The Children of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  Her parents, now in the full swing of what was becoming a major row, failed to notice her as they focused on inflicting their own wounds on each other. Her father berating her mother for her laziness. Her mother accusing her father of cruelty and indifference. All done across the safe barrier of a dark-oak Stag dining table, newly purchased from George Henry Lee’s.

  The pain had been debilitating, but as it began to ease, Amy pushed herself to the other side of the door and closed it before they noticed. Panting, exhausted and terrified, her first thought was that she was going to die. This can’t be happening to me, she thought. It can’t be. Panic almost broke through and she very nearly screamed out loud. All of her life, Amy had been given everything she wanted. But now Lockie had abandoned her and she had no idea who to turn to. ‘I don’t want this, I don’t want it,’ she sobbed. As the agony subsided, the questions screamed in her brain. Where to go? What to do? But no answers came back.

  A soothing orange light crept into the hallway as the sulphur street lamp outside the front door ignited and filtered through the stained glass in the circular window of the front door. On the coat stand, Amy’s black church coat and hat called out to her. Lifting the coat, she smelt the perfume on the collar. She slipped it on and wrapped herself in it. The familiar comfort of the satin lining soothed her burning skin. It took only a few steps to reach the door. Her parents’ shouting was by now so ferocious, she didn’t even have to worry about them hearing the gentle click of the Yale as it dropped.

  *

  Dana dropped her case on the pavement by the pier head and sat on it as she waited for Teddy to arrive in his car. She had telephoned Lovely Lane from the post office before she’d left Belmullet, just as she’d promised she would, and Victoria had answered. ‘When you get off the boat, you’re not to move until Teddy gets there. He’s given me explicit instructions for you to wait for him. He’s longing to see you. Very excited he was. If you ask me, you should go away more often!’

  Dana had laughed off Victoria’s comment, but the fact that Teddy had obviously missed her so much brought with it a warm feeling on a chilly evening. She was happy to move no further than the pier head. It had been a choppy crossing and she had vomited twice. She was looking forward to being back in the Lovely Lane home with Mrs Duffy fussing over her.

  She had toyed with the idea of stepping into the famous wooden-hut café to grab a cup of sweet tea, to settle her stomach, but she stopped short just before she reached the door. Sitting behind the gingham-curtained windows was Sister Antrobus and opposite her was a woman wearing a hat with a ridiculous feather sticking out of the top.

  Dana decided to turn around and plonk herself back down on her suitcase. Even though she was off duty and not within the environs of St Angelus, she was sure that Sister Antrobus would find some reason to have a go at her. And besides, given that Teddy was working on casualty, Sister Antrobus would be the last person he would want to see.

  She looked up the road and shielded her eyes as she heard what she thought was the sound of his engine. A smile crossed her face and her heart flipped. The speck on the horizon was indeed her Teddy’s distinctive pale blue car and he was coming just for her.

  *

  Sister Antrobus had ordered tea and an Eccles cake. Mrs Twigg was having tea with white bread and butter and a sprinkling of salt.

  ‘I don’t think you should underestimate how many families you have helped,’ said Sister Antrobus. ‘As soon as I heard what was happening, I knew I had to speak to you. I was honour-bound not to reveal the source of my information, so I simply could not take this to Matron.’ She poured the tea as she spoke.

  ‘If you had taken your information to Matron, you would have earned yourself a great deal of praise. Indeed, you would most likely have found yourself back in charge of ward two as your reward.’ Mrs Twigg stirred in her sugar, keeping her gaze fixed on Sister Antrobus as she did so.

  Mrs Twigg had been sorry to hear that Sister Antrobus had been moved from ward two to casualty. Even so, she’d often thought her manner rather too military for the women’s ward.

  ‘I am aware that would have been a possibility. However, one has to do the right thing.’

  Sister Antrobus had been surprised when Branna had confided in her. They had rubbed along well, she and Branna. Very few words had ever passed between them, but there was an implicit understanding that ward two had to be the cleanest in the hospital. Both women were happy to make that their goal and so there had been very little need for conversation. When Branna had told her about Miss Van Gilder, Sister Antrobus had known exactly whom to contact. She had no idea how Branna knew that the new assistant matron was a con-woman, but she was prepared to believe her without question.

  Mrs Twigg sipped her tea. It had been quite a dilemma for her, when Sister Antrobus had asked her to speak out. However, she had a lot of respect for Sister Antrobus, who had once looked after her son. In fact, Sister Antrobus was one of the reasons Mrs Twigg had agreed to accept a position on the board of St Angelus when the LDHB had approached her. Her late son had been hospitalized during the early days of the war and Sister Antrobus had taken very good care of him. She would always be in the sister’s debt. She didn’t ask how Sister Antrobus had acquired the facts about Miss Van Gilder; she had simply asked herself the question, if my son or my husband had come to me with this information, what would I have done? She knew what they would have expected of her. It was her duty. As much as she disliked having to speak up at the board meetings, it had fallen to her to do the right thing.

  ‘The police asked to speak to me after the meeting. I told them I had received an anonymous tip-off and that the rest was down to Miss Van Gilder. She really put up very little defence. They arrested her son, Luuk, within the hour, so I heard.’

  ‘You were a heroine, Mrs Twigg. A heroine,’ said Sister Antrobus.

  ‘Not a bit of it. Sister Haycock’s questioning of Miss Van Gilder set me up beautifully. It seems likely she may have had the same information. Be that as it may, I was very flattered that the LDHB has invited me to chair the board at future meetings. I’m not sure what has happened to Mrs Jolly. Another cup of tea, Sister?’

  *

  Teddy drove faster than usual. He was in a hurry to reach Dana. He felt as though he had been granted a second chance. He had asked himself the question over and over again: how could he have been so stupid? To have fallen for the charms of Nurse Makebee, to have turned his back on Dana as he had? ‘You stupid, stupid man,’ he said as he banged the polished wooden dashboard with his fist. He could see her up ahead, sitting on the edge of the pier head, perched on her suitcase, her chin in her hands, her red hair blowing in the wind. He looked up to check it was safe before he crossed the tram lines and, seeing that it was clear to go, he slipped the car up a gear, put pressure on the accelerator and made to cross the wide expanse of road.

  He didn’t see where she had come from, the pregnant girl in the black coat. It was as though she loomed up from nowhere as she staggered across the road. He shouted out a warning, put his foot to the floor of the car and heard the brakes screech in response. He saw her face seconds before she hit his windscreen and then there was nothing but silence.

  *

  Sister Antrobus saw it happen through the café window. She watched the girl move out from the side of one of the dockside buildings and then observed with amazement as, without looking, she staggered across the tram tracks in the direction of St Angelus.

  Sister Antrobus did not hesitate. She jumped up, sending her fresh cup of tea flying, and strode hurriedly outside. She was surprised to find Nurse Brogan there and even more surprised to discover that the driver of the car was Dr Davenport. From the poor nurse’s distress, it quickly became apparent that this was no coincidence. Nurse Brogan had obviously been waiting for Dr Davenport. Sister Antrobus immediately took control of the situation and gave instructions to Mrs Twigg and the café owner. ‘Tell them to send two ambulances,’ she shoute
d, ‘and on the double.’

  ‘Here, you take this,’ she said to the rather surprised driver of the first ambulance to arrive. She threw Dana’s case on to the front seat. ‘Nurse Brogan is coming with you in the back. Put your light on and your foot down.’

  ‘You take Dr Davenport,’ Sister Antrobus said to Dana as she helped her up the rear steps of the ambulance. ‘I will travel with the girl. She is still alive, but only just, and she’s very pregnant. She will need an emergency caesarean as soon as we get there, in which case the baby may still have a chance. Dr Davenport looks to me like he might come round. Keep talking to him.’ And with that, she was gone. There were two lives that needed saving inside her own ambulance.

  Seconds later, the sound of two-tone sirens filled the air as both ambulances screeched up towards St Angelus.

  ‘Teddy, can you hear me?’ Dana fell to her knees beside him in the back of the ambulance.

  He was strapped into the trolley bed as though it were a straitjacket. Both legs were very obviously broken and there were a multitude of injuries to be attended to. His eyes were swollen to the size of purple eggs and impossible to open, but he could speak.

  ‘Dana, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me, my darling. I’m here with you. We are both in an ambulance. You’ve had an accident, but you are going to be just fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ His lips were dry and blood-stained and he had difficulty speaking.

  Dana opened the last packet of gauze she could find among the ambulance supplies and applied more pressure to the wound on his forehead.

  ‘Yes. I’m not going to lie to you. You are pretty beaten up, and it was a nasty accident, but you are alive and kicking, my darling.’ Her voice broke on the last words as relief swamped her.

  Her tears dropped on to his face and she quickly wiped them away. ‘Please hurry,’ she whispered as he seemed to leave her again. She felt the ambulance take a corner virtually on two wheels, and then came the sound of brakes and a sudden jolt as they stopped.

  Dana leant forward. ‘We have arrived now, Teddy. We’ll be out in a second. I will be here for every single second and I shall beg Matron for a transfer to male orthopaedic. I will be with you all the way, my love, and we will get you right.’

  Teddy had come to as the ambulance jolted. He squeezed the hand Dana was holding in response. ‘The pain,’ he muttered. And then, ‘Sorry, Dana, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Oh God, why are you saying sorry?’ she sobbed. ‘It’s not your fault, my love. You couldn’t help it, she just walked...’

  The rear ambulance doors flew open and Dr Mackintosh stood framed in the back light of the fading day. ‘Right, let’s not waste time. Straight to theatre,’ he shouted to Jake and Bryan who had raced over with a trolley.

  Dana couldn’t move. She didn’t want to leave Teddy’s side.

  Anthony Mackintosh didn’t bother with the steps; in one leap he was alongside Dana, and with both hands under her elbows he propelled her towards Jake. ‘You take Nurse Brogan inside, Jake,’ he said. ‘Bryan and I will see to Dr Davenport.’

  Dana couldn’t see through her tears but allowed herself to be led inside casualty.

  ‘Can you take Nurse Brogan off me, Doreen?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Of course,’ Doreen replied. ‘You get on.’

  Mr Mabbutt, the orthopaedic surgeon, hurried past them both. ‘Take him straight to theatre,’ he shouted out of the open doors as he headed for the back stairs to theatre.

  ‘They are doing exactly that,’ said Sister Antrobus. She was already wheeling a trolley into the clean utility room, dressed in her day clothes. Twenty minutes had passed and she had organized casualty to run in the manner of a field hospital and with the same degree of precision.

  Oliver Gaskell had been working on maternity when the news of the RTA came through. He raced through the front door of casualty as Mr Mabbutt left for theatre. ‘Mother? Baby?’ he barked at Sister Antrobus as he came alongside her.

  ‘We have both, Mr Gaskell, but we also have no operating theatre available,’ said Sister Antrobus. ‘Today’s list hasn’t yet finished, they are mid way through an appendix and the emergency theatre will be busy for some considerable time with Dr Davenport. He is in a very bad way, I’m afraid. It was first come, first in, and his ambulance got here first.’

  ‘God, no! Not Teddy. How bad is he?’

  ‘I have no idea, Mr Gaskell. I am a nursing sister, not a doctor. Now, with regards to the mother, I have set up the clean utility room with a cubicle bed and a delivery pack. There is no need for a caesarean, the baby is making its own forcible entrance. Forceps will be required. Everything is in there ready for you. Nurse Tanner will assist you. Mother had no external injuries or bleeding. The houseman already has her on a ventilator and he is working wonders at keeping her alive.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But not for long, we fear.’

  Oliver Gaskell nodded. ‘Head injury?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes. Severe. Dr Mackintosh has already performed a neurological examination. There’s nothing. No pupil reaction, no response to stimuli, nothing. No other physical injuries, but...’

  ‘Righty oh, I had better get cracking before we run out of time. Do we know who her husband is?’

  ‘We don’t have a clue. No handbag with her, nothing in her coat pocket other than a receipt from a hairdresser. The police will follow that one through.’

  Oliver Gaskell disappeared through the door of the clean utility room. Sister Antrobus saw Nurse Tanner and Dr Mackintosh in the process of gowning up. She was content. Nurse Tanner had come a long way in a very short time. She hadn’t asked her to gown up; Nurse Tanner had obviously done so on her own initiative. There was a time when she would have reprimanded a nurse for such presumption, but not today. And besides, she could honestly say that Nurse Tanner would do a good job. Instead, she turned towards the desk.

  ‘Doreen, please ring the Lovely Lane home and tell Mrs Duffy we need Nurse Baker up here. I believe her fiancé is related to Dr Davenport. Ask her to come and look after Nurse Brogan and to let her fiancé know what is happening as he is obviously Dr Davenport’s next of kin. Could you then ring Matron and ask her to let Dr Gaskell know that one of the hospital doctors is in a serious condition in theatre, but I have no prognosis if she asks. Please tell the sister on duty in the operating theatre to telephone with regular updates in order that we can reassure Nurse Brogan, Nurse Baker, his family and the rest of us. He is one of our own; it matters,’ she added. ‘When you have done that, could you please just pop your head in the door of the clean utility and see if Nurse Tanner needs any help with the baby when it’s delivered. Ask someone on children’s to bring a nappy and a shawl down.’

  ‘I will do all that now, Sister,’ Doreen replied. ‘Could you check on cubicle two? There’s a gardener in there from the Lake District. He is visiting his sister, says she has given him tinnitus. I have no one else to ask, everyone is busy.’

  ‘I will. Thank goodness Dr Gaskell’s son was still on duty,’ said Sister Antrobus as she headed for cubicle two. She was not the only one who continued to refer to Oliver Gaskell as his father’s son.

  ‘Sister...’

  Sister Antrobus turned back to answer Doreen’s question.

  ‘Do we know who the young woman is? Should I be ringing someone other than the police?’

  ‘We don’t. She wasn’t carrying a handbag, which is very odd. It’s almost as though she wanted to walk in front of a car. Or a tram, maybe. But no, there is no one to call. I wish there were because that is one prognosis I am very sure of.’

  *

  Nurse Tanner hurried out of the clean utility room and placed a gurgling baby into Doreen’s arms. It was tiny, but it was wriggling. It was alive. ‘Here, Doreen, take the baby, would you?’ she said. ‘We have nothing in there to lay a baby down on even, and the mother needs me.’

  Pammy could just about see through the river of tears that had filled her eyes. Doreen’s respons
e was equally emotional as the tiny bundle looked up at her with wide and knowing eyes.

  ‘It’s a little girl,’ Pammy said. ‘Can you carry her up to ward three? I know it’s not in the rules to carry a baby, but we’ve only two porters on tonight. They are all at a big party over in the club. I need to see to Dana.’

  ‘Of course I can, but don’t worry about Nurse Brogan. Nurse Baker, Nurse Harper and Mrs Duffy are with her and she is being well looked after. Sister Antrobus has put them in her office and closed the door. Jake took a tray of tea in a minute ago.’

  Pammy’s mascara had streaked and dried on her cheeks in black rivulets. ‘I look a sight, don’t I?’ she said as she rubbed at her cheek.

  ‘It’s the least of your troubles tonight,’ said Doreen as she hugged the baby to her.

  Pammy made her way back to the clean utility room. She had been due to go off duty hours ago, but she refused to go home. Casualty had never been so busy before.

  ‘Go!’ Dr Mackintosh had told her. ‘The night staff are arriving, we can manage.’

  They had been standing outside the door to the clean utility, out of view of the main casualty unit.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ she said. ‘That’s my friend out there. I’m not leaving while Dana’s in such a state.’

  And that’s mine in the operating theatre, Anthony had thought to himself.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Pammy. ‘I didn’t mean that. Dr Davenport and you are good friends too.’

  ‘I know you didn’t,’ he replied, and without thinking he held out his arms and Pammy fell into them. For a moment he held her tight and they took some comfort from each other’s warmth.

  ‘Right, back to work,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can do anything for the mother. But you have already worked fourteen hours straight.’ He stood back slightly and with both hands held her upright. He blamed his tiredness, emotional stress and all manner of hypothetical circumstances, but really he had no idea where his next words came from. ‘Nurse Tanner, when this is all over, would you come out with me? I love your mam.’