The Children of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Right, set to, nurses. It is 10 a.m.; we should be finished with the cleaning for twelve, in time for backs and beds. The probationers have been told to clean down the walls in the dirty sluice room when they’ve finished scrubbing the pans.’

  As Sister walked away, there was the faintest of groans as the assembled nurses divided themselves into groups.

  ‘I’ll do anything,’ said Beth. ‘I don’t mind lockers or beds, but I just need to sort out this lovely sample here first.’

  Victoria Baker was on the same ward and working the same shift. In a loud voice so that the others could hear, she said, ‘We can clean beds and lockers together, Nurse Harper. I will fetch the trolley while you sort out that specimen.’

  In the dirty utility room, Beth examined the small-necked tube Sister had handed to her. Big clumsy pot. Small-necked glass tube. This was not going to be easy, she thought. However, not for nothing was she known as the most studious of the Lovely Lane nurses. No one doubted that she would one day be a matron, or a ward sister at the very least.

  She was still pondering how to transfer her specimen when Victoria opened the door. ‘Come on, you. You’re taking ages, what’s up?’

  Beth explained.

  ‘Just tip it in,’ said Victoria.

  Beth held up both the sputum pot and the test-tube for Victoria to examine. ‘The neck’s too small, and I don’t want to contaminate the specimen any further.’

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it...’ said Victoria as she pressed the foot brake on the trolley and left it outside the door. Squeezing inside, she leant over the long sink and they both stared at the pot and the test-tube. ‘Everyone in the whole world thinks nursing is a glamorous and lovely job. No one really knows what we have to do, do they? If my Aunt Minnie knew that I spend half my day wiping the bottoms of grown men, or if she’d seem the manual evacuation of rectum I had to perform yesterday on Mr Whiteside, she’d be dragging me out of this ward as fast as you could say sputum sample.’

  ‘Don’t tell her then,’ said Beth. ‘Let her think you just keep an eye on drips, take temperatures and wipe the brows of the good-looking doctors, if that makes her happy.’

  ‘Happy? The only thing that will make Aunt Minnie happy is if I tell her I’m not going to see Roland again. What she wants is for me to accompany her to all those functions in London that she thinks will yield someone more suitable.’

  Roland was Victoria’s boyfriend and he had already asked her to marry him. She’d had no hesitation in saying yes and they were due to be married just as soon as she completed her finals. He was the brother of Dr Teddy Davenport, who worked with them at St Angelus and was the object of Dana’s adoration.

  ‘If I leave St Angelus, that will be my life gone. Controlled by Aunt Minnie. Since Father died, she’s been pretending to love Roland, but really she is desperate to get me hitched to one of her friend’s sons. She doesn’t care which one, just as long as he has a frightfully posh name and a flat in Mayfair so that I have no excuse to not spend half of my life with her, in London. Give me ten impacted Mr Whitesides any day.’

  Beth winced at the thought. ‘Lordy, it must be bad.’

  ‘Fighting to keep Roland in my life and refusing to live in London are my sole preoccupations.’

  ‘You aren’t going to let your aunt have her way and leave your Roland, are you?’ asked Beth. ‘I think he’s lovely, the bee’s knees. He’s such a perfect gentleman, and he’s so kind too. You don’t often notice that in a man. You make such a perfect couple.’

  ‘No, of course not. But he does keep pushing for us to be married sooner. He doesn’t want to wait for more than another two years and if I marry, I’ll have to give up nursing and I don’t want to do that. I love my job. I’m as hardy as a pair of old boots now. I can manage anything! Remember how I used to heave and retch like a baby when I first started.’

  ‘Sister Haycock is really working on that marriage thing, you know,’ said Beth. She had taken the rubber stopper off the test-tube and laid it down on the wooden surface. ‘But I’ve heard that all the ward sisters are up in arms against it. They don’t want married nurses on the wards. Sister Antrobus said she would hang up her cap and leave St Angelus if they changed the rules.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because they don’t like to be faced with women who might have had a better time between the sheets the previous evening than any of them have had for the past twenty years, or their entire life even. It’s the reason why some of them don’t like gynae or maternity. A baby is a product of, you know, doing “it”. A swollen belly is a reminder of what they’ve missed and some them have become more like nuns than nurses. Especially Sister Antrobus.’

  ‘Spinster sisters – they are their own best argument for allowing nurses to work when they’re married,’ said Beth, who was the only one of their close-knit group who didn’t have a boyfriend. Small, bespectacled and slightly intense, married to her vocation, she was the one most likely to end up living in the accommodation block above the main entrance of St Angelus and becoming one of the spinster sisters they were discussing.

  ‘Have you met the new probationer yet? Nurse Moran?’ she asked.

  ‘Only briefly. I’ve just seen her pushing a commode down the ward. It looked as though it weighed more than she did. She was huffing and puffing and so I walked up to her and asked if she’d taken the brake off. And she said, “The brake? No, what brake?” Honestly!’

  Both Beth and Victoria began to giggle.

  ‘So I kicked off the brake and she pushed so hard, if Staff Nurse hadn’t been heading in the other direction and put her hands out to stop it, she would have gone flying.’

  ‘Were we that green and gullible when we started?’ asked Beth.

  ‘It seems like so long ago, I can’t remember. Not you, Beth, you were always Nurse Clever Clogs.’

  Beth turned back to the sample. ‘Right, you will not defeat me.’ She was talking to the pot. She wrinkled her nose to push her glasses further up her nose. It was a technique she had developed to prevent her from having to touch her face during sterile procedures.

  ‘Go on, just slip it in,’ said Victoria. ‘Have a go.’

  Beth looked up at Victoria. She was secretly impressed with her. She was someone Beth had had down as being almost too posh to nurse. A refined young lady of breeding. That was obvious as soon as she opened her mouth. But she’d taken to nursing like a duck to water.

  ‘Do you know, Victoria,’ she said, ‘if anyone at the beginning had asked me, I would have said that you wouldn’t have lasted six months as a nurse. I think it’s wonderful that you are the one complaining about having to give up nursing if you marry because you want to carry on and sit your finals.’

  Victoria was still studying the pot. ‘Could you have imagined me doing this, Nurse Harper? I mean, even emptying a bedpan threw me when we first got here. I couldn’t do it and never, not for weeks, could I get the top sheet to measure exactly without using the eighteen-inch rule. I used to throw up when patients were sick. Do you remember when I grabbed the kidney dish from the patient who was heaving so badly, she made me ill. I was sick in it before she had a chance, and then she threw up, all over my apron. God, that was a bad day. Sister Antrobus almost roasted me and complained about me to Matron. I thought I was done for. But nothing fazes me now. I’m even looking forward to my spell in the operating theatre.’

  ‘Ah, eureka!’ said Beth as she took down a clean pot from the shelf above their heads. ‘I’ve just got it. I know how to do this.’ Juggling her pots around, she obtained the specimen she needed, picked up the test-tube and, grinning, held it in front of Victoria’s face.

  Victoria emitted a retching noise.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, of course I am,’ snapped Victoria. ‘Just got a bit of wind, that’s all.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Beth as she began to write Mr Trimble’s name on the test-tube label. ‘I am going to have this signed off on my assessment sheet thi
s week with Sister Ryan at the school. I’ll ask Sister Crawford if I can do a few more. Shall we see if we can take them together? You could do a few too? That would be it then, collection of specimens ticked off on our assessment sheets.’

  Victoria didn’t have time to answer as in one heave she discharged the entire contents of her breakfast into the sink.

  Beth left the dirty utility room with her test-tube held proudly out in front of her, en route to the pathology department, leaving Victoria holding on to the side of the cold stone sink. ‘Tough as old boots indeed!’ She chuckled as she walked away.

  Just before she left the ward, she turned back and saw the second coffee group assembling. Behind them, she saw that the curtains around bed sixteen were still drawn and were billowing outwards. There was no sign of Nurse Moran, who was due on second coffee.

  What on earth is going on in there, thought Beth. Slipping the test-tube into her top pocket, she walked back down the ward.

  When she drew back the curtain, she could barely believe her eyes. For several seconds she was unable to speak.

  The young probationer was standing on top of the patient’s bed, precariously swaying from side to side and clinging with one hand on to the curtain, stomping her feet up and down as she tried to regain her balance. Beth’s mouth opened, and then closed again.

  The pale green counterpane and the pristine white sheet were covered in dirty footprints from the crêpe soles of Nurse Moran’s regulation black shoes.

  The patient was kneeling on the pillow in hospital pyjamas; the bottoms were halfway down, around his knees, and he was clinging to them. He looked terrified. Possibly no one had ever been as delighted to see Beth as he was just at that moment.

  Nurse Moran let go of the curtain for just a second and grabbed the large wooden commode chair by the handle. It was also precariously balanced on top of the bed, swaying unsteadily in front of her. She gripped the chair with one hand as she let out a little squeal and held the other out to the patient. As she leant towards him, both she and the commode listed to the side and she had to grab on to the bedside curtain once more to steady herself.

  She was breathing hard and furiously. Letting out short gasps from the exertion, she held the curtain tight and yanked both herself and the chair back into an upright position. ‘Come here, take me hand,’ she gasped to the patient. ‘I’ll hold the commode while ye sit on the seat, ye won’t fall off.’ She looked over at Beth. ‘He won’t do what I’m asking him, Nurse Harper. Can ye help? He won’t listen to a word I’m saying. He’s being mighty uncooperative.’ And then, in a smaller, fainter, almost pleading voice, ‘I’m scared we might fall off,’ she said as her eyes filled with tears.

  Beth was also about to get tearful, but hers would have been tears of laughter. However, her first consideration was the patient and she held herself together, even if her mouth kept opening and closing like a goldfish’s.

  ‘Please, Nurse,’ the patient said pleadingly, ‘she wants me to sit on that thing on top of the bed and she can’t even hold it straight herself. I’m scared to death I’ll end up on the floor and I’m desperate to go.’

  Beth placed her hand on his arm to calm him. ‘You stay there. Don’t move an inch. You cannot possibly sit on a commode perched on top of a bed for a bowel movement.’

  The patient looked as though he could have kissed her. ‘I could never have managed it,’ he said. ‘I need a bit of peace and quiet and a copy of the Echo before I can go, Nurse. I’d be terrified of landing on the floor. That little thing can’t hold the weight of that big chair and me, on top of a wobbly mattress.’

  Nurse Moran, her legs apart to better balance herself, was now holding on to the commode handle with two hands, and the wild swaying had subsided into a gentle rocking. ‘Come on now, up, would you?’ she said irritably to the patient.

  ‘What are you doing?’ hissed Beth.

  Nurse Moran looked startled. ‘What am I doing?’ she said, confused. ‘You told me that the patient was on bed rest and to give him the commode, you did. That was what you said, wasn’t it? You did, I heard you. “He’s on bed rest, but he can have a commode.”’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘God, it was an awful job dragging it on top of the bed. Have ye felt the weight of it? I near killed meself. ’Tis awful unstable now I have it up here.’

  Beth didn’t know what to say. Surely the probationer couldn’t be that stupid?

  ‘Please don’t look at me like that,’ said Nurse Moran, ‘as if you’re mad with me.’

  Beth was certain she was about to burst into tears at the very least. Or hang herself from the bedside curtain, she looked so desperate.

  ‘You said I was to put me arm under his shoulder to help him, but sure, if I do that, the commode will fall on the floor and it would go with a hell of a clatter and I might even break it and hurt someone. ’Tis awful dangerous up here.’

  Beth put her hand to her mouth. She was finding it hard to control her laughter. But she knew she had to resolve the situation fast, before Staff Nurse became aware that she was two short on the second coffee. Or, worse, if Sister came looking for them.

  ‘Look, we need to get you and the commode down from the bed without you falling on top of the patient,’ she said.

  The patient was now clinging on to the metal headrest and looked as though he was about to climb the walls. His face was full of fear and his rear end was exposed. ‘Don’t let her near me, Nurse,’ he whispered to Beth. ‘She’s mad, she is. Mad.’

  Beth lowered her voice to speak to Nurse Moran, who was once again wobbling from side to side. The black footprints across the newly made bed were getting worse by the second. ‘Please God, let Sister Crawford be on the end of a very long phone call,’ she said. ‘Nurse Moran, when I said to fetch the commode because he was on bed rest, I didn’t mean to put the commode on to the bed.’ She was exasperated now. ‘I meant to put it by the side of the bed, so that he could just swing his legs over and slip across to it by holding on to the arm rest. You were to put your hand under his shoulder to help him. He would only have needed to put one foot on the floor for a second.’

  Beth watched as realization swept over the face of Nurse Moran. The tears quickly followed. ‘Oh God, I’m such an eejit.’

  ‘Here, I’ll take the wheels.’ Beth reached over and grabbed the two front wheels. The commode steadied and ceased swaying. Pulling the wheels to the edge of the bed, she held on. ‘You climb down now. I have it and we can both lift it off together.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Nurse Moran. ‘I can’t move. I’m scared.’

  Beth could see it was difficult and, having realized her mistake, Nurse Moran was now as scared as the patient.

  ‘OK, slip down on to the bed, slowly. Sit on the bed and then swing your legs over the side.’ She turned to the anxious-looking patient, who was probably now desperate for a bedpan. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right, Nurse. You see to the young nurse there. She looks as scared as I feel. I think she must have mistaken me for King Tut.’ He began to giggle.

  Beth, picturing him on top of a commode on top of a wobbly mattress being held upright by a slip of a probationer nurse holding on to the handles, also began to giggle. The patient reached out and grabbed her arm and they were both on the verge of being helpless with laughter. Only Nurse Moran, who was by now kneeling on the bed with a tear-stained face, looked serious.

  Beth was disintegrating. The tears were pouring from her eyes. ‘Get down, please,’ she gasped between seizures. Tears were also pouring down the patient’s cheeks as he grabbed the sheet to cover his dignity and held on to his belly while he laughed. His eyes met Beth’s and they were both lost. Totally helpless with laughter.

  The probationer slipped on to the floor and grabbed hold of the back wheels, but Beth could not move for laughing. ‘Oh God, help me, please!’ she gasped as her knees collapsed into the side of the bed frame, supporting her weight and that of the com
mode. The patient, who was in as bad a state as she was, held out his arm to steady her. She leant forward, her abdomen and her cheeks hurting from laughing, and was about to lift the wheels of the commode when the curtains flew open to reveal Sister Crawford standing there, furious.

  ‘What is all this commotion about?’

  As Sister took in the chaos in front of her, the ward fell silent. All chatter ceased as everyone listened with bated breath.

  Sister found her voice following a moment’s hesitation and, almost for the first time in many years, shouted on her own ward. ‘Nurse Harper, what on earth is going on here?’

  The curtains were open and every pair of eyes in the ward, patients’ and nurses’ alike, were fixed on bed sixteen. Beth heard the sharp intake of breath. The commode wobbled, the probationer screamed, the patient roared with laughter and the commode tilted dangerously backwards. Beth turned her back on Sister Crawford and almost threw herself across the bed to catch it. As she did so, she heard the test-tube in her pocket snap.

  10

  At Christmas, the plant closed for a week. Not that this was the choice of the McConaghys. They would have opened on Christmas Day, given half the chance. But Christmas was as special for the Irish diaspora on Liverpool’s dockside as it was anywhere else in the country. Few ships came into the docks and there were even fewer men sober enough to unload them. So, in spite of themselves, the McConaghys allowed their furnaces to cool, the spinning machines to stop and the coils of hot metal to settle as they locked the plant floor for the first time since Michaelmas.

  This year, Mrs McConaghy decided to close the office after lunch on Christmas Eve. She had her sister and brother-in-law and her niece, Amy, coming over for Christmas lunch and she wanted to get off early herself. Regardless of how much she trusted Lily, she would never leave anyone alone in full charge of the office, the cast-iron safe and the large bankers’ drafts it contained.

  ‘Amy is turning into a very beautiful young woman,’ she said to Lily. ‘Someone will snap her up in a flash.’