The Children of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Don’t blame me, Dessie. Mrs Duffy told me I had to take him away from the nurses’ home this morning and it wasn’t even me what took him there.’

  ‘Why has she given him to you then?’ asked Dessie as he removed his cap and scratched his head.

  ‘She said she hasn’t been getting along with the dog. Keeps nicking the food. She said I was to ask you if he could live in the porter’s lodge. Said he’s driving her mad down at Lovely Lane. Keeps leaving his hair all over the place and she doesn’t want him there no more.’

  ‘God in heaven, the lodge is not an animal sanctuary, Jake, ’tis a hospital we are running here. And besides, he will scare the cats away, and if that happens, we will be overrun with the river rats.’

  As Dessie scratched his head, Victoria and Dana were crossing the porter’s yard on the way to their wards.

  ‘Scamp!’ shouted Victoria.

  Scamp recognized her voice and pulled and pulled at Jake until he dragged him over towards her.

  Dana shrieked. ‘Don’t let him jump up on the aprons or we’ll be shot.’

  Jake pulled Scamp down. ‘Sit, boy, sit. Do you think you could take him back with you tonight, Nurse Brogan?’ he said. ‘Dessie is not happy. You know how he looks after the cats and they do a useful job around here, they keep the river rats away and the mice too, and there’s plenty of them around the bins. Mrs Duffy said I had to take him. I think she found him on your bed and was none too happy, Nurse Baker.’

  ‘Did she now?’ said Victoria. ‘Oops.’

  Dessie had given the lads their jobs and, having dismissed them, walked over to join Jake.

  ‘Look, Dessie, we all know, do we not, that with Mrs Duffy there’s a way to work her,’ said Victoria.

  ‘Aye, and if anyone can, it’s Victoria here,’ said Dana as she grinned at Victoria.

  ‘Right, well then, nurses, if you can collect him and walk him back down tonight, that will be just great. Would you do that now?’

  ‘Of course we will, Dessie. You keep him safe in the lodge and we will collect him and have another word with Mrs Duffy. I have all day to think of a plan and a very good excuse.’ Victoria was stroking a spot just between Scamp’s eyes that made the scruffy grey dog slowly collapse on to his side on the ground. They all began to laugh.

  ‘Sure, I thought she had quite taken to him,’ said Dana, whom Scamp had won over from the moment he arrived, despite her protestations.

  In the distance, marching across the yard towards the red-brick arch, Dessie saw Miss Van Gilder. She was steaming towards them in a manner he would have praised in one of his soldiers. ‘Disperse, quick, all of you – Jake, nurses, and the dog!’ he said as he walked towards the archway to head her off.

  Dessie had yet to see the assistant matron smile. This cold morning, she was about to disappoint him as she scrutinized each entry on the worksheets.

  ‘There is talk of piped oxygen being brought to each individual hospital bed. It was a standard requirement in my last hospital.’ She turned to Dessie, pushed her spectacles up her nose with her index finger and waited for him to respond with a suitably awed expression. There was none and so she continued. ‘I am proposing in my report for Matron and the board that it should be done here too. Once a contractor has been appointed to lay the piping, we can dispense with at least half of your scruffy little lads running around the wards delivering oxygen bottles.’

  Dessie’s heart sank. The lads from the Dock Road weren’t the brightest. The clever boys passed the eleven-plus and went on up to Waterloo Grammar, where they gained the best education in the land and left with certificates, cauliflower ears and fluency in Latin.

  ‘I shall look forward to that, Assistant Matron,’ he lied and, out of habit, raised his cap and saluted, as, her own inspection over, she marched away.

  *

  ‘What’s up, Dessie, has Miss Bone Grinder been ’aving a go again?’ Jake bounded into the hut and found Dessie poring over the worksheets.

  ‘Yes, she has indeed, Jake. Is it that obvious?’

  Dessie was genuinely surprised. For ten years, he had taken orders from regimental sergeant-majors. He had faced down Jerry snipers that were so close, he could see the whites of their eyes. He was immune to the sound of gunfire and exploding shells and had lost count of the number of men who had died in his arms. Nothing had ever scared Dessie and when death hovered close by, he had let his fingers run over the gold crucifix he wore under his shirt along with his identity tag and sent death on its way. He had tried the same tactic with the new assistant matron. It had failed.

  ‘She tells me she wants to bring piped oxygen to the beds in the wards and that the lads will have to go.’

  ‘Jesus wept, really?’ The cheery smile fell from Jake’s face. He lit the gas ring in the lodge and filled the kettle. Jake’s most important role of the day was the making of the mid-morning drinks. He proceeded to line up the twenty-four pint-sized, enamel mugs, freshly scrubbed by the night-porter lads. Chipped and brown, the mugs were washed only once a day, a two-in-the-morning job.

  ‘Is there anything we can do about that?’ Jake banged the kettle down on the gas ring and flopped on to the wooden chair on the opposite side of Dessie’s wooden desk. He removed his tobacco tin from the inside of his jacket. It felt as though he’d already done a day’s work. ‘Shall I roll you one?’ he asked. ‘You look like you need it.’

  Dessie nodded as, with an expression of great solemnity, he set his spectacles back on his nose and studied the ward repair chart.

  The porter’s lodge was nothing more than a glorified pre-fab hut. It contained a desk, half a dozen or so rickety wooden chairs, cast-offs from various waiting rooms, a coal burner with a steel chimney piped straight out through the roof, which pumped out heat all day long, and a sink with a scrubbed wooden draining board next to a large gas ring. At the back of the hut stood an outside privy, which housed two toilets with polished wooden-plank seats across them. Porter’s lads could often be heard shouting, ‘Coming for a crap and a smoke,’ to each other as they ran back from their various jobs to the yard for the morning break. The lads came from homes with large numbers of children where toileting was a communal affair.

  The walls of the hut were stippled with old nails from which were tied loops of string and clipboards. Above each nail Dessie had written the relevant task on the wall. Worksheets, Oxygen Deliveries, Laundry Out and Laundry In. There were sections for outer building repairs, call logs from the wards, plumbing repairs, leaks and squeaks, furnaces to be stoked and fired, patients to be moved, theatre light bulbs to be changed, and dressing drums to be collected and delivered to the furnace for sterilizing. The running of St Angelus hospital was coordinated like a World War Two field operation and it was all masterminded from Dessie’s field hut.

  Some of the boys had to take their breaks outdoors as there was not enough room for everyone to fit into the hut at the same time. When the weather was especially bad, some would take their pint-pot mugs down to the stoke hole, to warm their bones and dry out. The warmth induced increased merriment and high jinks and always resulted in either Jake or Dessie having to chase the lads down and chivvy them back to work, out into the freezing cold.

  As the kettle in the lodge began to whistle, Jake took down a large pub ashtray from the shelf running above his head. ‘Reckon if we are all having a cuppa, this fella can have one as well?’ He looked down at Scamp, who had made himself a home under Dessie’s desk.

  Scamp’s head came out from under the desk and his ears pricked up as he looked towards Jake. He instinctively knew when he was being talked about.

  ‘I’m going to phone the station in a minute,’ said Dessie, ‘to see if anyone has called in to report him missing.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ said Jake. ‘The streets are overrun with stray dogs.’

  ‘Well, you never know, he may be someone’s pet. I would hate to think that some old man or lady, or a nipper, even, is pining after their lost dog. N
ot all families are as poor as those down on the Dock Road, you know, Jake. Many live a different life altogether.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, Dessie.’

  Jake was now filling the large metal teapot with scalding water. He gave the tea leaves a big stir with a metal screwdriver, then poured in a bottle of sterilized milk. Satisfied it had all mixed in, he tipped what he assumed to be the correct amount of sugar from the canister into the pot. Then he covered the huge teapot with a ribbed knitted cosy his mother had made, set the gas light on low and placed the pot back on to simmer. ‘That teapot is bigger than your head, Jake,’ his mother had complained as she darned the sides together with wool.

  ‘What are we going to do about Miss Bone Grinder then, Dessie?’ asked Jake. ‘We can’t have her putting the lads out of work, can we? She’s all over the bloody place, pushing her nose into everything. Every time I turn around she’s there, asking questions.’Dessie removed his cap, rubbed his scalp, frowned, and replaced it. ‘Well, it seems to me we are stuffed, Jake. Things are changing. You can tell that yourself, can’t you?’ He sounded uncharacteristically bad-tempered.

  ‘Yes, but not here, Dessie. These are our jobs, nothing can change how it is here at St Angelus.’

  ‘I wish that were the case, Jake, but you can’t stop progress. Look at your lovely house and how you’re doing it up. All the new-fangled gadgets you’ve bought for your Martha. You know, soon there won’t be any work for women to do at home, with all these gadgets. The next thing you know, they will be wanting our jobs.’

  Jake laughed out loud. ‘Never, Dessie. Women are smarter than we think. Why would they want to come here and be dictated to by the likes of Miss Bone Grinder when they can let their men go out to work while they stay at home and put their feet up?’

  Dessie smiled. ‘I wouldn’t let a young mother hear you say that, Jake. If you spent a week at home with a gang of kids, you might change your tune. Anyway, what we have to do is find a way to keep the lads on and I know two women with better brains than you or I who might be able to help with that. Time for me to have a meeting with Biddy and your mother-outlaw, Elsie.’

  Jake felt a sense of relief at Dessie’s suggestion. He was only too aware exactly how formidable Elsie and Biddy were. He began pouring the already milked and sugared tea from the huge metal pot into the mugs – the lads complained if it boiled when the milk was already in – and finished with the clean, oversized, Bakelite ashtray.

  ‘Here you go, Scamp lad,’ he said as he placed the ashtray full of tea on the floor.

  Scamp’s tail wagged as he drank. Dessie watched him and for the first time that morning, his expression softened.

  ‘Ah, I can see that look in your eye. You’re going soft on the dog, aren’t you, Dessie?’

  ‘No I am not,’ said Dessie indignantly. ‘I have more important things to think about today.’Jake transferred the twenty-four mugs on to a wooden tray and carried them over to Dessie’s table. He could already hear running feet pounding across the yard. Jobs done, the lads were always ready for their tea. ‘They must smell it brewing,’ Jake said. He looked towards the open door and was surprised to see young Tom, one of the lads, standing there with a large metal tray covered with a cloth. ‘Quick, get the hell in,’ he rasped as he grabbed Tom by the shoulder and dragged him inside. Stepping back towards the door, he scanned the yard to check for Miss Van Gilder.

  ‘Is that from cook, Tom?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Tom. ‘She gave it to me when I delivered the veg trolley from the vans. That’s my rota today, you told me.’ Tom’s eyes widened, worried that he might be in trouble.

  ‘Yes, Tom, I know. Don’t worry. What has cook sent and did she give you a message, Tom?’

  ‘She did, Dessie. She said...’ Tom took a deep breath. He appeared to concentrate for a long time and then he said in a very clear voice, articulating the words carefully, ‘The manhole is open.’

  Jake had lifted the cloth from the tray to take a look. ‘Oh, this is the gear,’ he said to Dessie as he licked his lips. ‘Fried eggs on toast.’

  Dessie was up from behind the desk and took the tray from Tom as he spoke to him. ‘When you’ve had your tea and your slice of egg and toast, Tom, go back to the kitchens to collect the baskets and say this to cook, “Jake will deliver.” Have you got that, Tom?’

  Tom repeated the words slowly, but it was hard for him to concentrate as his mouth was watering at the smell from the tray.

  Dessie looked at him and was filled with pity. ‘Go on, lad, take the biggest slice before the others get here.’

  Tom’s face lit up and he beamed as he lifted a slice of the toast and fried egg, treating it as though it were a newborn baby, terrified of dropping a crumb.

  ‘There you go, Tom, you are the first today, mate,’ said Jake. ‘Take a chair and here’s your tea. Now, what was that message Dessie gave you for cook?’

  Dessie and Jake watched in amazement as Tom began to drink his tea. He blew and blew at the scalding liquid and then began to drink. Dessie and Jake were lost to him; he had only one thing on his mind. Once he began to drink, it was almost as if he could not stop. He gulped and blew and gulped and blew and gulped until he was breathless and the pint pot was empty. With a gasp, he set the pot down with a thump on the ledge. His eyes looked almost as if were in a trance as he regained his composure.

  ‘Tom, when did you last have a hot drink, lad?’ asked Dessie, trying to keep the concern from his voice.

  ‘It was here, yesterday, Dessie, sir,’ answered Tom.

  Dessie and Jake exchanged a glance. This was not a rare occurrence, but they had a solution. Dessie would call on the boy’s mam and tell her that Tom needed to be fed properly or he would lose his job and there would be no money at all. Dessie needed to make such a call about once a month. Money was often diverted by parents from his lads’ stomachs to the pub counter.

  ‘What’s the message for cook, Tom?’ repeated Jake.

  Tom had eaten the first chunk of bread and answered in a perkier voice. ‘That Jake will deliver.’

  ‘That’s it, lad.’ Jake patted him on the back.

  ‘Amazing the difference a milky tea with sugar in makes to the lad and his memory,’ he said.

  Dessie nodded in agreement. ‘Aye, it is. Here’s the key for the coal yard.’ He took a long key tied with a piece of string down from one of the hooks. ‘Fill a sack up for cook and drop it into her cellar later. That’s a fair exchange, if you ask me. A breakfast for all the lads for a bag of coal.’

  All the houses along the Dock Road had a manhole cover next to the front door that opened on to a coal cellar, reached by a wooden door inside and a flight of steps down. Even if they were old, pregnant or sick, women spent their days going up and down the steps with a bucket, or just a shovel, once a bucket became too heavy to carry.

  ‘You sort out the lads’ break, Jake. I’m popping over to the school of nursing to speak to Biddy and arrange a pow-wow. Assistant Matron doesn’t know it yet, but when our lads’ jobs are threatened, we mobilize the St Angelus underground. Miss Bone Grinder has met her match.’

  ‘What about your egg on toast?’ asked Jake. ‘Are you not going to eat it before ye go?’

  Dessie turned back from the door and looked down at Scamp. Scamp sat upright. He looked at Dessie and licked his lips. ‘Give mine to the dog,’ he said, as he put on his cap and strode across the yard.

  17

  ‘We are totally mad, you do know that, don’t you?’ said Dana to Victoria as they walked towards the wards. ‘Anyone else would think we’d lost our marbles, trying to keep a scraggy old dog at the nurses’ home.’

  They both stopped in their tracks to let Tom cross in front of them as he carried the hot tray.

  ‘Gosh, he’s in a hurry,’ Victoria said. ‘I know they would, but I had a dog my whole life and he slept on my bed until he died when he was fourteen. I think about him all the time. I would love Mrs Duffy to let us keep Scamp. It’s what�
��s missing at Lovely Lane, don’t you think? A nice obedient dog, waiting for us all to come home after a hard day in the wards. What could be better?’

  Dana shook her head in disbelief. ‘Obedient? Which dog did you have in mind, Victoria? Not that mangy thing over there, the dog Mrs Duffy had to chase off the dining table, the dog who ran off with the joint of ham in his mouth yesterday, would that be him?’ She gave Victoria a wry smile. ‘No wonder he’s been sent up here. Now, though, we must have a hand wash before we step onto the wards or anywhere near a patient.’

  ‘Cooee!’ Pammy’s voice rang out and both girls turned their heads and watched as she waved frantically towards them then disappeared in to the cloakroom just outside casualty.

  ‘It’s her first day on casualty today and guess who’s working on there with her?’ said Victoria as they waved back.

  ‘Who?’ asked Dana, intrigued by Victoria’s tone.

  ‘Your Dr Teddy, who do you think?’

  Dana blushed. She had been dating Dr Davenport for a year. What with his gruelling junior doctor’s on-call rota and her studying to pass her PTS, it was difficult to get an evening off together. He frequently worked five days and nights on the trot. During the day, he performed his usual houseman duties on the wards and in the clinics. At night, when the more senior consultants and doctors were at home or tucked up in bed, the patients were his responsibility. Teddy Davenport was the first to admit, he could often grab a full five hours on the army camp bed in the doctors’ night room. ‘It’s surprisingly comfortable, in fact,’ he had told Dana when she’d asked how he managed to sleep night after night on a sheet of canvas strung across a wooden frame. His nights off were few and far between and it was more by luck than management that they managed to see each other at all.

  ‘Oh, I knew that he was starting on casualty.’ Dana laughed. ‘Not for long, though. He’s planning the summer holidays already, so he is. He’s becoming really insistent that we stay in a hotel, by the seaside, but I need to go home to visit my mammy and daddy, to the farm, in Ireland. How do I tell him that’s the last thing I want but I have to do it? Honest to God, wouldn’t I just love to go to the seaside or to London or anywhere I’ve never been before. He has not a clue, it could rain every day when I’m in Ireland. What kind of holiday would that be for Teddy? A waste of time it would be for him, that’s what, and besides, if I ask him, he might think I’m being too presumptuous, you know, inviting him home. I’m in such a pickle.’