The Nightingale Christmas Show

by Donna Douglas

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Donna Douglas

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Part One

  Kathleen

  Charlotte

  Violet

  Peggy

  Miriam

  Daisy

  Part Two

  Violet

  Charlotte

  Daisy

  Miriam

  Peggy

  Kathleen

  Read on for an extract from The Nurses of Steeple Street

  Copyright

  About the Book

  It’s Christmas, 1945. The war is over, but its scars remain.

  Matron Kathleen Fox has the job of putting the Nightingale Hospital back together. But memories and ghosts of those lost fill the bomb-damaged buildings, and she wonders if she is up to the task.

  In the name of festive cheer Kathleen decides to put on a Christmas Show for the patients. The idea is greeted with mixed feelings by the nurses, who are struggling with their own post-war problems. And the rivalry between newcomer Assistant Matron Charlotte Davis and ward sister Violet Tanner isn’t helping matters.

  However, as rehearsals begin, it seems the show isn’t just a tonic for the patients – could the Nightingale Christmas Show be just what the doctor ordered for the nurses too?

  About the Author

  Donna Douglas lives in York with her husband and two cats. They have a grown-up daughter. When she is not busy writing, she is generally reading, watching Netflix or drinking cocktails. Sometimes all at the same time.

  Also by Donna Douglas

  The Nightingale Series

  The Nightingale Girls

  The Nightingale Sisters

  The Nightingale Nurses

  Nightingales on Call

  A Nightingale Christmas Wish

  Nightingales at War

  Nightingales Under the Mistletoe

  A Nightingale Christmas Carol

  The Nurses of Steeple Street Series

  The Nurses of Steeple Street

  District Nurse on Call

  Acknowledgements

  Like the Nightingale Christmas Show itself, this book could not happen without a diverse cast of characters. So my thanks go to the team at Random House, especially my editor Viola Hayden, Cassandra Di Bello, the designers for the great cover, my publicist Jasmine Rowe and the unsung heroes in the sales department who make sure the book gets on the shelves.

  I would also like to thank my wonderful agent, Caroline Sheldon, and my family for their support. Especially my daughter Harriet, who is far more brutal than any editor I have ever worked with, and who made me change the ending. For the better, I have to say.

  To Ken, with love as always

  PART ONE

  Kathleen

  30th November 1945

  A battered wooden sign hung over the crumbling remains of the old Casualty department. It swung lopsidedly from a single nail over what was left of the doorway, creaking in the cold wind.

  The paint was peeling from the wood, but Matron Kathleen Fox could still read the words:

  The Nightingale Hospital – more open for business than usual!

  ‘I don’t understand it, Matron.’ Miss Davis, the Assistant Matron, looked perplexed. ‘Why did it say the hospital was open for business? Surely that would have been obvious?’

  ‘It was supposed to be a joke,’ Kathleen said.

  ‘A joke?’ Miss Davis’s small face puckered into a bewildered frown.

  ‘I had it put up the day after the hospital took its first big hit during the Blitz. The bomb blast blew a hole in that wall over there.’ Kathleen pointed to the other side of the courtyard. ‘I thought it might be amusing to put up a sign, to remind people we were still here in spite of everything.’

  Four years ago, she had stood in the same spot in the courtyard as she did now, smiling to herself as she watched the porters nailing the sign into place over the gaping hole where the doorway had been. She could remember the men laughing as they put it up, and the grins on the patients’ faces as they passed underneath it. God knows, they’d had precious little else to smile about back then, with the East End taking the worst of the bombing night after night.

  She remembered that day as if it were yesterday, but somehow it also felt like a lifetime ago. Now she could barely recognise herself in that proud, defiant woman. The Luftwaffe’s bombs had destroyed her fighting spirit, as surely as they had destroyed the old Casualty building.

  ‘I see.’ Miss Davis did not crack a smile. ‘Well, it can’t be left hanging like that. It might fall down and injure someone. I’ll speak to the men in Maintenance and have it fixed right away.’ She took out the notebook she always carried in her pocket and scribbled a reminder to herself.

  Kathleen held herself rigid, trying not to give in to her irritation. Even the scratch of the Assistant Matron’s pen on paper grated on her.

  She didn’t know why she disliked Charlotte Davis so much. It certainly wasn’t like her to take against someone so fiercely. And Miss Davis had hardly given her any reason to resent her. The young woman was bright and keen, she worked hard and she was eager to please. Even her appearance was inoffensive, her slight figure always immaculate in her dark blue uniform, a perfectly starched headdress framing her unremarkable face.

  And yet there was something about her that set Kathleen’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘We might as well take it down. We don’t need it now, anyway.’

  ‘As you wish, Matron.’ Miss Davis crossed out a few lines in her notebook and wrote in some more words in her tiny, spidery handwriting. ‘They’ll be pulling it all down soon, anyway, once they’ve finished building the new block.’ She turned her gaze to where the work parties of German POWs were toiling under the wintry sky. ‘Look, they’ve nearly finished the roof. It won’t be long now, I’m sure. Then all this lot can be cleared away.’

  Kathleen winced at her brisk tone. She couldn’t blame Miss Davis. The Assistant Matron had only been at the Nightingale a few weeks; she had no fond memories of the hospital as it had once been. She had never witnessed the defiant spirit and the courage of the doctors and nurses who risked their lives day and night during the war. All she saw were the remains of bomb-ravaged buildings needing to be swept aside to make way for the new.

  But Kathleen saw a different picture.

  ‘I remember the night it got hit,’ she said. ‘It had just turned nine, and the night shift had come on duty. I was in my flat in the sisters’ home when I heard the explosion, but I knew straight away what had happened. I came straight back, and—’

  She paused for a moment, gathering herself at the memory of seeing those smouldering remains for the first time. Even now, when she thought about it, her heart started to hammer with panic, remembering how she had fought her way through the thick fog of smoke, choking on dust and the sickening stench of cordite, while all around her the air was filled with shouting and running footsteps and the screams of the dying.

  ‘Were there many casualties?’ Miss Davis’s crisp voice broke into her thoughts, jarring her back to the present.

  ‘Four patients were killed, as well as a young medical student and a second-year nurse. Devora Kowalski.’

  ‘You remember her name?’ Miss Davis sounded surprised.

  ‘I’ll never forget it.’ It was imprinted on her mind as clearly as the devastated faces of Nurse Kowalski’s parents when Kathleen had broken the news to them that their only daughter was dead. ‘I remember them all. Everyone who died in the service of this hospital.’

 
‘Of course,’ Miss Davis said. ‘Such a shame.’

  Kathleen glanced sideways and saw the look of polite sympathy on the Assistant Matron’s face. She didn’t understand, Kathleen thought. She did her best to look as if she cared, but there was a kind of detachment about her that Kathleen found chilling.

  Charlotte Davis had come to the Nightingale after resigning her commission with the Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service. She must have witnessed some terrible tragedies of her own while serving in Europe. And yet she seemed curiously untouched by it all.

  Kathleen wondered if that was what she didn’t like about her. There was no warmth or empathy about Miss Davis. Even her pale blue eyes were like ice.

  Even now, the Assistant Matron was consulting her watch, keen to move on, to push past their emotional conversation.

  ‘It’s past ten o’clock, Matron,’ she said. ‘They will be expecting us up on the wards.’

  Kathleen bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. She wanted to remind Miss Davis that she had been Matron of the Nightingale for more than ten years, that she did not need anyone, least of all her new assistant, to tell her what she should be doing and when. But instead she managed an icily polite, ‘Thank you for reminding me, Miss Davis. What would I do without you?’

  The sarcasm was lost on her, as usual. Miss Davis straightened her shoulders and looked pleased with herself. ‘Thank you, Matron.’

  It had rained the night before, and the morning chill meant the broken cobbles of the courtyard were glazed with ice. The evidence of the war was still all around them, in the gaping holes in the brickwork and the roofs jagged against the dirty grey sky, with chimney pots missing, and sections of roof blown out.

  As they passed the main building, Kathleen automatically averted her eyes. Four years on, she still couldn’t look at it without remembering the night her former Assistant Matron Veronica Hanley died.

  She had thought she would die that day, too. Those last hours, when she and Miss Hanley had been buried in a tomb of fallen rubble, masonry and twisted steelwork, would haunt her forever.

  The outside of the hospital might still bear the scars, but from the inside no one would have ever known there had been a war at all. The staff who had been evacuated down to Kent when the war began had all returned now, and the wards that had housed military patients were now filled with the usual winter bad chests, rheumatism and routine operations. The ceilings might have been cracked and the walls missing chunks of plaster here and there, but the floors shone, the windows gleamed and the air was filled with the scent of disinfectant and polish.

  They visited each ward in turn, where the ward sister, her staff nurses and students were lined up at the double doors, like soldiers awaiting inspection. At every ward, Kathleen greeted the nurses and took report from the sister about any new cases that had come in, and those that were due for discharge. Then she went from bed to bed, speaking to the patients. As it was the last day of November and less than a month until Christmas, most of them were eager to know when they could go home. It had been seven years since the last peacetime Christmas, and everyone wanted to spend it with their families.

  Miss Davis followed behind, but as usual she was more interested in the state of the ward than the people in it. She brandished a measuring stick, which she used to check the turned-down top sheets. She ran her finger along the bed rails and window sills, and sniffed the water in the flower vases on the bedside lockers to make sure it was fresh.

  But never once did she pay any attention to the patients, Kathleen noticed.

  Once again, she fought to keep her irritation in check. Inspecting the ward was supposed to be her job, but Miss Davis seemed to have taken it upon herself to do it. And from the hostile glances the ward sisters sent the Assistant Matron’s way, it was clear they did not like her any more than Kathleen did.

  They reached Jarvis, the male medical ward. Violet Tanner was waiting for them outside the double doors, tall and straight in her grey ward sister’s dress, a sliver of raven black hair visible under her linen bonnet. She was flanked by two staff nurses and one shy-looking student, her eyes cast demurely down at the ground.

  ‘Miss Tanner,’ Kathleen greeted her.

  ‘Matron.’ Violet kept her expression formal, but the hint of a smile gleamed in her dark eyes. She and Kathleen had been friends ever since Violet joined the Nightingale as Night Sister ten years earlier. She had been evacuated down to the country with the rest of the Nightingale staff, but she had returned just before VE Day and taken over the running of the newly opened male medical ward.

  If Kathleen had had her way, she might have been her new Assistant Matron. But the Board of Trustees had had other ideas.

  Jarvis was identical to the other wards in the hospital, a long, high-ceilinged room with tall windows and two rows of twenty beds down its length. In the centre of the room stood a desk, and a table adorned with flowers where the patients who were well enough to get up took their meals. At the far end, beyond the tall, glass-fronted equipment cupboards, was a short stump of corridor that led to the private rooms, the kitchen and the sluice, and beyond that to Sister’s office and her private sitting room.

  They stood at Miss Tanner’s desk while she gave her report. But all the while the ward sister was speaking, Kathleen was conscious that Miss Davis scarcely seemed to be listening. Instead her narrowed gaze roved around, up into the ceiling around the light fittings, over the windows and floors and along the lines of beds and lockers, looking for flaws.

  Finally they began their inspection. As Kathleen would have expected from Sister Jarvis, the ward was spotless. But Miss Davis seemed to be on a mission to find fault. She strode off purposefully down the ward, brandishing her measuring stick.

  ‘Aye aye,’ one of the men laughed as she approached. ‘Watch it, Percy mate. You know where she’s going to put that stick, don’t you?’

  His friend in the next bed sighed. ‘I’ve had that many enemas and Lord knows what else up there, I don’t suppose it’d make much difference.’ He grinned at Miss Davis, showing off an array of gaps where his teeth had been. ‘I hope you’ve warmed it up first, Sister!’

  Miss Davis pulled her slight figure up to her full height. ‘It’s Assistant Matron to you.’

  ‘Ooh, I beg your pardon.’ The man pulled a face and gave her a mock salute. ‘I didn’t know I was in the presence of royalty, I’m sure.’

  ‘Take no notice of him, Miss, he ain’t got no idea how to behave.’ The man in the next bed shook his head at him. ‘I wonder, do you think you could pick up my Racing Post for me? It’s slipped on to the floor.’

  Kathleen and Violet glanced at each other with amusement, both knowing what was coming next. But Miss Davis seemed to have no idea as she sighed and bent down to pick up the newspaper. As she did, the man leaned over and slapped her smartly on the backside.

  Miss Davis shot upright with a gasp of outrage. ‘How dare you?’

  ‘Sorry, Sister, I couldn’t resist it.’ The man grinned.

  ‘Reg! It’s Assistant Matron to you,’ his companion in the next bed reminded him sternly.

  They were still chuckling as Miss Davis stalked away, back up the ward. Her narrow shoulders were rigid under her grey dress, her face flaming.

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry, Assistant Matron.’ Violet Tanner sounded sincere, but looking sideways at her, Kathleen could see her friend tucking in the corners of her mouth in a desperate attempt not to laugh. ‘I should have warned you, Mr Donnegan and Mr Church do like their little jokes.’

  ‘That man is a menace!’ Miss Davis snapped.

  ‘He’s quite harmless, really. I suppose when you’ve been stuck in bed for six weeks you tend to find ways to amuse yourself. Most of the nurses have learned to take it in good part.’ Violet smiled at her. ‘I’m sure you got used to dealing with male patients when you were a military nurse?’

  ‘I most certainly did not!’ Charlotte retorted. ‘I would never have tolera
ted such behaviour. The men would have been punished.’

  ‘Yes, well, we can hardly make poor Mr Donnegan get up and run around the courtyard, can we?’ Kathleen said, impatience getting the better of her.

  ‘More’s the pity!’ Miss Davis snapped. She straightened her shoulders, trying to hold on to what was left of her dignity, and headed off back down the ward, still clutching her stick. As she passed Mr Donnegan’s bed, she made a point of looking the other way.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Violet whispered. ‘I do hope she finds a cobweb or something, just to cheer her up.’

  ‘If she doesn’t, it won’t be for the want of looking. Honestly, I don’t think that young woman has any sense of humour at all.’

  ‘She does seem rather a cold fish, I must admit. Perhaps she just needs time to come out of her shell?’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Kathleen turned to Violet. ‘Are you still free this evening?’

  ‘For our night out? I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘So am I. Shall we take a taxi, or catch the bus?’

  ‘Let’s splash out and take a taxi, shall we? We can pretend we’re wealthy ladies of leisure.’

  ‘If only that were true!’

  ‘Kathleen Fox! Are you telling me you’d like to be a kept woman?’

  Before Kathleen had time to answer, Charlotte Davis was heading back towards them, her measuring stick tucked under her arm.

  ‘The top sheet on bed ten is turned down twelve inches, not fourteen,’ she announced with malicious satisfaction.

  ‘Oh, I do apologise, Assistant Matron. I will have the bed remade at once.’ Violet nodded to the student nurse, who jumped to attention immediately. Once again, her face gave nothing away, but Kathleen could see the gleam of mirth in her dark eyes.

  Just at that moment, the double doors swung open and a second student nurse came in, staggering under the weight of a cardboard box full of Christmas decorations. She stopped dead when she saw Kathleen and Miss Davis standing there, her cap askew on her blonde head, knees buckling under the box’s weight.