The Little Runaways

by Cathy Sharp

  ‘Sister Beatrice came earlier and told us I should join the others for meals and other things. I’ve been given two skirts and two blouses; they’re nice, better than my own clothes. She says I ought to go to school next week – but Terry isn’t well yet, miss. I can’t leave him or he’ll start screaming and breaking things; it was after she said that we should soon have to move to the dormitories that he did that …’ Nancy’s eyes flicked to the mutilated teddy bear. ‘Terry cried after he did it, miss. He wants me to mend it.’

  Angela looked at Terry, but his eyes were flashing and it wasn’t remorse that she saw there. She looked back at his sister reassuringly. ‘All right, Nancy. I’ll fetch the sewing things in my lunch hour and bring them for you.’ It was very unusual for the brother and sister still to be in the isolation ward almost two weeks after they were admitted; but because Terry still woke screaming sometimes, Sister Beatrice had thought it might be for the best until they could decide what to do with them, otherwise they might wake the other children in the dorms. ‘Why don’t you sit over there by the window and look at the garden as you work? It would be better than being in bed when you don’t have to be.’

  ‘I pretended to have a headache so Sister wouldn’t make me get up and leave him …’ Nancy shut up abruptly as Mark approached them, looking thoughtful.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, bending down to pick up the mutilated bear. ‘What happened to this?’

  ‘We had a fight over it,’ Nancy lied. ‘I’m going to mend it.’

  ‘Well, poor teddy,’ Mark said, and put the bear down on a chair. ‘You seem well recovered, Nancy. Sister says you can get up but don’t want to – would you tell me why, please?’

  ‘I can’t leave Terry. He’s frightened on his own and he’ll start screaming.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that might be it,’ Mark said. ‘Well, I’ll have a word with Sister Beatrice for you and see if we can sort something out.’ He looked at Nancy a moment longer and then turned to Angela. ‘If you’re going to your office, I’ll walk with you.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Angela said hesitantly. She glanced towards Staff Nurse Carole at that moment and was surprised to see the annoyed expression on the attractive girl’s face. Her pale blue eyes glinted with ice, and Angela received the distinct impression that the girl had taken a dislike to her, though she had no idea why.

  She nodded her head at Carole and walked to the door. Mark opened it and held it for her, closing it quietly behind them.

  ‘That was your bear, wasn’t it?’ he asked. ‘I’ve seen it before – when we brought some of your stuff to London just before Christmas?’

  ‘Yes, it was mine; fancy you remembering. I think it was getting very fragile, but Terry lost his in the fire.’

  ‘So you gave it to him and he destroyed it.’ Mark frowned. ‘It was a shame after you’d had it all those years.’

  ‘It didn’t matter. I expect he is just upset. It may have reminded him of things he doesn’t want to remember.’

  ‘Very shrewd,’ Mark agreed. ‘Yes, Terry is extremely disturbed and at the moment refusing to accept what has happened. He doesn’t want to remember anything. I’m not sure why – though of course the fire was terrible and they’ve lost their parents, but …’ He shook his head. ‘It’s all rather troubling. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be burdening you with my musings, Angela. It’s just that I wondered about the bear.’

  ‘I’m not upset, Mark. Perhaps he did it to see what I would do. Sort of testing me, so I thought it best not to mention it to him. Nancy apologised.’

  ‘Yes, well, I shall have to see how things go,’ Mark said, and then smiled at her. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, it’s about Nancy.’ Angela hesitated, she felt a sudden urge to make things right between them and it seemed silly to be avoiding him. Her father was right: Mark always did things for the best of reasons, even if she didn’t like the outcome. ‘Perhaps not now, Mark … I wondered if you would like to come to the apartment for a drink one evening? Not this evening because I’m going out with Sally to the pictures – but perhaps tomorrow, before you go down to the country?’

  ‘I can’t manage it this weekend unfortunately,’ he said. ‘Friday next week would be perfect. I was going to ask you for dinner one day soon but I never seem to have time these days.’

  ‘Yes, lovely. We’ll talk about it on Friday week – about eight?’

  ‘Just right,’ he said as they arrived at her office. ‘Well, I need to speak to Sister Beatrice about those two. Do you think you could find them a small room to themselves somewhere? Have a think about it and tell Sister if you can work out where we could put them together.’

  ‘Yes, all right, I will,’ Angela said. ‘I’ll look forward to Friday then …’

  She went into the office and closed the door. It was only as she sat down at the desk that she recalled the way Carole looked at her.

  NINE

  Carole glared as the door closed behind Angela and Mark Adderbury. She’d been getting on so well with the psychiatrist until Angela Morton turned up, breezing in on a cloud of fresh perfume – very expensive by the smell of it, her dress simple but well-cut and elegant, her shoes low-heeled patent leather. She looked confident and sure of herself – and of Mark Adderbury, smiling up at him in that guileless way of hers: the supercilious cat! Carole had decided she didn’t like the other woman, because she was too damned sure of herself and always looked as if she’d stepped out of a glossy magazine.

  Carole felt a frump in her regulation uniform. Mark had been on the point of asking her to dinner, she was sure of it, before Angela Morton wafted in. Then there were all the questions concerning those two peculiar children. Neither of them was truly ill in Carole’s opinion. Nancy was putting on her headaches to get her own way, and the boy was just sullen. What they both needed was a good shake. Sister should put her foot down and make them separate into their various dorms. If she were in charge she wouldn’t take any nonsense.

  Oh, well, it wasn’t part of her job to decide what happened to the children at St Saviour’s. All she was employed to do was to look after the sick ones.

  Carole popped next door to the sick ward. Her patients were being served hot drinks by Jean Painter.

  ‘I’ve got some girls with sore throats to visit, Jean,’ she said to the young carer. ‘You can stay until I get back, can’t you? I don’t like to leave my patients alone – and the boy next door may start screaming. If he does just leave him to his sister. She can cope.’

  ‘Oh – if you’re sure,’ Jean said, and looked a bit nervous. ‘I haven’t been on sick ward duty alone before. Sally asked me to bring these drinks, because she was busy. It’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ Carole said impatiently. The young carer was inexperienced and clearly unsure of herself, but she could manage for a while. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be long.’ She picked up a bag containing various bits and pieces she might need and took it with her. Nan had said it was the second room along the girl’s corridor. She was new here herself and it took time to find your way about, because the building was old-fashioned with unexpected staircases that led to different parts of the house. Completely unsuitable for its purpose in Carole’s opinion.

  She took the lift up to the next floor and counted the rooms, but the sound of coughing from one of them would have told her where the girls were. She entered and saw they were all huddled in their beds, looking sorry for themselves.

  ‘Have you had anything for your sore throats?’ she asked, and got nothing but moans and complaints about aching limbs and feeling hot.

  A brief examination of the girls told Carole that they had all gone down with a nasty bout of flu. Immediately, her training kicked in and she became the efficient and capable nurse she was when a patient was truly ill. These girls ought to be in the isolation ward so that she could keep an eye on them. It was so ridiculous that the brother and sister from the fire should be taking up m
uch-needed beds.

  ‘How are they?’ Nan’s voice asked from behind her, and Carole turned with a frown.

  ‘They’re suffering from flu as you suspected. I can’t keep running up and down stairs. I must speak to Sister Beatrice about getting Terry and Nancy moved into the dorms.’

  ‘Let me speak to her. I quite agree that these children should be in the isolation ward – either that or we need another nurse on duty …’

  ‘Yes. It may come to that if more of the children go down with it.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Sister Beatrice now, but I know we don’t have much room.’

  Nan went out and Carole checked the girl called Sarah’s temperature again. It was a little lower but she was still very flushed and moaned when Carole took her pulse, crying a little. She was certainly worse than the other two. Carole felt a little anxious about her, but she ought to go back and see how Jean was coping.

  She was returning to the ward when she saw Sally Rush coming towards her and stopped her. ‘It’s Sally, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Sally Rush. Can I help you with anything?’

  ‘Are you very busy this morning?’

  ‘No more than usual,’ Sally said. ‘I’m just about to take my lunch break – but that doesn’t matter if I can help?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Carole felt relieved. ‘I know you’ve been here longer than most of the carers and I’ve got rather a lot to do. Could you give me a hand this afternoon?’

  Sally hesitated. ‘I should be taking the little ones to the park, but Jean could swap duties with me.’

  Carole felt the relief flood over her. ‘Thank you. I should feel easier in my mind if I knew you were around. I am quite anxious about one of my girls. Sarah is very feverish.’

  ‘Sarah Morgan?’ Sally looked concerned. ‘Yes, with good reason. She has a history of respiratory trouble. When she came to us she was recovering from pneumonia in the children’s hospital and she was in the sick ward for months before she was able to join her friends in the dorm and at school.’

  ‘Nan never said a word about her needing special care. I ought to have been told,’ Carole snapped.

  ‘Nan probably thought you knew,’ Sally said. ‘Sorry, you haven’t been here long. You couldn’t know about Sarah’s weak chest but of course it was a long time ago.’

  ‘At least I know now. Thank you, Sally. This makes it even more important that Terry and Nancy should be moved.’

  ‘Are you too busy?’ Nan asked, poking her head round the door of Sister’s office. ‘It is quite important.’

  ‘Come in, Nan. Mark has been telling me that Nancy and Terry must not be parted, but we need the isolation ward free. I can’t let them stay there indefinitely − but I don’t have anywhere they can be put together …’

  ‘Have you asked Angela?’ Mark said, and received a glare for his pains.

  ‘She brought me an up-to-date list of available beds this morning. It’s impossible – until the new wing comes on stream.’

  ‘This is why I came to see you. The children can have my sitting room,’ Nan said. ‘It’s big enough for two single beds and I can use the staff room when I need a rest. It would be a temporary thing, until they can be split up – besides, we’ll have the new wing in a few weeks.’

  ‘Nan! You need a room where you can be private sometimes,’ Beatrice said, but the relief was in her eyes. ‘I suppose it would be useful for the time being … It means inconvenience for you, though.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. Excuse me now; I am supposed to be taking the younger children out. We’re going to Itchy Park, as it used to be called – Christ Church Gardens, as you probably know it.’

  ‘I won’t ask why it was called Itchy Park, I can probably guess – because of all the down and outs that congregated there?’ Mark followed her from the room. ‘You get on,’ he said, and watched her walk off down the hall.

  Mark’s thoughts turned from St Saviour’s problems as he remembered the look in the attractive young nurse’s eyes. Staff Nurse Carole had been giving him sweet smiles and discreet hints ever since they met. She was very young, of course, but there was something about her that he was drawn to. He liked her and if it wasn’t for Angela …

  Not that he knew where he stood with the woman who had become so important to him. Angela had grown since she came to St Saviour’s. If he’d helped her achieve peace of mind and a new confidence he was glad – but he still had no idea whether she thought of him as any more than a friend. At times he’d thought he was making headway but then, after Christmas, when she’d discovered her mother’s illness, she’d seemed to withdraw – even to blame him; though how he could have told her what was going on when both her parents had asked him not to, he had no idea.

  Angela had embraced this new life with enthusiasm and it had given her the purpose she needed to live and be happy. He thought she was happy, though he could never be quite sure what lay behind the quiet eyes – as blue-green as a mountain pool. She was a deep character and he found her captivating, but Angela never gave him reason to think that she felt more than friendship.

  What was it he wanted from his own life, he wondered. Was he content to continue as he had for years, living as a bachelor without a wife or family? He wasn’t too old to start a family, surely? For years he’d felt that he didn’t deserve a second chance, because after he and his wife, Edine, had lost their son, they had drifted apart and she’d died a pointless, lonely death.

  Yet of late Mark had begun to think of a time when his working life was over. Did he really want to dwindle into some crusty old man living alone, too old for a social life and no family to care what happened to him? Mark laughed at himself for brooding. He would advise his patients not to dwell on negative things …

  If he was to marry again, he would need to be sure it was to the right woman; that they had the rest of their lives together to look forward to. Was there anything wrong with asking a pretty girl out, even if she was too young? If he did, it might even make Angela notice him as a man rather than a friend.

  He found he had a spring in his step as he went down the stairs and out of the home into the cool air. He loved this old city, with so much history in its ancient buildings – a good brisk walk as far as the London Hospital would clear his mind – and he ought to be thinking about his patients’ problems, not his own love life, or lack of it.

  TEN

  Alice came in from the yard, shivering from the bitter chill and still wiping the remains of vomit from her lips. Her soft fair was lank because it needed washing and her pretty face was pasty. Always a little plumper than she’d have liked, she’d been putting on weight recently and her clothes had begun to feel tight around the waist. She’d already been sick twice that morning; once into the chamber pot in the chair commode both she and Mavis used in their bedroom, managing to empty that into the outside toilet without letting her mother see, but then she’d felt ill when she saw her brother eating bread and dripping and she’d had to make a dash for the yard to be sick again.

  ‘And what have you been up to, miss?’ Alice’s mother greeted her with a scowl. ‘What did you go dashing off like that for?’

  ‘I felt sick,’ Alice admitted, because she couldn’t get out of it. ‘I think there’s a bug going round at work. I must have got a touch of it.’

  ‘Yeah, several girls at the factory are off sick too,’ Mavis said, swiftly coming to Alice’s aid. ‘I felt a bit sick myself this morning …’

  ‘Well, I hope you don’t give it to me,’ their mother said unsympathetically. ‘I’ve got meself a little job scrubbing floors at the offices down the Docks. I can’t rely on your father bringing in money so I’m off to earn a wage meself. It means yer’ll ’ave to see to yerselves and yer brothers for breakfast from now on.’

  Alice and Mavis looked at each other in relief as she left the kitchen. ‘I’ll do the washing up,’ Mavis offered. ‘You have to get to work before me, Alice – if you’re home early you can tidy up or get the veg
etables done.’

  ‘Thanks, Mave,’ Alice said. ‘Are you goin’ out this evening with your fella?’

  ‘Might be,’ Mavis said and grinned at her. She turned on Saul as he grabbed another slice of toast and spread the rich fatty dripping on it. ‘Oi, take it easy with that, you greedy monkey, or you’ll be sick too.’

  ‘I’ll blame it on Alice if I am,’ he quipped. ‘If I was sick I wouldn’t have to go to school. I could go down the Docks wiv me mates and find meself a job.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ Alice said sharply. ‘You have to work hard at school so that you can get a good job when you leave. Do you want to stand in line like Dad all the time and hope for a few hours’ work?’

  ‘That’s his fault,’ Saul said. ‘If he weren’t drunk and late all the time he’d get more work. They won’t take him because he’s unreliable.’

  Alice didn’t answer as she took her coat from behind the door and went out into the street. Her young brother was right, of course, but her father drank because it was the only way he could bear his life – and that was Alice’s mother’s fault. Her tongue was like a razor and she never gave her poor husband a minute’s peace, even when he wasn’t drunk.

  Pulling her coat collar up around her neck to keep out the icy wind, Alice walked quickly. It had been a close thing this morning. If Mavis hadn’t intervened about girls at the factory going sick, their mother might have suspected that Alice was pregnant. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her mother at bay, and she was terrified of the row that would erupt once her secret was out. Her mother would raise hell and then she’d throw Alice into the street. She didn’t know what she would do if that happened and she was close to despair. Oh, why had she ever let Jack get her into this mess?

  So far she didn’t show very much so she should be able to keep her job for a while but what was she going to do when it became obvious? Her mind felt numb with fear and she couldn’t think past the day when her mother found out.