Christmas Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  As Matron opened the office door, the telephone rang. ‘Just a moment, please,’ she said as she turned back to answer it.

  ‘Did you look under the cot and in the cupboards?’ said the CID officer, turning to Freddie, who was standing guard outside the office door.

  ‘Yes, sir. We looked everywhere, but who would hide a baby and why?’

  The CID officer lifted his hat and scratched his head again. ‘There is no rhyme or reason to this,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy. I would swear on my old lady’s grave that that baby is still here somewhere on this ward and hasn’t been taken. Unless we have the first case of a child disappearing into thin air.’

  ‘What? You think he’s still on the ward? But that doesn’t make sense.’ But Freddie knew that it didn’t make sense that Louis had been taken off the ward, either.

  *

  Emily caught up with Aileen as she continued comforting little Jonny and tried to stop him missing Sister Tapps.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked as she placed her arm on Aileen’s and smiled down apologetically at the little boy. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it, and I have to say, I think it’s a first for St Angelus.’

  Aileen looked up at Emily. She was trembling slightly and Emily could tell she was hiding something.

  ‘Look, come here,’ Emily said and she led Aileen away. ‘We will be back in a moment, pet,’ she said to Jonny. ‘Could you keep an eye on those two clowns for me? I think they’re going to break something soon. You tell me when I come back if they have both behaved.’

  ‘Oi, I heard that,’ said Dessie. ‘You’re on my side, aren’t you, lad? We men stick together.’

  Jonny didn’t reply, but, shoving the arm of the teddy in his mouth, he grinned up at Dessie and with his other hand wiped at his wet eyes. Big boys didn’t cry.

  Emily and Aileen walked down the ward. ‘Look, it wasn’t your fault. Louis was doing so well, he was improving by the hour.’

  Aileen looked thoroughly dejected. ‘But that’s just it – I think it is my fault.’

  ‘No,’ said Emily, ‘it isn’t. He no longer needed to be specialled and he was thriving, and that was down to you. That’s what you have to remember. And besides, I’m sure the police will find him very soon. If his mother has taken him, she’s got him back a lot healthier than when he arrived here. It really isn’t your fault that a mother, for reasons we don’t yet know, wanted her son back.’ What Emily didn’t express was her own heartache at not even having had the chance to kiss Louis goodbye, let alone start putting into action what she’d discussed with Dessie the night before.

  Aileen took a set of keys out of the side pocket of her navy- blue uniform. ‘Would you help me do the drugs round?’ She looked up imploringly. ‘I know it’s gone a bit mad on here today, but I would rather the nurses cracked on with the decorating. Maybe we can do something right and win the competition… And it’s giving the children so much fun.’

  She sorted through the bunch of keys for the one to the drugs trolley and Emily could see there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what else is bothering you?’ she asked.

  Aileen looked up sharply and met Emily’s eye. She had never felt more in her life like she wanted to unburden herself. She glanced nervously towards the office. Through the window she could see Matron on the phone, and there in the doorway was Freddie, gazing at her while his superiors talked among themselves. His eyes were pleading with her, and the set of his jaw, the way he was wringing his hands, told her he was desperately sorry for the mess they were in. But it didn’t matter how sorry he was – it was all her fault.

  ‘I am to blame,’ she whispered to Emily as she pulled the trolley away from the wall. ‘I was in the milk kitchen with Freddie and he came in and we were… er… talking. I was distracted. Oh God, Sister Haycock, it was my fault.’ She looked distraught.

  ‘Why? How could it have been? Have you taken Louis?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Aileen, ‘but I was distracted and if I hadn’t been, I would have heard someone coming through the ward doors and across the landing and down the stairs.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No. There has been lots of coming and going today because of the transfer and the decorations and everything, and I’d just spoken to Nurse Tanner on her way to the laundry, and then to Sister Tapps on her way in to say goodbye to her nurses, and Freddie and I were in the kitchen and we were… we were…’ She gulped and her face blushed a bright crimson and she almost screwed up her eyes as she lifted the lid of the medicine trolley and rested her head against the smooth wood.

  Emily smiled. She was about to break a rule, but she didn’t care. Times were changing. She would always be a stickler for standards, but she had the feeling that she and Aileen would become good friends. ‘Let me tell you something,’ she said. ‘Do you see that gorgeous man down there?’ She looked towards Dessie, who now had little Jonny on his shoulders. He was reaching up to the crown of the Christmas tree to place an angel on the top.

  Both of them stopped for a moment and smiled. ‘He’s been with Sister Tapps for ten months, apparently, little Jonny,’ said Aileen. ‘Dessie’s just made his day. There are some benefits to being the longest-serving patient.’

  ‘Well, that man,’ said Emily, ‘kissed me in the porter’s hut yesterday.’

  Aileen’s eyes opened wide and she gasped. ‘Sister Haycock!’

  Emily grinned back. ‘Don’t you “Sister Haycock” me! And do you know something, when he did, the sky didn’t fall in and I wasn’t held responsible for every bad thing that occurred in those few minutes.’ She shot Aileen a mischievous smile. ‘And the same applies to you. Now, I think we both know that this sort of thing shouldn’t happen, and I know that neither of us will ever let it happen again, but I also know this: you must not let your guilt or what’s gone on stand in the way of finding your own little bit of happiness. That Freddie, he looks very nice. And by the way, he’s gazing at you like someone who cares.’

  For the first time in what seemed like hours, Aileen felt relief wash over her.

  ‘Now, we know how these things work,’ said Emily. ‘A child or a patient we have nursed for a long time and really care for dies – or in this case disappears without warning. It feels like the ward will never be the same again, or even like you want to give up nursing altogether. But pretty quickly the ward does get back to feeling the same, and we don’t give up nursing, not ever. So what I am saying is: keep going. Let’s just carry on and get this ward back to normal – once we can get rid of this rabble! And by teatime all will be well.’

  Aileen nodded. ‘I know you’re right,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ said Emily with confidence. ‘And I will let you into another little secret. I nearly broke the golden rule with little Louis. I was besotted after I spent that night nursing him and I was thinking of ways I could get back here on to ward three to spend more time with him. But we all break rules occasionally and I’m not beating myself up over it. Now, when are you seeing Freddie again?’

  ‘Tonight,’ said Aileen. ‘We’re both in the choir. There’s a big rehearsal and then a bit of a party afterwards. I’m really looking forward to it.’ Her face lit up and she looked down towards the end of the ward to see if he was still there. He was. Matron was still on the phone and as their eyes met, she smiled at him to let him know that everything was all right. I’m fine. We are fine. He looked as though he wanted to run down the ward and kiss her there and then.

  She opened the medicine Kardex. ‘Right, no one in cubicle one, sadly. Cubicle two…’

  But they had barely pushed the trolley to the door of cubicle two before Matron reached them. ‘Sister Paige!’ she said as she hurried over. ‘Sister Paige, that was Sister Antrobus. It’s your mother – I’m afraid she is in casualty. You had better get down there right away.’

  *

  Branna stood in front of the fridge in the ward four kitchen, its door in
her hand, peering into its dark and empty interior. Mrs Duffy fussed about with the trolley and laid out the plastic squash beakers for the children and the cups and saucers for the adults. ‘Now, where do you keep the plates?’ she asked. Branna didn’t answer. Mrs Duffy tried again. ‘Branna, where do they keep the plates in this kitchen? And the biscuits for the children, where are they?’

  Branna looked back and closed the fridge door. ‘Mrs Duffy,’ she said, ‘I think there must be a ghost in this kitchen.’

  Mrs Duffy laughed. ‘A ghost? Why would that be?’

  ‘Because since a couple of hours ago someone has been and stolen all the bleedin’ milk, bread and butter and the other few bits that were left over in this kitchen after the transfer on to ward three.’

  ‘What are we to do then?’ asked Mrs Duffy, looking shocked.

  ‘We push this trolley to the kitchen on ward three,’ said Branna. ‘I was going to use up the ward four supplies before I cleared the fridge out. But there’s nothing to use now, is there! There’s something in the air and I don’t like it one little bit. I’m off to Mass tonight.’ She cocked her head at Mrs Duffy. ‘And are you going to tell me why you’re being so funny with Emily Haycock? Isn’t there enough going on today without you adding to it?’

  17

  Sister Tapps couldn’t bear to hear a child cry. She had never subscribed to the commonly held view that if a child wasn’t in pain it should be left to cry out its tears. But Sister Paige’s predecessor had been very much of that mindset. She had operated on the principle that leaving a child to cry helped with the healing and taught them a lesson; that it maintained peace and quiet on the ward if you quickly trained children to understand that crying was a fruitless exercise. There was no medical treatment available for a child who was simply missing its parents, and therefore, as most children were inpatients for several weeks at the very least, and sometimes for months or even years, the quicker they adjusted from their old life to the busy reality of a hospital ward, the better.

  But Sister Tapps had no truck with any of that, and nor did she think that having their parents visit hindered a child’s recovery. It was one of the reasons she and Sister Carter had never hit it off, despite having worked in adjacent wards for twenty-five years. There was also the fact that Sister Carter didn’t like Sister Tapps working her days off and not taking any holidays; it was she who’d wanted to complain to Matron about that, but she’d asked Sister Antrobus to do her dirty work for her instead.

  ‘I’m sure she’s trying to show me up,’ Tappsy had heard Sister Carter say one evening to Sister Antrobus on the landing that divided the wards.

  Tappsy had stepped back into the shadows of ward four and listened.

  ‘Can you have a word with Matron for me?’ Sister Carter continued. ‘She makes the rest of us look bad and you know I want to retire next year. Wouldn’t we all go mad if we didn’t have our breaks away? And you are so much closer to Matron than the rest of us.’

  ‘Well, of course we would, my dear,’ Sister Antrobus had said, ‘but no one thinks Sister Tapps is sane, I can assure you. Not since that dreadful incident.’

  There came the sound of approaching footsteps at the bottom of the stairs and the two women fell silent for a moment. Tappsy stayed put, sure that there was more to come.

  ‘In my opinion,’ Sister Antrobus went on, in a softer voice now, ‘she has never recovered from that. But never fear, I shall have a word with Matron.’

  ‘Excellent,’ replied Sister Carter. ‘Well, I shall put in a good word for you when Matron comes to talk to me about my replacement. You should get ward three all to yourself when I go, if I have anything to do with it. I cannot think of anyone better.’

  ‘It would be such a privilege to take over from you,’ Sister Antrobus replied. ‘Such an orderly ward. Not like ward four – I swear I often see children running around in there. I have complained to Matron so many times, but when it comes to Sister Tapps she makes special allowances. However, I shall try my very best.’

  Sister Tapps had allowed the door to close softly behind her. She had heard enough, and she knew she had nothing to fear. All the ward sisters were unmarried and childless – that had been the rule at St Antrobus until recently – and they fell into two groups when it came to children on the wards. There were those who were full of resentment at being single and childless and took this out on the children, regarding them with poorly concealed resentment. And there were those who took the opposite view and lavished all the loving care they possessed on their young patients. Both she and Matron fell into the latter group, but only Sister Tapps was aware of Matron’s soft spot. She hid it well.

  For all those reasons, Tappsy had been relieved when Sister Carter had finally retired. She smiled to herself as she made her way upstairs to the sisters’ accommodation, thinking about how different Sister Paige was to her predecessor and how fortunate it was that Matron had decided not to put Sister Antrobus on ward three. She stopped to catch her breath at the top, then continued down the corridor to Emily Haycock’s room. She closed the door behind her and lay Louis down on the bed.

  Sister Haycock’s secret vacating of her room had been a real stroke of luck for Tappsy. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that this could be the solution to her enforced Christmas break. She wouldn’t need to go far after all – just next door, in fact. It had taken her less than fifteen minutes to pile into her trunk the things she thought she might need and to drag it from her own room to Emily’s. She’d had to stop once to allow her heart rate to slow, but it hadn’t been too difficult. This way, if the maids ignored the sign on her door or if anyone did pop into her room, they would think she had gone away as she was supposed to have done. She left her wardrobe door open so that anyone would see straight away that her outdoor coat and hat had gone, and she stripped off the sheets, stuffed them into a pillow case and left them for collection outside of her door, just as she always did.

  No sooner had she closed her door, left her laundry out and retreated into Emily’s room to get organized than she heard the sound of footsteps and voices on the stairs. She immediately recognized them as belonging to the accommodation maids, Enid and Dora.

  ‘Nothing like the old days, this isn’t, not at all,’ said Enid.

  ‘Not from what I’ve heard,’ replied Dora. ‘Who would have thought – two weeks’ holiday at Christmas. What a thing, eh?’

  ‘It is, but if it carries on like this, they’ll be using the sisters’ block for something else and we’ll be out of a job. It’s only a matter of time before Sister Haycock declares her hand, and we’ve only four of them living in now as it is. And to think, before the war there were more than twenty.’

  ‘Gosh, that must have been hard work,’ said Dora.

  ‘It was that, but it could be a laugh too. They used to make their own fun – it was bingo for money one night, and the priest invited to supper in the sitting room the next. He used to give them all a ticking-off about the gambling, but it didn’t stop ’em. I saw any number of bottles of sherry carted up those stairs behind Matron’s back.’

  ‘No! Never!’

  ‘Oh yes I did. I’m not making it up. They were all right old scolds during the day, gave the nurses hell, they did, but by night in their own sitting room, two glasses in, they soon loosened up. They had a big radio on in the corner and they had their little rituals, all to the clock. Pored over the war news, they did – nothing else in their lives to talk about or look forward to. I swear to God, when the war ended they all looked lost. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was more drunk that night than any other, but they had nothing else to hold them together, no more running back to find out what had happened to the regiments their relatives were serving in.’

  ‘Imagine not being able to get married,’ said Dora.

  ‘No, not a man between them, and not allowed one anyway. Every one of them a virgin. In those days, if they met a fella and wanted to marry, they was out on their ear. It’s n
ot like that now though, and not before time. Anyway, our days are numbered, my girl. Sister Tapps won’t be here for much longer, she’ll retire or be found dead in her bed, and they’ll move Antrobus out into digs somewhere and we all know what’s happening to Emily Haycock. Trying to kid us she’s sleeping in the bed every night! I haven’t changed those sheets for a month. I’m not daft, I know she hasn’t slept in them. Buggered if I’m wasting me time.’

  Sister Tapps heard the polished oak locker doors crash shut at the end of the corridor. In her mind’s eye she could visualize the two domestics putting their coats on and fastening the buttons as they chattered. ‘Anyway, are you coming to the concert on Christmas Eve night?’

  ‘I am,’ said Dora. ‘It’ll be lovely, that will.’

  ‘Right, well, I’ll see you there. Come on, time to get shot of this place for a couple of weeks. We have earned a break and if we don’t get a move on, we’ll miss our bus.’

  Sister Tapps leant against the wall. There would be no one anywhere near the rooms for the next two weeks. It is meant to be, she thought to herself.

  *

  It had been surprisingly easy. She almost marvelled at her own audacity and how the idea had just come from nowhere. She’d been down on the wards, talking to Sister Paige in the milk kitchen, and then she’d gone into ward three to say goodbye to her newly transferred children. The nurses were all gathered in the bay, filling in the morning charts that were piled up on the central table, and the office was empty. She’d stopped at little Andrew’s bed to check that his leg was comfortable and to reassure him that she wouldn’t be far away, when she heard a cry from cubicle one. It was little Louis, the best-kept secret in the hospital, the one Sister Haycock had told her about. The Christmas miracle.