‘With your father in the car,’ said Doris. ‘And let’s pray it doesn’t snow.’ The phone rang out again. ‘Heavens above, boys, it’s busier than Lime Street in here!’
‘They’ve run out of blue,’ said Oliver grinning as Doris hurried back down the hallway.
A moment later they heard, ‘Yes, Matron, of course. I would be delighted.’
‘Matron?’ mouthed Oliver to Teddy. ‘She’s going to need her own personal switchboard installing before long. I’ve never heard my mother talk so much.’
‘If it carries on, she’ll be getting a call from the Pope, next,’ said Teddy as he finished the last morsel of pudding. They both unashamedly strained to hear what she was saying.
‘Oh, I do know where the children’s ward is, yes. Oliver was in there as a baby, you may remember. Yes, I met Sister Aileen at your drinks do. I’m not surprised. Yes, my husband told me. An unprecedented number of babies with bronchitis… Matron, I love babies and especially at Christmas, it will be my pleasure.’
A short time later Doris sat back down at the table and grinned. ‘Well, that was nice. Apparently Sister Aileen is run off her feet on the children’s ward and Mavis is busy with the WVS so Matron has asked would I help with decorating the ward on Saturday. In fact, she asked me if I would become involved with the children’s ward as a visitor and general organiser. What’s more, they are down in the numbers for the ward carol singers because some of the nuns are poorly, so would I help out there, too.’
Oliver frowned. His reputation as a ladies’ man was safe from his mother, or so he thought, and he liked it that way. A father at the hospital who gave a wry smile was very different from a mother with an opinion.
‘Really? What did you say?’
‘I said I would love to, of course, and that I will be there at ten on Saturday morning and every night at visiting for the carol singing.’ She grinned and clapped her hands. ‘I can’t wait – and Oliver, I am sure I am going to hear a lot about my son when I’m there!’
*
Ida leant her mop up against the classroom door in the school of nursing and took her tobacco tin out of her apron pocket. ‘Come on, stop,’ she said. ‘You’ve been working too fast and you’ll ’ave all the others on me back, complaining.’ She struck a match and lit the cigarette. ‘Want one?’ she asked and proffered the tin to Eva. Ida didn’t like to part with cigarettes, especially not to relative strangers, but, in her experience, many a secret was shared over a ciggie. She was disappointed when Eva shook her head.
‘Come on then, with you being such a fast worker there’s one benefit to being stuck over here – they have their own kettle and teapot. I’ve never finished the mortuary as fast as that before, you near wore the mop out.’
Eva put her mop in the bucket and pummelled it up and down before she began to squeeze it dry as if to make a point. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise.’
How could she confess to Ida that she had been desperate to get over to the school of nursing as fast as she could. So far, she had been disappointed. All she had seen were chairs and desks and fake skeletons that made her feel creepy. Ida had noticed.
‘Oh, don’t be worrying about those,’ she had said. ‘I get them all, I do. Dead bodies over there in the mortuary, fake skeletons over here. Good job I’m not easily scared, isn’t it? Sometimes I have to do half a job on my own in both places because Matron has trouble getting people to work over here with me. Reckon it’s the skeletons puts them off but I’ve got used to it meself.’
Ida pulled on her cigarette and blew the smoke backwards over her shoulder. ‘Honestly, I know you think I’m kidding, but that Matron, she has eyes in the back of her head. Always sat at the window in that flat of hers she is, every bleeding night. If we walk out of here too soon and back over to the main block, she’ll cut the time she allows for cleaning the mortuary – or worse still, leave me on me own for good and put you somewhere else.’
Eva barely listened to Ida and looked about her nervously, as though expecting to see someone walking up the stairs. ‘I didn’t mean to work too quick, or to get you into trouble, I just thought you would want to get done as quickly as possible,’ said Eva.
Ida frowned at her. ‘What’s the point in that? We can’t leave any earlier than seven in the morning. They’ll just give us more to do and have us helping that lazy lot over on the corridors.’
Eva was relieved that the pains hadn’t come back. Sometimes they came in unrelenting intervals and when that happened, she almost lost the will to live, wanted to throw herself in the Mersey. The past few weeks she had felt the swelling in her belly, but the pains had not come as often and tonight they seemed to have disappeared altogether.
‘Look at that in there,’ Ida nodded to the wooden door of Emily Horton’s sitting room, ‘they live the life of luxury over here. Bloody disgrace that they have so much time on their hands that they use the place as a nursery for the little lad, who by rights should have gone to the children’s home. Come on, let’s go in. We aren’t supposed to, mind, that’s an order. Can you imagine? The state of Biddy Kennedy laying the rules down to me.’
Eva walked over to the door and, placing her hands on either side of the glass window, peered through.
‘Oi, watch the glass – I’ll have to clean it if you mark it. You’d think that room was Buckingham Palace, you would.’
Eva didn’t move but remained at the window and, as if she hadn’t heard a word Ida had said, leant her hot forehead on the cool glass. She had felt the heat building; no pain, just nausea that she breathed back down and tried to force to settle. She wondered if the Disprin was wearing off. The sitting room contained a desk in front of a window with papers, neatly piled. The fireplace was covered by a guard and, at the side, stood a baby’s cot. Over the rails of the cot lay a matinee coat and a blanket. Next to the cot stood a basket, full to the brim with soft toys and a brightly painted pull-along wooden train. Eva’s breath shuddered in her chest and, without a word, her hand rested on the cold brass handle of the door.
‘Oh, Jesus wept, we’ll have to polish that as well now,’ said Ida as she flicked the butt of her cigarette into the mop bucket. A sizzle filled the air. ‘Come on, as you’ve opened the door, let’s reuse the last tea leaves in their pot – they’ll be none the wiser and you can sit down for a minute. I know it’s not my business, but you do look peaky. Is it your time of the month? You look thinner and paler than you did the other night.’
Eva wasn’t listening. She walked, as though in a trance, over to the cot. She picked up the blanket and buried her face in it as she inhaled deeply. She ignored the pain, would have walked through fire to reach that cot just to smell him. Ida went to a table against the wall with the neatly laid out tea tray. She picked up the teapot lid.
‘Bleedin’ hell, that Biddy Kennedy’s only gone and emptied the leaves out. The mean mare.’ Eva still didn’t respond and appeared to be rocking back and forth. ‘My, you’re a funny one,’ said Ida. ‘Look at you, not a word of thanks. I’ve just said you could have a brew and you’d think I’d said I was going to sell your firstborn child. Come on, let’s get the kettle on, quick. If she isn’t going to leave us the used leaves, we will get some out of this caddy and Biddy Kennedy can blame herself. Tell you what, why don’t you put the kettle on and I’ll go to the doctors’ sitting room. It’s only next door and one of the greedy buggers may have left a cake or a few biscuits on the plate. They said the theatre is operating until late tonight so Biddy will have left food out for them.’
Ida returned in less than ten minutes, almost whooping for joy. ‘Would you look at that, there was no bugger there so I helped meself, I did. I got us two fish paste butties and four of Biddy’s scones. I’ll put two of those in me bag for our Bertie in the morning – not that he deserves it, mind.’
Ida heard the noise as she unwrapped the fish paste sandwiches. It sounded like the wail of an injured animal, a sound that evoked memories from the war
, from neighbours, mothers who read telegrams that told them the worst news, that their sons were lost in battle. Something was very wrong and the noise Eva was making frightened her and Ida felt a chill run down her spine. Eva was rocking on her feet, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
‘Eva, put that blanket down,’ she said. ‘What’s up with you?’
Eva turned, her face pouring with tears, her eyes wide and almost animal-like and the noise came again before she screamed, placed her hands on her belly and, grabbing the back of a chair next to the cot, still clutching the blanket, lowered herself down.
‘Holy Mother of God, what is wrong with you?’ said Ida, her voice filled with alarm and an unfamiliar emotion, concern. It didn’t take Ida many seconds to piece it all together: the look she had given Emily Horton when she had been pushing her baby, the cot, the blanket she was holding and smelling… ‘You’ve had a child out of wedlock, haven’t you?’
Eva nodded her head but could not speak. Her tears poured and Ida did another thing she wasn’t used to, she put her arms around Eva to comfort her. She didn’t know much about Eva, but she did know that she was the first woman she had ever worked with who appeared to like her.
‘It happens all the time around these streets,’ said Ida. ‘I don’t know what happened, love, but if you’d like to tell me? I know it must be hard, what with Christmas coming too, but you can talk to me.’
She assumed that, through her distress, Eva had heard her, but she gave no response and Ida settled on her knees on the floor next to her and decided that, for once, she would do the right thing. She wouldn’t pry. She moved to place both of her arms around Eva and rocked her but she was too late, Eva slumped in the chair and Ida just caught her in time before she slumped sideways onto the floor.
*
Doris wound her son’s scarf around his neck as he was leaving, just as she had done when he was a boy.
‘Don’t worry, Ma, Pa will be home soon,’ said Oliver as he hugged her on the doorstep.
‘Oh, I’m not worried for me, it’s him,’ said Doris. ‘He’s getting too old to be working these sorts of hours. I’m sure the anaesthetist is well qualified; your father should trust him.’
‘He does, Ma, but you know what he’s like. He likes to be there when his patients wake up.’
‘I know, I know, I married a saint. I’m used to it.’
As Oliver tucked his scarf inside his coat, he leant in to kiss his mother’s cheek. ‘See if you can have a word with Dana,’ he whispered. ‘Teddy is a mess without her. I’ve never known anyone so remorseful.’
Doris squeezed her son’s hand. ‘I will, but I’m afraid my sympathies lie with Dana. It all depends on how she feels about him and whether or not she’s the forgiving type. I’ll see what I can do.’
Oliver beamed. ‘Ma, you can work miracles.’ He turned and strode down the path towards Teddy, who was waiting for him under the lamppost. ‘Come on, Ted,’ he said as he patted his friend on the back, ‘there’s time for a quick one in the Admiral before we head back.’
*
Doris placed the washed and dried custard jug in the cabinet and closed the doors. She had watched and waved until the dark night had swallowed the young men up and had returned indoors into the warm, satisfied that they had eaten every morsel of food she had placed before them. Then, just as she did every night, she filled a glass with water, located the brown bottle and shook her blue friend out into her hand and sighed deeply. She felt happier than she had in a very long time. She had skipped the lunchtime dose completely, swallowed down the panic and counted to ten. Now, she didn’t even feel any sense of panic wash over her as she contemplated slipping the tablet back in the bottle.
‘Shall I?’ she said to her reflection in the mirror on the wall. She thought about her week, the women she had met who had much harder lives than she did, who juggled homes, families and jobs. She felt a sense of shame and, with determination, put the blue pill back, screwed the top on the bottle and almost slammed the cabinet door.
*
Eva felt the hand on the back of her neck and pushed up against it in an attempt to shake it away. She had opened her eyes, but there was only darkness until the double vision gave way and she focused her eyes on the baby blanket on the floor. Ida was holding her head down between her knees.
‘Oh, bleedin’ hell, thank God you’ve come around,’ she said. ‘I was out of me mind and thought I’d have to try and use that phone to the switchboard.’
‘No, no, please don’t do that,’ said Eva, panic in her voice, bewilderment lighting her eyes. ‘I don’t want anyone to know.’ She stood up with Ida’s help and sat up on a chair, pulling her skirt down, straightening her apron. Ida looked at her.
‘Eva, I know you have had a child, but you’d better let me know: are you pregnant now?’
Eva shook her head. ‘No, no. I’m definitely not pregnant,’ she said as her eyes filled with tears.
Ida placed a scone and a cup of tea on the table in front of her. ‘Well, that’s something I suppose,’ she said. ‘I think your problem is that you aren’t eating enough. You’re very thin, so get stuck into that lot, go on.’ Eva picked up the tea and flinched as she sipped it. ‘Sorry, queen. I put four sugars in – you need it.’ Ida pulled on her cigarette and blew the smoke into the air. ‘No need to rush. We’ll only do the staircase tonight, no one will notice.’
Eva felt the heat flush into her face. There it was again. It wasn’t a lack of food that had made her faint, she knew that. But the heat and the shivers and the pain in the base of her belly sometimes became too much. The yellowness in her eyes, it was new, and the pain in her side along with the pain in her belly. Maja had told her the pain would go with time, but it was still there. She thought of Maja as she sipped her tea. Wondered how she was bearing her own heartache and felt guilty for leaving her, but there was nothing she could do. Wherever she was in the world, she would not rest until she had found her son. It will have to be tomorrow, she thought. I will have to find a way and move quickly, I’m running out of time.
‘So, Eva,’ Ida said, ‘there’s a reason why you are here, isn’t there? If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you, so what is it, Eva? You can trust me.’
Chapter 16
Roland sat back in the bedroom armchair and lit his cigar. It was late evening and the heavy fringed bedside lamps and the fire he had lit in the grate made the bedroom feel warmer than it was and very cosy. He had taken a bath after dinner as he waited for Victoria to finish trying on dresses before they had an early night.
‘Oh, no, why didn’t I think of this?’ Victoria wailed as she tugged and pulled.
Roland picked up his glass, which contained his customary two fingers of Scotch and one lump of ice, from the side table. ‘Well, you are eight months pregnant, darling,’ he said, with as much diplomacy and delicacy as he could muster.
‘Roland, I feel like I’m about to burst. I never thought it would be possible for my body to stretch this much. My skin is so tight, it hurts – and look at these huge purple train tracks running all over my bump! Will they ever disappear?’
Roland wasn’t sure what the answer to this comment should be, thought hard and was almost relieved as Victoria turned from the mirror to face him. ‘Roland, I spoke to Mrs Tanner on the phone today and she told me they were having a sewing night at her house tomorrow night for the girls’ dresses. I just know she could slip an elastic panel in this frock, so can we go over in the car?’
Roland looked concerned. ‘Well, I don’t mind, but are you sure?’
Victoria sat on the side of the bed and promptly burst into tears. Roland, alarmed, leapt from the chair and was at her side within seconds.
‘Vicky, what’s wrong? Are you all right?’ He took his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
‘Oh, Roland, I think I just miss everyone. I felt so sad when Mrs Tanner told me they were having one of their girls’ days and that they were all goin
g to be together. It’s almost Christmas and I want to be there too.’ Victoria’s tears were cut dead by the sound of the telephone on the bedside table ringing.
‘I’ll get it,’ said Roland as he lifted the handset. ‘Aunt Minnie, how lovely to hear from you.’ He turned to Victoria and pulled a face which, despite her tears, made her smile. ‘That is not good news.’ He frowned and the tone of his voice told Victoria that her only female relative, her only anticipated company in the house, would not be arriving as expected. Her heart sank and it showed in her face. By the time Roland replaced the receiver, his mind was made up.
‘Trust Aunt Minnie to be flat on her back with a cold,’ he said. ‘I’m amazed the gin gave the cold a look in, though. Aunt Minnie thinks she might be able to travel on the day of the party, but certainly not before. She said the doctor’s orders are to stay indoors and to drink lots of hot toddies for the rest of the week.
‘So, my princess, if a trip to Liverpool is what you want us to do, it shall happen. I shall take you to the sewing circle of gaggling women over in Mrs Tanner’s house in the dock streets in Liverpool. And I can’t think of a better place to be, if that is where you would rather spend your time than with your husband.’
Victoria’s face fell and he immediately placed his arm around her shoulder. ‘I’m only joking! Hey, where’s my Victoria gone?’
Victoria dabbed at her eyes. ‘I don’t know. I feel as though I want to burst into tears every few minutes. I’m really looking forward to the party, to everyone being here, but I’m just feeling a bit lonely right now. What about you? If you drive me over, what will you do?’
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.
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