Secrets of the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  ‘Hello there, Pete.’ The sergeant at the front desk had known DS Miller for years. ‘You out with the Home Guard this evening?’

  ‘Aye, I am, Neville.’ DS Miller raised his black trilby hat; all the detectives in the force wore them. ‘You keeping well?’

  ‘Aye, aye, all good. Our Billy is back for a few days’ leave next week so the missus is running round like a crazy woman, using up all our rations and cleaning the house from top to bottom.’

  DS Miller smiled. He didn’t envy parents the worry they went through if they had sons in the forces, but he did covet their being a part of a loving family unit. His own wife Sal had been taken from him before they had been able to have their own sons or daughters. Sometimes he railed against the injustice of it all – not only of losing his wife so young, and at the hand of such an evil illness, but of being deprived of the joy of having children. Other times, though, when he was feeling less sentimental, he thought it was probably just as well. How unfair for a child to be raised without a mother’s love.

  As DS Miller made his way down the nicotine-stained corridors to the changing rooms where he kept his Home Guard uniform and tin helmet, he passed the archive rooms. He stopped and looked at his watch. He still had half an hour before the crossover of shifts.

  His curiosity had been piqued, seeing Kate. And Rosie. It just seemed so odd that Rosie knew Kate. And she must have known Kate as the shop had clearly not opened for business yet; from the way she and Polly had left the shop it was obvious by their body language that it was Rosie who had orchestrated the visit there – and not Polly, who had looked excited but also a little bewildered.

  DS Miller put his hand on the brass knob of the door to the archive department.

  Just to cure my curiosity, he told himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Royal Infirmary, New Durham Road, Sunderland

  Saturday 6 September 1941

  ‘Thank heavens you’re here, Mum. I thought you were never going to make it.’ Helen was sitting, shoulders slumped, on the large plastic-covered armchair that was positioned next to the iron-framed hospital bed. Her normally sparkling emerald green eyes were bloodshot and there were dark bags underneath.

  Miriam ignored her daughter and stared at her husband, lying flat on his back, looking like a corpse on a mortuary slab, his arms by his side and the outline of his slightly parted legs showing under the stiff starched sheets. The only visible movement came from the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

  Miriam felt a wave of irritation. She had rushed here as quickly as she could when the hospital had called her, but from what she could see, Jack looked exactly the same as when she had been here the time before – and the time before that.

  For the past ten days she’d been trooping to and from the Royal. And with each trip her resentment had grown. Why they couldn’t have simply kept him at the hospital in County Mayo where they’d initially taken him was beyond her. He’d barely been there a fortnight when the doctors in their infinite wisdom had deemed him ‘stable’, and decided that it would be best to get Jack back home ‘to those who loved and cared about him’.

  ‘If Mr Crawford is to come out of this coma he’s in …’ the neurologist had told Miriam, his broad Irish accent and the crackling on the phone line making his words barely comprehensible, ‘… the chances are it will be in the next few weeks.’

  Miriam had felt impatient as he started rambling on about ‘two possible prognoses’ for coma patients like her husband. The first being that he would gradually start to regain consciousness, but that usually happened within the first month. The second was that he would not wake up, but instead would ‘progress into a minimally conscious state’. When Miriam had asked him what on earth he meant by that, the consultant had cleared his throat a little nervously. When Miriam heard the words ‘vegetative state’ she had immediately hung up.

  ‘Sit up straight, Helen.’ Miriam swung her gaze to her daughter. ‘You look like the letter C!’ Her words bore not a slither of humour or affection.

  Helen automatically pulled herself up straight, like a puppet as its strings are tugged. Her mother’s words were a familiar rebuke; one of her favourite and most frequently used recriminations. It didn’t matter that her father was lying there, right in front of their very eyes, totally comatose – or that Helen had been more or less living at the hospital these past few weeks. Oh no, all that her mother was clearly bothered about was her daughter’s goddamned posture.

  ‘And, if I were you,’ Miriam added, ‘I’d go and splash your face with some cold water. You look like death warmed up.’

  Helen glared at her mother, who stood there, perfectly made-up, hair expertly styled into victory rolls – her nails French polished – and thought she had never hated her mum as much in her entire life.

  ‘God, Mother, you’re unbelievable! I thought you might be more interested in knowing how Father is doing, rather than making catty comments about my posture and appearance.’

  For once Helen would have liked to just chat to her mother like normal mothers and daughters. But instead, she’d had to gear herself up for another bout of verbal sparring, and, if she was honest, that was the last thing she wanted to do at this moment. She had neither the energy nor the inclination, but she was damned if she was going to capitulate and let her mother get the better of her.

  Looking at her mum’s slightly victorious demeanour, she could swear that on some sick and twisted level she was actually enjoying seeing her daughter look as rough as a dog and totally done in while she stood there, fresh as a daisy, and still remarkably good-looking for a forty-odd-year-old woman.

  Miriam sniffed. ‘Of course, I want to know about your father, but from where I’m standing he looks exactly like he did when I was in the other day. The nurse on the phone told me that there’d been some improvement – but this is clearly not the case.’

  Helen had to stop herself screaming at her mother. Hadn’t she listened to anything the doctors had been telling them these past few weeks?

  ‘There has been an improvement, Mother,’ Helen said through gritted teeth. ‘And if you’d been here more often you might have actually seen it.’

  Miriam had walked to the end of the bed and was pretending to read her husband’s medical chart. She hated the fact that Jack looked so weak and pathetic, lying there, mouth half open with a load of dribble coming out. She looked over at a steel trolley that had been pushed up against the wall and caught sight of a load of sterilised metal syringes and glass thermometers lying in an enamel kidney-shaped bowl; tucked underneath on the middle shelf was a porcelain bedpan. Quickly she looked away.

  ‘So, then, pray tell, what is the great improvement that I am failing to see?’

  Helen’s mouth pursed. Part of her wanted to tell her mother to just ‘get out and go home’ – that she was the most heartless, cold-hearted bitch she had ever known. But she knew she couldn’t. She might have let herself go these past few weeks, but she wasn’t going to humiliate herself in public and act like some old fishwife, and in a hospital of all places.

  ‘A few hours ago,’ she said in a low, controlled voice, ‘Father squeezed my hand, then he started to move his arm ever so slightly. I immediately shouted for the nurse.’ Helen paused, remembering the drama. ‘She came rushing in and started checking his pulse, and that’s when he started to try and speak!’

  ‘Well, what did he say?’ Miriam demanded, hanging the medical chart back on the bottom of Jack’s bed and walking over to the bedside cabinet to inspect a small glass vase of flowers that she presumed Helen must have brought in.

  ‘Nothing that I could understand,’ Helen said, more than a little exasperated by her mother’s lack of any kind of excitement about what had happened. ‘It was as if he was having a bad dream and trying to call out.’

  ‘And then what?’ Miriam snapped.

  ‘Well, that was it,’ Helen said, feeling like a schoolgirl who had not done as well as
she should have in a test. ‘He just went back to the way he was.’

  ‘And that’s what the doctors call an improvement?’ Miriam’s voice was starting to climb. ‘I get my hopes up that I might finally get my husband back and not be left with some vegetable––’

  Miriam’s rant was just about to really get going when a loud cough at the doorway caused her to brake abruptly mid-flow. She looked round to see a middle-aged man wearing a starched white coat over a dark grey tweed suit. He had a stethoscope hanging around his neck and his hands were resting in the large pockets of his jacket.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Crawford,’ he said, ‘so glad you could make it.’

  Miriam looked him up and down.

  ‘I was just saying, Dr …?’

  ‘Mr Gilbert,’ the consultant said. ‘Yes, I know what you were just saying and I wanted to explain to you what I have been telling your daughter, Miss Crawford, here.’

  Mr Gilbert smiled at Helen. The poor girl looked shattered. She had been by her father’s bed every time he had come to do his rounds, and whenever they had needed to carry out more tests.

  ‘The fact that your husband has started to try and move his limbs and has attempted speech is actually a really good sign. Unfortunately, it’s not like in the books when a patient simply wakes up out of a coma and starts chatting away as if they’ve just had a little snooze. I’m afraid, in reality, it’s a far more long-drawn-out affair.’

  Miriam sighed impatiently.

  ‘People,’ he continued, ‘who are lucky enough to wake up from a coma – especially those like your husband, who not only suffered hypothermia, but whose brain was deprived of oxygen – well, they usually come round very gradually.’ He paused. ‘If at all … It really is a slow process, and very often, when a coma patient does start to regain consciousness, the chances are they may well be very agitated and extremely confused to begin with.’

  Miriam was still standing by the bedside cabinet and was looking intently at the doctor.

  Mr Gilbert pulled up one of the hospital’s stackable chairs that was in the corner of the small square room.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, Mrs Crawford? Or we could talk more in my office?’ He looked at Helen. He hadn’t wanted to say what he was about to say in front of the man’s daughter.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my legs, Dr Gibbert,’ said Miriam, deliberately mispronouncing the name. The consultant, however, wasn’t going to split hairs. He was tired, had been working a twelve-hour shift and now he just needed to get home to his wife and two young children and get some shut-eye. He had not the least inclination or energy for getting into power games with this awful woman.

  ‘That’s fine, Mrs Crawford. Now that you are here, though, this might be a good time to have another chat. Your husband has been with us for well over a week––’

  ‘Ten days,’ Miriam interrupted.

  ‘Yes, of course, it’s now been ten days,’ the doctor said and scratched his head in an attempt to hold back his irritation. ‘And as I explained to you back then, every day is important, which is why this might be a good time to have another chat to you about your husband’s prognosis.’ The doctor paused and glanced at a worn-out-looking Helen, before asking, ‘Would you like to go somewhere to chat privately?’

  Miriam followed his gaze to Helen, who she noticed with irritation had started to slump again.

  ‘No, you can say anything you want to in front of my daughter. She’s a big girl now – too old to be mollycoddled.’

  Mr Gilbert didn’t think this woman’s daughter would have had a lot of – if any – ‘mollycoddling’ from her mother in the whole of her young life.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but if you’re not going to sit, then I think I will.’

  He drew up the lightweight tubular steel-framed chair and sat down on its hard plywood seat. He leant forward, put his elbows on his legs and clasped his hands together as if in prayer. His narrow dark grey tie dangled down in front of him.

  ‘Your husband’s slight movement and attempts to speak today are positive signs, although we really don’t know how it will go from now on. There is still the possibility that he may never wake up … or he may wake up but have suffered damage to the brain, in which case he may well need round-the-clock care for the rest of his life.’

  He paused and looked anxiously at the man’s daughter as she digested the reality of what he was saying about her father.

  ‘It’s what we call being in a “vegetative state” … Or, of course,’ he added, trying to be more upbeat, ‘that may well not be the case and Mr Crawford may come out of his coma and make a full recovery … I’m afraid we just don’t know. We don’t have a crystal ball,’ another pause, ‘… it really is a matter of waiting, and hoping, and praying for the best possible outcome.’

  There was silence in the room. The doctor twisted his wrist round and sneaked a look at his watch. He was now into his thirteenth hour on duty. His head felt fuzzy and the scene in this little box room, with its pastel-painted green walls and the long blackout curtains drawn across the large sash windows had taken on a slightly surreal quality.

  ‘Well then, doctor,’ Miriam said. ‘We’d better start “hoping and praying” if that’s really the best medical help you can offer.’ She glared at him.

  Mr Gilbert realised he was being rudely dismissed. He pushed himself up out of the chair with his hands on his legs. As he stood up he realised just how stiff he felt.

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Crawford … Miss Crawford, just call the nurse if you need anything. And, no doubt, I will probably see one, or both, of you tomorrow.’

  And with that Mr Gilbert was gone.

  In twenty minutes he would be climbing into bed and cuddling up to his wife’s warm body, and tonight, in particular, he would be counting his blessings that he was married to a woman who not only loved him dearly, but who also loved to ‘mollycoddle’ their two young children, and would probably continue to mollycoddle them for as long as they allowed her to.

  Miriam and Helen were quiet for a good few minutes after Mr Gilbert said his farewells. This was a situation neither of them had ever foreseen they would be in.

  ‘Well,’ Miriam eventually broke the silence, ‘it’s pointless the both of us being here. So you might as well get yourself back home and get some sleep and,’ she sniped, ‘tidy yourself up before you show your face back here tomorrow. Remember, you’ve got to keep up appearances. Your grandfather is one of the main benefactors of this hospital.’

  A part of Helen wanted to stay by her father’s side. A part of her believed that if she stayed with him it might somehow help him to come out of this coma. But she was tired, and she didn’t think she had the energy to deal with her mother for a moment longer.

  ‘All right, but you will ring me if he wakes up again, won’t you?’ Helen hated the fact that she sounded like she was having to beg.

  Miriam looked at her and gave her a smile that seemed genuine.

  ‘Of course I will, darling. Now tootle along. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  And with that Helen got up and left without saying a word, giving her father one last hopeful look on the way out.

  Shortly after she heard her daughter’s footsteps reach the end of the corridor, Miriam sat down in the chair by the side of the bed; it was still warm from where her daughter had been sitting for such a long time.

  As Miriam allowed herself to relax a little, she felt glad that she was alone. Time for her own thoughts. After a little while she stood up again and walked over to the door and quietly closed it, before sitting back down in the chair.

  She took a deep breath and picked up her husband’s hand and placed it on her own. She then leant forward and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Jack Crawford.’ Her voice was steady and stern.

  ‘I’ve listened to that doctor – whatever his name is – and I have come to a conclusion.’ She looked down at her hand in his. It was the first time she’d not
iced he was not wearing his gold wedding band. She presumed the doctors must have taken it off for some medical reason.

  ‘I have decided that there are only two options. You either wake up soon – and you wake up the person you were – with all your mental faculties intact and physically able … you wake up the husband that I want and need you to be, or,’ she hesitated, ‘– and there is no in-between, I’m afraid, Jack – or … you damn well let go of this life and leave us be.’

  Miriam took a breath. ‘The choice is clear-cut. I’m simply not having you wake up handicapped … or as some half-wit. I simply won’t have it.’

  Now Miriam was practically hissing.

  ‘This was not the life I chose. And I’m not going to be stuck with some mentally or physically disabled imbecile for the rest of my time.’

  Miriam looked at Jack but there was no response.

  She kept holding his hand, though, which felt surprisingly warm, and as she did so her mind wandered back to the time she first met Jack when he had been a lowly plater at the yard. She had known, despite his poor, working-class upbringing, that he was going to rise through the ranks, could tell he was ambitious – and that he worked as hard, if not harder than the next man.

  But it wasn’t his work ethic or ambition that had made her want Jack. She had quite simply fallen for him, hook, line and sinker. She had looked into those grey-blue eyes and fallen, as only the young can – without rhyme or reason, and without any thought for what the future might hold. He had been so dashing, with his mop of thick black hair, his manly physique, those broad shoulders, and the way he stomped rather than walked. His face had always looked older than his years, but that was also part of the attraction. He was, in her eyes, a real man. He was not one of these namby-pamby types her mother kept trying to match her up with. God, her darling mater had begged her to choose a husband who was her equal, but her mind had been made up from first setting eyes on Jack when she had gone to the launch of a ship at Thompson’s. As soon as she had spotted him, she wangled an introduction and had insisted on shaking hands with him, despite his reluctance due to the dirt that was practically engraved into his skin. She knew then it was Jack she wanted.