Nightingales on Call (30 page)

Lucy smiled. ‘It’s a deal.’

PASS. WITH MERIT.

Jess stared down at the School Certificate in her hands. People milled around her in the main hall of the Institute, jostling her this way and that. But she stayed rooted to the spot, gazing at the words.

‘Top of the class, Jess. I expected nothing less from you,’ Mr Haddaway her tutor had congratulated her warmly. ‘Now I hope you’ll use your education wisely?’

‘Oh, I will. Don’t you worry about that.’

She came out of the Institute into the bright July sunshine, still in a daze. It was her day off, and the whole day stretched in front of her to do as she pleased.

But first she had a promise to keep.

Sam was behind his dad’s bookstall as usual. He was waiting for her, Jess could tell. He chatted to the customers, but every now and then he would look up, scanning the crowded market.

Jess lifted her hand and waved to him. He waved back enthusiastically.

‘There you are.’ He grinned as she threaded her way through the crowd towards him. ‘I’ve been looking out for you. Well?’

She had been practising how she would say it all the way to Columbia Road. But now she was standing in front of Sam all she could manage was a shy, ‘I passed.’

‘I knew you could do it!’ Sam gave a whoop of delight. The next moment he’d come round to the other side of the bookstall and gathered her up in his arms.

‘Put me down, you fool!’ Jess laughed as he swung her round in the air. ‘Everyone’s looking at us.’

‘I don’t care. We’re celebrating.’ He set her down on the ground. ‘I’ve got you a present, too.’

He reached under the counter and pulled out a carefully wrapped package.

‘For me?’ Jess stared at him.

‘No, for that woman on the fish stall. Of course it’s for you, you daft ha’porth.’

Jess took it from him. ‘How did you know I was going to pass?’

‘Of course I knew. You’re the cleverest girl I know.’ He nodded towards the package. ‘Go on, then. Open it.’

She tore off the wrapping. Inside was a book, bound in black with gold lettering.

Great Expectations
.

‘It’s a brand new one, too, not that scruffy old copy,’ Sam said proudly. ‘I reckon you deserve the best.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Jess murmured, running her hand over the grainy leather cover. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever owned a brand new book before.’

‘You’ve earned it,’ Sam said. ‘Your mum would have been proud of you, Jess.’ He nodded towards the book. ‘That’s what I’ve got for you, see? Great expectations.’

Jess looked up and met his gaze. For once he wasn’t larking about. His eyes were serious, full of intent and affection.

A lump rose in her throat. ‘I dunno what to say,’ she murmured.

‘You could say you’ll go out with me? Properly, I mean, not just a cup of tea after the night class.’

For once she felt no hesitation. But just as she opened her mouth to accept, a commotion from the other end of the market made her swing round.

‘Oi! Come back here, you thieving little sod!’ one of the costermongers roared.

The next moment Jess was spun off her feet by a figure shooting past, dodging through the crowd with lightning speed.

‘Stop him!’ the coster yelled, coming panting up behind. ‘Little bugger’s nicked my takings!’

Jess heard an insolent laugh, and looked round. The boy had broken free from the crowd and was sprinting towards the main road, leaving a jingling trail of coins behind him. As he flashed past, Jess caught a tell-tale glimpse of mud brown hair under his scruffy cap.

‘Cyril!’ she yelled.

The boy stopped, distracted for a second, just as a delivery van rumbled round the corner.

Everything happened quickly after that. There was an ugly squeal of brakes, then the sound of screaming, and footsteps running.

‘Jess, don’t!’ she heard Sam’s warning voice but she was already running with them, pushing her way through the crowd to the lifeless figure lying in the road. His body looked strangely twisted, like a broken doll’s.

‘It wasn’t my fault!’ the driver of the van was saying. ‘He ran straight out in front of me – there was nothing I could do . . .’

‘Call an ambulance!’ someone shouted.

‘I reckon it’s too late for that,’ someone else said. ‘Look at all that blood.’

Jess felt Sam’s hand on her arm, trying to hold her back. But she shook herself free and moved towards her stepbrother.

The sight of all the blood stopped her in her tracks. The gutter ran red with it, so much it was impossible to see where it was coming from.

‘Jess!’ Sam’s voice implored her. But she moved forward on legs that didn’t seem to belong to her, dropping to her knees at the boy’s side.

‘Cyril?’ she whispered, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. ‘Cyril, it’s me, Jess.’

He groaned faintly in response. ‘My leg—’

‘He’s alive!’ someone in the crowd shouted. ‘Thank God. Where’s that ambulance?’

Jess steeled herself to look down. Cyril’s left trouser leg glistened crimson, soaked in blood. It pumped from a wound just above his knee.

Without thinking, she tore off her cardigan and wrapped it around his upper thigh, tying it as tight as she could. She had never done this before, and wasn’t even sure she was doing it right. Blood still pumped from the wound. She pulled the cardigan tighter, but the wool was too bulky.

‘Here, try this.’ Sam was suddenly beside her, pulling off his tie. ‘It should be better.’ He handed it to her and Jess wrapped it around her brother’s leg, pulling it tight with every last bit of strength she had.

‘The bleeding’s slowing down,’ Sam said. They looked at each other, shocked by what they’d done. ‘It’s worked, Jess!’

The jangling bell of the ambulance woke her, as if from a trance. Jess looked up, suddenly aware of the circle of faces around her, watching her. She looked down at her hands, glistening and sticky with blood. The last thing she heard was Sam’s voice calling out her name, before the world started to spin around her, and everything turned black.

A fractured thigh, torn muscles and severe concussion was the Casualty doctor’s pronouncement on Cyril.

‘But it could have been a lot worse, if he’d gone on bleeding from that wound,’ he said. ‘I reckon you saved your brother’s life with your quick thinking, young lady. Where did you learn to apply a tourniquet?’

‘I must have read about it somewhere.’ Jess kept her gaze fixed on the floor of the waiting room. She was too embarrassed to admit she’d read it in a medical textbook. Once she’d finished reading Sister Sutton’s anatomy book, she’d taken to borrowing other medical books from the Institute library.

‘Well, it’s a lucky thing you did. This young man owes you a great debt. Wouldn’t you say so?’ He turned to Gladys, who sat with her mouth pursed, clutching her handbag on her lap. Even now, her stepmother couldn’t bring herself to say a kind word to Jess.

But as they left the Casualty department together after Cyril had been transferred to the Children’s ward, Gladys muttered through tight lips,

‘The doctor’s right. I suppose I should thank you.’ Then, just as Jess thought she was witnessing a miracle, she added, ‘although from what I hear, it was you who nearly got him killed in the first place,’ she added.

Jess stared at her. ‘How do you work that out?’

‘If you hadn’t shouted out to him, he wouldn’t have stopped in the middle of the road, would he? And he wouldn’t be in trouble with the police neither.’

‘If he hadn’t nicked the takings off that stall, he wouldn’t have had to run away in the first place,’ Jess shot back.

But there was no point in arguing with her stepmother. Gladys would never see the good in her, whatever Jess did.

‘I want you to go and visit Cyril,’ Gladys said. ‘Make sure you keep an eye on him for me.’

‘What, in case he starts pinching off the other patients?’

‘I’m worried about him.’ Gladys’ scarlet-painted mouth trembled. ‘He’s my son, ain’t he? I’m not allowed to visit him often, but I bet you could sneak in?’

Jess looked at her. She was surprised to find that underneath that hard, painted mask, Gladys had some kind of maternal feelings. It was a shame Jess had never seen them before.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she promised.

She left Gladys at the gate and went back to the nurses’ home. All she wanted to do was sink into a hot bath. She had managed to clean herself up in the Casualty department, but the hem of her dress was still spattered with blood, and her whole body ached.

But at least it was lunchtime, which meant she would have the place to herself, apart from the few students who were sent off duty from one until five. With any luck they would stay in their rooms studying, and Jess could have some peace and quiet.

Or so she thought. As she made her way down the passageway towards her room, she heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs above her and Anna Padgett’s voice rang out.

‘I say. You there!’

Jess stopped. ‘It’s my day off,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘If you want anything done, it’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’

‘I don’t care what day it is. I want to talk to you.’ Anna reached the bottom stair. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘You know very well what. My perfume.’

Jess turned slowly to face her. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘My mother bought me a bottle of perfume for my birthday. Midnight In Paris. I kept it in my drawer, but now it’s gone.’ Anna took a step towards her. ‘I want to know what you’ve done with it.’

‘I haven’t seen it.’

‘Don’t lie to me! You’re always snooping about in our rooms, going through our things. You must have taken it.’

‘Are you calling me a thief?’ Jess looked up into the other girl’s plain, pugnacious face, and fought the urge to slap it.

Anna Padgett must have read the anger in her eyes, because she stepped back. ‘I can’t think who else would have taken it,’ she said.

‘Me neither,’ Jess snapped. ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want a cheap bottle of scent that smells like old tom cat! But I certainly ain’t taken it, I can tell you that!’

She left Anna standing open-mouthed and let herself into her room, slamming the door in the other girl’s face.

Jess sank down on her bed and fought to calm herself. Take no notice of her, she told herself. You’re not a thief, you know you’re not.

And to think that the day had started out with so much hope and promise. It seemed so long ago that she had been in the market with Sam, being caught up in his arms, her School Cert in her hand . . .

Her School Cert! She’d forgotten all about it in the chaos of Cyril’s accident. She must have left it lying in the road, with the book Sam had given her.

The pent-up tension of the day crashed over Jess like a huge wave, and she buried her face in her hands to shut it out. All she had to show for her big success was the lingering smell of blood on her fingers.

EFFIE PROPPED HERSELF
up against the sluice sink and allowed her eyelids to droop closed. She had only been on duty for an hour, and she had never felt so tired in all her life.

She had been on the ward for two weeks, and each day had been worse than the last. Every muscle in her body seemed to be crying out in agony from her head to her feet, which were swollen and blistered inside her stout black shoes. She’d even borrowed Katie’s shoes, which were a size larger, but after twelve hours’ standing could barely hobble down the ward.

Every night Effie would collapse into bed and fall asleep before her head touched the pillow. And every night in her dreams she would hear Sister Parry’s voice ringing out.

‘Are those damp tea leaves you’re scattering, Nurse O’Hara? They look positively wet to me . . . What do you think you’re doing, sweeping while the dressings are being changed? . . . Have you rinsed those nappies properly?. . . Don’t shake those sheets, do you want to spread disease all over my ward?’

Effie’s head spun from trying to remember everything she had been told. But no matter how hard she tried, she always seemed to get something wrong.

Her latest crime had been the most humiliating. She could still see the look of incredulity on Sister Parry’s face when she’d presented her with a pile of the children’s slippers that she’d collected from their lockers.

‘What are these, O’Hara?’ she’d demanded.

‘You – um – told me to collect the slippers, Sister,’ Effie reminded her, wondering if the ward sister was losing her marbles.

Sister Parry went white to her lips. ‘Are you trying to be funny, girl?’ she’d snapped.

‘No, Sister.’

Effie was genuinely puzzled, until Hilda Ross had explained that slippers was another name for bedpans.

The other students found it hilarious, needless to say. Frances Bates was still smirking about it when Effie helped her make the beds later.

‘Fancy you not knowing that!’ she said, as they tucked in the corners of a patient’s drawsheet.

‘I can’t be expected to know everything, can I?’ Effie defended herself.

‘Nurses! Please don’t chatter over the patient, it’s most unprofessional,’ Sister Parry said as she swept past. ‘And I hope you’re supporting that limb with both hands, O’Hara?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Effie quickly slipped her other hand under the boy’s splinted leg. He had been admitted two days before with a fractured femur, the result of a road accident.

Sister Parry stopped at the foot of the bed and regarded them with narrowed eyes. ‘Is that your idea of a well-made bed?’

Frances and Effie exchanged looks of dismay. Neither of them spoke.

Sister Parry tutted. ‘I’ll show you what a well-made bed looks like, shall I?’ She pulled a penny out of her pocket. ‘If the sheet is drawn sufficiently tight, this coin should bounce. We’ll try it, shall we?’

Effie watched her spin the coin in the air. It landed with a dull thump in the middle of the sheet, where it lay unmoving.

‘You see? Just as I thought.’ Sister Parry shook her head. ‘Take the whole lot off and start again.’

‘That was your fault,’ Frances hissed as they stripped the bed again. ‘I was the fastest bed-maker in my set, but you’re just hopeless!’