SNOW
ANGELS
The Tarabeg Series
Shadows in Heaven
Mary Kate
The Velvet Ribbon (January 2020)
The Lovely Lane Series
The Angels of Lovely Lane
The Children of Lovely Lane
The Mothers of Lovely Lane
Christmas Angels
Snow Angels
The Four Streets Trilogy
The Four Streets
Hide Her Name
The Ballymara Road
Standalone novels
Ruby Flynn
Short stories
Run to Him
A Girl Called Eilinora
NADINE
DORRIES
SNOW
ANGELS
First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Nadine Dorries, 2019
The moral right of Nadine Dorries to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781789544817
ISBN (ANZTPB): 9781789544824
ISBN (PB): 9781789544831
ISBN (E): 9781789544800
Author photo: © Cassie Dorries
Cover Art | Design: Rory Kee
Photo: Colin Thomas Photography | Background: Getty
Head of Zeus Ltd
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM
For Paul
Also by Nadine Dorries
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
About the author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Malcolm Coffey was not expecting anyone to knock on his door this late at night. He had only just slipped the first forkful of creamy mashed potato into his mouth and settled down to listen to the six o’clock news on the radio. It was his favourite supper, steak and heel pie made by Melly, the daily who came in six days a week and helped him to run his boarding house for seamen that lay close to the docks.
‘You’re a creature of habit you are. I swear to God, if I left you a pan of scouse on a Thursday instead of the pie, I’d come back in here on a Friday morning and find you’d dropped dead by that oven door,’ Melly would laugh, the well-rounded raucous laugh that he heard most nights, slipping back in through the walls from the bar of the Silvestrian next door, long after Melly, in bodily form, had left. Melly made him the same meal every Thursday and, as a man accustomed to regimental order, that suited him just fine.
‘I like to wake up in the morning and know exactly what the day will bring, and that includes my dinner – I hate surprises,’ Malcolm would reply. He disapproved of Melly drinking in the Silvestrian, known locally as the Silly but it appeared that no matter how much Melly drank – and it appeared to be a huge amount – she still turned up for work on time every morning, completed her duties to his satisfaction and appeared none the worse for it, giving him no grounds for complaint. ‘That’s a woman who is used to her drink, that is,’ his late mother’s friend Biddy would say, ‘and there’s nothing you can do, Malcolm; if she wants to drink what she earns, that’s her choice. Don’t interfere. I’d clock anyone who stood between me and my vices. If Emily tried to deprive me of my buttered potato cakes or the bingo I’d find another job.’ Malcolm took all Biddy’s advice with the same degree of adherence he would that of the priest, or his mother if she were alive and, so far, Melly had never missed a day’s work. As he settled down to his supper, he was jolted by the sound of Melly’s piercing laugh penetrating through his wall; and once again he wished that she would find another public house to drink in.
The fire burnt well in the grate and he had lit the long brass standard lamp with the burgundy fringed shade, frayed and tattered, still soot-stained from the Blitz. It was the lamp his mother had sat under to read every night of his childhood and he was loath to change it, regardless of how many times Melly complained. ‘There’ll be nothing left if I try and clean that again.’ He would not let it go because with it, he feared, the ghostly image of his mother that he often conjured for comfort, would disappear too. The lamp stood to the rear of the tanned leather armchair with arms wide enough to support an ashtray with his pipe on one side and his opened copy of the evening edition of the Echo on the other. It now sat neatly folded, waiting, tempting and the ashtray winked at him in the firelight.
Malcolm lit the fire at six o’clock and not a moment before, regardless of the temperature or the weather outside and the pulling of the cord on the lamp to light the room was a luxury he left until the point where the room was so filled with dusk that the landmarks of domesticity faded into the gloom until he could barely see at all. The polished oak furniture that had once belonged to his parents stood neatly around him and it shone under the years of being rubbed by Melly with daily helpings of wax and elbow grease, the room smelling of lavender polish during the day and pipe smoke at night. The table at which he sat, scrubbed with Vim, was now depositing a thin film of white powder on the sleeves of his jacket, and a faint aroma of bleach competed with steak and heel, tickling his nostrils.
It was at moments like this that he pondered on the fact that he had almost sold the house, the life, the routine that made him as happy as a man who had lost his family could expect to be. He had to constantly chase up Melly to clean behind the toilet doors and to cease flirting with the coalman, but he couldn’t fault her delicious pies. He had pierced the pastry with his fork to allow the steam to rise and was just about to dive in when a loud knock on the door burst his bubble of anticipation. More often than not, according to their sailing rota and the tide table, which was as accurate as it could be, the sea and stevedores allowing, his paying guests rebooked their next stay as they checked out. He grunted with irritation, reluctant to leave the buttery shortcrust pastry, hot and melting, and the wafting smell of rich gravy under his nose.
‘Who the hell is it?’ he called.
His paying guests each had a key so this must be someone looking for a room. No one knocked on his door for any other reason, unless it was the postman, the milkman or Biddy Kennedy, on her way home from work, and it was too late for any of them. The wind rattled at the windowpanes with such ferocity it felt as though the room itself shook. This was not the weather or the night to be disturbing the routine of Malcolm Coffey, a stickler for everything being done by the book. The only thing he looked forward to, or dreamt about during the day, was his supper – and he often wondered, as he ate, what kind of pie his late wife would have turned out. He had served throughout the war, only to return home to find that he had lost his wife with his newly delivered son in her arms as a result of the bomb that had landed on the maternity hospital during the May Blitz nine months after his leave. He also found himself an orphan too, both his parents having lost their lives by a bomb that hit close to the dockers’ steps only two days later. The regimental major had withheld the second news from the dispatches to his posting for over a week, to give him time to absorb the shock of the first.
Malcolm had been serving in North Africa at the time and all leave was denied. Only his parents had been afforded a funeral due to their bodies being identifiable – a funeral he had not been able to attend, but Biddy Kennedy had. His wife and son lay in a concrete grave on what was once the delivery suite of the maternity hospital, both beyond identification and removal. Today, the hospital rebuilt, life came forth over death.
‘Biddy? Is that you?’ Malcolm called not expecting a reply, reluctant to rise and leave his pie.
‘Malcolm, I promised your mam, I would keep an eye on you,’ Biddy would say when she called in for a cup of tea. Biddy worked as a housekeeper at the St Angelus hospital, a plum job in the school of nursing, working for Sister Emily Horton; and one of the pleasures in Malcolm’s life was to hear all about the antics of the probationer nurses and how they ran Biddy around in circles. Over two thousand bombs had been dropped the week his family died; nearly seven thousand homes had been completely destroyed. Fire had ripped through the dock’s side streets. ‘Think of me as your mam, if you ever need one, I’m here. You aren’t alone, Malcolm,’ Biddy would say.
Malcolm had been at school with her own children and not one of them had remained in Liverpool or even in contact with Biddy. He enjoyed her visits. She had transferred from being his mother’s friend to his – and more than that, much more. Melly had her own opinions about Biddy. ‘That woman mourns her kids,’ she would say. ‘Not one of the buggers bothers to write to her. Still working her socks off and all those kids, not one of them tips up a penny, a crying shame it is. You want to watch out – she might have her eye on this place, if anything happens to you.’
Malcolm would snort with derision. ‘Biddy is looking for an easier life, not to take on more work,’ he would reply, irritated by Melly’s suspicions of Biddy and left with the depressing thought that there was no one to take over, should anything happen to him. No kith or kin of his own to rely on, no legacy to leave… and in his heart, he sometimes wondered what the point was of everything he worked for. A question that had been quickly answered upon his return from the war. The seven-bedroomed Victorian family town house, next to the Silvestrian Public House on one side and the St Angelus hospital at the top of the road, had survived the war intact and it was very soon obvious, given the rapid increase in trade and activity down on the docks, where his new career path should lie. The parlour had been converted into a reception room which doubled up as his sitting and dining room. A hatch had been made in the wall and, from where he sat at his kitchen table-cum-desk, he could clearly see who came in and out.
Outside, the sky had now darkened and the rain fell like twines of ice as it blew up the hill off the Mersey and pelted against the door of the ‘Seaman’s Stop’ bed and breakfast. The door knocker banged again, more forcefully, leaving him in no doubt that it was neither the wind nor Biddy – who would have tapped on the window by now, given that he had put the lamp on – and he would have to leave his pie. Malcolm sighed, laid down his knife and fork and, begrudgingly, rose from his seat.
‘I’m coming, give me a minute,’ he shouted as he tugged at the napkin that was neatly tucked inside his collar. He picked up the wire spectacles he had removed to avoid them steaming up as a part of his pre-pie ritual, and threaded each arm over his ears. His thick hair was dark and glistening with Brylcreem, worn in a short back and sides, and the only feature to make him stand out in the crowd was one missing tooth to the side of his mouth, his only war wound, courtesy of a nasty fall from a horse. As he made his way to the door, he pondered who it might be from his regular paying guests. There were two ships berthed overnight at the dock and another two due at the bar in the early hours, to be brought down by the tugs in the morning. He had eight seamen checked in who were all out on the town. He knew the tide table like the back of his own hand. The door knocked again, this time with more urgency.
‘Jesus wept, I’m coming!’ he said again as his footsteps, heavy and hard, marched along the lino-covered hallway. He flung open the door, expecting to see the familiar face of a seaman in need of a bath, wearing a peaked cap with a kitbag slung over his shoulder; instead he was met by a diminutive woman who looked as though she was soaked to the skin.
‘I-I’m looking for a room,’ she stammered.
Malcolm was taken back and, unusually, lost for words. ‘Excuse me,’ he blurted back as he craned his neck out of the door and looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching. In those few seconds his glasses were pebble-dashed with rain, making it difficult for him to see. A female visitor to his door was a rare occurrence and she could not have been more than five feet two, frail and childlike, her dripping dark hair adhered to her face as rivulets of rainwater ran into her eyes. Her cheekbones were sharp and thin, her eyes almost black, her skin a ghastly shade of tallow as she stood almost directly under the globe sulphur light above the front door. ‘We don’t usually have ladies as guests,’ he said.
She was clutching the handles of a blanket holdall, equally sodden, tight to her body and he could see that the shoulders of her coat were dark and soaked through. ‘Everywhere else is full,’ she almost whispered back to him and he had to bend his head to hear her.
‘Can’t be,’ he blurted. ‘There’s plenty of rooms about. You just need to knock and ask. Enquire at Mrs Bennett’s on Lovely Lane. Here, I’ll write the address down. I can tell you’re not Irish by your accent – she won’t take the Irish.’
‘No.’ The response was swift. ‘I want to be close to the hospital. I have to be here.’
‘But Lovely Lane is close to the hospital; the nurses’ home is opposite the park gates.’
‘Please, I want to stay here, it’s closer to the hospital.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve been asked before, but this is a seaman’s rest. I sleep two to a room and if I take you in, I lose half a room rate.’ He felt uncomfortable. He did have a spare room, but a female guest was the last thing he wanted or needed. His guests spoke freely and swore loudly; they wouldn’t like it if they came down and found a woman at breakfast and had to watch their Ps and Qs – and God alone knew what Melly, not shy of expressing an opinion, would have to say if she came in and found a woman at the breakfast table. ‘There’s no fancy frills here that would suit a woman’s taste; it’s all geared up for sailors. Besides, you wouldn’t want to be sharing a bathroom with men.’
He saw the flicker in her eye at that, but, ‘I really don’t mind, I just need a room. I’m desperate, please.’
At that moment he knew that he had lost, for he could no more turn away a woman so obviously in need in such foul weather than fly to the moon. She was soaked and the rain was so bitterly cold it hurt his cheeks. If he had opened his door to an animal knocking, he would have let it in. He hated himself for being weak as he sighed and said, ‘It’s seven and six a week,’ his voice making it quite clear he didn’t think she could afford it. The woman didn’t speak, but rummaged around in the purse she had taken out of her bag and gave Malcolm five green one-pound notes which became an even darker green and went limp in her hands as the rain hit them. He scratched his head. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, you staying for Christmas or what?’
She kept her gaze steady and her voice, matter-of-fact. ‘Does that mean I can have a room?’
He could detect a slight accent, but couldn’t make it out. He felt a hint of shame; she was so cold and wet, how could he refuse her? The weather was foul and his pie was getting cold. ‘Come on, bring your bag up. I’m quieter now that Christmas is coming and there is one smaller room I only let out when I have to. It has bunks. You can have the bottom one and the room to yourself.’ He stood back and held open the door as she stepped inside and stood under the central ceiling lamp which made her look worse than she had outdoors as it cast dark shadows down over her face. He bent down and took the holdall from her. ‘Here, let me. I’ll lead the way,’ he said as he slammed the door shut. Silence fell as he locked out the sound of the rain and wind. Taking a better look at her, he felt his heart sink. He had seen enough people stay in his lodgings, served with enough men during the war years, to know that this was a woman in trouble. He took a deep breath and bit his tongue. Her money was as good as anyone’s and besides, every man, and woman was entitled to his or her secrets. It was none of his business. Christmas was just around the corner, business would be light, the ships from Rotterdam headed back home. He had learnt that when it came to paying guests, their personal lives were none of his business. All he had to concern himself with was swift payment and abiding by the house rules. Malcolm was as stickler for the rules.
‘Come on then, follow me,’ he said as he walked on ahead. He chatted as he went, only once glancing, regretfully, through the hatch at his cooling supper. ‘It’s a fry-up in the morning, cooked by Melly; she comes in every day at seven and does all the cooking. I do the porridge because Melly always burns the pan. She helps me to run the place. This is the breakfast room,’ he opened a door opposite the parlour and she saw a large trestle table laid out with cutlery and dishes, ready for the morning. ‘We serve from seven o’clock until ten and the rooms are cleaned between ten and twelve so we like the place to be empty from ten and guests are allowed back in at three. Melly puts a pot of tea and a plate of Garibaldi on the table, just in case anyone’s peckish. They’re Melly’s favourites.’
He gave her a hard, long look, aware that he was talking more than normal for someone who had earnt himself the reputation, justifiably so, as a grumpy man. He was also aware she wasn’t really listening. She looked as though the wet and the cold had penetrated into her bones as her shiver became a violent tremble. He could also see that it took every ounce of her willpower to try and stop it as she clenched her teeth together. He could smell his supper, a vision of his cooling pie, tantalising him.
‘I allow no visitors into the rooms because it’s the best way to keep on top of the bedbugs. Only one person to blame if only one person has slept in the bed – and anyone who does bring them in is out through the door as fast as the mattress. I will give you your own key. I don’t mind what time anyone gets back in at night, mind, I’m not a total tyrant, as long as the door is properly locked. The key is on a wooden paddle, so you don’t lose it; if you do, it’s the same cost as a night’s stay to replace it. There’s a paraffin heater in each room and the paraffin is topped up by Melly when she cleans the rooms. Have you got all that?’ He turned into the parlour doorway and took a key hanging on a large flat block of wood with the number 2 painted in the middle from a brass hook. Is that acceptable?’ He turned to look at her. The colour had left her face altogether and she was frighteningly white. ‘Jesus, I’ve met ghosts with a better pallor than yours,’ he said.
She chose to ignore him. ‘Anything would be acceptable,’ she said. ‘I just need a room.’
He picked up a pen on a side table next to the visitors’ book and flicked the top off. ‘Here, can you sign here?’ She was hesitant and looked at the pen as though it might bite her. ‘One of the rules,’ he said as he noted her reluctance. He knew this moment well. It was one he endured often with seamen. Most liked to remain untraceable, under the radar, just in case one of the dockside girls with an unexpected bun in the oven came looking for him. She reached out her hand and scrawled her details and it looked as though a spider had walked across the page, her hand shook so much. He picked up the book, squinted, removed his glasses, squinted again. ‘What’s that address, it’s not in Liverpool, is it?’ He could make out the name, but only just – Eva. It was certainly not a common name around the dock streets. Was that a German name? ‘Is it German? Makes no difference to me, queen. The war is long over and I take in people from everywhere. Melly and I, we like to think of ourselves as being very cosmopolitan.’
The woman was staring as if in a trance at the letter rack on the table next to the guest book, at a wad of letters held together with a frayed elastic band, faded, yellowing around the edges from the heat of the lamp, leaning up against the wooden box with ‘A Present from Rhyl’ carved into the front and which was stuffed full of airmail letters. He caught her eye.
‘Oh, yes, I do take in mail, it’s part of the service for paying guests and he’s a popular sailor, that one. I thought he had a girl in every port until Melly pointed out that they were all from the same person; she could tell by the handwriting. Someone pushed them through the door to begin with and then they started coming from America. One of my regulars, he was. He’s not been here for over a year, but some of these tramp ships will pick up a cargo and take it anywhere in the world, then do the same when they reach “anywhere”. They can be gone for two, three years or more at a time before they come back into Liverpool. Last I heard, that fella’s ship was in the West Indies. Fancy that, eh? The West Indies. I’ve been to a few places myself with the army, but never anywhere that exotic.’
Malcolm’s head was buried in the visitors’ book, trying to make out her handwriting, when he heard the thud. His mysterious visitor had collapsed in a heap on the floor behind him. Well, she had signed the book and her money was in his pocket so she was his responsibility. ‘Would you credit it,’ he muttered as he squatted down on his haunches before her. He lifted her head and she opened her eyes. ‘You don’t feel well at all, do you love?’ he stated the obvious. She nodded her head. ‘Come on, let me help you up. There’s a very nice pie and mash waiting for you in my parlour and a hot fire – I must have known you were coming. Let’s get this coat dry. I’m not letting you get to your bed until you’ve had a hot meal and a pot of tea inside you and you’ve dried out a bit. I’ll put an extra army blanket on your bed, too, and light the paraffin heater in a minute, to warm up your room.’
She began to shake her head and tried to push herself up. ‘I can’t be any trouble,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t eat your food.’ He hauled her to her feet and put his arms around her to steady her. He could feel the tremble vibrating through her body. ‘It’s no trouble, honest to God. I get fed up eating Melly’s pies – sick of them, I am. I just wish she would cook me something different every now and then.’ He was lying and she could tell, but as he spoke, his hand cupped her elbow and guided her to the parlour. ‘Look, it’s there, on the table, all ready for you. There’s a nice bit of cheese in the fridge and bread in the kitchen that’ll do me, I won’t go hungry. I had a big lunch and look at this…’ He patted his ample, well-fed belly. ‘Do I look like a starved man? I need to trim this down, not feed it up.’
He was talking too much, almost gabbling. The pain that often settled on his diaphragm and felt like a deep ache had suddenly lifted, the pain Biddy had told him was a combination of grief and loneliness – and Biddy knew all about that. He suddenly felt lighter. Someone needed him, and despite the interruption to his well-established routine, he didn’t mind, not one little bit. ‘Come on, miss, to the fire with you. Eat – and then you can tell me why it is that out of all the doorsteps in Liverpool, you’ve turned up on mine.’
As they walked towards the parlour, she turned to take one last glance at the unopened envelopes. She could smell the pie and, despite her desire to be alone in a room and safe, she could not resist. Malcolm turned the dial on the radio and following a hiss and a crackle, the sound of a choir singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ washed over her like a wave and filled her with emotion. She turned to the fire, tears stinging her eyes and she wanted to pinch herself. The pains of hunger in her belly had almost dragged her down along the lino-covered hallway to the food and there before her lay a hot meal. She allowed the man with the warm, cupped hand to guide her by her arm.
Jacob… The name on the front of the envelope had burnt her eyes, the words in the first letter, engraved on her mind. Jacob, he had never been back, never returned. Jacob wasn’t here.
Madge Jones balanced a tray of glasses as she teetered on her heels into the kitchenette at the back of Matron’s apartment to find Elsie O’Brien, Matron’s housekeeper, at the sink, up to her elbow in soapsuds and Biddy Kennedy, from the nurses’ home, lifting a tray of devils on horseback out of the oven. She pushed the green baize door open with her backside and pirouetted in, carried on a wave of excited chatter and clinking glasses which stopped dead as the door swished closed behind her.
‘Has anyone gone home yet?’ asked Elsie, wearily turning her head as Madge placed the tray next to her on the wet wooden draining board which had only just been cleared of the last load of glasses and dishes. Even though Elsie and Biddy were manning the kitchen and supervising the refreshments and had practically spent their entire evening in the kitchen, Madge had remained front of house, as was in keeping with her role of hospital switchboard operator. There was an unspoken ordering of rank at St Angelus, loosely based on dress and appearance. Setting aside the white-coated doctors who had their own hierarchy, it began at the top with Matron, in her smart navy dress, and moved down through the uniformed nursing staff to the probationary nurses in their pink dresses and starched aprons. Among the non-medical staff, those in the porters’ lodge and the operating theatres wore brown coats and there was a distinct and elite group who wore their own clothes to work, like Madge on the switchboard, the secretaries and clerks and it ended at the bottom, with the kitchen, housekeeping and cleaning staff who wore wrap-around aprons. Everyone knew their place in the St Angelus hierarchy and those who could afford it the least were responsible for wearing their own, freshly laundered apron, every day. Despite being confined to the kitchen by Madge, Elsie had still dressed up for the occasion. This had involved removing her curlers, jigging up the black-dyed, tightly permed curls with the end of a tail comb and applying half a tin of highly perfumed Get Set hairspray, which defied a single hair to move out of place. A stark line of steel-grey roots shone out bravely, courtesy of the bare overhead light encased in a bottle-green glass lampshade, as she bent over the sink. Her thin lips were defined and adorned with ruby-red lipstick and her eyes were framed with charcoal. The cumulative effect made her look much older than her years. Under her customary wrap-around apron dress, she had abandoned her usual hand-knitted wool twinset for a dress she had purchased from a stall on St John’s market and kept for special occasions. Its last outing had been at her grandson’s christening, his father, her son-in-law, Jake Berry the under-porter, was on the other side of the green door in Matron’s sitting room and office, playing the role of a sommelier with a bottle of Spanish sherry, the infamous Golden Knight, or golden shite as it was commonly known amongst the St Angelus’ domestic mafia. Biddy, who had not dressed for the occasion and had walked across from the school of nursing, had made one sartorial concession for the occasion: she had changed her shoes for a pair of slippers.
Biddy pushed the baize door slightly open and peeped out into the room and the noise of chatter filled the kitchen once more. ‘No, not one bugger is showing any signs of leaving yet and why would they with your son-in-law refilling those glasses every two minutes. Look at him, wearing that jacket and dickie bow! He’s going to burst into song in a minute. He thinks he’s Charles Aznavour, he does. They’re all having too good a time to think about moving. Well, until the golden shite gets them, because it always does. Hits you like a brick just as you get to the fourth glass – and you would know, Elsie.’ The day Elsie had been found asleep on Matron’s sofa, with a yellow duster in one hand and an empty glass in the other, was an issue of such sensitivity it was only ever discussed on the rare occasion she was ill, on a day off, or on holiday, when it was mentioned, always in hushed tones. Elsie controlled the record of the event and Biddy was the only person amongst the St Angelus’ staff who would dare to speak of it in her presence. Elsie sniffed in indignation, but would not take the bait and passed straight over Biddy’s comment as though she hadn’t even spoken.
‘Have you got a glass yourself in here tonight, Elsie?’ asked Madge peering around and failing to notice the half-empty glass behind a plate of sausage rolls. Elsie turned the tap on, rinsed a plate, and totally ignored them both. ‘They’ll all need to be carried out at this rate, we don’t want you joining them.’ The plate clattered into the drying rack so loudly no one would have been in the least surprised if it had broken. Biddy kicked the wooden doorstop out from under it and let the kitchen door swing behind her as she retrieved her packet of cigarettes from the front of her apron pocket. ‘Between your Jake’s attendance and Maisie’s cakes, they’ll all be there until Boxing Day at this rate,’ said Madge, who slipped off a shoe and rubbed her toes.
‘Bleedin’ hell. I hope not. God forbid they stay a minute after ten,’ said Elsie. ‘I’m half dead on me feet. I’ve been here since half seven this morning and I’ve barely sat down. My veins are killing me and I can’t even feel my feet now. I daren’t take my shoes off because I won’t get them back on again.’ Despite her obvious tiredness, Elsie was as concerned for Matron, the only other woman she knew who worked as hard as she did. ‘Is Matron having a nice time out there? I can’t believe I was the one who said this was a good idea when she said she wanted to have all the doctors and their wives over for Christmas drinks. That was ten years ago and I should have known it would be a load of hard work. But it sounded such a good idea at the time. Trust me and my big gob. Soft girl, I am.’
Madge reached over to the tray of food cooling on the side and popped a steaming devil on horseback into her mouth, taking a sharp breath and wafting her hand in front of her mouth. Madge was the ‘glamorous lady of a certain age’ at the hospital. In terms of status, her area of responsibility, the switchboard, was as good as having her own office and she had made it so: a small carpet offcut on the floor, to stop her stool on wheels from wandering back; a spider plant on the top of the switching unit, where it caught the light from the arch window above the office door; the kettle and tea caddy, with four matching Queen Anne Ivy-leaf cups and saucers on a side table in the corner. Not the usual national hospital issue for Madge, because Madge was not your usual hospital employee. She was not one of the army of domestics, nor of the medical secretaries or departmental clerks who enjoyed their own rank and status. Madge was alone, both in life and in work, but her switchboard was, in effect, the nerve centre of the hospital and thus afforded her a special status, given that she was first with all the news.
Madge, as the purveyor of important information, was also queen of the high heels, new hairstyles and fashion. She was the unofficial nod to glamour amongst her peers. Helping Elsie host Matron’s drinks party was no reason to reduce her standards of footwear as she slipped her red high heels back on and clattered across the kitchen floor to pick up a tea towel and begin drying glasses as Elsie rinsed them in hot water under the tap. Biddy moved over to the sink and began to tip the contents of the glasses into a bucket on the floor. And so, side by side the three graces of St Angelus stood, one with her arms in the sink, one with a fag in her mouth, the last with a tea towel in her hands. All three lifted their heads to the window before them, one bleached blonde, one dyed black and the other a proud and untouched steel grey, a red tip glowing in her lips. Their reflections mirrored back at them and Madge leant forward to take a better look and rubbed an imaginary smudge of blue eye shadow from the side of her eye.
‘I’ve got that much make-up on, there’d be an avalanche on my face if I cried,’ she said as, leaning back, she picked up another glass.
Elsie nodded in agreement. ‘You go too heavy on the tutty you do, Madge, all that to catch a fella. I don’t know why you bother, it’s a bit late now.’
‘I do,’ said Biddy. ‘She’s never really had one to speak of who was worth having. None of them are, Madge. When will you learn? A good man is like the holy fecking grail. You’ll be searching forever.’
Madge pursed her lips and looked indignant. ‘Who says it’s to catch a fella? I’m very happy as I am, thank you,’ and then, as if to contradict herself, ‘Where am I gonna find one worth having anyway? I know everyone around here, don’t I? Half of the good ones never came back from the war, the other half were already married. National shortage there is – I read it in the Revellie.’
Elsie made no response as her heart suddenly tightened in her chest and, catching her breath, she plunged the knitted dishcloth into a dirty pan. Madge was right, but like so many others she would pass no comment. There were too many widows – and she was one. Too many sad stories. Too many fatherless children, broken hearts and absolutely no words to be said because one mention of the war years, one unwitting remark, took all conversation down a path of intense sadness. Best not to comment. So little was said, sometimes, it was as if the war had never happened.
‘Is that the last glass, Biddy?’ said Elsie as the hot water stung her hands.
‘Aye, it is; and bloody hell, me fag’s soaked,’ exclaimed Biddy as she removed the cigarette from her mouth with wet fingers.
Elsie handed Madge the pan to dry and pulled the plug out of the sink. As the grey water drained and gurgled away, all three peered out of the window, momentarily lost in their own thoughts, remembering a loss: Elsie, her husband; Madge the boy she’d met at the Cabbage Hall dance, who had promised to return to her on his following leave, but never did, Madge always choosing to believe he had fallen in action, and Biddy, never the husband who had run off with her Belleek tea service and her purse, but always the children she had reared and never heard from. They looked beyond their own faces into the cold dark night, the wind so strong, it hurled the fat drops of ice-cold rain against the glass with the force of pebbles. The Mersey, visible from the window by day, was fathomless and indistinguishable through the sheets of white gusting rain. A tug blew its horn and Elsie blessed herself.
‘There can’t be anyone out there on a night like this, surely to God.’ She grabbed the crucifix from around her neck and held it to her lips as she chanted, ‘Holy Father and all the saints in heaven, protect all the merchant sailors from Liverpool out in that dreadful weather, God love them and save them and bring them all back home for Christmas.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Biddy as Elsie tucked the cross back into her dress.
Madge picked up another plate to dry and stack and felt a need to change the mood from gloom to glamour. ‘Tell you what, Biddy is right, your Jake missed his vocation – he’s doing a grand job in there with the bottle of sherry and a tea towel over his arm! Playing to the gallery, he is, and the doctors’ wives, with all their diamonds sparkling, they love him, they do.’ Madge laughed out loud at the antics of Jake who, as she had left, had been extracting a cork from another bottle as he blew a surreptitious kiss to Mrs Mabbutt, the wife of the orthopaedic surgeon, who was already on her fifth glass and was more than a little tipsy. ‘I just heard him telling Mrs Mabbutt it would be easier if she stood next to the sofa to balance herself if she was going to have another top-up. Wobbling all over the place, she was. I said, “What are you doing, Jake?” and he said, “Look Madge, if she sits on the arm of the sofa and she passes out, at least she’ll have a soft landing.”’
Elsie, leaning back slightly, placed the palm of her hands in the small of her back and winced from the effort of straightening as she laughed at the same time. ‘He doesn’t want to be the one to pick her up. Have you seen the size of her? She’d kill him with the effort. He’s a good lad and, honest to God, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Brings my coal in every night for me and he’s such a good dad to that lad of theirs.’
Madge opened the door and peeped out into the party. ‘Ah, God love her. Sister Horton looks so tired. In the short time they’ve had that baby, she’s aged ten years.’
‘Tell me what new mother doesn’t?’ snapped Biddy. Biddy’s life was devoted to Sister Horton and the school of nursing and, more lately, to the addition to Sister Horton and Dessie’s family, baby Louis.
‘Who’d have thought it, eh?’ said Elsie. ‘Nurse Davenport not long married with a bun in the oven and Sister Horton and Dessie with their own adopted baby boy.’
‘I’ll tell you what, though: there’s no way that bun wasn’t already in the oven before they were married,’ said Madge. ‘What did Mrs Duffy say, Biddy? Does she think that? If anyone knows, she will. She looks after them all. If the nurses were talking at the home, she would have heard it, surely to God.’
Biddy looked enraged. ‘Are you kidding me? I don’t know and I won’t ask Mrs Duffy – you know what she’s like about her precious nurses. You ask her on the bus tomorrow, Elsie. And if it was or it wasn’t, it makes no difference; it changes nothing, does it? Whose business is it anyway but theirs? It’ll be here soon enough and nothing anyone has to say will change that.’
Madge held up a glass to inspect it for smears. ‘Oh aye, I’m not going to argue with that, and she won’t have been the first or the last – and I’ll tell you something else: you can tell it’s a little lad she’s carrying. I saw them all in the café at George Henry Lee’s a few weeks ago, buying baby clothes. It was just after Nurse Brogan got back from Ireland and very excited they all were, although Nurse Brogan wasn’t herself at all. Due at the New Year Nurse Davenport is, but she was that big she’ll be lucky to get to Christmas without delivering him.’
Elsie turned the dripping tap off and Biddy said, ‘Talking about little lads, I’ll just go and check on Louis. He’s in the pram in Matron’s bedroom, flat out he was when Emily and Dessie brought him in.’ Biddy undid her apron ties as she spoke and hung it over the rail of the cooker to dry.
‘Let me take those sausage rolls out there, Elsie,’ said Madge. ‘You go with Biddy and both of you put your feet up for five minutes while you check on Louis; me and Jake can manage for the next half an hour. You can’t go until he does anyway, ladies, because you aren’t walking home on your own.’ Madge disappeared through the door and Elsie picked up the glass of sherry and handed a half-full one that had come back into the kitchen to Biddy with a wink. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and check on him and put our feet up like she said.’
Madge blinked at the sight before her as she walked into Matron’s sitting room; just as Jake had anticipated, Mrs Mabbutt had fallen backwards, straight onto the sofa, but she didn’t seem to mind as, bright-eyed and flushed, she allowed half the men in the room to reposition her into a sitting pose and asked Jake to top up her glass as she straightened first her skirt and then her pearls. She saw Dr William, deep in conversation with Emily Horton, heads together, whispering. Madge knew from patching his calls through to the school of nursing that Emily had asked him to visit the hospital to give a talk to the probationer nurses about the role of a GP and how district nurses assisted in the community. He also ran the dermatology clinic at St Angelus on a Thursday afternoon. Everyone loved Dr William, and none more than his wife who stood adoringly at his side. Madge moved towards Matron with the tray, but as she passed she heard Emily Horton say, ‘Well, of course, but the best person to do that is Maisie Tanner. Leave it with me, I’ll have a word with her.’ Madge’s ears pricked up, her gossip antenna had not been dulled by the late hour and as she placed the tray on the sofa table she pretended to be rearranging a pile of small serviettes. If they were discussing Maisie, it was obviously her duty to eavesdrop. Maisie Tanner was a key member of the St Angelus Mafia and a close friend. No one had noticed Madge, not even Mrs Mabbutt, who was now beginning to doze with her glass, tipped threateningly towards her generous bosom, held precariously in her hand. Madge leant over the boucle sofa, removed it from Mrs Mabbutt’s fingers, and placed it on the side table next to her as she strained her ears over the chatter.
‘It’s important this is kept very confidential,’ Dr William was saying. ‘The reasons why, I mean. If you could invent something plausible, I would be very grateful. Obviously, Dr Gaskell has no idea and it’s not my place, or that of anyone else to tell him – and certainly, Mrs Tanner must not know.’ Emily nodded her head and looked thoughtful. ‘Obviously, under normal circumstances, I couldn’t agree to withhold information, but this is different; and besides, I’m just asking someone to help out. This is not a medical intervention, it’s more a social one – and helpful for Mrs Gaskell.’
Mrs Gaskell? Madge was confused. They were talking about Mrs Gaskell and Maisie Tanner in the same sentence. No one knew Mrs Gaskell. She was as unknown as her husband was a legend on the dock streets. Mmm, Madge thought, spotting Mrs Gaskell in the corner of the room, standing next to her husband who was deep in conversation with Matron, maybe it was time she got to know Mrs Gaskell. She picked up the tray and headed over to the corner window herself.
‘Mrs Gaskell, would you like a sausage roll? Biddy made them herself.’
Matron, who was perched on the windowsill, leant forward to inspect the offering and made an exaggerated show of sniffing the plate. ‘Well, well, they smell delicious,’ she said; and, Madge noticed, it was as though Mrs Gaskell was invisible. Madge had spoken to Mrs Gaskell and Matron had not even cared to wait for her reply.
Dr Gaskell took one of the sausage rolls. ‘Golly, they do,’ he said, without offering one to his wife first. He rarely, if ever, brought his wife to any social functions and was usually the man by Matron’s side.
Madge had willingly volunteered to help out at Matron’s party, it being a special place to gather information and gossip and it looked as though it was about to pay off. ‘It’s lovely to see you here,’ said Madge to Mrs Gaskell. ‘We don’t usually see you, do we, Dr Gaskell?’
Mrs Gaskell flushed and Dr Gaskell placed part of his sausage roll into his napkin and, ignoring Madge, helped himself to another. His wife looked to him for reassurance, received none, and flushing, turned back to Madge. ‘Ah no, well, I thought now that Oliver was living in the doctor’s residence, it was time for me to get out a bit more.’
Madge could see she was uncomfortable answering her question. Everyone knew she was oblivious to the antics of her son Oliver, the wild boy doctor of the hospital who, so far, had only specialised in breaking the hearts of probationer nurses.
‘Mrs Gaskell, go on, you try one before your husband demolishes the lot,’ she said proffering the tray again. ‘Matron, would you…’
‘Oh, I will, Madge, thank you,’ said Matron, lifting one of the sausage rolls. ‘Is Elsie coping in the kitchen? And more importantly, is the little prince, Louis, behaving himself?’
‘He’s been flat out the entire evening, loving your bedroom, I would say. Not a peep out of him,’ Madge replied.
Dr Gaskell snorted with laughter. ‘Who would have thought when that little lad was admitted into casualty that he would be sleeping in your bedroom in his pram at your Christmas party, eh?’
Matron shook her head in disbelief. ‘I would have had you certified if you’d told me that; he was in such a bad way, almost starved to death.’
Madge looked from one to the other, neither were addressing Mrs Gaskell. ‘Did you hear about the case, Mrs Gaskell?’ Madge knew she was stepping over the line between staff and guest. Matron turned to Dr Gaskell’s wife, as though realising for the first time that she was there and then she glanced at Madge with an expression of mild curiosity.
‘Er, yes I did hear,’ Mrs Gaskell said. ‘It was on the news. An awful, dreadful case of abandonment and neglect. He was found in a garage in a house, wasn’t he?’ Dr Gaskell looked at his wife as though she had grown an extra head. He had given up long ago trying to encourage her to speak at social occasions. ‘I have nothing to say,’ had been her rejoinder for years. ‘It is your world, not mine. No one is interested in what I have to say, they are all so clever.’.
‘Yes, quite. He was almost dead by the time he got to us,’ said Matron. ‘The police still have no idea who the parents were. This time last year it was and not a sign of his mother. The neighbours in the street said that the couple who lived in the house were extremely secretive, kept themselves to themselves and, apparently, had fled in the night.’
‘Yes, I saw the plea for his mother to come forward on the news. They said they thought she might need medical help because there was no record of the birth anywhere.’
‘Quite. There were traces of blood on the bathroom floor, apparently. It looks as though she had him at home in unusual circumstances. I mean, lots of babies are born at home, but their births are registered. Not this one, though.’
There was a moment’s silence while they all visualised a lonely woman, secretly giving birth and then hiding her baby in a pram in a garage. Mrs Gaskell broke the silence.
‘My husband did tell me he is being adopted by Sister Horton and her husband, Dessie, isn’t that right, darling?’ She turned to Dr Gaskell and Madge thought that she was sounding more confident, now that she had warmed up. It was obvious to Madge, a perceptive woman, that Mrs Gaskell wanted her husband to continue the conversation, to relieve her of the burden of commenting or passing an opinion alone, to back her up, endorse her words. Her eyes held his face, gently pleading. Madge was taken by her manner and her voice and found herself staring at her. It was timorous, faltering, as though it had been an effort to speak. Madge wondered why she didn’t do something with her hair which was white and straight, her face, touched only by a powder that made her complexion look pale and dry.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well remembered. The very lucky young man is in the process of being adopted and he’s always about, isn’t he, Matron? And Sister Horton is still working here.’ Dr Gaskell bit into the puff pastry of his sausage roll and covered himself in an explosion of buttery golden flakes. He had passed the conversation on to Matron as though it were a baton.
‘He is indeed always about. Sister Horton is very lucky. The head of children’s services has allowed her to continue working here during the adoption process – and why not, I say. In this case, with his medical needs, there was no better solution. The whole thing was such a dreadful affair – the house where he had been found was rented in a false name and there was no paperwork, the neighbours knew nothing, and there was no trace of anyone. The neighbours said that the couple who had left the house were foreign and too old to have children so it wasn’t theirs. There was a live-in help, but the neighbour said she left the house six months earlier, so it couldn’t have been hers either. So someone looked for an empty house and dumped little Louis in the garage. It was a complete mystery – just thank goodness he was heard and Emily and Dessie fell in love with him.’
‘Goodness me, Matron. You are becoming a thoroughly modern detective in your old age and a modern matron too.’ Dr Gaskell laughed as he spoke.
‘Nonsense,’ said Matron, having the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Wasn’t I the one who pushed for married nurses to be able to work? Don’t get me wrong, if children’s services had said that Sister Horton had to give up work to adopt, she would have had to make the choice – adopt Louis, or keep her job. Thankfully, it never came to that.’