of shallow breaths as the colour rose to her cheeks and she puffed like a steam train. ‘Nothing, silly, it’s just a Braxton Hicks, that’s all.’

  ‘Braxton Hicks? Who and what the hell is that?’ he asked as he placed his own ha
nd over hers.

  Victoria’s face relaxed. ‘It’s just my body practising for labour, that’s all. It’s a kind of fake contraction. Happens all the time in the last weeks. It’s the muscles, getting themselves ready to push. Oh God, this is really happening, isn’t it?’

  Roland looked as though he were about to faint. ‘Jesus wept,’ he said as he rubbed his hand across his forehead. ‘Are you sure that’s what is supposed to happen? You flushed bright red just then.’

  ‘It is normal, but for the first time I just realised what I’ve got to go through.’

  Roland clasped her hands and pressed them to his chest. ‘And I will be with you; you won’t be alone.’

  Victoria laughed. ‘No you won’t! You will be pacing up and down outside like a madman. I just want you to make sure that, as soon as it is over, you get in there and get Aunty Minnie out.’

  Roland grinned. ‘That’s right. You leave the difficult and painful task to me, you just deliver our baby.’

  They both laughed as Victoria placed both hands on the table and pushed herself up to standing. ‘Well, if I were closer and anything was going to happen today, we would be fine. I have three very capable nurses heading this way from Liverpool, so please just trot along to your office and leave me to get ready with my Braxton Hicks for company. I know exactly what it is, honestly.’

  Victoria began to laugh at the sight of her poor husband as he got to his feet. He was not handling impending fatherhood terribly well. As the head partner in his own law firm, having taken over from his late father at much too young an age, he had heard enough stories from clients on a daily basis to have turned him into a gibbering wreck each night when he returned home. He placed his arms around his wife and hugged her into him. They had married some months before and she had left the nurses’ home and moved to the house on the outskirts of Bolton that Roland and his brother, Dr Teddy, had been born in. The wedding had been slipped in, before she had even begun to show, and it had been attended by half the staff from St Angelus, from Dr Gaskell and Matron to the ward cleaners and orderlies and, of course, most of the doctors.