Snow Angels: An emotional Christmas read from the Sunday Times bestseller (The Lovely Lane Series Book 5)

by Nadine Dorries

  Matron sat up in her chair and tumbled her pencil around in her hand in mild agitation. ‘It’s up to Mrs Duffy to decide when she wants to retire,’ she said. ‘I certainly shan’t be suggesting it. What would be far more useful would be for us to take on a maid to help ease her burden, someone to learn under her. No one, young or old, should be expected to run the place alone when the new rooms are occupied. We will value her knowledge and experience more than ever then. She’s a stickler for order and routine – and that’s no bad thing today. We know that whoever trains under Mrs Duffy will be well taught.’

  The chairman of the board had not agreed so readily. ‘That is an extra budgetary expense, Matron. Why would we take on an extra member of staff? Surely the thing to do is to tell Mrs Duffy to retire and take someone half her age on. I mean, you don’t run an old nag in a race if you want to win it, do you? Mrs Duffy has been exemplary in her service to the hospital and the nurses, I have no doubt; however, isn’t it time to rest the racehorse? Put her out to grass? Bring in a new filly who can do twice the work in half the time.’

  Matron had laid down her pencil and taken a sharp intake of breath. Dr Gaskell, knowing the signs well, intervened. ‘Captain Rodgers, you are absolutely right.’ He spoke slowly, his thoughts forming. He was a man to frame his argument with diplomacy and care. ‘As you will have noticed, much of our workforce comes from the surrounding streets and, although it was difficult during the war, now we have no end of young talent and professional people just like your good self, looking for work.’

  Captain Rodgers blushed. As the new chairman of the hospital board, he enjoyed both his status and the power it gave him. Like many men who had returned from a long spell serving as officers during the war, finding positions to equal their war status had not been easy. Captain Rodgers was enamoured with his new role and had taken to flexing his opinion far too often for Matron’s liking.

  ‘The thing is, Mrs Duffy is what you would call in certain social circles – circles you yourself are familiar with, I am very certain – she is, well…’ He looked up to see if he had the captain’s full attention; satisfied, he continued, ‘An old and very much-loved family retainer and therefore you will understand, more than most, why it is that our natural desire is to keep her on and help her as much as we can, until that inevitable day comes when she makes the decision herself to retire.’

  As he spoke, he wondered if he was the only one thinking about the day Matron’s retirement loomed. Would she recognise when that day had come? Would he have to fight for her as he was about to for Mrs Duffy? They had carried St Angelus through the war years, through the formation of the NHS and now, into this new era of ward building. They were all getting on. Would anyone fight for him?

  Captain Rodgers preened, he lived in a small three-bedroomed detached house, albeit a smart one, in the equally smart Menlove Avenue. The postal address mattered to him far more than the size of the house and he had no more idea of what an old family retainer was than anyone else around the table. What mattered to Captain Rodgers was status and perception – and Dr Gaskell had played his hand well.

  ‘Of course, when you put it like that, I see exactly what you mean. However, may I ask, is that why the new self-contained accommodation at the nurses’ home was approved by Matron, for Mrs Duffy to retire to? If so, it means she’s never going to leave, doesn’t it?’ Captain Rodgers said as he placed an exaggerated tick against Matron’s suggestion on the agenda before him. The air across the board table crackled, Dr Gaskell aware, as he reflected on the conversation he and Matron had had just before they entered the boardroom for the meeting, that he would have to answer this question very carefully indeed. Matron had known this meeting would become difficult and, in her own way, she had prepared him.

  ‘What happens if and when she does retire?’ Matron had asked him when they went through the new plans for Lovely Lane on her desk. ‘She will miss the company, will need looking after herself. We can’t just abandon her to a life of solitude and no sense or purpose to her day. We are her life, all of us. There is barely a nurse working in this hospital who hasn’t been woken up with a cup of tea by Mrs Duffy. No one who has returned after a long and hard night shift to a cold bed because a hot water bottle is always waiting. We owe it to her to ensure she is looked after in her old age.’

  His heart broke as he watched her fold the plans and place them back inside the foolscap folder. Who will look after you, Matron? We all owe you. ‘I do understand,’ he had said, gently, ‘but how do we get this past the board?’

  Matron had obviously thought this through. ‘Well, it’s not that difficult. You just have to exert your authority over that new and very self-important Chairman, Captain Rodgers.’

  Dr Gaskell frowned. ‘Matron, Captain Rodgers is a war hero,’ and Matron looked only slightly shamefaced.

  ‘Yes, he is and the nation is grateful, none more so than I; however, our board meetings are being turned into a battleground. And if there is one thing Churchill has taught us, Dr Gaskell, it is that brains can outwit brawn – and you have brains. You will say that the lack of housing in Liverpool following the war means that if we are to attract a live-in housekeeper, we need to have accommodation to offer as part of the package. That will reflect in the pay, obviously. This isn’t a problem unique to Liverpool; the board shouldn’t need to be convinced of the fact that we are in the midst of a national housing shortage crisis.’

  ‘Yes, but your idea is to move Mrs Duffy in, while she is still working as the Lovely Lane housekeeper and to leave her there, even after she retires, which means there will be no accommodation for a replacement live-in housekeeper.’

  Matron looked down at her clasped hands and took a breath before she replied. ‘I am, of course, very aware of that and I have to ask you to trust me. Only you and I must know that we will look after Mrs Duffy when the day comes.’

  Dr Gaskell knew there was no point in arguing with her – Matron always got her own way – and now, at the board meeting, she was silent, knowing she stood a very strong chance of losing her temper with Captain Rodgers, so he was the one left to answer. Brains over brawn, indeed.

  He looked up and faced Captain Rodgers square on. Notwithstanding that the man might have left the war decorated, he was now beginning to find him increasingly tedious. ‘Yes, Captain Rodgers. I am afraid that following the war, needs must. We have struggled on for as long as we have been able to and our staff put in a heroic effort, but since the formation of the NHS, the demands on the hospital grow daily. It is entirely necessary, if this hospital is to produce the results required by the regional board, recruitment, expansion and investment, both in people and resources.’

  ‘Very well, if you say so, Dr Gaskell. As I am new to this, on this occasion I shall bow to your greater understanding. The decision to extend the Lovely Lane home was made before my time and I’m not sure that if the plans were being presented today, I would necessarily approve them. Change is not always a good thing, you know. I’ve been looking at the costs and it all appears to be very extravagant to me. Central heating? Whoever heard of such a thing? Certainly not the farm girls from Ireland you are about to inflict on us all.’ He snorted with laughter and looked around the table for approval, but there was none as the members of the board shuffled their papers uncomfortably. Matron smiled at Dr Gaskell. They had won this battle, today, but for how long? ‘Now, next on the agenda, Matron, a request for the purchase of four new metal drip stands. What on earth for? Can the patients not hold their own drip bottles? We didn’t have those in the war – you were lucky to have a drip in the first place.’

  *

  Following the meeting, Matron and Dr Gaskell always retired to her sitting room for a post-mortem. ‘I don’t think I will ever have the patience to sit there and explain to that idiot why it is I need four new drip stands,’ said Matron as Elsie poured their tea. ‘I mean, what does he want me to do, get nurses to hold the drip bottles? He has no idea. I swear, one
day this new NHS will be taken over by men like him, telling us how to do our jobs, and not one of them will have a shred of medical training to speak of. When I listen to him speak, I can see the day when patients no longer come first.’ She took the cup and saucer from Elsie. ‘I don’t know why you are grinning at me, your turn will come. You think it’s funny now, but that smile will be wiped off your face when he starts telling you which patients you can afford to operate on and which you can’t. Now, all I need to do is recruit someone to help Mrs Duffy. I don’t suppose you know of anyone, do you, Elsie?’

  Elsie pulled the knitted tea cosy back down over the pot as she thought. ‘Well now, I do – Ida Botherthwaite’s granddaughter, Gracie – I happen to know she’s looking to be taken on. Ida’s son is a lazy good-for-nothing and his wife has him and a houseful of kids to look after. She’s only fourteen but she’s been taking laundry in since she had the strength to lift a flat iron. I met her in the fishmonger’s and she asked me did I know of anything going. She has a lovely disposition, nothing like her grandmother. Very bright too, they say.’

  ‘Well, beggars can’t be choosers. I want to have someone down at the nurses’ home and working before Christmas, just in case Captain Rodgers changes his mind because the next board meeting is the first week in January. So, Elsie, would you recommend her?’

  Elsie shuffled the dishes around on her trolley as she thought. ‘Matron, if you want me to be honest, I think she’s such a grand lass and she would be wasted in Lovely Lane. She has as much about her as half of the girls who come into Lovely Lane as probationers. It’s a mystery to me why her grandparents haven’t asked you before now to take her on.’

  Matron smiled. ‘Would Ida think beyond herself?’ she asked. ‘She’s a good enough cleaner, but it isn’t lost on me that she’s not the most popular in our workforce. Elsie, you have made my mind up for me. I have no time to procrastinate or even interview. If you could offer her the job on my behalf and bring her to Lovely Lane tomorrow, I shall meet her there myself and you can introduce me to her and Mrs Duffy at the same time. I also need to have a word with Dessie. We need to push those works along. He has to go down there and lean on Mr Botherthwaite. A point of no return is where I want us to be, not just a hole in the ground – and that was where we were last time I looked. Do you think Gracie will take the job, Elsie?’

  ‘I think she’ll bite your hand off, Matron.’

  ‘Good, that’s settled then. I’ll see you both there at eight in the morning.’ Matron glanced at Dr Gaskell. ‘You have been very quiet. What do you think?’ she said to him. ‘Ida Botherthwaite’s granddaughter? Elsie recommends her and that’s good enough for me.’

  Dr Gaskell picked up his cup and saucer. ‘Well, as her grandfather is the works foreman at the nurses’ home, I say let’s keep it in the family.’

  Matron grinned; she loathed a problem, loved a solution.

  ‘Just a thought, Matron, but has anyone spoken to Mrs Duffy about this?’

  Matron and Elsie looked at each other. ‘Well, not yet, obviously.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ he sipped his tea, ‘far be it for me to speculate, but if you were looking for a fly in the unguent, I think that may be it.’

  *

  Elsie had waited outside when Matron took Gracie in to meet Mrs Duffy and start her first day at work. Dr Gaskell’s words had kept her awake the previous evening because he had a habit of being right. Mrs Duffy was proud and independent and Elsie had a premonition that although Matron wanted an assistant at the nurses’ home, Mrs Duffy might not be quite as keen. As predicted, Gracie had jumped at the chance of the job.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs O’Brien!’ She had almost hugged Elsie when she’d called round the previous evening after work.

  ‘Oh, don’t be thanking me. It was your pluckiness, asking me did I know of anything going the other day. Serendipity I call it, Gracie. Meet me at the bus stop in the morning, we’ll catch the seven twenty. Go and boil some water now, have a bath and wash your hair, get yourself ready.’

  Gracie’s mother had been even more grateful, if that were possible. ‘I’ve been asking Ida for months to see if she could get Gracie taken on, but she kept saying there was nothing going.’

  Elsie sniffed and pulled her headscarf down over her curlers. ‘Yes, well, there usually is a job somewhere for family and your dad-in-law, Bertie, does all the heavy maintenance so either of them could have asked at any time.’

  Gracie’s mother slipped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘It’s me, Mrs O’Brien, they don’t like me, but they shouldn’t take it out on Gracie. I have the mother-in-law from hell, I’m afraid.’

  Elsie felt sorry for her and wanted to add, ‘Your husband is just as bad, love, the apple never falls far from the tree,’ but Elsie was wise enough to not pass opinion. ‘Never mind, queen, all’s well that ends well. She only left school in the summer and she’s being taken on now, so you’ll get a wage packet before Christmas, Gracie. You just work hard and don’t let me down. Mrs Duffy is very protective of her nurses. You keep your head down, make her life easier and it will all keep fine for you.’ But despite the fact that Gracie was perfect for the job, Elsie felt a niggling doubt in the pit of her stomach.

  *

  ‘What do you mean, help? I don’t need help and I don’t want it, either.’ Mrs Duffy dried her hands on her tea towel as she walked towards them and looked Gracie up and down with as much curiosity as she would an alien who’d landed in her kitchen, unannounced.

  Matron was taken aback, having expected Mrs Duffy to exude a warm welcome. Gracie blinked, rapidly, already feeling very much unwanted. ‘Mrs Duffy, I insist – and so does Dr Gaskell. You aren’t getting any younger; none of us are.’

  Mrs Duffy folded her arms. ‘Have you taken on an assistant matron, then?’

  Matron, unused to being challenged, blustered, ‘Well, no, not yet,’ and then, with greater confidence, ‘but I shall soon. You will be having more nurses and I more beds and patients. We both need help.’

  Mrs Duffy carefully folded the tea towel and laid it across the bar of the range. ‘Well, Matron, when the nurses arrive, we can talk about it then. In the meantime, thank you very much for coming, young lady, but we won’t be needing you at all.’

  Matron wrinkled her nose. ‘Mrs Duffy, what’s that smell?’

  Mrs Duffy looked around. ‘What smell, Matron? I can’t smell anything.’

  Matron walked past Mrs Duffy towards the range. ‘Is there anything in here, other than these eggs on the top?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ Mrs Duffy replied.

  Matron, shaking her head, whipped the tea towel off the bar and opened the oven door to rescue a tray of black bacon. Mrs Duffy looked sheepish. ‘Well, if you hadn’t disturbed my routine, I wouldn’t have forgotten them!’

  ‘I’m sure. However, this has been discussed and decided at the board meeting yesterday. We need more help, so Gracie stays.’

  Chapter 4

  Dr Gaskell fixed his tie in the hallstand mirror as his wife stood waiting patiently, felt hat in one hand, his leather gloves in the other. The weak December light that filtered through the oval stained glass of the front door cast a pinkish hue over his reflection. Doris Lillian May Gaskell had never liked the stained-glass window. ‘A brace of pheasants,’ he had said when as newly-weds they had chosen an image from the glazier’s catalogue all those years ago and every morning since it had been put in, the glassy eyes of a dead bird had looked down and witnessed their morning ritual. At the time she hadn’t thought to mention that she didn’t actually like the design – as long as he was happy, she didn’t want to be difficult.

  She resisted the urge to shuffle from foot to foot as the chill wind that blew under the doorway presented a challenge to her pale blue candlewick dressing gown, the hem lifting and her ankles freezing.

  ‘What plans have you for today?’ he asked as, satisfied with his Brompton knot, he turned to face her with a smile and relieve her of the g
rey felt hat. It did not pass her by, as she leant forward and caught her own reflection, that the filtered light of the stained glass smoothed the wrinkles of time, passed a light brush over the shadows under her eyes and protected her from the cruel morning light. Her thick chestnut brown hair was now white, thin and fluffy. She no longer bothered with the curlers she had slept in for years and it was now as straight and as stiff as a board. Despite this, she had retained a flash of her youthful beauty: her slim figure and wide blue sparkling eyes had not deserted her yet. He had asked her the same question every working morning for the past thirty-seven years, four months and two days. She lifted her face and beamed up at him.

  ‘Oh, it’s the usual Wednesday for me,’ she said. ‘It’s half-day at the shops so I need to get to the butcher’s and then, well, not so usual, I suppose… Mrs Tanner from the hospital called around yesterday and I promised I would meet her later today at the Lovely Lane home, to make cakes in the kitchen with Mrs Duffy. Some of the nurses might pop in to help, too. The more the merrier she said.’

  Dr Gaskell looked surprised. ‘She never said a word to me, and you didn’t mention this last night…’ he said and looked put out. ‘That’s not like you. I don’t mean the baking, but…’

  He didn’t have to finish his sentence, she knew exactly what he meant. She had heard him describe her on a number of occasions as ‘a bit of a home bird’ and he was right; her entire life had been spent looking after her oh-so-important husband, tending his every need.

  ‘Well, I was in bed fast asleep by the time you arrived home last night.’

  Her words held no accusation, she was well used to being alone. He had telephoned her, as he always did, because he was thoughtful – but thoughtfulness did not compensate for a cold bed. She had half anticipated his call – it had been his operating list day and she knew there were a number of serious cases who were on the table for lung removal; he had told her this over a plate of shepherd’s pie the evening before.