Across the Mersey (26 page)

As though somehow he had sensed her presence suddenly, he opened his eyes and cried out quite clearly, in a boy’s voice, ‘Mam, Mam. Please make the pain go away. I can’t bear it, Mam, it hurts so much,’ before lapsing back into unconsciousness.

Tears stung Grace’s eyes. Hurriedly she wiped them away and went in search of Staff Nurse Reid, who was down at the end of the ward.

‘It’s Harry, Staff,’ said Grace. ‘His temperature’s up at 104.’ She hesitated and then added, ‘He thought I was his mother.’

Staff Nurse Reid, who had been writing up a chart whilst she listened, suddenly stopped writing and looked at her.

‘What did he say?’ she asked.

‘He said, “Mam, Mam. Please make the pain go away.”’

Staff had the chart replaced and was on her way towards Sister.

‘Campion, go down to the desk and ask one of the porters to send up the chaplain. Tell them we need him quickly.’ When Grace’s eyes rounded, she explained quietly, ‘Most patients, but especially the men, call out for their mothers when they are near the end. Quickly now, but remember, no running.’

The porter was sympathetic and understanding. ‘Yer first death, is it, love? Well, never mind, you’ll
get used to it. You get back to yer ward. I’ll tell the chaplain and make sure he gets there.’

It was all over so quickly Grace could hardly take it in. She had only been back on the ward a matter of seconds when the chaplain arrived and was ushered into Harry’s room by Sister.

Staff had instructed Grace to refill all the water glasses even though most of them didn’t need it, and Grace suspected she was just trying to keep her occupied and her mind off what was happening in the side ward.

She hadn’t even reached the end of the ward when the chaplain emerged, accompanied by Sister.

‘Gone has he, then, young Harry?’

Grace nearly dropped the water jug. She hadn’t even realised the patient who had just addressed her was awake, never mind aware of what was happening.

‘You should be asleep, Mr Whitehead,’ she told him, imitating Staff’s firm voice. ‘And if Sister catches you talking we’ll both be for it.’

‘Poor lad, but I reckon he’ll be better off where he’s gone now. Had a bad time, he has, and we all reckoned he wasn’t going to pull through.’

‘When you’ve finished filling those glasses, Campion, Sister wants a word with you.’

Grace nodded, dutifully going over to the table.

‘Staff is going to lay out the patient’s body now, Campion,’ Sister told her. ‘You will assist her with this.’ Grace felt sick. And afraid. She had never seen a dead body, never mind touched one, but Staff
was waiting for her and she knew she couldn’t disgrace herself by giving way to her feelings.

‘You’ve already been taught how important it is to respect a patient’s dignity, Nurse. Well, that respect is just as important now.’

As she spoke Staff was carefully folding back part of the sheet, preparatory to washing Harry’s body, taking the same care not to expose more of him than needed to be exposed as she would have done were he still alive.

The smell from his flesh was appalling, especially once they had removed the bandages, but Staff worked as calmly as though it wasn’t there. Grace’s hands trembled as she helped her to re-bandage his poor stumps with their blackened flesh, but for the most part, Staff Nurse Reid simply instructed her to watch whilst she worked busily but carefully.

All Grace could think of was that one day soon this might be Teddy … that one day soon Teddy might be dead and his body the one that received this final service. Teddy, who had told her she must not love him but who she knew now did love her. How would she be feeling now if she had fallen in love with him? Guilt filled her because she wasn’t; because what she felt for him was the love of a friend and not a woman’s love of a lifetime.

She must concentrate on what was happening here in this room and not think about Teddy.

Already Harry’s face was relaxing out of pain and into peace, his features softening and becoming slightly waxen and not quite real somehow. She
mustn’t think about death; she must watch Staff carefully instead, and remember everything she was showing her.

Harry’s fingernails had to be pared and his hands washed, his hair combed and then those things done for him that were part of the laying-out process: the packing of mouth, nostrils and rectum, and the tying up the jaw with a chin strap.

Only when it was time to cover Harry’s body with its shroud did Staff summon Grace to assist her.

Grace was trembling so much she felt sure she would be sent off duty in disgrace, but all Staff said to her was a quiet, ‘Brace up, Campion. You’re doing very well. Don’t let the side down now.’

Harry’s body was covered with a sheet and then it was time to summon a porter to wheel him down to the mortuary, his journey there accompanied by a nurse. Grace had feared that she might be sent but as though she sensed what she was feeling, Staff summoned one of the other junior nurses instead.

Death. Grace had never really thought about it in any great detail, not really. Nursing was about helping people to get better, after all, but today she had been confronted with the reality of death and its harshness, not once but twice.

It was four o’ clock in the morning. Nearly two hours since Harry had passed away. Grace remembered that she had heard other nurses calling two a.m. the death hour. She started to tremble sviolently that her teeth were chattering together.
All she could do was take refuge in the sluice, but once there Grace found that she couldn’t cry. What she was feeling was too raw and went too deep for the release of tears.

Alan hadn’t left her any housekeeping, and not for the first time either. Well, it just wasn’t good enough, Bella fumed, and she was going to go to his father’s office now and tell him so. That would show him.

She was sick of this wretched rationing already. How was anyone supposed to manage without a decent amount of butter? Alan put more on his breakfast toast every day than they were supposed to manage on for a full week. Everyone knew that there was a black market where you could buy as much butter as you wanted provided you were prepared to pay for it, and if Alan wanted butter on his toast then he was the one who was going to have to find the money.

Alan’s father’s business premises were in the centre of the town. The bus stop was at the bottom of the street, but the bus had lumbered to a halt right outside the office because of some commotion in the street. From where she was seated on the top deck – where she had had to
go because it was full – Bella could see right in through the window of the Parkers’ office. She could see that stupid Trixie seated at her desk, in front of a typewriter. She could see too Alan coming into the office, closing the door behind him.

He was smiling at Trixie and she was smiling back at him. As she watched, Bella saw Alan go over to her, put his arm around her and then bend his head to kiss her.

Bella started to stand up, her face red with fury. Neither of them had seen her. They were oblivious to everything but what they were doing. And it was disgusting. Alan was fondling Trixie’s breast. Well, they wouldn’t be feeling so pleased with themselves when they found out that she’d seen what they were up to.

The bus started to move, throwing Bella back into her seat. Alan,
her
husband, was messing around with Trixie. Well, she’d soon put a stop to that. Just wait until he got home.

Until he got home? Why didn’t she go to the office now and confront them, and then let everyone know what a sly cat that Trixie really was? Kissing another woman’s husband and letting him do what he shouldn’t with her.

Bella was beside herself with rage, but eager as she was to confront Alan, something was holding her back. Perhaps she ought to tell her mother first. Yes, she decided, that was what she would do.

* * *

‘Oh, it’s you, Bella.’

Bella wasn’t used to her mother greeting her with such a lack of enthusiasm.

‘Mummy, something dreadful’s happened.’

‘If it’s those refugees getting on your nerves again, then all I can say is that it’s a pity that you aren’t expecting. No one would expect you to house the likes of them then. You’ll never guess what your aunt Francine’s had the cheek to do,’ she continued without pausing for breath or to allow Bella to say anything. ‘She’s only written to say that she wants to know where Jack’s been evacuated to. I’ll have to go over to Jean’s now, otherwise I’ll have Francine coming over here and your father won’t like that.’

Bella wasn’t interested in her mother’s anger with her younger sister. She had far more important things to think about, after all, and her mother’s comment about the benefits of her being pregnant had given her a wonderful idea.

If she were to get pregnant then that would really put that cat Trixie in her place.

Bella mentally visualised herself making the announcement in front of Trixie and watching the look on her face. There was a name for girls who carried on with married men the way Trixie was doing, and it wasn’t a name that came with the respectability of the title ‘Mrs’ in front of it. There’d be no more talk about Alan and Trixie having been an item before Alan had married her either, not once she, Bella, was having a baby. And when she showed Trixie up for what she
really was it would be her that everyone sympathised with.

Not even Alan’s parents would be able to dote so much on Trixie then. Alan would have to change his tune as well, Bella decided with satisfaction.

She was glad now that she hadn’t tackled Alan. Far better to wait, Bella decided, as she made plans. Alan had probably only kissed Trixie because she’d encouraged him. Men were like that, after all. Her mother was still going on about Jack and Francine. Bella gave her an irritated look. She needed to get home. She’d got plans to make, plans that would put that plain-faced Trixie in her place for once and for all.

‘Hey, Frankie …’

Francine stiffened, ignoring the looks she was attracting from the people forced to avoid her, as she stood immobile in the middle of the lunchtime-busy pavement, wanting to turn round and walk away without acknowledging the greeting, but knowing that she must. If her time in Hollywood had taught her nothing else it had certainly taught her how to fake a smile. She pinned it to her face now as she confronted the man coming towards her, skilfully dodging his attempt to embrace her by sidestepping him slightly and putting her hand on his arm – to hold him off, not draw him close. It might have been ten years since she had last seen him but he hadn’t changed. He might be well into his thirties now, but a man like Con could carry an extra ten years and not look any the less
handsome. Clark Gable and the others wouldn’t stand a chance against him as a swoon-inducing leading man if they were in competition. That mingling of Italian, Irish and heaven knew what other blood had given him the gift of outstandingly good looks, and of course he knew it and had always known it. Known it and used that knowledge without compassion or compunction to get what he wanted.

She should, she supposed, hate him, but here again Hollywood had taught her a lot. She had seen how far good looks and the ability to trade on them could take a person, and she knew how much Con would have relished the opportunity to cash in on his physical assets if he could have brokered it. But unfortunately for him Connor Bryant had tied himself into a deal with a contract without any break-out clause, the day he had sold himself in marriage to Emily Friar.

Even if he hadn’t been standing outside a theatre, most people would look at him and know that he was connected with the stage, Francine acknowledged. His clothes, his manner, and yes, his good looks as well were all somehow larger than life. He had been calling himself ‘West End show producer’ when she had first met him. She had been as green as grass, anxious to impress and please, anxious to be something more than a girl from the chorus who could sing, but vulnerable about her ability to make it big. Of course, Con had sensed that vulnerability. That was what men like him specialised in, attracting the vulnerable
to them like moths to a flame. She had been totally taken in by him and by his talk of making her a success on the London stage. She had been such a fool, but she knew better now, Hollywood hadn’t just provided her with somewhere to escape to, it had taken her naïvety and beaten it into awareness. Con was, as the saying went, flash and foolish, all show and no substance, handsome on the outside, but with nothing behind that façade except hollow emptiness. It amused her to see the telltale way in which his eyes widened slightly as he took in her polished appearance. Hollywood had ‘made over’ the girl who had known nothing whatsoever about how to dress or present herself. But not even Hollywood had been able to remould her completely into its preferred image of a Hollywood star in the making. Francine preferred cool elegance to lush sexuality, which was why she was wearing a smart coat and a matching hat, the coat open over a toning cashmere sweater and a slim-fitting brown tweed skirt. New clothes she had bought in New York before sailing home. In Hollywood you never knew who you might bump into, which was why you learned quickly to dress your best.

No city on earth could rival New York for the variety of its affordable and stylish women’s clothing, least of all perhaps a war-ready city like Liverpool, and Francine’s oatmeal tweed coat with its dark mink collar had already caused a lot of envious female looks to be directed her way.

She could see Con assessing her, his gaze, he being the man he was, lingering on the curve of
her breasts beneath the cashmere. No doubt he was comparing her appearance now – her hair sleekly styled, and her clothes a perfect fit – with the teenager he had known in her ill-fitting clothes and with her untidy tangle of wild curls.

Being Con, though, he wasn’t likely to acknowledge that change, and she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t, attempting instead a casual, ‘I thought you were in America.’

‘I was,’ she agreed. ‘I was working with Gracie Fields and she wanted to come home.’ No harm in letting him know she was working with one of the world’s top names.

‘Aye? Well, I’m putting on a new review if you’re looking for work.’

Francine was hard put not to laugh. Did he really think she was fool enough to fall for that a second time?

‘I’ve already signed on with ENSA,’ she told him calmly, ‘and in fact I’d better go otherwise I’m going to be late for rehearsal.’

‘ENSA? You wouldn’t catch me wasting time on that. You’re a fool to come back. It’s America where the money is, not entertaining the troops.’

A girl plastered in makeup, beneath which Francine suspected she couldn’t be a day over fourteen, came tottering out of the theatre behind Con to put her hand possessively on his arm and glower at Francine.

Francine felt sorry for her and smiled at her, despite her hostility.

‘Another of Mrs Friar’s nieces?’ she asked Con
drily whilst the girl pouted and scowled and Con’s handsome face turned an unhandsome shade of dark red. Not that he would be angered by her comment; Con didn’t have the backbone to be angry about anything.

‘Leave it out, Frankie,’ he muttered, trying to step closer to her, only to be yanked back by his companion. ‘She’s just one of the girls out of the show.’

Like she had been, and probably just as smitten and stupid as she had been too, Francine thought wryly. What hurt her more now was not that Con had lied to her and led her on with promises of love and happiness and marriage, but that she had actually been daft enough to believe him.

The other girls had tried to tell her but she hadn’t listened because she hadn’t wanted to hear what they were saying. It had taken a visit from his wife and her contemptuous and mocking information about how far down the long line of girls just like her, who Con had picked up and then put down, she actually was, to make her see the brutal reality of their relationship.

That poor kid with him, she really did feel sorry for her, but as Francine knew from experience, she’d have to learn the hard way that he was a liar and a cheat. Funny how now she could look at him and simply feel nothing at all for him apart from irritated contempt.

She wouldn’t tell Jean that she had seen him, though. Her sister would only worry and there really was no need for her to do so. It seemed
laughable to Francine now that she could ever have been taken in by such a cardboard cut-out of a man. What a little fool she had been. No man would ever be able to deceive her and hurt her now. Sometimes Francine wondered if there were in fact any decent men in the world – or at least in her world – and the honest truth was that she wasn’t prepared to risk trying to find out.