The Angels of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  Half an hour earlier, she had crept down the stairs from her first-floor room in the nurses’ home and headed towards the back door, one gentle step at a time. She had hesitated outside Pammy’s room, half expecting her to cry out, ‘Who is it? What time is it?’ Pammy was the lightest sleeper of them all and was due back on duty on ward two the following morning.

  It had tested Dana’s strength to the very limit when only hours earlier Pammy, Victoria, newly returned from Lancashire, and even Beth had bounced up and down on her bed while she feigned toothache as an excuse not to join them that evening.

  ‘Are you sure you aren’t coming down to supper?’ Pammy had asked, concerned. Dana had hardly been known to miss a meal.

  Pammy was one of life’s eternal optimists and Dana had known she would not simply accept a toothache as a reason for not wanting to spend her evening with the rest of the girls downstairs.

  ‘Let’s get you to Dr Mackintosh right now,’ Pammy had continued. ‘He will give you some painkillers at the very least. Dana, are you sure you’re all right?’

  Pammy’s words almost brought a smile to Dana’s face. But she must not let herself down. She had to keep up the act.

  Pammy would not give in. Being the daughter of Maisie and Stan, part of a docker family who had struggled their entire life to make ends meet, Pammy was a fighter who never gave up.

  Beth was almost as bad.

  ‘Look here, I’ve brought you some supplies,’ she said, bursting into the room, still wearing her uniform. She slipped a bottle out of her apron pocket. ‘Here it is, and there’s a couple of aspirin and a gallipot floating around in here, too. My patient didn’t want them. Plug your tooth with this.’ She tipped the clove tincture on to a cotton wool plug. ‘And swallow those,’ as she scooped the wayward tablets back together and handed the small glass pot to Dana. ‘You’ll be as right as rain in no time at all, and you can have a nice bath while they work their magic. No need to bother Dr Mackintosh.’

  Dana lay back on her pillows, trying her hardest to look as though she were in pain. The only person who knew her secret was Victoria and she wanted it to stay that way. She had thought she could get this over and done with before the split shift came home from duty, so she would not have to face the indomitable force that was Beth. Tonight was the night. The night of her life. The night when she knew everything would change. Tomorrow could be the day when her life began and she could not wait a moment longer.

  She looked at Beth with a woeful expression and tears welled up in her eyes. They were genuine. From the moment Beth had discovered Dana’s letter in Celia’s room, she had become the group’s staunchest ally. They discovered that she had arrived at St Angelus from Germany, where she was based with her army family, and had spent her entire life moving from pillar to post. She claimed that if necessary she could pack up her room and be out of the door in ten minutes. Dana didn’t doubt it. Even Beth’s cosmetics were lined up like soldiers in a row on her dressing table. The maids knew that there was little to do in her room. Her bed was made so tight each morning, you couldn’t have slipped a flat hand between the sheets without ripping off a fingernail, and her clothes were colour coded and stacked as if she were a prisoner, not a student nurse. But as Beth sometimes said, ‘What’s the difference?’

  In the past month, much to Celia Forsyth’s chagrin, Beth had planned, made lists and organized the group’s daily life. They all wondered how someone so small, with her dark brown hair and upswept glasses, could be as forceful as she was. They all had their orders. Acute short-sightedness was no handicap to Beth. In fact, her spectacles added to the look of bossiness. Not a single patient had ever complained when given an instruction from Beth.

  Lovely Beth. So earnest. So indefatigable. She had an answer to every problem. Beth would be cross when she found out what Dana was doing. She would take it personally. She would regard it as her failing not to have been the one Dana confided in or to have seen what was coming, seeing how it was Beth who had played a major role in the whole business by handing over the letter she had found in Celia’s room.

  ‘I have news, girls,’ said Victoria, unhooking the button on her cape and flinging it over the chair as she flounced down on Dana’s bed and blew her a kiss. ‘The very young and handsome Oliver Gaskell came on to my ward today to speak to our consultant and I heard him say to the houseman that he was going to pop into the social club dance, to make sure they were all behaving, but he was only joking. I actually heard him say... are you all listening?’ The girls gave Victoria their full attention, Dana forgotten.

  ‘Go on,’ said Pammy, ‘quick, what?’

  Victoria almost laughed out loud at the sight of Pammy, waiting with bated breath and open mouth. She had almost never stopped talking about her hero, Oliver Gaskell. The new god on ward two. ‘I heard him say that he was hoping to bag a dance with a particular nurse he had his eye on, and he winked at the houseman.’

  Pammy lowered herself onto the edge of Dana’s bed. ‘Oh, my giddy aunt. Do you think that could be me? Do yer?’

  ‘Who else would it be?’ said Beth. ‘You virtually followed him around ward two and he spoke to you every chance he got. There isn’t a nurse in the hospital who doesn’t think you have made an impression on Mr Gaskell.’

  Pammy dashed over to the dressing table, sat herself on the stool and began rifling through Dana’s make-up bag and hair slides. Then she caught sight of Dana in the mirror.

  ‘Oh no, what’s the matter? You have such a funny look on yer face, Dana. Is the toothache that bad?’

  Dana’s look had actually been one of despair. She had realized that her friends were settling in for the night, when she wanted them as far away as possible.

  ‘Get them tablets down her, Beth,’ said Pammy, rushing to the sink. Tipping Dana’s toothbrush into the basin she filled the glass and handed the warm, disgusting water to Dana. Pammy was as practical as she was unflappable. She often cut corners and didn’t always think things through. It wouldn’t have taken a second to run the water until it was cold, but that wouldn’t have been ‘our Pammy’, as everyone called her.

  ‘Go on, swallow. Get them down you now. They will kill the pain.’

  ‘That water’s almost hot,’ said Beth. Pammy drove Beth mad, but in a funny sort of way, although total opposites, they now enjoyed each other’s company most of the time.

  ‘So what? Who cares? She just needs to get them tablets down and anyway, some people like hot water.’

  Dana took the tablets, and shifting the hot water bottle from the side of her face whispered, ‘Could you just leave me now? I really want to sleep. You all go and have a lovely time watching the TV, and tell Mrs Duffy I am fine.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Victoria, smoothing out the eiderdown. ‘Come along, nurses, we must leave our patient to sleep.’

  At last, thought Dana as they all began to make for the door.

  ‘All right then, we’ll let yer off,’ said Pammy, begrudgingly. ‘But if you’re no better in the morning, mind, we’ll take you in to Dr Mackintosh ourselves. Or Mr Finch has a dental clinic in the morning. If he doesn’t know what to do, no one will.’

  ‘Mr Finch is an oral surgeon. This is well below what he is used to dealing with,’ said Dana, realizing she was becoming wrapped up in her own tableau of deceit.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Pammy. ‘We all look after our own at St Angelus.’

  She was the last to leave. ‘If you need me in the night, if the pain gets too unbearable, wake me. Promise.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Dana. ‘You have a full day tomorrow. I won’t wake you.’

  Both girls smiled for a second too long and held each other’s eyes. Dana wondered if Pammy was suspicious.

  ‘You sure you are OK?’ Pammy asked again, in a tone which could only be described as meaningful.

  Dana could hear the fading voices of Victoria and Beth as they moved away down the corridor to their own rooms, already planning wha
t clothes to swap with each other and whose room they would get ready in before the forthcoming doctors’ dance on Saturday. Dana heard Victoria, with her lovely, choral-trained singing voice, break into a Doris Day number.

  ‘Yes. Go away,’ said Dana gently, turning on to her side to avoid Pammy’s gaze. She heard the door click closed, and then, raising her head, realized that at last she was alone with her secret.

  Now, in the dark corridor, from which the excited whispers of the returning girls had long since departed, she hovered outside Pammy’s door, the note in her hand. She looked at it long and hard. She was taking a risk.

  *

  It was after eleven o’clock, but Pammy was awake. She heard Dana’s stealthy steps on the stairs, but she didn’t shout out. She had known this was coming, she just hadn’t known it was tonight. Pammy, Victoria and Beth had met for coffee in the greasy spoon only last week, and discussed what to do about Dana.

  She had talked far too much lately about the fact that she would have to return to Ireland at the end of her training and probably marry a man who was a thug, an oaf and a heartless beast. ‘For heaven’s sake, why?’ Victoria had asked the first time Dana had said it.

  ‘Because that’s my lot in life. I’m Irish and it’s what my family expects. And sure, why would any man want me?’

  They all imagined they had secrets of their own, but Pammy thought, as she stared at the door, no one did, not really. Victoria and Beth had confided in her about the letter Beth had found and Dana’s broken heart. It took her a full five minutes to calm her own hurt that Dana hadn’t told her.

  ‘I knew something must have gone wrong that night, but she never said a word about it and I didn’t like to ask. Didn’t she trust me, or what?’ she asked Victoria with tears in her eyes.

  ‘Of course she trusts you. I was just in on it because, well, I have a secret too, but I wanted to tell you all together. Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about Dana. Girls, she read a letter from her daddy in Ireland to me yesterday. I used to reckon no one knew more about misguided fathers than I do, but I can promise you, this was on an entirely different level. If we don’t rescue Dana from the fate which is surely awaiting her, well, I for one shan’t be able to live with myself. She’ll be driven back to Ireland to marry a pig of a man for no other reason than guilt and feeling sorry for her mammy, and we have to do something about it. So I’ve a plan.’

  The girls had leant in over the table, eyes wide open and ready to hear Victoria’s idea. You are quite bossy yourself, Victoria, thought Beth. But it remained a thought. Saving Dana was far more important.

  Pammy fancied she could hear Dana’s heartbeat. She listened for her breathing and looked towards the door. In a voice too weak to reach Dana and swallowed by the thickness of the gloom, she whispered, ‘Please don’t let her down. Please be there, please.’

  Pammy knew the sound of every stair. The second to the bottom had a creak that could not be avoided. She counted the steps and right on cue, the last but one creaked. Silence fell. She’s nearly there, thought Pammy. Then, she heard stealthy footsteps pass by outside, along the grass border and under her window. She had made it. She was free. Dana was on her way.

  Pammy let out the long breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding and prayed hard for her friend.

  Chapter thirty-two

  Dana could hear her heart beating as she approached the rear of the theatre block. The note was in her pocket, crumpled and faded by many rereadings. At first, she had ignored it. Pretended to Victoria that she didn’t care, but there was no fooling Victoria.

  ‘Look, Dana, Teddy has asked me to pass you this,’ she had said. Dana was in her room trying to study for a ward assessment the following morning. Sister Ryan was due to arrive at ten thirty and assess Dana as she removed sutures and re-dressed an appendicectomy wound. As Dana read the letter, the words just swam in front of her and refused to sink in.

  ‘Victoria?’ Dana raised her head. ‘What have you done? Have you told him about Celia?’

  ‘Yes, I have. I’m sorry to have interfered, but I just didn’t think it was fair on him – on either of you – because after all, neither of you has done anything wrong. It was all down to that beastly Celia Forsyth. Anyway, really, Dana, does it matter who plays Cupid here? I’ll leave it all to you now, but he’s given you a telephone number. The ball’s in your court.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ said Dana, jumping up to close her bedroom door. ‘You are going to sit here and go over every word with me.’ Her eyes were alight. For the first time in months, she felt alive.

  *

  Dana kept to the bushes and away from the lamp-posts as she hurried along the same route she used every day. Tonight it felt different. Her heart was beating and her skin prickled as she thought she heard footsteps behind her. She stopped and looked back; there was no one.

  She walked faster and there they were again, but still she could see nothing. As she reached the lights at the back gates of the hospital, she saw a dark figure sprint away in the direction of the Old Dock Road and she gave a sigh of relief. She did not have to wait for more than a second. She heard a set of footsteps running down a flight of stairs and then, in a flash, he was standing in front of her.

  ‘Well, what do you know? She came!’ He pretended to shout to the sky and threw his arms up in the air. ‘I have been on duty since Monday morning and I haven’t left since. Liverpool is going crazy. We have done two caesarean sections up there in the past two hours. I’m not off again until Friday night. I’ve got matchsticks holding my eyelids up.’

  He plunged his hands into the pockets of his white coat. ‘Look, I’m off on Saturday and it’s the doctors’ social. I wanted to ask you, but I wanted to ask you to your face. Would you come with me, as my guest? Please. I have no idea why that wretched girl didn’t give you the note telling you I wouldn’t be here last time, but I can promise you, when I see her next, she will have to come up with a good explanation.’

  It was as though a breeze had swept the air away and Dana struggled to breathe. He wanted her to go to the social with him. It was her very first dance in Liverpool and the best-looking doctor at the hospital wanted her to go with him. She blinked in the strong light at the bottom of the theatre-block steps. Much to her embarrassment, she was speechless.

  ‘And before you say no, I’m sorry for asking you to risk getting into trouble by coming out at night again. It’s just that if I had arranged to meet you during the day, I would probably have been called away and well, I just didn’t want to miss you, not again. That would have been unbearable. At least I know I am stuck here on receiving ward and theatre all night.’

  He grinned his ridiculous grin. It was a grin from a man who had a good heart and nothing to hide, and Dana’s own heart melted away. ‘Well, I wasn’t planning on going,’ she said.

  ‘That wouldn’t have anything to do with you once thinking Victoria and I were an item, would it? When in fact she and my brother are smitten with each other.’

  ‘How dare you?’ she spluttered. ‘Where would you get that idea, and why would I care in any case?’

  He took a step backwards in the face of her mock outrage. They both knew it wasn’t real. ‘Has she told you yet? They’re engaged. He’s coming to the dance.’

  Now Dana really was speechless.

  She took in his flopping fringe and his boyish grin. His shirt collar was slightly crumpled under his white coat and for a fleeting moment the image of Patrick came into her mind. She let her breath escape. This man was not Patrick, she must not concern herself on that score. She must relax. This man was a doctor, healing and saving lives, and had kindness and mischief shining out of his eyes. He was not Patrick.

  ‘I would love to come,’ she said and, embarrassed, looked down at her feet. She felt his finger slip under her chin as he slowly tilted her face upwards and made her look at him.

  ‘Well, in that case, roll on Saturday.’

  He kissed her gently
and she was lost, until they both heard the sound of a voice shouting, ‘Dr Davenport, wanted in theatre’ through the doors.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at half past seven in Lovely Lane,’ he said. ‘Under the lamp-post, where I first found you,’ and then he was gone.

  Dana walked back through the hospital grounds and felt as though she were flying. Gone was the cold night breeze which had made her shiver on her way. She had a precious, wonderful secret and it kept her warm.

  What Dana didn’t know was that in St Angelus, everyone and no one had a secret to hold.

  Chapter thirty-three

  Pammy was in tears. ‘How did that happen?’ she wailed as she threw the dress she had been trying on on to the floor.

  ‘Well, because you’ve lost so much weight, queen,’ said Maisie, with a worried frown on her face. ‘They work you too hard at that hospital.’

  Pammy wasn’t listening. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, in tears.

  ‘Come on, love, we don’t cry about silly things like that,’ said Maisie. ‘No one has died.’

  Pammy felt stupid. She knew the true meaning of those words. Sometimes a neighbour would pop in to have a cuppa with Maisie and if they thought no one was listening, they would start talking about the war and Pammy knew that within minutes they would be in floods of tears, crying over someone they once knew or loved, or both.

  ‘The new lady in number ten has a sewing machine. I’ll pin the dress now and run down and borrow it. It will take me an hour at the most.’

  ‘What if she’s not in?’ Pammy’s wail had subsided to a whimper.

  ‘Oh, that’s not a problem. She keeps it out on the kitchen table. If she’s not there, I’ll just help myself.’

  Nothing had changed in Arthur Street for as long as anyone could remember. Back doors were still unlocked and it would remain that way until the new houses and estates were built and the fabric of the dockside community fractured and split apart. Families and relatives who had lived side by side for generations would become isolated and confused, struggling to find a new way to live, to rear children without generations of knowledge, values and expertise at hand.