Christmas Eve in the Workhouse

by Catrin Collier

  The kettle began to boil. Megan splashed water into the teapot to warm it. She emptied it outside, spooned in tea, and wet it with boiling water.

  ‘This is heaven, thank you, Megan.’ Mary set her son back on the rug, took the tea, propped her feet on a stool, sat back in her chair, and looked up. ‘Those garlands do look good.’

  ‘I wasn’t spinning a yarn when I came in.’ Megan turned an upright chair around to face the range. ‘So what meat have you got in for tomorrow?’

  ‘A chicken. Wilf brought it up this morning along with chocolate and liquorice for Sean and Colleen. He said it was a Christmas bonus. Bother.’ She looked up as a garland swung down from the corner and swept across the sideboard.

  ‘Good job you hadn’t put the kids Christmas fruit and sweets on there or they’d be on the floor. I’ll put it back up.’

  ‘No, I’ll do it. It’s not often we get a chance to sit down and have a chat. You heard about Mrs Lark?’

  ‘I should think the whole of the Graig has by now. Trouble is, a family that size has too many mouths to feed. No one round here could afford to take them in.’

  ‘Maybe the boys can get collier boy jobs in a year or two,’ Mary suggested.

  ‘Not if the rumours of pit closures are true. Our Will’s worried sick, along with all the men who work in the Maritime.’ Megan finished her tea. ‘No rest for the wicked. I have to cook tea for Will, Diana, and Charlie.’ Charlie was Megan’s Russian lodger. The locals had christened him Charlie after finding his Russian name unpronounceable. ‘I’ve kept the best for tomorrow so it’ll be lentil stew and ham bone tonight and a prize for anyone who finds a pink shred of ham in their bowl. Sure you don’t want me to give you a hand to put that garland back up?’

  ‘I’m sure. That’s Colleen back.’

  ‘Mam,’ the door burst open and Colleen burst in with Diana. ‘Mrs Davies was selling halfpenny bars of chocolate for a farthing. So I got two, one for Sean, one for me, and an orange for you, Mam.’ Colleen handed it to her mother. ‘And liquorice.’

  ‘What an awful lot you bought for two pennies. Clever girl.’ Megan kissed Colleen and ruffled Sean’s hair. ‘Time to start cooking the stew, Di. See you later, Mary.’

  ‘’Bye, Megan and thank you. Right you two,’ Mary turned to Colleen, ‘bread and cheese for tonight so we can enjoy our Christmas dinner all the more tomorrow?’

  ‘Toasted, Mam?’ Colleen pleaded.

  ‘If you get the toasting fork. I’ll open the stove as soon as I’ve pinned this decoration back up. You watch Sean doesn’t move off that rug while I’m on the chair.’ Mary moved a kitchen chair into the corner, picked up the end of the garland from the top of the sideboard and lifted it.

  Suddenly giddy, she turned to see Colleen standing behind her.

  ‘Move back, darling …’

  She lost her balance and fell. The back of her head slammed on the flagstone floor. She gazed up at the ceiling. The light was fading. Yet she knew she’d turned the electric light bulb on that morning.

  ‘Colleen …’

  ‘Mam?’

  She could hear fear in her daughter’s voice. ‘Turn the light on, darling.’

  ‘It is on, Mam.’

  Colleen lay on the floor next to her and twined her fingers into hers. Mary tried to lift her head. Her hair was wet, sticky … she hadn’t washed the floor … not today. She lifted her hand, and held it in front of eyes.

  ‘Colleen.’ She struggled to keep her voice steady, even. ‘Fetch Auntie Megan, quick. There’s a good girl.’

  ‘Mabel’s the last one, Beth, thank you for your help. I would never have managed without you.’ Glynis Leyshon watched Bethan pull the nit comb gently through the thin hair of elderly Mabel Down, the last woman in the queue.

  ‘Thank you, Nurse,’ the old women murmured diffidently. ‘You have a gentle touch. Some nurses have drawn blood on my head with a tooth comb.’

  ‘Not us, Mabel.’ Glynis handed Mabel a blanket to wrap over her smock. ‘You need to keep warm, your voice is hoarse. It sounds to me as if you have a chest infection. Nurse Powell will take you along to see the doctor. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sends you straight to the infirmary.’

  ‘I’ll still get my Christmas dinner, won’t I, sister?’

  ‘You most certainly will, and a present.’

  ‘We had an apple, orange, and nuts last year and all the men had half an ounce of tobacco. I thought that wasn’t fair. Women smoke as well as men, and I had my pipe all ready.’

  ‘Ask whoever’s on duty if you can swap your fruit for tobacco.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Sister Leyshon, thank you.’

  ‘You can go back to your ward once you’ve left Mabel with Dr John, Bethan.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing. Matron delegated the decoration of the dining room to Laura and me.’

  ‘Poor you. Good luck.’

  ‘We need it, given the dearth of decorations. There’s nothing useable from last year.’

  ‘So you’ll be begging round the market stalls last thing tonight?’

  ‘Looks like it.’ Bethan slipped her arm around Mabel’s shoulders. ‘I’ll take you to see the doctor, Mabel.’

  Alf was supervising a silent line of men outside the Committee Room. Not one of them dared utter a word with him watching them.

  ‘There are screens up round the examination areas, Nurse Powell, so you go in with the lady.’ Alf glared at the men, daring any of them to object.

  Bethan took Mabel into the room and sat with her until Ted Harris emerged from behind one of the screens with the major and his stooges. She could hear Trevor speaking behind the other screen, but his voice was too low for her to catch what he was saying.

  The major bowed when he saw her. ‘Merry Christmas, Nurse.’

  ‘Merry Christmas to you and your men, Major.’ The major and his stooges were well-known eccentrics in Pontypridd. She’d often seen them scavenging around shops after they’d closed.

  ‘Strict isolation, Mr Harris,’ Dr John walked out from behind the screen and handed Ted Harris a sheaf of forms. ‘Given the number of people we have in the workhouse at the moment we should set up a separate scabies ward.’

  ‘How long until we’re fit to leave here, doctor?’ the major asked.

  ‘Difficult to say, weeks, a month maybe, but sleeping rough in winter isn’t good for any of you. I’ll have a word with the Guardians, and see if they can find you rooms in a hostel once we have you fit again,’ Andrew John offered.

  ‘That’s good of you, Doc, but the Guardians …’

  ‘That’s enough, from you, Major. I’ll take you up to isolation before anyone else gets infected.’ Ted ushered them out.

  Andrew smiled at Bethan. ‘Nurse Powell, and …’

  ‘Mabel, Dr John. Sister Leyshon thought she might have a chest infection.’

  ‘If Sister Leyshon diagnosed a chest infection, the chances are you have one, Mabel.’

  Andrew led Mabel behind the screens. Bethan followed. He opened Mabel’s smock and applied his stethoscope to her chest.

  ‘Where did you sleep last night, Mabel?’

  ‘Same place I’ve slept since the landlord evicted me when my old man died.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Old chicken coop behind the Broadway.’

  ‘I’m guessing it’s not watertight.’ Andrew folded his stethoscope.

  ‘Roof and walls let in water.’

  ‘It’s the infirmary for you, Mabel.’

  ‘Thanks, doctor. I could do with a bit of a rest but I’ll be going back as soon as the warm weather’s on its way.’

  ‘That’s Nurse Brown coming in, Nurse Powell,’ Andrew said when he heard footsteps. ‘She can take Mabel upstairs. I hear your artistic touch is needed in the dining room.’

  ‘I’m afraid my artistic touch will disappoint, Dr John.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ He broadened his smile when he saw Bethan looking at him. He’d asked her out at the
hospital ball, and was looking forward to getting to know her better than work would allow. Given Matron’s non-fraternisation rule between doctors and nurses, they’d both be taking a risk, but when she returned his smile with a tentative one of her own, he decided it was a risk well worth taking.

  Bethan left Mabel with Nurse Brown and returned to the dining room. She pushed open the door and stared in disbelief.

  Multi-coloured garlands of twisted crepe hung from the sides of the hall to the peaked roof. Foldout paper baubles and bells dangled from the central rafter and strings of tinsel adorned the pillars.

  ‘Welcome to Santa’s Grotto.’ Glan was poised on a stepladder, fixing a tinsel star to the top of the tree.

  ‘Watch what you’re doing, Glan, or you’ll have the tree over.’ Laura shouted from the table where she and half a dozen ward maids were wrapping fruit, nuts, and tobacco “presents” for the inmates.

  ‘Where did you get the decorations?’ Bethan asked.

  ‘Ask no questions …’

  ‘And you’ll tell no lies?’ Bethan cut Glan short.

  ‘Ted Harris came in with four carrier bags. He said they were a gift from some of our grateful Christmas guests.’

  The door opened and Huw Davies joined them. ‘Ted Harris really said that those decorations were a gift from grateful Christmas guests?’

  ‘Uncle Huw,’ Bethan kissed Constable Huw Davies’s cheek. He wasn’t her uncle, but the brother of her aunt by marriage, Megan Powell, which in Pontypridd terms made them close relatives. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Besides getting a kiss from a pretty girl? Looking for stolen Christmas decorations.’

  ‘Stolen!’

  ‘Ted Harris did give us these,’ Glan reiterated.

  ‘And we all know the head male nurse wouldn’t lay a finger on anything that wasn’t his, don’t we?’

  ‘I swear you have eyes in the back of your head, Huw,’ Ted said from the doorway.

  ‘First thing the police do with new recruits is drill holes in their skull and put in eye swivelling brackets so they can see themselves coming and going, Ted.’ Huw always spoke softly and slowly. Irritatingly slowly at times, which Bethan had noticed usually unnerved people more than shouting at them would have.

  ‘If you want to know who gave them to me, Huw, you have but to ask.’

  ‘Let me guess, Ted.’ Huw looked at Glan.

  ‘It wasn’t me, Constable Davies.’

  ‘Or me,’ chorused two of the junior porters.

  ‘I found out from Alf that Nurse Powell here has been on admittance duty for the best part of the day so it couldn’t be her. And everyone knows that not even butter will melt in the mouth of Nurse Ronconi, so, Ted, I’m guessing these really did come in with the guests who’ve joined you for Christmas.’

  ‘You’d be right.’

  ‘That’s an awful lot of decorations. They must have come in more than one carrier bag. Would there have been four, brown paper and string ones by chance?’

  ‘There might have been,’ Ted agreed warily.

  ‘Did it take four men to carry them?’

  ‘Four bags suggest four men.’

  ‘Wartime heroes?’

  ‘If you want to see them they’re in quarantine with scabies.’

  ‘I’ll pass on that one, thank you, Ted, but when the councillors arrive to serve the paupers’ dinner tomorrow don’t forget to thank the alderman for his donation of Christmas decorations?’

  ‘The alderman? These were his decorations?’ Ted blanched.

  ‘Picked them out himself for the Gelliwastad Club. But seeing them here, it would appear he gave them away. Generous soul, isn’t he?’

  ‘You sure you don’t want to talk to the major and his stooges to find out how they got hold of them?’

  ‘I’m suddenly very busy.’ Huw gazed at the ceiling. ‘You’ve made a good job of the Christmas trimmings. Although I see the nurses’ hands in the artistic arrangements more than the porters. I hope the Christmas dinner is up to the same standard. A merry and peaceful Christmas Eve, or rather what’s left of it, to all of you.’

  ‘Same to you, Constable Davies.’

  ‘Glan, go easy on the beer when you come off duty. I’d hate to have to arrest a hardworking man on Christmas Eve before he’s had his Christmas dinner.’

  ‘Goodbye, Uncle Huw,’ Bethan gave him another kiss.

  ‘I’ll see you out, Huw.’ Ted left the dining room with him and walked him to the outside door. ‘You’ll be in the Queen’s Hotel later on?’

  ‘Soon as I’m off duty and changed.’

  ‘Buy you a pint?’

  ‘Reckon you owe me two, Ted. For the trimmings.’

  ‘Thought they were the alderman’s.’

  ‘It’s my cut for having to inform the alderman exactly what happened to his decorations.’ Huw opened the door and stepped out onto cold, wet Llantrisant Road.

  Chapter Four

  Andrew John and Trevor Lewis were packing their doctors’ bags when Matron entered the committee room.

  ‘You’ve examined all the new inmates who require medical attention, Dr John, Dr Lewis?’

  ‘We have, Matron, and filled in the appropriate forms.’ Andrew steeled himself for disapproval. ‘We’ve admitted fourteen to the Infirmary.’

  ‘You found fourteen cases serious enough to warrant admission?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Matron.’

  ‘They were?’

  Trevor checked the forms. ‘Three cases of advanced pneumoconiosis in ex-miners. Four of bronchitis, including two women. Two of severe malnutrition, both in children, one ex-miner with infected leg ulcers and four cases of scabies in male vagrants.’

  ‘I asked they be put in isolation,’ Andrew added.

  ‘Fourteen new patients in the infirmary will strain our resources, and the Parish Guardians’ budget.’

  ‘It couldn't be helped, Matron. We saw forty-seven people in total and asked Nurse Brown to make a note on the record cards of four others who exhibited symptoms of chest infections. If they’re fortunate, dry, clean beds will help alleviate their condition,’ Andrew packed his stethoscope and closed his bag.

  ‘I sincerely hope you’re right, Dr John. We need to keep some beds for emergency admissions.’

  ‘We’re aware of that, Matron,’ Trevor said.

  ‘I’m not certain you are, Dr Lewis, or you, Dr John. You’re both accustomed to working in teaching hospitals where money is no object.’

  A knock at the door interrupted them before Andrew thought of a suitable reply. The secretary who worked in the general office opened it. ‘Matron, Dr John, Dr Lewis, my apologies for interrupting. We just received an urgent telephone call from Mrs Davies, the Postmistress in Leyshon Street. A woman has fallen and injured her head. Initial report suggests it’s serious.’

  Grateful for the excuse to leave, Trevor picked up his bag and went to the coat rack. ‘As I’m duty doctor until midnight, that’s me. Please tell the Postmistress I’m on my way, Miss Clayton.’

  ‘Doctor’s coming and I spoke to Mr McCarthy in the Post Office in Trallwn,’ Mrs Davies announced when she entered Mary’s back kitchen. ‘He said he'll be here as soon as he can. Your Diana is in the passage with Colleen and Sean. Shall I ask her to bring them in, Megan?’ She looked down at Mary McCarthy and forced a smile, she hoped Mary would find reassuring. Megan had draped tea towels around Mary’s head in a vain attempt to conceal the blood. Instead they’d soaked it up, and lay in bright crimson contrast against the grey flagstones.

  ‘We’ll soon have you right as rain, Mary, love.’ Freda Williams bustled in from the outside tap with a full kettle. Megan didn’t have the heart to tell her no one wanted tea. She knew that Freda, like all the other neighbours who’d crowded into Mary’s house, only wanted to help.

  Megan reached for Mary’s hand. ‘You’re freezing, love. Not surprising as you’re lying on a cold floor.’

  ‘We should get her up …’


  ‘No!’ Megan exclaimed. ‘The only person who should move her is the doctor.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Freda whispered to the women gathered behind her. ‘Megan knows what she’s doing. After all, her niece is a nurse.’

  ‘Freda, please pass me that knitted blanket Mary uses to wrap the children in when she hasn’t lit the kitchen stove.’ Megan held out her hand.

  ‘Colleen wants to see her mam. Can she come in?’ Diana asked though the open door.

  Megan had seen the haunted look in Mary’s eyes too often not to know what it portended. Her neighbour was close to death. She didn’t want the responsibility for keeping a dying woman from her children. ‘Do you want to see Colleen and Sean, Mary?’

  ‘Please.’ Mary’s voice was so low Megan had to read her lips.

  ‘Bring them in, Diana. The rest of you please leave to give Mary some air.’

  Half the women shuffled towards the back door that led to the outside, the rest made for the door that led to the passage but Megan sensed they hadn’t gone far. She continued to kneel on one side of Mary. Colleen scuttled in between the women’s legs and crouched on the other. Diana followed and held out Sean so Mary could see him.

  ‘If you have to go to hospital, Mary, I’m sure your brother-in-law will take the children.’ Mrs Davies hadn’t retreated further than the doorway. Megan saw her glance down the passage. The hum of subdued whispers escalated and Megan guessed the neighbours were waiting for the news the doctor’s arrival would bring.

  ‘Not, Joe, Mrs Davies … you shouldn’t …’ Mary voice failed. She struggled to lift her hand to touch Colleen.

  ‘Joe is your husband's brother, Mary. At a time like this family is everything.’ Megan heard a masculine voice at the door. ‘That will be the doctor. Diana, take Colleen and Sean into our house, love. Give them some of the Christmas biscuits I made yesterday. The ones with sugar on.’

  Trevor Lewis pushed his way past the neighbours and through the open door into the kitchen.

  ‘Everyone out except the patient, and …’ deciding Megan looked the most capable person in the room, ‘the lady kneeling next to her. I’m Dr Lewis and you are …?’