by Annie Murray
‘I’m coming with you,’ she said.
‘But – there’s no need,’ Melly said, astonished. ‘It’s only a bus ride.’
‘I want to,’ Rachel said. Melly saw her eyes fill with tears and her own throat ached. Mom did care that she was leaving! ‘See you off, proper like, as you’re going. Anyway, I want to see where you are, you know – make sure it’s all right.’
It felt as if she was going to another country, not just a short ride round the outer circle bus route.
Mom didn’t say much to her on the bus. Sandra and Alan sat unusually quiet, as if in awe. Soon they were walking along Raddlebarn Road to the red-brick hospital. When she went for the interview, Melly had taken to Selly Oak hospital immediately, with its flower-edged gardens and airy corridors.
It was Selly Oak that had given her a chance. She had been sent there from the General for an interview – Selly Oak were prepared to take students who had no formal qualifications, so long as they were prepared to work hard and learn.
The porter’s lodge directed them to Willow Road. They soon reached the gabled building which was Woodlands Nurses’ Home and was to be Melly’s abode for the next three years.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Rachel said, looking at it with a doubtful expression. It did look a bit forbidding.
Even Melly felt a tremor of misgiving, but she made herself ring the bell. The wide front door opened a few seconds later and a woman in uniform, with a friendly face, greeted her and said that she was the Home Sister.
‘Time to say your goodbyes,’ she kindly instructed Sandra and Alan who were wide-eyed on the step. ‘Nurses only in here, I’m afraid.’
Melly turned to her mother, conscious of the Sister standing there. She could see that Rachel felt constrained by this as well, but in a way it made it easier to say goodbye quickly.
‘Ta-ra, Mom.’ She hugged her mother briskly, as if already taking on a professional nurse’s attitude. ‘I’ll come and see you all soon, I promise.’
‘Bye, babby,’ she heard her mother whisper. She drew back, her eyes wide and sad, but forced a smile to her lips. ‘Good luck, kid.’
After swift goodbyes to her little brother and sister, Melly was inside, behind the closed door.
‘I’m starting to be a nurse,’ she thought, sinking on to the bed in the room to which the Sister had led her, after a walk along so many corridors that Melly wondered if she would ever find the way out again.
The new intake were housed, for the first three months, in ‘the huts’, a wooden structure at the back of the home where lots of doors opened into little rooms off the corridor.
Her room was small and simple, containing a bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and chair. It smelt of a mixture of disinfectant and polish. Melly could hear sounds, people moving in to the other rooms, and every so often, voices in the corridor as another new recruit was shown her quarters. Her stomach was fluttery with nerves. Who were they all? What would they be like? Would she be able to fit in?
Beside her on the bed were laid a collection of garments – mauve uniforms and a collection of starched-looking white items – aprons and cuffs, she saw, sorting through them, and collars and caps. Her uniform!
The Sister had said she needed to put a uniform on in readiness to meet the others for tea at four o’clock. Melly looked doubtfully at some of the white bits and pieces, wondering whether she would be able to sort out what went where. There was also a lovely, warm-looking navy cape. She stroked its red silky lining in wonder.
Unsure what else to do, she opened her suitcase and was in the process of stowing away her things in the chest of drawers, when she heard a voice with a strong Irish accent from the corridor outside.
‘Does anyone in this place have an idea what you’re supposed to do with this?’
Melly crept to the door and opened it a crack. As she stuck her head out she saw a number of other heads appear from nearby doorways. A couple of the faces were those of black girls. Most were white and mouse-haired like herself, one blonde.
In the corridor stood a skinny young woman, herself with short, almost boyish brown hair, very pale skin and a mischievous expression on her face. She was holding up one of the aprons with its long, trailing straps.
Everyone emerged and started admitting, amid laughter, that they had no idea what to do with most of it and how exactly were they supposed to put it on – did anyone know?
The Irish girl was called Berni O’Reilly. Soon, though Melly did not then realize it, while chatting and laughing over the uniform in that corridor and later having tea together in the nurses’ home’s common room with the others, she had met the group of girls who would be her friends – Berni, from Dun Laoghaire; Jen, the blonde girl who came from Alcester and Margaret, a soft-spoken, twinkly-eyed girl, one of the two who had come from the West Indies to begin their training.
A bell was ringing somewhere. Melly opened her eyes and looked round at the bare room in utter bewilderment. The nurses’ home! For a few moments a sick, bereft feeling filled her. It was the first time in her life she had not woken up at home, with her brothers and sister and Mom and Dad, with all the old familiar things and voices around her.
She lay fighting back tears and the sudden urge to run along the road and catch the bus back home – as if this new life was all a dream, full of strange rules and regulations.
A host of details had been reeled off to them the night before: about wearing black regulation shoes, polished, and darning their black stockings if any hole or ladder appeared. There was to be no jewellery worn and very little make-up; nails must be kept short and no nail varnish, ever. They had learned how to fold their frill-edged ‘Sister Dora’ caps and pin them on with kirby grips. Melly, whose hair was straight and long enough to fasten into a bun, found that her cap stayed on quite easily. With all the rules about where they could study, what time everything was expected to happen, and trying to take in everyone’s names, her head felt as if it was bursting by the time she went to bed.
But then she remembered the tea last night and the warming feeling that most of the girls were friendly and not snooty and that they were all just as nervous about everything as she was. They sat round, tucking into the stodgy spread that was provided and drinking cup after cup of tea.
‘My sister’s a nurse,’ Berni had told her last night. She, like everyone else, looked fresh and suddenly professional in her mauve uniform. ‘The things she tells me. Jaysus –’ she rolled her eyes comically – ‘it’s enough to frighten the life out of you!’
Melly had liked Berni immediately and she also took to Margaret with her neat, wiry hair and dark eyes which danced about, always looking ready for a joke.
‘My mother said to me, you gotta do something with yourself – you work as a teacher or a nurse, some profession. And I thought, I am never going to make a teacher – huh!’ She shook her head. ‘Children vex me.’ Warily she eyed the cake in her hand as if it might explode. ‘What’s this?’
‘Rock cake,’ Melly laughed. ‘It’s nice – promise. Haven’t you ever had one before?’
Margaret took a cautious nibble. With crumbs on her lips, she went on, ‘So – nursing for me, I thought. The lesser of two evils!’ Seeing their shocked faces she finished with a wink. ‘I’m joking. It’s a serious vocation.’
‘I’ve always wanted to be a nurse,’ Jen said, piling sandwiches on her plate. They would learn that Jen, blonde, blue-eyed, skinny as a stick insect, could eat like a horse and was almost as strong as one. ‘I read all those stories about heroines – you know, Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell – and bandaged up my teddy bears. Only thing is, teddy bears are nice and clean and fluffy. Goodness knows how I’ll be with blood and . . . whatever else.’
Berni told them she had been working as a ‘skivvy’, as she put it, in a hospital back home since she was sixteen.
‘My mother kept on about me going into an order – I’ve eight older sisters and she’d’ve had me into the Sisters of Mer
cy like my sister Cath and oh, good God, I wasn’t having that. I thought I might as well escape across the water and get trained up properly so I can earn my own living and please myself.’
‘You know there’s a convent just round the corner, don’t you?’ Melly teased her.
Berni actually looked worried for a second, and then burst into laughter. ‘Well, I’ll be keeping well away from there, I can tell you! And you – Miss Melly – are you a born nurse then?’
‘Me? Oh – no. But I s’pose . . . It was the midwife who came when my mom had my brother, one of the ones after me—’
‘Well, it would have to be after you really, wouldn’t it?’ Jen put in and they all laughed. Melly smiled at the silliness of what she had said. But there was no malice in Jen, she could see.
‘She first gave me the idea and I just always thought it was the best thing to be.’
‘Well,’ Jen said, holding up her teacup as if in a toast. ‘We’re soon going to find out, aren’t we? At least they don’t let us loose on a ward straight away. Here’s to Preliminary Training!’
The thought of seeing these girls, who she already liked, who she hoped she could fit in with, drove Melly out of bed, to join the throng of them as they went over to the hospital canteen for their first breakfast as nurses.
Thirty-Two
‘Huh,’ Danny said as Melly walked through the door for her first visit home. ‘Packed it in then, have yer?’
They were all there that Sunday afternoon – even Gladys. Though Melly had only been away for two weeks, it felt so strange that home should still be here, going on just the same. As soon as she walked in, four-year-old Sandra was clinging to her legs, wanting to be picked up. She hauled the little girl up into her arms, too happy to be annoyed by her father’s comment. She felt as if she had grown up years in the last fortnight. It didn’t matter what anyone said.
‘No, Dad.’ She beamed round at everyone. ‘I love it. Every minute of it!’
Though this was not quite literally true – getting out of bed in the morning was always a struggle and in parts of some of the lectures, especially in the afternoon, she felt like dozing off to sleep.
So far she had done two weeks in the Preliminary Training School and was starting to become familiar with all the routines and the layout of the hospital and classrooms. She had settled in happily and rubbed along with everyone – especially with Berni, Margaret and Jen.
Together, when they had time off, they had explored Bournville Green, just near the nurses’ home, where they had sat out one fine afternoon on the wooden benches, nattering and sucking sweets from one of the little shops. Though it was cold, the sun was shining and a carpet of snowdrops and yellow, mauve-and-white crocuses blazed their colours across the green. They caught mouthwatering whiffs of chocolate from the Cadbury works close by and heard, from across the road, the sweet-toned bells of the carillon ringing out. It was such a pretty place.
Last Sunday, as she was used to going to church with Gladys, she went to St Francis in Bournville with Jen. Berni was a Catholic and went off to St Edward’s along the road. Margaret, who was from Nevis, said her family were Moravians. She and Denise, the other girl from Nevis, found out that Moravians were just starting to meet at Sparkhill Methodist church so they went all the way over there. The rest of the time they were all together and got along well, unified by the training, by the laughter, successes and mistakes, the sharing of new experiences and all the things they were learning.
Selly Oak hospital had already begun to feel like home.
It was tough at times and she knew it would get tougher when they started on the wards.
‘Just remember,’ one of the senior nurses told them. ‘If you work hard and study hard and are prepared to do the things required of you, you can all be good nurses. There will be difficult times. I don’t know a nurse who has not been in tears in the sluice during her working life and more than once for many of us. But you can do it. Just remember that.’
Melly was prepared for all of it. She wanted to do her very best, to be the best, most hard-working and caring nurse ever. She had found the thing that was right for her and which seemed the most noble work anyone could do. She was in love with the whole thing!
Mom and Dad looked at her, uncomprehending, as she sat at the table with them and told them all about the school.
‘We have a dummy to practise on called Mrs Bed-worthy,’ she said, laughing. ‘She’s very patient. And we do anatomy on Jimmy the Skeleton!’
‘I – bet – he’s a – bit – bony!’ Tommy said. They all laughed.
Gladys seemed slightly awed and she could see Mom and Dad were listening, though they didn’t know what to ask about any of it. Sandra and Alan were too young to understand any of it. They got down from the table to muck about on the floor and Kev and Ricky started muttering to each other about football and yesterday’s Villa match.
‘We’re learning about nursing practice and hygiene,’ Melly bubbled on. ‘They’re going to take us to a sewage works – and a dairy.’
‘What the hell for?’ Danny said, reaching to flick ash on to a saucer. ‘You’re not looking after cows, are yer?’
The boys tittered at this. Melly felt annoyed.
‘It’s all about learning how to prevent infection,’ she said importantly.
‘Are you getting enough to eat?’ Mom said, gathering up the crumb-strewn plates.
‘Yes, Mom.’
‘And the rooms – are they—?’
‘Yes,’ she said impatiently. ‘The rooms are clean. Of course they are!’
‘You – been – in the – wards yet?’ Tommy asked. Tommy knew a thing or two about hospitals, having spent weeks at the Woodlands.
‘Not yet,’ Melly answered, grateful that someone was actually taking what she did seriously. ‘We’re in the classroom for a bit to begin with.’ She smiled at her brother. ‘How’s it going, Tommy?’
His eyes twinkled at her. ‘They’re – working – me – to the bone.’ He finished with a grin.
Mom and Gladys were clearing the tea things and had started talking about one of the neighbours, someone who was poorly, who Melly didn’t know. She could see that her family only had limited interest in anything going on outside their own world. It felt as if she had been away a lot longer than two weeks. For a moment she felt sad that they didn’t share in any of her interests. She turned to her father.
‘How’s it going on the market?’
‘Good,’ Danny said, sitting up, suddenly full of energy. ‘I’ve been down London this week, down Petticoat Lane – with some of them Jewish lads. Thought I’d have a go and I bought some leather coats, three-quarter length . . .’ He sawed the side of his hand against his leg just above the knee.
‘Leather?’ Melly said. ‘What – new ones? I bet they cost a bit, didn’t they?’
‘Seven quid each, I paid.’
Gladys laughed. She had just refilled the teapot and she limped over to pour them out more tea. ‘You dain’t have much luck with ’em yesterday, did you, Danny?’
Danny looked pained. ‘Nah. They’re great heavy things. Hard as hell – all creases in the arms. You have to work ’em in like a pair of shoes. Warm, though. As toast. Any road, I’m thinking what to do – summat with a bigger return instead of grubbing about round all these jumbles sales and such.’ He was happy now that she was talking the trade he knew. ‘Seconds – that’s the way forward.’ He tapped his nose, his face boyish now. ‘I’m working on it, kid.’
Melly grinned. ‘I bet you are, Dad.’
Thirty-Three
One Saturday that summer, Melly arranged, on her day off from her first ward placement, to go and visit Cissy.
When she got through to her, from a telephone box, Cissy sounded ecstatic to hear from her.
‘Course you can come. I wish you’d come more!’ she said. ‘And anyway, I’ve got something to tell you.’
Melly pictured Cissy in the enormous living room of her a
nd Teddy’s house – mansion, to be more accurate. She could hear a faint echo over her voice because the room was so big. Cissy truly lived in another world.
In the almost four years since Cissy’s marriage, Melly had only been over there a handful of times. Cissy, who was a lady of leisure, preferred to come back into Birmingham to see her friends and family and have a good look round the shops. Rather to Melly’s surprise she never gave the least hint of being unhappy out in her Warwickshire lap of luxury.
‘I’ll come on the train,’ Melly said. ‘Would Teddy be able to . . . ?’ On previous visits, Teddy had either come to Coventry station in his sleek car, smelling inside of leather and Teddy’s expensive cigarettes, or they had urged her to summon a taxi for which they would pay.
‘Teddy’ll be at the golf club,’ Cissy said. ‘But don’t you worry – you stay at Coventry station and I’ll come and pick you up. Teddy’s bought me a little runabout.’
‘You’ve learned to drive?’ Melly said, finding this hard to imagine.
‘Yes.’ She heard Cissy’s infectious giggle down the phone. ‘I took the test four times – but now I’m safe to be let out on the road!’
Coventry railway station was a building site. Amid all the racket of banging and rumbling machinery, she waited for Cissy. When she saw a very shiny cream, open-topped sports car come shooting towards her, driven by a woman with blonde-white hair tucked under a red-and-white floral scarf and scarlet lipstick, she was still looking for someone else. But the car braked alongside her and the woman leaned over the passenger seat and flung open the passenger door.
‘Here we are – hop in!’
Only then did she recognize Cissy’s face.
‘God, Ciss!’ She hurried into the car, Cissy revving off as she shut the door. ‘I’d never’ve recognized you!’
Cissy grinned at her. She was wearing a crisp cotton frock in bright red and white candy-stripes, and on the foot pedals Melly could just make out white, very high-heeled shoes. Cissy seemed plumper, her bare arms fleshy, creamier looking. There was a little wad of flesh under her chin. All in all she was looking mighty pleased with herself. Melly smiled back, with a rush of fondness.
