Snow Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘You look lost, can I help?’ The breeze was fierce and lifted his white coat by the hem as it billowed about him and he plunged his hands into the deep white pockets to hold it down, his stethoscope dangling precariously about his neck like a noose.

  The young woman recoiled from him and stood back from the light which flooded out of the windows. She had folded her arms across her and appeared to avert her face from his gaze. She was dressed like any other woman from the dock streets and looked the same, poor and cold. She carried no bag, but he noticed that a small block of wood protruded from her pocket. She was too thin, as many of the local women were, the result of hard work and putting others first.

  Teddy knew that many mothers on the dock streets would miss a meal in order to feed their children more. He watched them as they piled out of the gates of the processing houses and factories, faces gaunt, cheekbones sharp and jutting. Many war widows hurried home to cook a meal, only to go out again to a second job, cleaning. Those who had husbands were no better off as they watched the reward of their efforts handed over the bar at one of the many street corner public houses. Most mothers around the dock streets would allow their own clothes to fall from their backs before they would let their children go without a pair of shoes and have to miss school.

  Observant doctor that he was, his skills developed under the close eye of Dr Gaskell, this woman caught his attention as he waited for her to answer. Something was wrong. She was far too thin.

  ‘I, er, no, thank you. I wasn’t sure if I had the right…’ she said and then turned and made to run down the path towards the main entrance. He had noticed the accent and she was not from Liverpool. She fell, only it was more of a collapse than a fall. Teddy was by her side within seconds, helping her to her feet.

  ‘Here, let me help, come inside. You look frozen. Did you trip?’

  Once she was on her feet, she shook his arm away. ‘No, I don’t want to go inside. I’m looking for the main administration block.’

  She brushed down the front of her legs and her coat. She was on the verge of becoming distressed and Teddy, having spent his fair share of time on casualty, had met this before. He pointed to the side of the main entrance.

  ‘There’s no sign but it’s at the top of the steps that lead up from the main entrance, next to Matron’s rooms. But, seriously, can I just check your blood pressure at the very least?’

  ‘No thank you, I just caught my foot. I’m fine.’ He strained to hear her words which were weak and carried away on the wind. Her headscarf covered all of her hair and was tied under her chin, the collar of her coat up against the breeze. ‘I have to go.’

  But before she turned away, she looked at him for a second too long. He got the impression that she might have been about to ask him something, but changed her mind at the last moment and turned on her heel and hobbled away. Odd. Very odd, thought Teddy, who plunged his hands back deep into the pockets of his white coat to protect them from the cold as thoughts of the hot currant, puff pastry slices that were served in the doctors’ sitting room at five o’clock, just as the operating lists finished, filled his mind and quickened his step.

  *

  Eva stood at the foot of the steps and caught her breath. The pain had been bad. She could barely walk when it was at its worst, but at least it had gone now, before the interview with Matron.

  She made her way up the stairs and joined the other women waiting to be interviewed. It was obvious Matron had expected more to turn up for the block interview for cleaners and Eva was soon aware that she had a stronger chance of being taken on as a result of being only one in three to attend.

  ‘The job is only temporary. Three weeks, just to get us over the Christmas period,’ Matron had said to all three of them and each woman nodded, desperate for money and hoping to make a good impression in order to be taken on permanently. ‘Excellent. Please report back here at seven this evening with aprons and your pairs will meet you.’ To Eva she said, ‘You will be with Ida Botherthwaite, mortuary and school of nursing.’ She moved on to the other applicants, but Eva wasn’t listening. ‘School of nursing’, was all she heard. That was where she had seen the pram; that was where Emily Horton worked, where Eva wanted to be.

  *

  He had almost made it to the doctors’ sitting room before he met her. They were both walking with their heads down against the wind, neither looking where they were heading.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said as he looked up, about to apologise further before it felt as though he had received a punch to his heart. Dana!

  She didn’t speak. She had her cape fastened tight across her, her hands holding the edges tight together from the inside. She pulled it tighter, as though to protect herself.

  ‘Dana, I’m sorry!’ Teddy blurted the words out.

  She blinked, her blue eyes flashed, there was an almost imperceptible shake of her head as she said, ‘Excuse me’ and pushed past him. He watched her back as she went, her starched hat, threatening to fly away, aware that the only emotion he had been able to identify on the face of the person he loved more than life itself had been disgust.

  Chapter 9

  Biddy had tied a muslin cloth around the basin and then wrapped newspapers around the outside before she nestled the basin at the foot of the pram, under the covers. ‘Don’t want to burn your feet, do we little fella,’ she said as she tucked the blankets around it. ‘That’s for your tea later, and your mam and da. Now, let’s get your pram coat on, the one Mrs Duffy knitted for you.’

  Emily burst in through the door. ‘Oh, is he ready? I’ve got to run. The lady from children’s services is coming to the house. There’s all the final paperwork to fill in.’

  Biddy pulled Louis’ arm through and blew a raspberry at him and grinned as he fell about in peals of laughter. ‘He’s all ready for you and so is your dinner, in a basin in the pram. And the chocolate cake you asked Elsie to make is in a tin on the pram tray underneath, so don’t go bouncing it off.’

  Emily placed her arms around Biddy’s shoulders. ‘I don’t know what I would do without you lot. Is it cook’s scouse?’

  ‘It is, and she had that much left over, I made sure we got it up here because I know it’s Dessie’s favourite.’

  The door opened as Jake arrived. ‘I’m here. I’m looking for a little footballer in a pram, ah, there he is.’ Jake launched at the pram and bounced the handle as Louis roared with laughter and began kicking his legs.

  ‘Oi, stop that, you’ll tip the scouse up,’ said Biddy.

  ‘Come on, little fella, before I get into big trouble,’ said Jake. ‘Let’s be on our way. Emily, Dessie said I was to tell you that there was no way you could be late tonight because you have to make a good impression.’

  ‘Oh, get Dessie,’ laughed Emily as she took her coat down from the peg. ‘He’s the daddy so he has to make a good impression too.’

  ‘Is she coming to the house?’ asked Biddy.

  ‘Yes, she is. Tonight. I had to put her off today – there was no way I could make it with the exams.’

  Biddy smiled at her. ‘No one could be bringing up a baby better than you and Dessie are. I mean, look at him now, that child isn’t short of admirers, as long as you don’t count Sister Antrobus in there. I reckon, despite his bad start, that lad will be speaking soon and walking. Have you thought about a party for him, when it all goes through?’

  ‘Yes, and we will even invite Sister Antrobus.’ Emily frowned. ‘Was she cross today?’

  ‘She made a good show of being cross, but somewhere between outpatients and here that little lad had worked his magic. I only heard her chatting to him as she brought him up the stairs and by the time she got through that door, she didn’t want to hand him over, I kid you not,’ Biddy placed both hands on her hips as she leant slightly backwards to ease the pain in her lower back. ‘Go on, on your way now, don’t be late and make your Dessie nervous.’

  Biddy watched as Emily grabbed the bannister and ran down th
e stairs after Jake and her son. Biddy took a deep breath; she was worried about her Emily. She felt closer to her than her own daughters and there was no doubt in her mind that she would play a part in the lives of Emily, Dessie and Louis until her dying day. But it seemed as though, for a very long time, Emily hadn’t stopped to catch her breath. The social evenings she used to attend with the staff had ended abruptly and everyone understood why. She had a huge responsibility, taking on Louis, and she appeared anxious almost every day. As though she was waiting for something to go wrong.

  As Biddy dashed out of the door, she was met by Elsie coming the other way. ‘She reminds me of a duck on a pond, that one,’ Elsie said, nodding her head towards Emily who was pushing the pram out of the back gates. She looks so serene on the surface, but is really paddling away like mad underneath.’

  ‘She’s waiting to fail,’ said Biddy. ‘It’s not like she had any time to get used to him before he arrived and she’s learnt everything she has from the likes of us and Mrs Duffy. I mean, let’s face it, it’s us bringing him up, or as good as. We’ve taught her everything she knows.’

  Elsie shook her head. ‘I hate to think of her worrying; the pair of them, they’re smashing parents and they love that baby to bits, anyone can see that. No one could do any better, not his own mother, whoever she may be, if she’d had a mind to, rather than abandoning the poor boy. Are you going straight home?’

  ‘No,’ said Biddy, ‘I’m calling in to see if Malcolm is all right. I haven’t seen him for a week.’

  ‘What are you like?’ said Elsie. ‘You take on everyone else’s kids and problems, you do, and I’ll tell you this: no one else would go out of their way to visit Mr Grumpy, not even if his mother was the Virgin Mary. Old before his time, that man is.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ said Biddy as she took her transparent plastic head covering out of her handbag, flicked it open and placed it over her headscarf. ‘When you make a promise to a dying woman as I did, you have to keep it and that’s all there is to it. Besides, he’s not that bad. One day some woman will open her eyes and see what a good catch he is.’

  ‘Pity we’re not twenty years younger, eh Biddy,’ Elsie laughed.

  Malcolm looked delighted to see Biddy when he opened the door and surprised to see Doreen with her.

  ‘I’ve brought you your favourite,’ she said as she fished around in her holdall. ‘There you go, raspberry and almond slice with a sprinkling of desiccated coconut on the top. Everyone is going mad for that on Mavis Tanner’s WVS stall and I thought to myself, I know who I need to take some of that for. I mashed some up and fed it to baby Louis on a spoon today too. God, he loved it he did.’

  Malcolm’s eyes lit up as Biddy took the small tin out of her bag. ‘Biddy, do you feed half the Dock Road?’ he said.

  ‘Aye, sometimes I think I do,’ she said. ‘Between me and the hospital kitchen, that’s how half the families around here survive. Me and Doreen are on our way to the bingo, aren’t we, Dor, but I thought I’d drop this off first and besides, we’re a bit early.’ They both stood silent as they heard Melly’s high-pitched laugh coming from the Silly next door.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, it would be a lot easier if someone came and closed that place down, then all the drunken sods wouldn’t be peeing their pay up the entry wall and I wouldn’t need to feed half the Dock Road,’ Biddy said.

  Malcolm opened the door wide and stood back. ‘Come on in, Biddy, Doreen; park yourselves in the sitting room. It’s six o’clock so I’ll light the fire and fetch us a drink and a plate for the cake.’

  ‘Is it fish pie for your tea?’ Biddy asked, her nose wrinkling in the air.

  ‘Yes, how did you know?’ said Malcolm, genuinely surprised.’

  ‘Because it’s Friday, soft lad, and your house smells of hake. Since when have you not had fish pie on a Friday?’

  Malcolm laughed. ‘Biddy, you know me so well. Sit down, Doreen.’ Malcolm pulled out a chair for Doreen who took in the room. It was orderly and nothing gave Doreen more pleasure than order. It was homely, too, and Doreen thought what a lovely room it was and how she would happily miss the bingo to spend the night in the big leather armchair. Malcolm was holding the gas poker into the fire and as the firelighters burst into flames she tried to guess his age now. She had known him all of her older life, since he had returned from the war and guessed him to be in his late thirties.

  ‘Right, I’ll fetch us a bottle of stout each up from the cellar.’

  ‘How old is he?’ Doreen whispered as they heard Malcolm descend the cellar steps.

  ‘In the head, sixty, in the body, not yet forty,’ said Biddy. ‘Too much responsibility too soon, it makes people old before their time.’

  Doreen kept the rest of her thoughts, or rather, feelings to herself. She wasn’t the only person on the shelf – a little further along sat Malcolm and she had only just noticed.

  Biddy was having the same thoughts at the exact same moment. Why had she never had the notion to bring Doreen with her before? Then they heard the front door open. Biddy craned her neck to peer through the hatch and see which of the sailors it was – she had got to know many of the regulars over the years – and was shocked to see a woman close the door behind her and walk down the corridor. The woman wasn’t aware of Biddy but bumped into Malcolm as he emerged from the breakfast room, carrying a tray on which perched three bottles of stout and two glasses.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ he said. ‘Did you see who it was you wanted to see up at the hospital.’

  The woman nodded her head. ‘I did, thank you.’

  ‘And were they pleased you had gone to so much trouble?’

  Biddy noticed that there was no answer and Malcolm sounded uncomfortable as he spoke again. ‘Sorry, love, I didn’t mean to pry. I told Melly to put extra in the fish pie for you and it’s in the kitchen when you are ready, no extra charge.’

  No extra charge? Biddy couldn’t have been more curious – she was sure they were words Malcolm had never before spoken. She rose to her feet, slowly and peered further through the hatch.

  ‘Are you sure I can’t pay?’ said the woman, her voice hesitating, making it clear she might refuse the meal if she had to pay.

  Malcolm snorted. ‘Heavens no. I mean, it’s not like you’re one of the sailors and can walk into the pub for your dinner and sit on your own, is it? And I know the hospital only has a canteen for the staff, not for visitors. Where else could you get food from at teatime? A woman can’t live on Jacob’s Cream Crackers alone.’ He saw her frown and felt like a fool. ‘Sorry, Melly saw the packet in your room. She’s put them in the kitchen cupboard for you. It’s your kitchen too while you’re staying here and we will do your tea for you. It’s Saturday tomorrow, scouse night.’

  The wind howled outside the door and the woman didn’t speak but, Biddy noticed, that didn’t deter Malcolm who carried on talking. ‘Listen to that and they say there is going to be snow soon, so you need an extra layer on you to keep you warm, you’re that thin, and the scouse will do that for you. My mam used to say, “When you’re a bit under the weather, there’s nothing like a pan of scouse to stick to your ribs.”’

  ‘Aye, she did that, I can hear her saying it now,’ Biddy blurted out. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to but I couldn’t help but overhear. Hello, love.’ Biddy stepped into the hallway and grinned, her hands clasped before her over her ample belly, her headscarf still on, but received no warm smile in response as the woman, her eyes wide and looking as though she had seen a ghost, backed towards the stairs.

  ‘This is Eva, Biddy. Eva, this is Biddy. We are just going to have us a bottle of stout, would you like to join us?’

  Eva shook her head. ‘No, no thank you. I’m going to go and have a wash and a lie-down, thank you.’

  Malcolm looked mildly confused. ‘Yes, you go and rest; your pie is on top of the range keeping warm when you are ready. Always at seven o’clock on the dot, no extra charge.’

  Bid
dy’s eyes opened wide; he had said it twice, no extra charge. He had barely finished his sentence and the woman had disappeared up the stairs.

  ‘Did you just hear that noise?’ Biddy said as he stepped into the parlour and placed the tray on the table.

  ‘What noise?’ said Malcolm.

  ‘That one, that whizzing sound.’ Biddy held her hand in the air as if to silence Malcolm as she listened hard.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Malcolm, as he found the bottle opener on his large bunch of keys.

  ‘Can’t you? I can. It’s your mother, God rest her soul, spinning in her grave. She was my best friend when she was alive, Doreen, but she was as tight as a duck’s arse. So who is that, then? Was she sent by the Pope? I can’t think of any other reason why you’ve gone soft in the head,’ asked Biddy as she sat back down in the chair.

  ‘She’s a lost soul, that’s who she is,’ said Malcolm. ‘I can’t make head nor tail of her.’ He stood at the side of the table and poured his own stout while Biddy’s settled.