No One Wants You (14 page)

‘Living in’ at the nurses’ home meant that three meals per day were included in my conditions of employment. I learned quickly that this was essential in order to free up the spare cash I needed to go dancing at night, as often as possible.

In the first few weeks at the home I met a girl called Lucy who was one year ahead of me in her training. Lucy remains one of my closest friends to this day. She took her training very seriously but once she was off-duty, all she thought about was going dancing. We got on well from the very start, so when she suggested that we go dancing, I did not need to be asked twice. It soon got to the stage that we went dancing six or seven nights a week. If it happened that we were both off-duty on a Sunday, we would go to an afternoon dance, which was held at The Buffalo in Camden Town, as well.

With Lucy and I as a core, we always got a small group of girls to go with us. I made friends quickly. Nobody asked too many questions about my past. If they did, they got the same
old
stock answers that I had readily supplied before. The story of my parents being killed in a car crash usually was enough for them to hear. In general, I found that no one was particularly interested.

With all this dancing, living was expensive and cash was tight. We became experts at getting free lifts home from the dances, from any part of the city. Generally, if a group of nurses went out together, it was an unwritten rule that everyone would look out for each other and make sure that we all had a lift home. There was also a pact made at the beginning of the night that everyone in the group would keep an eye out for a fellow ‘with a smell of petrol on him’. He was the man designated to give the entire group of us a lift home in his car, no matter which girl he got away with for the night.

Eventually fellows at a dance would realise that if he ‘got away’ with a nurse, the implicit contract was that if you took one home, you had to take the lot.

It also worked the other way. On the first dance a fellow would ask you what you worked at. Sometimes when you told him that you were a nurse, he would throw his arms up in horror and walk away from you on the dance floor saying, ‘Awww noooo, I’m not giving half the nurses in London a lift home.’

All this dancing and staying out late at night had to be done within certain rules. One of the greatest constraints to our dancing enjoyment was the fact that the nurses’ home had a curfew of 12 pm. This curfew was enforced by a mature home sister, who took pleasure in making sure we followed it. We had to become increasingly innovative to maintain our late-night dancing schedule without getting caught.

We used to call this home sister, ‘Creeping Jesus’, as you could never hear her walking about. She was in charge of locking all the doors and entrances. She also had to check the fire escapes and windows for security. We used to wait
until
she had done her rounds and then leave for the dance. Before we left we would make sure that at least one fire escape could be opened from the outside, by jamming a piece of cardboard in it. It must have been some sight to see seven or eight young nurses climbing up to the fourth floor on the external fire escape, each one carrying their shoes in their hands, so as not to make a racket on the metal stairs. As we did not drink any form of alcohol in those days, we always remembered the designated opened door.

There was one nurse who used to fall foul of our system but because of her seniority we were unable to interfere. This particular assistant matron used to regularly ask us on a Friday night which fire escape door would be left open for the latecomers. Then later, with the eyes popping out of our heads, we would watch her returning home, well inebriated and much the worse for alcoholic wear. Invariably she would stagger up the fire escape, forget which door she was meant to use, and create so much noise trying every door, that the home sister would wake up with the racket. She used to get a telling-off each time but was so oblivious to the message, it fell on deaf ears. She never did get much respect on the wards afterwards. We always held the knowledge of her drunken escapades as ammunition against her, if she ever tried to overstep the line at work.

Although we played hard, we always felt that we had our priorities right. Come Sunday, we never missed mass. We never dreamed of staying in bed on a Sunday morning. If we were working on a late duty, we would go early in the morning. If we were on split duties, we would rush to make the 12 o’clock mass and go back to bed afterwards, depending on how the legs were feeling and what was planned for later that night.

I never had any trouble sleeping but then the girl, whose room was next to mine, decided to learn to play the tin whistle. She used to practise her scales as a method of
unwinding
after coming off a night duty at 8 am. The sound of her playing was torturous. Waking up in the morning to her rendition of ‘The Soldier’s Song’ guaranteed my early arrival on the ward for work. Apart from that, I never had time to feel sorry for myself and that suited me perfectly.

One topic of conversation among us trainee nurses, that always held my attention, was astrology. I was fascinated by it. As my past life had always been dismal, I eagerly wanted to know what the future held for me. I would have investigated any method of being able to predict the future.

Most of the markets around London had at least one fortune teller. They would read your palm, read the cards or search in their crystal ball to predict your future. The visits usually cost a few pounds, but unfortunately for me they did not seem to have any accuracy attached to them.

I had a patient on the ward around this time that could read tea leaves. I drank a lot of tea during her stay in hospital and got her to read every cup that I drank. I also told my friends about her talents. That lady got so much attention from the nurses. As soon as she woke up in the morning, I would have a line of four or five nurses ready and waiting to have their tea leaves read.

This went on until I heard ‘on the grapevine’ of a fortune teller who lived in a suburb of Kilburn. It was said that she was in a class above her market colleagues. Rumour had it that she was expensive but very accurate with her predictions. My friend Lucy said she would come with me, so we set off one Saturday afternoon. When we eventually found the house, a large black woman of Caribbean origin welcomed us. We were invited into a room decorated with lots of chains and multi-coloured ribbons. Diaphanous scarves were hanging everywhere and haunting music was playing in the background. She told me that I had to cross her palm with 30 shillings of silver. She took 30 shillings from each of us.

As soon as she had stashed the cash away safely on her ample person, she held both of my hands lightly and began to chant a mantra. After about three minutes of humming, she stopped and told me that she knew that I had endured a hard life. She said that my future life would be much easier, but that my health would give me trouble in the future. I was beginning to think she knew what she was talking about, but then she said that I would have two sons. Then she said, ‘In two days’ time you will meet the love of your life.’ I didn’t believe her. I was sure I’d wasted my money.

That was it – The End! The consultation was over and we were ushered out the door. We were flabbergasted. I felt cheated that I had not got value for money. I was angry all the way home and vowed never to visit another fortune teller.

Two days later, I met ‘the love of my life’. His name was George.

A bunch of us young nurses regularly went to the Monday night dance at the Gresham Ballroom, on Holloway Road. One of the fellows who asked me to dance that night was a particularly good dancer. He looked very smart and was good looking. He asked if I would keep dancing with him for the rest of the evening. He had lovely manners and was polite, so I agreed. I found out that George was about 30 years old and from Wexford. He was a bus driver and was living with his cousin in Willesden. He was Catholic but his father was a Protestant. In a strange coincidence we later discovered that his first cousin, Dolores, who had been a boarder at the school attached to the orphanage, had actually been the one who wrote my letter to Sister Bernadette when I asked to meet my mother. We were having some soft drinks together at the end of the evening, when he asked if he could see me again. He seemed gentle and attentive, so I eagerly said yes.

This first meeting resulted in a series of magical dates. For me, they were the start of what was to become the closest thing to love that I was ever to experience. We went everywhere together, dances, theatre, walking in parks and musical concerts. They all became part of a relationship with George that was completely new to me. Even the simple act of walking in a park was new to me. I had never been in a park before. On one date I nearly got us arrested. I picked a bunch of flowers in a beautiful small park near Harley Street. The park warden chased after us and warned me, ‘You can’t pick the flowers here, Miss. I’ll let you off this time but don’t do it again.’ George was mortified.

We went to the seaside one Sunday and to the Royal Albert Hall one night. When everyone stood up for the standing ovation, I blessed myself by mistake. I was so embarrassed.

We held hands and kissed lightly on the lips as he took me home at night. George never made any sexual advances towards me, but as time went on and my feelings for him grew, I think I would have agreed, if he had said anything. After about six months I tried to tell him that I loved him but while I did feel something for George, I was unsure what those feelings were. I had no tangible experience of the word ‘love’, so while I said the words I wasn’t entirely sure what they meant.

One thing I was sure of was that I did not feel loved by George. I did not feel that I deserved to be loved by him or anybody else. Also, as a form of self-protection, I could not allow myself to be loved by anyone. The risk would be too great. I could not allow anyone to get that close to me. If I committed to someone so completely and they then rejected me, I would be destroyed. It was not an option. I could not allow anyone to love me.

As it turned out, I did not get the opportunity. About a year into our relationship, George received news that he had
inherited
a large farm in Ireland, from a close relative who died. He said that he would be expected to go home to Ireland and work his inheritance as a business. I’ll never know for sure, but he may have been close to asking me to marry him and to go back to Ireland with him as his wife.

If he was going to ask me, I pre-empted his request. I told him that I was illegitimate. While he may have been a carefree bus driver in London, George was from staunch conservative Anglo-Irish Protestant stock. When I told him I could immediately see the disappointment in his eyes. He muttered something about how his parents would never approve of me. I knew then that I had lost him. He returned to Ireland to claim his inheritance. I was devastated when he went back. We wrote three or four letters each week to each other. He promised to return to London to be with me. I believed him and I would not go out dancing at night with the others. They had pestered me to go dancing every other night but I declined each time, saying that I was George’s girlfriend. I was staying true to him until he returned.

As time went on, the letters became fewer and less frequent. It took me about three months to realise that George, ‘the love of my life’, was not coming back.

I became sick with all the stress and matron helped me to organise a holiday in Ireland. I was to stay with Kit and Tony. I went to see George and met his parents. I’ll always remember that George’s mother kissed me when we first met. It was a lovely feeling. She even used to make me presents afterwards, little pieces of crochet. I still have some of them. But it was obvious to me that George felt uncomfortable and I only stayed one night. He gave me a jewellery box at the train station when he was seeing me off, saying that he’d write, but I never heard from him again. He had let me down.

Once again, I was not fit to be accepted by anyone.

NINE

Uninvited Guests

I DID MY
best to move on and to try to forget about George. It was made a bit easier by how busy I was. When I wasn’t working and socialising, I was studying. I studied hard and eventually I got the better of the difficult medical terminology. I did well in all my exams and was over the moon when I qualified as a nurse, in February 1972. It was only a few weeks later when I met my husband-to-be, in March 1972. Harry Roberts was a member of my branch of the Legion of Mary and of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. Both of these organisations are run in close association with the Catholic Church. I was aware of him as an associate member, but until March 1972, I had never been interested in going out with him, or being linked with him in a romantic way. Then everything changed.

I was at the hospital one Sunday. I was working on-call duty, in accident and emergency theatre, on the night shift. Being on-call meant that if there was no surgery actually taking place in the theatre, I was free to amuse myself. I could pass the time in whatever way I chose, as long as I was immediately available to attend an emergency surgery. Accident and emergency is usually a quiet enough spot on a Sunday evening.

There was an assembly hall attached to the hospital. This
hall
was used for all sort of occasions connected with the hospital: conferences, department meetings and any larger gathering of hospital personnel. When it was not in use by the medical staff, it was available for use by the local community. The local branch of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association was one of the organisations that used the hall, for its meetings and social get-togethers.

On this particular Sunday evening, the Association was having one of its socials, namely a dance for its members. As I was on-call and more or less confined to the hospital I found my way to the Pioneer’s dance.

As the dance was in full swing, I went in to have a look rather than participate. I was just passing the time really. One of the first people that came over to greet me was the ever-gregarious Harry Roberts. Harry was in ebullient form. He had just returned from a pilgrimage to Lourdes, in France, as a helper with the Legion of Mary. He had enjoyed his trip immensely and was bursting at the seams to tell his friends and anyone who would listen, all the details of his busman’s holiday. Somewhere, during his story, which ranged from intricate details of people’s disabilities, to the actual witnessing of miracles by himself, he asked me to go out on a date with him. While I had never considered him in a romantic way, I thought that he might have some caring qualities, which I admired. As I was on duty that evening, I agreed to meet him later in the week.