The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Come along, Nurse Brogan,’ said Staff Nurse as Dana scooped up her cape. ‘We won’t stop once the first post-op patient lands back on the ward, so we’d better get a wiggle on.’

  *

  Dana had never in her life tasted anything as delicious as those streaky bacon rashers, fried tomatoes and boiled potatoes smothered in butter. She washed them down with copious cups of tea and listened to the conversation of the nurses from other wards who joined them on their large circular table.

  ‘Jam suet roly-poly and custard,’ said the kitchen maid who now pulled a trolley alongside Dana and began to unload plates on to the table.

  Dana scanned the cavernous canteen, looking for one of the other girls from Lovely Lane, but she appeared to be the only probationer in a hall full of far more experienced nurses. It seemed hard to believe that one day she would be exchanging hospital gossip and know exactly what everyone was talking about.

  As they walked back in through the ward doors, Charge Nurse called out to them from behind his desk. ‘Mr Davis is back from theatre, Staff. If you would like to go through the TPRs with Nurse Brogan and show her the post-op ropes for an inguinal hernia before she starts the backs and beds, please.’

  Dana saw a woman sitting beside Mr Davis’s bed and looked up at the large clock on the wall above the ward doors. It was almost twenty past six and her heart raced as she remembered her promise. ‘Oh Holy Mother, I’m just in time,’ she said, walking towards the bed.

  ‘In time for what?’ asked Staff, but did not wait for a reply. ‘I’ll get the sphyg for his blood pressure. You go and check his dressing, make sure it’s not too wet and there’s no blood on the sheets.’

  Dana felt slightly panicked. How would she know how wet was too wet? What should she do if there was blood on the sheets? She had promised Mr Davis she would ask his wife to leave at twenty past six. She would have to do it right now, and checking Mr Davis’s dressing provided a good excuse.

  She was surprised at the sight of Mrs Davis. Mr Davis had made her out to be a harridan and Dana had an image in her mind of a stern-looking middle-aged person, not the peroxide blonde, red-lipped young woman in a fox fur stole sitting on the edge of his bed. Grabbing the curtain on the runner, she half pulled it around the patient, saying, ‘Hello, Mrs Davis. Could I ask you to leave now, please? I need to check Mr Davis’s dressing and we have to do his post-operative observations.’

  The woman had hold of Mr Davis’s hand. ‘Oh, hello, nurse,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking his breath smells bad. Is that OK? He’s out for the count, isn’t he? Like a baby.’

  Dana wasn’t sure, but she had read that the anaesthetic could be smelt on a patient’s breath post-operatively. ‘Oh yes. I wouldn’t get too close though if I were you. It’s the anaesthetic; you may find you fall asleep.’

  Mrs Davis laughed. ‘Oh, God, imagine that. I’d have to stay in with him. No room in there for two of us, is there?’ She leant over to speak to her husband. ‘I have to go now, love,’ she said. The only response from Mr Davis was a deep fume-laden snore. His wife rose. ‘Thanks very much nurse,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs Davis,’ said Dana, glancing nervously at the clock.

  ‘Oh no, love, I’m not Mrs Davis, not yet anyway. My name is Valerie. We’re getting married at Christmas, aren’t we, love?’ she said to the sleeping Mr Davis. ‘We were sweethearts before the war, but I was a bit younger than Mr Davis and, well, me da wouldn’t let us get engaged and then when he came home we had moved away to Chester where me da had been working. Took us to be evacuated, he did. We only met up again a year ago and, well, it’s been romance all the way.’ Valerie giggled as she took hold of Mr Davis’s hand. Bending down, she kissed him gently on the brow.

  ‘He never married, you know,’ she said to Dana, who had lifted the sheets back and peeped underneath to see where the dressing was. ‘Said he couldn’t marry anyone after losing me, because he couldn’t get me out of his mind. Isn’t that lovely, nurse?’

  ‘That’s very romantic indeed, but we do have to see to his dressings now, so if you could...’

  Neither of them noticed the stout woman, wearing a headscarf over her curlers, who had made her way down the ward and now positioned herself with folded arms at the end of the bed.

  ‘Never married? Well, that’s news to me, love. Who the bloody hell are you?’

  Dana realized in a flash what had happened, but there was absolutely nothing she could do to alter the course of events.

  Yet another woman appeared from nowhere, slightly larger than the first, who Dana had worked out must be the real Mrs Davis. The newcomer looked uncannily like her.

  ‘What’s up, our Sybil? Who’s this?’ the second woman said, nodding at Valerie.

  ‘I don’t know, but she had better get her skinny arse away from the side of my husband’s bed, because if she doesn’t it will be on the end of my stiletto any minute now.’

  Dana felt her mouth dry and her heart beating rapidly. Frantically she looked down the ward and saw Charge Nurse heading towards her.

  ‘Right, ladies,’ he almost shouted as he reached the bed. ‘Can we have this outside please?’

  ‘Outside? I’m not leaving my fiancé,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Your fiancé.’ Mrs Davis spat the words out. ‘’Ere, hold me handbag,’ she said to her sister. ‘Watch me ciggies don’t fall out.’

  She moved so fast, it took Dana a full thirty seconds to realize that Valerie was no longer standing by the side of the bed but was on the floor with Mrs Davis on top of her, and both women were screaming abuse at each other. Meanwhile, Mrs Davis’s sister took the cigarette packet out of Sybil’s bag, deftly transferred five cigarettes into her own pocket, and clicked the bag shut, all the while shouting encouragement to her sister. As if from nowhere, two of the porter’s lads appeared in the ward while Dana, frozen to the spot, looked down at Mr Davis, who was snoring soundly, oblivious.

  *

  Victoria Baker had an altogether calmer day.

  ‘Sister is a dote,’ was the first thing Staff Nurse had said to her, ‘and she won’t make you do the bedpans every day. She thinks that’s a waste of training. She is the only sister to let the ward orderlies help with the bedpan rounds, and that leaves you free to look after the patients.’ Victoria could barely believe her luck and almost fainted with shock when Sister called her over.

  ‘Nurse, the doctor here wants to examine Mrs Mulhearn. He needs an escort, so would you accompany him, please?’ Victoria pulled the notes she had made out of her pocket, and to her relief Mrs Mulhearn was one of the first names she saw. She had been admitted the previous evening when the night staff were on duty, but no one was quite sure what was wrong with her.

  Victoria pulled the screens around the bed, as she had been taught by Sister Ryan in PTS, and the first thing she noticed about Mrs Mulhearn was her pallor. It was very similar to that of her mother, when she had been alive. Her skin was translucent, like Dresden china. Lady Baker had worn lipstick every day and Victoria had sat next to her as she smeared her lips in cold cream revealing the thin blueish tinge beneath. Victoria blinked. This was not her mother. Mrs Mulhearn was an Irish mother, from the notorious Clare cottages, down by the docks.

  ‘Now, Mrs Mulhearn, I just need to listen to your heart,’ said the young doctor breezily. He placed his stethoscope against Mrs Mulhearn’s chest, while Victoria held her nightdress open at the front.

  ‘Oooh, that’s cold. Could you not have warmed it up first, doctor? I got a slice of the chill there.’

  The doctor wasn’t listening to Mrs Mulhearn; he was trying his very best to listen to her heart. Then he made a signal to Victoria. She knew exactly what he wanted her to do. Assisting and escorting a doctor during an examination had been drilled in to the group during their last week by Sister Ryan. Victoria had done this before, on a dummy in the practice ward.

  ‘Just lean forward a little please, Mrs Mulhearn,’ she said. ‘Doctor would
like to listen to your heart from your back now.’ She lifted up Mrs Mulhearn’s nightgown and exposed her back. It was riddled with skin growths and blackheads the size of sixpenny pieces. Victoria felt as if she wanted to be sick and took rapid shallow breaths. Mrs Mulhearn had been bathed by the night staff as soon as she arrived on the ward, but the smell was still strong. The warm lingering aroma of stale faeces. The doctor’s eyes met Victoria’s.

  ‘Thank you, nurse,’ he said as he stood up. Victoria tucked the nightdress back into place and fluffed up a pillow, helping Mrs Mulhearn sit back so that she could be comfortable while the doctor chatted to her.

  ‘Now, Mrs Mulhearn, you have breathlessness and fatigue and your pulse is a little fast, but are there any other symptoms you can give me?’

  ‘Er, like what, doctor?’

  ‘Well, are your waterworks all right? Do you have any pains in your heart?’

  ‘Have I a pain in me heart? Well, that’s for sure. My poor heart bleeds every day, as would yours if you had married a man like Padraig. He’s never sober for long enough to recognize his own kids, and I swear to God he doesn’t even know the last one was born. He went missing for two days and look at me belly.’ Mrs Mulhearn wobbled the loose skin on her abdomen from side to side. ‘He thinks I’m still carrying. Who wouldn’t?’

  ‘How many children do you have?’ The doctor still looked puzzled.

  ‘The last was the tenth.’

  Mrs Mulhearn lost her colour when she spoke as a result of the fatigue. Yet again, Victoria noticed her pallor and the beads of perspiration which sprang up across her forehead. It was all sickeningly familiar.

  ‘See that cyanosis on her lips?’ said the doctor, as though Mrs Mulhearn couldn’t hear him. ‘Let me listen again.’

  ‘Haven’t ye just done that?’ asked Mrs Mulhearn as Victoria sat her forward.

  ‘He has, yes, but he wants to listen again. Try to stop talking if you can so that he can hear better.’ Victoria smiled down at her. The blue tinge on the edge of her lips was beginning to disappear again.

  ‘Thank you, nurse,’ said the doctor. He looked exasperated and, thanking Mrs Mulhearn, rubbed his hair as he walked back to the office.

  He forgot the case notes when he moved away from the bed, so Victoria retrieved them and hurried after him. ‘Doctor, you left these,’ she said, holding them out.

  He was sitting in Sister’s chair, looking as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Without acknowledging the notes, he looked up at Victoria. ‘I’m going to have to call the consultant up. It’s beyond me. She isn’t having a heart attack, I’m sure of that, but I’m blowed if I know what is up with her. He’ll be far from pleased with me. He’s on the golf course today.’

  Victoria took a deep breath. She had to share her thoughts with him. ‘Doctor, do you think it could be heart damage caused by rheumatic fever?’

  He shot up in his chair. ‘The doctor who saw her last night and took the history hasn’t mentioned rheumatic fever. I know, because I’ve read his notes twice. It is so common, it would have been the first thing he asked her.’

  He picked up the notes and scanned the entry from the admission doctor to reassure himself that he hadn’t missed anything.

  ‘Mind you, the poor sod had been working five days and nights, straight through.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t ask?’ said Victoria.

  The doctor looked at Victoria in surprise and then jumped up from his seat and strode down the ward. She caught up with him just as he reached the bed and heard him ask, ‘Mrs Mulhearn, did you ever have rheumatic fever as a child?’

  ‘Oh, yes, doctor. I was laid up with it for over two years. Couldn’t move a muscle, I couldn’t. The doctor in Ireland said it was the worst case he had ever seen. Ready for me to die, they was.’

  Staff Nurse approached the end of the bed. ‘Time for you to go with the first lot for coffee, Nurse Baker, and thank you. I will take over here now.’

  Victoria almost floated down the ward. She had been a nurse for only hours and yet she was already in love with her job. She felt closer to her mother than she had since the day she died. Her heart cramped as she looked back at Mrs Mulhearn. If only someone had correctly diagnosed her mother. Would her tragic death have been avoided? And, if it had, would Victoria even be here today in Lovely Lane?

  Chapter thirteen

  As soon as Sister Haycock discovered that Pammy had been allocated to ward two, with Sister Antrobus, she demanded a meeting with Matron.

  Known among the hospital staff as the Anteater, and military trained, Sister Antrobus had a reputation fiercer than that of any other ward sister in St Angelus. A trail of abandoned careers pointed to the fact that it was a reputation well earned and fully deserved. More nurses had given up partway through their training after a short spell on ward two than on any other ward. Her height, her width, her steel-grey hair and matching grey eyes perfectly complemented her stern personality. Sister Antrobus was both demanding and unforgiving.

  Before the new training syllabus for professional nursing qualifications was introduced at St Angelus, nurse training had been Matron’s responsibility, and it still was in many hospitals across the country, where the matron had been allowed to resist change. At St Angelus, Matron saw losing control of the new school of nursing as an affront to her own status. She was also of the opinion that Emily Haycock, always a pushy one, went too far with the board of trustees and got her own way a little too often. Although Emily, as director of nursing, was responsible for the training of the new probationers, the wards and every other aspect of running St Angelus remained firmly under the control of Matron.

  A reply from Matron to Emily’s demand arrived promptly, calling Sister Haycock for an early-morning meeting.

  ‘Don’t you let her eat you, now,’ Biddy joked, just before Emily left. ‘You know her bark is worse than her bite.’

  ‘Don’t joke about bites. You know she brings her flaming dog to work with her and he sits all day in a basket behind her desk.’

  ‘I do,’ Biddy almost shouted, impatient to disclose a piece of gossip that up until now she had forgotten. ‘He bit Matron’s housekeeper the other day and she hit him with the mop. Matron near went mad, so she did, and threatened to sack her. More worried about the dog she was than Elsie’s leg, but Elsie’s still here. That’s what I mean. Matron’s all bluster.’

  ‘I heard about that,’ said Emily. It was an understatement. Everyone had heard. The dog, Blackie, was a fierce and bad- tempered Scottie dog who put the fear of God into everyone when he was sent out on to the grass for his two-hourly comfort break. Office doors could be heard clicking shut and hurried footsteps scuttled across polished concrete floors. No one crossed Blackie’s path. In the administration block, he was as powerful as Matron herself, and the confident way he strutted and held his head high told everyone that he knew it too.

  ‘Here, take a biscuit, and if he gets a bit bolshy, throw it to him. Better that than your ankle,’ said Biddy.

  ‘Shall I do the same with Matron?’ asked Emily. ‘Shall I throw the biscuit at her if she gets a bit bolshy?’

  As she walked into Matron’s office, Emily saw Blackie sit up in his basket to inspect her. She felt the biscuit in her pocket and it gave her some comfort.

  ‘Good morning, Sister Haycock. What can I do for you?’ Matron didn’t stand up. She remained behind her desk, looking down at a letter on her blotter. ‘Lie down, Blackie,’ she said, coolly. Emily waited politely for her to finish reading the letter and noticed that her dark, tightly styled hair was, as always, rigidly in place. A style which had never altered, not even by an errant wisp, in the years since Emily had first met her when she arrived at St Angelus. Now she was director of the school of nursing and responsible for all probationer training. This had provided her with an armoury of confidence and self-belief she had never before possessed. It was a change in attitude Matron had found disconcerting.

  Emily knew that she had
not been Matron’s choice for the job, anything but. The huge changes imposed by the government had not been Matron’s choice either. She had fought those tooth and nail and had even written a letter of protest to the Prime Minister. She would have preferred to continue in the old way, as a voluntary organization, as they had before the war and before the introduction of the NHS. Who would have thought the government would begin to exert such control over the running of hospitals? As you have no experience of working in a hospital, Prime Minister, I feel that maybe you should leave the running of them to those of us who do, she had written. The methods prescribed by Florence Nightingale have served us all well until now. Regarding nursing as a professional qualification is a nonsense. It is a vocation.

  She had also remonstrated with the trustees, now under the control of the Liverpool Hospitals District Board. The government was interfering there too. These girls marry and then that’s the end of it. We don’t allow nurses to be married. Nursing is for dedicated women. A job for life. Matron had argued with members of the new board until she was blue in the face, but it was no use. The winds of post-war modernity were sweeping across the country and had arrived at the steps of St Angelus.

  Emily had decided before she had walked into the office that, Blackie or no Blackie, she would stand her ground and take no nonsense from Matron. All the same, as she approached the administration block she felt a familiar weakness in the knees. Every nurse who had ever worked under Matron’s authority knew that feeling.

  ‘Shall I sit, Matron?’ she asked, with an airiness she certainly didn’t feel. Despite the biscuit in her pocket, her earlier confidence had stubbornly remained at the door.

  Matron glanced up. Her olive complexion made her appear ageless although her hair, once jet black, was now shot through with grey. She looked Emily up and down with her dark and unforgiving brown eyes. It was her way with every nurse she met. Always looking for a crease or a stain on an apron, or a pair of shoes that required a polish. Now there was hurt in her eyes too as she examined Emily.