‘Tell you what. Let me go and get the tea. You don’t move and I’ll be back in five minutes. I’ll bring you a bit of the pudding Biddy made for me too and then we can talk. Eva, I feel as though you are carrying the weight of the world upon your shoulders – and you know what they say, don’t you? A problem shared is a problem halved.’ Malcolm used the arm of the chair to push himself up and the only sound in the room was the clock ticking and his knees cracking. ‘Here, I’ll put a match to this before I go.’
He threw the match onto the paper, watched it catch, pushed it with the poker and then turned to her and said, ‘Now, don’t you move until I get back, that’s an order.’
He smiled down at her and, for just those few moments, she let herself believe that all was well. That she could sit in that chair in front of the warm fire feeling no pain for forever and a day, that Malcolm would return and sit with her. He would put the radio on and in complete security and companionship they would pass the night, locked away from the world, together.
She heard the kitchen door shut. He wanted her to tell him what was wrong, to share her burden. She remembered the library, the Echo, the headlines. POLICE SEARCH FOR MOTHER OF ABANDONED BABY FOR QUESTIONING. She had read how her son had nearly died. That no one had come for days. That he was dehydrated and on the point of death when he was found. She was an accessory to a very serious crime, attempted infanticide…
No, she would have to go through with her plan. She could hear the sound of Malcolm whistling in the kitchen, accompanied by the low whistle from the kettle. Eva pushed herself up from the chair, maintained her balance, took a deep breath, the pain had almost gone, and tiptoed out towards the front door. Picking up her bag and taking one last look at Malcolm’s comfortable lounge, she closed the door with such care Malcolm couldn’t possibly have heard.
*
The Disprin and the whisky had barely done their work as Eva almost ran up the road. She wanted to speak more to Ida, who she increasingly felt she could confide in. Ida had strong opinions about Emily Horton and the nurses’ home and she had learnt from Ida that the housekeeper’s name was Mrs Duffy. That had been useful information. And the young girl who worked in the home was her granddaughter, Gracie. Tonight, maybe she would confide in Ida. Give her the case note sheets she had taken from the clinic. Her son was not being cared for as he should, he was losing weight. Ida was nosey, but whoever they had told her to work with would have asked her a thousand questions – and Ida talked and passed her opinion much more than she asked questions.
Ida was already in the changing room when Eva arrived, smoking a cigarette and standing alone while the other women were gathered in groups, chatting and smoking.
‘Hello love,’ shouted one. ‘How you enjoying the work, queen?’
She smiled as she fastened her apron. ‘It is fine, thank you,’ she said.
‘Oh, get that accent! Where’s it from, love?’ They were all looking at her, she could not avoid answering.
‘Poland,’ she whispered.
The changing room fell silent. Her dark hair and eyes, the Star of David she wore around her neck… they knew. One of the cleaners asked, in a gentle way, ‘Have you got any family left, love?’
They had all seen the shocking footage of the Jewish concentration camps as they had been liberated. All knew that others had suffered an even worse war that those who lived through the May Blitz. Eva shook her head.
‘Ah, God love her,’ said the woman, ‘you look after her, Ida, do you hear?’
Ida stubbed her cigarette out in the red fire bucket that hung from the wall. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she asked, mildly put out. ‘I don’t care where she’s from as long as she can work as hard as everyone else and doesn’t leave it all to me. We get along just fine, don’t we, love?’
The other women tutted and shook their heads, some threw her pitying looks.
‘We get along just fine,’ said Eva and Ida felt a rush of warmth towards her.
Ida wasn’t a popular figure amongst the night cleaners. They thought her too high and mighty. Ida never lent and never borrowed. That was an unusual position for a woman who lived on the dock streets to take. Everyone had to borrow, sometimes. Eva, though, was relieved that Ida was unpopular. It minimised the number of inescapable personal questions she could have been faced with. And, in answer to her wildest dreams, it appeared to Eva that Ida hadn’t taken against her as she appeared to have done with some of the others. Ida was on her side.
The night supervisor walked into the room. ‘Will you lot pipe down? Here, I’ve your allocations. Ida, you and – what’s your name, love, you—?’ The supervisor looked over and pointed her pencil at Eva.
‘Eva, my name is Eva,’ she whispered.
‘Sorry, love, that’s right. You two are back in the mortuary tonight and then over on the stairs, toilets and kitchens in the nursing school. Don’t touch the sisters’ sitting room – you know how precious Biddy is about that. That’s her domain.’
Ida snorted. ‘She’s welcome to it,’ she said. ‘I won’t be doing her job for her, she never does mine.’
‘Oh, do leave it out,’ one of the women shouted over. ‘Do you ever stop moaning, Ida? It’s like a wet Wednesday whatever night of the week it is when you are on.’
Ida didn’t respond; instead, she turned to Eva. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Follow me. Let’s get cracking while this lot skive and cackle.’
Eva turned on her heel to follow Ida. She felt the twinge return in the deep low base of her abdomen, but she knew she was safe. This was the dull pain which stayed for hours, subsided and then disappeared before it returned with force. With a bit of luck she would be back at the Seaman’s Stop and in her bed before it came again.
*
Doreen slipped into the switchboard and grinned at Madge who was on the phone and indicated towards the kettle. Madge nodded her head as she spoke into her headpiece and then, plugging in one wire, removing the next, took off her headset and turned towards Doreen.
‘I’m gasping,’ she said. ‘It’s been mad today. How are you, love?’
Doreen was quiet, thinking. ‘Do you know what, Madge? I’m a bit fed up if I’m honest.’
‘Why, love, what’s the matter?’
‘I think I found a man I might like – and some bloody woman had just, and I mean just – got her claws into him.’
Madge’s eyes widened. ‘Who is the fella and more importantly, who’s the woman?’
Doreen, not usually one to bare her soul, told Madge everything. About how she had seen Malcolm as though for the first time ever. About the thin woman with the foreign accent who made him smile.
‘I know who she is,’ said Madge. ‘I put her through the other day when she called from the library – not that I was listening in, but I did hear the address and thought to meself, that’s Malcolm’s place. I only noticed because I thought he only took in seamen.’
Doreen looked thoroughly despondent. ‘So did I. Just my luck. I thought that as he was a bit older, a man of the world, so to speak, he would be understanding, you know…’ Her voice trailed off but Madge knew what she meant.
‘Well, she’s not married to him, she’s only just arrived. So don’t lose hope, love. And tell you what, I’ll keep an eye out here, eh? See if I hear anything.’ Madge glanced at Doreen as she sipped her tea. Poor Doreen, she thought unaware that, at St Angelus, someone thought that about Doreen at least once day.
Chapter 15
‘You are the best cook, Mrs Gaskell,’ said Teddy Davenport as he wiped his mouth with his napkin.
Doris beamed. ‘Thank you, Teddy, you are always welcome for supper, you know you are.’
‘Don’t tell him that, Mother,’ said Oliver as he reached over and scooped up Teddy’s empty plate, ‘he’ll be here every night. And where is Pa tonight? It was his idea that we have a family meal and that I invite Teddy and he isn’t even here.’
Teddy coughed. ‘I think I know the answer to that,’ he
said. ‘I saw him heading back towards the operating theatre with the new visiting anaesthetist.’
Oliver clasped his head and groaned. ‘Oh, I forgot, he told me. He said Matron wants all the lists cleared by Christmas and so the theatres are operating until midnight each night this week with extra help. It was the anaesthetist’s first day and you know what’s Pa’s like. He barely trusts the operating staff with the surgeons and staff who have been at the hospital for years.’
Doris smiled. ‘If I don’t know what your father is like by now, I never will. I don’t know why you are so surprised he isn’t here,’ she said. ‘That’s been your father all of his life and I only expect him when I see him. I’ve been disappointed far too many times.’
Oliver had leant back on the chair and now, with a bang, let it fall forward onto the floor.
‘Oliver, don’t. You will break the legs.’ His hair was dark and floppy, his eyes bright blue like his father’s and often, as Doris looked at him sitting at her table, she could transfer herself back in time, without too much effort.
Oliver grinned. ‘Ma’s been saying that to me every mealtime since I was in nappies, haven’t you, Ma?’
‘Has Dr Gaskell always spent a lot of time at the hospital, Mrs Gaskell?’ asked Teddy.
Oliver answered for her. ‘Has he? I’ll say. Do you know, I used to get so angry when I was little and the blackout was on, that I wanted to run back to the hospital and drag him home because Ma was so scared of the bombs and then, when the war was over, he became so busy with patients, he practically lived there. I used to get so cross.’
Teddy knew the family well enough to think he could pass comment and contribute to the conversation. ‘Was that until the day you became a doctor at St Angelus and realised you were spending more time on the wards than you were at home yourself?’ Teddy gave Oliver a rueful grin.
‘It’s the curse of St Angelus,’ said Doris. ‘I’m sure it’s not like this in other hospitals. Your father admits it. He says the people have a way about them. They make him his family and, do you know, he truly cares for them. He isn’t just their doctor.’
‘They all know that,’ said Teddy. ‘He was telling me once he looked after Emily Horton’s mother. He said the most soul destroying thing was all the effort he would put into trying to make someone better and then Hitler would take out a whole road and a few of his patients with one bomb.’
They were all silent for a moment. Mentioning the war did that. Close enough to be remembered, and far away enough to have eased the pain that came with the memories. Life had moved on.
‘Anyway, never mind your father,’ said Doris, as she rose from the chair and took the plates from Teddy. ‘What about you two? Not a girlfriend in sight between you. What’s wrong with you young men these days? Your father and I had you long before he was the age you are now, Oliver.’
The two doctors looked at each other and raised eyebrows.
‘I don’t seem to have a lot of luck in that department, Mrs Gaskell,’ said Teddy.
‘Ha!’ said Oliver, about to expose Teddy and his situation with Dana, but Teddy shook his head and Oliver backtracked. ‘There’s no time, Ma, for me to meet anyone. I’m too busy on my new ward, learning the ropes.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ said Doris as she placed a hot dish filled to the brim with bread-and-butter pudding on the table. ‘Do you think your father doesn’t come home and tell me all about what you have been up to? I know everything.’
Oliver had the good grace to blush. ‘I just haven’t met anyone like you, Ma, that’s the problem,’ said Oliver as he placed his arm around his mother’s waist, rescuing himself in his mother’s eyes as he stood and hugged her.
‘Oliver, you don’t want anyone like me,’ she said as she undid his hands and extracted them. ‘I’m very old school. What you want is a young, modern woman who isn’t going to be an old bore and a stick-in-the-mud. Someone who enjoys life and wants to get out and do things.’
The phone rang just as Oliver was about to reply. ‘That will be Pa, with a very good excuse,’ said Oliver as he sat back in the chair.
‘I can see it from the other side tonight,’ said Teddy. ‘I mean, your mother’s side. I had no idea how awful it must be to be a doctor’s wife.’
They both fell quiet as Doris spoke on the phone. ‘I do have some red in the sewing box, funnily enough. It’s left over from a skirt I made a few years ago. No, don’t worry, I will bring it with me. Is there anything else you need?’ There was a long silence before she said, ‘It’s no trouble, I am very happy to do it. I’m really touched that you’ve asked me. I’m not sure I will be as much of an expert as you at sewing, though. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, then. Yes, I have a pen, which number is it?’
A few minutes later she walked into the room and Oliver thought it was very odd that she didn’t relay the phone conversation to them.
‘Was that Pa?’ he asked and Doris answered simply, ‘No. It was for me. Sometimes phone calls are, you know.’ She smiled at the confused look on her son’s face. That statement, in his experience, was patently untrue. He had hardly ever heard the phone ring for his mother. ‘Now, back to you two and the girlfriends that neither of you have. Do you know what I heard Sister Horton say today at the Lovely Lane home?’
Oliver looked shocked. ‘Ma, what do you mean, the Lovely Lane home? Even I’ve never been in there.’
Teddy grinned. ‘Yes, and he’s tried often enough, Mrs Gaskell.’
Oliver leant forward and kicked Teddy under the table. ‘Ma, I didn’t even know you knew where it was. That’s not like you. What were you doing in the nurses’ home?’
Doris grinned. ‘I know it’s not like me – the old me. The me that was here only last week. Anyway, Sister Horton was there with little Louis and she said that women today shouldn’t have to give up their careers to have a baby. Can you imagine that? That’s the kind of woman you need. Anyway, there must be someone around for you. Teddy, don’t you know any nice young women who would make a marvellous daughter-in-law and give me grandchildren?’
‘You don’t want to ask me,’ said Teddy, as he eyed up the huge portion of bread-and-butter pudding being heaped into a dish and hoped it was for him. ‘I’m a disaster area when it comes to romance.’
Doris handed him a plate. ‘Is it Dana?’ she asked, and there was a gentleness to her tone that made him look up and as their eyes met, without any warning whatsoever, his own filled with tears. He blinked and dashed them away before Oliver could see.
‘It is, but I’m afraid it’s a lost cause and I will have to accept that I have lost the best wife a man could ever have had – and I deserve to.’ He suddenly felt so sad that even the hot custard pouring over the large portion of bread-and butter-pudding made no difference at all.
‘Dana, she’s the Irish nurse with the red hair, isn’t she? Friends with Pammy Tanner?’
Oliver’s mouth almost fell open. He had no idea his mother even knew the Tanners. Teddy also looked surprised.
‘Oh, I only know of her,’ said Doris as she wafted the air with her hand. ‘It’s just that I will be meeting her tomorrow night.’
For almost a full minute there was silence until Oliver finally spoke. ‘Tomorrow night? Ma, you don’t go out at night.’
‘I do now,’ said Doris. Doris placed the jug on a cork mat and sat back down in her chair, almost erupting into laughter at the sight of her son’s face. She hadn’t taken a single pill all day, had dared herself to skip the lunchtime pill altogether and it felt as though a fog were lifting – and yet a fog, a dark and heavy fog that disabled her every emotion, had been the reason she took the pills in the first place. ‘Close your mouth, Oliver. Yes, I will see her. I’m off to the Tanners’ house to help Mavis make the dresses for your brother’s party, Teddy. That was her on the phone just then, asking if I had any red thread to save her a trip to St John’s market in the morning. I assume Dana will be there because, funnily enough, I’m the one sewing Da
na’s dress.’
She looked at Teddy who shovelled an entire spoonful of pudding into his mouth. Oliver glanced at Teddy and a thought struck him.
‘Ma, do you think there is anything you can seriously do for Teddy?’ he asked. ‘He’s obviously lovesick for Dana. Surely a man can be forgiven a mistake, can’t he?’
Doris served herself a portion of pudding a quarter of the size she had served the boys. ‘Well, from what your father tells me, it was a little more than an indiscretion.’
Teddy blushed, his spoon poised over the bowl. Doris felt her heart go out to him. His mistake, as Oliver called it, had probably been terminal. She doubted there was anything anyone could do. The subject had come up during the cake-making when she had offered to help Mavis with the dresses.
‘Dana is very strong,’ Mavis had said. ‘She was broken, but whatever is in the water in Ireland, she came back here and you wouldn’t think anything had happened. Oh, you wouldn’t want to cross Dana in a hurry.’
Mavis had left Doris in no doubt that Dana would be less than receptive to an intervention on Teddy’s behalf and yet her heart went out to him.
Teddy looked up from his bowl. ‘I went mad after the accident,’ he said.
Doris leant over and patted his hand. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘My husband said that trauma can do that to people, that he’s seen it before and he thinks it’s all credit to you that you didn’t just give up under strain and that you are still practising as a doctor. Most would have just thrown in the towel. You had a mountain to climb to recover. I’m not sure I would like to be bed bound like you were, or suffer from the pain you did, for that amount of time.’
Oliver, who hadn’t stopped eating, scraped his bowl with his spoon. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said as he picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth, ‘he’s a year behind me now because he got put back, and that gives me no end of authority over him. How long until the party anyway, do we all know how we are getting there?’
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