Christmas Angels

by Nadine Dorries

  Finding strength in her denial – something she’d become adept at over the last few weeks – she managed to wash her hands and make her way back to the room. Picking Louis up, she stood with him in her arms and rocked him. They moved over to the edge of the window, out of sight, as the clock on the church began to chime. It only chimed twice. Disbelievingly, she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. The fire wasn’t lit and she had run out of coal and emptied all the buckets in the adjoining rooms. The clock said 2 p.m.

  Louis was beginning to grizzle. The baby who had forgotten how to cry because of the neglect he’d suffered was learning how to grizzle as a result of the care and love he’d been shown at St Angelus.

  ‘You poor child,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how that happened. I thought it was morning – I must have slept more than—’ But she was confused. She hadn’t slept, of that she was sure. The hallucinogenic effect of the diamorphine had dulled her brain and confused her further. The pain had been too great and now there was the itching. She screwed up her eyes in an attempt to ignore it, but it was almost too much to bear.

  Louis became more uncomfortable and began to cry. She was awake and he was hungry, that was all he knew. But he had learnt that the sound of a boiling kettle meant milk was on its way, and as soon as he heard the familiar bubbling he became calmer.

  Sister Tapps forgot herself for a moment – she wanted to check the clock on the church tower. Perhaps her own clock was wrong, or there’d been more than two chimes and she just hadn’t heard them because they’d been carried down the Mersey on the wind. She moved to the window to crane her neck towards the church. It confirmed her worst fears: it really was two o’clock in the afternoon. She had lost seven hours and she didn’t know where. She wondered why Louis hadn’t woken her. She glanced at his face to check for any signs that he’d been distressed. There were none. He looked straight into her eyes and his baby thoughts seemed to shine through. ‘Are you all right?’ his quizzical expression appeared to say, and Tappsy’s face immediately and automatically broke into the most loving smile. Her eyes filled with tears as she wondered how any Christmas could be better spent than in looking after a poorly child.

  Louis became a blur to her, but through the pool of tears in her eyes she saw him smile at something beyond the window and then reach out with both his hands as if to grab at it. A seagull had flown past, screeching loudly as it did so. Tappsy caught her breath and held it as she moved. She had to – it had become too difficult to walk and breathe at the same time. She carried Louis a step closer to the window so that he could see the gulls flying inshore to escape the stormy river. And then, as she looked down to check that no one had seen them, she met the piercing and unwavering gaze of Kitty Doherty, staring straight back up at her.

  *

  Kitty gazed up at the window as she held on to her da’s hand.

  ‘Come on, queen,’ he said as he gently tugged. ‘We’re going in for a nice warm orange squash and a biscuit for you and the lads.’

  Kitty looked at her da and hesitated. She had definitely seen Sister Tapps, but something was wrong because Sister Tapps had neither smiled nor waved at her. Instead of following her da, Kitty dropped his hand and stepped back on to the gravel to take a better look up at the window.

  ‘Kitty, what are you doing?’ said Tommy as he also stepped back and took her hand again. ‘Come on, love, your ma and the lads are waiting on the other side of the door.’

  ‘Da, what’s up there?’ she asked, pointing.

  Tommy looked up. ‘I don’t know, love. Offices, I think. Where they keep all the notes and things.’

  Kitty didn’t believe him. The towering walls were a blackened red brick and the red sandstone windowsill looked huge and solid. The dark, unyielding window reflected the slate-grey, snow-heavy sky. If it hadn’t been for their yellow beaks, she would barely have noticed the seagulls against the snow clouds as they flew overhead. There was no longer any sign of life behind the window, but Kitty knew she had not imagined it. She had definitely seen Sister Tapps.

  ‘Kitty, come on, we won’t have time to get you a drink at this rate,’ snapped Tommy, almost jerking her arm as he pulled her up the steps behind him.

  ‘Well, would you look at you all. Ready for Christmas, are you?’ Maisie called out to them as they made their way towards the counter. ‘And don’t you all look just smashing. I can see my face in those shoes, boys, which is just as it should be. Ah, look, they like the tree. Isn’t it lovely.’

  Maura and Tommy’s twins were standing, mouths wide open, gawping at the wrapped presents under the Christmas tree and the dangling chocolate pennies.

  ‘Mam, it’s lovely,’ said Kitty.

  ‘It’s Kitty, isn’t it?’ said Maisie to Maura and Tommy. ‘Take one of the chocolates each, go on, love. Before everyone comes, go on.’ Maisie pushed Kitty gently towards the tree, ‘You too lads,’ and moments later, they were each holding on to a golden penny, but no one spoke and Maura and Tommy knew immediately what was wrong. ‘Can they take one for our Angela, Maisie, it’s just that it’s the way Maura had brought them up. One can’t have without the other.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Maisie, who took one and handed to Kitty. ‘There you go love, tell her it’s from me.’ Kitty and the boys now grinned. They were a team. If they hadn’t managed to get one for Angela too, the chocolate pennies would have tasted like salt.

  ‘Tea, love?’ Maisie held the big brown pot up to Maura with two hands, one on the main handle and the other on the small lifting handle on the brim of the lid. ‘I doubt you get a cup of tea made for you very often, do you?’

  Maura could see steam rising through the spout. After the cold walk there was nothing she would have liked more, but it being Christmas she was even worried about the ha’pennies and she had promised the children warm squash.

  Maisie knew the look. ‘There’s no charge. It’s nearly Christmas – look, we’ve even got mince pies too. I’m on me own today. No one else seemed to be organized enough to come in so close to Christmas. I swear to God, if I don’t watch it, I’ll be running this place single-handed soon. I’m not the usual type, me – I don’t have the smart hats or paste brooches, and our Stanley, he wasn’t an officer in the army. I think I only got finally accepted because our Pammy’s a nurse here.’

  Maura smiled as Maisie poured out the tea. Kitty and Tommy joined them from the side of the tree.

  ‘And a nice glass of warm squash for you littl’uns, eh? Come here, Kitty, you can give me a hand pouring them out. I’ve just made a jug up.’

  Kitty beamed at the copper jug on the trolley next to the urn. ‘Should I come behind there with you, behind the counter?’ she said, eyes wide.

  ‘Well unless you have very long arms, love, and can reach all the way over to that shelf, yes.’

  Maura and Tommy soon had two trays of drinks and mince pies ready to carry over to the wooden table, along with Tommy’s ashtray.

  ‘Now, you bring me back all the empties, Kitty, would you love,’ Maisie instructed.

  Kitty was all smiles, delighted to help, as always. Ten minutes later, she was standing by the hatch, setting down the dirty trays in front of a grateful Maisie.

  ‘Thank you, love. Aren’t you just the best. I bet your mam can’t manage without you, can she?’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘She can’t.’

  Maisie laughed out loud. ‘I guessed as much! Are you off to visit your sister now?’

  Kitty, often shy, had warmed to Maisie on their first visit and felt even more comfortable with her today. ‘I’ve got to take the boys to the toilet first and then we’re going up to the ward. The doors won’t open for another twenty minutes, mammy says. I wish our Angela was on Sister Tapps’s ward.’

  ‘Oh, love, Sister Paige is lovely and your Angela will be well looked after. Besides, my big girl Pammy is a nurse on that ward and even though I say it myself, I think she’s marvellous. Tell you what, I’m so tired down here, I wish I cou
ld swap places with your Angela and jump into her bed. I’d say, “Oi, move over, Angela, let me in, me feet are killing me.”’

  Kitty began to giggle.

  ‘And I’d wait there until our Pammy, that’s Nurse Tanner to you, came along and tried to take my temperature, or gave me a bed bath or maybe brought the doctor to see me and said “Doctor, I don’t think this patient looks very well,” and they’d all be laughing, because she wouldn’t know it was me.’

  Kitty was now helpless. As the eldest in a large family, she had many responsibilities and laughing wasn’t something she did very often.

  ‘Besides, even if your sister had been on Sister Tapps’s ward, Sister Tapps has gone home for Christmas and all her children have been transferred over to join your Angela on ward three, so she’s not there anyway.’

  Kitty looked at Maisie with a very confused expression on her face. ‘Sister Tapps has gone home? Where?’

  ‘Now that I don’t know, love, but she left a couple of days ago. I know she’s gone to stay with her family.’

  ‘Do her family live here in the hospital?’

  Now Maisie looked confused. ‘No, love. I don’t know where they live, but it’s not around here. A train ride away, I believe.’

  ‘No, she’s not,’ said Kitty.

  ‘She’s not what, love?’ Maisie was slipping the squash glasses into a bowl of hot soapy water one by one and from the corner of her eye she saw Maura fastening the twins’ coats and smiling over to her. Tommy was extinguishing his cigarette in the ashtray and chatting to the man on the table next to them. These were the busiest couple of hours of the day, as people arrived for visiting time.

  ‘She’s not gone home. I’ve just seen her upstairs at the window, with a baby in her arms.’

  22

  Freddie took the steps up to the ward two at a time. He was at least five yards ahead of his super, who as far as he was concerned had driven the police car far too slowly from Whitechapel.

  The familiar smell of the ward assailed his nostrils and he noted that it was visiting time, so the ward doors stood open, ready and welcoming. The warm glow of the Christmas tree in the bay almost took his breath away. The ward gleamed. The long polished table in the centre was mirror-like, the brass hand-bell for announcing the end of visiting time sparkled, and the brass knockers on the cupboards and the door to the sister’s office shone.

  It all felt very different to the last time he’d been there, the day Louis had gone missing. The ward was warm, the fire banked up for visiting and screened off with a metal guard, and the oxygen cubicles, well away from the fire and near to the office were almost unrecognizable beneath the paper-chains and pine branches that festooned the walls.

  Freddie was nervous about seeing Aileen. She had as good as rejected him and he knew she was on the other side of the door, only feet away from him. His heart began to pound in his chest. As he waited for the super to catch him up, he glanced down the ward and observed the parents sitting by bedsides. Near him on the landing, children were waiting impatiently on the wooden benches, craning their necks to try and catch a glimpse of their siblings through the open doors. He provided a welcome distraction and a dozen pair of eyes considered him thoughtfully.

  Branna came up to him as he stood there. ‘Are you for Sister?’ she asked. ‘You had better go along in.’

  *

  Tommy headed towards the wide-open ward doors with Angela in his arms. ‘Don’t move, lads,’ he said to the twins, who were waiting on the bench just outside. ‘Angela can only have two at a time at her bedside, but I brought her to the door because she wants to see you.’

  Angela buried her head in her father’s neck.

  ‘Come on, Ange, love, say hello.’

  ‘Are you better, Angela?’ asked Declan hopefully.

  Angela shook her head.

  Branna came out of the kitchen. ‘Take her back to the bed,’ she said to Tommy. ‘Sister Paige will probably tell you off for standing there.’

  ‘Are Maura and Kitty all right in there?’ asked Tommy, peering through the window of the sister’s office. The office was the last place Maura would want to be. It was Angela she wanted to be spending her time with.

  ‘They’re fine. Don’t worry, Sister Paige isn’t like some of the others, she’ll let you stay longer if you’ve lost some of your visiting time. Come on, boys, give me your hands, let’s go down to Angela’s bed.’

  The boys jumped up and grabbed hold of Branna’s hands.

  ‘But I thought it was only two at a time,’ said Tommy.

  ‘It is, strictly speaking,’ said Branna. ‘But as your wife and other daughter are in Sister’s office, they don’t count, do they? And these two, we can just stand them one on top of the other and they still don’t make up the height of a grown-up, do you, lads?’

  The boys laughed and skipped along beside Branna. Branna drew up next to Tommy as they walked down the ward. ‘Where did you see her?’ she whispered over the boys’ heads, glancing backwards to check no one was listening.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Tommy. ‘I don’t think our Kitty did either. I hope she’s not going to get into trouble. It was Maisie who insisted that she come up here with us and have Kitty tell Sister Paige what she saw.’

  ‘Where was Kitty when she thought she saw her then?’

  ‘Jesus, I told Maisie, I don’t know that either, but the only time Kitty looked at a window was when we were just about to come up the steps to the main entrance. She asked me what was up there and I told her it was probably offices.’

  Branna stopped. ‘Above the main steps as you come into the WVS?’

  Tommy nodded as he laid Angela back down on her bed. ‘Aye. But I’m not saying she was right – you know what kids are like. She’s clever, our Kitty, though. Not one to be fanciful. I’m as surprised as anyone she said that.’

  ‘There you go, boys. I’ll get an extra chair,’ said Branna. ‘You can’t sit on the bed or your legs will be chopped off.’

  The twins looked suitably horrified.

  Branna returned with a third wooden chair, then made her way back down the ward. As she reached the kitchen entrance, Matron arrived at the top of the stairs.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a child in the office with her mother, she thinks she saw Sister Tapps in a window above the main entrance – with a baby in her arms. That’s what her father just told me,’ said Branna. ‘The police are in there too. The father told me the child is not the fanciful type. She’s clever, like. Sister Paige didn’t want to ask her any questions until the police got here.’

  ‘The accommodation block…’ Matron’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘With a baby?’ She glanced into the office, saw Kitty on her mother’s knee and the two police officers sitting in front of her. Sister Paige was standing against the window and, catching sight of Matron, she slipped out and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Has the little girl said what she saw?’ Matron asked.

  ‘She has, yes, but her mother says it can’t be true. She said they didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘The accommodation block – has anyone been up there?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ said Sister Paige. ‘Why, do you think that’s where she is? That the child is right?’

  ‘I have no idea, but I intend to find out.’ Matron opened the office door. ‘Gentlemen, Sister Paige and I are going to make our way to the accommodation block to check the rooms. It seems to me that this is the quickest way to get to the bottom of this… er… situation, and then this poor mother can at last visit her sick child.’

  Maura almost leapt out of the chair. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and pulling Kitty behind her, she hurried back into the ward.

  Both Freddie and the super sat there with their mouths open. Freddie’s pen was poised over his notepad. ‘But we haven’t finished writing down what she said.’

  Matron gave him a withering look and he promptly pushed both his notepad and pen
back into his top pocket.

  ‘Would anyone like to come with us?’ she asked. She had no idea why it had already taken them so long to interview the poor child and she would have asked them to explain themselves, but she didn’t want to waste any more precious time.

  Freddie shook his head. It was obvious Aileen was upset with him – she hadn’t met his gaze once – and he didn’t want to have any awkward conversations in the presence of Matron or the super. ‘I’ll stay here and make sure nothing else untoward happens,’ he said. Aileen, meanwhile, was already heading towards the stairs.

  ‘We don’t have to go that way,’ said Matron. ‘Come with us, Branna. There’s a door at the end of ward four, behind the curtain.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Aileen. ‘Sister Tapps is the only one to use that shortcut. No one else would dare walk down her ward without permission.’

  They trod softly down the ward, the highly polished floorboards creaking beneath every step. Matron led the way and the superintendent rather sheepishly followed behind. Matron thought how ghostlike ward four looked and wondered if she had done the wrong thing after all, closing it down and giving Sister Tapps a break. Her insides churned with fear at the possibility that her decision might have brought about something terrible. Maybe Sister Tapps had had another breakdown. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said. ‘I just want to look in the office for something.’

  She opened the door to Sister Tapps’s office and her eyes went straight to the corner of her desk. It was gone – Laura’s beloved teddy. The one Sister Tapps had bought her and Laura had thrown to her in the desperate hope that she would pick it up and run after her. But Matron had held on to Tappsy’s arm, preventing her from following, and it had been Matron who had bent down, picked up the bear and whispered, ‘There, you keep it. As a reminder.’

  She now felt there was a possibility that Kitty Doherty might be right, that maybe she had seen Sister Tapps. But there couldn’t have been a baby. Sister Tapps could not look after a baby in the accommodation block. It was the bear Kitty had seen, hugged close in Sister Tapps’s arms, something Matron had herself seen many times.