Christmas Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  Kitty had finished her squash. She clasped the empty glass in her hand, stared into the bottom and, looking up at Maura, said, ‘I’ve had that squash before. Sister Tapps used to give it to me when I was in here. I remember it. Will we see Sister Tapps today, Mam?’

  Maura ran her hand over Kitty’s hair and smoothed down an imaginary stray strand. The plaits on Kitty’s head were so neat and tight, not a single hair would dare defy her. ‘We won’t be, Kitty. To be sure, I never want to see her again, because if we do it will be because Angela has to stay in, and that would be just the end of me after all we went through with you. Now, you wouldn’t be wanting that, would you?’

  Kitty shook her head and her expression was sombre. She wasn’t altogether sure whether or not an illness would be a price worth paying to see Sister Tapps again.

  ‘’Tis Angela’s turn to be in this awful place, and with the grace of God…’ Maura blessed herself as she spoke. ‘…she will be coming right back home with us today. You know, in Ireland no one ever goes to a hospital. Sure, the nearest would be in Galway, but I don’t know of a single person who has ever been to it. And the size of this place, you would get lost in it all day long.’

  Kitty didn’t reply. She wanted to complain. She wanted to visit ward four and say hello to Sister Tapps.

  Maura looked into her daughter’s eyes and could tell what she was thinking. ‘Ah, Kitty, my love, it’s been years since you were in here. Sure, you was not much higher than your da’s knee at the time. Poor Sister Tapps, she works like a Trojan and she has lots of children to look after, I doubt she would remember who any of us are.’

  Kitty looked at the floor. This she absolutely refused to believe.

  Tommy shifted forward in his seat. ‘Right now, as you know where to go, I’ll be making me way back then. You won’t be needing me any more. See you later, queen.’ He ruffled Kitty’s hair as he stood and made his way towards the door at the pace of a trot.

  ‘Tommy Doherty! Don’t. You. Dare.’

  Maura’s words hit Tommy like bullets in his back. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  ‘Sit back down here. Now!’

  Tommy shuffled backwards for the first few paces and then, turning, met the eyes of his daughter. Silent, condemning. And then she grinned. His Kitty. He’d swear she held an invisible cord that she’d wrapped around his heart. And now, as though it were winding him in, he walked slowly back to the two women who ran his life.

  ‘Maura,’ he pleaded as he sat back down, ‘I’ll miss the bookie’s and there’s a winner in the three ten at Kempton. We need a bit of extra cash, don’t we, now that you’re expecting again.’

  ‘We don’t know that yet, do we.’ Maura glared at Tommy and then glanced at Kitty, who was staring at the counter, fascinated by the laughing Maisie. Maura put her cup and saucer into Kitty’s hands. ‘Go and take that back to the nice lady, and say thank you, would you now, Kitty,’ she whispered, glad to have a task to keep her daughter busy for a moment. Turning to her husband, she said, ‘Tommy, what are ye doing? No one knows I’m pregnant, not even me properly yet. I don’t want Kitty to be thinking that, or anyone else.’

  ‘Do you not feel it when you’re here, Maura?’ Tommy asked. ‘Can you not smell the place? What is that? It’s enough to make St Michael run for the door.’

  He was referring to the pervasive smell of Lysol. It hit everyone as soon as they walked through the hospital doors. Maura looked about her. A group of doctors like the one they had seen earlier with the stethoscope around his neck walked through the main doors and down the corridor, and a gang of nurses almost buried under their oversized capes headed past in the opposite direction. Maura didn’t miss the glances and giggles exchanged between them.

  They all looked round as they heard a voice shout out, ‘Clear the way, please. Patient trolley.’

  ‘Right you are, Dessie,’ came the response. ‘Toot-toot, please, everyone.’

  Maura caught just a glimpse of a woman being transported on a trolley with a drip in her arm. The glass bottle of the drip contained blood. Maura swallowed hard as memories of her pregnant friend flooded her mind. She could see her, remember her, sense her. Her mother-in-law had told Maura on many a day that her friend hadn’t left them, that her soul was still in the house with them. It was the Irish way. To hold on to people. To honour and mourn them, and in doing so, to keep the memory so strong that it was as if they were simply in another room. Maura’s eyes softened as she thought of her friend. She could hear her whispering to her, warning, Run! Run! Take the kids, Maura. Run!

  Maura jumped to her feet. ‘Tommy, come with me – now!’ she said. ‘Let’s get Kitty.’ Her heart was beating a tattoo against the wall of her chest and her top lip was breaking out into beads of sweat. ‘Kitty, quickly now!’ she called. ‘Let’s get over to the appointment and then get out of here. I’ve left the washing out.’

  Tommy knew better than to argue. Angela was still in a deep sleep. Maybe she was turning a corner? He might be the biggest eejit to walk the dock streets, but even he knew that two nights without sleep was enough to make Maura hit him over the head with her precious handbag if he made a fuss. He stood up as Kitty, half skipping, half walking and with biscuits in her hand, given to her by Maisie for having returned the empty cups and saucers, made her way towards them.

  Maura noticed that Maisie was now chatting to a large lady in a navy-blue dress and a frilled hat. The lady was tall, broad and imposing and stood with her legs apart and her arms folded. Just the sight of her terrified Tommy.

  ‘Feckin’ ’ell,’ he said, ‘she could unload the hull of a ship all by herself, that one. We wouldn’t even be needing the crane. Would you look at that. Would you?’ His mouth fell open. ‘Jesus, feck, sure, come on. Come here, Kitty, we have to be going to see the doctor.’

  As the three of them made a hurried and suspicious-looking shuffle towards the main doors and the steps, they heard Maisie shout something to them.

  Without turning round, Tommy raised his hand and shouted back, ‘Thanking you for the tea and your kindness, Maisie, but we’re off to the appointment now.’ He held the door open for Maura and Kitty to pass through. ‘Come on, faster,’ he urged, then continued muttering to himself. ‘Jesus, if any of the lads could see this. They won’t believe me when I tell them there’s a nurse here who’s bigger than any of them lot.’

  But just as he felt the welcome fresh air on his face, there was a shove in his back and the Amazonian woman pushed past him. ‘Mrs Doherty?’ she said, addressing Maura.

  Maura stopped dead on the red sandstone steps and turned around. ‘Yes,’ she answered, with a warble in her throat.

  ‘I’m Sister Antrobus and if you don’t come with me now, you will be late for your outpatient appointment.’ Sister Antrobus was looking and talking to the fob watch she held out from her dress and was peering over her glasses at Maura as though she was daring Maura to challenge her. She looked up sharply towards Tommy before Maura could swallow her breath and reply. ‘Mr Doherty.’

  Tommy was speechless with fear and simply nodded, fully aware that this was a statement and not a question or a request to verify that fact.

  ‘I have no idea what you are doing here. Or this child.’ Again, she peered over the rim of her glasses as though Kitty were not a child at all but rather something which had crawled out of an apple or from under a stone.

  But Kitty was neither speechless nor cowed. ‘Do you mean me?’ she asked, with genuine curiosity.

  Tommy paled. Kitty had never met or even seen a person who looked like Sister Antrobus before. Sister Tapps was half her size in both height and width. To Kitty, Sister Antrobus resembled a character from a comic and she wanted her to speak more.

  ‘I do mean you, young lady. Have you never been told, children should be seen and not heard, and that means you. Be quiet.’

  Kitty’s curiosity faded as quickly as it had arrived and her face clouded with indignation. No one ever told her to be
quiet. She was her mother’s little helper, and the two of them never stopped talking. ‘Excuse me,’ she piped up.

  Maura wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

  ‘Jesus, Kitty,’ hissed Tommy.

  Kitty glared at him. Undeterred, she continued. ‘Excuse me, do you know Sister Tapps?’

  Sister Antrobus folded her arms. Sister Tapps was her bête noire and far too soft on her patients. In Sister Antrobus’s opinion, nurses who were not terribly fond of children made the best paediatric ward sisters. She herself had applied for the job in ward three, but Matron had just told her that an upstart new sister was to fill the post. So now she would set her sights on Sister Tapps’s role as the sister in charge of ward four. Tappsy’s retirement was way overdue, so it was surely only a matter of time. ‘I do know Sister Tapps. Why?’ she asked, momentarily taken aback that a mere child had had the temerity to address her without being spoken to first.

  ‘Because I know her too. Will you tell her Kitty was here, please. Kitty Doherty. And that I said hello to her?’ Kitty began to feel slightly nervous under the piercing glare of Sister Antrobus. She twiddled one of her plaits and slipped her fingers into her father’s outstretched hand. Tilting her head to one side, she let her eyes wander from the top to the bottom of Sister Antrobus.

  Sister Antrobus had no response. She squinted and her cheeks flushed, but before she could respond with her customary roar, Kitty’s eyes lit up. The little girl squealed, let go of her da’s hands and ran down the steps and across the gravel path towards the slight, white-haired figure in a ward sister’s uniform who was making her way towards them. In her arms she carried a golden teddy bear and a small doll kitted out in Irish national dress.

  ‘Sister Tapps!’ Kitty yelled, and Maura and Tommy were amazed to hear the reply. It was years since Kitty had been a patient at the hospital. Maura immediately thought how Sister Tapps had not altered one little bit, except that she was much thinner than she remembered.

  ‘Well, would you look at you! Kitty Doherty, isn’t it?’ Sister Tapps looked over to Maura and Tommy, who were rooted to the spot under the gaze of Sister Antrobus, too afraid to move.

  Kitty nodded furiously and, overcome with delight, unable to stop herself and with no Maura at her side to reprimand her, she threw her arms around Sister Tapps’s waist and hugged her.

  Sister Tapps stroked her hair. ‘Well now, isn’t that lovely, and something I didn’t expect to happen today. What a treat. Doesn’t it always show you,’ she shouted over, ‘you never know what lovely surprise the good Lord might have in store for you when you get up out of your bed.’ She looked back down at Kitty. ‘And what are you doing here? You aren’t coming back to my ward, are you?’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘No, it’s Angela. She has to see the doctor.’

  Sister Tapps looked over at Maura. ‘Well now, if she’s been a poorly girl, that will be the best thing for her. You know that, don’t you, Mammy?’

  Maura and Tommy, despite their initial fear, couldn’t help themselves and began to smile and nod their heads in acknowledgement. Sister Tapps had that effect. She made people smile. Maura remembered that about her and remembered her calm and reassuring manner on the ward. Her fears, her memories of the friend she had lost, which were at the root of all her anxieties about the hospital, faded away in the presence of Sister Tapps.

  Sister Antrobus had clearly had enough of Kitty and Tommy. ‘Mrs Doherty, come with me, now – you and the patient. Mr Doherty, not you. You and your daughter can wait at the WVS post if you must, but let me tell you, the hospital is no place for children, so unless you are sick, young lady…’ She turned again towards Kitty, who, Tommy noted with pride, remained undaunted, but then Tommy hadn’t been taught by the nuns. ‘…and unless you need admitting, let this be the last time I see you here. Unless of course your sister becomes an inpatient and then only at visiting which is between the hours of two and three on a Sunday afternoon.’

  The calming, kindly manner of Sister Tapps appeared to have no impact on the curt and officious Sister Antrobus. Kitty backed away from Sister Antrobus and closer to Tommy, instinctively wanting to stick to her father’s side and protect her parents and Angela from the unpleasant woman. She reached over to her da and took his hand.

  ‘You come with me,’ Sister Antrobus said to Maura, but they all stopped and turned as the thin voice of Sister Tapps filled the air.

  ‘Kitty, it has been a delight to see you again.’

  Kitty grinned.

  Maura turned the pushchair. ‘And you too, Sister,’ she said, in the same courteous, reverential tone she used when addressing the nuns. Then, with a very sudden change of key, she said to Tommy, ‘Help me down the steps with this pushchair. Kitty, you wait there. Go back inside, it’s cold out here.’

  Once at the bottom of the steps, and before she turned to follow Sister Antrobus, Maura glared at Tommy. Her eyes sent a number of messages and he understood every single one, as did Kitty, who was now peering through the glass panes of the door, not wanting to let her family out of her sight. The first was: if you want to live, wait for me and be in that WVS post when I get back. The second: look after Kitty, and the third: we have to do this, for Angela.

  As Kitty waited for her da, she focused on Sister Tapps. Halfway up the steps, she stopped and grabbed on to the handrail and the expression that crossed her face made Kitty feel funny inside. Something was hurting her and Kitty wondered whether she should run back down the steps to help her, but she found that her feet were glued to the spot in fear. As soon as the grimace of pain had crossed Sister Tapps’s face, she looked up towards the door, saw Kitty peering through and beamed a weak smile back up at her. But Kitty wasn’t fooled. She could see the tears in her eyes and the blood had all but drained from her face.

  Tommy, not aware that anything was wrong, bounced back up the steps and through the door. Passing Sister Tapps, he shouted back down, ‘Will I hold the door for you, Sister?’

  Sister Tapps shook her head and it was obvious to Kitty that she was waiting to catch her breath before she replied. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I’ve only gone the wrong way.’ And, smiling, she slowly turned as though to make her way back down.

  Tommy raised his hand and, letting the door go, said, ‘Come on, queen, let’s see if I can get you another glass of that squash from Maisie while we wait for your mammy and Angela.’ Taking her hand, he propelled her along with him.

  Kitty looked over her shoulder and turned back to the door, but she was disappointed as Sister Tapps never returned.

  3

  ‘Ah, you pair of sods. What kept you? Barbara’s been fretting. Cut you the best bit of ham off the bone to go with the chips and when you didn’t turn up I thought I was going to get it all for meself. Might of known I’d have no such luck. Bet you smelt it up in Whitechapel, eh?’

  The landlord of the Grapes pub lifted up the long wooden hatch and stood aside to let the two tall police officers through to the back of the bar. PCs Freddie Watts and Norman Bartlett both had to duck their heads as they passed through to avoid colliding with the overhead beam and the pewter jugs hanging from it. The jugs were special: each one bore the name of a fallen local hero engraved on the bottom, inscribed there long ago by the men themselves, with a sharp nail and a hammer. They had hung there untouched for a decade now, a fitting memorial to those pub regulars who had paid the ultimate price and would never drink in the Grapes again. More fitting than the stone cross outside St Chad’s, where those who had survived assembled after Mass on November the eleventh each year. No one had dared suggest the tankards be taken down. Another ten years would pass before the winds of change would sweep through the community and blow away its superstitions.

  ‘Evening, Dr Mackintosh. Nurse Tanner.’ Freddie lifted his tall helmet from his head, both to enable him to pass through the arch and to greet Nurse Pammy Tanner and Dr Anthony Mackintosh, who were sitting at an upturned beer-barrel table in front of the inglen
ook fireplace. Sawdust covered the floor and the smell of freshly shaved wood was accentuated by the warmth of the log fire that burnt in the wide grate. In the corner of the room stood a tall Christmas tree strung with far too many coloured lights and tinsel. Crepe paper garlands had been looped from one corner of the ceiling to the next and they quivered and crackled with the thermals rising from the fire.

  The flames danced up the chimney and there was a sudden scattering of ash as Anthony Mackintosh let go of his Pammy’s hand for a moment, lifted a log from the pile stacked up against the blackened brick wall and threw it on to the fire. He clapped his hands together to remove the strands of moss and splinters, then smiled up at the police officers as he sat back on the bench and slid his arm around Pammy’s shoulders. She was his girl and he liked to make sure that no one was left in any doubt of that fact, particularly when a fresh male came on to his territory.

  Every nurse and doctor who had served their time on casualty knew most of the police officers who worked in central Liverpool by name. Their paths crossed, often.

  ‘Evening, Freddie, Norman. Do you two live in here?’ Pammy grinned as she returned the greeting.

  ‘Only when we aren’t keeping the streets of Liverpool safe so that you nurses can sleep safe in your beds in Lovely Lane. Isn’t that right, Norman?’ Freddie gave Pammy a cheeky wink, causing Anthony to hug her a little closer into his shoulder whilst giving the impression that he was simply altering his position.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s our top priority, Nurse Tanner,’ said Norman, who unfortunately hadn’t ducked low enough to miss the beam and was now rubbing his almost bald pate.

  At six foot four, Norman was the taller of the two constables but carried with him the visible effects of his leisure-time passion for drinking pints of Guinness. He was considerably older than Freddie and walked with a slight stoop. Freddie had joined the police force when he returned from the war and was much fitter and faster than Norman. He was also single and there wasn’t a doctor who worked on casualty who was unaware of this. He loved playing football when he could make the training and he was always being sought to play in the St Domingo’s first team on match days. Spending the majority of his waking hours outdoors was yet to play havoc with his olive skin and good looks. His thick dark wavy hair slipped out from beneath his helmet and his dark lashes curled disarmingly, fully revealing his brown eyes flecked with blue. No one was more conscious than Freddie of the effect he had on women, young and matronly alike.