The Children of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Something is wrong,’ whispered Elsie to Biddy. ‘Those two aren’t having a fling, nothing like it. They’re barely speaking. He hasn’t even looked at her yet.’

  ‘That’s because he can’t, Elsie. Something is wrong, but having seen them both now, I would say ’tis definite that they are. As much as it pains me to say it, Hattie Lloyd was right. Only people who are in love don’t speak to each other. They aren’t just at it, those two, it’s more than that.’

  Branna was chatting away to Madge and Emily had sat down and was being almost overly bright and breezy.

  ‘In love? Are you sure?’ Elsie almost wobbled as she poured the water into the pot.

  ‘Be careful, you daft bat, you nearly burnt us both there. Yes, I am absolutely sure. And do you know, I’m happy for them. They both deserve a bit of love.’

  ‘Biddy, are you going mad?’ Elsie almost hissed. ‘She has just said hello to everyone and not a word to Dessie.’

  ‘Of course I saw that. Do you think I’m deaf or what? That, Elsie, is how I know.’

  Once the tea had been poured and everyone was seated, Biddy began to explain to Emily what was happening. ‘Right, it’s the Miss Van Gilder problem. Madge here appears to have made quite a discovery, don’t you Madge?’

  ‘I do,’ said Madge. ‘I was just telling the others that I overheard a telephone conversation...’

  ‘Overheard, my arse,’ said Biddy.

  Madge blushed furiously and shot Biddy a venomous look. ‘Anyway, it turns out that Miss Van Gilder’s son runs the Acme cleaning agency...’

  ‘Her son?’ repeated Emily. ‘But she is Miss Van Gilder. There was no mention of a son at her interview.’ She put down her cup and her face went pale. ‘She didn’t mention her son to us at any time. And to think, she is so against abolishing the married nurses ban. That makes me more cross than anything.’

  ‘Well that’s just a part of it, so it appears, Sister Haycock,’ Madge said. ‘The two of them run the Acme cleaning agency together, it seems. I overheard Miss Van Gilder tell her son that he had made an error on the quotation, that he had to put it right and that she was going to Matron with the quote and then to the board for approval for the funds. She also said that she was taking twenty per cent.’

  There was a stunned silence around the table. If it had been any other day, Emily would have felt gleeful at there being so much ammunition against Miss Van Gilder.

  ‘And there is more.’

  ‘Goodness me. More?’ said Emily, who was already about to suggest that they telephoned the police.

  ‘She also made a telephone call to a man in Cornwall, making enquiries about a cottage that he had for sale. She told him that she would have half of the money available to put down in about a month and the rest in another three months.’

  Everyone began to speak at once.

  ‘A right pair of thieves we have in our midst,’ said Biddy.

  ‘We can’t just let her go ahead. Shall we tell Matron?’ asked Branna. ‘Call the police ourselves and be done with it. Throw them in the nick, both of them.’

  ‘No!’ Madge almost shouted. ‘You cannot tell Matron, I would lose her trust. She would think I was listening in on every conversation. Don’t you dare, do you hear? I have a reputation to uphold. I am not a spy and I don’t want anyone thinking I am.’

  ‘But what do we do then?’ asked Branna. ‘That St Dunstan’s letter alone isn’t enough, is it? It didn’t give us any hard facts, and it doesn’t prove anything about what she’s going to be doing here. Only you have the proof of that, Madge.’

  Branna was annoyed that she hadn’t been able to bring in any juicy titbits about the Bone Grinder herself. As the domestic on ward two, she was a bit out of the loop. She got all the gossip about her former boss on ward two, Sister Antrobus, and she knew there was no love lost between her and Miss Van Gilder, but that was hardly news – the whole of St Angelus knew that. Now that she wasn’t working under her, Branna had come to appreciate the way Sister Antrobus was such a stickler for rules. She wouldn’t allow any thieving behaviour, thought Branna. That was for sure. If Sister Antrobus could somehow get to hear the truth about Miss Van Gilder...

  ‘I think I can help there, can’t I?’ said Emily. ‘I will be at the forthcoming board meeting. I can question her about what’s going on. Probe her until I can trip her up and get the answers we want.’

  ‘What a brilliant idea,’ said Biddy. ‘Do you think you could catch her out? There is only one way this cleaning agency scam could work and that is if they are overcharging the hospital and laying off the workforce. God alone knows how much hardship that will inflict on everyone.’

  ‘I won’t let her leave the boardroom until I have,’ said Emily, smiling for the first time since she had arrived.

  While the others digested her proposal, she looked across the table at Dessie. He lifted his head and gave her the saddest smile. Her heart wanted to break in half right there and then. She wanted to run to him and cup his face in her hands and smother him with kisses. She had hurt him. Wounded him. And there was nothing she could do about it. She could not give up her life to marry him. She was Sister Haycock, director of the school of nursing at St Angelus. Confidante of Dr Gaskell. New friend to Matron. Mentor to her student nurses, her girls. She was not a wife. He was the most wonderful man in the world and she had hurt him. The first man she had lain with, given her heart to, and now, only a few hours after they had last been in bed together, they were as good as strangers.

  He had not taken her rejection of his proposal well. ‘I had forgotten about that,’ he said when she’d finished explaining why she had to say no. He was visibly shocked. ‘But all women give up working when they get married. That’s the normal thing to do. People would think there was something wrong with me, that I couldn’t keep my wife, if you carried on working.’

  He’d dropped her hands and taken a step past her towards the door, putting distance between them as he ran his fingers though his hair.

  ‘Dessie, it’s not about that. It’s just that I have worked for all of my life, no one has ever kept me, and I love my job as much as you love yours. I’ve knocked down a barrier to get where I am. In many hospitals across the country, Matron is still in charge of nurse training.’

  ‘I must have made a mistake,’ said Dessie. ‘I thought you were the kind of woman who would want to have a family. To make a home. I thought you would be glad to give up work.’

  ‘Dessie, it’s just the opposite. Yes, if I had a family, of course I would want to look after my children and bring them up. But how do we know we will even have children? I can’t give up work and sit in a house all day waiting for you to come home. And the rules at St Angelus are that if I get married, I have to give up work, you know that.’

  Dessie looked devastated, but he was not a man of words. ‘What an idiot I have been, Emily. I am sorry.’ And before she could reply, he was out of the door and gone.

  And now Emily was sitting across from him, unable to make things better. She clenched her teeth to stop herself from becoming tearful and stood up. ‘I have a busy day tomorrow, everyone. I have to go now, but I will do my best at the board meeting. I will trip her up, I don’t know how, but I shall.’

  She hovered while she put her arms through the sleeves of her coat. She kept glancing towards Dessie, to see if he might follow her. But he sat with his hands resolutely clasped in front of him, leaning on the kitchen table, staring at the crumbs on his empty plate.

  ‘Well, bye then, everyone,’ said Emily.

  ‘See you in work tomorrow,’ said Biddy.

  ‘Bye, Sister Haycock, and good luck. We’re depending on you,’ said Branna.

  ‘If I hear anything else, I will let you know,’ said Madge, tapping the side of her nose with her forefinger.

  Never in her life had Emily taken so long to depart from someone’s house. She willed Dessie to stand, to make an excuse, to say he would walk her home. His back remained rigid.


  *

  Two minutes later, Emily was standing out in the entry, feeling desolate, lost, and all alone once again. It was worse now than it had been for all those years, because before she hadn’t known what she was missing. Now the loneliness took her breath away. She was almost panting; her heart was racing and burnt hot with the pain of it. As she made her way down the entry, the tears blinded her and she stumbled as she ran. Then she heard a voice shout out, a voice she hadn’t heard for many years, since the night the bomb fell.

  ‘Emily, is that you, love? Emily, come here, love! It is you, isn’t it?’

  Maisie Tanner ran towards Emily, her arms loaded with fish and chips wrapped in newspaper.

  ‘I’d put me arms around you, but I’d drop the chips. Come on, no answering me back, follow me. Come on, put your arm through mine. Here.’ Maisie slipped Emily’s arm through her own. ‘You remember the way, don’t you?’

  Emily did, although it was a long time since she’d last walked down Arthur Street.

  An hour later, she was sitting in the Tanners’ front room, a teacup and saucer in her lap and a plate of chips next to her on the side table. The house was full of the noise of children, who Emily could tell were keeping their voices down as a result of the firmness in Maisie’s whisper.

  ‘Is that Sister Haycock who teaches our Pammy up at the hospital?’ she heard Lorraine ask.

  Emily wondered how Maisie would answer. Would she say, ‘Yes, and she was with me in the air-raid shelter on the night I gave birth to you. She held my hand all the way through until you popped out.’ She didn’t say that. All she said was, ‘Yes, it is. Now go and take your chips next door and eat them there, I’m busy for a while.’

  Emily smiled. It was a long time since she had lived on these streets. She remembered how everyone ran in and out of each other’s houses and it seemed as though nothing had changed.

  Five minutes later, the house emptied of all the Tanner children. Maisie sat down with her own tea in the chair opposite Emily.

  ‘It’s lovely to see you, Maisie.’ Emily smiled through her embarrassment.

  ‘And you too, love. Eat your chips, go on, don’t let them go cold. I’ve often thought about you. I knew it was you at the hospital, when our Pammy got through on to the SRN course. Me and Stan, we didn’t think she had a chance, you know. I said to our Stan, no one from round here ever gets to be one of the nurses. Us lot, we do the cleaning and the laundry. I can’t tell you how proud we were.’

  ‘Well, she got in on her own merits,’ said Emily. ‘Though I can’t deny she is one of my favourites.’ She looked around the room she had once known well. It was much the same as their own had been. ‘Your mam’s not here,’ she said.

  ‘Me mam? God love her, no. She died ten years ago. She always loved you, me mam, felt dead sorry for you, she did, after that night. She never got over it, you know, Emily. Just couldn’t accept why the people she had known all her life weren’t around any more or why we had the bombs dropped on us. I kept telling her, it’s because we are so close to the docks, Mam, but she didn’t hear me. Just kept talking as though everyone was still here and then crying when she realized they weren’t. It was awful, just awful. No one really likes to talk about it, you know. Still a bit raw, like. And for people like you more than most. Do you want more tea? Come on, eat those chips up, I said.’

  ‘I can’t, Maisie. I’d love to, but I can’t.’

  ‘Well, that’s because you’re upset. Come on now, I’m going to pour you another cup of tea and you’re going to tell me all about it. Our Stan won’t be home for ages. It’s his pub night tonight. All the men who were in the same regiment in the war, those from these streets anyway, they meet at the same time every week in the Irish Centre. Stan says that’s because they don’t like to talk about the war when they’re at home. Not in front of the kids. And they don’t want their wives to know how close they came to being widows. Besides, I wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about, not really. And it was bad enough here as it was.’

  Maisie refilled Emily’s teacup and launched straight in. ‘Right, I know this is man trouble and that is one thing I am good at. I fix everyone’s problems around here, me. I’m known for it. No one will disturb us. Our Pammy, she lives in Lovely Lane, but you know all that, you see her there often enough. So go on, tell Maisie what’s up.’

  *

  Stan was met by his sons at the bottom of the street. They were waiting for him. Maisie was right, it was his veterans’ night, but he always went home first to have a wash down in the tin bath and change his clothes. Stan and his mates, they were very particular about standards.

  ‘All right, lads, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you in the house having your tea with your mam?’

  ‘Mam says you can’t come home for your wash tonight. You have to have your tea an’ all down the pub. She’s got a crying visitor and she said to tell you you are barred from home.’

  ‘I’m barred, am I?’ Stan began to laugh. ‘And who’s the crying visitor then?’

  It was not unusual for there to be someone with a problem in Stan’s house. Maisie had become the agony aunt for miles around. ‘It’s because you’re married to the perfect man,’ he’d joke. ‘They want to know how they can catch a fella just like me. Tell you what, Maisie, it must make you realize how lucky you are to have found me.’ Stan usually received a thump at this point or at the very least a slap around his legs with the tea towel.

  ‘It’s not funny this one, Da. It’s serious. It’s the sister from the hospital who teaches Pammy.’

  Stan removed his cap, scratched his head and put it back on again. He gazed down the street towards the house. ‘Well, well. Emily Haycock. I knew we would see her back in our house one day.’

  Little Stan was hopping on one leg from one paving stone to the next, avoiding the lines and cracks.

  ‘Right, I’m off to the pub. Tell your mam I won’t be back late.’

  Ten minutes later, Stan walked into the Irish Centre and headed to the bar. One of the veterans had already beaten him to it. He had returned from the war with more medals than Stan and seen more action than anyone on the streets. He was a good man. A man Stan liked.

  ‘Evening, Dessie. I thought I would be the first here tonight. We haven’t see you for a while.’

  Dessie turned around to face Stan, his pint in one hand, his arm leaning on the bar. ‘No, I’ve been, er, a bit busy recently.’ He scrunched his eyes. Busy falling in love, that’s where he’d been. And now here he was, back on the treadmill of his life. Back to the routine.

  ‘What’s up, mate? You look like you’ve lost the crown jewels. Is it woman trouble? It looks like it to me. Right, let me buy you another pint and you can tell me all about it before the others arrive.’

  35

  The residents of Belmullet could count on one hand the number of sunny days they had enjoyed that year. Sadly, not one of them had coincided with Dana’s two-week visit home. Diving out of bed, she peered through the curtains and sighed at the bright sky.

  ‘Have you done that deliberately?’ she said out loud. The room was cold and slightly damp. She thought of the Lovely Lane home, with its pretty curtains, huge fire in the hallway and bathroom just along the landing. Her room there was never damp. She pulled on the trousers and arran sweater she’d worn almost every day since she’d arrived and drew the curtains back.

  Today was the day she would start the long journey back to Liverpool and she would strip the bed and clean the room before she left. Her mother’s workload was great; Dana did not want to add to it.

  Looking down towards the milking shed, Dana saw her mammy walking up the slight incline towards the house. She carried a pail of milk in one hand and with the other fanned away the midges which swarmed around her face. Dana tapped on the window, but she was so busy saving her skin from being eaten alive, she didn’t hear. Dana ran down the stairs, through the kitchen door and along the path to greet her.


  ‘Here, let me take that pail. What’s the point of me coming home to give you a break?’

  ‘Oh, get away with you,’ said her mammy. ‘You’ll be gone after lunch. How is it you think I can manage when you aren’t here but can’t when you are?’

  The milk spilled over on to Dana’s sneakers. ‘Oh God,’ she wailed, ‘now I’ll turn up in Liverpool smelling of stale milk.’

  ‘Aye, stale Irish milk at that. What a lovely smell that will be,’ said her mother.

  Eyes met and both women burst into spontaneous laughter.

  ‘I don’t need your help, Dana, but I’ll miss you when you’re gone,’ said Nancy in a tone of voice she normally reserved for when she was attending a requiem Mass.

  Dana stopped and set the pail of milk on the ground so she could swap hands. The metal handle had dug into her palm and, not for the first time, she wondered how her mother had put up with the rain, the toil and Dana’s father for so long.

  ‘Will we be seeing you again?’ Nancy asked the question as lightly as possible, but her words were loaded.

  ‘Mammy!’ Dana tried to appear affronted, but there was one person in the world she could never deceive and she was standing right in front of her. ‘Are you seriously asking me would I be ever visiting my own home again?’

  Nancy swept up the pail of milk and, with the ease of a woman who had done it every day of her life, set off up the path with Dana hurrying in her wake. ‘Well, why not. ’Tis a perfectly sensible question. There’s many that leave Mayo and don’t ever return. You have hardly said a word about this boyfriend of yours. Is it ashamed of us you are?’

  ‘God, no, Mammy, not at all,’ Dana lied. But, as always, her mother had hit the nail bang on the head. That was part of the problem, but by no means all of it. It was also the weight of expectation, that if she turned up at home with a doctor on her arm, one as charming and lovely and funny as Teddy, her mammy would have the banns read the next day and Mrs Kennan would be baking the cake without having even being asked.