Christmas Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  Aileen did not dare allow herself to speak, and even if she had wanted to, the words were stuck in her throat. To give her time to compose her thoughts, she laid down the knife, picked up her teacup and sipped at the scalding liquid. Her mother’s eyes never left her face.

  ‘I have spoken to Josie about it many times and she agrees with me that it would be best if you left St Angelus altogether. We could sell this house and buy something much smaller, nearer to Josie, and then we could use the money left over to live on. I think we could be quite comfortable.’

  This was too much and Aileen almost spluttered her tea on to the saucer. ‘You might be quite comfortable with that, Mother, but I am only thirty. The money might last you out, but what will I do when I get old? The money would be long gone by then. And besides, I love my job.’

  Tears had begun to sting Aileen’s eyes, much to her annoyance. She could not believe that her mother had discussed this with Josie. Neither of them had congratulated her on her promotion – instead, they’d hatched a scheme that benefited the two of them and took no account of her life or her happiness. She swiftly took the decision to say no more. She simply did not trust herself. Her anger was burning like bile in the back of her throat. The heat from the fire felt oppressive. They were trying to drown her, own her. Why?

  ‘Oh goodness, is that the time?’ She looked up at the clock on the mantelshelf. Her eye caught that of her father in the photograph and it was pleading with her: Run, Aileen! Run! ‘I must dash. I shall miss my bus.’ They both knew that was a lie.

  She jumped up from the chair. ‘I have choir tomorrow night, Mother. Gina will be here until I return, and that will probably be quite late as we’re all meeting in the cathedral hall afterwards for a Christmas celebration and I would like to join in.’

  Her head was spinning. She would have to think about her mother’s words later. For now she had to get out of the room as fast as she could. Her emotions were in turmoil – how could Josie not have told her what their mother was planning?

  She turned from the door. For once, her mother had not tried to prevent her from leaving. There was no objection, no complaint. Instead, to Aileen’s confusion, she was smiling again. ‘That’s nice. You’ll enjoy that, Aileen, dear,’ she said.

  Aileen closed the door without replying. What is going on, Mother, she wondered as she made her way downstairs. What are you up to?

  *

  Sister Tapps perched on the edge of the bed. Her battered old trunk sat on the floor next to her. The lid was open, hinged backwards like a gaping mouth and reinforced by brown leather straps, and she stared into the cavernous expanse inside. In the bottom lay a tartan rug, the rug her parents had bought for her when she was sent off to boarding school. Apart from its occasional use during her schooldays, it had spent its entire time lining the base of the trunk and was now musty-smelling and riddled with moth holes. She remembered that she had always kept a photograph of her sister Edith tucked inside it, along with the original receipt. She blinked and almost shook her head. When did that rug get so old? It didn’t seem so long ago that it was brand-new and wrapped in brown paper. But the rug was far from new any more and she sighed at the faded and tattered thing it had become.

  She stood up from the bed and lifted the rug. There on the leather-lined base of the trunk lay the yellowing paper receipt. She held it to her face and breathed deeply, and memories came flooding back. Memories of herself as a girl, holding her mother’s gloved hand. She could even remember the shop assistant who’d served them in her smart overall and bobbed hair, and how her mother had embarrassed her by asking in exasperation, ‘How much?’, and then turning to her and saying, ‘Look after that rug now, won’t you. It’s made of good wool and it’s cost a pretty penny.’

  The assistant had wrapped it up and given the young Olive Tapps a pitiful and knowing smile.

  ‘I don’t know why you have to go away to school,’ her mother had said. ‘Your grandmother and her money… But it seems I have no say in the matter. I’m just your mother, after all.’ That was in 1904. Within the next ten years, now institutionalized into the boarding-school way of life, she lost her father to a bullet in the First World War, her domineering paternal grandmother to TB and her mother to madness.

  She moved from boarding school to a nurses’ home to the sisters’ accommodation. She knew nothing else. Family life was something she learnt about via occasional conversations with the parents of her patients, but even though she and Edith had spent very little time together, she had loved her sister very much. She was uncomfortable in company and found it hard to converse in a jolly way with the other sisters. She’d given her entire life to her job and her patients, whom she had cared for with all she had to give. But only they knew that.

  Tappsy was jolted out of her melancholy by the sound of doors banging in the room next to hers. It was Sister Haycock’s room and she now heard the crashing of drawers opening and closing, then the wardrobe door being slammed shut. It occurred to her that Sister Haycock’s room had been very quiet of late. She used to hear her washing in the bathroom and there’d often be the hum of the radio playing softly in the background. But Tappsy didn’t put two and two together nor let herself contemplate the possibility of illicit liaisons and her fellow nurses falling in love. Such thoughts had been far from her own experience for such a long time, they didn’t even come into her head any more.

  Time to get back to the ward, she thought. She had been about to try and begin to pack up. Abandoned by Matron, thrown out into the world she was so unfamiliar with, she had found that she couldn’t. The physical act of opening her neatly lined and carefully organized dressing-table drawers had been impossible, and besides, where would she go?

  She thought of her sister Edith and the guilt almost swamped her. ‘Oh God,’ she murmured as the image of her loving sister filled her head – the sister who’d been too young to attend boarding school, then too sick with rheumatic fever, which had trapped her in a wheelchair; the sister who’d been the only one to care for their mother. And she’d cared for Tappsy too, but Tappsy hadn’t even attended her funeral.

  ‘Edith,’ she gasped, her eyes full of tears. It had been impossible for her to leave the hospital for the funeral, absolutely impossible. It just couldn’t happen. But it seemed that her niece and nephew had not forgiven her, for her letters to them had gone unanswered. And her brother-in-law, the man who had loved Edith above all else, he would have taken her absence as a slight on Edith and would likely never forgive her. He must have turned Edith’s children against her – her only blood relatives – and there was nothing she could do. The clock could not be turned back. So now she had nowhere to go and no one to spend Christmas with, and there was no incentive to pack.

  She dropped the receipt into the trunk, watched it flutter back to its dark resting place of many years and closed the lid with a clunk. She walked over to the mirror next to the door and fastened her belt. She had doubled up on the Petersham and the buckle would allow it to tighten no further. Her eyes squinted in confusion. She would have to go to the seamstress and ask her to make it smaller. She felt no pleasure at the sight of her own reflection. She had eaten nothing but hospital food for the last forty years, and it showed. Her skin was sallow and grey, her frame almost skeletal. She sighed. ‘You are old,’ she said to herself.

  Her hand reached out to the mirror and touched it lightly, as if to wipe away the image before her. She leant her head against the cool glass. ‘I don’t want to go away,’ she whispered. Her sick children needed her, and she needed them. She lived in fear of losing what kept her stable and happy. That was the reason she never took a holiday or had a day off.

  She closed her bedroom door behind her as quietly as possible, not wanting to attract attention, but she was too late: Emily Haycock was already out in the corridor, lugging a big case.

  ‘Oh, hello, Sister Tapps, how are you? Have you heard about the new baby in ward three? What a stoke of luck we’ve ha
d. It looks as though he’s going to pull through.’

  Sister Tapps blinked. She had no idea what Emily was talking about. Emily Haycock didn’t even work on the children’s ward. No one had told her about a baby on ward three, but then no one told her anything any more – it was as if she was invisible.

  Emily’s gaze wandered over Sister Tapps and although she was far too polite to say it out loud, she immediately registered that Tappsy had lost weight. It’s because she works too hard, she thought.

  ‘No, I haven’t heard. We have been er… a little busy on ward four,’ said Sister Tapps.

  Emily’s eyes widened. ‘Oh yes, you’re going to have your first Christmas off in ages, aren’t you.’ She suddenly felt relieved. Tappsy really needs that holiday, she thought. ‘When are the children moving to three?’

  Sister Tapps stiffened and glued the smile to her face. ‘Tomorrow, I believe. Or so Matron informs me. They are making decorations for ward three and the trees have arrived – apparently they are going to look lovely.’ A lump formed in her throat and she immediately changed the subject. ‘Are you going away yourself?’

  Emily looked down at her suitcase and her cheeks coloured. ‘Oh, er, yes, I suppose I am really. Well, yes, I mean I definitely am, but I’m just staying with a friend – locally, that is.’

  She prayed that Tappsy wouldn’t ask who the friend was. She was quite sure that she would have no idea about her and Dessie. She wasn’t the kind of ward sister the others gossiped to or included in their coffee breaks or soirees in their sitting rooms. It had been like that ever since the incident with little Laura, when they had almost all judged her. They’d seen her lack of professionalism as a slur against themselves and St Angelus, but most of all they hated the fact that she worked every day and never took a holiday.

  ‘It has to stop,’ Sister Antrobus had told Matron many times. ‘We can’t have her showing the rest of us up. Some of us have friends and relatives we like to visit and I for one look forward to my coach trip around the North Wales coast during the summer months. Her insistence on working every singe day makes me very uncomfortable.’

  The most recent complaint had come only that week and Matron had almost rubbed her hands in glee at finally having the chance to bring Sister Antrobus up short. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, she is having a holiday.’ She paused for effect and had to stop herself from smiling as Sister Antrobus’s eyes popped and her jaw fell open. ‘She is away for the whole of Christmas and we are transferring many of her patients home.’

  Sister Antrobus had recovered quickly, folding her arms and harrumphing with indignation. ‘About time, Matron. She hasn’t left St Angelus in nigh on seven years now.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister Antrobus.’ Matron raised her voice and there was no mistaking the meaning in her tone. ‘I think I shall be the one to decide who does and doesn’t have leave, if you’d be so kind – unless the board has failed to inform me that you have been promoted to Matron and I am no longer required? And may I say, as we are talking about incidents, it’s not that long since you had one of your own.’

  Matron finished her reprimand with a flourish and Sister Antrobus blushed to the roots of her hair. The memory of her having been caught red-handed in the arms of Mr Scriven, the disgraced consultant, was still fresh in everyone’s minds and Matron would not let her forget it. Information was power and Matron used it well.

  Sister Tapps sensed Emily’s eyes on her as they stood facing each other at the top of the stairs. She wasn’t very fond of small talk and much preferred reading a book to having a chat. She was suddenly afraid that Emily might be about to ask her where she would be spending Christmas. Everyone was talking about Christmas – the trees arriving, the preparations for the carol concert, the presents for the children. What could she say now? Her readymade answers about Christmas morning on the ward were useless this year. She acted quickly. ‘I’m so sorry, I do beg your pardon, I’ve left something in my room. You have a lovely Christmas if I don’t see you again, won’t you.’ And without waiting for a reply, she turned her back on Emily and nipped back into her room.

  *

  Pressing her back against her bedroom door, Tappsy waited until she could no longer hear Emily’s footsteps racing down the stairs. Despite the weight of her suitcase, Sister Haycock sounded nimble and young. She popped her head out to check that none of the other sisters were around, then stepped out into the corridor again and closed her door.

  As she passed Emily’s door, a thought struck her. While they’d been talking, she’d noticed that Emily had failed to lock her room. That was quite normal – very few of them ever locked their rooms, especially not day to day. She turned the handle and stuck her head inside. It was tidy and clean and you would struggle to believe that anyone used it. It seemed so unlived in. She let her gaze rest on the bare dressing table, the open wardrobe door and the top of the fireplace. There was nothing there. She moved to close the wardrobe door and saw that it was empty. Sister Haycock is not coming back, she thought. There is nothing here to come back for. She’s left. How odd – why didn’t she say? Why be so secretive?

  As Tappsy made her way over to the ward, a plan began to crystallize in her head, and for the first time since Matron had given her her Christmas marching orders, she smiled. Well, why not, she thought.

  There was an On off duty/holiday sign to hang on each doorknob and Emily had turned hers over as she left. No one would clean her room or even enter it now, and besides, the accommodation domestics took holiday themselves over the Christmas break. She could hide out in Sister Haycock’s room! No one would even know she was there. She could sneak out at night and if ward four was to be closed, she could stash anything she might need in there and use the fire escape to the kitchen if she wanted to cook anything. She could smuggle things out over the next day or two and hide them in her trunk. That way, she wouldn’t need to go anywhere. She could spend her Christmas in St Angelus, just as she always had. She wouldn’t have a great deal of warm food or her beloved children around her, and she wouldn’t dare even put the radio on in case anyone heard, but it would only be for a short while.

  She chuckled as she made her way down the steps, feeling lighter of heart than she had since she and Matron had had their little talk. But then without any warning she came to a sudden standstill. The pain had returned and it was intense, as if someone had crept up behind her and stabbed her in the side. She emitted the first note of a scream but quickly clamped her hand over her mouth and, grabbing the banister, took long deep breaths until the waves of sickening pain ebbed away.

  ‘Deep breaths, deep breaths,’ she whispered to herself as she sank down and sat on the stair. She had given that advice so often and to so many of her poorly children.

  Once she knew she was safe, she removed her hand from her mouth, gripped the banister with both hands and dragged herself back up to standing. She felt weak and drained. That was maybe the fourth or fifth time it had happened that month. She’d had no other symptoms though, and she was sure she’d be able to identify any that might be cause for alarm.

  As her heartbeat steadied, she took her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the beads of perspiration from her brow and top lip. I need some magnesium, she thought. I have a bit of an ulcer and a bit of regular magnesium will fix it. Moments later, she strode down the corridor towards the laundry to find the seamstress and ask her to adjust her belt.

  14

  Branna was the first to arrive at the greasy spoon and, as was the custom, that meant she had to fetch the hot milky drinks ready for everyone else. The urns sat on a long table at the front of the café and the coffee was scalding hot. She took a wooden tray from the table next to the urn, laid out the pale green national issue cups and saucers and was just holding the first one under the tap when she was joined by Biddy.

  ‘Oh, you’re a good’un,’ said Biddy as she leant over and inhaled appreciatively. ‘You get the coffees, I’ll fetch the toast.’

 
‘Don’t forget to get a second ashtray, Biddy,’ said Branna over her shoulder, keeping an eye on the steady stream of coffee, being careful not to miss and burn herself. ‘I don’t like putting the ash in me saucer. I missed yesterday and it fell into the coffee.’

  Ten minutes later, surrounded by a haze of blue smoke, Biddy, Elsie, Madge, Branna and Betty had finished their coffee and toast and were all about to light up their second cigarette.

  ‘What have you left your toast for, Elsie?’ said Biddy as she pointed the lit end of her cigarette towards Elsie’s plate.

  Elsie looked miserable. ‘I left me teeth out this morning and I can eat nothing but a bit of porridge and suck on a sponge cake,’ she replied with a frown and a shrug.

  ‘Why, have you broken them?’ Biddy furrowed her brow. ‘You had them in yesterday. You haven’t been inviting the coalman in again, have you, for an Elsie special?’

  The table erupted into raucous laughter. Biddy made the most of the moment and played to the gallery. ‘I thought he was a long time in yours. Hadn’t wanted a cuppa from me, he hadn’t, girls, and when I heard him grunting, I thought, oh, it’s one of Elsie’s buns he’s chewing on. I was right, eh, Elsie?’

  Tears fell down Madge’s face as she dropped her cigarette into the ashtray and removed her handkerchief from her handbag to wipe her eyes. ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped as she blew her nose. ‘Biddy, what are you like!’

  Biddy stopped laughing and, noticing Elsie’s forlorn expression, replied, ‘Oh come on, Elsie, what’s wrong with you? Have you left your sense of humour at home along with yer teeth?’

  Elsie grinned. The arrival of the coalman was the highlight of her week – not that he would ever have known it. She blushed and said, ‘No, the most the coalman has ever given me is an extra few lumps in me hundredweight. I haven’t lost my teeth, or broken them either. God in heaven, the ulcers… would you look at them.’ She leant forward and opened her mouth to Biddy, who flinched and looked away.