‘We all feel the same,’ said Elsie.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Biddy to Elsie. ‘You thought the world of yours till he fell.’
‘Oh, Jesus, I don’t mean mine – he was goodness itself. I mean her fat lump of a useless husband. I’d kill meself if I had to sit by his bed. I’m agreeing with her.’
Branna looked affronted. ‘Eh, hang on…’ She was about to argue with Elsie, but Betty Hutch began to speak. This was such a rare thing, they all listened.
‘Seems to me that maybe all is not what it seems there. Nurse Brogan may be grateful to nurse him through his worst days now, but it might be a different thing altogether in a few months, I’d be saying. She’s one that will surprise us all, one day.’ And without another word, Betty made for the door.
‘What is she on about, Biddy?’ asked Elsie.
They watched Betty’s back as she retreated.
‘I have no idea. She’s deep, that one.’
And with that, they all returned to their posts with Betty’s words ringing in their ears.
*
When eight thirty arrived, Matron was ready.
‘I’ll be back shortly, Blackie, once I’ve seen these non-existent creatures Dr Gaskell insists are taking over the hospital, indeed.’ She gave Blackie a biscuit.
Blackie rolled on to his back, his four legs stuck straight up in the air in anticipation of a tummy tickle.
‘Not now, Blackie. When I return from this ridiculous bug-hunting mission, then I will take you for a walk. Later.’
Blackie quickly resumed his sitting position, his ears pricked and forward at the sound of his favourite word, head tilted to one side.
The lights of Dr Gaskell’s car filled Matron’s dark sitting room as his Austin slowed to a halt outside the main entrance to St Angelus, directly below her apartment. The engine died and as his car door squeaked noisily open, she made her way down the stairs towards the deserted and shrouded WRVS tea stand, where she had arranged to meet him.
‘Good evening, Margaret,’ said Dr Gaskell as he removed his gloves and walked towards her.
‘Honestly, you and your new-found modern ways. You have taken to calling me by my Christian name a little too often, Dr Gaskell,’ she said emphatically, prompting a smile in return.
She was secretly flattered that he occasionally called her Margaret. It made him almost a friend, not always just a colleague. She found it hard to admit this to anyone other than herself, but she had no friends. Her job had been her only friend down the years. Her mother, her nurses, her hospital – they were her life. And with the recent loss of her elderly mother she now felt even more alone: she no longer had her mother to visit, to care for and to love. But even when her mother was alive, Matron still hadn’t shared the sadness of the secret love she held deep in her heart. Sister April had walked out of the hospital gates to join the Queen Alexandra nursing corps during the war and never returned, and Matron had never spoken of it. Her secret was her cross to bear. It guaranteed her a lonely, friendless life because a friend was by definition someone she had to be honest with and if she couldn’t share the truth about who she was and what set her apart from every other woman she knew, what was the point?
As they walked together towards the theatre block, they passed Jake Berry, the under-porter, Elsie’s son-in-law, wheeling an oxygen bottle towards the children’s ward.
‘Is it all quiet in theatre, Jake?’ asked Dr Gaskell.
‘Oh, it is Dr Gaskell, sir. Matron. All quiet on casualty too. Fingers crossed, eh, that I haven’t spoken too soon.’
‘How’s Martha and the baby, Jake?’ asked Matron.
‘They are both doing fine, thanks. The delivery went well. Biddy Kennedy did the job for us. It was all good.’
Matron frowned. Biddy was an excellent housekeeper at the school of nursing, but no matter how many babies she had delivered, she was no midwife.
‘I’m so pleased for you, Jake. But, please, if Martha becomes pregnant again, bring her in here, nice and early. Hospital really is the safest place to have a baby and there’s no need to travel up to the maternity hospital. We have equipment here to help, and proper pain relief that neither Biddy nor anyone else would have at home. Not to mention the expertise the nurses can provide. Or at the very least, get one of the new district midwives to attend her.’
Jake didn’t know what to say. His Martha had insisted she deliver their baby at home. Like most of the other women in the dockside streets, she wouldn’t go near the Mill Road hospital. But Matron was his boss. Or rather Dessie was, and Dessie answered to Matron.
He raised his cap. ‘Aye, I’ll try, Matron. But perhaps you could have a word with her mother.’
‘I did, Jake. If I told Elsie once, I told her a hundred times. The problem is, for people like Elsie and Biddy, the old ways are best. Elsie said to me that if Martha was sick, she would bring her in, but in their eyes, pregnancy is a condition, not an illness. What they don’t see is that it can very rapidly become a crisis. We can do things here that save lives.’
A look of alarm crossed Jake’s face. ‘I’ll do my best, I promise, Matron.’ He lifted his cap once again and hurried towards the main entrance.
‘That was a bit previous, if you don’t mind me saying, Matron. She hasn’t got over the birth of the first child yet,’ said Dr Gaskell when Jake was out of earshot.
‘I’m well aware of that, thank you. But we need to get the word out. We’ve seen a huge rise in the birth rate in the last few years, as you know. Husbands and wives are making up for lost time, it seems. You mark my words, young Martha will be pregnant again very soon. The fifties are shaping up to be all about babies, Dr Gaskell. This post-war NHS, this massive number of post-war babies, they will give it all a name one day. And right now maternity is the fastest-growing service out on the district as well as here in St Angelus, which makes it yet another challenge we have to step up to. The number of appendectomies hasn’t altered on account of the men being home again, but the number of women at risk from maternal death is rising fast and that is why I want the maternity unit first and foremost.’
Dr Gaskell wasn’t about to argue with Matron. Besides, he was soon to give her the shock of her life. If the consequences weren’t so serious, he would have grinned at the thought of it.
They both fell silent as they approached the theatre block. There was an atmosphere of foreboding as they moved into the dark, narrow stairwell. Dr Gaskell had called in earlier in the day to practise what he was about to show Matron. Of course there had been no scurrying actors on his stage in the middle of the day. Pale and watery sunshine had shone through the skylight and was its own disinfectant, but now…
‘Are you ready?’ he asked her as they stood outside the theatre doors.
‘As ready as I will ever be,’ she said.
A frown of disapproval crossed her face as a feeling of trepidation and a cold, creeping fear settled into the pit of her belly. She rested against the cold painted brick wall. It felt damp, even through her cape. She was wearing her uniform, as always, and she nervously checked the silver buckle on her belt. Needless to say, it was perfectly positioned in the centre.
‘I’m about to switch the corridor light off, Margaret. Don’t be alarmed. I will be back in a few seconds.’
Matron watched as he walked back down the corridor towards the light switch. As she heard it flick, the windowless corridor was thrown into deep blackness. Dr Gaskell waited for a moment to get his bearings and with no other noise to distract her attention, Matron could not ignore the unnerving sound in her ears. It began slowly from behind her. It was in the walls, a scurrying, rumbling sound… No, it was under her feet, coming from below.
She almost gasped in relief as she heard Dr Gaskell begin walking back towards her.
‘Don’t move,’ he whispered. She felt his warm breath on her face even though she couldn’t see him.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! You made me jump!’ she yelped.
She instinctively began to brush her skirt and rearrange herself, an automatic reaction whenever she felt vulnerable. Dr Gaskell waited for her to finish pushing her belt from side to side and smoothing her skirt. Once she’d settled, he gave her no further warning. With one hand he took one quick second to fling open the operating-theatre door and with the other hand he speedily reached across the wall and flicked down the switch for the central overhead light. One, two, three. That was all it took.
Matron’s hand flew to her mouth, but not before a scream had escaped her lips as she jumped sharply backwards, into the shadows.
Before them, thousands of startled cockroaches scattered and scuttled and nosily moved as one towards the perimeter walls of the theatre. The black floor receded, revealing the original white-tiled one below it. Within no time at all the shifting, scuttling blackness had disappeared under the skirting boards and back into the walls.
Matron looked as though she was about to faint.
Dr Gaskell got straight to the point. ‘And that, Matron, is why post-operative subphrenic abscesses are popping up all over the wards, threatening the lives of the patients we operate on, and why we absolutely must have a new, sealed operating theatre. Not having one is putting lives and the reputation of this hospital at risk on a daily basis. Including the lives of our own doctors. It is something most people who work here know about, but no one is talking about it. You know yourself that Dessie has tried everything short of a hand grenade to sort the problem out. The “little problem”, as you sometimes call it, is everywhere. All over the hospital. It is an old workhouse; short of knocking the walls down and rebuilding, there is nothing we can do. The little blighters are winning the battle. Cropping up everywhere. The entire workforce of this hospital will be looking to you and me to work together and sort this out, and that, Matron, that is what we must do.’
*
Dr Gaskell’s wily manoeuvrings did the trick. The plans for a suite of new operating theatres at St Angelus were approved by the LDHB in record time. Two months later the new theatres were nearly ready to accept their first patients.
2
Three months later
‘Did your man find his other leg, Noleen?’ Biddy Kennedy shouted across to the opposite side of Arthur Street, without any apparent consideration for those still asleep at that early hour of the morning.
Noleen Delaney failed to reply. She was lost in her own deep and tired thoughts as she hurried along in the half light towards St Chad’s. Her head was set against the wet early-morning breeze which flew up from the Mersey and whistled down Arthur Street, slipping into the bedrooms and kitchens of the blackened red-brick houses along the way. Noleen’s thin, cold hands were thrust deep into her pockets, her mind busy with the tasks of the day ahead. The soles of her shoes were so worn that she felt every chip of stone and discarded cigarette butt she trod on; they dug into her painful, corn-covered feet as she scurried along.
The night was reluctant to release its grip on the dockside streets. Morning fought to throw the first shaft of light and pierce the gloom, and the cobbled roads glistened beneath the street lamps, freshly washed from the heavy rain that had fallen during the night. The clear plastic cover that Noleen had tied over her headscarf to protect herself from the rain as she left her night shift at St Angelus had now slipped down and hung like a hammock across the shoulders of her thin coat. It flapped in protest as it strained at the damp string ties, chafing her neck. She had resettled the cover on her hair twice already and there was no point bothering again. She abandoned any attempt to return home dry. What hair the wind didn’t claim, the mist would flatten against her scalp before she had laid all her sinful thoughts and deeds before God, on her knees in St Chad’s.
Biddy frowned and placed her wicker basket down on the pavement. ‘Noleen, wait up, would you.’ She hurriedly slipped her front-door key, tied to the end of a long piece of string, back through the letter box and then slammed the door shut. ‘Noleen, wait!’ she called out, but again there was no response.
The air was filled with the sound of the first tugs of the morning blowing their horns as they made their way out to the container ships that had been bobbing at the bar overnight. The tugs would lead them, steady as she goes, through the thick grey river mist that rested in a lazy haze on the surface of the dirty water and safely into dock. By the time the first tug had completed its journey, the klaxon would have sounded, calling the men from Arthur, George, Stanley and Vince streets to the docks. Their boots would thud across the cobbles and down the worn sandstone dockers’ steps to the stand, and there the men would wait, hoping to be chosen to help unload one of the vast, cold, filthy holds of jute, wood or flour for an honest day’s pay.
Noleen’s thoughts had settled and, aware of someone requiring her attention, she looked up, mildly confused, as Biddy asked yet again, ‘Did your man find his other leg, Noleen?’
Biddy had startled Noleen. She was running late. Being late for the priest was something she feared only slightly more than being late for Matron and her night-time cleaning shift at St Angelus. She was usually safely within the confines of St Chad’s for early-morning Mass before the day workers had begun leaving their homes for the bus stop and the hospital, as Biddy was doing right now. Noleen, suddenly aware of her chafed neck, untied the string under her chin and shook the plastic headscarf, soaking her bare legs as she did so. She took the string ends, one in each hand, snapped the plastic cover shut as the folds concertinaed together, and stuffed the useless cover into the pocket of her coat.
‘Wait while I check the key,’ said Biddy. Slipping her hand through the slim brass letter box, she jiggled the key around, satisfying herself that it was hanging in the right place. She always left her house via the front door, but she never returned that way, preferring to come home via the entry and in through the back door, which was never locked. The back-door key had been missing since the night the bomb hit George Street, but Biddy wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about that. There wasn’t a single family for as far as she could walk, or further still, that she didn’t know. The key was left dangling on a piece of string in case anyone should have sudden need to get into Biddy’s house through the front door.
‘Oh, will you and him never give up about him finding his bloody leg,’ said Noleen, a hint of exasperation in her voice. She removed one of her hands from her pocket, shook her head and vainly attempted to push her washed-out pin curls back to life. ‘I wish he would find it. Holy Mother of God, how different my life would be then, eh?’
From different sides of the street, they both looked up towards the sound of a sash window being raised. It was Elsie at number seventeen.
‘Trust you two. It would take you only a minute to have the whole street awake.’ Elsie spoke down to them at a volume far louder than either Biddy or Noleen had used. Her still dark hair was perfectly coiffed and curled atop her thin face and was crowned with a halo from the single light bulb behind her. ‘Biddy, I’m coming down now. Keep one foot on the kerb if the bus makes to go without me.’ She slammed down the sash and the curtain fell back into place before Biddy had time to scold her for making the loudest noise of any of them.
Biddy checked that her headscarf was fastened under her chin as tight as she could bear and that her coat was buttoned up, then she picked up her basket and with one hand across her rotund belly, her coat buttons straining, she bustled her plumpness across the cobbles and on to the opposite pavement to speak to Noleen directly.
Elsie had a point about the early hour, not that Biddy would ever admit it. It might not yet have been 6.30 a.m., but that made no difference to the two friends. The time of day was irrelevant when the opportunity for a natter arose.
‘Will you two ever stop giving out to each other?’ Noleen chided with a wry smile as she nodded towards Elsie’s bedroom window.
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Biddy. ‘Where would be the pleasure in that now? You’ve got to have a bit of fun in l
ife, haven’t you. Blimey, Noleen, I feel like I haven’t seen you for months. I’ve almost forgotten what you look like. Sure, you’re like a bat. You only come out in the dark. And how is himself and his leg?’ She didn’t draw breath.
Noleen’s husband, Paddy, had returned from the war minus one leg. It had been almost entirely blown away and, unbeknown to either Paddy or Noleen, the surgeon had struggled to retain a useable stump. The first ambitious attempt had been thwarted by the onset of bubbling, putrid, gas gangrene and the second attempt had been touch and go. Live or die. Paddy’s ability to walk had been secondary to saving his life. His blood loss had been profound and the damage to his gangrene-infected tissue, nerves and vessels was severe.
Biddy had been one of the first women to arrive at the house when Paddy was medically discharged home. She turned up with a plate of food and a welcome, and since that day, Biddy and Paddy had maintained their own running joke.
‘Where’s your leg gone, Paddy?’
‘What leg, Biddy?’
‘Your missing leg, Paddy. That one there. Look, it’s gone.’
‘Jeez, I must have lost it. Have you seen it, Biddy? Will you keep an eye out?’
‘No, Paddy, I’ll keep me eye just where it is, ’cause I’m not careless like you, ye flaming eejit.’
The joke altered with each meeting and telling but always ended with both Biddy and Paddy laughing. Hearing her Paddy laugh was a very rare pleasure for Noleen these days, and she was grateful to Biddy for cheering him up, however briefly.
‘I work nights, Biddy, ’cause I can get more hours in that way. Helps with home and the kids and it’s a bit extra in the money.’
Most of the night cleaners at St Angelus were mothers who slept during the day. Like all the other dockside women, during the war Noleen hadn’t known if her husband would return from his regiment. She had been desperate for work and willing to take anything to avoid having to travel to the munitions factory. Few of the night cleaners managed to sleep more than three hours a day for five days of the week and many of them quickly fell away through illness brought about by lack of sleep and relentless hard work. Many became patients at the hospital they had once cleaned by night. But Noleen was different. Somehow she had carried on. And instead of cramming all her hours into four nights instead of five days, she worked six nights on overtime and only took the one night off.
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 3
